 Usually when some guy on the internet starts out a video with a big bold declarative statement like, there is no other game on the Super Nintendo or Super Famicom like Clock Tower, it's used to draw interest or get attention because there can't really not be another game like it in a library of a thousand games, right? In this case though, seriously, there really is no other game that comes close to Clock Tower on Super Famicom. Yeah, Super Famicom because it only came out in Japan, not in the US. It's a point and click survival horror adventure game, you direct the main character Jennifer around with a cursor controlled by your d-pad, and real quick I have to mention that no, this game does not work with the SNES mouse. So yeah, you're looking for items, wandering around, and on the surface this game looks really slow and boring, right? Like what, that's all you do? How can gameplay this limited be fun? That's where the story comes in, four girls including your character Jennifer are adopted by a rich woman named Mary Barrows, whose wealth is quickly demonstrated by this ginormous mansion that you now live in, adorned by a huge clock tower. So you hang out a bit, Miss Barrows goes to fetch her husband, and after a while you go look for her, you hear a scream and come back and all your new siblings have mysteriously disappeared. So yeah, something is seriously wrong, you know, based on the music cues and stuff. After that it's just you alone in the house wondering what the hell is going on, until... HOLY SHIT. Yeah, that's right, this dude carrying a giant pair of scissors just impaled this girl right through a stained glassed window. Are you kidding me, in an SNES game? So yeah, here we have our villain, Scissor Man, who is quite literally a crazy kid wielding a giant pair of scissors, while Jennifer meanwhile wields nothing. You just run and hide and try and investigate on your own while occasionally solving puzzles and stumbling across items and clues. You don't really have the means to fight back here, you just do your best to hide, and when that's not enough, when your picture flashes that enables a panic button to avoid danger, so you're not totally helpless. This kind of game is extremely tough to pull off on a limited interface, especially one as limited as the Super Famicom could offer at the time. But what makes Clock Tower work as well as it does is the incredible sound design, and more importantly, just the overall sound direction. It is seriously unnerving to hear no music, only your own footsteps, and you're just waiting for Scissor Man to appear again, and it could be from anywhere. Then you hear that creepy music cue, which is perfectly done by the way, you hear the snapping of the scissors, and you hope your hiding spot is good enough that he'll pass on by. So yeah, in other words, Clock Tower has next to nothing to do with gameplay, and everything to do with how you feel as you play it. It's all about the experience. There are not many 16-bit games you can say that about, and many of those games just aren't good. Clock Tower though is fantastic for what it is. There's a ton of replay value here too, because the story is so open-ended you can gather anything in any order. Some friends will die, some will live, all depending on what you do when you do it. Scissor Man doesn't always appear in the same spots, items won't always be in the same places, there's even multiple endings you can achieve, that's pretty damn impressive. Clock Tower does have its flaws though, just where its limitations get in the way, like these stairs here that take forever to go up and down, but yeah, the good far outweighs the bad. Not surprisingly, Clock Tower spawned a series of games that continued on PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and even a game on Steam that was released this past year to mixed reviews. I should mention that a port remake mishmash of Clock Tower was made for PS1 and PC a couple years after coming out on Super Famicom, but both are essentially the same game just with better visuals. So yeah, Clock Tower is really something else. I know we all think of Resident Evil as the game that got the ball rolling for the survival horror genre, but don't overlook this game, it is remarkable how effective it is with such limited gameplay. That said, I'm not sure Clock Tower is for everyone, some might be too impatient, or might not like how slowly the game moves along. Still, the only other game that even comes close to what Clock Tower represents on Super Nintendo is Shadow Run, and even that comparison is real flimsy. If you're looking for something from the 16-bit era that's completely different and unique, you gotta try Clock Tower, you won't regret it.