Destructoid Changelog Newsletter - Aggressive Wiggling and a Grotesque Hat Rack

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Hello again. Destructoid is back in your inbox. It’s a nice place you have here, though you should maybe tidy up if you’re expecting company.

With the holidays disappearing in the rearview window, I’m back up to my old pace. I’ve been playing a number of upcoming games, which I’m excited to talk about. I thought it might be a bit difficult to get back into the swing of things, but this is what I love to do, so it’s like stepping into an old pair of pants.

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Time is running out to get in on the special monthly issue of the Destructoid Changelog Newsletter, however. This month I have an exclusive interview with Jack King-Spooner, one of the folks behind Judero and the upcoming Mashina. To get on the list, you just need to convince a friend to sign up for the newsletter using the link below. Might not hurt if you mention our PlayStation 5 Slim giveaway, but I understand if you don’t want the competition.

Clock Tower 3

It hasn’t been long since I played through the original Clock Tower, but that isn’t necessarily why I’m playing Clock Tower 3. In fact, one of the only things I knew about Clock Tower 3 going in was that it has very little to do with the first three games. Yeah, three games. They pulled a Final Fantasy in North America. We got Clock Tower II as Clock Tower in North America, and Clock Tower: Ghost Head as Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within. So, Clock Tower 3 is actually the fourth game.

Not important. The more important thing is that it is pretty dissimilar to the games that came before. A lot of the staff had already been replaced by Clock Tower II (the third game), so it’s not entirely surprising, but they brought in folks like prolific filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku to do the cutscenes and writing by Noboru Sugimura, who is known for working on various video games and, oh, Super Sentai. That explains a lot.

You take the role of Alyssa, who was inexplicably sent away to boarding school by her mother. She receives a letter from her mother telling he to, for the love of god, not come home until after her upcoming fifteenth birthday. Really puts the stress on “don’t come home.” So, Alyssa figures something’s up and goes home, and that attraction to danger is an excellent way to illustrate how she ended up as a horror protagonist. When she gets home, her mother is missing, and there’s some scary-looking dude. She figures he’s just one of the people who board at the house and continues on looking for her mom.

She then gets transported back to 1942 – still following along? – and winds up running from a dude with a massive mallet. That’s as close as it really comes to the original game. You don’t have to hide the whole time, thankfully. You have the option to if things get too hot, but running away is the best way to deal with your problems.

The goal is to help a ghost find peace so she can move onto the afterlife, which is a pretty unusual thing to see in a horror game. But it gets weirder, because after you find the item that’s supposed to allow the ghost to cross over, you get attacked again, and Alyssa comes so close to doing a magical girl transformation. But instead of getting a golden bra or colorful skirt, she just gets a laser bow. You then literally fight the serial killer to death with magic.

It’s so bizarre. Clock Tower 3 wildly fluctuates from horrific to goofy. It has this way of showing absolutely brutal deaths and then suddenly there’s a laster bow. It’s skillful in the way that it knows how to tie together violence and tragedy, and then some boy climbs in through Alyssa and – I don’t know how else to describe this – begins to jiggle aggressively.

It’s a good time. More than anything, the stark contrast between the deft skill and bumbling goofiness is enthralling. One moment, you’re disturbed, and the next, you can’t help but laugh at its awkwardness. In a way, it’s the perfect horror game.

Elsewhere on Destructoid

The Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness Remaster will restore lots of cut content

I appreciate Tiago Manuel’s expertise in the Tomb Raider series, since it makes these sorts of articles very entertaining. In this one, he talks about all the content that Aspyr is reimplementing into Angel of Darkness, but is alsosure to remind that it would take a heck of a lot more than this to make the game worth playing.

Is the Tekken boss leaving Bandai Namco? Katsuhiro Harada’s worrying Linkedin post explained

Katsuhiro Harada seems like a pretty cool guy. I’ve appreciated how willing he is to peel back the curtain and give a rather candid look at the insides of Bandai Namco. He set himself as “Open to Work” on Linkedin, which some took as a sign that he was on his way out from the company. The truth is much stranger.

PureArts has a 3-foot Nemesis bust if you want something gross to put your hats on

Merchandise isn’t my favorite thing to write about most of the time, but the press release for this one gave me pause. As the headline says, it’s a 3-foot tall, resin bust of Nemesis from Resident Evil 3. That’s 1:1 scale, chum. Listen, I’m not judging, but I can’t really imagine the living room where something like this fits. I suppose if it’s decorated top to toes in video game merch, but otherwise, gosh, what a weird thing to own.

Technos The World: Kunio-kun & Arcade Collection bringing a luscious mix of the developer’s hidden gems

Did you buy the Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle for Switch? If not, you should. Translating an old video game is a pretty big undertaking that few companies would do for such a niche audience, but Arc Systems Work went back and localized a massive number of formerly Japan-exclusive Famicom games. Well, they have another collection, pulling in some even more obscure gems. It’s not confirmed to be coming to North America, but if it does, you can bet that it’s worth your money.

Reviews for review this week

Robodunk

There’s been a big, basketball-shaped hole in my heart that NBA Jam used to fill, but the series has been dormant for over a decade. RoboDunk has a similar 2v2 setup with a lot of physicality, but the players are all robots made of Lego. It’s also more dunk-centric, but that’s actually a smaller change to the formula than you might expect. Honestly, it kind of feels like a Super Mario basketball game in the vein of Mario Strikers Charged. Not the actual Super Mario basketball game.