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

Thank you very much! I've been waiting for the watch I showed in the last photo to arrive for MONTHS. It was somehow accidentally sent to the Bahamas! I've no idea how the hell USPS managed that one.

Ah, well I figured that given it's such a specific collection that it would be best to detail each new item individually if they're of some general interest or are unusual.

I'm happy to answer any questions about any items or anything in the series too as either way, I'm still documenting stuff and adding it to Stalking Insanity whenever I get time to do so.

 

Was Clock Tower 3 made to get an abroad audience?

From what I saw its sounds less scary than the other ones.

I know that you don't have the 1999 script, but do you know any technical info such as which platform would be released?

 

HUMAN originally had Clock Tower 3 planned, Scissorman was to return and it was to be released on PlayStation in Spring, 1999. They had marketing for it but I do not know how far they were in development on it when HUMAN folded. They only had a small team at this point in time but the original Clock Tower really only had a small amount of staff involved in it and was mainly programmed by a single guy.

I am currently waiting on a response from Hifumi on it after getting some scans of marketing materials received by Japanese and their international partner magazines at that point in time before they folded. The marketing materials confirm that it was for PS1.

As for the Sunsoft/Capcom one, this seems to have always been intended for the PlayStation 2 due to the general time frame and specific technical capabilities that were demanded by Kinji Fukusaku during development. Early build screens also specify PS2 for it as well.

Kinji Fukusaku was hired after the popularity of his film adaptation of Battle Royale. It was popular in Japan and with it's unofficial screenings in Amerca (it wasn't officially shown until 2002) and given the heavy influence of Dario Argento's work in the Clock Tower serious previously and the similar coloured lighting and unique camera shots made Fukusaku a perfect choice to direct the game to aim for a more cinematic look.

However, Kinji Fukusaku and the famous character designer Keita Amemiya reportedly butted heads repeatedly through development. Amemiya mentions this in the chapters on Clock Tower 3 within his book "When The Game God Swoops Down", which also featured some additional unused concept art and due to the book we know of some things that weren't used:

1. Enemies used to have multiple forms and would mutate/explode in a similar way to some of the Plaga enemies of Biohazard/Resident Evil 4 and a lot of the designs were heavily inspired by insects.

This was the same for the final boss, it was to be in regards to the demonic force that causes things like Scissorman in regard to Bobby and Dan of the first game. Dan's name is still name-dropped in the final, retail version of Clock Tower 3 but it's done in a really stupid way.

2. The final demonic entity was to also be an amalgamation of all previous enemies additional forms after the Dark Gentlemen "lost control" after attempting to sacrifice Alyssa.

3. Alyssa had some different initial gameplay mechanics worked into various forms - her initial design looked a bit more like a Private Japanese Schoolgirl type look but that she could summon entities of her own will via her pendant and what I would assume to be in regard to the lost souls she's helped free.

4. Alyssa had another set of forms similar to the "Rooder" crap used in the game, in this she would essentially initially be possessed and would take on a Valkyrie-like appearance, her own initial stage of this would be by destroying books and artifacts related to this demonic entity. Her final form was some sort of mutation after being attacked and the Entity attempting to absorb her, she overcomes this with the Valkyrie form and now has wings of her own. Quite reminiscent of Aya and Eve from Parasite Eve oddly enough.

This is fairly similar to what happens in CT3's final, retail build but she doesn't have this physical appearance change outside of an outfit change and it changing from Germanic Valkyrie to Grecian (why this, I do not know as the series outside of Ghost Head have all been set in Europe). The lion's share of the other unused concept art all appear to be inspired by styles from particular time periods that are typically associated with Europe. There are, however a couple of tribal inspired designs which would tie into some sort of Mayan inspiration for a couple of pieces within the retail game regarding sacrificial altars.

Here are the forms of the Dark Gentlemen as he is taken over by the Entity which Alyssa manages to escape when it finally emerges. This is what is essentially was supposed to be contained to the physical realm via Dan's body in the first Clock Tower game and is how he returns in the sequel. I assume that HUMAN's Clock Tower 3 would have had him somehow breaking out of the sealed realm (The Door of the Fear) and returning as the game's name was essentially in Katakana as "Clock Tower Third"...

Meaning:

Clock Tower - The First Fear
Clock Tower - The Second Fear ~ The Door of the Fear ~
Clock Tower - The Third Fear

Anyway! Back to the images. I've marked out my scans of Amemiya's artwork with the general transition. Not all of the artwork was labeled but by going from his book, this appears to be the correct order for what we could've expected to see in Clock Tower 3's fights and it would've been a hell of a lot scarier in my opinion!



The back of the "Gentleman"'s coat was supposed to give a little bit of a hint as to what was coming, his coat also suspiciously looking as though it were made of skin. Other designs were inspired by historical murderers, serial killers and other mysteries - this continued through to the retail build.

In general it appears that stuff was scrapped due to multiple reasons and the development was somewhat rocky with so many builds and some of the staff constantly disagreeing (on top of Fukusaku being ill due to his cancer) with each other and technical incapabilities (if they did these multiple forms, it probably would've been a two disc game which is something that probably wanted to avoid).

It was released in December 2002, Fukusaku passed away in mid-January 2003. The Tokyo Game Show build and other press builds feature some differences in regards to menus and some other things but, as I do not have alternative builds of CT3 on hand - I cannot fully go into build differences that ties into the information I've picked up from both staff involved (external and internal) and Amemiya's book.

The general thing was that people praised Fukusaku's cutscene direction but disliked the general plotline of the game and after reading about scrapped stuff and seeing the concept art for it, I would have to agree that it's a shame that they had so many disagreements and general issues during development.

 

Trust me, I played Clock Tower 3 out of curiosity, it was kinda, good at first, but the whole rooder and magic stuff sounded silly.
the enemies got more silly and silly (they are a joke)....
the repeated chase theme... ugly.
there was only like two chase themes...
the defense system is very wrong, hey lets spray some holy water on them bad spirits !
I don't know... the final boss battle was tricky but it wasn't that good either....

And its such a shame Haunting Ground was not officially named Clock Tower 4, it's a very good game and it's really clock tower, its not about the story, the game as a whole screams clock tower at you.
not to mention it has many resident evil hints in it, and the fact the engine seems based on an early version of the resident evil outbreak engine.

This HUMAN Version of Clock Tower 3 is new to me and it sounds very interesting !
last time I heard was maybe during 2008-2011 I read on DCJ that according to some memebers, Hifumi Khono wanted to do a Clock Tower related game, any news on that ?
and what is really going on with Sunsoft and CAPCOM, the series is dead ? they should let us make a sequel for them at least, lmao, I'd gladly design the characters as I've already done CT Styled character/s-ish.

And I never knew Barry Gjerde voiced Rick in CT1 (PS1), It's the RE1 Barry Burton actor and VA right ?!!! This is new to me but I knew his voice sounded similar and something was fishy !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Gjerde
Interesting...

And your collection is really beast, I wish I had such a collection hehe but I have non, as for the debug on Haunting Ground and clothes tearing, now that is really very interesting.

Anyway, about the Arabic translation, I'm waiting up to hear if its really possible the include the multiple forms of the arabic letters, I could easily finish up the script now, shouldn't take long

 

Haha, pretty much so mate.

As for that, Hifumi has been busy with other projects at Nude Maker and hasn't been able to follow up on his spiritual successor. NM were hired by Capcom, Namco-Bandai too to complete other smaller game projects and the like so it's kinda up in the air.

Capcom has no rights or say in the series outside of partial rights for their work on Clock Tower 3. Sunsoft are the actual IP owners so it's really down to them to decide what to do with the series and for now, the most that has been done has been having the older games available as classic titles via PSN in Japan and on the Wii Virtual Store.

Capcom have apparently been dragging their feet in regard to stuff going onto PSN. DEMENTO/Haunting Ground was supposed to go up quite a while ago as they had to register an additional trademark for a digital version of it but there's not been anything done on that front. I've tested the game on a hacked PS3 and can confirm that it plays just fine on the official emulator so I don't know what the problem is with the delay outside of seeing Sony staff publicly complain that Capcom Japan was having poor communication and Capcom America was responding that Capcom Japan had to give the go-ahead, they had no say in the matter.

And yes, Barry Gjerde is Barry Burton from RE1. He also voiced Yoshimitsu in some early Tekken games. If you watch the Clock Tower 2 opening, when the chandelier falls on Rick you'll hear a very familiar Tekken character KO sound.

Fun fact, Lynn Harris - Rebecca Chambers in RE1 was also the original voice for Nina Williams until she was replaced by the woman (and a friend of mine) I believe voiced Jill Valentine in RE1 - Lisle Wilkerson!

I've also got voice over reels for Barry in both English and Japanese. I also have a demo of Lynn singing too.

As for that, it's mainly retail stuff sadly. I wish I had some more interesting items but so far, I haven't really had that much luck on that front and I check for new items daily.

Given that DEMENTO/Haunting Ground had textures and some stuff regarding clothing damage in the retail build, it's highly likely that it exists in some form in an earlier build but as to whether or not something would surface if it's in the wild, I can't say. There's also an unofficial Chinese guidebook that mentions stuff that can only be found by checking the game's programming via a disassembler...

Like there were supposed to be additional plate keys to unlock something, there was an additional scene where you could drop the gate in the Eye Hallway/Puppet Room onto Debilitas which was close to retail but was cut. Same as the actual footage showing Riccardo falling through the floor.

Ah, I'm not sure how it's going as I'm having a little break from the translation as nobody has handed in any of the translation work in the time I've made tims up, made a font (I didn't like it so we're apparently using the Aeon Genesis font with permission), mocked up the letter cutscene video for other translations and also translated the game into German whilst also scanlating some manga that won't be released in English, a few different Resident Evil books from Japanese to English, remade most of Biohazard: The Beginning, have written multiple chapters of a story and about 10 different Resident Evil parody episodes that I've also been recording voice acting for too, made a custom 1/6 scale CVX Wesker kitbash and a few other things in the time whilst I've been waiting on stuff.

So.... I'm having a little bit of a break.

 

Holy crap, interesting ! but that's alot of work indeed, you need some rest xD
as for Haunting Ground, yes I played the game on PS3 too, worked nicely for me but there was a huge bug/issue : the cutscenes visuals were slower than the sounds/out of sync. Gameplay wise it only lagged a lil bit maybe at some points but thats all, I really wouldn't want to see it released as a PS2 Classic, this would be an insult... it should be remastered, god it looks awful on PS3 with native resolution (not too bad but I always felt the game is color less and grainy) seriously, its an excellent game and deserves more treatment, hell even CAPCOM should try and convinced SUNSOFT to rename the game to CT4 maybe, I mean seriously.

 

Well, hopefully I'll also have Biohazard: The Beginning up completely on here soon. I just had to do some slight reformatting on things.

Essentially the PS1 and PS2 Classics are in a wrapper with the official emulator (think of how games on GOG come wrapped with DOSbox, that's close to it), essentially running it from a digital copy of the disc cuts out the lag from the overlays used in the game for some of the atmospheric grain (as Demento uses a grain/fog overlay similar to RE4's constant fog overlay) so there wouldn't be any lag from it done digitally after also capturing my cutscenes via emulator instead of via a capture card to get better quality footage.

If they renamed the game then they'd have to go through more crap to have new trademarks made, amendments to Sunsoft's IP range for multiple countries' different trademark registries among other issues so it is extremely unlikely to happen.

 

Yeah I know about that emulator thing, the fact that digital converted PS2 to PS3 Games uses the PSN-Digital emulator version instead of the disc based emulator causes many issues with many games which can be fixed either by newer firmwares or game fixes I guess though I don't know much...

for example : the PSN-Digital version PS2 Emulator on the PS3 (PS2_Net) doesn't have Adapter emulation which is a HUGE SHAME, otherwise I would be able to play Outbreak Online and MGO1 on the PS3 just by patching the ISO's and converting them to work on my Jailbroken PS3, Though sadly that wont happen, unless someone reverses the emulator's code and add the network emulator back (?)

I also wish Haunting Ground had local multiplayer or online support but we can't expect much from PS2 either then, the mini game shows how much fun it could be too, though Hewie is hard to control, the game already plays too much like Outbreak.

I can't wait to see Biohazard The Beginning either

 

This issue with DEMENTO/Haunting Ground is that the audio in-game is actually all streaming from a database. The music played within the Secret Room once unlocked are pre-recorded Cri-ADX audio files whereas the streaming music is all in individual pieces like the old PS1 SEQ/PSF and the VB, VH files were.

The disc-based emulator has difficulty with streaming music and if you were to go and put in an older, physical PS1 game that uses streaming music like for instance.... ANY of the PS1 Biohazard/Resident Evil games or the Final Fantasy games.... They will all have audio bugs or layered texture bugs.

For whatever reason, likely due to how it's reading the disc - having all of the files available digitally would speed up the process of pulling these streaming files into play and the game does actually run properly digitally (tried it with the Demento, Demento CapKore, US, EU and AU/NZ versions that I have).

And roughly that would have to be done but then there would have to be more work to get the jailbroken PS3 + customized emulator to be able to use online utilities which would be another pain in the ass to write, to the extent that it's still easier to use PCSX2 to play Outbreak online in Japanese!

It would have been a neat option to include, sadly I couldn't find any additional controller cues or anything else when I poked around in the disassembler. There was a partial room-file list and the formatting of it is similar to both RE4 and Outbreak but I haven't been able to figure out how to trigger room jumping from it. If an earlier build surfaces, there's likely a debug menu with room jumping and enemy spawn/despawn options judging by the lists in the game's files.

I was able to patch in some of the unused plate key codes but it made the game glitch out and crash as they were only partially programmed in.... I couldn't find the end calls (deleted references it looks like) and ended up essentially, frankensteining the key codes onto one of the ones still used in the game.

And I'm just spell-checking Biohazard: The Beginning at the moment. If my connection doesn't keep crapping out on me, then I can upload it to my site once I'm finished with it. I'll probably post up a journal on my DeviantArt account so some of the people asking me RE questions can read it.... And then that'll cue the influx of people bitching that I haven't made my high res Persona cards available for them to print out.

 

Interesting, I didn't know that, the oldest screenshot that I've saw indeed was from 2001 at IGN/Gamespot, since I've never played, just watched a few videos and imaes, the oldest one was probably the piano girl that gets killed by a man with a huge hammer, in that screenshot she was playing the piano and her father was looking her, but it was planned for PS2 already at that stage.

Kinda off-topic: Do you know anything about that Gun Survivor port for PC? When I saw the files it sounded like a game without any protection/compression method for it, so you can easily edit for example the menu in Photoshop, then I've found out that the menu image had an unused Magnum and a Machine gun in a ammo clip HUD.

 

Weird, I've played RE Survivor afaik and ecountered no issue with it (disc based) however I didn't try the others..
as for Haunting Ground, yes the Cutscenes are always out of sync for me, and of course I'm not using the disc emulation since that is seemingly impossible anyway otherwise it will still be using the PSN/Net Emulator version.

Outbreak, yes I play it mostly on PCSX2. However random freezes and zombie screens ruin it, I've played so far like 4 games maybe without any freezing or crash though!

I was curious about fixing this port before but I changed my mind... do you think its worth it ? I hate this lazy port, it needed a save anywhere feature at least, thats my main issue with survivor.... why would they remove the typewriter ?!

 

Not worth unless you wanna explore the files and waste time for a "its so bad that is fun" time, AI is even dumbier compared to the PS1 version.

They removed the Typewriter (It didn't have either on the PS1 version) because it was damn short (less than an hour) and easy to get through (when you die it uses a continue system). Actually it's way easier when you just run away from the enemies.

 

Indeed, its a good game though, I enjoyed it actually.
However you are indeed right, the AI is super dumber in this version, funny and not only that but their footstep sounds are replaced with the licker ones.
that and many other issues like the blood pool if I remember correctly, not that but also the cutscenes are not in-engnie now, they are just pre-recorded ugly avi files,ew.
And again, if I'm not mistaken, the lightings are all flat (lol)

You are right about the typewriter, but I think the game still had some good moments, the T-103's that are thrown around the town were really awesome, apparently the beta version had hunters too at some point, I can guess that so much was cut from it but who knows.

 

That is from one of the earlier builds of the Sunsoft/Capcom Clock Tower 3 and is of no relation to the HUMAN one. The cutscenes were initially in-engine and I believe that the mutated enemy stages were still planned for this build but they hit some technical difficulties and as a result of Fukusaku not being happy with how the cutscenes were in-engine, as a result they were pre-rendered.

Clock Tower 3 List on my site - you can see a few images I have of different builds, there may be more but these are all the ones that I've been able to confirm so far. I have yet to list the HUMAN Clock Tower 3 build on the site, I am waiting for Hifumi to respond and if he does remember anything then I will add in another spot for that build.

If it's not loading it directly off the disc but from the digital one, it will actually be faster at handling the files and that seems to fix the lag for me. PCSX2 has the same issue when running it directly from a physical disc but from an ISO made from the same disc, this also resolves the issue.

That's very strange, I've never had any freezes or crashes with PCSX2 when playing Outbreak online or modding it. Have only had minor issues when modding games and that's likely due to stuffing up something with the files I was editing before I re-patched the games.

I've been trying to correct Wesker's Battle Game audio in CODE: Veronica to use the audio Waugh recorded but somehow ended up being used for Rodrigo in Gun Survivor 2 - CODE: Veronica as for whatever reason, Wesker in CVX is using Chris Battle Game audio outside of the death cue! >_<;

 

Oh well, I'm using an ISO of the game directly converted to PS3 of course, the cutscenes are always out of sync, I've not tried it on the new firmware as I have to get ReactPSN is there is one for that 4.60 firmware...

Outbreak never crashes or freezes on single play, but when playing online it happens occasionally although sometimes you play a whole game without any freeze or crash which is amazing.

Interesting thing about the Wesker Audio replaced with Chris and for Redrigo, but a shameful mistake too, lol.

 

It should be working. Which region version have you been using?

Hm, I've not had it crash on me. I've had it lag out but no crashes so far. Must be lucky in that regard. You could also clear some of the crap out of the Netbios files - they've been stuffed with tons of Street Fighter character voices to fill in space on the disc.

And that's for sure, how they managed to miss that I've no idea as Waugh had the audio recorded beforehand so it should've been used. They sound completely different, I've no idea how they managed to stuff that one up.... But they did.

But hey, if I wanted to do a D.C. Douglas style voice patch or additional Richard Waugh style voice patch I can either get my husband to do either one (he's the parody VA that does the D.C. Wesker but what most people don't know is that, he can also do REmake and CVX/RE4 Wesker voices too!) or our friend that is the bloke that usually does the CVX/RE4 Wesker voice in stuff.

So it's not really much of an issue aside from getting files patched in properly.

But that'll probably just be more of a personal project of mine as it's pissed me off for years that playing as Wesker in Battle Game yields the Chris sound. I already have a few major projects I need to finish up regarding Clock Tower, just takes a while as I'm really the only person working on the brunt of this stuff. >_<;

 

Haha, yeah too much work on your end, though I would love to help if I could help with anything, hell yes the Wesker sound replacement would be neat, I've no doubt your husband can pull it off, but as you've said patching is the more important thing here.

I'm really having alot of ideas in my brain right now, I'm mainly focusing on biohazard beta games this includes all up to 5, just discovered something related to BH5 Alpha too!
And I'm really pissed at CAPCOM's decision that they made UC a rail gun shooter instead of its first conceptual idea being like RE4, Damn it !

 

Yeah, I tend to botch stuff up when I'm patching the replacements in. ^^; It happens. As for the voice work, we do have professional recording equipment and if Charlie didn't feel up to it, then we'd probably get our friend to do it - if you've heard any fan dubs or parodies with a 1:1 RE4/CVX Wesker.... That'd be him. Charlie doesn't typically do the RE4/CVX Wesker as people keep asking him to do the D.C. Douglas Wesker but he usually voices Chris in a lot of stuff. I'm kinda all over the place in female roles but the one I'm most comfortable with is sadly, Rebecca. >_<;

Ah, what stuff did you fish up regarding 5, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm still digging through the CODE: Veronica builds. This oddly reminds me that I need to mod my Wii with some homebrew to dump UC and DSC files again.

I do have to agree with you on UC. I would've honestly played the every-loving-shit out of an actual playable mainly Wesker game. I've not heard anyone say they wouldn't in that regard either. Though the whole CV/CVX stuff going on with Claire and Wesker is still pretty interesting in it's own regard but that's another story.

 

On a side note (off topic maybe), I'm sure you heard of this project "RE Behind The Mask"
I would love to make it clear that the name "Behind The Mask" is an actual name of biohazard gun survivor before it was finalized, so it's an official name for the game, I even have the texture file to prove it.
it was going to be like this : Biohazard | Gun Survivor | Behind The Mask "small font"
meaning that capcom would have wanted to either make other chapters which they eventually did, but it would have been something like BH GS CV.
Behind The Mask : the name speaks for itself, its implying the story of the game somehow, who is behind the mask, the lost identity of ark thompson, neat.

 

Ah, no worries about it being off-topic... my husband and myself also collect Biohazard/Resident Evil stuff too but we've not been into it as much lately so I've been focusing on stuff I've found more interesting and that's been my Clock Tower/Demento and Drakengard/NieR stuff.

I mean, you would usually find me on the RE or Mass Effect modding communities but my interest has been going back and forth regarding new titles as it seems that the older titles are what really caught my interest... And is why I went back to CODE: Veronica recently.

As for Survivor, It would've made more sense if they had followed through with it. That said, they don't exactly have the best track record of following through with stuff or not cutting stuff...