Clock Tower: Rewind

Clock Tower: Rewind is an incredible tribute to the beloved classic! As someone who first discovered the game through an emulator, I was genuinely excited to see how it enhances the original with captivating cutscenes, voice acting, and content that was previously left out. The opening scene with the girls in the parlor sets a wonderfully chilling atmosphere, and the expertly timed jump scares will keep players on their toes. The rich storyline, full of lore and character development, is truly remarkable, especially considering its origins as a 16-bit game for the Super Famicom. Exploring each ending truly enhances the experience, making it even more captivating and immersive. In summary, Clock Tower: Rewind brilliantly merges nostalgia with innovative elements, creating a heart-pounding survival horror adventure for both newcomers and longtime fans. If you enjoy spine-tingling experiences, this game is an absolute must-try!

Clock Tower: Rewind it's not just a classic retro, horror game, it's a great re-release of a classic that was never released overseas, done by the ever talented developers of WayForward who have released or remade games like River City girls and the Shantae series, but let’s talk about the story. Deep in the mountainous regions of Europe four young orphaned girls are adopted by a mysterious benefactor named Mr Barrows, one of the orphans, Jennifer is unsure about the strange manner that the locals of the village call the clock tower due to its giant clock tower. Unfortunately Jennifer’s instincts are going to be proven right as she will be face to face with the deadly slasher known as the Scissor-man. Now the young girl must try to escape and perhaps uncover the truth of this bizarre night of horrors in this deadly game of cat and mouse. Okay time for the likes, the gameplay is good it's a simple point and click horror game with a stalker mechanic, you go around picking up items and occasionally hiding from the stalker when they show up, nothing too complicated and pretty easy to understand. What keeps the gameplay fresh are the multiple endings you can get and how some of the areas for the level can change depending on the playthrough, but I'll get to that later on. The story is pretty good it's basically a traditional horror/slasher story inspired by the works of Italian horror filmmaker Giallo with some slasher elements. You’re a young girl and you must escape the evil slasher while dealing with the weird spooky craziness of the environment around you. Basically if you've seen any like 80s and 90 slashers or a Giallo film you generally get the idea. The stalker of the game Scissorman is vary good well what is there to say he is the one that really started and defined the whole stalker archetype, he may not be the first stalker enemy in video games, but Scissorman really was the one who helped define the archetype and behavior that later stalker enemies would use from. Using hiding and using the environment to escape or be hindered by it, in fact without Clock Tower and Scissorman I really believe we wouldn't have games with stalker enemies like Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, the Outlast series, Alien isolation and more recently the Beautiful Clock Tower inspired video game Bye Sweet Carole. The retro pixel graphics are pretty good for their time, it has a really good use of colors and scenery that make the mansion stand out, in fact the colors have a sort of somber quality even when you turn on the light and you see different colors there's still somehow an oppressive/somber feel, it really helps the atmosphere and the overall presentation/look of this game. The levels are good each area is distinct and quite memorable from library to a kitchen to a storage room and the garage, with interesting furnishings and background imagery that really sells the haunted mansion aesthetic. Also what really helps the levels to stand out is that they're randomly generated as almost no area is the same depending on your playthrough, like in one playthrough through the library was on the second floor while another play through the library is somewhere else, it really helps keep the games environment and levels fresh. The atmosphere is pretty good as you wander around dreading where Scissorman is going to pop up next. The bonuses for this game are also really good and WayForward really put their A game when re-releasing this game and doing its bonuses and touch-ups. Not only do we get to play the original NES game, we also get to play a more updated version with some nice modern enhancements that really make playing this game a lot easier, I recommend playing the rewind mode, but if you want to play the original version you can and see how the rewind version improves on the old version. It also restores a lot of the cut content that didn't make it in the original NES game. Anyway for the other bonuses we get a soundtrack, some motion comics with some pretty good voice acting, even an interview with the creator of the game that does a good job in teaching you about Clock Tower and its inspirations. Now is this game scary surprisingly yes, despite being so old there are still plenty of times where you can jump, it does rely heavily on jump scares by Scissorman, but they're well placed and coupled with the disturbing imagery and the unease it does surprisingly well in making you feel tense. Okay time for the dislikes, honestly there's nothing really to dislike about this game, there was one bug but only happened to me once and that was in the original NES version. And the NES version can be a bit frustrating, but that can be solved by playing the rewind version which again I recommend. Now with that all said Clock Tower: Rewind it's not just a classic retro, horror game, it's a great re-release of a classic that was never released overseas, done by the ever talented developers of WayForward who have released or remade games like River City girls and the Shantae series, it has good gameplay, a pretty good story and a very good stalker. Alright now do I recommend this game, absolutely it's a classic in the horror game genre that really started the stalker aspect featured in some other horror games, if you were a fan of horror games particularly stalker horror games this is for you or if you enjoyed the other games released by WayForward then you may enjoy this one as well, all so I hope WayForward gets to do a complete remake of Clock Tower or maybe even make a clock tower sequel or spin-off, I also hope that someday we'll get the other Clock Tower games re-released on Steam like Clock Tower 2 and the struggle within someday.