Could've been a great game if they just put some more effort in it.
The story goes about a bunch of random people that have either lost someone or are just freaking curious about the afterlife. It's about some rumor that leads you to a certain chatroom that is supposedly some kind of 'portal' to some 'other' dimension where you can meet the dead. The thing is, that those who visit that chatroom either die or just vanish from the Earth.
In the game you play the role of the people who have visited the chatroom and have then vanished. They pop up in the 'other' dimension where they are stuck forever and haunted by annoying ghosts. The only tool they have in this 'other' dimension, is a mobile phone. This mobile phone is supposed to represent some kind of transportation device that transports you to other places in the 'other' dimension. Each place is connected to those people who have visited the chatroom and have vanished to the 'other' dimension. You'll play the role of some of those people and you'll have to play the dungeon to figure out their background story.
The gameplay isn't that hard. You never have to fight. You simply have to shake off a ghost, run away from your enemies or figure out some puzzle to make the ghost disappear. You'll mostly be puzzling and running around places to figure out every character's story. With it, you have your mobile phone as a tool. You sometimes have to make pictures of objects or ghosts. Sometimes you'll receive text messages from or ghosts, or other people you have met in the 'other' dimension. Sometimes you'll have to record static in a room and then play it back to hear a dialog. Sometimes you'll have to use it to call other people or to transport away to another place. And every now and then a ghost calls you to scare the hell out of you. You can die in this game. But it's not like you have a real health bar or something. You have a 'scary' bar :P Whenever there's a ghost, the scary bar goes from green (fine) to orange (cautious) to red (danger) and when your bar turns to red for a while, you'll die.
The really scary thing in the game is the fact that ghosts appear unexpected. You could just be walking up some stairs, and then BOOM…a ghost just runs you by or suddenly it just stands in the corner, glaring at you. Your wii remote represents as a flash light. The point you're aiming at will be lit while the area around it will be dim. So that's one thing that makes it really scary.
The environment is sometimes even scarier than the ghosts itself. Girly dolls in kimono's that are lingering at you from a shelf, are really way more scarier than some ghosts you encounter :P So really, this game does have some scary elements. The fact that the game is in 1st person view, does make it scarier than it would've if you were in 3rd person. (Although Fatal Frame was scary either way XD) In first person mode it feels like you're really there yourself. Especially with the WII-remotes. It really is the right kind of game for the wii. While shaking your remote to shake the ghost off, it feels like you're really shaking off the ghost. Just try and play this game on a 42 inch plasma screen in the freaking dark, sound on max…you know where I'm getting at :P
They haven't put much effort in the cut-scenes. If they had just done that like…really great, then the game would've been a whole lot better. Sometimes you'll have 3 second cut-scenes of your character screaming: 'AAAA a ghost!' and then you're back to the game. The cut-scenes that appear between chapters are just plain white texts upon a black background as if you're watching a homemade movie made with Windows Movie maker. Instead, they could've animated the cut-scene to make it more appealing. Same thing with the dungeons, they kind of look a lot alike...and just plain simple and dull.
Then there's the thing with the dialogs...
Characters don't really talk all that much. You'll just see their mouths move up and down while you'll have to read the subtitled text underneath it. Sometimes you'll have spoken dialogs but they don't really sound much like a real conversation would. They react way to naive. It's like: 'Oh no…it's a ghost…who cares anyway?', instead of…' OH NO! OH MY F*CKING GOD!!! AAAAAAAAAA!!!! IT'S A GHOST!!!' and they you run away. (RUN FOREST! RUN!) Or they react like they pee their pants when it's not a ghost they're encountering -_-"
But anyway…from what I've experienced by playing the game, it's not that real bad. It's not super great but it IS scary. They have accomplished their scariness goal so far. It just seems like they rushed the game too much. If they just put more effort into it, it would've been an awesome game.
So for anyone who is scared of ghosts or just likes games like Fatal Frame, Forbidden Siren, Silent Hill and related stuff. Buy this as a budget game and you'll have plenty of fun playing this game.