Ahora entiendo porqué este título fue tan controversial para los fans. No es mal juego, pero definitivamente es bastante débil en comparación con los otros 3 (no puedo hablar de FF4 porque no lo he jugado. Aún). El combate funciona bien y es lo que esperaría de un FF que solía tener Motion Controls, pero fuera de ciertos ángulos, creo que está bien y también te ayuda a ser extremadamente poderoso en ciertos momentos. La historia depende demasiado de que hayas jugado los anteriores (por lo menos el primero y el 3) y no lo recomendaría como el primer título para alguien a quien le quiera empezar. Al menos hoy en día, que no se tiene acceso general a la trilogía original, creo que FF4 es el mejor para comenzar, pero éste está bien. Y ya.

Much like other reviews when you go down my page, this was written at the time of the games release

So around June last year my best friend, my partner and I decided to play through Fatal Frame 1-5 together. Sadly we couldn't play 4 since it is stuck in Japan with no official translation.
However through lockdowns and moving houses, we all did it. We played some of the best horror video games have to offer and then, we played Maiden of Black Water.
This game is a tough one. It changes so much about the series and makes it less old school horror and almost anime etchi horror.
First off, this game isn't as scary as the first 3. I'm still not sure if it's due to them trying to make it more modern but it loses so much scare factor in favour of a more action packed game where you combo forever with your camera.
Sadly the game does kick itself in the behind due to it's lack of respect for the past series. They grab characters who had a great ending and character development and crush it. It was sad to see strong characters be thrown into a place where they were helpless and were given a plot that didn't need to exist. It spits on how 3 ends.
As an entry point, it's not going to be the wost thing but if you play the rest, I'm sorry in advance.
Also the re-use of areas is just not great at all. Halfway through the game, you have seen every area and then the game just repeats every area multiple times in the same chapter. It's a huge shame.
What the game did good for me was be fun. I genuinely had a blast with it. I do love how stupid it is. I still love the series tropes of using a camera to kill spirits. I love the gameplay so much. It feels like a weird hack n slash with a camera.
I do like the lolita and kimono outfits you can put them in but I am a degen sooooooo they got me there.
Overall, I do believe my enjoyment with this game came from the banter and making fun of the game together as a group.
Playing it on my own for the nightmare S+ rank was a dreadful experience. Which made it even more obvious it was the company I kept that made this game fun.

I cannot believe the whole franchise rests on this games success

Has style but no substance. Visually it looks beautiful and plays with no issues. The combat is nicely modernized without losing the essence of Fatal Frame, and some useful quality of life features are added to the exploration parts that weren't present in previous titles. Motion controls for the Camera Obscura are really well done. Playing handheld on a Switch with motion controls feels especially immersive and is probably the closest you can get to the original experience of using the Wii U GamePad as the camera. The costume selection is solid (though incredibly lackluster for the male character as always), and the photo mode is the best and most elaborate I've seen in a game. Unfortunately underneath the flashy exterior the game is kinda boring and more tedious than fun. Maiden of Black Water feels like a massive outlier in the series in terms of tone and hard to take seriously as a survival horror game due to the out of place Dead or Alive levels of horniness and generally really not being scary. None of the characters are well developed, but Ren and Miu feel especially disconnected from the main plotline. The story is just not interesting and the game is pointlessly drawn out for what little it has to offer. Half of your playtime is spent backtracking through the same areas, repeating the same actions and fighting the same ghosts as different protagonists, sometimes not even that (were two separate chapters where you play tower defense as Ren in the antique shop really necessary?). The chapters are quite unbalanced, ranging from 20 minutes to 2 hours, and most of them involve little to no plot progression, making it feel like you're constantly going around in circles in the same few locations without really accomplishing anything. The finale could've benefited from being split into three chapters (one per protagonist), as in its current state it's too long and messy with way too many enemy encounters, back and forths between protagonists and endings crammed into one chapter. Not a bad game by any means and I enjoyed many aspects of it, but it would be easier for me to look past its shortcomings and feel more positively about the game if it was just a few hours or chapters shorter.