Her camera tea
Japanese Ghostbusters with cute girls
Fatal Frame is a survival horror masterpiece with a unique combat system which is only hindered by some brutal difficulty spikes and a few unfair enemy encounters.
-Story: the game's story is something I would call a 'typical creepy Japanese horror story'. We are playing as a young girl looking for her brother in a haunted mansion, where we are slowly but steadily learning about the horrors of what happened in the residency way back in time. Without spoiling anything: the main focus is on a ritual which went terribly wrong and has been causing further awful events ever since.
-Atmosphere: Fatal Frame uses the fixed camera angles masterfully. I would argue it is on par with Resident Evil or even better. The jump scares are also perfectly executed, they never feel cheap, they are never in your face too much yet they are always effective. Add to these the eerie sounds emitted by ghosts and the suspenseful music and you get Fatal Frame's memorable and scary atmosphere. My only gripe in this aspect was the lack of diversity in the environment. Most of the playtime is spent inside the mansion which unfortunately gets monotonous pretty fast.
-Gameplay: what I loved most about the game is definitely its one of a kind combat system. Instead of the usual melee and ranged weapons, the player uses a special camera to photograph ghosts wandering around the mansion. This is not only a unique and fun way to fend off enemies, it really adds to the scare factor as you have to follow enemy movements in first person mode and often wait for their attacks to deal sufficient damage. The camera is also involved in finding clues required to progress and it also plays a key role in the story. My biggest issue with the game was some of the ghost's attack patterns (or rather their ability to teleport behind you and attack instantly) and a few enemy placements which made it almost impossible to avoid some damage during combat. Despite this, I still loved the gameplay of Fatal Frame. So much so that it quickly became one of my all time favorite horror games.
-Story: the game's story is something I would call a 'typical creepy Japanese horror story'. We are playing as a young girl looking for her brother in a haunted mansion, where we are slowly but steadily learning about the horrors of what happened in the residency way back in time. Without spoiling anything: the main focus is on a ritual which went terribly wrong and has been causing further awful events ever since.
-Atmosphere: Fatal Frame uses the fixed camera angles masterfully. I would argue it is on par with Resident Evil or even better. The jump scares are also perfectly executed, they never feel cheap, they are never in your face too much yet they are always effective. Add to these the eerie sounds emitted by ghosts and the suspenseful music and you get Fatal Frame's memorable and scary atmosphere. My only gripe in this aspect was the lack of diversity in the environment. Most of the playtime is spent inside the mansion which unfortunately gets monotonous pretty fast.
-Gameplay: what I loved most about the game is definitely its one of a kind combat system. Instead of the usual melee and ranged weapons, the player uses a special camera to photograph ghosts wandering around the mansion. This is not only a unique and fun way to fend off enemies, it really adds to the scare factor as you have to follow enemy movements in first person mode and often wait for their attacks to deal sufficient damage. The camera is also involved in finding clues required to progress and it also plays a key role in the story. My biggest issue with the game was some of the ghost's attack patterns (or rather their ability to teleport behind you and attack instantly) and a few enemy placements which made it almost impossible to avoid some damage during combat. Despite this, I still loved the gameplay of Fatal Frame. So much so that it quickly became one of my all time favorite horror games.
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.
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.
One rather noticeable thing about the first Fatal Frame is that its localization... has issues, at least from my perspective. It’s immediately evident, whether it’s how every single voice actor sounds like they’ve overdosed on cold medicine and really could be doing more important things right now, or the subtle grammar errors — tense, plural conflicts, that thing thing in optical illusions where the last word of one line is repeated as the first word of the next line except that here, here, apparently, it's done completely unknowingly. A friend informed me before I started playing that I’d absolutely need a walkthrough, and while at first I chalked that up to general survival horror esotericness, soon upon starting the game I happened to stumble across a puzzle that was… completely untranslated. I was meant to press four out of ten buttons, on a circular structure, with an epitaph telling me to look at a note I’d collected which had a bunch of numbers highlighted in red. Presuming, maybe, that this was some sort of clock (albeit, one which used specific kanji for the numbers I’d never seen before) I tried to input the numbers roughly where they’d be on a Western clock, only for that to be incorrect. I decided that maybe this was why I was meant to have a walkthrough, looked the answer up, only to find that… I was correct. It was a clock. The buttons on the interface did represent numbers. I just happened to lack the cultural context to know that this specific clock… ran anticlockwise. Something that might have been much easier to figure out had any of the elements of the puzzle itself been translated.
If I were to hazard a guess as to why the localization effort turned out the way it did, I’d say… it’s because Fatal Frame leans far more into Japanese culture and folklore than any of its contemporaries. While most survival horror games up to this point — Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Parasite Eve, among others — primarily took inspiration from Western horror movies, and to evoke this were usually set in some facsimile of the USA, Fatal Frame goes for… something loosely opposite. Rather than taking from the West, Fatal Frame draws from within, and as opposed to looking at at-the-time contemporary media — though the late 90s/early 2000s boom in J-Horror could’ve played a part — the game draws from local myth and folklore: specifically, the idea of the yūrei, figures analogous but not quite the same as the western idea of ghosts. Given all that, it can be seen that Fatal Frame is not quite equivalent to its brethren, and to approach it with the same treatment as something more naturally Western is a recipe for losing something in translation. And with glaring issues like the untranslated puzzles, and with stuff like, say, the kagome dolls which require cultural context to understand their implementation in-game, it makes other issues — such as the tense conflicts, or the voice acting — not quite as able to blend in as they might’ve for, say, the first Resident Evil. I’d like to note, for the record, that this doesn’t necessarily impact my feelings on the game itself (perhaps, if I really wanted the true Fatal Frame experience I should’ve not dropped out of doing Japanese at school while I was in the middle of a downward spiral), it’s just a case where unless you happen to know the language or have the cultural context you are going to need a walkthrough to understand this game, even beyond some of the usual survival horror trappings.
You play, primarily, as a young girl named Miku Hinasaki, whose brother disappears while searching for his teacher inside the supposedly haunted Himuro Mansion. As her search to find him takes her inside the mansion, she finds that all the ghost stories she’s heard are real: the mansion is littered with yūrei of varying levels of hostility, and only through the use of the Camera Obscura — an antique polaroid camera passed down through Miku’s family — does she have a chance at fighting back against those with more hostile intentions. As she delves deeper, upgrading her camera, accessing new parts of the mansion, collecting recordings and writings of those left behind, it soon becomes clear that your role here extends far past finding your brother and his teacher. A curse has infected the Himuro Mansion for generations, haunting, killing, and assimilating all who enter it, and as you delve further and further into the past, it soon starts to become clear that all this circles around a failed ritual, and the spirit of the woman who was meant to perform it: a spirit who, soon enough, proceeds to place their eyes on you.
I think what I’d particularly like to praise is just how incredible this game is at atmosphere. There are just so many little things that come together and really make it shine as a horror experience. I love the way the plot unfolds: how it initially begins with the plot thread of finding your brother and meeting the people he was trying to look for, before each subsequent chapter unfurls back, generation by generation, coming up against everybody laid victim by the curse until you eventually manage to reach its source. I like a lot of the artstyle, both in terms of helping the game feel smooth to play — how it handles you needing to light up dark areas without it feeling like a low-saturation hellscape, how subtle the fog is at walling off/impeding visibility past a certain point, how (for being translucent) immediately noticeable the ghosts are against the background — and also stylistically: the monochrome colour scheme when you’re looking into the past and the curse is about to take somebody feels so distinct, and also feeds into a couple of particular plot details in a way that feels pretty clever. While I did mention the voice acting as a negative during my preamble, it’s really effective coming out of the many enemies you fight: the monotone, slightly distorted delivery does a lot to show the otherworldly, not-quite-human-anymore nature of the spirits you face. I love the way the mansion changes between chapters: how certain doors lock and unlock, how some areas restock or get new items, how encounters shift to different locations: you’ll be going through the same general areas for the whole game, but the context for why you do so, and the purposes of each room can change radically between chapters which makes it feel like a whole new map each time. I’ve mentioned before how oftentimes it’s all the little things working in tandem that can really tie a horror game together, and I think Fatal Frame is a standout example on that front: all these tidbits which are fairly neat on their own really do their job to coalesce and create something special.
What differentiates Fatal Frame most from its survival horror contemporaries — aside from its set dressing of Japanese folklore — is its combat system. As opposed to being some sort of experienced fighter, using conventional weaponry to take down physical foes, Miku’s foes are much less tangible, and only through perceiving and documenting them with the Camera Obscura can you dispel them: eventually, with the goal of exorcizing them entirely. You do this via controlling the camera in first person (as opposed to the third person fixed camera movement of the rest of the game), and, upon locating your ghost, keeping your focus on them to build up spiritual power until eventually snapping a picture of them, doing increasing damage based on the type of camera roll/ammo you use and how long you were able to charge up for. There are various ‘special’ types of shot that reward special circumstances — such as taking a photo of multiple enemies at once, taking a photo when they're as close as possible to the camera, and, most importantly, taking a photo of an enemy right as they attack you — by multiplying damage and briefly stunning the enemy, heavily encouraging patience and fishing for the perfect shot.
However, enemies also become more complicated over time, and often engage in tactics primarily built to make you lose track of where they are: teleporting, cloning themselves, and phasing into walls and the floor both to try and protect themselves and sneak up on you. There are different types of enemies, who all react differently to your camera, and it characterizes the core conceit of the gameplay fairly well, going up against the spirit of the same person throughout their many haunts until you’re finally able to exorcize them for good. It also helps to create rather frenetic moments as you progress through the game: where you as the player scurry around the room to try and find the enemy that just disappeared, and where positioning is vitally important, both to get a wide, open range so that enemies don’t get too far out of sight, and to make sure nothing can sneak up where you won’t be able to see them. I love combat systems that manage to become more complex over time without adding extra mechanics to the core system, and for the most part, Fatal Frame is able to hit a sweet spot where combat feels tense without actively feeling adverse to play.
(I also really liked the incidental non-hostile ghosts: the ones you specifically need to listen to cues to find, or the ones you have to snap a picture of fast before they disappear forever. While some of them seem especially “you have to know in advance when and where these guys are going to pop up,” in a way that encourages replaying the game or buying a guide, it’s a cute little extra thing that you can do throughout the game and does a lot to characterize the mansion and the curse infecting it: showing just how many people have fallen victim and become trapped inside the mansion forever)
I say “for the most part,” because unfortunately, past a certain point, the game really starts feeling adverse to play, particularly in terms of combat. Ghosts really start leaning on teleporting the moment you so much as move the camera in their direction, which makes combat this frustrating dance of just trying to find the enemy in hopes that maybe this time you can actually do some damage to them. This’d be maybe fine, in moderation, and if there was at least some variance it’d be more bearable, but from chapter 3 onwards the game is basically nothing but constant encounters with the same annoying enemies and it’s a sloooooooog. It also plays badly with a lot of your resource management: you have to make do with taking low-damage pictures to enemies, which means you have to take a lot of them to actually put an opponent down, all the while one hit from them takes nearly half your health bar. This means you have to scrounge around the mansion, hoping the game will drop you stuff you actually need instead of fuel for special skills you don’t use… but also if you dare walk off the beaten path you get punished with combat with a special ghost who embodies everything that makes combat really intolerable at this point, and who will almost certainly hit you before you leave the room (because for some reason Miku never really feels that much of a need to, say, get through a door fast when there's something chasing her), necessitating save scumming or even more scrounging. It’s miserable, especially since this combat happens in lieu of any other mode of progression. No more puzzles, no more trying to find new parts of the mansion: everything after this point is just the same combat encounters over and over again.
At the very least, though, most of what else I found compelling remained as such even when the direct gameplay took a nosedive: the slowly unfolding history of the Himuro Mansion, the immaculate atmosphere and artstyle that made simply traversing the mansion an enjoyable experience when I wasn’t getting nothin’ personnelled by a ghost monk, and my attempts to get snapshots of as many of the incidental ghosts as I could. Even if the at-first unique combat system eventually loses its sense of where on the line it falls between exciting and frustrating, nearly everything else really holds up, and, if not quite picture perfect, isn't washed out at all, even with all the things that work against it. 8/10.
If I were to hazard a guess as to why the localization effort turned out the way it did, I’d say… it’s because Fatal Frame leans far more into Japanese culture and folklore than any of its contemporaries. While most survival horror games up to this point — Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Parasite Eve, among others — primarily took inspiration from Western horror movies, and to evoke this were usually set in some facsimile of the USA, Fatal Frame goes for… something loosely opposite. Rather than taking from the West, Fatal Frame draws from within, and as opposed to looking at at-the-time contemporary media — though the late 90s/early 2000s boom in J-Horror could’ve played a part — the game draws from local myth and folklore: specifically, the idea of the yūrei, figures analogous but not quite the same as the western idea of ghosts. Given all that, it can be seen that Fatal Frame is not quite equivalent to its brethren, and to approach it with the same treatment as something more naturally Western is a recipe for losing something in translation. And with glaring issues like the untranslated puzzles, and with stuff like, say, the kagome dolls which require cultural context to understand their implementation in-game, it makes other issues — such as the tense conflicts, or the voice acting — not quite as able to blend in as they might’ve for, say, the first Resident Evil. I’d like to note, for the record, that this doesn’t necessarily impact my feelings on the game itself (perhaps, if I really wanted the true Fatal Frame experience I should’ve not dropped out of doing Japanese at school while I was in the middle of a downward spiral), it’s just a case where unless you happen to know the language or have the cultural context you are going to need a walkthrough to understand this game, even beyond some of the usual survival horror trappings.
You play, primarily, as a young girl named Miku Hinasaki, whose brother disappears while searching for his teacher inside the supposedly haunted Himuro Mansion. As her search to find him takes her inside the mansion, she finds that all the ghost stories she’s heard are real: the mansion is littered with yūrei of varying levels of hostility, and only through the use of the Camera Obscura — an antique polaroid camera passed down through Miku’s family — does she have a chance at fighting back against those with more hostile intentions. As she delves deeper, upgrading her camera, accessing new parts of the mansion, collecting recordings and writings of those left behind, it soon becomes clear that your role here extends far past finding your brother and his teacher. A curse has infected the Himuro Mansion for generations, haunting, killing, and assimilating all who enter it, and as you delve further and further into the past, it soon starts to become clear that all this circles around a failed ritual, and the spirit of the woman who was meant to perform it: a spirit who, soon enough, proceeds to place their eyes on you.
I think what I’d particularly like to praise is just how incredible this game is at atmosphere. There are just so many little things that come together and really make it shine as a horror experience. I love the way the plot unfolds: how it initially begins with the plot thread of finding your brother and meeting the people he was trying to look for, before each subsequent chapter unfurls back, generation by generation, coming up against everybody laid victim by the curse until you eventually manage to reach its source. I like a lot of the artstyle, both in terms of helping the game feel smooth to play — how it handles you needing to light up dark areas without it feeling like a low-saturation hellscape, how subtle the fog is at walling off/impeding visibility past a certain point, how (for being translucent) immediately noticeable the ghosts are against the background — and also stylistically: the monochrome colour scheme when you’re looking into the past and the curse is about to take somebody feels so distinct, and also feeds into a couple of particular plot details in a way that feels pretty clever. While I did mention the voice acting as a negative during my preamble, it’s really effective coming out of the many enemies you fight: the monotone, slightly distorted delivery does a lot to show the otherworldly, not-quite-human-anymore nature of the spirits you face. I love the way the mansion changes between chapters: how certain doors lock and unlock, how some areas restock or get new items, how encounters shift to different locations: you’ll be going through the same general areas for the whole game, but the context for why you do so, and the purposes of each room can change radically between chapters which makes it feel like a whole new map each time. I’ve mentioned before how oftentimes it’s all the little things working in tandem that can really tie a horror game together, and I think Fatal Frame is a standout example on that front: all these tidbits which are fairly neat on their own really do their job to coalesce and create something special.
What differentiates Fatal Frame most from its survival horror contemporaries — aside from its set dressing of Japanese folklore — is its combat system. As opposed to being some sort of experienced fighter, using conventional weaponry to take down physical foes, Miku’s foes are much less tangible, and only through perceiving and documenting them with the Camera Obscura can you dispel them: eventually, with the goal of exorcizing them entirely. You do this via controlling the camera in first person (as opposed to the third person fixed camera movement of the rest of the game), and, upon locating your ghost, keeping your focus on them to build up spiritual power until eventually snapping a picture of them, doing increasing damage based on the type of camera roll/ammo you use and how long you were able to charge up for. There are various ‘special’ types of shot that reward special circumstances — such as taking a photo of multiple enemies at once, taking a photo when they're as close as possible to the camera, and, most importantly, taking a photo of an enemy right as they attack you — by multiplying damage and briefly stunning the enemy, heavily encouraging patience and fishing for the perfect shot.
However, enemies also become more complicated over time, and often engage in tactics primarily built to make you lose track of where they are: teleporting, cloning themselves, and phasing into walls and the floor both to try and protect themselves and sneak up on you. There are different types of enemies, who all react differently to your camera, and it characterizes the core conceit of the gameplay fairly well, going up against the spirit of the same person throughout their many haunts until you’re finally able to exorcize them for good. It also helps to create rather frenetic moments as you progress through the game: where you as the player scurry around the room to try and find the enemy that just disappeared, and where positioning is vitally important, both to get a wide, open range so that enemies don’t get too far out of sight, and to make sure nothing can sneak up where you won’t be able to see them. I love combat systems that manage to become more complex over time without adding extra mechanics to the core system, and for the most part, Fatal Frame is able to hit a sweet spot where combat feels tense without actively feeling adverse to play.
(I also really liked the incidental non-hostile ghosts: the ones you specifically need to listen to cues to find, or the ones you have to snap a picture of fast before they disappear forever. While some of them seem especially “you have to know in advance when and where these guys are going to pop up,” in a way that encourages replaying the game or buying a guide, it’s a cute little extra thing that you can do throughout the game and does a lot to characterize the mansion and the curse infecting it: showing just how many people have fallen victim and become trapped inside the mansion forever)
I say “for the most part,” because unfortunately, past a certain point, the game really starts feeling adverse to play, particularly in terms of combat. Ghosts really start leaning on teleporting the moment you so much as move the camera in their direction, which makes combat this frustrating dance of just trying to find the enemy in hopes that maybe this time you can actually do some damage to them. This’d be maybe fine, in moderation, and if there was at least some variance it’d be more bearable, but from chapter 3 onwards the game is basically nothing but constant encounters with the same annoying enemies and it’s a sloooooooog. It also plays badly with a lot of your resource management: you have to make do with taking low-damage pictures to enemies, which means you have to take a lot of them to actually put an opponent down, all the while one hit from them takes nearly half your health bar. This means you have to scrounge around the mansion, hoping the game will drop you stuff you actually need instead of fuel for special skills you don’t use… but also if you dare walk off the beaten path you get punished with combat with a special ghost who embodies everything that makes combat really intolerable at this point, and who will almost certainly hit you before you leave the room (because for some reason Miku never really feels that much of a need to, say, get through a door fast when there's something chasing her), necessitating save scumming or even more scrounging. It’s miserable, especially since this combat happens in lieu of any other mode of progression. No more puzzles, no more trying to find new parts of the mansion: everything after this point is just the same combat encounters over and over again.
At the very least, though, most of what else I found compelling remained as such even when the direct gameplay took a nosedive: the slowly unfolding history of the Himuro Mansion, the immaculate atmosphere and artstyle that made simply traversing the mansion an enjoyable experience when I wasn’t getting nothin’ personnelled by a ghost monk, and my attempts to get snapshots of as many of the incidental ghosts as I could. Even if the at-first unique combat system eventually loses its sense of where on the line it falls between exciting and frustrating, nearly everything else really holds up, and, if not quite picture perfect, isn't washed out at all, even with all the things that work against it. 8/10.
Esta nice pero se repiten mucho los puzles solo habiendo dos, algunos fantasmas son un dolor de huevos darle y la posición de los objetos no me mola mucho.
I want the eyeless lady to please shut the FUCK UP!!!
IT'S WIKTOBER EVERYONE
Alright guys...hear me out...
I quit on chapter 3..... "Wikwi bro....it's the shortest chapter...you gotta finish it!"
I don't want to....
The game is....good.
I like the atmosphere, the movement and the mechanics in place are cool. I like the photo mechanic, and I liked the overall area my first time exploring it.
Here's what I don't like:
• The ghosts.....I get it man...They're ghosts...I should expect them to teleport behind me and also clip through walls. In practice, this was rather frustrating with the movement...this is fine, however, refer to the next point.
• There's like 20 health items up to chapter 2, and maybe like 5 items that act as a second life bar if you die. 95% of ghost attacks do about 35-45% of your entire health bar, and you can only carry one life-bar restore on your person at a time. The penalty for dying is starting at a manual save point located throughout the area you explore. This system is in place to add tension, however, it personally just frustrated me. I didn't enjoy backtracking to pick up a life-restore just as much as I didn't like backtracking to savepoints in order to not lose progress.
• Exploring the exact same areas in 3 different nights was not enjoyable to me. I much prefer a system akin to RE1.
• The puzzles are not good and additionally are recycled about 10 times.
• The story was not very engaging.
I will still play Fatal Frame II one day.
Alright guys...hear me out...
I quit on chapter 3..... "Wikwi bro....it's the shortest chapter...you gotta finish it!"
I don't want to....
The game is....good.
I like the atmosphere, the movement and the mechanics in place are cool. I like the photo mechanic, and I liked the overall area my first time exploring it.
Here's what I don't like:
• The ghosts.....I get it man...They're ghosts...I should expect them to teleport behind me and also clip through walls. In practice, this was rather frustrating with the movement...this is fine, however, refer to the next point.
• There's like 20 health items up to chapter 2, and maybe like 5 items that act as a second life bar if you die. 95% of ghost attacks do about 35-45% of your entire health bar, and you can only carry one life-bar restore on your person at a time. The penalty for dying is starting at a manual save point located throughout the area you explore. This system is in place to add tension, however, it personally just frustrated me. I didn't enjoy backtracking to pick up a life-restore just as much as I didn't like backtracking to savepoints in order to not lose progress.
• Exploring the exact same areas in 3 different nights was not enjoyable to me. I much prefer a system akin to RE1.
• The puzzles are not good and additionally are recycled about 10 times.
• The story was not very engaging.
I will still play Fatal Frame II one day.
Instagramer gets lost and ends up killin God
DROPADO
An excellent gameplay and directing for its years. I have some plaints to the semantic of narrative events, as well as to the monotonous puzzles and all the mystical stuff in this game, but it's rather my personal preference issues so don't mind...
I honestly didn't think Chapter 4 would be so short. Then again, I think the game intended me to run around through the manor and collect more stuff and fight more ghosts freely before the final confrontation.
Anyway, review.
I quite enjoyed my experience from this game. While the scare factor is most definitely not nearly as heavy as I was hoping it would be, it absolutely did nail the atmosphere. The whole place is just oozing with this creepy, run down, EXCESSIVELY haunted tone and design that's endlessly fascinating to look at and explore. Even if some of the texturing feels a bit more low-res than the average PS2 game.
The gameplay itself, barring certain ghosts, is actually quite fun and well realized. Using the camera is just powerful enough to make you feel like encounters can be plowed through, but limited enough that small mistakes can cost you big time. Exploring the area is quite well done, and while you feel a bit slow, the compact nature of the manor doesn't allow it to feel like an issue (as in, you're never left grumbling at the TV "hurry up!").
The story is actually quite interesting, as the real plot is more about uncovering the truth about the failed ritual, while the surface is all about searching for your missing sibling. You learn some pretty somber and horrific things that have happened there, and a lot of the time wonder how it all went wrong up until you get to chapter 4 and get your clear answer.
The English voice acting is... passable to laughably bad, but I feel it sort of gives the game a certain charm only these sorts of games can give. Further, it's clear with the tone of voice in the characters (mostly) convey a sense of trying their best with what they've got. It's no Silent Hill 2, where it's deliberate and makes sense in the tone of the game, that's for sure.
Finally, after roughly 8 hours of gametime, post credits presented me with new game modes and an ingrained NG+. I just might give this game a second playthrough, just to see if I can do better than a D. Seriously, seeing that at the end of the game insulted me, just a bit.
Can't wait to see the sequel, which I've heard to be the best of the series.
Anyway, review.
I quite enjoyed my experience from this game. While the scare factor is most definitely not nearly as heavy as I was hoping it would be, it absolutely did nail the atmosphere. The whole place is just oozing with this creepy, run down, EXCESSIVELY haunted tone and design that's endlessly fascinating to look at and explore. Even if some of the texturing feels a bit more low-res than the average PS2 game.
The gameplay itself, barring certain ghosts, is actually quite fun and well realized. Using the camera is just powerful enough to make you feel like encounters can be plowed through, but limited enough that small mistakes can cost you big time. Exploring the area is quite well done, and while you feel a bit slow, the compact nature of the manor doesn't allow it to feel like an issue (as in, you're never left grumbling at the TV "hurry up!").
The story is actually quite interesting, as the real plot is more about uncovering the truth about the failed ritual, while the surface is all about searching for your missing sibling. You learn some pretty somber and horrific things that have happened there, and a lot of the time wonder how it all went wrong up until you get to chapter 4 and get your clear answer.
The English voice acting is... passable to laughably bad, but I feel it sort of gives the game a certain charm only these sorts of games can give. Further, it's clear with the tone of voice in the characters (mostly) convey a sense of trying their best with what they've got. It's no Silent Hill 2, where it's deliberate and makes sense in the tone of the game, that's for sure.
Finally, after roughly 8 hours of gametime, post credits presented me with new game modes and an ingrained NG+. I just might give this game a second playthrough, just to see if I can do better than a D. Seriously, seeing that at the end of the game insulted me, just a bit.
Can't wait to see the sequel, which I've heard to be the best of the series.
Kind of short with a steep difficulty curve. Other than that, it's easily one of the scariest pieces of media ever made, and one of the best horror games.
Fatal Frame rewired my brain. I can't play games without an inverted x-axis anymore. If I play a game that doesn't allow inverted horizontal control, it throws me off and the adjustment period takes a while.
This is a game that I played with my best friend. We got on a discord call, I streamed my screen to her, while also streaming it on Twitch. Bonding over our shared love of film and physical media, experiencing the scares and storytelling together, I loved playing Fatal Frame this way.
Fatal Frame has a genuinely eerie setting, tense, nerve-wracking, unique game play (pulling off a fatal frame shot is very satisfying) and enjoyable puzzles with just the right amount of complexity. Highly recommended.
This is a game that I played with my best friend. We got on a discord call, I streamed my screen to her, while also streaming it on Twitch. Bonding over our shared love of film and physical media, experiencing the scares and storytelling together, I loved playing Fatal Frame this way.
Fatal Frame has a genuinely eerie setting, tense, nerve-wracking, unique game play (pulling off a fatal frame shot is very satisfying) and enjoyable puzzles with just the right amount of complexity. Highly recommended.
Fatal Frame creates a very horrifying atmosphere. The sounds that play in rooms, the music that changes whenever a ghost is nearby, the way the controller subtly vibrates whenever something supernatural occurs, and the camera angles really help you get immersed. Because of this, it’s terrifying to play. I haven’t felt this tense playing a horror game in a long time. And part of it is due to the way you fight ghosts.
In Fatal Frame, you use a camera to defeat ghosts. Taking pictures of the ghosts makes them disappear. Here comes the scary part, since you need to take a picture of the spirit, you need to stare at them directly. You have to stare at the enemy dead in the eye and watch them inch closer and closer toward you. Some ghosts aren’t that much of a threat since they usually stay still, making it easy to take a clear shot of them. However, that doesn’t apply to all of them. Some ghosts can move very quickly to avoid getting captured on the camera. Some can even disappear for a brief moment to attack you from behind. I loved this. Fights with ghosts always felt tense because of how tricky they can be to take a picture of. The samurai ghost was my favorite because he’s fast and is the only ghost able to use a weapon, which made him stand out from the rest.
The story is alright. Although, I didn’t play this game for the plot. The story has you playing as a girl named Miku to find your brother in a haunted mansion with a dark past. I think what hampered the plot was the voice acting. It’s atrociously bad, and not in a funny way. It feels like Miku doesn’t care about what's going on due to how emotionless she sounds. No hate to any of the VAs. The game is old, and poor voice acting during this time was common. It just, unfortunately, makes it difficult to get invested in the narrative. I like some of the ideas and how disturbing it gets when you learn the mansion's past, but overall it's the weakest aspect of the game.
Fatal Frame is a fantastic horror game and created an experience that I’ll never forget. There was a portion of the game where I ran out of healing items, and that was the most scared I felt in any horror game in a long time. I highly recommend trying out this game if you can. It's a classic!
In Fatal Frame, you use a camera to defeat ghosts. Taking pictures of the ghosts makes them disappear. Here comes the scary part, since you need to take a picture of the spirit, you need to stare at them directly. You have to stare at the enemy dead in the eye and watch them inch closer and closer toward you. Some ghosts aren’t that much of a threat since they usually stay still, making it easy to take a clear shot of them. However, that doesn’t apply to all of them. Some ghosts can move very quickly to avoid getting captured on the camera. Some can even disappear for a brief moment to attack you from behind. I loved this. Fights with ghosts always felt tense because of how tricky they can be to take a picture of. The samurai ghost was my favorite because he’s fast and is the only ghost able to use a weapon, which made him stand out from the rest.
The story is alright. Although, I didn’t play this game for the plot. The story has you playing as a girl named Miku to find your brother in a haunted mansion with a dark past. I think what hampered the plot was the voice acting. It’s atrociously bad, and not in a funny way. It feels like Miku doesn’t care about what's going on due to how emotionless she sounds. No hate to any of the VAs. The game is old, and poor voice acting during this time was common. It just, unfortunately, makes it difficult to get invested in the narrative. I like some of the ideas and how disturbing it gets when you learn the mansion's past, but overall it's the weakest aspect of the game.
Fatal Frame is a fantastic horror game and created an experience that I’ll never forget. There was a portion of the game where I ran out of healing items, and that was the most scared I felt in any horror game in a long time. I highly recommend trying out this game if you can. It's a classic!
Amazing setting and design. My only beef is that combat became a chore and I was no longer scared by ghosts and felt more annoyed by them by the last chapter.
Scattered thoughts:
• While I love awkward American voice acting in ps1/ps2-era games as much as the next person, I don't know if it really helps this game. Sure, the overall haunted mansion premise doesn't lack some elements of cheese, but the game overall tries to treat itself fairly seriously, and I feel in many places the American voice acting ends up undermining that tone.
• Ghosts are not a theme as used in games as other horror classics, mainly because they're a generally intangible threat that's difficult to design combat around. Fatal Frame solves that problem in the most video game way possible, by pretty much allowing you to shoot ghosts in the face. Even the Winchesters had to do at least a bit of thinking to get rid of ghosts. Little Miku just shoots them in the face with a camera. Sure. Why not.
• If anything though, the combat has a solid play aesthetic that gives it its own identity. While the exploration and the combat happen in a continuum, with no hard boundaries between them, the radical shift between the two, almost gives them a jrpg-like quality. It Feels like I'm transitioning in and out of a different play-space when I initiate and finish combat in Fatal Frame. In games like Resident Evil combat feels like it punctuates the exploration, In Fatal Frame, due to a number of reasons (More mechanically involved, fewer bigger enemies, many situations where combat locks you out of exploration), it feels like it's kind of its own thing.
• I'm not sure what the upgrade system adds to the game. Systems like that are usually used to give an empowering feeling, give a sense of progression, or incentivize repeated combat, and I don't think any of those are things you would have really wanted in this kind of game (I guess the sense of progression would fit, but the game is not really long enough to really feel like it needs systemized progression). Like, I feel like the appeal of this kind of horror is, to an extent, the feeling of helplessness it can evoke, and going into a menu to make my camera shoot special bullets always took me a bit out of it.
• Ghost stories, in other media, are usually 70% based around the protagonist not knowing that ghosts are a thing. Fatal Frame is like "ok ghosts are real and you kill them with this camera" like three minutes in. You have to do that, cause you need to tutorialize and show off your core gameplay. Is it good? I don't know, I'd like to stop assuming that the way other media do things is always the correct one. It surely doesn't get in the way of anything the game is trying to do, although that's mostly because what the game is trying to do doesn't stray very far from pulpy, vaguely shlocky, scares.
• They clearly had to do the most with their time/budget, so the game is set in a fairly small mansion, and the environments are re-visited a lot. It's mostly ok, and the mechanic associated with the key and lock system of this game is pretty clever. But the second-to-last chapter kinda becomes Zelda, and it lost me. They also have, like, exactly 3 kinds of puzzles in the whole game, that also get repeated a Lot. Again, it's fine, you do what you gotta do, but it's pretty funny how many doors in this mansion are locked by sliding puzzles.
• There are a couple of bits where the big evil ghost gets the protagonist, and they could have easily been cutscenes, but instead they let you play them briefly so you can actually feel overwhelmed by how strong the strong ghost is. I like that. It's not executed perfectly but I like that.
• I was Really not expecting how pro human-ritual-sacrifices the ending is lol
• It's honestly really cool to see fixed camera gameplay mixed with first-person elements. This is definitely not the first game ever to do that (Metal Gear Solid already had some first person stuff back in 98), but there's definitely Something in integrating those elements with horror theming and silent hill/resident evil gameplay. Like entering a room featuring an adverse camera angle, switching to camera view to scan the place better, while at the same time narrowing your field of view (more vulnerable), is a surprisingly effective little bit of horror gameplay. The game doesn't Really use that to any particular effect, but still, there's Something engaging there.
Eh, I liked this. It's good.
• While I love awkward American voice acting in ps1/ps2-era games as much as the next person, I don't know if it really helps this game. Sure, the overall haunted mansion premise doesn't lack some elements of cheese, but the game overall tries to treat itself fairly seriously, and I feel in many places the American voice acting ends up undermining that tone.
• Ghosts are not a theme as used in games as other horror classics, mainly because they're a generally intangible threat that's difficult to design combat around. Fatal Frame solves that problem in the most video game way possible, by pretty much allowing you to shoot ghosts in the face. Even the Winchesters had to do at least a bit of thinking to get rid of ghosts. Little Miku just shoots them in the face with a camera. Sure. Why not.
• If anything though, the combat has a solid play aesthetic that gives it its own identity. While the exploration and the combat happen in a continuum, with no hard boundaries between them, the radical shift between the two, almost gives them a jrpg-like quality. It Feels like I'm transitioning in and out of a different play-space when I initiate and finish combat in Fatal Frame. In games like Resident Evil combat feels like it punctuates the exploration, In Fatal Frame, due to a number of reasons (More mechanically involved, fewer bigger enemies, many situations where combat locks you out of exploration), it feels like it's kind of its own thing.
• I'm not sure what the upgrade system adds to the game. Systems like that are usually used to give an empowering feeling, give a sense of progression, or incentivize repeated combat, and I don't think any of those are things you would have really wanted in this kind of game (I guess the sense of progression would fit, but the game is not really long enough to really feel like it needs systemized progression). Like, I feel like the appeal of this kind of horror is, to an extent, the feeling of helplessness it can evoke, and going into a menu to make my camera shoot special bullets always took me a bit out of it.
• Ghost stories, in other media, are usually 70% based around the protagonist not knowing that ghosts are a thing. Fatal Frame is like "ok ghosts are real and you kill them with this camera" like three minutes in. You have to do that, cause you need to tutorialize and show off your core gameplay. Is it good? I don't know, I'd like to stop assuming that the way other media do things is always the correct one. It surely doesn't get in the way of anything the game is trying to do, although that's mostly because what the game is trying to do doesn't stray very far from pulpy, vaguely shlocky, scares.
• They clearly had to do the most with their time/budget, so the game is set in a fairly small mansion, and the environments are re-visited a lot. It's mostly ok, and the mechanic associated with the key and lock system of this game is pretty clever. But the second-to-last chapter kinda becomes Zelda, and it lost me. They also have, like, exactly 3 kinds of puzzles in the whole game, that also get repeated a Lot. Again, it's fine, you do what you gotta do, but it's pretty funny how many doors in this mansion are locked by sliding puzzles.
• There are a couple of bits where the big evil ghost gets the protagonist, and they could have easily been cutscenes, but instead they let you play them briefly so you can actually feel overwhelmed by how strong the strong ghost is. I like that. It's not executed perfectly but I like that.
• I was Really not expecting how pro human-ritual-sacrifices the ending is lol
• It's honestly really cool to see fixed camera gameplay mixed with first-person elements. This is definitely not the first game ever to do that (Metal Gear Solid already had some first person stuff back in 98), but there's definitely Something in integrating those elements with horror theming and silent hill/resident evil gameplay. Like entering a room featuring an adverse camera angle, switching to camera view to scan the place better, while at the same time narrowing your field of view (more vulnerable), is a surprisingly effective little bit of horror gameplay. The game doesn't Really use that to any particular effect, but still, there's Something engaging there.
Eh, I liked this. It's good.
I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to playing the other games in the series. It was a really fun survival horror game and I loved the lore, world-building, and even the hokey English (only?) voice acting.
The Camera Obscura gimmick is really neat and I'm proud I unlocked 61 of 105 (retro)achievements on my first playthrough. :) Onto Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterly! I hear it's even better than the first.
The Camera Obscura gimmick is really neat and I'm proud I unlocked 61 of 105 (retro)achievements on my first playthrough. :) Onto Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterly! I hear it's even better than the first.
A really great first entry to this famed series, but not without some serious annoyances that come with the territory; baffling puzzles and a confusing sense of direction are probably the two biggest offenders. Controls aren't the best, either.
But damn if this isn't dripping in atmosphere. The combat is, in my opinion, some of the most unique and fun in the survival horror genre and it worked really well right out of the gate in 2001. While I had to look up a guide a few times, I thoroughly enjoyed my seven hours in the Himuro Mansion and even got a few scares, something I genuinely wasn't expecting in a 2001 horror game.
The voice acting was so-bad-its-good, the story was enjoyable and somewhat easy to follow, fighting ghosts with a camera is super fun, and the game never overstayed its welcome. Can't wait to move on to 2 and 3.
But damn if this isn't dripping in atmosphere. The combat is, in my opinion, some of the most unique and fun in the survival horror genre and it worked really well right out of the gate in 2001. While I had to look up a guide a few times, I thoroughly enjoyed my seven hours in the Himuro Mansion and even got a few scares, something I genuinely wasn't expecting in a 2001 horror game.
The voice acting was so-bad-its-good, the story was enjoyable and somewhat easy to follow, fighting ghosts with a camera is super fun, and the game never overstayed its welcome. Can't wait to move on to 2 and 3.
A game I really wanted to get into for so long, however, it was difficult because for me it was under a different name here in the UK, known as Project Zero.
You investigate the disappearance of your character's brother who was following a horror writer who came to this forgotten temple for inspiration for his next horror book, not expecting that the ghosts might actually be real after an ceremony goes wrong and many spirits are released and others are amplified.
The only weapon that can protect you is the Camera Obscura which is magically attuned to fight these ghosts.
Had a little issue getting this working on my emulator, but I assume PCSX2 works much better these days.
Stream PT1: https://youtu.be/bcvYRjiS5e8
You investigate the disappearance of your character's brother who was following a horror writer who came to this forgotten temple for inspiration for his next horror book, not expecting that the ghosts might actually be real after an ceremony goes wrong and many spirits are released and others are amplified.
The only weapon that can protect you is the Camera Obscura which is magically attuned to fight these ghosts.
Had a little issue getting this working on my emulator, but I assume PCSX2 works much better these days.
Stream PT1: https://youtu.be/bcvYRjiS5e8
Taking photos of my junk with the camera obscura because my shit be lookin' HAUNTED
Add Fatal Frame to the list of games I was acutely aware of at the time of its release but completely skipped over for reasons unknown. I had a PS2 and a Blockbuster card, I could've picked this up, it's not like it reviewed poorly or anything. Instead, I just kept renting the live action Cromartie High movie over and over again. Well Blockbuster doesn't exist anymore, and I've had the iso for Fatal Frame chilling on this hard drive for the better part of the year, so now seemed as good a time as any to take some gosh damn pictures of ghosts.
For the first three hours of snapping glamor shots of spooky specters, I was having a lot of fun. There's a lot more Resident Evil and Sweet Home here than I was expecting, and much like those games, I was having a blast exploring the Himuro Mansion and solving its many puzzles. Sure, there's a few too many locked doors that require the same solution, and the numerical codes you need to glean from scattered research notes and diary entries are always input in the same tiresome way, but the real meaty puzzles - like collecting and arranging masks or tying topes to Budda status - feel ripped straight from Resident Evil, and I ate that shit up. If I'm reflecting on the order in which I tackled a sequence of obstacles or the path I took to and from key locations and piecing together a more efficient route in my mind, that's a sign that your survival horror game is tickling the right parts of my brain.
Unfortunately, the deeper you progress into the Himuro Mansion, the more Fatal Frame urges you to use the Camera Obscura to take down hostile ghosts, and I think this is the weakest part of the entire experience. It is also Fatal Frame's core gimmick, and that's not great!
On paper, the Camera Obscura is novel. Line up your shot, keep the ghost center frame while building charge, then snap a picture when the reticule turns orange for higher damage. There's a good balance of risk and reward inherent to the way combat operates, and ghosts are capable of warping around and turning invisible which keeps the player on their toes. The penalty for screwing up your shot, however, is anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of your overall health, which is steep when you consider how rare healing items are.
You can upgrade your camera's stats and assign abilities that slow, reveal, or track ghosts (though these are also tied to finite items), but it doesn't really solve some of the issues with Fatal Frame's combat, which become especially problematic around chapter four when the game makes a hard shift towards being more combat oriented. A lot of mandatory battles take place in enclosed spaces which are so tight that ghosts tend to float completely out of bounds, requiring you to stand around and wait for them to come back. It's difficult to outmaneuver ghosts when they're about twice as fast as you and aren't encumbered by clumsy collision detection, and when the Camera Obscura fails to stun theme due to uneven attack priority resulting in half your healthbar getting eaten, it just starts to get frustrating. Doubling down on an unforgiving and clunky combat system during the last two chapters really soured me on Fatal Frame.
At least Fatal Frame's atmosphere is immaculate. The lighting, transparency, and warping effects are all really impressive for the time, and the deliberate use of whites, blacks, and reds give the game a very unique look. I feel like I'm going to fall through the damn stairs or get a hand full of splinters if I touch anything in the Himuro Mansion. Everything is creaking horribly, falling apart, and is covered in blood, mold, and moisture. Even without the ghosts, the estate is delipidated and dangerous in ways that are believable. Not that I've made a habit of it, but I've done a little night urban exploration into condemned properties before, and I feel Fatal Frame does a good job of capturing the anxiety that the floor might cave beneath you at any moment.
It's a bummer that Fatal Frame's combat works against its other qualities. Had a great time with this for the first few hours but it just became inconvenient and annoying towards the later third, and that really gets in the way of me ever wanting to pick it up again. If only I was taking pictures of Mechazawa instead....
Add Fatal Frame to the list of games I was acutely aware of at the time of its release but completely skipped over for reasons unknown. I had a PS2 and a Blockbuster card, I could've picked this up, it's not like it reviewed poorly or anything. Instead, I just kept renting the live action Cromartie High movie over and over again. Well Blockbuster doesn't exist anymore, and I've had the iso for Fatal Frame chilling on this hard drive for the better part of the year, so now seemed as good a time as any to take some gosh damn pictures of ghosts.
For the first three hours of snapping glamor shots of spooky specters, I was having a lot of fun. There's a lot more Resident Evil and Sweet Home here than I was expecting, and much like those games, I was having a blast exploring the Himuro Mansion and solving its many puzzles. Sure, there's a few too many locked doors that require the same solution, and the numerical codes you need to glean from scattered research notes and diary entries are always input in the same tiresome way, but the real meaty puzzles - like collecting and arranging masks or tying topes to Budda status - feel ripped straight from Resident Evil, and I ate that shit up. If I'm reflecting on the order in which I tackled a sequence of obstacles or the path I took to and from key locations and piecing together a more efficient route in my mind, that's a sign that your survival horror game is tickling the right parts of my brain.
Unfortunately, the deeper you progress into the Himuro Mansion, the more Fatal Frame urges you to use the Camera Obscura to take down hostile ghosts, and I think this is the weakest part of the entire experience. It is also Fatal Frame's core gimmick, and that's not great!
On paper, the Camera Obscura is novel. Line up your shot, keep the ghost center frame while building charge, then snap a picture when the reticule turns orange for higher damage. There's a good balance of risk and reward inherent to the way combat operates, and ghosts are capable of warping around and turning invisible which keeps the player on their toes. The penalty for screwing up your shot, however, is anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of your overall health, which is steep when you consider how rare healing items are.
You can upgrade your camera's stats and assign abilities that slow, reveal, or track ghosts (though these are also tied to finite items), but it doesn't really solve some of the issues with Fatal Frame's combat, which become especially problematic around chapter four when the game makes a hard shift towards being more combat oriented. A lot of mandatory battles take place in enclosed spaces which are so tight that ghosts tend to float completely out of bounds, requiring you to stand around and wait for them to come back. It's difficult to outmaneuver ghosts when they're about twice as fast as you and aren't encumbered by clumsy collision detection, and when the Camera Obscura fails to stun theme due to uneven attack priority resulting in half your healthbar getting eaten, it just starts to get frustrating. Doubling down on an unforgiving and clunky combat system during the last two chapters really soured me on Fatal Frame.
At least Fatal Frame's atmosphere is immaculate. The lighting, transparency, and warping effects are all really impressive for the time, and the deliberate use of whites, blacks, and reds give the game a very unique look. I feel like I'm going to fall through the damn stairs or get a hand full of splinters if I touch anything in the Himuro Mansion. Everything is creaking horribly, falling apart, and is covered in blood, mold, and moisture. Even without the ghosts, the estate is delipidated and dangerous in ways that are believable. Not that I've made a habit of it, but I've done a little night urban exploration into condemned properties before, and I feel Fatal Frame does a good job of capturing the anxiety that the floor might cave beneath you at any moment.
It's a bummer that Fatal Frame's combat works against its other qualities. Had a great time with this for the first few hours but it just became inconvenient and annoying towards the later third, and that really gets in the way of me ever wanting to pick it up again. If only I was taking pictures of Mechazawa instead....
Fatal Frame was a series I've been meaning to get to for quite some time. I've got the Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Clock Tower games under my belt so it makes sense to tackle this series next, but this game is...rough to say the least.
I'll start with the positives, the thing that made me interested in this series was the combat. In Fatal Frame, you don't shoot enemies with guns of various power like in other horror games, instead, you take photos of ghosts using different kinds of film which vary in strength. The longer that you hover the capture circle over the ghost, the more damage you do and with enough damage the ghost is eventually exercised. Different ghosts also have different movement patterns so it's important to learn their patterns if you want to get rid of them effectively. It's a very interesting concept and can be nerve-wracking as you have to stare at the ghost as they slowly move towards you before snapping a photo but as the game went on, I found this system to be more frustrating than anything. The problem is that ghosts teleport more and more as the game goes on and deal a ton of damage (usually 3 hits is enough to kill you) and missing a shot at the last second and then getting punished just gets annoying. There's one boss in particular in the Fish Tank room near the end of the game that just made me want to put this series off altogether. The combat has potential, but I'd say it really needed some fine-tuning.
So I dreaded most enemy encounters due to how long and tedious they could be but I was also bored due to how the game is structured. The game has a prologue, 3 really long chapters and a short final chapter, it's not a very long game, it only took me around 7 hours to complete but it felt much longer. The Himuro Mansion isn't very big, so most chapters will have you revisiting the same rooms multiple times and visually, these rooms all look so samey. I didn't get lost because thankfully, the game's map feature is really good, but I was really bored and the uninteresting puzzles play a role in that since most of them just have you do rudimentary things like pushing blocks or inputting codes from a note and you do these same exact puzzles like 5 times each, it's mind-numbing.
It's really a shame that the game is such a slog to get through because I did like the eerie tone that the game had. It's reminiscent of the vibe that some of my favourite japanese horror films had like Cure, Pulse and Dark Water but any immersion I could've had was murdered by how dull I found the game to be.
The game's sound design is another area that I feel could've done with some polishing. As a whole, it's much more low-key than I expected, even when there is a ghost in the room, the sounds that the game makes to alert the player are very subtle. I guess the intention was how it potentially leads to scenarios where a player isn't aware of a ghosts presence until they're in super close proximity to them. That's freaky, but it gets thrown out the window when you realize the game has an indicator in the bottom right corner that indicates an enemy is in the room when it flashes orange. I wish the game didn't have this and only relied on sound to highlight a ghost being in the area but it doesn't so the end result is sound design that I feel is downplayed and not very effective in evoking a sense of dread (though there are some highlights).
I do quite like the story, I did enjoy reading the supplementary material to learn about the Blinding Ritual, Demon Tag and Strangling Ritual and the ending was really bittersweet which I did not see coming, but even though I enjoyed the plot, I can't say the same for the game as a whole. It's not awful, it's just underwhelming in most areas but I'm still interested in how future entries build on this one.
I'll start with the positives, the thing that made me interested in this series was the combat. In Fatal Frame, you don't shoot enemies with guns of various power like in other horror games, instead, you take photos of ghosts using different kinds of film which vary in strength. The longer that you hover the capture circle over the ghost, the more damage you do and with enough damage the ghost is eventually exercised. Different ghosts also have different movement patterns so it's important to learn their patterns if you want to get rid of them effectively. It's a very interesting concept and can be nerve-wracking as you have to stare at the ghost as they slowly move towards you before snapping a photo but as the game went on, I found this system to be more frustrating than anything. The problem is that ghosts teleport more and more as the game goes on and deal a ton of damage (usually 3 hits is enough to kill you) and missing a shot at the last second and then getting punished just gets annoying. There's one boss in particular in the Fish Tank room near the end of the game that just made me want to put this series off altogether. The combat has potential, but I'd say it really needed some fine-tuning.
So I dreaded most enemy encounters due to how long and tedious they could be but I was also bored due to how the game is structured. The game has a prologue, 3 really long chapters and a short final chapter, it's not a very long game, it only took me around 7 hours to complete but it felt much longer. The Himuro Mansion isn't very big, so most chapters will have you revisiting the same rooms multiple times and visually, these rooms all look so samey. I didn't get lost because thankfully, the game's map feature is really good, but I was really bored and the uninteresting puzzles play a role in that since most of them just have you do rudimentary things like pushing blocks or inputting codes from a note and you do these same exact puzzles like 5 times each, it's mind-numbing.
It's really a shame that the game is such a slog to get through because I did like the eerie tone that the game had. It's reminiscent of the vibe that some of my favourite japanese horror films had like Cure, Pulse and Dark Water but any immersion I could've had was murdered by how dull I found the game to be.
The game's sound design is another area that I feel could've done with some polishing. As a whole, it's much more low-key than I expected, even when there is a ghost in the room, the sounds that the game makes to alert the player are very subtle. I guess the intention was how it potentially leads to scenarios where a player isn't aware of a ghosts presence until they're in super close proximity to them. That's freaky, but it gets thrown out the window when you realize the game has an indicator in the bottom right corner that indicates an enemy is in the room when it flashes orange. I wish the game didn't have this and only relied on sound to highlight a ghost being in the area but it doesn't so the end result is sound design that I feel is downplayed and not very effective in evoking a sense of dread (though there are some highlights).
I do quite like the story, I did enjoy reading the supplementary material to learn about the Blinding Ritual, Demon Tag and Strangling Ritual and the ending was really bittersweet which I did not see coming, but even though I enjoyed the plot, I can't say the same for the game as a whole. It's not awful, it's just underwhelming in most areas but I'm still interested in how future entries build on this one.
I am truly shocked right now, because i never thought i would dislike this game. I always wanted to experience Fatal Frame games since i was a kid, because i absolutely cherished horror games. But this was unexpected. The games plot is mediocre at best, the gameplay is fucking AWWWFUL, voice acting is hilarious, atmosphere is kinda good, difficulty is atrociously hard etc. First problem is the balancing, this game is fucking unbalanced. Ghosts appear from nowhere and they quickly i mean QUICKLY drain your health. Escaping them is also a pain in the ass because controls suck. Sometimes enemies can easily lock you because of the games stupid design. Levels are extremely cramped, meaning you have nowhere to run. Oh btw this game doesn't tell you where to go, i found myself wandering around like a fucking wino. Most of the time i had to use walkthroughs. Sometimes when you take a picture your destination shows up on a polaroid, but the problem is that i don't remember where were those places?! Oh and puzzles suck too, they are so tidious and hard to figure out since this game doesn't help you in anyway. Even right now writing this review i'm utterly frustrated. I tried to love this game, but i can't. If you want to experience it then i can recommend this game to you, but if you are new to survival horror your best bet should be to avoid this game. 1/5
The my eyes lady started to sound too much like the my eyes dude from spongebob....very unserious
As far as PS2 era horror games go this one is pretty well above average. I love the vibe and I think the game starts off really strong. My experience was kinda broken because I played half the game with invisible enemies thinking it was supposed to be that way. As a result I was low on supplies and didn't get good until way later. When I subtract the frustration stemming from that I think the game is actually pretty well designed and I liked exploring the mansion. The puzzles are generally not that complex but I'll take straightforward stuff any day over wandering around aimlessly. The voice acting is terrible most of the time but I found it really funny. Story is pretty whatever.
As mentioned before my opinion on the combat was undercut by issues with my third world PS2. However, I do think some of the chapter 3 enemies are really annoying. When they shoot projectiles it feels straight up unfair.
As mentioned before my opinion on the combat was undercut by issues with my third world PS2. However, I do think some of the chapter 3 enemies are really annoying. When they shoot projectiles it feels straight up unfair.
great
As a fan of survival horror fan, the progenitor of the camera exorcism with tank controls and fixed camera angles is my jam. The setting and mystery really bring its own unique twist as well as the various ghosts and lore. The camera combat and lighting here is quite innovative during its time and still hold that tension and environment.
This game does have some major flaws. The most noticeable is the voice acting is really poor where it ruins immersion. I feel the backtracking is really abhorrent where it feels more like padding. Specifically, no clear guidance if the player needs to go to previous area without any strong reason to which just ruins any motivation to explore and combine that with slow movement speed. Puzzles are easy or repetitive and mostly not engaging considering this falls under the survival horror genre. Lastly the ending and its story feels a bit scummy, I feel so sorry for the main victim of the ritual that the resolution feels unsatisfying or perhaps questionable.
All of it understandable being the first in the series as well as of scope, but this is the weakest in the series (considering I have played /Maiden of the Black Water/) and thankfully the sequel does actually address some of the issues. I cannot recommend this unless for fans or history.
This game does have some major flaws. The most noticeable is the voice acting is really poor where it ruins immersion. I feel the backtracking is really abhorrent where it feels more like padding. Specifically, no clear guidance if the player needs to go to previous area without any strong reason to which just ruins any motivation to explore and combine that with slow movement speed. Puzzles are easy or repetitive and mostly not engaging considering this falls under the survival horror genre. Lastly the ending and its story feels a bit scummy, I feel so sorry for the main victim of the ritual that the resolution feels unsatisfying or perhaps questionable.
All of it understandable being the first in the series as well as of scope, but this is the weakest in the series (considering I have played /Maiden of the Black Water/) and thankfully the sequel does actually address some of the issues. I cannot recommend this unless for fans or history.
When you go home at night and pass by a street where there is no one and you hear nothing, don't you feel that you have to look behind you every so often, or that you look everywhere, as if you feel you are being watched? Fatal Frame is that same feeling, but constantly, and I don't say this as an "average horror review", but because the controller literally vibrates when there is a ghost nearby, and if it's not hostile, you just have to take the camera out and aim until the static tells you where it is.
While that's just for the collectibles, since hostile ghosts usually make a sound, playing this game without a controller is the worst thing you could think of (though tbh I guess it's not something emulators let you do lol). While it sure is easier to aim with a mouse, when you eat a jumpscare (not screams, but a loud sound and a ghost showing you where to go lmfao), or when you're fighting, the controller starts vibrating intermittently to simulate the protagonist's heart and make you think you feel that way too and I love it. It makes the fights with the ghosts SUPER TENSE, since you don't just have to fight in a mansion, aka hallways/rooms with spaces for 1-2 people, making everything super claustrophobic by having to fight ghosts that move around a lot and--yeah, idk how it works really well, but I love it.
Another thing I love is that if you're afk a ghost spawns sbddsbsbsbs
the other time i was with a friend on discord because i was scared and out of nowhere he said "haha look at this little meme" so i did that and also replied some dms, the thing is that out of nowhere i hear the sound of the ghost talking + the joystick vibration and i shit myself, i legit the fastest alt + tab in the west because i was low on life lmfao
my friend ended up getting scared of my scream XDD
If you pause the game, the screen fills up with more and more handprints of blood, which I found super cool to keep the player immersed and as a way to say "not even pausing is safe"
I have to say that the puzzles, the speed of the character/camera and the super limited resources were brutal. Like sure, they give you items that basically fill up all your life if you run out, so you don't die, but you can only carry 1 and I found more of those than ammo for my camera lol but still, I was scared to death because I had to shoot accurately with a crappy stick on the gamepad, so I suffered a lot.
And speaking of suffering a lot, did you know that when emulating it in PCSX2 there is a bug where the ghosts are invisible? Well, I didn't know it until the final stretch of the game 😭 in my head invisible ghosts = all the sense in the world 👍 and it wasn't until I saw a playtrough in youtube bc I got stuck in a puzzle that I said "wait.... why can this person see the ghosts???? " so nothing 🥲 i fixed the bug by changing a few things in the video renderer and ready, but a shame bc all the ghosts have their own designs, while i just saw them as pngs when they moved bc they left an aura that followed their body asdbababsbsbasdb legit i had to use that and the sound and thank god both headphones work, i can't imagine people in 2001+ playing this with the tv speakers, a horror not knowing where the fuck is the ghost.
Anyways, highly recommended. Some people complain that the voice acting is a bit low budget, they really try to do it right instead of doing it wrong "for the sake of the script", so it's not like silent hill 2 where it's done on purpose.
While that's just for the collectibles, since hostile ghosts usually make a sound, playing this game without a controller is the worst thing you could think of (though tbh I guess it's not something emulators let you do lol). While it sure is easier to aim with a mouse, when you eat a jumpscare (not screams, but a loud sound and a ghost showing you where to go lmfao), or when you're fighting, the controller starts vibrating intermittently to simulate the protagonist's heart and make you think you feel that way too and I love it. It makes the fights with the ghosts SUPER TENSE, since you don't just have to fight in a mansion, aka hallways/rooms with spaces for 1-2 people, making everything super claustrophobic by having to fight ghosts that move around a lot and--yeah, idk how it works really well, but I love it.
Another thing I love is that if you're afk a ghost spawns sbddsbsbsbs
the other time i was with a friend on discord because i was scared and out of nowhere he said "haha look at this little meme" so i did that and also replied some dms, the thing is that out of nowhere i hear the sound of the ghost talking + the joystick vibration and i shit myself, i legit the fastest alt + tab in the west because i was low on life lmfao
my friend ended up getting scared of my scream XDD
If you pause the game, the screen fills up with more and more handprints of blood, which I found super cool to keep the player immersed and as a way to say "not even pausing is safe"
I have to say that the puzzles, the speed of the character/camera and the super limited resources were brutal. Like sure, they give you items that basically fill up all your life if you run out, so you don't die, but you can only carry 1 and I found more of those than ammo for my camera lol but still, I was scared to death because I had to shoot accurately with a crappy stick on the gamepad, so I suffered a lot.
And speaking of suffering a lot, did you know that when emulating it in PCSX2 there is a bug where the ghosts are invisible? Well, I didn't know it until the final stretch of the game 😭 in my head invisible ghosts = all the sense in the world 👍 and it wasn't until I saw a playtrough in youtube bc I got stuck in a puzzle that I said "wait.... why can this person see the ghosts???? " so nothing 🥲 i fixed the bug by changing a few things in the video renderer and ready, but a shame bc all the ghosts have their own designs, while i just saw them as pngs when they moved bc they left an aura that followed their body asdbababsbsbasdb legit i had to use that and the sound and thank god both headphones work, i can't imagine people in 2001+ playing this with the tv speakers, a horror not knowing where the fuck is the ghost.
Anyways, highly recommended. Some people complain that the voice acting is a bit low budget, they really try to do it right instead of doing it wrong "for the sake of the script", so it's not like silent hill 2 where it's done on purpose.
Amazing game that i have wished to play for so, so long.
I am so glad i finally got to.
With an amazing atmosphere, game mechanics and creative defense system, Fatal Frame one shows us the story of a girl named Miku, who goes on a haunted mansion to find her misssing brother, Mafuyu.
As we get deeper and deeper into the story, we can see the fates of many of the people who have tried to concur the mansion spirits.
I love this game, simply because it really terrified me.
With the camera angles, the shaking of the controller, the music, the whole world building and weird sounds and ghost popping up, it just really impressed me.
What i didn't like about this game was how hard it was. It was so hard for me to beat a single ghost, without using 21093819283 camera lenses (of the good ones), so i always had to go to the checkpoints and just get more of the normal lens that the game gives you when you just go to camera that you can interract with to save your progress.
It was really fufcking hard, and for a first try to beat it, i gotta say, i truly thought it would be much easier, but it ended up irrating me a lot of times.
Even though i was in the verge of just putting the game away, i couldn't stop thinking about it because it was just so interesting to see the story of Miku and her progress, even though i gotta say it's not THIS interesting or impressive...
The voice acting is really messy and overall just super stone-ish, but I know it probably wasn't made on purpose like in the Silent Hill games.... But it didn't irrate me this bad.
I enjoyed it!
Nice one, now up to the second game of the fatal frame franchise!
I am so glad i finally got to.
With an amazing atmosphere, game mechanics and creative defense system, Fatal Frame one shows us the story of a girl named Miku, who goes on a haunted mansion to find her misssing brother, Mafuyu.
As we get deeper and deeper into the story, we can see the fates of many of the people who have tried to concur the mansion spirits.
I love this game, simply because it really terrified me.
With the camera angles, the shaking of the controller, the music, the whole world building and weird sounds and ghost popping up, it just really impressed me.
What i didn't like about this game was how hard it was. It was so hard for me to beat a single ghost, without using 21093819283 camera lenses (of the good ones), so i always had to go to the checkpoints and just get more of the normal lens that the game gives you when you just go to camera that you can interract with to save your progress.
It was really fufcking hard, and for a first try to beat it, i gotta say, i truly thought it would be much easier, but it ended up irrating me a lot of times.
Even though i was in the verge of just putting the game away, i couldn't stop thinking about it because it was just so interesting to see the story of Miku and her progress, even though i gotta say it's not THIS interesting or impressive...
The voice acting is really messy and overall just super stone-ish, but I know it probably wasn't made on purpose like in the Silent Hill games.... But it didn't irrate me this bad.
I enjoyed it!
Nice one, now up to the second game of the fatal frame franchise!
It's a really well crafted horror game, the jumpscares hit you just right without it being annoying and overused. The combat is quite challenging but you still feel like you have a chance of fighting back, and the overall atmosphere I just dig, because I love Japanese horror. I feel like this is Japan's Silent Hill, which is weird because Silent Hill is also made by a Japanese team, but marketed towards western audience.