Lamont's Clock Tower/Haunting Ground Collection (WiP)

I am not doubting of the game existence, because I saw the intro and images years ago, the site I saw about this BS had a similar design like clocktower.fr but it was in English, it could be an mistake of my part, but definetely I recall something about copies lost in a fire in a warehouse, and the way stated it was like the game was lost, that's why I've said it was weird, and shortly after I saw the intro at the time.

Just moving to another question, was there any plan to localize the first one?

 

Clocktower.fr previously included an English translation. Shyma then combined it with a forced google translation of his site's pages to make the site easier to update instead of having duplicates upon duplicates of pages and again, there wasn't anything about copies lost in a fire on there in the past either.

You can also see the big box original release and every other version of the first game in my photo:



From left to right in order of release:

Clock Tower 1995 (this version was also reissued in 1996) SFC
Clock Tower for Windows 95 1997
Clock Tower SFC 1997 Reissue #1
Clock Tower ~ The First Fear ~ Limited Edition
Clock Tower ~ The First Fear ~ Standard Edition
Clock Tower SFC 1997 Reissue #2
Nintendo SF Memory Cassette Loppi Clock Tower version (same as SHVC-AJEJ-JPN-2)
Clock Tower for Win95 Ultra2000 version (has a higher quality artwork print on the disc)
Clock Tower for WonderSwan

Then not pictured due to their releases being digital - Clock Tower SFC (SHVC-AJEJ-JPN) Wii Virtual Store, Clock Tower ~ The First Fear ~ PSN Classic

And there were no plans to localize the first Clock Tower as there were a few issues brought about it's heavy inspiration from Dario Argento's Phenomena/Creepers that could've caused issues with the appearance of Jennifer despite the in-game "cutscene" pictures were actually painted over photos they took of their division's secretary dressed up in different outfits.

That and Nintendo outside of Japan was also still heavily censoring stuff late 1995, early 1996 and was trying to continue maintaining the whole "family friendly" image so there was no way in hell it would get localized on a Nintendo console. It would've had higher odds with the PlayStation version but given the story was told in Clock Tower 2/Clock Tower US there wasn't really any need to localize it given how they were demanding blood be recoloured green and the like, having a murderous child killing other children sure as hell wouldn't fly for Nintendo of America.

And given they didn't have a massive team and in-between development they were also spread across into helping teach and train people within the HUMAN Creative School which was a joint specialization school with the ASCII. I believe it was also the first or one of the first schools to offer specialized professional training for the industry and they also opened a Junior HUMAN Creative School.

In 1999 they suffered significant losses, they had about 206 or so staff initially. Goichi Suda left and a quite a few left with him when he formed Grasshopper Manufacture. Others were hired out by other companies or were brought into Spike LTD after HUMAN Group was filed for voluntary bankruptcy. In 2000, the bankruptcy claim was removed and the deal with Spike LTD for purchase of the remaining IPs was completed. Sunsoft had previously purchased the Clock Tower IP shortly after the initial bankruptcy was filed in court.

After bankruptcy was filed, the Human Creative School then became the "Pasona Softbank Creative School" and eventually became the "Theodore Creative School" before it was eventually closed in 2003, just short of being around for 15 years. The school was closed as there was a lack of recruits, most likely as more creative schools aimed for the industry popped up in the span of time it was around.

Though HUMAN Group also had a few joint ventures, like "Beck LTD" with Bandai - the "Bandai Entertainment Company" which was then later formed and is now part of the "BB Studio" from 2011 onwards.

HuneX (Human x NEC) is also another one of their joint ventures that still exist, a game subsidiary of NEC Home Electronics.

So given all of the crap that had been going down as Silent Hill suddenly reared it's head as being popular outside of Japan, Clock Tower was initially slated to be the main rival to the Biohazard/Resident Evil series as it was noted in a few interviews and from what the HUMAN Staff remember from game shows at the time that a decent amount of people weren't as impressed with Silent Hill as they were with Biohazard but they never expected the popularity boom outside of Japan whereas Clock Tower remained more popular in Japan than it did outside of it.

So a great deal of the staff got shifted out into these other joint ventures, others left, others got hired out by other companies and the like but a large chunk of the HUMAN staff are still in the industry and quite a few of them have been involved in some titles together and others like Goichi Suda/Suda51 are still kinda continuing what they started back in HUMAN - Killer7 was a sequel to his Twilight Syndrome series which included Moonlight Syndrome, to a lot of people it makes no sense but a large chunk of references remain. The spirit stuff with Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw is a throwback to this as well, the strange dreams is a throwback to Moonlight Syndrome and the wrestling stuff... One of his first games to be involved in were the Fire Pro Wrestling titles.

Shortly put - even if there had been plans in the pipeline to localize them in a pack at a later time, it would've never happened either.

 

Pasona School was a game design school?

I was more on the "side" the PSX and PC ports if there was plans to do it, since CT came at the very late life of SNES and the PSX and Saturn were already on the west, and because this was the only game that didn't get a localization, I tought that there could be any plans, my guess would be that CT2 would even get later if they had done it, since at the time most localized games as IIRC took almost year or so to release after the Japan one.

Was the cover art for the West release of Clock Tower (2) made by an american? Pretty looks like, as the Scissorman was shown as an adult with diferent costume and no hunchback, it does even looks like a man with a Brown hair with the face covered by shadows if you look from a distance, similar to Ark Thompson from RE Survivor.

 

"Pasona Softbank Creative School", formerly "HUMAN Creative School", known for being one of the first if not THE first dedicated, professional and industry run video game design and training school. A few projects came from the HUMAN Creative School such as The Fire Men game.

No, there were no plans to localize it. Instead of localizing it, it was cheaper to make a synopsis in Clock Tower 2 as people were being more impressed with 3D games so the demand for 2D Sprite based ones was quite a bit lower and would've no doubt added to the company filing for bankruptcy earlier if they had.

The game took roughly 10 months to localize in English but this also included a minor bug fix, they re-recorded all of the voice acting for the game and made a few back-end tweaks to optimize the game's files (as well as including hard-coded subtitles on the cutscenes which would then be used on the European language versions) - I actually have a prototype from during the US English localization of the Japanese version of the game towards the end of the localization work.

The cover art for Clock Tower in the North America/Canada and European release (including the censored German variant) was done by someone at HUMAN Entertainment America but I haven't been able to confirm exactly who did it though as there was additional artwork and some press media including additional artwork by the same artist which wasn't lumped in with the obvious Japanese concept art.

US/EU Uncensored Cover Art
EU GER Censored Cover Art

It's a pretty big difference compared to the Japanese concept and official artwork majority of which I have put online though I also have a few more to add when I finally get around to putting the update up. >_<;

Hifumi and the Japanese team don't know who did the US one and I don't have a full-on hand staff list of the US HUMAN Division to have been able to put a name to the US stuff sadly.

 

I've noticed that the voice acting was redone when I decided to see an video of the Japanese verson, I tought I would see a Japanese dub, instead it used the same voice actors (I guess) but with an slighty altered script from what I saw from the E ending.

I will play one of them someday...

Also here is a funny fact, in Brazil there is an small indie Band called Hewie, my friend cousin is one of the members, and he said that it was based on Hewie from Haunting Ground.

 

The voice over work was redone with the same voice actors, they were all part of the one casting agency in Japan. The voice behind Rick is actually Barry Gjerde, infamous for playing both physically and voicing Barry Burton in Resident Evil/Biohazard and Yoshimitsu in the Tekken series.

For instance:

Rumiko Varnes Japanese Voice Reel - Jennifer in Clock Tower 2
Rumiko Varnes English Voice Reel - Jennifer in Clock Tower 2
Jeff Manning Japanese Voice Reel - Nolan in Clock Tower 2
Jeff Manning English Voice Reel - Nolan in Clock Tower 2
Barry Gjerde English Voice Reel - Rick in Clock Tower 2
Barry Gjerde Japanese Voice Reel - Rick in Clock Tower 2
Jojo Otani Japanese Voice Reel - Harris in Clock Tower 2

The script was re-written as it came off somewhat awkwardly in the Japanese version and there were obvious "Engrish" moments with "The Balow Mansion" in contrast to "The Burroughs Mansion" and there are a few other moments that really had to be fixed before the release outside of Japan.

Oh nice, what kind of music do "Hewie" play? If they were to do any covers, I'd be sure to include a shout out on Stalking Insanity.

 

Never heard them, LOL, It was a coincidence at the time, because the first I knew the band was by one of my facebook school friends photo, she was with two girls in the Zombie Walk in São Paulo, one of them was the vocalist, and then sometime later the friend I mentioned above mentioned that his cousin was the pianist and the band name was based on that character.

I don't know what is their style either LOL, tried to find if they had done any english cover, but no luck, they sing in Brazillian Portuguese.

Anyway here is the band facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/BandaHewie

 

Had a listen, seem to be Alternative?

Anyway. In terms of covers, I was mainly meaning if they had done any VGM covers/arrangements/remixes given the origin of their band's name. Anyway, they sound very good. Pity I don't know a great deal of Portuguese.

 

Oh I get it, nope indeed, but I don't know who gave the band this name, I doubt that most of them had even played the game.

 

Ah, well fair enough. Interesting tidbit either way.

Hm, Clock Tower ~ The First Fear ~ translation patch may also have a possible Arabic translation on the way. Waiting to hear back from the user that has offered to do it.

If it's possible, then it'll bring the current languages to: English, French, German, Dutch, Russian and Arabic.

 

There is an Brazillian Portuguese translation

 

Was it a forced BIOS based patch or an actual in-memory patch that could be distributed? Was the Brazillian Portuguese translation translated from the original Japanese OR was it based off the Aeon Genesis Super Famicom translation that completely ruined the major puzzle by outright telling players what to do at points?

Example:

Original - "A tree within a forest, a person within a crowd, a statue among statues."
Aeon Genesis - "The demon idol is in a statue." <- Not even an attempt to include the actual puzzle as there's other things in the area that all suggest the items required for the puzzle and where you should be able to find them.

The listed languages are being included in the patcher and translation project I've been working on with a friend of mine and a couple of people over on another forum. Just waiting on a response from the fellow that offered the Arabic translation, if he can work with a minor restraint then that'll be confirmed for the patcher.

Our patcher is not a BIOS forced patch but instead injects the translated files and the font table into the ISO of the game and forces the translation and the like to run in free memory of the game.

If it is one of the two (BIOS based or based off the Aeon Genesis translation), if you'd be willing to translate from my own English translation (which has been revised to make it a little easier to read but all details have been kept the same), then we could include it into our patcher (of course, including credit to you).

 

Like I've said before, I never played, only tested once the WonderSwan port in a emulator, so I don't know if the SNES translation was a Bios or Memory Patch.

 

If it was for SFC/SNES, then it's not "The First Fear", that's just old "Clock Tower". The translation I'm working on is for the complete version (think of Clock Tower and Clock Tower ~ The First Fear ~ like Resident Evil - CODE: Veronica AND Resident Evil - CODE: Veronica Complete/X) on PlayStation.

The SFC/SNES, PC and WonderSwan versions are purely "Clock Tower" and the PlayStation one is "Clock Tower ~ The First Fear ~" as it is the actual, full and complete comprehensive version of the game.

 

Oh yea, my fault, I always consider just as Clock Tower no matter what platform.

 

It's just to try and avoid confusion is why I use the CT TFF or use the full title of it as it has the complete ending sequence leading up to Clock Tower 2/Clock Tower US and I'm trying to make it a little easier for people to understand what it is. >_<;

 

very nice an well groomed collection. what made you start collecting for this? all the best

 

Thank you very much!

I've always liked horror things so survival/panic/adventure horror titles seemed quite interesting and the Clock Tower games were very interesting with the gameplay not being action-y like RE or SH.

 

Finally got around to taking a photo of a couple of items now that an item FINALLY turned up.

Apologies for the mess in the background, I've got crap all over my desk at the moment as I'm in the middle of painting some 1/6 scale stuff...



From top to bottom, left to right:

Super Famicom Memory Casette (used for the Nintendo Power service and/or Loppi Machines), includes a copy of Clock Tower and a Mario game (can't recall which one currently) on it written via a Loppi machine. This version is the same as the second 1997 Clock Tower reissue.

Clock Tower 2 (Clock Tower US), early 1997 US English localization prototype. Mainly script errors in it, includes the new voice acting but the file structure is the same as the retail Japanese build (the audio was reorganized in the international retail builds) and I pulled a couple of prototype music tracks from the game which were not used in any other build.

Capcom E3 2002 Press CD, contains the same assets that were available via the Capcom USA Press Site (screenshots, high resolution logo version, some high resolution rendered artwork and a press release spiel page).

Capcom E3 2002 Digital Watch, a bonus item for members of the press visiting Capcom's booth. Limited quantities of this and the Clock Tower 3 promotional t-shirt below. Most people wouldn't get both items due to the limited quantity.

Clock Tower 3 Original Soundtrack bootleg, some dodgy looking bootleg I found on Taobao. The audio quality is atrocious and the disc print is entirely different to the retail one. The obi that was put on the case was also cut wrong and the game's title was written in marker on the back of the obi in Simplified Chinese. The dead giveaway on it being a bootleg is that neither the Capcom or Suleputer logos are present on the front cover and the logo on the obi is from an infamous bootleg but occasionally legit publisher that has some rights for a small amount of retail distribution of some soundtracks. Obviously not a lot of legitimate rights given how well known they are for fake and dodgy products.

Anyway, felt that I ought to cover unofficial and/or fakes as to make it easier for people unfamiliar with them to differentiate.

 

Nice additions! Thanks for explaining each one as well, bc I have no idea what half the stuff is w.o your help. Nice Collection!