In a chill little backroom of Gamescom, I played two of Limited Run’s roster of retro remakes: Tombi (or Tomba) and Clock Tower. The idea was to experience these projects from two different and diametrically opposed angles: Tombi was a game I played a lot as a kid, and therefore knew pretty well, and Clock Tower I had never played and only vaguely heard of in the context of being a revered horror game from the mid ’90s. But instead, they both felt the same.
In playing both of them, I felt a rush of nostalgia wash over me. I played them on two separate days, too, so it wasn’t like I was getting a contact high from Tombi. Even though I had never played Clock Tower, I felt transported back to my childhood bedroom, playing a copy of Resident Evil I had borrowed from a friend without telling my parents, knowing they’d never let me play it. Nostalgia of a feeling can sometimes be as powerful as a memory.
Limited Run Has A Wide Range Of Beloved Classics
There are games I played as a child that, if I played a version of them now, I might recall which button to press or which way to go. But would I feel nostalgic? Would it remind me of being a kid, that time, that place? Or would it just be like recalling instructions in a manual? The magic of video games that transport you is that they take you deeper than that. Clock Tower, with its fuzzy graphics, its punishing difficulty (by Friday morning I was only the second person to evade Scissor Man during the demo), and retro gameplay, managed to remind me of a memory I didn’t actually have.
With Tombi, it was a little different. I had played this game before, many times, though I don’t think I ever completed it. It wasn’t a top tier favourite, nothing to Crash or Spyro or Super Mario World, but I enjoyed it all the same, and that came back to me as I played through the earliest levels at Gamescom. Maybe I was just enjoying it in the moment, and that made me think of the times I had enjoyed it before. Maybe if it had been a game on the level of Crash or Spyro, Clock Tower’s nostalgia wouldn’t feel so special in its shadow. But the pair ended up being the perfect duo, despite being so different in atmosphere, gameplay, and narrative, and that’s because of the power of memory.
Tombi Is One Of The '90s' Most Overlooked Adventures
That does leave me in a tight spot as far as a more official preview of the games go, unfortunately. Tombi played as well as I remembered it, and the added ‘rewind’ feature (similar to the one in Nintendo Switch Online) will definitely improve the game for veterans and newcomers. But the opening exchanges are not where the action is. It passed the smell test, and for many that will be enough, but neither in my preview session nor in my childhood did I get far enough into the game to judge it overall.
As for Clock Tower, I don’t have the original experience to say whether it compares to the original, but it certainly brought the spooky vibes I expected. Playing Clock Tower was playing gaming history, and it felt that way. The foreboding tone instantly told me this game deserved to be remembered, and the ominous presence of Scissor Man likely would have given me nightmares had I snuck it home along with Resident Evil. But despite some modernisation, Limited Run is concerned with preservation — a net good, but one that means there is a little bit of jank as you might expect from a survival horror point and click from the ’90s.
I’ve never really bought the angle of remakes introducing players who missed out the first time to new experiences. They always seemed primarily to be for people who played the original and who now want to play it again, but better. After Clock Tower though, I finally see where the appeal might be. But maybe I’d just be getting it to remember how good Resident Evil felt.