Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within

"Ravenous phantasmagoria."

This game is hopelessly flawed.

. . . or is it?

Sometimes a developer lacks the needed time or funds to truly capture their ambitious vision and we are instead left with an ambitious mess; on other occasions we’re left to fathom what eldritch powers might have been at work to release such a menace onto an unsuspecting populace. Ghost Head, third in the dark horse Clock Tower series, is either a muddled sleeper or the frenzied butchering of a cult classic.

Our tale opens over a mysterious night as two mysterious figures discover a mysterious object for even more mysterious reasons . . . how very mysterious. But where are the series’ trademark characters - the murderous Scissorman, the sweet heroine Jennifer? It’s unsurprising that this game bears a subtitle rather than a number; the events of the first two games have been cast aside in favor a brand new setting and cast. Pine as you might for the dark forests of Norway, you won’t find them here.

No, the story shifts to Japan, our new protagonist an outwardly normal teenage schoolgirl named Yuu Midoushima. Sensitive and shy, Yuu’s seemingly withdrawn personality guards her troubling secret - a violent male personality called Shou who emerges whenever she is under a great deal of stress. Unable to determine the true nature of this condition, the player is left to wonder: does Yuu truly suffer from a split personality or is some manner of malevolent spirit possessing her body? Deeply superstitious, our young heroine is never without a small amulet that protects her from Shou’s influence and allows her to retain control of her own mind. It won’t be difficult to tell who really lurks behind those dark eyes, as Shou’s presence suddenly twists the cursor into a jagged lightning bolt and obscures her upper body in ethereal blue flames. Rude in manner, cruel in spirit, and completely lacking in ethics, this rough schoolboy persona provides an excellent foil to her innocent timidity.

As a Clock Tower heroine, Yuu finds herself caught in ghoulish machinations of horror and death; trapped in a small house, a hospital, and a pharmaceutical lab, she frequently runs into deadly murderers while attempting to escape by either locating places to hide or scrounging up makeshift weapons such as mop. Shou adds a new factor to this proven formula, as he must instead locate a loaded gun beforehand which he can then use to coldly strike down his pursuer with hot lead. Yuu would probably wish otherwise, but repeatedly switching personalities is necessary to progress, each mind distinct in the way she or he notices different “hotspots” to investigate in each room, uses items, and interacts with the other characters. While Yuu might discover a lighter on a dusty table, her darker side will probably be more interested in prying apart that locked desk with a screwdriver; Shou’s dubious social skills and ill temperament may land him in trouble, or awaken at a critical moment to save Yuu’s body from a potentially deadly situation.

The graphics are a slight improvement over Clock Tower 2 but look significantly dated for 1998, and while the character models are noticeably improved there is an unfortunate sense of repetition as you wander through several identical hospital rooms and laboratory corridors. As always, the music is noticeably absent and instead relies on sound effects such as Yuu’s shoes on the polished floors, the ringing of a nearby phone or the dripping of an unseen liquid . . . until you run into one of the game’s multiple homicidal maniacs, all of whom have their own ominous themes that punctuate your scramble to safety. In true Clock Tower fashion, the first chapter of Ghost Head sees Yuu scurrying about the eerily quiet house of her uncle’s family while being stalked by her cousin Chinatsu, a sweetly horrifying little girl whose deathly white face is almost as striking as the knife clasped in her tiny hands. Flee to safety, slide into a nearby closet and you can feel the Dual Shock’s throbbing pulse with Yuu’s increasingly frenzied heartbeat as Chinatsu and her hideous laughter approach ever closer, only to subside after the warped child turns her attention elsewhere. The events are simply disturbing as Yuu whispers an apology to her young cousin before clubbing the girl over the head with a wooden baseball bat.

This is before the zombies crash the party.

These mindless green skinned brain munchers infest the latter two locales to guard countless set locations; approach one and it will shamble after you wherever you run. Hide from zombies and they will merely return to their original positions, forcing you to dispose of them permanently. As such, the second two chapters make sure to include a weapon that Yuu can use infinitely, making it a simple matter of backtracking to a fire extinguisher and smacking the foolish creature over the head with it before proceeding to the next room and doing it again. Shou must at least aim carefully at the creature’s weak point and conserve his ammo, but when hiding is completely useless, Yuu’s few makeshift weapons are limitless, and Shou simply blasts anyone he likes into oblivion, it is clear that much of the tension upon which Clock Tower relies is turning in its grave.

Despite its importance, switching personalities under normal circumstances is not merely a frustrating experience but a potentially game-breaking one. First putting down her amulet in one of the game’s many empty drawers, desks, or lockers, Yuu must then actually seek out a fight. She can make a last ditch effort to escape a struggle by mashing the Panic Button at the cost of her stamina and with the murderer remaining in hot pursuit; without the amulet Shou will win control and send his attacker reeling to the floor with a kick to the groin. The gloomy fact that this reduces your stamina (from white to yellow, yellow to red, and from red to the continue screen) is remarkably short-sighted and as you are still required to end the chase, Shou must posses a loaded gun to eliminate this still-active threat or you’ll be forced to change back and deal with the pursuer as Yuu, thus defeating the entire point. Locate a first aid kit and you’ll be able to regain your unfairly spent health; retrieve the amulet and Shou’s presence will fade away, unable to return until this process is repeated. If you need to change into your darker half during the third act and you’ve already eliminated all of the zombies as Yuu, you’ll have to wait for the main killer to randomly wander by; if you need to change but can’t find any more ammo, you’re screwed.

Yet Ghost Head tries its hardest to slither its way back into the player’s heart. The believable emotion of the Japanese voice acting is a tremendous improvement over the mediocre efforts in Clock Tower 2; Yuu’s overly saccharine childlike voice proves a startling contrast to the cutting huskiness of Shou’s actress (as it is very common for female seiyuu to play male roles), who punctuates her character’s cold personality with an informal and cynical tone. Players are immersed in eerie utterances, from Chinatsu’s throaty whispers of murder or the sorrow-wracked lilt of Fujika, hauntingly faint and wraithlike, to the demonic Fushihito Saidou’s ravings in an electronically distorted growl that evokes a dizzying insanity.

The domestic translation (dubbed “Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within” by publisher Agetec) does not fare quite as well. Understandably localized for a more English-friendly experience, the entire cast is renamed, thus characters such as Yuu and Saidou become Alyssa Hale and George Maxwell respectively; unfortunately the English cast is characterized by poor-quality voices and awkward, emotionless dialogue despite a number of standouts. Shou is one of these exceptions as the incredibly raspy Mr. Bates; one wonders why none of the characters take pause when Alyssa speaks in such a sinister-sounding and obviously male voice (as opposed to Yuu and Shou, both portrayed by women), yet Bates’ hateful observations on his surroundings and near-constant swearing are easily the highlight of the English version.

But quite unlike its two predecessors, Ghost Head is very linear and focuses on only one main path. The thirteen “endings” scattered throughout the game are little more than glorified Game Over screens and almost always involve your character’s death; with liberal continuing it’s possible to see nearly every ending in a single playthrough. Why ‘nearly,’ you ask? Thanks to a particularly cruel twist, one outcome is an inevitable dead end early on in the final chapter should you have unknowingly made a certain mistake near the beginning of the game. Congratulations, you may now enjoy starting all over again! Even the best ending (the only real one) leaves several key plot elements completely unresolved.

Thankfully the lengthy plot-developing intermissions that weighed down Clock Tower 2 have been eliminated, every chapter instead beginning immediately as you explore the seemingly empty environs without fear of random encounters until reaching the killer’s initial location. The suspense mounts particularly effectively in the final chapter as you wander the cavernous halls of a pharmaceutical lab for some time, gathering up a few items and waiting for the yet unseen titular madman to at last manifest himself - Saidou. Wrapped in a flowing lab coat splattered with gore, this tall and spindly instrument of violent death conceals his features beneath a fiendishly grinning oni (devil) mask, body limp as he slowly lurches forward dragging an immense cleaver behind him. Listen closely and you’ll recognize the imminent presence of this bloody apparition drawing near by the sound of his stained blade as it scrapes across the cold polished floors, hungry for flesh.

A magnificent train wreck of malefic psychosis, Ghost Head itself labors under a dual personality, the brilliant premise, wonderful acting, and moody presentation constantly at war with its maddening execution. The result is a rapacious concoction that seeks to devour anyone unwary enough to pick up the controller, to plunge the knife ever deeper into one’s rapidly hemorrhaging patience. Yet - stricken as it is by a death curse of frustration, it somehow manages to elude disaster with a belladonic haze of sheer chaotic artistry. I think I like this game.

. . . or do I ?

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/28/03, Updated 04/28/03