I completed the original Clock Tower for the SNES this weekend. I had misgivings at first; I mean, who would have thought that a survival horror game could be done as a side scroller? The game was excellent, however, and I am very glad I played through it.

Though completing Clock Tower doesn’t take very long, the designers at Human Entertainment did an excellent job in the replay department. The game features 9 unique endings (two of which I managed to see), some of which can only be unlocked by failing to accomplish certain tasks. The game also does tricky things like sealing off certain rooms and moving other rooms around to keep even veteran players on their toes. I was quite impressed.

Unfortunately, the original Clock Tower was never released outside of Japan. If you can find the ROM, an excellent English patch exists that will let you play through the game without knowing any Japanese.

After playing Clock Tower I realized that it is very similar to the GBA version of Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Haunted Mansion isn’t out yet, but from what I saw at E3 the GBA game looks a whole lot like Clock Tower. As you can probably tell from this Preview at GameSpot however, Haunted Mansion GBA doesn’t look like it will be nearly as good. In fact, the version I played at E3 was positively atrocious. However, I suppose I should withhold judgment until the game is released.