Clock Tower: Ghost Head

Following its predecessors, Clock Tower II is a point-and-click adventure game with 3D graphics and survival horror elements. The player can use either a standard PlayStation controller or the PlayStation Mouse to control the protagonist, Alyssa Hale, through the game. The cursor changes shape when placed over certain objects, which the player can click to interact with. Clicking on any location guides Alyssa in that direction.

Moving the cursor to the top of the screen reveals the player's inventory. Clicking on an item and then clicking on an object on the screen uses the item on that object or in that location.

Alyssa Hale is a 17-year-old high school girl who, during the spring of 1999, is on her way to a distant town in California to visit her father's friend Phillip Tate. Previously, it was discovered that another person resides in Alyssa's soul named Bates. Alyssa underwent intense therapy because she lost control of him. Along the way to Phillip's home, Alyssa looks at her amulet, which she believes has some sort of power over her.

As she stares at it, she realizes that it must somehow be related to Bates, as she remembers not having it when she awoke from Bates' invasion of her psyche. Meanwhile, at the house, Philip and his wife Kathryn hear a noise at the door, Kathryn goes to see if it is Ashley. Philip says something about the "Maxwell Curse", before Kathryn screams and he rushes over to see what is happening. When Alyssa arrives at the Tate's residence that night, no one appears to be home.

Clock Tower II was the last Clock Tower game developed by Human Entertainment. It was also the first in the series not directed by series creator Hifumi Kono. Kono was asked by Human to make a sequel to the first two games, but he felt he was out of material and could not make it. Yutaka Hirata stepped in and offered to direct the game.

Its Japanese title, Clock Tower: Ghost Head, was changed to Clock Tower II in North America due to the first game being released exclusively to Japan and the second game was retitled Clock Tower for western audiences. It was not given a numbered title in Japan because it moves away from the story and setting in the two previous Clock Tower titles, and is considered a spin-off, taking place in the "real world" outside of the continuity of the series which establishes the first two games as fiction. In the Japanese release, the game is set in Osaka. This was changed to California for the North American release.

According to review aggregator platform Metacritic, Clock Tower II was met with "generally unfavorable" reviews. The game is generally considered to be the worst in the entire Clock Tower series of games. The gameplay was found to be flawed due to the dual personality mechanic and poor storytelling methods. Joe Fielder of GameSpot described the puzzles as counter-intuitive, like being stuck on a Rubik's Cube and coming back later to find the cube solved.

In the same vein, he noted how sometimes events are triggered or areas become accessible only after spending time exploring other unrelated areas. S. PlayStation Magazine shared these sentiments, saying the player spends most of their time wandering around, hoping to trigger the next event. The point-and-click interface was also criticized as slow and inaccurate.