A very disappointing follow-up to the clunky but excellently-directed Clock Tower on the Super Famicom. I'm not referring to the wooden voice acting or the blocky graphics, which are par for the course for an early PSX game - there are other more fundamental issues where this drops the ball.
The original Clock Tower took place entirely in one location, allowing the spooky vibes and storytelling-through-contextual-clues to shine. This sequel takes place over several days with multiple scenarios and multiple locations - it tries adding more of a plot to string the setpieces together, but this just shines an unwanted spotlight on how threadbare the plot is and how weak the writing is. After scissorman appears and terrorizes Jennifer, butchering several security guards in the process, why does a single guard outside her home keep her safe? How does one of the characters go from hearing a passing mention of a castle that used to belong to the same family as the mansion in the first game to "let's round up 10 people, including two traumatized minors, to go on a field trip to this scary castle in another country"?
To me, the different playable characters and 'levels' feel like a band-aid over the fact that this game seems to have a lot less content than its predecessor. The levels are a lot smaller and generally less interesting than the mansion in the first game, which felt like a character in itself. And it misses the opportunity to at least provide some nice worldbuilding through flavortext, with the player character rewarding exploration of the environment with insightful gems such as "this is a couch."
I think I'd be much easier on this if I played it when I was younger - the tension of being a slow-moving defenseless waif who needs to evade a relentless pursuer is worth a few good scares - but without nostalgia goggles this comes across as a far weaker game than both its iconic predecessor as well as its survival-horror contemporaries.
The original Clock Tower took place entirely in one location, allowing the spooky vibes and storytelling-through-contextual-clues to shine. This sequel takes place over several days with multiple scenarios and multiple locations - it tries adding more of a plot to string the setpieces together, but this just shines an unwanted spotlight on how threadbare the plot is and how weak the writing is. After scissorman appears and terrorizes Jennifer, butchering several security guards in the process, why does a single guard outside her home keep her safe? How does one of the characters go from hearing a passing mention of a castle that used to belong to the same family as the mansion in the first game to "let's round up 10 people, including two traumatized minors, to go on a field trip to this scary castle in another country"?
To me, the different playable characters and 'levels' feel like a band-aid over the fact that this game seems to have a lot less content than its predecessor. The levels are a lot smaller and generally less interesting than the mansion in the first game, which felt like a character in itself. And it misses the opportunity to at least provide some nice worldbuilding through flavortext, with the player character rewarding exploration of the environment with insightful gems such as "this is a couch."
I think I'd be much easier on this if I played it when I was younger - the tension of being a slow-moving defenseless waif who needs to evade a relentless pursuer is worth a few good scares - but without nostalgia goggles this comes across as a far weaker game than both its iconic predecessor as well as its survival-horror contemporaries.
Shenobi
1 month ago