Clock Tower 3

Clock Tower 3 is a survival horror game played from a fixed third-person camera perspective in which players control 14-year-old school girl Alyssa Hamilton. Clock Tower 3 is the first game in the series to incorporate direct control over the protagonist, as opposed to the point-and-click gameplay used in the previous games. To progress through the game, the player must find items to unlock new areas, solve puzzles, and flee and hide from enemies ("Subordinates"). Eventually, each Subordinate must be defeated in battle.

Throughout each level, the player also encounters the spirits of innocent people slain by the Subordinates. These spirits will attack Alyssa if she approaches them. In order to pacify them, an item of sentimental value must be found and returned to the spirit's corpse.

In London in 2003, 14-year-old Alyssa Hamilton, sent to a boarding school by her mother Nancy after the disappearance of her grandfather Dick three years earlier, receives a letter from her mother telling her to go into hiding until after her fifteenth birthday. Alarmed, Alyssa decides to go against her mother's wishes and returns to their boarding house where she meets the mysterious Dark Gentleman but no sign of her mother. While searching for her, Alyssa suddenly hears piano music from an unknown source and is transported back in time to the London streets during World War II.

She enters a tailor shop where she witnesses the murder of a young girl by a man wielding a sledgehammer. Eventually, Alyssa is able to piece together what happened: May Norton, a 12-year-old pianist, was killed on Christmas Eve 1942 by Sledgehammer, a stonecutter who went on a killing spree before being caught and executed. Alyssa comes to realise that she must free May's spirit, which is trapped on Earth, by giving her her father's pocket watch. On her way to do so, she is confronted by Sledgehammer, whom she destroys.

After Human Entertainment went out of business in 2000, Sunsoft became the sole owner of the Clock Tower intellectual property. In April 2001, Capcom announced to bring Clock Tower 3 to the PlayStation 2 and co-producing the game with Sunsoft. Japanese film director Kinji Fukasaku directed the cutscenes, Keita Amemiya was in charge of character designs, Noboru Sugimura was writing the scenario, and Kouji 'Cozy' Kubo was composing the music. At the time of the announcement, the game was still in the casting phase; over two hundred actresses had auditioned for the motion capture of Alyssa.

In addition to the motion capture cast, two separate groups of voice actors were hired for the English and Japanese versions. Minami, who previously worked with Fukasaku in Battle Royale, modeled for Alyssa. The game was first shown at E3 in May 2002, where a non-playable demo was on show at the Capcom booth.

Clock Tower 3 received "mixed or average reviews", with an aggregate score of 69 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 28 reviews.

The game's presentation was strongly praised, with many pointing out the excellent cinematic style brought together by a strong script and well-directed cutscenes. GameSpy's Alan Pavlacka felt the script was the game's strongest point, and wrote that the "excellent cinema scenes" and "distinct visual style" also contributed to the high-quality presentation. The graphics and atmosphere were also well received. [it] is straight out of a Mary Shelley novel".