CLOCK ZERO~Shuuen no Ichibyou~ ExTime (CLOCK ZERO ～終焉の一秒～ ExTime)

Title: CLOCK ZERO ~終焉の一秒～ ExTime
Company: Otomate
Release Date: April 23, 2015
Platform: PSV
Official Site: http://www.otomate.jp/clock_zero/ex_time/
Walkthrough: http://yaplog.jp/ns2762525/archive/88
Synopsis:
Kurou Nadeshiko goes to a private school for rich kids. One day, her class adviser, Kaga Akira, tells her that she needs to go to supplementary classes after school along with other “problem” students. At the same time, there is a transfer student in their school called Kaidou Takato.

 

Meanwhile, she is having a recurrent dream of a world in ruins. All of a sudden, the people she meets in her dreams starts appearing in real life…

I was so ecstatic when they announced the PS Vita port of Clock Zero. Not only because of better graphics, but also the addition of Nakaba’s route. I was pretty sure anyone who have played the PS2 or the PSP version wished they could play his route. After all, Nakaba grew up in to a fine young lad. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Since I’ve played the PSP ver, I skipped most of the game (the skip scene feature is a pretty nifty thing). This post will mostly be about the added features in the PSV port. You may refer to my previous CZ post.

Plot

Same as the older versions. With the addition of another point of views and endings.

There’s a Nakaba route as announced. Kaede also have one!

Once finished with any route, the bonus track will be unlocked. It contains Another Epilogue and Short Novel. Another Epilogue is further divided into Normal World and Distorted World.  Each guy has two parts in the Normal world, the First part then the Latter part. The First part is the same epilogue included in the PSP port. The Latter part is PSV only. This is like the epilogue of the epilogue lol. Most of the endings are wedding ends except for Tora.

The Distorted World epilogues are the same as the ones in the PSP with the exception of Rook and Journalist ends, of course.

If you’ve bothered with the Short Novels before, it’s the same thing here. Same exception goes to Nakaba, naturally. Speaking of Nakaba…

Hanabusa Nakaba

If you are wondering if Nakaba alone is worth buying this port, the short answer is: no. For the long answer, read on.

Hanabusa Nakaba is the older brother of Madoka. He is cheerful and has an unending source of energy since he is a kid. He loves cooking, anime, and sentai shows so much. These sentai shows are most likely the reason why he’s got that ‘heroic’ thing going on him. It plays a big part on his entire route. It’s like, there’s a big need for him to help someone. He’d go to great lengths just to save random people or risk his life to help Nadeshiko. It’s fine and all. I mean, he is kind and puts others first. Thing is, he is TOO kind to the point where he disregards himself and his feelings even if Nadeshiko is being upfront about her love for him. It’s a good thing that Nadeshiko is decisive or else their romance would not probably move.

To access Nakaba’s route, you’d have to finish Tora and Madoka’s routes first. I play the game just like how I play the PSP port. It goes like this, Rittan –> Shuuya –> Tora –> Madoka –> Nakaba –> Takato. Since Nakaba’s story is like half-Yuushinkai and half-government, I would have liked to play his route after Tora and before Madoka. But I guess that’s just me though.

His story doesn’t really add something new to what we don’t know already, other than Takato being creepier than ever. You could kind of get the feeling that his story is not originally part of the game as you could take out his story and the game would still be awesome. There are also parts where it feels like he’s the main guy, being the guy who saves the heroine and the world.

His Stay end doesn’t really sit well to me. Nadeshiko gets to go back to her world but then wants to go back to the Distorted world. She confides to kid Takato about everything and he helps her find a way back. First, I didn’t know they could transfer her consciousness like that so easily O_O. WITH a young Takato no less. Adult Takato took him years to make that transfer fully functional but it was only, what, days with his younger self?? And isn’t it cruel to ask something like that to him when he’s been crushing on Nadeshiko since forever.

Rants aside, I do enjoy his bonus tracks. They are all sweet and entertaining. ♡♥(。´▽`。)♥♡

Kaede

Who would have thought that we’d get to have an ending with him? xD

Kaede is Nadeshiko’s guard when she is imprisoned in Yuushinkai. He is a fanboy of Shuuya and respects the guy a lot. I’ve taken a liking to him ever since he shows his unyielding support to Shuuya in Shuuya’s route. I never expected an ending with him which you’ll be able to get once you’re going through Nakaba’s route.

Gameplay

It is still pretty much the same. They only added some graphics for the assignment section. The chibis are so cute! Notice how the chibis change expression if you pass or fail the tasks.

They change the quiz part though. If I could get away by asking Rain’s hint before, now I have to choose the correct kanji. The answers are provided in the guide so you’ll just find the same character. Otomate makes good use of the touch screen of Vita to make things easier. In case you type the wrong answer, Kaga will still ask you if you want to ask for Rain’s hint or not. But unlike before, Rain will provide the first two characters and you’ll have to fill it in to get the answer.

I can’t be 100% sure with this one but I’ve noticed added choices to which will either increase Madoka or Nakaba’s affection. Since Nadeshiko hangs out with the two of them, they put on a distinction whether she favors the older or the younger Hanabusa.

CG

This is the most annoying and frustrating part.

I got all the 34 endings, finished the epilogues, and do all the extras I thought needed to get the platinum, only to find out that I’m missing 5 CGs. 3 of them are chibi CGs and then the last 2 bonus CGs. I was pretty sure I QS’ed and QL’ed them while playing so I wonder what went wrong. Thank goodness I have a save file near those events so I wouldn’t have to go that far. I got the CGs and the full comp graphics at the start and even the Platinum trophy. I closed the game and played P4G. Then I started CZ again only to find out that I’m missing the CGs that I got. WHAT THE EFF.

I tried the entire thing again. I got everything again. Then, I closed the game and see what will happen if I opened it again. Guess what? I’m missing the friggin’ CGs AGAIN. What I did is I redo what I did before and SAVED once I got them. Then I updated my updates (heh). You know, the updates at the start page of the game. The one that says “derpyeu got blah-blah-blah”. I’m not sure what worked but I’m glad it worked after giving me so much frustration.

Anyway, they added new CGs for the epilogue so be sure to check them out. The new CGs are okay, some have this generic feel to them. Like, mobage-like generic www. Also, they have included the original size of the CGs from the PS2, so you could get 2 sizes of the CGs.

All in all, Clock Zero is still one of the best game I’ve ever played and I’ll be forever glad that I played this. The original game is long and with the added ends and epilogues, it becomes super long. But it’s worth all the time and penny. However, I wouldn’t recommend getting the PSV port for Nakaba alone. Get this port because the entire game is awesome.