Fatal Frame (2001)

After recently doing playthroughs of Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, and Resident Evil: Code Veronica, I was ready for something a bit different. Fatal Frame is interesting in that it doesn't use tank controls like those other survival horror titles, though in retrospect I kind of wish it did. More on that later though.

Right off the bat the game establishes a pretty solid atmosphere. I think if I had played it alone it would have thoroughly creeped me out. At a conceptual level, using a camera to fight and (hopefully) defeat ghosts is great. It forces you to get up close and personal with them when in most games you just want to get as far away as possible. The way the combat is designed allows the devs to put a lot of personality into the way the ghosts fight. A great example of this is the Blinded ghost, who wanders around until she picks up on a sound made by the player, at which point she beelines to the location of the sound in a frantic rage. There's a lot of potential here.

Unfortunately, it quickly becomes obvious that the game's combat is beyond clunky. It's really awful. Ghosts can go through walls and items in the environment. "Well that makes sense," you might say. "They are ghosts, after all." Well, yes, fair enough. But when the core combat revolves around charging up your camera power by staying focused on the ghost and they are constantly teleporting inside of walls and passing through and behind objects that block vision of them, shit gets irritating real fast.

The player character, Miku, is also very very slow. Her run speed is only slightly faster than most ghosts' normal move speed and you can barely move when you have your camera up, so if you need some distance you have to either snap a photo at the perfect split-second moment to knock the ghost back or simply exit photo mode entirely to run away.

The corridors of the Himuro Mansion are cramped and suffocating, leaving little room for maneuvering around and most rooms have various screen doors and large objects littered all over that get in the way of movement. It's easy to get stuck on corners of furniture and some interactable objects, such as ladders, are very finicky with what angle you stand in when you try to click on them. The lack of tank controls also means that if the camera angle switches partway through movement you could end up running in the wrong direction, potentially getting yourself killed. The ghosts have none of these problems of course, and many can also teleport at a moment's notice to close distance. Fun.

Due to all of the issues above, combat with the game's more difficult ghosts ends up feeling very RNG-dependent. If the ghost AI decides to fuck you over there's very little you can do about it. This is especially true for a specific type of ghost near the end of the game that is only vulnerable to damage when its head is attached. When its head is not attached, it slowly walks toward you and there's nothing you can do to stop it. There doesn't seem to be any limit on how long it can do this. Just run and hope it doesn't corner you.

Because of all this, I ended up dreading every encounter with ghosts. The frustration from dealing with them waters down the game's otherwise great atmosphere. Fighting ghosts is also pretty much the main draw of the game as a whole, so there's not much other gameplay to enjoy other than some light exploration to find key items.

The story is fine. There's little here to write home about, but the idea of a mansion possessed by the angry spirits resulting from generations of twisted bloody rituals performed by a family is pretty cool, if a tad cliché. Miku as a protagonist doesn't really play much of a role besides being this horror game's "Scream Queen." She gets all wide-eyed and screams when spooky shit happens. That's it. She's here to look for her brother, Mafuyu. This setup serves the game fairly well for the most part, but I have some beef with the ending. After spending the whole game looking for her brother, she finds him, and he just decides to stay in the mansion forever with one of the spirits NOT because he loves her, but because he happens to look like the guy she loved when she was alive?? So Miku just goes home alone after everything she's gone through. What the fuck? That's dumb.

I should also mention that the voice acting, or at least the English dub, is awful. Most characters sound distracted or bored. Some of it is honestly RE1-tier silly sounding too. Characters mutter their lines often, making it difficult to follow what is being said. This is made worse because the PS2 version of this game has no subtitle options at all. Very early on I just made my peace with not being able to understand around half of the voiced dialogue. Most of it is inconsequential stuff that gets reiterated through the notes you find anyway.

So...yeah. This was disappointing. There's potential, for sure, but it's largely squandered by the terrible combat. I still like that I own it physically as a collector's item, but I'd struggle to argue that it was worth playing. I also have a copy of the second game though, so my Fatal Frame journey doesn't end here! I think if they can clean up the messy combat the second game could be something really special.

Wow I finally played this game in 2022. I woud've spent so much time on this if I didn't experience better gaming experiences since then. I regret so much not knowing this game back in 2001 ! This is a gem of a game when it comes to sound design and image composition. I appreciate these poltergeist/horror/spooky games with a good scenario that often keeps me on the edge of my seat then a clunky gameplay.

Story is a lot to me, that's why I play games, to live a story at the pace I want and have the feeling I'm spending quality time on it. Fatal Frame is a 2001 quality game for it's time though I wouldn't recommend it today.

Don't take me wrong, this is a gem of a game but rough around the edges... The atmosphere is what catches the eyes immediately, the creepy characters and this unease feeling you have while exploring the areas where ghosts can appear from nowhere.

The story is pretty straight forward and using the camera obscura (main feature of the game) feels ... how can I put this?.... AWFUL ! Man this is the worst experience I felt in years. What happened ??? but it adds to the experience nevertheless. And on the long run, you get some grasps on how controling that camera... with inversed stick layout ! GUH !!

Oh the riddles are just the worst part of the experience. I don't really know how I managed to get through them...

Fatal Frame is definitely an experience to live at least once! Don't force yourself on playing a game you don't appreciate. There are so many games out there that a way better. Play it for the lore of the PS2 games ;)

I remember trying to play this game back when I was a kid and just not being able to get with the program. Well, now I was finally able to beat it.

Fatal Frame is a unique horror franchise. There are similar ideas in gaming out there, but nothing quite like it. And the 1st entry, although rough around the edges, kickstarts all of it.

The atmosphere is top notch from beginning to end. The game's photography, sound design, use of silence, mood and soundtrack all act in synchronicity in order to create this unholy and ominous environment. And to back all of this up, you get a very small, but creepy cast of characters moving and sounding as chilling as possible to move the plot forward. It's quite amazing, really.

The story is also very simple. It's good, keeps you interested and gets you going through the house. It's just not up to par with future games.But the ending surprised me! It was unexpectedly bittersweet. And since I played the 2nd one and a bit of the 3rd, it's just nice to see how it all ties up.

Using the camera feels VERY clunky, but you get used to it. Especially with the ghost capturing system forcing you to stay on your toes to catch secrets and wandering aparitions around the mansion. All that weird, ghastly clunkyness combined with a frightening (and a little repetitive, I admit) soundtrack just makes it work.

One other thing, and that's what I loved the most about the game: the mansion! It's such an impressive well-done scary setting. The level design was so beautifully crafted that reminded me of RE1's mansion, Dead Space's Ishimura or Batman's Arkham Asylum. Simply brilliant

But despite this game's well-done aspects, this game is riddled with flaws. I'm not gonna list everything here because it's not hard to find them. Just play the game and you'll know it. But some things are unbearable! Movement is VERY slow, using the camera feels awkward, puzzles are boring, voice acting is bad (the english one, at least), you constantly clip through stuff when running and sometimes it's just hard to see things due to how dark it can get.

The WORST thing, hands down, has to be the combat. Anything that deals with the game's difficulty, in general, to be honest. Ghosts are faster than you, they blend with the environment, you die in 2/3 hits and resources, especially healing items, are extremely scarce.

It's completely unbalanced I just don't understand how they missed the mark with something so essential. The blinding woman from chapter 2 and the entire chapter 3 are a mess! Everytime I thought about battling a ghost, no matter how interesting it was, I just DREADED the idea.

Fatal Frame 1 is a VERY good game. The beginning of a series that I absolutely love, but it's impossible to hide how burdensome it can be at times. If you love survival horror games, I'm sure you love it. If you're just in for a good time in the series, start with the 2nd one.

I'm back with my Fatal Frame 'special' in GamerFocus with the first part of a retrospective on the series (in spanish).

This one covers the inspirations behing the franchise and the three first games. Second part should be ready next week.

I also hope you liked my previous article about the mythos and shinto influences on this games.

Synopsis:

In this installment, the player controls Miku Hinasaki for the majority of the game. Miku has entered Himuro Mansion looking for her brother, Mafuyu Hinasaki, who had gone missing in the mansion two weeks ago. She does not find her brother, but she does find her mother's old camera that Mafuyu had brought with him. Realizing she is now trapped in this mansion, Miku continues to search for her brother and the way out of the mansion.

Pros

• History
• Environment
• Soundtrack
• Photo Camera - Weapon
• Various types of roll

Cons

• Some puzzles
• While exploring some more encounters with Ghost

Scores:

• History - 5/10
• Music - 6/10
• Graphics - 6/10
• Contents - 5/10
• Gameplay - 6/10

Final Opinion:

This was my first such title to play. At first I was frightened by everything. Every little noise i heard i was on alert. But as the game progresses the scale of fear has dropped considerably.

One of the things I loved about this game was the overall atmosphere, not only the fact that I did not know what was going to happen at the next corner, but also the little promenades with powder that hangs in the air of the mansion. There will be several occasions when people can be photographed, past events that took place in the mansion.

I would never say that the developers would use an old photographic camera (which in turn belonged to the protagonist's mother) as an exorcist for ghosts. Not forgetting that there are x types of rollers and various lenses that can be discovered throughout the game. One of the cool things I found from the Gameplay of the camera is that it has to do a full recharge to be able to cause a greater damage to the ghosts and against boss it is fundamental to do it.

Some of the puzzles themselves are not very difficult, but what can become boring is the ghosts, each puzzle = ghost. Even the exploration of the mansion is the same.

I went there looking for more about the story that involved the plot, and from what they say on the net that this is a true story. The images I saw of the Himuro mansion on the net by chance are very much like it from the outside or in some rooms. But each draws its own conclusion.

One of the things that does not make much sense in the story is why they allowed outsiders (men) to enter the mansion, likely to fall in love and spoil the ritual (which was the case). And to put more wood in the fire, the head master of the family along with the four priests made all worse by killing the visitor.

To finish this review, I did not like much the first end of the game, in which Mafuyo stay with Kirie? Like seriously, Mafuyo!!! Miku live horrors in the mansion and you stay in the mansion with a ghost who are doing her duty as Maiden? One of two things or he was already dead when Miku found him or he is stupid.

Note: 7/10