Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within

"Clock Tower II: The Struggle with playing the game."

First of all, this game has no connection at all to previous Clock Towers that might exist, other than the fact it uses a similar interface.

At first glance, this might seem like a workable premise, or at least one that couldn't be boring. You're a somewhat shy teenage girl sent to visit your Uncle's family while your father works. Upon arrival, you discover the 7-year old daughter is possessed, body parts are strewn about everywhere, and the malevolent male personality which shares space in your head is acting up again...

However, in execution, this is painful to play. Painful to look at, painful to watch, and painful to sit through. You don't 'play' Clock Tower II so much as you're just along for the 'ride' that is Clock Tower II. For example: most puzzles aren't. They involve exploring rooms where you don't do anything thoroughly enough that the interface will THEN allow you to manipulate objects in other rooms. It's boring, it's tedious, and you don't even know what to do half the time. To paraphrase another review, solving a puzzle in Clock Tower II is like putting an unfinished Rubix cube down, going into another room and switching on a TV, and then returning to find the Rubix cube has been completed.

Furthermore, another huge problem is the zombies. And not just because of Resident Evil. Resident Evil could have never existed and the zombies still would've been a bad idea. Why? First of all, the thing that made the original Clock Tower so great is that you never fight 'random enemies', but you're fighting an actual psycho killer who's trying to murder you. The addition of 'zombies' makes combat with them irrelevant and pointless because they don't add anything to the game. Furthermore, when you first encounter them, it's DIFFICULT to kill them. Hiding from them only makes them reappear in the same place you discovered them, and you can't SHOOT them as Bates until you reach a certain point. So throughout Chapter 2, you'll be constantly playing as Alyssa, running back to this one point in a bathroom where you can whack 'em over the head with a broom to make them die. Finally. Ugh. Unfun.

The storyline is heavily convoluted and has many plot holes. The 'twist' that appears is so out there and unbelievable that it ruins the entire game. It's like the writers were trying to go "we'll make them think it's REALLY supernatural, and then CHANGE IT!" This explains nothing and satisfies no one. It completely implausible and stupid.

And if that's not enough, this game isn't even that scary. There's a real problem with atmosphere, and it's so SIMPLE that they could've easily fixed it. The problem? The lights are too bright. In Clock Tower II, all of the lights work, and they're blaring full blast, so your character might as well be getting chased in the daytime. None of the previous Clock Tower's had this problem. Clock Tower especially was excellent at creating atmosphere. You can't even try to fix this yourself in game by turning off all of the lights because if you do, you can't select any items in that room.

The interface in terms of point and click is similar if not identical to Clock Tower, so there're no real complaints there. Some have complained about Bates weapons being 'clunky' or not easily used. This is true, but once you get the hang of it, it's not that difficult. I don't even consider this part of the game being a flaw because it makes sense for Bates' character. However, there's a point in the game where this becomes more and more of a chore, and you send Bates to do 'sweeping' missions because trying to hide as Alyssa is just too cumbersome. The game includes a button that skips cut scenes, but they made a mistake in making it the same as the panic button. This leads to scenes where you're mashing on the panic button to escape something, and a moment later suddenly find yourself in another room. It takes the accomplishment out of escaping from the monsters and is difficult to use.

The sound is very minimalist. There's nothing but silence for most of the game. The main theme is okay, though some of the sound effects grow very annoying. (For example, Alyssa's slippers hitting the ground.) As for the voice artists, none are truly horrible, but the lines they're forced to read are so stilted that any emotion they could have is taken away. The one exception is Bates, who has a very good voice actor. You may find yourself playing more as Bates just to hear his voice over Alyssa's.

This game has MANY endings, but seeing as you can get them all within two play-throughs, and most of them are as simple as "You get STABBED," this is a real waste.

In terms of characters, beyond Alyssa, Bates, Shannon, and maybe Allan Hale, none of them are remarkable or stand out. Some are in fact so simple and one-dimensional that they seem to have no point in the story at all and you wonder why they're even there.

It is crystal clear what the mistakes in this game are, and it is even more frustrating because most could be corrected with little alteration to the game itself. The major one is the story: instead of focusing on Alyssa's alternate personality, Bates, we instead get unbelievable, incomprehensible detail about this 'Cerebral Toxin'. And this is a shame, because when you see the little bit of how characters interact that made it into the game, it's interesting, and it's poignant, and it's over much much too soon.

This game had real potential. The initial premise and general concept has much potential, as we've seen with how good Clock Tower was. However, what has been presented is a muddled mess that one can, if patient and diligent enough, pick out admist the garbage. But to do so is a real Struggle. That is the real "Struggle Within".

Therefore, you might want to play this game if you were a real Clock Tower fan and just will play ANYTHING that uses the same general concept and interface, but otherwise you'll be bored of this game within five minutes.

In conclusion, this could have been a great game, with a few gameplay changes, a few changes in the story, and a reshifting of the focus of the game, but as it is, it's incredibly depressing to have to experience.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/04