I had one simple reason for playing 1995 survival horror classic Clock Tower decades after its original release: I didn’t want to be a poser anymore.
Clock Tower first became a personal brain worm of mine thanks to an episode of GameCenter CX (which you can still check out right here on Kotaku). Watching comedian Shinya Arino struggle with the old-school horror game, I grew to love its art style and point-and-click gameplay by proxy. I even bought a bootleg Clock Tower shirt last May without ever having played it. Deep in my soul, however, I knew I was a fake. And so, last weekend, I finally sat down with a fan translation to experience its horror first-hand.
Developed by the now-defunct Human Entertainment for the Super Famicom, Clock Tower follows orphan Jennifer Simpson—who is rumored to be modeled after Jennifer Connelly’s appearance in Dario Argento’s 1985 horror film Phenomena—as she and several other teenagers travel to a secluded mansion after being adopted by its reclusive owner. Jennifer’s instinctive reservations about the arrangement are soon justified when her friends go missing and she becomes the unwitting prey of a small, boyish creature wielding a pair of scissors so large that they would be comical under any other circumstance.
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