Clock Tower, released in Japan as Clock Tower 2, is a survival horror point-and-click adventure game developed by Human Entertainment and released for the PlayStation in 1996. It is the second game in the Clock Towerseries after the original Clock Tower, which was released exclusively in Japan for the Super Famicom one year prior. The story takes place in Norway and follows a variety of characters as they attempt to survive the return of Scissorman and uncover the mystery of his seemingly immortal state. The scenarios encountered and endings vary widely based upon the player's actions.
Director Hifumi Kono was not interested in developing a sequel to the original Clock Tower at first, but was swayed after seeing the technical possibilities of the next generation consoles. Kono had difficulty in choosing the platform to develop on, but eventually settled for the new PlayStation despite its uncertain future. Clock Tower was one of the first games developed by Human Entertainment to utilize a 3D graphics engine. The team felt challenged to create high-quality graphics after being impressed by the visuals of Resident Evil (1996), which was announced during development.
Clock Tower was commercially successful, selling close to half a million copies. Kono attributed some of this success to Resident Evil generating interest in horror games and the success of the PlayStation. Critical reviews of Clock Tower were mixed. The game's horror atmosphere and storyline were praised, although most other aspects were found to be mediocre. Most of the negative critique was directed towards the game's slow pace, which was compared unfavorably to other PlayStation games of the era, particularly the more action-oriented and fast-paced Resident Evil. These factors influenced some critics to recommend Clock Tower purely for point-and-click
