I always found interesting how this PS1 game was a direct sequel to a Super Nintendo game that only released in Japan (including its PS1-rerelease) which made this game get renamed as just "Clock Tower" internationally, and the Ghost Head spinoff got renamed as the "sequel" to this game...
...I think the other games I had seen this shenianigans with was with Pokemon Stadium (the real first Stadium was Japan only and limited, while the "Stadium 2" sequel released here as Stadium 1, and "Stadium Gold Silver", which might as well be "Stadium 3" arrived here as Stadium 2) and Naruto games (Clash of Ninja 2 and Ninja Council 2) in Europe skipping the first entry while getting the second as the first entry "European Versions"...but honestly localized anime games in the 2000s were prone to this due to the time between the original release and the time where the animes started airing in North America.
Might be an interesting thing to talk about but...that's a story for later.
Clock Tower as a franchise still gives me intriguing vibes with the story and presentation, but the gameplay style is the very reason why I wouldn't be trying this or the first entry very soon. Point and click games might as well be my genre for "games I like to watch stuff about" (Space Quest death compilations, anyone?) but wouldn't for sure be able to bother myself with the trial-and-error and pixel hunting aspects of these for more than a minute or two before swapping to something else.
In any case though, really cool that you got to dive in this one...and I hope you can make out of it sane!
And with the best ending, too. There are multiple endings here as well 😅
I've always been fascinated with the decisions many publishers and developers made back then when it came to localizing games for a western audience. Because of that I've spent a lot of time digging up and collecting older games that were never released here or that were changed in some manner. The Clock Tower franchise being one of them!
I actually just finished playing through Ghost Head, and that was even more of a departure from Clock Tower 2. However, I was able to play the "undubbed" version which restored all of the original spoken dialogue with translated subs. Which definitely improved the experience despite it suffering from a lot of the same pitfalls of the games that came before it. :D
Anyways, I'm glad you enjoyed reading through our review. We very much appreciate it!