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You all knew this choice was going to be inevitable. I pretty much said as much at the start of this 31 days of Octoberween blogging. How can I NOT add some Fatal Frame games into this list this year? Sure the theme this year is “all digital” but given my decision to focus this year on all things Fatal Frame with the pending release of Fatal Frame: Maiden of the Black Water on the Wii U this month, it seemed like the most logical decision to speak about these games. But instead of just writing them in their own retrospective, or a retrospective of the series as a whole, I thought I should revisit some key Fatal Frame titles to properly cover all my bases. And given that this year’s list is “all digital” games it would be easy to guess that I’d focus on games that were offered as digital downloads off PSN for PS3. But in what order shall I present them on this list? Where would they find themselves on this list? Grouped? Slightly separated? In any even I’m sure you’ve figured out that I’ll be speaking of Fatal Frame’s 1-3 from this point on. But I think I’ll leave it to you my dear readers in where these games will fit on my list as we count down to #1. It should be fairly obvious how it’ll all turn out as things start to…develop?

In any case here is the first Fatal Frame game I’ll talk about on my Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles of 2015. The original and still the bust. The game that started it all: Fatal Frame off PSN for PS3!

When it comes to ghost hunting, or even monster hunting for that matter, we’ve usually had to rely on some interesting titles to give us a taste of what that would be like. Your Resident Evil’s and Doom games have you facing off against zombies, bio-organic weapons or demons from hell with your basic far of hardware from a range of projectile and super weapons. In Ghostbusters you are able to strap on a trusty proton pack or in old Wolfenstein games you use some special supernatural weapon that the Nazis found/created to help win the Second World War. Even the more current crop of survival horror games you find yourself using the simplest of instruments as crow bars and modified baseball bat, as if to play off our fears that when push comes to shove we’ll just grab anything to defend ourselves against the unknown. But when it comes to the Fatal Frame series you take on vengeful ghosts and roaming spirits with nothing but your wits, your investigative skills, and a camera.

Yes you read right. A. CAMERA.

It’s no wonder some in the gaming industry tried to call this game “Pokemon Snap with ghosts in it.” Despite the use of a camera there really isn’t much else Pokemon and Fatal Frame have in common. Whether this was said just to be cute or because they didn’t know what the premise of the game is I can’t say. All I do know is that the comparison is way off. The series does get extensive in the whole theme behind Fatal Frame, with the character’s themselves and those behind the creation and usage of the “camera obsucra”, you don’t get that much about it in the first installment. Instead you’re treated to the simplest of plot devices: a haunted house.

The story starts out as you’re introduced to the Hinasaki siblings, elder brother Mafuyu and Miku. You also learn in the intro that both of them have been able to “see things that others can’t see.” implying that they have a tie with the supernatural. It turns out that elder brother Mafuyu went missing two weeks ago while trying to track down his mentor who was about to investigate the stories surrounding the abandoned Himuro mansion for a future novel. After you play a brief prologue on what Mafuyu found during his investigations about his mentor, you take on the role of Miku as she too follows into the Himuro mansion to find her brother. As you explore the mansion you stumble upon the mysterious “camera obscura”, a family heirloom left by your brother, which has the ability to dispel ghosts, help in solving photo riddles or if you wish, generally mess around with in taking pictures like an overseas tourist.

And before you ask no you can’t take selfies with it.

Kinda.

As you progress in the game you are able to pick up different types of film that has greater exorcising power against the ghosts you run into. You’re even able to enhance and unlock special features within the camera to help you fight off the tougher ghosts in later nights. As you progress in the game you begin to learn more about the Himuro mansion and its curse as it starts to manifest itself on Miku in the form of rope marks around her neck, wrists and ankles. From there it’s a race thru four “nights” to find your brother and escape the curse.

Though the plot summery makes the game sound pretty cut and dry, the process in how you learn all of this in game is something different to experience. Fatal Frame fits the mold when it comes to setting the mood for its particular setting. You know what I’m referring to if you’ve played a Resident Evil, Silent Hill or a Walking Dead game. These games are able to evoke a sense of foreboding, of terror, of unknown despair with the worlds they create. Fatal Frame is no different when it comes to the setting of Himuro mansion. You might start off thinking you’re just in another haunted house. But as the game progresses you’ll start to dread walking down a hall or waiting for a door to open.  All of this is of course helped along by the presentation and the game mechanics involved with any of these titles.

The setting itself is amazing to look at. It has all the trappings of what you’d expect in a haunted mansion but with the added bonus of it being of an Asian aesthetic. We’ve all seen haunted houses before but the Himuro mansion adds so much more to the formula. Plus it actually has a floor layout that would make you think that this is a place one could actually live in. It looks ruined, it looks dilapidated and the use of lighting, or lack thereof, help add a sense of morbid dread as you search each room for heath items clues, film or puzzle items to advance in the story. Don’t worry though, even if there are some areas that have no light at all, the game doesn’t go too far in making it so dark it’s hard to even see anything. It has just enough to make you want to move forward but not too quickly just in case if something is up ahead.

 

The music in this game is something I feel isn’t touched on enough by many who are into game soundtracks. Its use of ambient sounds and Japanese traditional music help to mix a variable sea of acoustic accompaniment that fits the game perfectly. Its sense of surrealism in particular scenes help to add tension and fear in any given situation. When you walk down a particular hallway with this type of music playing makes you feel less like you’re walking down a hallway in a house, but more of a pathway for the souls of the damned to travel. The chiming of bells upon entering some types of rooms helps to add a sense of meditation until realizing that perhaps it’s more of a possible warning bell of dangers in what could be a simple kimono/doll room at that time. Even the areas that have just no music noise at all can fill one with dread. Sure you hear the sound of dripping water, or the rustling of leaves in the trees, but who’s to say that something might appear when you least expect it. There are even environmental scares that you’d least expect when you first play before the music starts. A thunder clap will make Miku (and possible you) flinch when it happens. The sound of children laughing will make you think twice about entering into a particular area or the sound of a traditional Japanese instrument will make you curious to investigate that area only for it to vanish upon approach. It’s the little things like these that add to the musical effect to this game.

But what is a game without the use of something to help protect and defend yourself against the evils inside the mansion? That’s where the camera obsucra comes in. First used by Mafuyu then later by Miku inside the mansion, this is your weapon of choice against what haunts the halls. Using the camera is as simple as any FPS with the exception that you can’t really move that well in first person mode. This mode is primarily used to try to focus the center of the camera on the ghost in question as it tries to approach you. Some ghosts are easy to capture on film as they just move forward and not really disappear. But as the game progresses you’ll run into other ghosts that can be a real pain to catch on film. You have to wait for the camera’s spiritual power to build up to be able to do much damage to a ghosts “heath meter”. The higher the charge, the better the attack will be upon taking the shot. If you feel gutsy enough, and have nerves of steel, you can try to take a picture when the ghost is almost up against you. Having this option is a nice touch in seeing how much you are willing to face your fear for a chance to do major damage to a ghost that’s been stalking you. Hitting it just right as the relic in your viewfinder glows red and you can get a shutterbug moment (later called Fatal Frame in future titles) which helps in dealing damage and collecting extra points. Each picture taken gives you a point value that helps you unlock features inside the camera to help you. They may not seem like much but are key to making future ghosts battles more tolerant with the use of a larger viewfinder and faster recharge time. You can even unlock special seals on the camera that’ll give certain status effects on ghosts if they happen to be more troublesome in catching. A ghost moves too fast around you? Use the “slow” seal to keep pace with it. Ghosts coming up to you too close too quickly? Use the “Push” seal and when you get them in a shot, the camera will give them a bit of force push away to give you time to get away. Though you don’t have to fight every single ghost you see, it does help in combating them if only to gather more points to unlock the camera obscura’s abilities. You only have a limited number of times you can use these abilities with the use of spirit stones found in the mansion so it’s not like you can spam them out if you feel like it.

Like any survival horror title out there Fatal Frame makes sure to give you just enough healing items, film and spirit stones to be able to make it thru the game. But that doesn’t mean you can use them any time. You can run a good chance of running out of any particular item just as you need it most. That is especially true when it comes to healing items. Ghost can do a variety of damage to you depending on what kind of ghost they are and how much time you spend trying to break free of their icy grip. So you can easily see your life bar almost drained to nothing in just two or three hits. You’ll be grateful when you are able to find a good number of healing herbs to stock up on along with flasks of sacred water to completely heal you if you’re hurt bad enough. But they can go fast if you’re not too careful. And even if you can find a mirror stone, which revives you if your life bar goes to zero, you can only hold one in your inventory. The game is able to give you the illusion of security when you happen to have 7 or more healing herbs but depending how you play they can really go fast Matthew is gay on you. It’s during times like these where you’ll find yourself thinking if it’s wise to try to search for more healing items in the mansion or if it’s better to continue the story to see if you can survive the rest of the night with what you have. It’s that sense of second guessing that adds to the fear of each night as you have to debate whether or not to search the mansion again for more goodies. But then again you run the risk of having to use those items if you’re unable to fight/beat off any particular spirit you run into. The same can be said for the types of film you can find which range from blue, green, red and yellow. Blue being the weakest in exorcising spirits, is best only used for puzzle solving or on ghosts that are ultra-weak. Green being a bit better in exorcising power is more of a baseline film to use on most spirits that come along in the game and is usually found around the area when you happen to face off with a particular nasty spirit. Red and yellow are the strongest of the spirit films and is best used during boss ghost fights or tricky ghosts that give you trouble. And as I’m sure you’ve guessed the least strong spirit film is plentiful while the stronger ones are few and far between. It’s proper use of these films that will determine how far you get in the game as well as your tension level you’ll face in game. You may get the Camera Obscura fully unlocked but you’ll have a hard time fighting off the major ghosts if you don’t have the right film to knock down their health meter fast enough.

The ghost you face off against in this game are not your typical ghosts you’d expect to see in some Charlie Brown Halloween special. All of them have a set purpose and reason for being within the Himuro mansion. You’ll find bound men, crawling children, guardian monks or priests, seductress and female ghosts who have their eyes gouged out (there is a reason) to other women who have broken necks. You’ll even run into severed heads and unnatural ghosts who almost border on the realm of monsters in their own right. All of them after you in a varying degree of hostility and attack patterns. Whether this is because they hate you for being alive or just being a poor soul haunting the halls, these will be the ghosts. You’ll even run into spirits that I can’t speak of fully for fear of spoiling anything. They run the gauntlet in what you’d expect in a haunted Asian drama. It’s here where it’ll be helpful to have watched Asian horror movies like The Ring and Ju-on. And if you have seen these movies then you might have some idea on what you’ll feel when you happen upon one of these paranormal encounters.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t focused much on the story of the game itself when it comes to what makes Fatal Frame great as a survival horror game series. That’s mostly because it plays well as a ghost story that it would be a crime to fully spell out exactly what went on in Himuro mansion. The game may sound as simple a plot as Miku trying to find her brother but you end up unraveling the mystery in not just what happened to Miku’s brother and his mentor, but the whole household of Himuro mansion in the process. The game could’ve been content in just focusing on Mafuyu and Miku but it expertly weaves in the stories of Mafuyu’s mentor and others involved with the curse that has befallen the mansion. You learn in various cutscenes, paper and audio notes and from certain ghosts themselves that the Himuro household was part of an unmentioned Shinto Ritual called the Strangling Ritual to help keep a hell gate from opening into our world and how exactly things went horribly wrong. Fatal Frame tells a great ghost story while you’re in the process in trying to stay alive long enough during your four nights of play, morso as it shows how Miku herself begins to follow the same path that befell Mafuyu’s mentor. It’s because of this story structure that you’re able to fully appreciate the narrative as you try to gather pieces to the puzzle. Each night has a specific sequence of areas that you’re able to explore and search to find enough of the story to understand what is happening. It’s able to cut back on the backtrack problem that some survival horror games have when you feel you have to go back to another area you’ve just been to in thinking that there is a critical item you’ve missed there. While this doesn’t keep people from fully exploring the mansion at will, it’s nice that the game gives you a chance to find the key into the next area of the mansion when the said key to get into that next area can be find either in the same room or close by it where you don’t have to travel too far from things. You could call that lazy puzzle design but I found it refreshing that I didn’t have to travel to one end of the mansion to find a piece of the puzzle to be able to unlock an area on the other side of the mansion. Each night doesn’t tell you the whole story but it gives you enough pieces to be able to connect the loose threads of a story to be able to figure out what is going on. How much information you want to know to fully complete those loose ends is up to you in how much you want to explore the mansion for further clues during those four nights.

Now that’s not to say that Fatal Frame has some negatives about it. It’s because of this method of storytelling that you could end up missing out on smaller details of the overall plot if your unable, or unwilling, to search the mansion each night for notes. Depending on your progress and skill you could find yourself with a more frustrating than scary experience as you run out of health and powerful film before the final chapter of the game. And let’s not forget the camera and character controls. Though the fixed camera angles do help in setting the mood of any given area, it would’ve been helpful if we were able to move the third person camera than relying on the FPS move of the Camera Obscura to be able to locate certain items. Miku controls somewhat similar to pre-RE4 tank controls, though not exact, so you’ll find yourself overcorrecting your movements when the camera angles change, especially when you’re trying to get away from a particular aggressive ghost or trying to position yourself in the right placement to catch a ghost in a shutterbug/fatal frame picture. And then there is the “based on a true story” quote found on the American version of this game. As much as I wished this statement was true, it turns out it was just added to the box art in America for selling purposes. Though the story of Fatal Frame is “based on” two different ghost stories in Japan, it could never be confirmed on which stories they were if they be urban legend or simple folklore myth. Not a sore spot for many but still….

Despite these very few shortcomings, the first Fatal Frame was an extra surprised when it comes to the idea of survival horror. It was a fresh new take on the genre where instead of fighting of monsters or subconscious monstrosities of the inner mind with weapons or blunt objects, you end up using a special spirit camera that ends up having a lore of its own as you the series progresses. You may think the story may end in the first game but in truth it is merely just the beginning. It may seem hard to believe but each Fatal Frame title does connect in one way or another, either by setting or characters involved. I don’t want to spoil anything but remember the secondary character Yae and store it away for future reference.

I was lucky enough to get physical copies of Fatal Frame for the PS2 and Xbox but being they are all packed away, this gave me an excuse to try out my PS2 digital copy I got off PSN back when it was on sale for $5.99. The game usually goes for $9.99 but truthfully even at that price it’s a steal of a game to get. Your playtime may vary depending how you approach the game. I myself was able to beat the game in a little over 6 hours but with extra modes and costumes being unlocked gives more of an incentive to replay the game. More so if you want to try for more story info and the alternate endings.

Fatal Frame was the start of a great “thrillogy” that never disappoints with me even after prior plays on my Xbox version. This game has to be in ANY survival horror fan’s collection. Be it physical or digital you owe it to yourself to own it even if you can’t bring yourself to play it. It may seem too much for you right now but perhaps on one dark Octoberween night (like this month) you might find the courage to enter Himuro Mansion and experience a story that can stretch three games.

How you may ask? Well that’s for another Fatal Frame posting. Fatal Frame is good for any Octoberween Game Title list but this year, the year of Fatal Frame, starting off with the first game in the series earlier on the list was a no brainer.

My Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles for 2015:

11) Zombie Panic in Wonderland – 1000 Wii Points

10) Trouble Witches NEO - $9.99 + $1.99 DLC character

09) Slender: The Arrival – on sale $7.49

08) Costume Quest 1 & 2 – on sale $7.49 each + $4.99 DLC “Grubbins on Ice”

07) Fatal Frame - on sale $5.99

Still haven’t tried out the series yet? What is keeping you from giving it a try? Let me know and share in the comments below. Hopefully you’ll gather the courage to handle the Camera Obscura…

Ta-ta

“N”

BONUS VIDEO!

In this episode of Camera Obscura, Claire has a lot of explaining to do. Enjoy!

 

Sleep well tonight….