Fatal Frame

AKA-Not so cool as to have its own subtitle since its the first in the series Frame

Console: Playstation 2
Game type: Horror/Mystery/Puzzle
Developer: Tecmo
Number of players: 1
Languages: English dubbed

Presentation:
75/100

Introduction/Demonstration
75
Nothing special. Your typical horror fare that does not really shine into what you will be seeing/experiencing.

Menu
80
Direct, nothing shabby but nothing spectacular either.

Visuals:
90/100

Detail
100
If the game could only work in one place well, the small things is where it counts the most. The game will draw you in with the smallest of details and keep you enthralled throughout. To keep the freaky factor up just pay attention to the small things. Pause the game and walk away…you’ll return to find your screen being slowly covered by small bloody handprints of children with accompyning creepy noise…(and thats all it took for my wife to turn it off and hand it over to me to play, she couldnt take it).

Animation
85
Good, and it has aged well. However its roughness shows in few things. Animations for moving up and down ladders comes readily to mind. It is both frustrating with alignment to actually USE them, combined with the slowest possible ever use of them. For someone being chased by ghosts you would expect something more than a slow oldman with arthritis, fully automated up/down a ladder/rope. There are the occasional clipping issues with ghosts during a fight, but otherwise its a very nice game. Even nicer considering its a second/third gen on the platform. It has yet to take real advantage of the consoles specs.

Frame Rate
90
An occasional slowdown during a animation in a ghost fight, or slight lag between being hit/damaged and jumping out of camera view. Otherwise fine.

Audio:
90/100
While using the established setting of horror to pull its cues from, it actually relates far more to more action/survival games than what it will invovle into as a series. This approach is the “less is more” feeling. You will find that there is almost no majo “noise” or “music” to drive you alone. Indeed, the special effects are given the forefront here and honestly done well. While a true horror movie soundtrack, and a more expanded soundtrack would have helped, it did not hinder in this case at all.

Playability:
85/100

Controls
95/100
A setup that is both easy to grasp, but difficult to master and use efficiently. The focus of the game revovles around “combatting” the hostile ghosts you will meet with a strange mystical camera. The Camera Obscura. Using the camera will alter your view, switching to a first person perspective as you get down and dirty with the ghosts. Simple to grasp(essentially you pull out your camera with one button, and then take “photos” with another, these photos damage the ghosts and eventually will banish/seal them away), it is difficult to master. You have a “spirit meter” which works as a warning beacon to you against the ghosts. It also indicates seals, other hidden ghosts and most importantly…your chance for a “Fatal Frame” on a ghost. This move is done by timing your shots just at the moment of a ghosts attack. The timing is different for every ghost but the effect is the same. The attack deals more damage, earns you more points, and opens up the ghost to “comboing”. If you score a fatal frame, and then retag the ghost again very quickly as indicated by another “fatal frame” chance, you can “combo” the ghost, essentially sending it reeling, dealing a good amount of damage and scoring you some tasty points. Kudos to Tecmo for pulling out a system that is so easy to grasp, and yet has so much to offer to those who put in the effort.

Single-Player
100
Dont expect your typical Resident Evil fare here. Though billed and “sold” as a survival horror, the game truly takes massive steps from the much copied “RE” into a right(and i think) better direction. The story picks up with Miku, a young woman who is searching for her lost brother. He was investigating the dissapearance of his mentor(a journalist, famous for exploring old folklore, etc) when he too vanished. You track him to the infamous “Himuro Mansion” and soon find yourself caught up in a horror that seemingly has no end while you try to get to your brother. The game was billed on the “Based on a true story” aspect, something that brought a lot of flak. True or not, it is a great experience and entry into the market.

Multi-Player(Extras)
So there is no co-op, but you unlock a number of missions to while away your time once youve beaten the game. There is also a “ghost list”, a tracking measure of specific ghosts you acquire as you go along. The ghost list itself almost becomes the game moreso than the story at times, especially faced with a particular difficult shot. Two great examples come to mind. One is a woman who commits suicide by swandiving off the roof. You have a fraction of a second to catch her in just the right spot as she falls through the air at your feet. There is also a small child who is playing a game of hide and seek with you. You enter a room blocked by hanging laundry and have not only half a second at best to grab his shot…but a tiniest of windows for a shot between the hanging laundry gaps.
Needless to say the game pulls out enough extras and unlockables to keep you returning to Himuro, long after you leave its halls.

Loadtime:
75/100
Call it growing pains. Much like the rest of its brethren in early PS2 games, it has loading issues. Slow. The game also has moments of sheer annoyance when you go to open a door…and the character and game both take a nice long 3 second pause to decide if they really want to or not.

Lastability:
100/100

Concept
100
Coming fresh off a camp of gamers who have enjoyed every incarnation of “Resident Evil” thrown at them, Fatal Frame hits a new kind of horror button. No longer fending off the undead with guns and wits, now you personally step into the horror and unravel its darkest secrets. Your armament, a sole camera and some slight spiritual power. The game pushed a new type of “horror” game to the market, one that focused on something truly scary and not just shock factors like flesh eating dogs.

Story
100
Take some simple ideas. A mystery, a dark mansion. Then add in some really twisted and dark traditions and folklore to make it really shine. What starts as a simple excursion to find your brother quickly turns into something far more darker. With its based on a true story schtick working for it, the games story pulled in a large number of people with a new setting and idea. No longer just a spooky house or graveyard, now theres foreign concepts. Shrines, vengeful ghosts, dated folklore, an air of general spookiness that only could have come from someplace like Japan. A nation both on the cutting edge of the modern, mixed with the traditions of the old.

Addiction
100
The game is very hard to put down once started. Wether it is the ghost list, missions, or simply getting the “best shot”, you will find yourself walking the halls of Himuro for a long time. Getting the multiple endings alone will keep you coming back.

Secrets
90
Great. Multiple endings, addictive gameplay. Whats not to love. Well, perhaps some things are a bit TOO simple for their own good. Balance seems to be a key issue. While there are some secrets that outright smack you in the face, there are others so obscure or fleeting that you could very well spend your many hours wondering what the hell you did wrong.
Still they had a good idea, and though the implementation was a bit off, it only can get better as the series goes along.

Total: 85/100

Final verdict: A great game, and a genre busting introduction at that. While more subtle games and mysterys of this calibur are no new thing to the japanese market(or indeed the PC gamers who had Alone in the Dark for many years), it helped create a healthy growth in the other markets in which it hit. A solidly spooky story, good eye candy and addictive gameplay were all the ingrediants for a hit.
Its faults are almost more of a blessing than anything else. For if the game was so good in its first incarnation, the bar would have been too high for its later installations.(IE- The Matrix trilogy). Do yourself a favor and buy it. Its a game that will make repeat performances on your PS2 and remind you what you did(or could have) played during those early launch days when so much of the market was retreaded crap.

DZ0’s thoughts and spoilers:
I recall almost all my favorite moments on the same level as my most hated. In fact they are inseperable. The time spent swearing/screaming/shouting/crying at a certain point in the game(be it a ghost capture or a difficult puzzle), was linked intimately to the moment of triumph when you overcome it. The first time i got the picture of “Broken Neck”(the ghost who commits suicide in front of you before attacking) i was so joyous and exclaiming in that joy that i then died and had to do it again. The game is just solid all around. Fans of japanese horror will find a lot to sink their teeth into, and any gamer will enjoy the mix that this game brings. I found it more annoying than anything else, but X-Box players have a extra ending not included in the original.(X-box version was a much later re-port with improved graphics and a new “good” ending). Still its nothing to make you want one over the other, as the “offical” storyline follows with the good ending(where your brother stays at the gates of hell to share the burden and sends you out of the house). The X-Box “good” ending has you escape with your brother, and a ghostly image of her one true love comes to comfort the priestess at the gates to hell…(which i think is stupid since Mikus brother is a reincarnation/bloodline kinda thing anyway). Buy the game, end of story.

By Darknight Z0

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