RGT Nostalgia Society #5 - Clock Tower Deluxe

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

I don't know how to spoiler, but you don't need Bobby to be chasing you to get over the gap. If you inspect the gap then the wooden plank next to it Jennifer will put the plank down to span the gap

thank you I also needed to know this. Could not figure out why she wouldn't just put the board down.

 

[Kamako]

I'm a bit slow off the starting line this month, but I was determined to complete my first playthrough of The Secret of Monkey Island before I started another game.

Now that's done and dusted, I'm ready to get stuck in.
Best of luck with your playthroughs/achievement hunting!

 

[SoThankful]

Question is okay to play the ps1 version of Clock Tower first fear.

That's what I'm gonna do.

 

[Crashbandi]

thank you I also needed to know this. Could not figure out why she wouldn't just put the board down.

Glad I could help! I love this game and have spent a lot of time in it.

Post automatically merged: Oct 6, 2025

Just hit the mastery. Looks like I'll give RE3 a shot. I'm terrible at the old RE games though

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

Here's a pretty cool Mega Drive remix of the chase theme I found a while ago.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Here's a pretty cool Mega Drive remix of the chase theme I found a while ago.

This is awesome! Kind of makes me want a MD port of the game now.

 

[Kamako]

Barely scraped two endings in the last stream but hoping to make a bit more progress this time around....I've gotta try and at least rescue SOMEONE

 

[Crashbandi]

Gonna take a break and play some more Resi 3 for a while before I get the last two endings.

Started up RE3 last night. I haven't played since I was a kid. Didn't know about this "emergency dodge" mechanic. And can't seem to get it down. As I said before I suck at the old school RE games no matter how much I love them.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Finally got the good endings, but had to look a guide to get A and S, as I was missing a very small detail related to the sisters... also I switched from the og snes version to the ps1 one as soon as I could mostly because I love playing these on mouse, but I think just being able to save makes it so much more enjoyable than the original, plus the extra events and intro are very good too. Overall I enjoyed the game, it's a biiit dated sure, but its a great concept. I am very curious to play the other games in this series.

(got too lazy to get the bad endings again, but eh good enough!)

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

Finally got the good endings, but had to look a guide to get A and S, as I was missing a very small detail related to the sisters... also I switched from the og snes version to the ps1 one as soon as I could mostly because I love playing these on mouse, but I think just being able to save makes it so much more enjoyable than the original, plus the extra events and intro are very good too. Overall I enjoyed the game, it's a biiit dated sure, but its a great concept. I am very curious to play the other games in this series.

View attachment 117123
(got too lazy to get the bad endings again, but eh good enough!)

There is a direct sequel in the ps1, with a dual protagonist.
The Ghost head one is not very good to say the least(very cryptic and easy to end trapped by bad ends).
Clock tower 3 is a a mahou shoujo delirious fever dream.

 

[Crashbandi]

Finally got the good endings, but had to look a guide to get A and S, as I was missing a very small detail related to the sisters... also I switched from the og snes version to the ps1 one as soon as I could mostly because I love playing these on mouse, but I think just being able to save makes it so much more enjoyable than the original, plus the extra events and intro are very good too. Overall I enjoyed the game, it's a biiit dated sure, but its a great concept. I am very curious to play the other games in this series.

View attachment 117123
(got too lazy to get the bad endings again, but eh good enough!)

I never played the PSX version, but didn't know there were actual changes. Maybe I'll boot it up and get the mastery there too. Take a break from RE3

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Started up RE3 last night. I haven't played since I was a kid. Didn't know about this "emergency dodge" mechanic. And can't seem to get it down. As I said before I suck at the old school RE games no matter how much I love them.

I straight up get this. I knew vaguely that the mechanic exists but I'm so crap at using it that i basically don't rely on it lmao

Re: the changes in Clock Tower. Its mostly an extra singular encounter in the hunting/embalming room, but there are a few extra mechanical changes as well I think.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

The video port on my TV broke
I should be able to fix it but I need to leave the TV unplugged for a few days, so I probably won't be able to play much this week.
Which is too bad, I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. I found Ms. Mary and 3 of the keys.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

The video port on my TV broke
I should be able to fix it but I need to leave the TV unplugged for a few days, so I probably won't be able to play much this week.
Which is too bad, I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. I found Ms. Mary and 3 of the keys.

Hopefully, you can get it repaired soon and easily.

I'll say that once you reach your first proper ending (Non-car) then you'll find the rest fall into place pretty easily. Even with the randomization, further playthrough take a lot less time.

 

[Kamako]

The video port on my TV broke
I should be able to fix it but I need to leave the TV unplugged for a few days, so I probably won't be able to play much this week.
Which is too bad, I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. I found Ms. Mary and 3 of the keys.

Fingers crossed you can fix it.

 

[Kamako]

I just finished attaining all endings and achievements for Clock Tower.

Overall thoughts on the game, for anyone interested:

(contains light spoilers so I only recommend reading once you've played through the game yourself)

Spoiler

I've been eager to play this game for a very long time. I love survival horror, and I loved the mystique surrounding this game and the subsequent franchise. Hell, I even just like the name.

The cutscenes all clearly display alot of care and attention. I would say that they are the game's strongest element. The cinematic sections are all wonderful.

What aren't so wonderful are the controls. Now I champion tank controls, and I often appreciate restrictive controls in a survival horror setting, but the controls for toggling sprintng on and off in this game are genuinely cumbersome and more frustrating than charming. Adding to the problem is Jennifer's default walking speed: It's just too damn slow.

And speaking of too damn slow, the health regeneration mechanic takes waaay too long. Granted, I can understand how, in theory, it could add to the sense of your character's frailty, but in execution it is just boring having to wait upwards of 30 seconds for health to refill around 50%.
It takes over 20 seconds for the animation of walking up or down a straircase to complete - Even longer if you initiate the action from far away, in which case you have to then wait as Jennifer trudges over to the stairs with so little urgency that you'd be forgiven for thinking her character has some kind of mobility issue.

The puzzles range from pointless to infuriating, with a few particularly egregious examples presenting you with interactive items with which to solve them that, if used, render the puzzle impossible to complete without first exiting and re-entering the area. What's worse is that the game gives you no indication that a puzzle has become unwinnable because of your action, so you will likely waste your time unknowingly trying to solve a puzzle that can no longer be beaten without "resetting" it to its initial stage.

On the plus side, I did like every character in the game, even if some are only given one or two sparse sentences of dialogue. They aren't exactly what I'd call "fleshed out", but their character designs are at least all unique and distinct from one another, which counts for something. Also the translation patch I used was very good, and I only picked up on one spelling error over the course of multiple playthroughs ("depics" instead of "depicts"). And hell, there's probably more spelling errors in this write-up.

The game has a randomization element which is honestly pretty cool. There are multiple methods of solving major puzzles and different items that are used to progress through the game which appear based on choices that you can make. It's neat, and no path seemed vastly better or worse than another. Some of the room locations randomize as well, which could have been interesting, but truthfully doesn't really add enough to justify repeat playthroughs. Had I not been achievement hunting, I would probably have stopped upon reaching Ending C without having missed all that much in the 5 separate endings I still needed to unlock.

All in all, I'm left feeling slightly underwhelmed by Clock Tower. But that being said, I'm still glad I've played it, and I'd be interested to see what the PSX re-release adds to the game, or does differently, and I am also intrigued to play other entries in the series, in time to come.

Thanks for reading. :]

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

Overall thoughts on the game, for anyone interested:

(contains light spoilers so I only recommend reading once you've played through the game yourself)

Some of the complains, the ones regarding clunky movement and energy regeneration are alleviated in the deluxe hack, faster healing, running up and down the stairs and optional mouse control help quite a bit.

 

[throughdarkness]

I may try the deluxe hack. The game is really slow. I only achieved one ending but it was the super lame one and will have to hit it at least a few more times. The randomness is really cool and I could see this being very innovative at the time. It kind of reminds of Way of the Samurai in that the playthroughs are really short but vary each time depending no what you do. It is enjoyable but I have to be in a certain mood.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Some of the complains, the ones regarding clunky movement and energy regeneration are alleviated in the deluxe hack, faster healing, running up and down the stairs and optional mouse control help quite a bit.

I was wondering about this because my experience was pretty smooth and breezy.

Makes sense now. Didnt realise that the Deluxe hack has so many QoL improvements.

@Kamako I can highly recommend Deluxe. As a fan of horror games its become one of my new favourite games.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

How are we all getting on?

I've made it to the Clocktower (Ironically) in Resident Evil 3 and am trying to blitz my way through an "easy" run of the game before I attempt it again in Hard. It's one of my top Resi games, but I do not remember how to succeed in it all that well.

I've noticed that a bunch of the retroarchievements for Resi 3 only work in hard mode which I honestly think makes a lot of sense. Combat is mostly a breeze on easy due to how many weapons they load you down with.

The only times I've died have been against Nemesis, and that was mostly because I forgot to carry enough healing items after getting attacked by the underground Vore-Worm.

So far how many of us have made it through CLocktower?

 

[diapered]

So far how many of us have made it through CLocktower?

Haven't got one ending yet, but hopefully I can tonight. What is slowing me down is I only feel like playing this when it is dark out, but my evenings can turn busy with work or other things Most my freetime is during the day.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Haven't got one ending yet, but hopefully I can tonight. What is slowing me down is I only feel like playing this when it is dark out, but my evenings can turn busy with work or other things Most my freetime is during the day.

which version are you playing? From what other people where saying it's a much slower experience playing the original SNES version. I genuinelly feel like I'd have had a worse time without the SNES Deluxe edition.

I hope you get some free time to play soon

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

My TV should working and back together by tomorrow. Will try and get as many endings as I can in the evening.

Post automatically merged: Oct 13, 2025

I heard Deluxe and the ps1 version let's you run into the background and foreground. That would be a nice improvement to speed the game up.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

My TV should working and back together by tomorrow. Will try and get as many endings as I can in the evening.

Post automatically merged: Oct 13, 2025

I heard Deluxe and the ps1 version let's you run into the background and foreground. That would be a nice improvement to speed the game up.

yeah in Deluxe she will keep running backwards/forwards and up stairs too. I've heard Jeniffer also heals quicker in Deluxe/PS1 as well, and there's an extra scene in the West Wing taxadermy room.

I think there are a bunch of other minor changes as well, to do with the way the randomization works, but I don't remember most of the finer details of what was changed.

 

[diapered]

which version are you playing? From what other people where saying it's a much slower experience playing the original SNES version. I genuinelly feel like I'd have had a worse time without the SNES Deluxe edition.

I hope you get some free time to play soon

I'm playing the og. Yea, I'll use savestates and guides for my sanity in these nostalgia society threads, but I want the game to be how it was released for these threads. No matter how brutal and miserable it may be >_<