Lost in an old mansion filled with dark secrets.
The graphics are clean and creepy, but aren’t as crisp and detailed as it could‘ve been. It seems as if the developers wanted to give them a charcoal look, which generally fit’s the theme. The spirits look old after awhile, more detail in facial work would help to bring out more personality and more variety would be nice. Nevertheless, they’ll still be really frightening when provoked. The environments are dark and gives off a sense of old, decayed, and hopelessness. You’ll feel like your really in a virtual horror house. The atmosphere is tense, making you feel as if your constantly being watched. There’s also a terrific use of lighting and shadows to make the environments much more horrifying and realistic. The fixed camera angles add a lot of suspense. It’ll will sometimes zoom in when you least expected to clue out an item easily passed by, or a immobile doll just to break your nerves.
Miku’s actions and decisions all revolve around the usage of the Camera Obscura. The Camera Obscura can exorcist spirits, find clues and tips, find hiding spirits, and solve puzzles to unlock sealed doors. When she equips the camera, she’ll enter Finder mode with a large capture circle in the center. Your goal is to aim and lock a spirit inside the capture circle where it’ll glow green , orange, or red. A green capture circle means the spirit is innocent, or if your taking pictures of a sealed door, it represents a clue. When the capture circle or filament turns orange-red, it signals a locked hostile ghost. Generally if you can snap photos when the capture circle turns red, you’ll do critical damage, but it won’t be easy and requires quick timing.
Some of the cameras basic functions can be improved with spirit points. You’ll generally be leveling up by charging spirit points and improve the camera’s range, speed, and sensitivity. As you progress through the game, you’ll bump into a number of Special abilities like paralyze, push-back, see, and slowdown, which can be equipped onto your camera for a bonus effect. Scattered throughout the mansion are abundance of films that have different levels of exorcist power. You won’t need to worry about wasting too much low level films on puzzles and such because you’ll eventually use the stronger films for tougher enemies.
Though the gameplay is slow-paced, the rooms however loads up real quick.There’s generally a brief second of wait between rooms, a definite plus for a slow-pacing horror game to keep up with the tension in-game.
There are some minor glitches in the game that won’t hurt it too much, but I’ll just point them out. At the beginning of chapter 2, you’ll encounter a floating spirit who crosses the hallway and chases you near the stairway. If you run backwards, he’ll flow into the stairway and gets stuck inside. Doesn’t break the game play at all but it can kill the tension.
After killing each spirit, you’ll have to watch them blur the screen and disintegrate into air. This scene comes to drag later in the game, when you have to watch the same spirit death animation over and over. Not only does it get annoying, it generally slows down the pacing of the game overall.
Fatal Frame can be completed in 12 hours. Upon completion, you’ll be rewarded with costumes, higher difficulty levels, and new game modes. You can also save photos taken during game and keep them in your memory card to show off or reminiscence. Make sure you have a 2nd memory card handy or have enough space to save this one. Fatal Frame requires 1800kb to save a file, add another 1000 or so to save your picture files.
Fatal Frame is one of the most unique horror experiences out there. Its clean presentation and nerve-racking camera zoom-ins brilliantly adds a lot of spook in areas you’ll generally don’t expect. The atmosphere will leave you breath-less, gasping for air as you’ll be drained of energy in a matter of hours. If your dying in need to a horror title that’s fun and will give you nightmares, then join Miku in her quest to find her missing brother, you won’t regret it.