Despite what the title says, this did not actually happen. I know.

Anyway, this is a great survival horror game. The mansion can be memorized easily, and the random scares that can happen do truly keep you on edge.

The presentation can be goofy at times, and while a lot of the ghost designs are great, some are less threatening, like the cloud. I liked the cloud.

Great horror experience, they were onto something and they knew it, the concept of taking photos of ghosts to fend them off, mixed with the tank controls, and the lack of healing items from the second half of the game created a deeply stressful experience that I will hardly forget, basically a 10/10 horror game.
Great camera work, serviceable story, creepy as a game can be, short length and a good introduction to a great saga, just don't start your survival horrors with this one, the lack of objects, especially healing does get pretty hard on the second half, so be mindful of that and plan accordingly.

I usually don't play horror games but one of my friends wanted me to play this and I do not regret it!

I was always on the edge of my seat. The story is very interesting and I think it's told in a good way through cutscenes and files. The more you explore, the more you get background information.

Unfortunately the gameplay is quite rough. It just has the PS2 tank controls. The camera controls are not that fast. Switching films reminds me of the good old Ocarina of Time days.
The exploration of the mansion is a lot of fun. It opens up the more you play and always go back familiar places, I really hope the sequels keep it that way.

Also I really have to praise the sound design, you hear noises everywhere and it scared me so much.

Onto Fatal Frame 2!

I can't be the only one to think that the whole concept behind Fatal Frame ("Project Zero" in Europe...which is just a nonsense garbage name to give to a series like this) is beyond genious, right??

You catch photos of ghosts for killing them.

And the series is named like that (NOT PROJECT ZERO GRRR) because of that.

Gotta return at this soon enough. It does show a little its age for the camera and for the controls not as immediately intuitive but they're still fitting and how I expect from a horror of the times.

No início o jogo me ganhou na ambientação, destacando a estética sobrenatural japonesa, que é excelente. O enquadramento de câmera foi bem executado gerando aflição e alguns sustos. E suas mecânicas que são deveras interessantes cumprem bem seu papel, te dando a sensação de ser indefeso contra seus inimigos.

É uma pena que tudo isso vai de vala depois da segunda noite pelo fato de você já estar super overpower e qualquer desafio ser resolvido facilmente, e o que resta depois disso são pequenos vestígios e alguns sustos ocasionais. A história é entregue de forma interessante, visto que você precisa explorar o cenário para descobrir mais detalhes, pena que o final é patético, puta que pariu kkkkk.

Enfim, não teve nada de crítico que me incomodou de fato no jogo, até diria que no geral ele não comete nenhum erro significativo, é um título sólido para o começo de uma franquia que ainda estava começando a dar seus primeiros passos.

Fantastic atmosphere, terrifying enemy designs, unique and engaging survival horror gameplay/action, and a gripping story. This made me actually scared, fully immersed, and was just a fun time. Definitely recommend playing with the Japanese voices if available to you.

This game is still fresh over 20 years later, this is my first time playing it so I have no nostalgia for it. The environmental design is some of the most solid I've seen, the manor is a character in itself, very memorable and interesting to traverse. Everything just feels great, even the visual design of things as simple as colors correlating to certain characters, and the uniquely inspired design of ghosts. The Japanese setting is just fantastic, from the buildings to the history to the tone to the enemy designs, it all breaths a unique Japanese lens of horror that honestly should be used more. Of course other greats like Silent Hill or RE are made by Japanese devs but few are actually set in Japan like this.

The story starts vague but piecing it together is so engaging, every note or flashback you come across genuinely had me excited. Puzzles are simple but enjoyable, requiring me to bust out a pen and paper a few times for easily recalling information/numbers. And by the end I was very invested in the story of the manor and its central tragic character. It made me feel things! The Japanese voice acting is also fantastic and very emotional... Unlike the stilted and awkward English voice acting.

All in all I highly recommend it!

This game has solid atmosphere and a neat concept but is riddled with annoyances. Ridiculous amounts of backtracking combined with slow movement speed and same-y rooms and hallways. Fixed camera angles but without tank controls so re-directing yourself every time the camera angle changes (which is a lot) is a constant annoyance. Every time you make a little bit of progress you get blocked by a seal or something and have to go backtrack halfway across the mansion to undo it. I personally didn't like the combat at all but I might just be bad at it, I don't know. It was just a lot of taking a picture, running 5 steps, turning around and taking another picture over and over again. The story also wasn't really gripping and the voice acting was generally bad.

Fatal Frame is a solid horror game, that exceeds in atmosphere. The soundtrack complements each level very well, and the game does a great job of inducing a feeling of anxiety and the dark tone definitely sets the mood. It will leave a first impression of you. Gameplay is certainly solid for the time, but is a bit tedious by today's standards. Jumpscares no longer have the same effect, and the combat system can become frustrating to deal with. However, the game's story, which is engaging on it's own, alongside the atmosphere and tone, overshadow this games faults for the most part. Definitely recommended.

Fatal Frame is a game that relies heavily on atmosphere and ambiance over jumpscares. The story and setting kept me intrigued, along with the camera's multipurpose use of a puzzle solving tool and a weapon for the ghosts I encounter. I didnt really care that much about the back and forth backtracking a lot of the puzzles had, but I feel that's kind of most of the older horror games' schick.

The combat with the camera felt pretty clunky. I found myself fighting with the controls, even after changing it to the more comfortable alternative where it mirrors some of the FPS controls when using the camera. The thumbstick sensitivity only has two speeds when looking in first person, but there's a separate fast speed button that ignores any analog sensitivity, zipping along the screen even at a light tap of the stick.

Not at all a demerit, but the game is also not forgiving with its ammo. The weakest ammo - although infinite in theory as you can recharge it at the save points - will have you fighting ghosts for a longer than necessary period. You need to keep in mind of using the weaker film when solving puzzles and the stronger film for fighting, as well as try to prioritize attacking when either fully charged and/or the moment an enemy is ready to strike you. This makes the combat pretty intense, and it provides super satisfying moments dealing high damage the moment a ghost tries to strike you.

Older Japanese horror games have a habit of having bad English VA and this game is no exception. Though, I feel like it was the fault of the localiztion's voice direction that was the culprit and not the actors themselves as there were few instances where the VA didnt sound out of place. Mafuyu's VA unfortunately sounded completely disinterested in his role.

Despite its terrible English VA, the game sounds great. It has on-point horror ambiances and its reliance of the ghosts spatial sound design when fighting them makes it a great terrifying experience. Although there are cases where the ambiance stops abruptly when going into another room. I'm not sure if it was a stylistic choice or because of the game's limitations, but that sounded odd to me.

Near the end of the game, the difficulty spikes pretty harshly. Annoyingly, theres an enemy that screws with your controls, and there is an instance where the game isn't immediately clear of where a certain key item is, and you had to make a short time windowed decision to find it and put it in its right place or it's an instant game over far away from a save point.

Overall, I've enjoyed my time with the game, and I've heard the sequels are much better. I'm looking forward to playing Crimson Butterfly along with the rest of the series.

Un comienzo de saga bastante acertado, siendo la típica historia del pueblo abandonado para pasar a convertirse en todo una serie de rituales llevados a cabos en ella, que involucran todo tipo de personas en donde el juego hace un buen trabajo en añadirles nombre y trasfondo a cada uno de ellos. Un punto acertado igualmente el la jugabilidad, que puede ser algo básica pero consistente con lo que el juego presenta, con el uso de una cámara como arma principal, y variando sorpresivamente entre los rollos de película que cumplen la función de municiones como también mejoras que hacen el gameplay no tan repetitivo. El backtracking no se hace pesado ya que las mansión es muy pequeña en si tanto por fuera como por dentro, lo cual es genial.