"Clock Tower: Rewind comes with a bunch of fun bonuses like old strategy guides and dev interviews"

The 1995 port includes new translations in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese, but other than that, it’s the same16-bit game from 1995. Rewind includes all the content from The First Fear along with the ability to rewind gameplay, create save states, some additional Scissorman hiding places (more on that later), and some quality of life enhancements like running up stairs. Some cool extra goodies also come packed with Rewind, ranging from motion comics, dev interviews, a soundtrack player, an animated intro, vocal songs, and a bit more. I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the original instruction manual and strategy guide, even with its Japanese-only text. Although Clock Tower Rewind clearly has a lot of love put into its quality of life and content, the game itself requires a lot of patience and appreciation for archaic point and click design. Let’s go over what makes Clock Tower tick and what keeps it stuck in the past.

Let’s start with an icebreaker: Clock Tower is a quintessential point and click hidden object adventure game and isn’t ashamed of it. If you don’t have the patience for old-school adventure games, Clock Tower’s horror goodness won’t compensate for that archaic style of gameplay.

"Running from the dreaded Scissorman can be a chore thanks to slow walking animations, but at least this version adds running to stairways."

Your primary objective in Clock Tower is avoiding the deadly Scissorman by hiding and ultimately looking for a way to escape the deadly Barrows family manor. Navigation is accomplished by holding left/right run buttons and clicking on interactable objects and doors. The Rewind version allows Jennifer to run up and down stairs instead of merely walk, which speeds up gameplay flow a bit from the original. That said, you still have to wait for laboriously slow walking animations to finish whenever you interact with something. This is compounded by Jennifer walking to a location and back to her previous spot again with no urgency whatsoever, making you wait twice as long for the lengthy animation to finish. Double clicking makes her run to the interactable, but only for some of them. Thankfully, the animations themselves are from the glory days of the Super Famicom and are a delight to look at, but that doesn’t take away from the monotony of all the waiting.

"Progression typically involves obtuse adventure game logic like using items on random parts of the environment in a specific order"

When you’re not waiting around for Jennifer to get to her destination, you are pixel-hunting environments for usable objects and clues. In typical adventure game fashion, the way forward (pun intended) often requires a tiny object and its corresponding interactable within the environment. You have no way to figure certain things out except the trial and error involved with using objects on random environments. The logic behind these applications is often very obscure, though Clock Tower could hardly be considered the worst offender of this kind of adventure game logic. Guidance is just something Clock Tower doesn’t do well, even in the Rewind version. Not that I want such an atmospherically rich game to spell everything out with objective markers and yellow paint, but subtle hints now and then could’ve helped massage the obtuseness of the original game.

"You can temporarily stun Scissorman by pressing the ‘panic’ button, but he’ll continue to chase you until you find a proper hiding spot"

Still, it wasn’t the obscure adventure game logic that finally made me cave in and use a walkthrough; no, it was the constant running away from Scissorman. Scissorman is your only consistent threat throughout the game, popping up in random areas like bathtubs and dressers. To the game’s credit, these chases can be exhilarating and terrifying. No punches are pulled with some of the deaths, and the sound effects and accompanying music stir up anxiety almost too well. But after your first couple deaths to Scissorman, the charm starts to wear off as you look for hiding places and ways to stop him. Such a large portion of my playtime was spent just running away from this threat, and it was rarely fun. For one, you are locked out of interacting with objects in rooms while Scissorman is in pursuit, mandating backtracking to retrieve such items. Once you figure out successful hiding places and ways to throw off the pursuer, the chase whittles down to formulaic backtracking to the hiding spot, something that takes too long due to Jennifer’s slow run speed and door-opening animations.

The quality-of-life features don’t quite do enough to get over the clunky and glacially slow pacing of the game either. For example, the rewind feature only goes back 10 seconds, which rarely gives you enough time to avoid a Scissorman attack or prevent a character death. Also, the more aggressive Scissorman AI present in this Rewind version only compounds the irritating issues bogging down the chases, making you backtrack into rooms for safety more frequently and padding the game further. Don’t get me wrong, the concept of these Scissorman chases is rich with potential, something more modern horror games have since capitalized on. But when done with the point and click control scheme and slow pacing, these chase sequences feel redundant and irritating.

"Environments have brilliant lighting and detailed spritework, emphasizing the dark atmosphere of Barrows Manor perfectly"

By contrast, I have nothing but compliments to give to Clock Tower’s atmosphere and story. The game starts off more or less how you’d expect; a group of orphans visiting their new home for the first time when the smart one of the group, Jennifer, senses something off. There’s a surprising amount of lore and history behind the spooky Barrows manor and its demented owners.

Better yet, the story is unraveled through subtle gameplay discoveries as you explore the mansion, with several details being entirely missable depending on the decisions you make and ending you get. While some of the nine endings are similar to each other, others take a drastically different turn resulting in Jennifer’s demise or even worse. The backstory and reveal surrounding the Barrows family is really well done and worth experiencing, with brilliant ‘show, don’t tell’ exposition and striking visual storytelling utilizing all of the resources a 16-bit console could dish out. There’s a phenomenal sequence in the cave section that rivals some of the best visual moments in the genre.

Complimenting the visual storytelling is the exquisite spritework. There’s some good attention to detail with the room layouts and animations. Putting a bow on everything is the atmospheric soundtrack, clearly influenced by John Carpenter with its shrill strings and dissonant stabs. The minimalistic way the music and sound effects accompany the journey through the manor has inspired many future horror classics like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and it’s easy to see why with this remaster.

"Shock scare moments occur when exploring, some of which are wonderfully animated"

Clock Tower is a game stuck in the past despite the handful of new conveniences. There’s only so much that can done to improve a point and click game without altering the mechanics entirely. When played using a walkthrough, Clock Tower supplies an atmospherically rich experience with some irritating, but doable gameplay. For hardcore horror fans or old-school point and click adventure game players, Clock Tower Rewind comes as a strongly recommended title. Just know what you’re getting into beforehand because the archaic puzzle solutions and lack of direction serve as a roadblock to enjoying this classic horror experience.

This game was reviewed on PC.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"In the case of Clock Tower: Rewind, we offer both a standard “Original” version of the game (with only the language adjusted) as well as the “Rewind” version, which adds missing content back into the title and makes minor quality-of-life changes. This way, players can enjoy the game as it was originally, or a slightly updated version of the game, without having only one of the two options."

What prompted the decision to bring Clock Tower back so long after its release? 

After the success we had porting Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka to modern consoles (as River City Girls Zero) we discussed what other titles could be brought over in the same fashion. We look for games that are well-known in the USA and EUR, but have not had an official release. The original Super Famicom version of Clock Tower was never released here, in spite of being such an influential series of horror games, so that seemed like a perfect candidate.

With this being Clock Tower’s first official release outside of Japan, can you talk us through the writing and localization process? What kind of work went into ensuring the remaster retains the original’s spirit?

WayForward extracted the original game text and translated it into English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Our Japanese-to-English translation was tackled by a WayForward staffer who was raised in Japan, and speaks Japanese natively. Once that was done, we made minor adjustments to phrasing to be as natural-sounding as possible for English-speaking gamers, then re-implemented the translated text back into the game.

Given the survival horror genre’s resurgence, was there ever a discussion to enhance Clock Tower in more comprehensive ways, or was it always the goal to remaster the original and modernize it without changing things too significantly?

With these “port plus” releases, it’s the first time USA and EUR gamers are ever officially playing these titles. So with both the games mentioned, as well as potential future titles we are planning, we want to be careful not to change too much. In the case of Clock Tower: Rewind, we offer both a standard “Original” version of the game (with only the language adjusted) as well as the “Rewind” version, which adds missing content back into the title and makes minor quality-of-life changes. This way, players can enjoy the game as it was originally, or a slightly updated version of the game, without having only one of the two options.

"The team really loved diving into this world, especially with the new elements like the animated intro and songs, which were all produced brand new."

Clock Tower: Rewind will feature some new cutscenes, a new theme song, and a new opening. What was it like working on new creative content for a game that originally released so long ago?

The team really loved diving into this world, especially with the new elements like the animated intro and songs, which were all produced brand new. For the motion comics, we scanned old mangas produced around the classic game’s release — one for a strategy guide, one for a PlayStation special edition of the game — and translated, voiced, and animated those. We also added a jukebox player for all the music tracks (new and old), an art gallery viewer, a new interview with Kono-san (the game’s original director), and a Japanese store kiosk demo version of the game as well. It’s a pretty robust package.

Can you talk us through some of the key gameplay and quality-of-life enhancements that players can expect in Clock Tower: Rewind?

Some of the encounters, rooms, and moments planned for the original game either didn’t make it in, or were added to the later PlayStation port. We were able to fold all that content back in for the Rewind version of the game. We also fixed various bugs, made improvements to Jennifer’s stamina, and made Scissorman even more relentless and threatening.

Somewhere down the line, would you like to develop a ground up remake of Clock Tower?

We would love to work with this brand and with Sunsoft again! Whether that might be a remake or a brand-new game is to be determined. But if this version of the game sells well, I think it’s likely we would collaborate further in some way with this brand.

"Some of the encounters, rooms, and moments planned for the original game either didn’t make it in, or were added to the later PlayStation port. We were able to fold all that content back in for the Rewind version of the game."

As a developer, what are your thoughts on the PS5 Pro? How does boost in GPU help in developing your game compared to the base PS5?

As a developer, we are always trying to push the amount of content and visual polish in our games, which is always a battle against system resources. We’re very excited at how the PS5 Pro might make WayForward’s upcoming titles even more impressive than what’s come before.

What are your thoughts on PSSR? What kind of opportunities will this open for the game?

We’re very curious how this might positively impact our games on the system. I don’t imagine there will be any difference in a low-resolution pixel game such as Clock Tower, but the positive implications for our other 3D titles look promising.

While Clock Tower first arrived in the West in 1996 on the PlayStation One, it was technically the second game in the series. The first game launched for Super Famicom in 1995 exclusively for Japan. Rewind features full English localization, with Japanese, French, Spanish, Korean, German, and other language options.

The original experience is available, but players can opt for an Enhanced mode featuring additional content. There are also save states, a music player, an animated intro, a behind-the-scenes interview with the creators, and more.

Clock Tower: Rewind will be available to play for Tokyo Game Show 2024 attendees from September 26th to 29th. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

The trailer showcases the classic point-and-click adventure game-styled gameplay of the classic Clock Tower, complete with its original 16-bit visuals. The remaster also features animated cutscenes that still maintain the general horror aesthetics of the original.

The remaster of the original Clock Tower was first announced back in July 2023, with distributor Limited Run Games making the announcement. It is also worth noting that this remaster will be the first time that the original Clock Tower will see a release outside of Japan.

Originally released back in 1995 on the SNES, Clock Tower plays like more of a point-and-click adventure game than other horror franchises like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. The game was notable for being one of the first major horror titles out there, pre-dating games like Resident Evil.