Retro Review - Clock Tower The First Fear
Resident Evil was the saga that drove me to want to play other games of the Survival Horror genre, and even though I haven't played many games of this style (for now), if I have played at least the most classic and remembered in the industry, therefore, after having played games such as Dino Crisis, Silent Hill and some of the Resident Evil saga, I wanted to go a little further into this type of video game, so I went a little further into the past in search of some title of this genre. In my search I found a video game that belongs to a time when the Surival Horror genre was not yet in its heyday. This videogame, which I'm going to talk about next, can be considered as the precursor or one of the precursors of the Survival Horror genre, being a title that made its debut in the mythical SNES.
Clock Tower: The First Fear tells the story of a group of orphans who were adopted by the Barrows family, this family lives in a large mansion where they have a large clock on top of one of the buildings (hence the name of the game), upon arrival at the mansion, the group of orphans are received by Mary, (Mr. Barrows wife), who was responsible for adopting this group of girls. After Mary was absent to look for Mr. Barrows, the girls wait for her to return, but due to her long delay, one of the orphans, Jennifer Simpson (main character of this game) decides to go and find out the reason for Mary's delay.
At this moment we will take control of Jennifer and we will enter the facilities of the Barrows mansion and soon through the eyes of our protagonist we will realize that very strange things are happening in this mansion, since not only Jennifer's friends have disappeared, but also appears on stage the villain of this game: Scissorman, who happens to be a very small person, the size of a child, who has in his hands huge scissors. From this strange and dangerous being we must flee during the whole game, in such a way that we can escape from the mansion and get rid of the threat that we are living.
In Clock Tower: The First Fear the decisions that we make during the whole "adventure" will have repercussion with the end, since this game has 9 different endings and according to the actions that we take we will trigger different endings, giving this game a great level of re-playability, some of the endings we will be able to take out by chance, however some others we will have to use some guide to be able to see them, but only one of these 9 endings is considered canon, because this endgame is related to the sequel of this game.
Graphically, I think this game is great, maybe it's not up to other adventure games, but Clock Tower: The First Fear does what's necessary in terms of this aspect, so much so that even today it looks really good and has that retro touch that I like so much in a video game. The level of detail in the scenarios is optimal, each scenario where we go with our protagonist has small details that makes each place we are in feel a certain way "real", ie, does not become realistic, but if it has enough details so that the scenarios do not feel empty, or somehow artificial, in a nutshell, it looks very good in terms of quality of details.
Because it's a horror game, the colors used in this game are dark, all the scenarios have a palette of dark colors and even very dark on some occasions, which help to set, in a certain way, the rooms that has this mansion, despite being a SNES game and you know the great limitations that has this video game console, Clock Tower: The First Fear knew how to create a gloomy atmosphere and that really instills fear and suspense.
The animations of the characters have a good level of fluidity in each of their movements, so you could say that they have movements that resemble the realistic or at least try to look as realistic as possible, so that the animations are not rigid, much less forced, very well in this regard.
Although I have said many times that a good soundtrack is very important in the development of a videogame, because it allows to transmit feelings, to give some message, to give us of certain form; spirits (mainly in action games), to create an atmosphere that of step to some situation or simply melodies that accompany us in our crossing, but in the case of Clock Tower: The First Fear, silence is going to be part of almost the whole adventure and only (in most cases) the only sound we will hear will be the steps of our protagonist or some external sound that gives a certain degree of tension in each place we go, these sound effects are very important for this game (and for any other type of game of the horror genre) because by not having, in most cases, a background melody, we will be more attentive to each of the small sound effects that this game has, thus increasing the immersion in the game.
But of course, Clock Tower: The First Fear has an excellent soundtrack, which we'll especially listen to at certain moments of the game, to give more emphasis to some situation or action we're doing.
Clock Tower: The First Fear is a game of the Survival Horror genre, but at the same time it is a classic graphic Adventure, that is to say, it is a Point and Click, reason why we will have the control of our protagonist by means of the use of our mouse. Because mainly this game was released for the SNES, being a Point and Click, it was a bit uncomfortable to control our character, since this type of games are usually played with keyboard and mouse, I played it with an emulator of SNES, so I did not have that problem, since obviously use keyboard and mouse, but for those people who at the time used only the control of SNES, they had some difficulty wanting to control our protagonist, however, perhaps the reason why this game was originally released for SNES and that its control has been a little complicated, is to give a greater level of tension and anguish to the game, giving us the feeling of being even more helpless, although maybe not and I'm making this up.
Our protagonist, Jennifer, is not going to have any kind of weaponry to defend us from Scissorman, so our only option to get out unharmed from their attacks is to flee and dodge it so we can then hide, the only action we can do with Jennifer is to investigate certain objects that we will find in the game and use them somehow.
In turn, like other graphic adventures, in Clock Tower: The First Fear does not have a bar that determines the state of health of our character, since it has a state of mental health for our character, that state of mental health is determined by a scale of colors. The blue determines that Jennifer is well and without any kind of imminent danger, the yellow means that there is some danger nearby, the orange means that Jennifer is afraid and finally the red color, as is obvious, means that Jennifer is in grave danger and is in total panic, when we are in the state of mental health red, being Jennifer in total panic, it is very possible that our actions are hindered by the fear that has our protagonist, so when it comes to want to run away may Jennifer stumble or can not perform some action easily, in short, in this state these fucked up.
Clock Tower: The First Fear is an excellent game of Survival Horror, one of the forerunners of the genre, but at the same time, I have noticed that it is a little underrated game, very few are the people who have taken this game into account (as far as Survival Horror is concerned), considering that it is a very old game, the years have affected almost nothing and I consider it a great reference in the genre of terror and a game that is worth playing, especially if you want to enter the world of horror games.
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