Ten years ago, a suspected serial killer has kidnapped five girls from a sanatorium located on Rogetsu Island in Japan. The detective Choshiro Kirishima eventually succeeded in pursuing the criminal and rescuing the girls. However, several years later, two of the girls died under mysterious circumstances. The three remaining girls - Ruka, Misaki, and Madoka - decide to return to the island to find out more about the kidnapping and retrieve their lost memories. Ruka's mother pleads Choshiro to follow them. One by one, the heroes venture into the dark haunted house... Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen is an installment in the Fatal Frame (Project Zero) series. The player switches between the four main protagonists as dictated by the story. As in the previous games, the characters use a camera to fend off hostile spirits. A new weapon is the Spirit Flashlight, a kind of torch that possesses the power to exorcise spirits with moonlight. Not all the spirits are hostile; the player is expected to differentiate between them, and also capture pictures with the camera to gather clues and advance in the game. Spirit Crystals can be collected and use to upgrade the camera and the flashlight. Healing items and films can be purchased in special shop-like locations.
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Despite it's use of an over-the-shoulder camera, Fatal Frame 4 feels decidedly classic in a time where classic survival horror was no longer in-vogue. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the reason Nintendo got cold feet when it came to publishing it abroad (among other reasons).
Luckily, in the year of our Lord, 2023, people from across the globe can finally play this bad boy through it's remaster, it's just a shame it took so long to get here. Better late than never, though!
The pace that the characters move at is miserably slow though and I had to use a mod that doubled the running speed to make it tolerable. Ghost encounters also started to become more annoying than scary the more I progressed since the combat is trivialized by the lock-on mechanic. The game is creepy all the way through but can sort of rely on jumpscares too much at times. Still really enjoyed this entry despite it's flaws, looking foward to the remaster!