Clock Tower

Human Entertainment - 1995 - SNES

Clock Tower is a true survival horror game that actually pre-dates Resident Evil and was released on the SNES in 1995. This game is not to be confused with the 1996 PS1 game Clock Tower 2 which was released in the U.S. simply as Clock Tower because the original SNES game never made it outside of Japan. So the Clock Tower series has the old Final Fantasy numbering problem where no one really knows which game you're actually talking about until you clarify with the year or system. I think we should all just universally agree to use the Japanese numbering for these games to minimize the amount of unnecessary confusion. 

It actually surprised me that the original Clock Tower was never released outside of Japan because on the surface at least, it seems like a very American styled game. You play as the very American-sounding "Jennifer Simpson" who is a young teenage girl and an orphan. In the beginning of the game, Jennifer and a few of her friends are sent to live at the "The Clock Tower" which is a giant old mansion owned by the wealthy Barrows family. Shortly after arriving, Jennifer finds herself separated from her friends and can her distant screams from somewhere in the mansion. She eventually encounters "Scissorman" - a short boy with a deformed face who wields a gigantic pair of hedge clippers. Scissorman is a villian who is totally straight out of all of the American slasher films that gained popularity in the 80s. Even Clock Tower's opening music sounds remarkably similar to Michael Myers' theme song from Halloween. 

Mechanically, Clock Tower is a blend of Survival Horror and a Point and Click adventure game. You move a cursor around the screen with the SNES d-pad and can interact with items or objects by pressing the "A" button. Moving Jennifer around the screen is done in a similar fashion. I know Clock Tower is nearly 20 years old now, but there were a few things about this game that really felt outdated. Actually, moving Jennifer is actually one of the first things I noticed that really irked me. WHY IS HER MOVE SPEED SO SLOW????? Out of curiosity, I went back and timed how long it takes Jennifer to cross the the main lobby from one end to the other. It literally takes 36 seconds. Think about how long that is. Even once I figured out that you can double tap A to run (why would I not ALWAYS want my character to run??), it still takes 13 seconds. Too slow!! Even in 1995, players had to have gotten fed up with this.

Each encounter with Scissorman is resolved by running away from him; there is no combat in the game. Scissorman usually shows up randomly while you're exploring the mansion or trying to solve puzzles, but some of his appearances are triggered by certain actions. The puzzle solving in Clock Tower is not really a strong suit, but the game does build tension somewhat effectively. Like any good horror game, there is a fair amount of suspense when Scissorman ISN'T around, because you're not sure when he'll appear next. But when he does appear, dealing with him is really more of an annoyance than a terror. Moving Jennifer around often felt unresponsive and even when Scissorman killed me, the game just took me right back to where I was before I died. So really death in Clock Tower is just kind of a mild annoyance. I felt that this game could have benefited from knowing that the player's enemies are always the most scary when you can't see them. The best parts of Clock Tower were when Scissorman was nowhere around. Like Alfred Hitchcock said, "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it". 

Summary:

I can't really whole-heartedly recommend this game unless you're a huge fan of classic horror games or classic point and click games and can overlook this game's faults. I'm afraid it really hasn't aged that well. It does suspense somewhat well, but everything else will feel very old. I could see how this game would have had its place back in 1995 with like young kids staying up late and playing this at a sleepover with the lights off or something like that. I've heard subsequent titles in this series improved on the formula of the original, so maybe I'll check one of them out eventually. If you do decide to go back to the original, I'd advise doing so on an emulator that has a "speed up" feature. Seriously, that walk animation...

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

LucasArts - 1993 - SNES/Genesis

I'm cheating a little bit here by labeling Zombies Ate My Neighbors as a horror game. I don't think it's truly a horror game, but it is horror themed if you can make a distinction between those two things. So remember when LucasArts was a thing? Well back in the 90s before all they were doing was milking the Star Wars license, LucasArts used to be known for quality point-and-click adventure games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. It was around this time that the creative talent at LucasArts broke away from their traditional fare of PC adventure games to produce Zombies Ate My Neighbors, a co-op shoot-em-up game for the SNES and Genesis. Yes, the game can also be played single player - but find a buddy if you can. The real fun is had in multiplayer.

So you, and hopefully a friend, will play as Zeke and Julie - two teenage neighborhood kids who witness an attack on their suburb by just about every horror movie monster you can think of. There's zombies, mummies, werewolves, aliens, vampires, you name it. Zeke and Julie arm themselves with all sorts of unconventional weaponry like squirt guns, soda cans, dinner plates and fire extinguishers to combat the threat. Each weapon's effectiveness varies depending on which enemy it's used on. For instance, mummies are weak vs. soda cans. Because, you know, reasons.

The game features 55 levels, but I'm not sure I've ever even made it past the twenty something range levels in this game. It gets pretty hard pretty quick, even with co-op help. The main objective in each level is not to kill all of the enemies, but to save all of the neighbors in each level. Each level's map is a non-linear, giant block of terrain and you must rescue each and every one of the neighbors hidden in the level. You don't have a hard time limit, but the longer you take, the more likely it is that neighbors will start being killed by the infinitely respawning monsters in each level. Once neighbors die, they won't come back - even in subsequent levels - so rescuing them as quickly as possible is paramount. The game is over when all of the neighbors die or if you lose all of your lives. Ammo management is also a key mechanic as each weapon has a finite amount of ammo. You can find more ammo, different weapons, health packs and other helpful items in each level, but you'll have to look carefully as these upgrades are often well hidden.

Summary:
There's not much else that can be said about this game. It's a classic co-op shooter that still holds up very well today. It's difficult, but it's still a great game to share with a friend. Discovering the game's secrets, fighting huge mutant babies and frantically running away from chainsaw killers in a giant hedge maze is still just as fun as it was 20+ years ago.

Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball

Software Creations - 1994 - SNES

I am not a baseball fan. I played softball in high school more or less against my will for 3 or 4 years. I was terrible at it and the experience made me hate the sport of baseball. It's quite boring compared to other sports I watch or play; there's just a lot of standing around and waiting for something to happen. And watching baseball on TV is even more dull and uninteresting to me. So understand when you read this that I am not, for example, a football fan telling you how great Madden is or a soccer fan telling you amazing FIFA is. I am someone who hates baseball telling you that my favorite sports video game is actually my least favorite sport

Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (KGJPMLB) is actually the first of four baseball games to bear Griffey's name. There was another one made for the SNES and two more for the N64. I haven't bothered playing the other games in the series because I'm sure they probably added a bunch of new features and depth and realism to the game, which is not really what I look for in a sports game. The whole realism thing is exactly what turns me off in modern sports games too. I don't care if LeBron James' face has 90 billion polygons and the sweat will roll realistically down his face or whatever. I want to make LeBron James do 17 backflips, dunk the ball and shatter the glass NBA Jam style. I want to be able to piledrive players on the opposite team way after the whistle NFL Blitz style. I want fantasy in sports games, not realism. The beauty of KGJPMLB is in its simplicity and its goofiness, not depth or realism.

Ever played Divekick? The metagame of KGJPMLB is sort of similar. The buttons and controls are easy to grasp, so the difficulty and fun of the game lies not with memorizing complex sets of buttons, but more with trying to predict what your opponent will do. And like Divekick, the game is best played with another human opponent, not by yourself. One player plays the batter and the other will play the pitcher. And just as in real baseball, this is where the main interaction of the game lies. But KGJPMLB speeds up the normal slow pace of baseball by cutting out all of the downtime and waiting in the game and speeding up the action. The pitcher will be able to control the speed of his pitches, holding down for a fastball and holding up for a changeup. The pitcher can also throw curveballs, holding either left or right to make the ball veer wildly back and forth. The hitting/pitching mechanics are simple and well implemented. As a batter, you'll probably find the game difficult to play on reaction. You'll have a huge advantage if you've caught on to the pitchers patterns and can guess what speed and direction the ball is coming at. And as the pitcher, you need to keep varying the pitches to keep the batter on his toes. It's so satisfying as a pitcher when you throw two consecutive fastballs and then the batter swings way early at your changeup and curses you out.

As I mentioned before, the game is also kind of goofy. Apparently KGJPMLB had difficulty securing the rights to depict actual players from the MLB player's association. As such, Ken Griffey, Jr. is the only real MLB player to appear in the game, despite the game depicting real teams and real stadiums. This opened the door for KGJPMLB to take a little creative license with the player's names on each team. The player's names on each team in the game belong to a specific theme. For instance, the Kansas City Royals are all named after Presidents (A. Lincoln, J. Kennedy, R. Nixon etc.), the Boston Red Sox are named after characters from the show Cheers (C. Claven, N. Peterson, S. Malone etc.), and the Milwaukee Brewers are superheroes' secret identities (C. Kent, P. Parker, B. Wayne etc.). It's kind of a fun "guess the theme" mini-game each time you play a new team. KGJPMLB is animated in a sort of cartoonish way that matches perfectly matches its goofy, fun gameplay. When players overrun the ball in the outfield and slam into the backstop, they make a crashing sound and fall comically flat over backwards, which I used to love and laugh at as a kid. After striking out, the players may also break their bats in frustration, which is a nice little touch. Anyone who has played this game before also remembers batters turning to face the screen and yelling "Aww c'mon!" directly at the player after striking out in what I found out is actually a soundbyte of Jim Belushi's voice

Composed by the legendary Tim Follin, this game has a very short, but very excellent soundtrack. Also if you've never heard of Tim Follin before, you should look him up. He's probably never composed for any game that you've played or maybe even heard of, but he's an absolute legendary oldschool chiptune composer. All the while you're playing KGJPMLB, you'll be treated to this rockin' anthem, which is one of my all-time favorite tracks ever composed for any video game. Love that track. So catchy.

Summary:
If you and a friend are looking for a good, quick game to kill some time, you can do worse than KGJPMLB. It's fast, goofy and fun and will probably have the two of you shouting at each other in no time. KGJPMLB is a good example of exactly what I want in a sports game: Crazy, goofy, fast-paced action with a good sense of humor.

Chrono Trigger

Squaresoft - 1995 - SNES/PS1/DS/Mobile

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

I wonder why Japanese style role playing games aren't made much anymore. At least they're not released as frequently as they used to be. Especially when you compare what's been released in the last generation of gaming systems to what was released on the SNES or the PS1. It seems like SNES/PS1 JRPGs usually sold well, were usually well received and games like Final Fantasy VII (PS1) and Chrono Trigger (SNES) are now often referred to as some of the best games ever made. A video I watched recently suggests that JRPGs like Chrono Trigger are on the rise again. I sure hope so. By the way, you should totally watch all of PBS Game/Show's videos. Good stuff.

Referring to themselves as "the dream team", Chrono Trigger was the brainchild of Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of the Final Fantasy series), Yuji Horii (creator of the Dragon Quest series) and Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball Z). Sakaguchi designed the battle system, so everything will feel familiar to anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game before. There's the active time battle system, potions and ethers and all that stuff. Horii wrote most of the story and scenarios with input from Toriyama. Both Horii and Toriyama were big fans of time travel fiction and wrote the game around the theme of time travel. Toriyama did a lot of the artwork for the game including the character designs and the visual styles for each time period. When I think about it, Chrono Trigger shares quite a few stylistic similarities with Dragonball Z. It's especially evident in the future and prehistoric time periods, whereas the present and middle ages feel more like they're out of Dragon Quest. So it's pretty much like playing a Dragon Quest game set in a world out of Dragonball Z with the battle system of an old school Final Fantasy.

Squaresoft also commissioned a then unknown and unproved composer, Yasunori Mitsuda to do the soundtrack for the game. Chrono Trigger has become one of my all time favorite video game soundtracks and it's some of Mitsuda's best work. Tracks like Time Circuits, Silvard, Secret of the Forest, Chrono Trigger and Frog's Theme blow my mind. Keep in mind when you listen to these they were made in 1995 on a SNES. Also keep in mind this was Mitsuda's very first soundtrack. Crazy. No one should be this good on their first try. The tracks perfectly complement the time period and scenery and art style to create mood. Exactly what a good soundtrack should do. There's even little musical motifs he repeats throughout the soundtrack, altering them slightly to fit the mood of each track. Amazing stuff. Also Robo's Theme sounds suspiciously like Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give you Up". Just sayin'.

The main character of Chrono Trigger is a boy named Crono. Yeah, Chrono and Crono. It gets confusing. I'm guessing in Japanese, Crono's name is written as some clever play on the word for "time" rather than just dropping the "h" from "chrono", but whatever. In the beginning of the game, Crono's scientist friend accidentally transports them 400 years into the past while testing a new invention. When trying to get back to the present, the party way overshoots their destination and winds up in the year 2300. When they arrive in the future, they find the world is in ruins. Few humans are left, there is no food and the Earth is a barren wasteland. The find out that the Earth was practically destroyed in 1999 by a giant monster called Lavos who emerged from deep in the Earth's core, where he had been resting for millions of years, slowly absorbing the Earth's energy. Yes, the Earth is destroyed in 1999. Keep in mind this game was made 20 years ago, but they probably should have picked a date farther in the future to avoid dating themselves. Most of the game's plot then deals with the party trying to find a way to defeat Lavos and spare the Earth from being destroyed in 1999. You'll need to time travel to different eras to learn how to defeat Lavos, enlisting help from a robot from the future, a cave woman from the prehistoric era, and even a talking frog from medieval times. The story's tone covers everything from adventurous & light-hearted to mysterious & thrilling and even sometimes bleak & depressing. It's well paced, and there are memorable characters and events that held my interest throughout the game

Gameplay wise, Chrono Trigger feels like a pretty standard old school Final Fantasy style RPG. You wait for your action meter to fill up, perform an action and repeat. There's really nothing too special about the battle system in Chrono Trigger, which is kind of disappointing. But even with a bland combat system, there's still fun to be had in battles though. The fights will feel challenging, but also not unfair. I never feel like I need to sit and grind in Chrono Trigger, and I do feel like that's necessity in some of the older Final Fantasy games and other older JRPGs. Which is fine if you like grinding, but I don't. If you get stuck on a boss in Chrono Trigger, you're probably not using the correct strategy. Some bosses are susceptible to physical attacks, while others are magic weak. Some bosses are susceptible to physical attacks, but only after using magic. Some have attack patterns you can exploit. You kind of have to experiment to find which strategies work best on which bosses. And I like having to figure out that these strategy puzzles rather than having to grind to get past bosses.

Chrono Trigger is notably one of the first RPGs to have a seamless transition between exploring and fighting. When you encounter an enemy while exploring, a menu just pops up and you start fighting, no transition or screen wipe to another battle scene or anything like that. It's also one of the first games I can think of to have multiple different endings depending on what actions you choose and which sidequests you do. There's also a good amount of optional sidequesting you can do to see more of a certain character's background story while also obtaining more powerful weapons and equipment for that character. There's even a secret party member you can unlock if you make the proper dialogue choices and do the appropriate sidequests.

Summary:
In short, Chrono Trigger is a fun and memorable adventure if you like old school JRPGs. The battle system is a bit unimaginative, but the game is carried by its well paced story, inspired art design and its incredible soundtrack. I played through its sequel Chrono Cross and... kinda didn't like it much. I'd love to see another game in the Chrono series and it seems now is a perfect time for it what with Square Enix's recent financial struggles. Another Chrono game seems like money in the bank to me. That and a FF7 HD remake.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

Rare - 1995 - SNES

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

This game is my childhood. Which is ironic because I never actually owned this game. I can remember riding my bike down to Blockbuster video on the weekend and spending my allowance on renting this game again and again. I'm sure I probably spent enough money renting this game that I could have just bought it. I was a huge fan of the original Donkey Kong Country and this game was an excellent sequel. I remember how mind blowing it was when I found out there was a secret bonus world as a kid.

As an adult, I still love this game and I may have replayed it more now than I ever did as a kid. The platforming is excellently done. It requires a mix of skill, timing and precision and is very satisfying when pulled off correctly. In DKC2, Donkey Kong has been kidnapped by the vile Kaptain K. Rool and it's up to Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie to rescue him. Dixie can float and hover after her jumps while Diddy has a longer cartwheel attack and is a bit faster than Dixie. I remember as a kid loving the safety of Dixie's slow floaty jumps. Now I much prefer blasting through the levels as fast as possible with Diddy's speed.

Of course you can always play the levels more slowly, finding all of the bonus rooms, hidden DK coins and Kong letters. But to me, the satisfaction of perfectly speed running a DKC2 level is unmatched in any other platformer, even a Mario or a Sonic game. The level design in most levels is really excellent and lends itself to be a good challenge for speed running.

DKC2 was the first video game soundtrack I really fell in love with as a kid. I can remember putting a tape recorder up to the TV's speakers and recording the soundtrack on cassette tape so I could listen to it later. Even as an adult I love listening to it at work and David Wise is one of my favorite video game composers next to Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) and Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger). Stickerbrush Symphony, Hot Head Hop, and Disco Train are some highlights, but the whole soundtrack is really solid from top to bottom.

One interesting mechanic in the game that I don't think I've seen in any other platformers is that DKC2 actually kind of discourages you from saving too much. Each time you find a save point in a world, the first save is free. But each time you save the game after that, it costs 2 coins. If you're not playing the game on an emulator, it sort of makes you think twice before mindlessly and habitually saving after every single level. Kind of an interesting risk/reward mechanic, I think it like to see that implemented in modern games. I mean I've played this game enough times that actually beating the levels has become trivial and I rack up quite an abundance of extra coins, but a beginner to this game will likely find it quite challenging.

There's a really good difficulty curve in this game that teaches you the mechanics in the easier early levels, but then nicely matches your skill progression with more difficult levels as you advance through the game, which I feel is difficult to do in game design. Then the final levels and the secret world are a great and challenging test of you platforming skill and reflexes. There's also great variety in the level design between horizontal/vertical levels, climbing levels, underwater levels, barrel levels, minecart levels, animal levels and so on. The game can be played solo or tackled cooperatively although both players can't play simultaneously unfortunately.

Summary:
Check it out if you enjoy platformers, difficult games, or excellent soundtracks. To me, DKC2 stands shoulder to shoulder with Mario 3 and Sonic 2 as one of the best all-time platformers.

Final Fantasy V

Squaresoft - 1992 - SNES/PS1/GBA/iOS/Android

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

(Author's note: This review was initially posted on 2/17/2014 and was rewritten on 9/25/2015. You can read the initial review below as a comment)

I have somewhat of a soft spot for old school turn-based JRPGS, and this is one of my favorites. FFV tragically gets overlooked quite a bit because it didn't have an official U.S. release/translation until 1999, seven years after it came out. This is really a shame because I think FFV outshines the other SNES era Final Fantasy games in a lot of ways. I'm sure this is a controversial opinion as debating which games in the Final Fantasy series always tends to get heated, but if you don't believe me and you haven't played this game, you really should.

FFV's story is kind of... ehhh. It's pretty standard template "heroes save the world" writing. Story is not where this game shines, but pretty early in the game, you’ll unlock FFV’s job system. FFV's job system is what sets this game apart from other Final Fantasy titles, for better or for worse. The various jobs are slowly unlocked at key story points as you progress through the game. You initially unlock knight, monk, thief, white mage, black mage and blue mage but will eventually unlock all 21 jobs (25 in the enhanced remake). You can assign any of your 4 party members any job and can reassign them at any time. Changing jobs will affect your character’s stats and what items they're able to equip as well as grant them different abilities to use in battle. Once you master a job’s ability you can carry it over to use with other jobs. This, to me, is where FFV is at its best. Trying to figure out which combinations of jobs and abilities were powerful and which were useless was really fun and rewarding. For instance, combining the Ninja job's "dual wield" ability with the knight class' high innate defense and ability to equip high damage longswords was pretty good if my memory serves. FFV is paced pretty well such that you'll unlock more jobs just as you were mastering previous ones so you always have new combinations and tricks to try out and experiment with. The ending of the game comes right about the time you've mastered enough jobs to be dangerous. Unleashing all of your ridiculous tricks and crazy combinations on the final boss feels like an adequate final exam of your mastery of the job system.

I think FFV is one of Nobuo Uematsu’s first really excellent soundtracks . Not that any that came before were inferior, but FFV really showcases Uematsu's musical range and his ability to create timeless and catchy tunes one right after the other, over and over again. “To the North Mountain”, “Home, Sweet Home" and "Clash on the Big Bridge" are some of my favorite tracks.

Summary:
If you enjoy old school RPGs or are a FF fan who missed out on this game the first time around, you should check this game out. If you don't mind the slower pacing of the turn-based combat, I've found experimenting with FFV's job system while listening to the genius of Uematsu to be a really enjoyable experience

Tactics Ogre

Quest - 1995 - SNES/Sega Saturn/PS1/PSP

One of the coolest SNES games you've probably never heard of, Tactics Ogre was first released on the SNES in Japan in 1995. Actually, it was never officially released in the U.S. until it was ported to the PSP a few years ago. But your best bet to play this game is probably a SNES emulator with one of the fan-translated ROMs, because no one I know actually owns a PSP.

Tactics Ogre was made by largely the exact same team of people that worked on Final Fantasy Tactics. Same director, same story writer, same composer and (some of) the same artists. This game will feel very familiar if you've ever played FF Tactics. I realize now that some of the battle scenarios and story scenarios for FF Tactics were lifted straight out of this game. If you've never played FF Tactics, Tactics Ogre is a turn based strategy game kind of like XCOM: Enemy Unknown. One of the cool differences in this game is that there are decision-based branching story points. I’m not sure why they went away from that for FF Tactics.

I really want to like Tactics Ogre more, but there are a few gameplay issues present in this game that weren't fixed until FF Tactics that make this game pretty annoying. Firstly, this game is hard. Like stupid hard. Like evil hard. Which isn't bad, but when you combine that with a permadeath mechanic where your units instantly die, it feels unfair. In FF Tactics when a unit’s HP hits zero, it begins a 3 turn timer where that unit is bleeding out and can be revived. They only will die when the timer hits 0. In Tactics Ogre when a unit’s HP hits zero, they’re dead instantly. So many ragequits. So many battles restarted. You’ll eventually get a class that can bring back units who have died in a battle, but it’s not until way late in the game.

This game is also way more grindy than FF Tactics. There were a few battles where I realized I wasn't even close to winning and had to level up my units for a bit before retrying. And like most RPGs, grinding in Tactics Ogre is not that much fun.

Summary:
If you want to try an obscure tactical RPG with some old school difficulty, you could do worse than Tactics Ogre.