A couple of days ago, I wrote about my memories of playing the original Clock Tower game that was released on the Super Nintendo. I do have fond memories of the game and I had high hopes of WayForward‘s remake, Clock Tower: Rewind.

Well, the game was released on Steam and at a discount, no less! So I really had no excuse to load up my Steam account and get it, did I? Now that I’ve played through it once, I think I have enough to formulate my thoughts on WayForward’s official first Western release of the first Clock Tower!

As Clock Tower is a story-driven game, I feel compelled to put up the obligatory SPOILER FREE note for this review. While the original game has been out for three decades, this is the first ever official English translation of this previously Japan exclusive title. So I am fully aware not many gamers have had the chance to experience this classic horror game. So, yeah. SPOILER FREE review here!

Clock Tower puts you in the shoes of Jennifer Simpson, an orphan who, along with three other girls, were just adopted and brought to their new home, the Barrows manor, nicknamed the “Clock Tower” thanks to its main feature. After their new matriarch, Mary, leaves the girls to find the master of the house, Jennifer goes to look for her as she had left them for quite a long time. While looking for Mary, Jennifer hears a scream and, returning to the main hall where the rest of her friends were, she finds herself alone in the Barrows mansion and a mysterious killer known as the Scissorman starts stalking her.

Now, I will state my biggest disappointment with this remake is that it’s not really a remake. It’s more of a straight port of the Super Nintendo and the PlayStation version of Clock Tower. WayForward’s team did add a few bells and whistles, such as a new anime-inspired opening cutscene and other stuff I’ll mention later. But the main game itself hasn’t really been touched. The graphics are still in their 16-bit glory and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing.

The graphics do still look good but a part of me wishes they cleaned up the sprites a little bit or even go the proper “remake” route and redraw them to look more at par with high-resolution illustrations. Then, give the option to play with the “original” graphics or go with the “enhanced” look. Don’t get me wrong. The game still looks good but I have the feeling some modern gamers may be turned off by the low-res sprites and backgrounds.

The controls also does get some getting used to. Clock Tower is a point-and-click adventure game. That basically means you move a cursor around the screen and look for things to interact with. But, despite it being on Steam, it suggests the best way to play the game is with a controller. You either have to use a controller’s direction pad or the keyboard to move it around. The cursor does move in a speedy manner but that’s both a curse and a blessing. At times, you want to just move the pointer from one point to the next and having it move quickly is a boon. But there are also times when you want to be a little more precise, like when you want to click on a teeny tiny light switch but you would overshoot because of the cursor’s speed. Thankfully, you can switch to the somewhat more comfortable mouse and keyboard control scheme if you’re on a PC.

There are a few other niggling issues that could have easily been alleviated with some future proof thinking. An example would be how you’re notified when you unlock extras. Instead of simply putting a popup textbox in the corner of the screen, a big wall of text will get splattered on top of the game. It can really take you out of the moment, especially when there was supposed to be something frightening at that precise time. It’s good I unlocked a new motion comic but, at the same time, you just ruined the scare of Scissorman popping in front of Jennifer Simpson!

I also do wish WayForward added a map feature. As someone who’s played adventure games before, I used to get out a pen and paper and drawing out maps myself. This helps me not to get lost but that skill has diminished as most modern games have maps within the game you can bring up. Well, Clock Tower is a very old-school game so there is no map feature! It certainly doesn’t help how the hallways are very nondescript and how the two foyers on the ground floor look alike! So, it looks like I’ll have to scrouge up some writing materials just to get the lay of the land in this game!

However, once you do get used to the controls, the lack of a map feature, the somewhat intrusive alerts as well as getting accustomed to the more rudimentary graphics, Clock Tower still succeeds in being a good horror game because, well, it’s actually scary! The game does a great job of setting the mood to make you feel uneasy. There’s an unnerving lack of music normally, with only Jennifer’s footsteps permeating through the Barrows mansion as you explore it.

That eerie silence is only broken when the Scissorman or some other horror starts chasing after you. Since Jennifer is just a fifteen-year old girl, she can’t really fight back against most of the antagonists. Having to rely on the environment for weapons at the spur of the moment or just finding the right place to hide from the Scissorman does still make my heart pump faster. And I’ve played the game before! I know what’s going to happen and the game still manages to take me by surprise at times with the jump scares! Speaking of the music, I do love Clock Tower’s soundtrack. Okay, none of the music aren’t hummable or anything like that. However, the music does do what it’s supposed to do: enhance the mood. And it does that in spades!

The story itself can be a little bonkers but isn’t that part of the fun of a horror game? I will say it’s very predictable and anyone who’s watched a fair number of scary movies will be able to figure out the plot twists. That doesn’t mean it’s not a fun time as, thanks to the game’s overall spooky atmosphere, it does draw you into the tale. The puzzles can feel a little obtuse but nothing a little bit of trial and error as well as some exploring to obtain the right items won’t fix.

Clock Tower is pretty short. Even if you haven’t played it before, it should take you around three or four hours to get to one of the endings. Yes, that’s “endings” and in “multiple endings” there! So, while the game isn’t that lengthy, there’s still a huge value as you can try out different things to try to get a different ending. A fair warning, though: some endings can be bad endings… but you can also get the S rank ending, the best one. If you haven’t obtained it, you can try again and test out different things to see where your new path will take you.

Despite WayForward not really sprucing up the overall presentation all that much, I still say Clock Tower: Rewind is still a good buy. If you like spooky games, it’s hard not to get enthralled by title.

Have you played Clock Tower: Rewind? How about the original? How do they both stack up by today’s modern gaming landscape? Let me know in the comments section below!