Review #287: Clock Tower 3

 Unintentionally hilarious.

 When one thinks of Clock Tower, one thinks of scary games, some of the earliest horror games created. And then there's Clock Tower 3, which isn't very scary, but it's so wonderfully weird. You can't come to this game expecting a horror game, unless you want to be disappointed, or in my case, weirdly amused.

 The game pits you as Alyssa, a 14 year-old girl who is one day away from her birthday, and receives a letter from her mother telling her to hide. Alyssa, being as smart as she is, decides to come back home, and all kinds of weird stuff starts happening. This is what happened to me, early in the game you come across a man in black, who acts all weird and creepy, it creeped me out, and it made me second guess my steps and what not. I was creeped out! And then... you are sent back in time. I kid you not. And you have to... aid ghosts? But then you are introduced to this big guy and his hammer, as he squashes his first victim, and you are next! YEAH! This is what I wanted, the game finally got scary again. Yeah, this is awesome! Wait... Alyssa, why is your flask glowing? Why is a bow forming out of..... Alyssa, why are you shooting energy arrows? Oh yeah, Magical girls? This game's got'em. And the game only gets more ridiculous from there on. Then comes the next 'Subordinate', and he is introduced as he brutally kills a mother and his son, yeah, this scene is phenomenal and scary, now we are back on trac....why does he attack you by tackling you with his butt!? THE HELL IS THIS!? And the next three Subordinates are Onimusha-Godangantess wannabes. Yeah, this game is ridiculous alright, but it's oddly amusing. Except for Dennis, this guys ruins any scene he is in... although I guess he is part of the game's ridiculous charm. And it's not like the voice acting is bad, but the character models are very facially inexpressive, but everyone moves in very over-the-top fashion, which produces a very bizarre clash. Look, if I haven't made it clear by now, this is not a horror game, as hard as it tries to be, but if you are up for a weird game, with Time-travelling, Magical Girls, Ghosts and a protagonists that is sent flying at high speeds while riding debris and decides to laugh and dance, instead of, y'know, being worried for dear life, this is your game.

 80% of the game is spent exploring the numerous locations for different items in order to solve puzzles. Occasionally you'll be surprised by the level's Subordinate, an Alyssa being an unarmed 14 year old schoolgirls needs to run and hide. There's different ways to deal with these bastards, you can use Holy Water, which can only be refilled at special fountains, to temporarily stun them, or find Hide Spots or one-time use Escape Spots. Escape Spots incapacitate the Subordinate, letting you go along on your merry way, while hide spots may stop working if you use them too frequently, plus, they can't be used while under a Subordinates sight. Eventually you'll learn to complete puzzles while avoiding subordinates though, however, you have to be careful, as the Panic Gauge increases every time they attack you, even if they miss, if it gets too high, Alyssa will enter 'Panic Mode' and any hit will kill her, plus, she becomes harder to control.

 Puzzles are very 'Resident Evil'-ish. Find items to use on other places, find and read files to learn more about what's going on or even obtain clues for a few puzzles. There are also ghosts that can hurt you(Or rather, increase the panic gauge, and kill you if you are hit while panicking), but can be dealt with by specific items and using them on their corpses, it's entirely optional, but they reward you with usables, items that decrease the panic gauge or even make you invisible temporarily, so it's a good idea to 'help' them, plus, they disappear and stop bothering you when you are trying to escape from a Subordinate!

 And then there's the boss battles... After finding out about the Subordinates' previous lives, by reading conveniently placed files about them on the areas the inhabit, you will get to fight them. Alyssa will produce a magic bow, complete with a reused 'transformation' animation before every single fight, like any proper magical girl, and the fight starts. You must outmaneuver them, and hold triangle to charge an arrow and shoot it. Hitting them with fully charged arrows will bind them, making further shots easier(And making it harder, sometimes impossible, for them to reach you, until the chain expires if you fail to keep binding them), and binding them with about 5 arrows will let you unleash an special attack that will most probably kill them. Boss fights are pretty dumb, and Alyssa always auto-aims... although you can't change where she is gonna shoot and you are rooted in place. It's very stiff, and wonky, and in a particular Subordinate fight, the auto-aim is a bit broken and most often than not, Alyssa will aim in-front of her, which makes this particular fight a bit of a pain. Not to say anything about the last boss, who can bind you, and if you are bound by three shots, he can unleash a 10-15 second long instakill attack that you can't skip. Fun. The last boss is incredibly fun, until you figure him out, and then he becomes incredibly tedious, since it may take a while before he goes down, even though you aren't taking any damage at all!

 The game is four hour longs, probably less if you know what you are doing, taking into account that I went into the game completely blind and figured everything out by myself, that's a bit short. Finishing the game unlocks fetish costumes for Alyssa(Since, y'know, the Japanese love to sexualize young girls!) as well as a harder mode.

 Clock Tower 3 is a game that (jump)scared me, that made me laugh, made me think, engaged me and overall entertained me. It's not the game I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised with how weird, and at times 'so-bad-it's-good' moments. I figure that Haunting Ground is probably the game that they really wanted to make, y'know scary and stuff, but Clock Tower 3 is pretty good, provided you aren't expecting spooks.
 7.0 out of 10