History VideoGame / ClockTower3

* AndYourRewardIsClothes: The unlockable outfits.

* DropTheHammer: Sledgehammer wields a hammer that appears larger than your heroine.

The fourth and last installment (as of now) in the ''VideoGame/ClockTower'' series, which was co-developed by Creator/{{Capcom}} and Creator/{{Sunsoft}}, and released in 2002 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation2.

* AnAxeToGrind: Chopper has axes, which he can also throw [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang like a boomerang]] either individually or fused into an odd double-sided axe.

* WeaponOfChoice: Each subordinate has one, though they'll change to a similar weapon if the game is played on "Hard" (for example, Sledgehammer will now wield a spiked mace instead).

The last installment (as of now) in the ''VideoGame/ClockTower'' series, which was released in 2002 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation2.

Unlike past games, Clock Tower 3 plays more like a classic ''Resident Evil'' game rather than a point-and-click adventure, and changes the series' tone from supernatural gothic horror to CosmicHorror with fantasy elements.

*** It's more likely that Corroder is simply a fictionalised version of the real killer, which explains why there are so many differences between them. He's never specifically said to be ''the'' John Haigh.

* ArtifactTitle: There is no clock tower in this installment.

* DifficultySpike: LetsPlay/TheDarkId [[http://lparchive.org/Clock-Tower-3/Update%2035/35-chart.jpg mentioned this]] ''perfectly'' in his LetsPlay of the game, because the final boss not only has the health of nearly every boss you fought so far in the game ''combined'', but can also [[LifeDrain regain it by draining yours]] ''and'' whip out an attack that kills you instantly.

* AbandonedHospital: You first confront the Scissor twins in one.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Alyssa manages to defeat Lord Burroughs by fully awakening her Rooder powers. However, her mother was killed by her corrupted grandfather, and she's now one of the last Rooders alive.]]

* {{Ephebophile}}: It's '''strongly''' implied that the BigBad is motivated by a rather unwholesome, obsessive interest in the teenaged main character. [[spoiler:For extra creepy, he turns out to be the main character's grandfather.]]

** Panic mode in general. Besides the expected, which entails being unable to control Alessa as she runs from whichever pursuer she's currently menaced by, the meter itself speeds up far too fast, thanks in part to the numerous things that can cause it to go up in the first place, to the point where you're almost guaranteed to have control wrenched from you the moment any Subordinate hits you with a scripted jumpscare. This also leads into...

* ParentalIncest: [[spoiler:Attempted by the aptly-named Dick Hamilton, who was so obsessed with his daughter that he ignored his wife, brutally murdered his son-in-law, and then had his daughter brutally murdered as well by his sociopath subordinate when she tried to protect her daughter (his granddaughter) from him, with the implication that she was also raped (either by him or his subordinate or both of them). As mentioned, he later transfers his carnal obsession to his granddaughter, the heroine Alyssa, who's the very image of her mother. She manages to defeat him though]].

* TwistedChristmas: Little May Norton, a piano prodigy is brutally murdered by Sledgehammer who smashes her skull with his respective weapon on the night of Christmas Eve 1942

** [[spoiler:Dick Hamilton towards both his daughter Nancy and granddaughter Alyssa (who looks like her mother)]].

* WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve: [[spoiler:As the clock strikes twelve, it signifies Alyssa Hamilton is fifteen and will be ritually sacrificed so her grandfather will become a powerful Entity.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: The first thing the Sledgehammer does onscreen? Smashing a poor little girl with his humongous weapon and gloating about it.

----

** Panic mode in general. Besides the expected, which entails being unable to control Alessa as she runs from whichever pursuer she's currently menaced by, the meter itself speeds up far too fast, thanks in part to the numerous things that can cause it to go up in the first place, to the point where you're almost guaranteed to have control wrenched from you the moment any Entity hits you with a scripted jumpscare. This also leads into...

** The Entities, especially compared to Scissorman in the older games. Chasers warping around the game area is nothing new in Clock Tower, to the point where it even has reason in story. However, encounters were spaced out so as to build tension and let the player explore. In this game, however, the Entities warp ''constantly'' (not counting scripted jumpscares), to the point where you could leave an area with an Entity by heading into a new one, only for the exact entity to enter that new area from a door ''on the opposite side of the room''. Essentially, this meant that you were being chased by Entities almost constantly, replacing genuine tension with frustration. Add in the two above points, and you can observe why people tend to see this game in a negative light. Chopper in particular is the worst offender, as often he tends to spawn in any area you're in (barring those the game won't allow him to enter) a good 10 seconds after you enter it, and on top of that has a ranged attack that can be launched when he's off-screen.

** The boss battle mechanics are all particularly awkward, as they involve having to stay in a stationary position to launch arrows that lock Entities in place while doing damage despite their chasing you. The good part? The system is easy to use once you get used to it, making the boss fights trivial after some trial and error. The bad news? You still have to learn it, and even when you do, the game throws you a WakeUpCallBoss in the second battle with Chopper. How? By making you shoot his axes back at him to stun him. In midair. While they curve at you. While you have to remain stationary to hit them. Sure, the Scissortwins are a trivial boss fight afterwards, but the FinalBoss on the other hand makes Chopper look like an absolute joke.
** Interestingly, while they're overall a much easier fight than chopper, Scissorwoman herself has an almost perfect instance of this trope used to artificially inflate the difficulty of fighting her: unlike every other boss in the game, you don't automatically lock on to her when charging an arrow. You have to aim them yourself and hope she runs in front of you once you're charged up. [[ArtificialStupidity She can and will]], of course, but still.

** The second killer, Corroder, is said to be John Haigh, a real serial killer from the 1940s. This does not match up with the stage taking place in 1962, when the real life killer died in 1949. In the game, he is said to have died from falling into a vat of acid, when in real life, he was tried and executed for his crimes. His MO also differs from his real life counterpart; whereas the real John Haigh killed his victims normally then used acid to dispose of the bodies (thinking that with no body, there was no evidence), Corroder outright sprays acid on his victims or dunks them alive into vats of the stuff.
** The game can't even keep up with its own fictional history, as a plot twist near the end of the game is that the Hamilton residence now stands where Lord Burroughs' clock tower once did... despite this making absolutely no sense, since the area surrounding the residence in no way resembles the ominous canyon a flashback showed the clock tower to inhabit, there's no mention of what room of the residence Dick's possession by Lord Burroughs could have possibly happened in, and on top of that the clock tower being raized completely removes the justification for ''why'' Lord Burroughs is able to come back and mastermind an evil plot several hundred years after his death.

** British man William Norton joins the army and goes to fight against the Germans in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1942 in the Champagne region of France. British troops had been evacuated from continental Europe in June 1940 and would not return to fight in France until 1944, after d-day. Alyssa also stumbles into London during a German bombing raid in December 1942. Strategic bombing of England was for the most part halted in June 1941 to shift focus of the use of air force on the invasion of the Soviet Union. The dates simply don't match up.
** The second killer, Corroder, is said to be John Haigh, a real serial killer from the 1940s. This does not match up with the stage taking place in 1962, when the real life killer died in 1949. In the game, he is said to have died from falling into a vat of acid, when in real life, he was tried and executed for his crimes. His MO also differs from his real life counterpart, with Corroder using the drums of acid to murder his victims, while the real John Haigh either bludgeoned or shot his victims, then used the acid to dispose of the bodies.
* AnAxeToGrind: Chopper has axes that he can throw like boomerangs or somehow fuse together and throw like a boomerang.

** The Entities, especially compared to Scissorman in the older games. Chasers warping around the game area is nothing new in Clock Tower, to the point where it even has reason in story. However, encounters were spaced out so as to build tension and let the player explore. In this game, however, the Entities warp CONSTANTLY (not counting scripted jumpscares), to the point where you could leave an area with an Entity by heading into a new one, only for the exact entity to enter that new area form a door on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the new area that had just been entered. Essentially, this meant that you were being chased by Entities almost constantly, replacing genuine tension with frustration. Add in the two above points, and you can observe why people tend to see this game in a negative light. Chopper in particular is the worst offender, as often he tends to spawn in any area you're in (barring those the game won't allow him to enter) a good 10 seconds after you enter it, and on top of that has a ranged attack that can be launched when he's off-screen.

** The boss Battle Mechanics are all particularly awkward, as they involve having to stay in a stationary position to launch arrows that lock Entities in place while doing damage despite their chasing you. The good part? the system is easy to use once you get used to it, making the boss fights trivial after some trial and error. The bad news? you still have to learn it, and even when you do, the game throws you a WakeUpCallBoss in the second battle with Chopper. How? By making you shoot his axes back at him to stun him. In midair. while they curve at you. While you have to remain stationary to hit them. Sure, the Scissortwins are a trivial boss fight afterwards, but the FinalBoss on the other hand makes Chopper look like an absolute joke.

* HyperspaceArsenal: Played straight, but averted for a single fetch quest, where only one of three emblems can be picked up at any one time, making what could have been a two minute diversion into an eight minute reason to play a different game.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: Corroder has a sulfuric acid-firing... device.
* InvisibleBowstring: Alyssa uses a bow without a string. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that she is shooting energy arrows from an [[EnergyBow energy bow]] that sprouts from a vial of holy water.

* TimeTravel

* WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve: [[spoiler:As the clock strikes twelve, it signifies Alyssa Hamilton is fifteen and will be ritually sacrificed so her grandfather will become a powerful entity. ]]

* FiveBadBand: The Subordinates can be seen like this:
** [[spoiler:Dick Hamilton]] as the BigBad.
** Sledgehammer is TheBrute.
** Corroder is EvilGenius.
** Chopper is TheDragon (by far one of the most resilient and dangerous subordinates).
** Scissor twins are the {{Dark Chick}}s and also act as CoDragons to Lord Burroughs.

* FakeDifficulty: The game has this at times, with the panic mode being the biggest offender. Interestingly, the rest of the series doesn't have any major moments of this, besides enemies sometimes appearing without warning.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Scissorman ends up being impaled by the [[PendulumOfDeath giant cleaver trap]] he almost used on Dennis earlier.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: British man William Norton joins the army and goes to fight against the Germans in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1942 in the Champagne region of France. British troops had been evacuated from continental Europe in June 1940 and would not return to fight in France until 1944, after d-day. Alyssa also stumbles into London during a German bombing raid in December 1942. Strategic bombing of England was for the most part halted in June 1941 to shift focus of the use of air force on the invasion of the Soviet Union. The dates simply don't match up.

* FakeDifficulty: The game has this at times, with the panic mode being the biggest offender.
** Interestingly, the rest of the series doesn't have any major FakeDifficulty besides enemies sometimes appearing without warning.

* IllKillYou:
-->'''Scissorwoman:''' I'll KILL YOU!

* LaughingMad: The Scissor twins make the Joker look like a man in a coma. And they never. Ever. Stop.

%%* AndYourRewardIsClothes: The unlockable outfits.
* AbandonedHospital: You also first confront the Scissortwins in one.

** Scissortwins are the {{Dark Chick}}s and also act as CoDragons to Lord Burroughs.

* LaughingMad: The Scissortwins make the Joker look like a man in a coma. And they never. Ever. Stop.

* ParentalIncest: [[spoiler:Attempted by the aptly-named Dick Hamilton, who was so obsessed with his daughter that he ignored his wife, brutally murdered his son-in-law, and then had his daughter brutally murdered as well by his sociopathic subordinate when she tried to protect her daughter (his granddaughter) from him, with the implication that she was also raped (either by him or his subordinate or both of them). As mentioned, he later transfers his carnal obsession to his granddaughter, the heroine Alyssa, who's the very image of her mother. She manages to defeat him though]].

* ShearMenace: The Scissortwins have two blades that they hold together to emulate scissors.

* VillainousHarlequin: The Scissortwins. Maybe a pair of {{Monster Clown}}s if you happen to think they're scarier than most do.

** The Scissortwins to each other.

* {{Ephebophile}}: It's '''strongly''' implied that the BigBad is motivated by a rather unwholesome, obsessive interest in the teenaged main character. [[spoiler:For extra creepy, he turns out to be the lead character's grandfather.]]

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:The Scissorman Ralph ends up being impaled by the [[PendulumOfDeath giant cleaver trap]] he almost used on Dennis earlier.]]

* PantyShot: Alyssa's short skirt causes her to expose her pink panties quite a lot; in fact, you can pan the camera to view up her skirt. Alyssa also occasionally exposes her panties when she is killed; most of the time her body lies down with her legs tucked over each other when she dies, hiding her panties. But when the purple ghosts kill her, they will lift her body into the air, causing Alyssa to arc her back with her thighs spread, allowing you to pan the camera around to view her crotch. They will then brutally snap Alyssa's spine, killing her instantly and causing her body to fall back down onto the ground and lie spread-eagle.
* ParentalIncest: [[spoiler:Attempted by the aptly-named Dick Hamilton, who was so obsessed with his daughter that he coldly ignored his wife, brutally murdered his son-in-law, and then had his daughter brutally murdered as well by his sociopathic subordinate when she tried to protect her daughter (his granddaughter) from him, with the implication that she was also raped (either by him or his subordinate or both of them). As mentioned, he later transfers his carnal obsession to his granddaughter, the heroine Alyssa, who's the very image of her mother. She manages to defeat him though]].

%%* TimeTravel
%%* TomeOfEldritchLore: The Book of Entities.