Released in 2002, it is the fourth installment in the Clock Tower series, and the first and only video game directed by Japanese film director Kinji Fukasaku.

The story follows 14-year-old Alyssa Hamilton who is part of a family lineage of female warriors who travel through time to defeat evil spirits.

Alyssa travels from her time in 2003 London to the 1940s and 1960s in order to defeat these "Entities" and bring peace to troubled souls.

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.

[4] To progress through the game, the player must find items to unlock new areas, solve puzzles, and flee and hide from enemies ("Subordinates").

[5][6] Alyssa is given no weaponry during the majority of the game, other than a limited supply of holy water, which can be used to temporarily stun pursuing Subordinates.

If it is transfixed with multiple powered-up shots, Alyssa can perform a highly damaging "Super attack", killing or severely wounding it.

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 explores the house further with her friend, Dennis Owen, and learns more about her past: the girls in her family are known as "Rooders", young women with supernatural powers.

[18][19] Alyssa then travels to the 1960s, where she enters the house of Dorothy Rand, a blind elderly woman and her son, Albert, and sees them murdered by a man known as Corroder, who throws them into a vat of acid.

He sends her to the top of a massive clock tower where he tells her that when her fifteenth birthday arrives they will be united for eternity.

She then learns of the "Ritual of Engagement"; if a human wishes to become an Entity, they must remove the heart of a Rooder to whom they are related on her fifteenth birthday and drink her blood.

She learns that Dick was aware of the Ritual of Engagement and had discovered that Lord Burroughs, his ancestor and the castle owner, also knew about it.

[23] Dick invites Burroughs' spirit into his body to complete the Ritual to become an Entity, and turns into the Dark Gentleman.

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.

[25] In addition to the motion capture cast, two separate groups of voice actors were hired for the English and Japanese versions.

[34][36][37][38][40] 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.

[36][38][39] IGN's Jeremy Dunham noted that "Clock Tower 3 successfully captur[es] the dirty, musty look of England's serial killer underworld...[it] is straight out of a Mary Shelley novel".

[34][36][37][39] GameSpot's Brad Shoemaker argued the cinematic portions were underpinned by the gameplay, believing that players would more likely want to finish the game for its storyline than the fun they'll have playing it.