Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within

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Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within

Developer(s)	Human Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Human Entertainment Agetec Inc.
Release date(s)	March 12 1998 October 31 1999
Genre(s)	Survival Horror
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Mature (M)
Platform(s)	PlayStation

Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within (クロックタワーゴーストヘッド, Kurokku Tawā Gōsuto Heddo^?, Clock Tower Ghost Head) is a point-and-click adventure game created by Human Entertainment, published by Agetec, and released for the PlayStation in 1998. It is a spin-off to the Clock Tower series and has almost nothing to do with the previous games besides its gameplay.

1 Gameplay
- 1.1 Technical Details
2 Plot
3 Characters
4 Trivia
5 Reception
6 Japanese Fanbase
7 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Following its predecessors, the gameplay is more about hiding and solving puzzles, rather than fighting the player's pursuers. This degenerates as the plot advances, and the main character is eventually forced to use guns and other tools in several endgame action sequences.

Its interface consists of a point-and-click system similar to the one used by Sierra Entertainment games, such as the Gabriel Knight series. There is an inventory screen that appears if the user drags the pointer to the upper side of the screen. The game's engine looks similar to Clock Tower (Clock Tower 2 in Japan), with a few minor alterations.

Clock Tower II features three chapters whose length can change depending on the choices made by the player. The game's replay value comes mostly in its 13 endings, which normally portray the main character dying in different violent ways. The paths to each separate ending can be confusing and difficult to follow accurately and, as such, many players utilize walkthroughs in order to achieve them.

Please refer to the external links to find walkthroughs for this game.

[edit] Technical Details

Clock Tower II is a 3D-based game for the Sony PlayStation. Its graphics are of the first generation 3D variety, and thus would be considered poor by today's standards. The game was often criticized for a lack of upgrades from its predecessor in the series. It uses low resolution textures and character models with low polygon counts.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the opening FMV, two people are seen holding flashlights and digging in a graveyard. One of them uncovers the dirt and finds a baby which almost suffocated to death. This girl was taken in and later named Alyssa.

Flash forward to seventeen years later, Alyssa Hale is a schoolgirl who has been having dark visions of murdering people ever since she received her father's amulet. She wakes up only to discover that those dreams have come true. There is a cold-blooded, immoral male personality inside her named "Mr. Bates" who makes her do things. However, when she has her amulet, it keeps her safe from his invasions. She was released out of a mental hospital and is staying with a family friend. As she arrives at the Tate home, she discovers the grisly secret of the "Maxwell Curse". In order to survive, Alyssa will have to trust her dark side, Bates.

[edit] Characters

Alyssa Hale (御堂島優, Midōshima Yū^?)

Alyssa is the main protagonist of the game. She is a tormented 17-year-old girl suffering from multiple personality disorder. She is spending the weekend at a family friend's house during the starting events of the game. Alyssa is a young girl that Allen Hale dug up from the Maxwell family grave to cause the ruin of George Maxwell. Her real name is Lynn Maxwell (才堂凛, Saidō Rin^?). Her father, the director of a major hospital, was not home much, so Alyssa spent much of her childhood alone and she grew up to become a very quiet girl. When she was still quite young, her father gave her a charm which she called "Amulet" (ミコシサマ, Mikoshi-Sama^?). She carried it with her always and it became a source of power. She has a gloomy disposition. Possessed with spiritual intuition, she wants to link everything to otherworldly phenomena.

Mr. Bates (翔, Shō^?)

Bates is Alyssa Hale's male alter ego. The Maxwells, fearing that their twins were the "Cursed Children" born yet again, buried them alive in the family grave just after they were born, as was done in past generations. Bates is cruel, unjust, and heartless, yet kind to Alyssa, which might be a simple defense instinct. Any actual significance or reason for his existence is unknown. He killed some boys who were harassing Alyssa, which lead to Alyssa's institutionalization in a genetics asylum. Through the game, he can be dominant if Alyssa isn't wearing the special amulet and encounters a shocking event or danger, and can be dormant if Alyssa is wearing her special amulet. Only Bates can use guns and other weapons that are obtained throughout the game, making him the fighter side of Alyssa.

Allen Hale (御堂島崇, Midōshima Takashi^?)

Allen is Alyssa's guardian, but Shannon Lewis is his true daughter. Hale at one time worked with Philip Tate at Memorial Pharmaceuticals Research Lab. Hale was among the top technicians at the lab until the science genius George Maxwell appeared and ousted him from his position. Consequently, he conspired with Philip Tate to dig up Maxwell's illegitimate child from the grave. The plan was to cause the ruin of George Maxwell, but instead of using Alyssa, he exacted his revenge by infecting a golden statue with a toxin that would cause anyone who touched the statue to go raving mad. He tricked his best friend Philip into keeping the Yellow Doll in order to stop the Maxwell curse, only making the curse come to life. He also sent the statue to Maxwell.

Philip Tate (鷹野初, Takano Hajime^?)

Tate is the director of the Memorial Pharmaceuticals Research Lab. Although a coward willing to even commit crime if it would help him reach is ambitions, Tate digs up the Maxwell grave at Hale's urging. Hale told Tate that the statue contained the Maxwell Family secret. He fully believed the Maxwell Curse, and he kept the statue hidden in a closet for 16 years without noticing the toxin hidden inside. He is the family friend of the Hale's and the head director of a pharmaceutical laboratory. He studies the effect of the gangrene parasite that revives the body of a person, ultimately transforming them into a zombie.

Kathryn Tate (鷹野弥生, Takano Yayoi^?)

She is Philip Tate's wife. She has no particular role, but she is the one who contacts the detective who takes Alyssa to the hospital. Philip's wife who becomes hopeless and troubled when one of her daughters becomes a mindless creature and another becomes a murderous, zombie-like child because of the Yellow Cursed Doll which Philip hid in the closet, where it was discovered by their youngest daughter Stephanie.

Stephanie Tate (鷹野千夏, Takano Chinatsu^?)

A first grader and the younger daughter of Tate's who becomes a murderous zombie after she is infected with the toxin implanted in the golden statue by Allen Hale. She is ultimately returned to normal from a chemical reaction when she sees the statue burn before her eyes. In the end, the spirit freed from Stephanie was merely a hallucination from the toxin that Alyssa saw; she was not possessed by anything. She is the first enemy that the player encounters. She laughs like a manic child that serves as a warning that she is near.

Ashley Tate (鷹野秋代, Takano Akiyo^?)

Ashley is a first year middle school student. While coming home from school she is infected with the Cerebral Toxin by George Maxwell and becomes a living corpse. After returning home, she attacks her mother, Kathryn, and is then killed by her father, Philip, but her right arm which was injected with the toxin continues to live. She is the second child of the Tate's. She is a close friend of Alyssa.

Michael Tate (鷹野雅春, Takano Masaharu^?)

He is the eldest son in the Tate Family and about to enter high school. While trying to escape from Stephanie who has become a murderous zombie, he climbs inside a suit of samurai armor. While in the armor, he, too, goes crazy from the gangrene parasite used in the helmet and himself becomes a wandering, murderous zombie.

Alex Corey (礎等, Ishizue Hitoshi^?)

A cool, snobbish detective from the neighboring town of Prunedale. He is a detective who is recently investigating Philip Tate. He's a supporting character. Takes Alyssa to the hospital after receiving Kathryn Tate's call.

Doug Bowman (剛元亘, Gōmoto Wataru^?)

He is a newspaper reporter with a strong sense of justice. He, too, is relegated to playing a supporting role like Alex Corey, but his personality does not change. He is open-hearted and straight-forwarded, but he is bad at dealing with dead-end situations. He tends to make hasty decisions. He is a reporter investigating suspicious activity at the hospital.

Henry Kaplan (宇路達士, Uro Tatsushi^?)

He is the director of Memorial Hospital. Kaplan helps George Maxwell by providing him with patients for experiments. This causes Memorial Hospital to have a bad reputation.

Jessica Cook (岸温美, Kishi Atsumi^?)

She is the Head Nurse of Memorial Hospital. She investigates Kaplan's activities on her own. When she discovers the Cerebral Toxin plan, there are already many zombies and she thinks it is too late to do anything about it so she tries to commit suicide. She is an extremely overwrought, emotional woman.

Shannon Lewis (藤香, Fujika^?)

She's the daughter of Allen Hale. When she was 8 years old, her parents divorced, and she was taken into custody by her mother, who died of an illness a year later. She is bent on revenge by killing Alyssa, as she was jealous of her relationship with Allen, but did save her life once. It was revealed that she did this so that she could make Alyssa suffer herself.

George Maxwell (才堂不志人, Saidō Fushito^?)

He works at Memorial Pharmaceuticals Research Lab. He's the eldest son of the noble Maxwell Family. He always had a reputation of being a genius, and rightfully so. Allan Hale is jealous of him and plans the whole incident. In 1982, George has a baby girl, Lynn, but believing her to be cursed, he buries her according to Maxwell tradition. From then on he hatches his Cerebral Toxin plan, which, for him, is most likely revenge against all humanity. He goes insane from the toxin implanted in the statue which was sent to him by Allen Hale. He turns into a psychopathic killer and he is virtually dead. He's the third and final enemy of the game. He wears a red hannya mask and bloody lab coat, and wields a giant, bloody machete.

[edit] Trivia

As the main series is set in an European background, Clock Tower Ghost Head is set in Osaka, Japan, and is heavily influenced by Japanese folklore. In the American version, Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within, Agetec changed the setting to California and Westernized the characters' names while keeping the other Japanese settings.

[edit] Reception

The game was poorly reviewed by IGN and GameSpot, having plot holes, bad voice acting and morbid multiple endings, but despite that fact, it gained a consistent fanbase.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Japanese Fanbase

Ghost Head is the first and only Clock Tower whose story takes place in Japan. This could be one of the reasons why the famous Clock Tower Webring was created. The Clock Tower webring is composed entirely with Japanese websites containing drawings, guides, profiles and even Bulletin board systems about the game.

Even if all Clock Tower games are covered on this websites, Ghost Head it's still their main theme.^{[citation needed]}