It’s coming up to a year now since I did two articles based on videogame soundtracks that was supposed to spin off into a regular series. This didn’t happen- not because of a lack of ideas or interest, but sheer bone idleness and laziness instead. I’m going to rectify that this year by once again using the Halloween countdown to relaunch said article series; ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sound Breakdown Paradise, a bunch of articles where we’re gonna be talking about videogame music, from the bleeps and bloops of the past to the fully realised tunes of today!
As befitting the season, the game I’m looking at today is Clock Tower, Human Entertainment’s Dario Argento inspired early survival horror/adventure game hybrid for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1995, a year shy of genre codifier Resident Evil, Clock Tower does things a little bit differently, and even today is quite unique in it’s approach. You are not a trained special forces agent with guns to spare going up against an army of demons or the living dead; you are a largely helpless teenage girl trapped in a sprawling, almost castle like mansion, and when the very house and it’s bizarre supernatural happenings aren’t trying to kill you, your foe lies in a single entity that cannot be removed from play entirely until the very end of the game, and instead must be outran and outwitted; and heaven help you if you happen to run into a dead end, because our heroine, Jennifer Simpson, can only struggle against her would be killer- the sad, pathetic creature known as the Scissorman- with a very small window of success. The plot concerns Jennifer and three of her friends- Ann, Lotte, and Laura- who have been adopted by the very wealthy owner of the gothic establishment known to most as the “Clock Tower”, one Simon Barrows, and the group are currently being escorted to the manor by Simon’s seemingly kind and motherly wife, Mary. Upon arrival, Mary takes her leave to find her husband, instructing the girls to wait in the foyer. Laura and Lotte both have a sense of unease- the latter of whom is teased by Ann, accused of being paranoid; as it turns out, they were right to worry, as Mary seems to be taking an incredibly long time. Things go to hell pretty much the moment Jennifer, who offered to go find Mary, leaves the room, as a scream errupts from the grand foyer behind her, and one quick peek back in reveals that all three of her friends have vanished. From -this point onward, a tragic tale into the depths familial love will take you, and the concequences of such unfolds in many different ways and with several different outcomes; the only sure thing, is that it promises to be a night that will change the lives of everyone in the Barrows Mansion, some of whom’s might be much shorter then they’d bargained for.
The Super Nintendo’s sound capabilities have been discussed at length by fans and by professionals, and with good reason; there are three seperate parts of the machine dedicated to sound, which include an Audio Processing Unit, a Digital Signal Processor called the S-DSP, and the audio CPU itself, the Nintendo S-SMP, all three of which were joint ventures between Nintendo and Sony- Sony manufactured the APU (which was designed by the father of the
Playstation himself, Ken Kutaragi), the DSP, and provided the sound chip at the core of the S-SMP, the Sony SCP700, which makes the SNES one of the first home consoles to use a sound chip which finds it’s basis in Sample Synthesis. What this means is that unlike sound chips such as the YM2612 the Mega Drive/Genesis used, which uses Additive Synthesis (which creates sounds and tibre by melding sine and saw waves together), the SCP700‘s waveforms are actually downsampled instruments. This is why there are so few SNES games that have similar sounds, outside of sequential games or games with the same composer; while there certainly where limitations- you still only had a few audio channels to work with- the kind of sound you wanted to achieve was hampered only by a composer or sound programmer's skill and imagination (or lack thereof), the samples would sound largely like the instruments they were trying to emulate, and to top it off, many composers and sound programers discovered a trick where they could swap out sample banks on the fly during songs, an exploit which circumvented the 64KB limit of the chip and lead to some of the most memorable and technically impressive soundtracks in video gaming up to that point. And, just like any software or hardware, the longer it’s in play and the more time developers spend with it, the more it’s potential is fully realised. And as Clock Tower was a reasonably late release for the console, it goes without saying that the sample quality is absolutely stunning, and I’d argue it has one of the best chipsets on the entire system- right up there with those from Earthbound and Kirby 3 (also late releases for the console).Even beyond the quality of the sound, the score itself is possibly one of the most interesting ones on the entire console, for a couple of reasons; first, the game is largely played in silence, without any background music at all, and many parts of the game don't have any ambient sound effects beyond the footfalls of our timid heroine. Second, it relies very heavily on a leitmotif that is repeat frequently throughout many of the songs, and consists mainly of little music stings or very short loops. In many ways, it’s comparable to a movie score, which is fitting as the game is deliberately setting itself up with an atmosphere comparable to late 70s, early 80s horror films. There is a lot of emphesis on synthesizer sounds- especially deep, meaty bass synth- and it compliments the bleak feel of the game perfectly; the score is cold, unfeeling, unfriendly, and very good at making you feel truely alone and entirely at the mercy of the twisted Barrows clan. The track Dark Premonition, a very short sting that punctuates the brief text splurge at the begining of the prologue, introduces us to the aformentioned leitmotif- very much the games “theme”, and effectively Clock Tower’s answer to Freddy Kruger’s iconic (and ironic) nursary rhyme in the Nightmare On Elm Street series or the infamous breathy sounds that punctuate Jason’s preasence in the Friday The 13th films.; the track I’m Looking For Mary consists solely of this little melody, played on a very high octave and with a sample that I’m guessing was supposed to be some sort of chime sound, to compliment the setting. I really like this little melody, short and sweet though it is, because it lies perfectly on the threshold between cheesy horror shlock and genuinely unsettling, but without feeling jarring or leaning too far in either direction; in the same vein is the short jingle Dead End, which punctuates a couple of the death scenes and additional scares, and will be no doubt be very familiar to anyone with even a passing familiarity with horror as a genre. Some of the other loops that rely on the leitmotif include Satanic Place Of Worship, which mixes it with the synthesized string ambience of Religious Library, and Cradle Under The Star, which blends it with a high octave synthesizer arpeggio, and on it’s third and fourth loops, punctuates it with some additional chimes. These little loops and jingles are only heard at a few select points and are very basic, but they always set the mood really nicely when they do turn up.
The song Karosene, which plays during one of the most surreal parts of the game, makes use of the leitmotif in two very interesting ways- the song makes use of no less then three different deep synth bass lines, one which starts out as a very basic four-beat rhythm with an additional accent at the end of each eighth bar, but shifts into a more complex rhythm when the surrounding (and very unnatural sounding) choir chords and the second bassline shift up an octave alongside a faster rhythm; and the other, introduced after the first eight bars, is a bassline rendition of the leitmotif. At around the halfway point, the other elements melt away, and the song returns to just the leitmotif played entirely solo on chimes, to quite chilling effect. Karosene is probably one of my favourite tracks in the game, perfectly capturing a strong sense of finality (even though there's still a little bit of game left after the area it plays in), without feeling the need to go overboard with the theatrics and keeping things relatively simple whilst still delivering an impact. And finally, there’s the end credits song, The Nightmare Is Finally Over..., which drops the electronic elements for its first half- a largely straight, solemn orchestral piece built around the leitmotif (borrowing the aditional chimes from The Cradle Under The Stars), adding in another unnatural sounding choir, and some beautiful but none the less unsettling string melodies that on their second sequence is joined by a theramin playing the same melody, before it drops out, bringing in the tense percussion and one of the strange electronic sounds from the games most remebered track (more on that in a moment), reintroducing the choir and the more complex bass rhythm and bass rendition of the leitmotif, backed by string scales that are stacked by a synth arpeggio, before finally the track ends on a downward pitch shifting bass note, a brief bit of the chime rendition of the leitmotif that gradually slows, and one final, deep, menacing string chord. In many ways, the ending credits song is Clock Tower’s answer to the chilling theme from the Halloween films; the expansion of a simple leitmotif into a full theme song for the game itself. It's very different in tone from the ending themes to Splatterhouse and Sweet Home, both of which were very sad and solemn tunes; The Nightmare Is Finally Over has more of a dramatic and tense edge, one that leaves a lasting sense of menace in you even if you got one of the better endings. It's pretty much how I imagine the "?" that always blinks into existence at the end of a "THE END..." credit after a few seconds would sound.
Don’t Cry, Jennifer is almost certainly the song fans of the series remember most fondly; hardly surprising, given it’s the theme that plays when the Scissorman is giving chase. There’s a reason I saved this song for last; while it does make use of the Clock Tower leitmotif, the song isn’t built around it in the same way the other songs are, and it’s inclusion in the song is as an addition, rather then a springboard for the rest of the composition; acknowleging the redundancy of the following statement, this song is very much the Scissorman’s theme, not a theme for the game at l
arge. However, elements from the song do turn up in other tracks and stings, in turn creating its own leitmotifs. This song is probably the most straight blend of electronics and orchestral samples on the soundtrack, blending imposing string melodies with the games trademark synth bass sound, lovingly panned timpani drum rhythms and echoed snare strikes with deep, pounding drum machine kicks and a subtle wooden percussion loop, the pairing aformentioned electronic sound that sounds almost like someone punching an untuned guitar with what sounds like giggling, and many more subtle bass synth sounds (and that not so subtle pitch dropping, crackly synth bass). To this day, the song still sets many on edge the second the hear the strings and kickdrums. Besides Karosene, this is my favourite song in the game, and is one of the main reasons I decided to cover the soundtrack at length; it's an incredibly nerve wracking song with a solid upbeat tempo, but it isn't melodramatic or over composed; if anything, it's actually quite sparse, with only a few elements in play at any given point in the track, which ultimately makes it a much more effective song in the long run then it would of been if it was a song that pumped out the most dramatic Latin choir samples the SNES could manage, and made those timpani rolls loud as all get out.
Special mention should also go to the sound design outside of the soundtrack, which is also exceptional and really well done, from the imposing bell chimes to even the simple footsteps, and the various gruesome sound effects accompanying many of the kills (including one where Jennifer is eaten alive, in which we're treated to some lovely 16bit munching sounds) to these merry little jingles that add a wonderful air of unease to a couple of the weirder moments in the game.
Kaori Takazoe was the woman responsible for the soundtrack, and rather unfortunately the only other credits of her’s I’m able to track down are for Clock Tower II (where she split duties with Kouji Niikura), and two tracks she contributed to Gradius Generation for the GBA. If she hasn’t done any further work, then it’s a mighty shame, because she’s an incredibly talented as versitile composer. It’s possible she has done more work, but I haven’t been able to find many results that show that; my google fu is very weak, and information on game composers outside of the superstars of the medium is incredibly difficult to come by. As far as I know, there was never an official soundtrack release for either of the first two Clock Tower games (although Clock Tower II did manage to get a Drama CD), and indeed the titles of the tracks are almost certainly thought up by fans, so if you want to get ahold of it yourself, tracking down a gamerip is your only real option.
Clock Tower was rereleased on the PS1 and PC as Clock Tower ~The First Fear~ around about a year after the sequal, and includes a few extra scares in game, and some FMV scenes (different between both ports). Both versions also come with redone soundtracks. The PS1 version is alright, but a lot of the sounds are very cheap, flat, muddy (or all three at once) and appear to be using a generic PS1 soundbank, which is quite dissapointing and unfortunately it does hamper the effectiveness of the songs in my opinion. However, as always, I reccomend judging subjective viewpoints yourself, so here's a link to the arranged version of Don’t Cry, Jennifer for comparisons sake. The PS1 version of the song is also the most baffling, as I doesn't feature the original leitmotif at all, replacing it with an entirely different chime melody, which whilst very catchy and fitting, strikes me as an odd choice when it appears same as always in the other tracks based around that or that include it; although, this could be seen as further reinforcing the whole "it's Scissorman's theme not the game's" idea I proposed earlier. Kouji Niikura might possibly have been the one responsible for the arranged soundtrack, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any information that confirms or denies this. The PC version, as seen in the video intro above, appears to use MIDI coding based on soundbank of whatever sound card you are using, which makes criticising the technical side of things less about the soundtrack itself, and more about the tech specs of the system running it. I have noticed, though, that it uses the same arrangement of the music as the PS1 version.
All in all, Clock Tower’s score was clearly an experiment in providing a more dynamic, movie like soundtrack to compliment an open ended and equally experimental game, and one I’d say that succeeded with flying colours on a technical level, a ambience level, and a compositional level.
~ Decon, 03/10/13
images collected from mashthosebuttons, emuparadise, gamefaqs, notanothercastle, and wikipedia