Of all the horror franchises I’ve subjected myself to over the years, Fatal Frame is the one that sticks in my mind most as properly, actually, scary. It’s the answer I’ll give every single time to the question of what game series has scared me the most, and it’s all down to one very simple reason.
As today is the 10th anniversary of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water‘s release in the US, I’ve been pondering over the series, and in particular its signature camera obscura mechanic. You know, the part that asks you to face your fears, to walk towards the cold spot in the haunted mansion, to enter room 237 of the hotel, and then stay there to take pictures. It’s the exact opposite of what my body and brain are telling me to do, messing with my fight or flight response (my doctor says I’ve got a flight or flight response, to be honest). It gets me every time.
I was a latecomer to this particular franchise; I first tried it in the form of a downloaded fan translation of the excellent Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, but I’d developed an opinion before playing (never a good idea!) based off other people’s complaints. And, settling into it on Wii with its motion control awkwardness, I found myself taken aback. “The clunkiness is part of the charm!” I may have exclaimed to myself. Just like the original Resident Evil’s clunkfest of a setup, the slow to the point of frustration way in which your character moves and controls makes everything even more terrifying. The one complaint I’d heard was something that made it all the more special to me.
So, naturally, I was pretty psyched for Maiden of Black Water; it was my first fully translated experience of this series when it released back in 2015. And it absolutely lived up to everything I wanted and expected from it, whilst once again being…well…being itself. How about we put it that way?
It’s still clunky, it’s still slow – heck, even the snazzy 2021 revamp (which is the version you should 100% play today) remains a stodgy sort of deal, a fact that’s cemented it as purposeful in my mind. It’s a design decision and they’ll never fix it. So all of your complaints about it are null and void to me. Sorry!
In Maiden of Black Water, you’re on an absolutely grim trip that splits the action across three interesting protagonists. Each of these leads has a different angle and reasoning for taking their trip to the godawful and miserable Hikami Mountain, which has all the suicide tales, lost souls and dank fog you could ever want. Honestly, fog fanatics will come away satisfied here.
I won’t spoil any of the story, but Black Water, as with the rest of the series, has its whole Ringu vibe nailed down, and it proceeds to barrel headlong into the most harrowing of back-stories and reasonings for protagonist motivations. You’ve really gotta beware of that with all these games though, they never hold back, especially when it comes to stuff like suicide. Black Water then adds a new nastiness via a water mechanic that sees you need to stay dry, lest you become afflicted with a curse.
The inherent clunkiness, combined with the utterly relentless bleakness of the mountain setting, make for the perfect place to start scaring the pants off people by having them take out their camera and go looking for trouble in rigidly structured areas of exploration. You know how this part works; use your camera obscura, which is unwieldy and slow to reload as it pops you into first person (it also requires different types of films for different ghouls), and snap a variety of perfectly horrific Japanese ghosts.
The designs of the spirits here are, and always have been, a high point, they’re exactly the sort of real-world traditional Japanese style of nightmare fuel that you never, ever want to see, the sort of thing that turns you into a human portaloo in an instant. And instead of having a toilet, you need to stand your ground, get your proper film loaded and snap, or shoot, in such a way that the spirit disperses. It is intense. It gets me every time.
Today, I find myself as eager as ever for more Fatal Frame. I need more of its specific style of clunkiness, more of its terrible haunted locations, and more of those absolutely horrifying ghoul designs.
The 2021 version, which translates its Wii U controller aspects neatly to the console, does a nice job in giving the whole thing a bit of a lift, and the episodic nature of the campaign’s brisk 13 hour campaign means that this is one of those lovely things that you can dip into for a bit, make some progress, best a ranking, or whatever suits your fancy.
Honestly, with Halloween coming up, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, if you can swerve the spoilers and embrace the clunk, is well worth your time. Just bring a spare pair of pants.
Oh, and before you go, if you’ve played them, why not let us know which of the Fatal Frame games is your favourite in this quick and handy poll!
Have you played Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water? Rate it as highly as this writer does? Let us know in the comments!
