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.