Horror games from the 1990s to the mid-2000s hold a special place for me. These games were genuinely unique in the sense that they focused so much on the atmosphere that they may have been shunned in critic reviews, sold poorly, and generally ignored during their time, but we have come to love them later on. Horror games have rarely been made the same since. Fatal Frame was a very unique series that took the genre to new heights with interesting gameplay mechanics that steered away from guns and running away from things. Your Camera Obscura was your weapon and puzzle solver, and the first game won gamers over, but it had unfair difficulty and had clunky controls. The second game fixed a lot of this and was later upgraded further for Xbox. This would also, sadly, be the last game in the series on Microsoft's green beast of burden.

You play as new characters this time around. Twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura You are trying to solve the mystery of the "Crimson Sacrifice Ritual" in All God's Village, a fictional town in Japan. This isn't a journalistic setting; instead, just two girls are playing in their favorite spot when a dam collapses and Mio falls. The original sacrificee wants revenge and her own twin sister back, and you both are prime candidates. The story is rather interesting and very dark and creepy. I enjoyed it quite a bit, as it surprisingly had more depth than most horror games of the time. Most of the story is told through texts you find (there are a lot) and not so much in cut scenes. There are crystals you can now pick up and listen to on your radio, and these are rather haunting. I enjoyed these quite a bit. The voice acting is surprisingly decent (for the time), and the voices of the dead can really make you feel uneasy.

Of course, the main attraction is the Camera Obscura. Once again, you use this to kill ghosts and see things that aren't there. It's more refined this time around, with better controls. You can switch to proper FPS controls, which makes playing much easier. Upgrades are more robust, as are equipped add-ons. You can find add-ons throughout the game, with some being passive and some requiring you to charge your camera. You can equip up to three add-ons and swap between them while in camera mode. These range from Blast, See, Stun, Slow, etc. These can be upgraded along with your basic functions, like in the first game. Finding passive ghosts and taking photos of them (if you're quick) can give you Spirit Points as well as fighting spirits. You need spirit orbs to slot in to be able to advance to the next upgrade level. Each power has three levels. I highly recommend upgrading your basic stats first. Spirit Points are more plentiful than in the first game, which is a good thing.

Just like in the first game, your goal is to take a photo as close to the spirits' faces as possible to be able to take a Fatal Frame shot. There is a meter that powers up around the circle in the center, and when it hits red, you need to be quick. There is a red flash at the top that tells you when it's best to use a power-up. On rare occasions, you can get a two-photo combo for massive damage. There are film types in this game, and thankfully the weakest is unlimited. This means you won't ruin your game (like in the first one) if you run out of film. The game will just become insanely hard. Higher types are plentiful, and I never ran out, but I recommend saving the Zero film for the final boss. There's less than 10 in the entire game. I also found healing items incredibly plentiful, and I never ran out.

My biggest complaint is the backtracking and navigation. It's hard to figure out where to go next. There are obscure objectives, and some things won't trigger until you enter the correct room. This is a much bigger game than the first. With three large houses and the village itself to explore, I had to use a walkthrough throughout most of the game because I just kept getting lost, but that's par for the course for survival horror games of this era. I found the visuals to be fantastic, even by today's standards. Great textures, models, and lighting are amazing. The Xbox really shows off what the series can do here, and it's a shame the third game never got a port.

Overall, Fatal Frame II is a fantastic upgrade over the first. Just make sure you have a guide handy. The controls are much improved, the camera system is more robust, enemies are actually fun to fight this time around, and bosses are challenging. The story is interesting enough, and the lore is creepy and unsettling. The atmosphere alone is worth playing through this game for. Haunting music, a few jump scares, creepy ghost designs, and insanely unsettling throughout.