Clock Tower (1995 video game): Difference between revisions
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:This ending is the quickest to accomplish, and considered the 'worst'. Jennifer stumbles across an old car in the mansion garage, and finds the key to the car in a nearby crate. At first she is unable to leave behind her friends in the mansion, but eventually she gives in and escapes in the car. In the last cutscene, a pair of scissors can be seen in the front mirror, rising from between the backseats... |
:This ending is the quickest to accomplish, and considered the 'worst'. Jennifer stumbles across an old car in the mansion garage, and finds the key to the car in a nearby crate. At first she is unable to leave behind her friends in the mansion, but eventually she gives in and escapes in the car. In the last cutscene, a pair of scissors can be seen in the front mirror, rising from between the backseats...Siccorman. |
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[http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/c/clot_8.htm Ending G] |
[http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/c/clot_8.htm Ending G] |
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Revision as of 01:29, 21 July 2006
| Clock Tower | |
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| Developer(s) | Human Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Human Entertainment |
| Platform(s) | SNES |
| Release | September 14, 1995 |
| Genre(s) | Survival Horror |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. |
Clock Tower is the first installment in the survival horror series Clock Tower created by Capcom and Human Entertainment for the SNES. The game was published by Human Entertainment and was released in Japan in 1995 and was released worldwide in 1997, when it was ported onto the PlayStation with some minor adjustments, and was renamed to Clock Tower: The First Fear.
Gameplay
Clock Tower is a 2D point and click style game, with the player controlling a cursor to direct Jennifer and give commands such as to investigate objects. The interface is akin to 1990-era computer adventure games, but simplified to work better with a gamepad. Primarily, the player can only move Jennifer left and right through the environment, although there are some rooms in which an action requires Jennifer to step into the background.
Clock Tower was unique to other adventure games of the era in that it had a stalker pursuing the main character, this delayed puzzle-solving and required the player to run, finding objects or hiding places to fend off the attacker. The stalker was a typical slasher villain wielding a large pair of scissors, named Bobby.
If directly confronted by Bobby, the player engages in a "panic" phase and must repeatedly pound the "panic button" to struggle with the attacker. If Jennifer is low on health, or the player has not tapped the panic button fast enough, Bobby will attack Jennifer and the player will be presented with a game over screen.
Bobby's appearances are mostly triggered by the player commanding Jennifer to inspect a certain object, but there are some cases in which he will come out of a hiding place and chase Jennifer as soon as she enters a room.
Plot
Jennifer Simpson is a child from the fictional Granite Orphanage in Romsdal, Norway. Her and her friends (Laura, Anne and Lotte) are adopted in September 1995 (the same month the game was released) by a wealthy recluse named Mr. Barrows, who lives in a mansion known as the "Clock Tower", named after its predominant clock tower.
The game's introduction immediately begins with these characters walking towards the Barrows mansion and settling in the main foyer. Mary, the orphanage worker, leaves to find Mr. Barrows, but she takes an unusually long time. Jennifer offers to investigate, and so the player takes control of her. Upon leaving the room, a scream is heard from main foyer.
Jennifer returns to find the lights are off and the girls are missing...
As the player explores the mansion more and more, it becomes apparent that there is something much more sinister at hand than just a murderous child. After being knocked out, Jennifer wakes up in a cage inside the courtyard shed and finds a haggard old man crouching in the corner of the cage. If Jennifer managed to procure a piece of ham earlier on in the game, she has the option of feeding it to him to avoid becoming his next meal. Once he has eaten, the man introduces himself as Simon Barrows, the husband of Mary and your supposed adopter. He mentions "the cradle under the star."
The plot thickens when Jennifer breaks a weak wall in a storage room and finds a small padded room (akin to an asylum cell) with a fully dressed skeleton on the floor. Upon closer inspection of the name tag on the skeleton's suit, the player finds out that this corpse is that of Jennifer's father, Walter Simpson. Further inspection of a notebook on the floor reveals that Walter Simpson was a doctor, and was called out one day to assist the birth of the Barrows family twins. Witnessing the birth, he felt there was something extremely odd about the twins and Mary and Simon responded by locking him in the room and plastering over the door to prevent his escape. Again, "the cradle under the star" is mentioned, and in his last breath he wrote Jennifer's name.
One of the rooms in the mansion appears to be a small Satanic church, complete with altar and pentagram drawn onto the floor. If the player has collected all the necessary items and clues, then Jennifer is able to gain access to the basement of the mansion, though a trap door in the middle of the pentagram. After a long ladder down into a cavern, Jennifer sees a cloaked figure walk ahead of her, and she follows it while using a disguise to fool the guard dog. Jennifer finds Lotte in her last moments amongst a heap of bones.
Jennifer enters the room and finds a massive pair of curtains. Jennifer lifts one of the corners and gasps, and then runs away in horror. It becomes apparent that this area is the place that was referred to by "the cradle under the star" (the star being the pentagram on the floor of the church, and this room being the cradle). At this point, the curtains are drawn and Bobby's brother Dan is revealed- He is a gigantic, disfigured baby. Dan crawls after Jennifer, shaking the whole cavern, and chases her to a slope. As Jennifer scrambles up the slope, she knocks down a crate of kerosene, which ignites on one of the candles affixed the cavern walls. Dan is blown up, and Jennifer escapes in a lift. The ending of the game primarily differs depending on the floor that the player chooses.
Characters
- Jennifer Simpson
Jennifer is the game's protaganist, a girl of the age of 14 with long black hair. Her mother died when she was young, and her father, a doctor, vanished on a house call.
- Ann (Anne)
Jennifer's brunette friend, Ann can be stabbed, drowned, or pushed out a window by Bobby. If she survives, she will appear in endings A and S.
- Lotte (Lott)
Jennifer's best friend and a redhead. Lotte is the most heroic of Jennifer's friends, and sacrifices herself to rescue Jennifer if Jennifer is knocked out by Mary and placed in Simon Barrow's cage. If the player does not see this sequence, Lotte will be found dying in the caves. Unlike Ann and Laura, Lotte cannot be saved.
- Laura (Rolla)
Jennifer's blonde friend, Laura can be found hanging in the shower (there is some speculation on how she died in this case), dead inside a suit of armor, or pushed out a window by Bobby. If she survives, she will appear in endings A and S.
- Mary Barrows (Mary Burroughs)
Simon Barrows' wife and the mastermind behind the game's events. While she is kind to the girls when she takes them to the mansion, masquerading as Simon's maid, she is cruel and vengeful on the inside.
- Bobby Barrows (Bobby Burroughs)
The 'Scissorman' and antagonist of the game, Bobby is a short 9-year-old dressed in a school uniform who wields a large pair of scissors. Throughout the game, he can be seen in cutscenes, and will appear in some rooms to chase the player. Bobby never talks, and his face is hidden behind a mask.
- Dan Barrows (Dan Burroughs)
The hideously deformed twin brother of Bobby, Dan is a hulking, fleshy beast that spends his time behind a curtain in the caves. When Jennifer finds him, he chases her but is "killed" when she accidentally ignites a can of kerosene on a candle. Dan reappears in the second game as a normal, young schoolboy with blonde hair, and takes up the role of the Scissorman. How Dan survived the explosion is never revealed, but the Playstation version of the game has a short FMV showing a young boy rising from the ashes of Dan.
- Simon Barrows (Simon Burroughs)
Simon is the girls' supposed adopter, but when Jennifer finds him he is locked in a cage, barely human. An almost animal-like creature, he will attempt to eat Jennifer if she does not procure food.
Endings
Clock Tower has a variety of endings depending on the choices the player makes throughout the game. The endings run from H to A, H being the worst and A being the best. There is also an ending S, which is the best possible ending. However, endings A, B, and C seem to be canon as the sequel Clock Tower continues the story from any one of these endings.
- This ending is the quickest to accomplish, and considered the 'worst'. Jennifer stumbles across an old car in the mansion garage, and finds the key to the car in a nearby crate. At first she is unable to leave behind her friends in the mansion, but eventually she gives in and escapes in the car. In the last cutscene, a pair of scissors can be seen in the front mirror, rising from between the backseats...Siccorman.
- If Jennifer sees two of her friends die, she will leave in the car, successfully escaping the mansion. A brief text cutscene tells the player Jennifer was found two days later in her room, dead.
- Having escaped from Simon's cage and watched Lotte die at the hands of Mary, Jennifer continues until the elevator sequence. She steps into the elevator and the doors close. Blood seeps from below the elevator door and the game is over...
- Inside the elevator, Jennifer presses the button for the third floor, and the elevator suddenly halts. Bobby breaks into the elevator through an overhead vent, and the screen fades to black as Jennifer screams...
- Inside the elevator, Jennifer presses the button for the second floor, and finds Mary in the hall. Having not seen her father's corpse, Jennifer talks to Mary and Mary consoles her, telling her that "everything is alright", at which point Mary stabs Jennifer in the chest with a dagger.
- Inside the elevator, Jennifer presses the button for the second floor, and finds Mary in the hall. Having seen her father's corpse, Jennifer talks to Mary, before Mary attacks her with a dagger. Jennifer avoids Mary, and climbs up a ladder to reach the clock tower. However Mary is furious at the death of Dan and grabs Jennifer's leg whilst she is climbing. Jennifer breaks free of Mary's grip and Mary is flung off the ladder to her death. At the top of the clock tower Jennifer faces Bobby again, but she activates the clock's bell and the bell chimes disorient Bobby enough so that he falls off the top of the tower to his presumed death. Jennifer is the only survivor. This ending is considered Canon, according to the events in Clock Tower.
- Having seen all her friends die, Jennifer goes to the third floor using the elevator. Just before the elevator stops, Bobby attempts to break into it using an overhead vent. Jennifer escapes to the top of the clock tower using a ladder, and activates the clock tower bells, disorienting Bobby enough so that he falls off the top of the tower to his presumed death. Mary arrives, and hysterical at the deaths of her two children, attempts to throttle Jennifer. Jennifer throws Mary into a generator box, electrocuting her. Jennifer is the only survivor. This ending is considered Canon, according to the events in Clock Tower.
- If Jennifer encounters Simon Barrows in the cage, and one of her friends survives, this ending is unlocked. After Bobby falls to his death, the surviving friend runs to Jennifer. Their reunion is cut short when Mary steps out and throws Jennifer's friend off the Clock Tower. Jennifer then defeats Mary as in ending B. This ending is considered Canon, according to the events in Clock Tower.
- This ending is unique and the most difficult to obtain. It is identical to ending A, however, Mary is thrown off the tower by an enraged flock of crows, one of which Jennifer freed from a cage earlier in the game. Also, Jennifer is joined by her one surviving friend for the credits. (If Jennifer saw Ann die, then Laura will join her, and vice versa. Lotte can not be saved.)
In addition, there are two endings that can be obtained through a glitch in the game in which Jennifer does not see Ann or Laura die. The first is identical to endings H and G, but only displays the credits after Jennifer leaves. The second is obtained if the player meets the prerequisites for Ending S, but it is identical to Ending F.
Development history
Clock Tower can be considered one of the pioneers of survival horror games. It was also one of the first to incorporate multiple endings. It contains more endings than most modern day games. Clock Tower was later released only in Japan on PlayStation, WonderSwan, and Windows 95. Other games in the series have been released in America and other countries since.
Details
The game seems to be heavily inspired by Phenomena (known as Creepers in the US), a horror movie by Italian director Dario Argento in the characterization of the protagonist and villain, and they also share some very similar situations.
Clock Tower has a noticeably small fanbase on the internet. There is a lack of fansites but the Clock Tower series is easily recognized by any large fan of the survival horror genre. Bobby's character has gained recognition for surprising the player and killing creatively, as opposed to a generic zombie enemy seen in most survival horror games.
Trivia
- Bobby may have been inspired by a story in Struwwelpeter named "The Story of Little Suck-a-thumb", written in the fashion of an old wives' tale about a "great, long, red-legged scissorman" which would snip off your thumbs with large scissors if you sucked on them.
- Although unrelated, the Barrows mansion and Bobby may have also taken inspiration from Edward Scissorhands.
- A book named Scissorman by Mark Chadbourn, written four years after Clock Tower was released, about a man named Jon Summers who rents a mansion named Arcadia to escape from work, but soon realizes it is the home of a killer who uses scissors to kill his victims.
- Another book of the same title was written by John Brindley, a simple horror story about an adopted boy who is teased by his new siblings about his father coming back from the dead, walking stiffly as if his legs were scissor blades.
- Resident Evil 3 uses a stalker enemy named Nemesis which pursues the player throughout the game, similar to Clock Tower. In addition, many of the events in the game occur within an actual clock tower.