So I Tried... Clock Tower: Rewind

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never played before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full half hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. I picked up Clock Tower: Rewind on Halloween last year when it was released for the Nintendo Switch and now I’m finally just trying it out. There is no real reason why I had to wait so long, but here we are. It is almost Halloween season, so it’s the perfect time to dive into this horror-filled title.

What I thought it was

I had footage of the Super Famicom version of this game in the past, so I had an idea what it was like, but I wasn’t sure what changes were all made for this version. Clock Tower was created to feel like you are the lead character inside of a horror movie. So all the characters were made using digitised photos of real people to give it a realistic feeling, and the heroine was inspired by actress Jennifer Connelly’s character in Phenomena. I also know that the main enemy in the game is a stalker named Scissorman.

What it actually is

Clock Tower: Rewind is a survival horror game that plays like a point-and-click adventure title with 2D graphics. You play as Jennifer Simpson, one of the adopted girls from the Granite Orphanage located in Romsdalen, Norway. You control her movement using a cursor on the screen, instead of using the thumbstick. You can either click where you want her to go, or use the controller, walking and running are done with the shoulder buttons. The D-pad is used to move your cursor around the screen and the face buttons are used to interact with doors and items, or to panic when you are in crisis, smashing this button will help her, though it will consume a lot of stamina when used. Your goal in Clock Tower is to run, hide, and attempt to survive as you escape from the psychotic Scissorman with his huge blades.

Will I keep playing?

Clock Tower: Rewind is actually a lot more atmospheric and addictive than I expected it to be. In the beginning, it felt like I was moving so slow and thought I would be able to fight back against the stalker with a weapon. Nope, I was wrong; all you can do is run and hide, making you feel helpless. Especially when creepy music started playing, warning me that the Scissorman was near. Where is he? Where can I hide? I’ve died multiple times, all in different ways, and I’m really curious to see the others! There are eight endings available to obtain and I can’t wait to see if I can get Jennifer out of this mansion successfully without getting a DEAD END screen.