Clock Tower: Rewind Review

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Fast Facts

It’s Rewind Time!

Clock Tower: Rewind is a horror point-and-click adventure originally released exclusively in Japan in 1995. It was recently rereleased and is now published by WayForward. I was particularly interested in this game since I saw that SUNSOFT was involved, and I recently enjoyed Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, which they were also involved with. Did the game meet my expectations? Find out in this Rapid Review.

As I began my adventure, I was introduced to the main character and a few characters who surround her. The storyline was quite broad, so I did not get attached to any of the characters, and while I understood the premise, I was not overly concerned about what would happen. None of the characters seemed to significantly impact the plotline either. The story developed seemingly with or without their presence. This being said, a lot of visual storytelling is done with the background. Some components of the game do a great job showing information or worldbuilding just with their appearance. Still, since the game is a point-and-click adventure, I would have liked a story to keep me hooked. At the same time, so long as the gameplay is engaging, the lacking story is not an overarching issue.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy much of the overarching gameplay. As a point-and-click adventure, the game works decently. I explored different rooms of a mansion to find objects which would help me on my quest. This functioned nicely in Clock Tower: Rewind. On the other hand, finding items was far less fun. Many things were put in plain sight, which made those objects easy to discover. However, occasionally, interactable objects are not clear. The game features an indicator to depict what objects can be interacted with, yet still, I found myself frustrated finding certain objects.

Putting the Pieces Together

Moreover, solving the puzzles with the items is not rewarding. The different objects often have clear purposes. Pesticide takes out insects, a dagger takes out a monster. The lack of innovation here made the puzzle-solving in Clock Tower: Rewind significantly less enjoyable. It placed a far greater significance on finding the objects than using them. Adding to this issue, one of the main items I found was keys. These keys were labelled, but in ways which did not indicate where I should go to use them. Far too much of my time was spent navigating the house searching various locked doors before ultimately finding the correct one. Despite featuring many great elements of point-and-click adventures, the way they combine left a lot to be desired.

The horror elements are even less engaging. At random points throughout the playthrough, I would get chased by a monster. Certain rooms have interactable objects which I can use to either hide or fend off the monster. However, these segments are severely dissatisfying. Often, I would have to interrupt what I was doing to navigate back to a safe area, which disrupted my flow and often was not interesting. 

Clock Tower: Rewind combines the disruptive nature of horror elements with unintuitive keys and a generally slow walking speed to make for a tedious adventure. I rarely felt like the things I was doing were interesting, engaging, or satisfying. It was a huge disappointment. 

The disappointing elements are even more disappointing because the mansion I explored was quite neat. There were multiple different levels, objects to interact with, and unique locations. One room would have a bunch of bookcases in it, like a traditional study yet another would be a laboratory with caged animals inside. Clock Tower: Rewind features some neat locales.

When the Clock Strikes Twelve

To further emphasize the quality of the locales, the art direction in Clock Tower: Rewind is excellent. Things look beautiful, yet haunting, which is great for the genre and style of the game. The colour palette is nice as well. I can tell what objects are, and they look visually stunning. It was also neat to see an indicator of my general well-being with a picture of my face, which sometimes got visibly disturbed. I enjoyed the art style a lot. 

The music was less enjoyable for me. It was somewhat unmemorable overall. However, whenever I was getting chased by a monster, there was a theme which got incredibly grating, especially since these segments often took longer than I would have liked already. The music was inoffensive, but it certainly did not make fond memories with me.

As a whole, though, I did not enjoy my time with Clock Tower: Rewind. The game is serviceable, but the puzzles were dissatisfying, the story is nothing overly memorable, and the item pickups themselves are very simple. Few things which make it uniquely justifiable. At the same time, the sluggish nature makes even the things that are serviceable a bit less enjoyable. I did not enjoy my time with Clock Tower: Rewind, and considering the price point and the plethora of other options available, I do not recommend it.

Rapid Reviews Rating

2 out of 5

2

You can purchase Clock Tower: Rewind on the Nintendo eShop here.