Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (Wii U) Review

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water starts off with a powerful intro that showcases just how far the series has evolved. From the advanced water effects and how the artists were able to render the most supple wetness and cloth/hair physics, it is clear that Koei Tecmo had their top people working on Fatal Frame. Quite a bit of attention to detail was given to character models, especially in their faces and eyes. The most obvious change in Fatal Frame is how the characters can combat the tormented spirits, thanks to the Wii U GamePad, which gets full use out of the 1:1 gyroscopic sensors. This control method is fluid and perfectly captures the feel of actually wielding the Camera Obscura for accurate 360 degree first-person manipulation.

Since this entry in the franchise is more focused on the action thanks to these new controls, the ghosts and spirits themselves are also a lot more aggressive, and have all kinds of new tricks that are sure to give any survival-horror veteran a surprise or two. When the characters don't have the Camera Obscura at the ready, Fatal Frame controls like how a good survival-horror should: weighty and tank-like. This is a movement scheme that provides a lot of friction against users who panic easily around the ghosts, or those who are used to responsive third-person shooter controls. Koei Tecmo made the conscious choice to slow all the action down in order to create tension in sequences when there are several enemies attacking. For those who would rather a more traditional control method that does not rely on motion controls, there is an option that makes the game use the analogue sticks, but the gyroscope must still be used for fitting objects into the camera's frame.

The story of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water centres on Mount Hikami, a place of worship nestled among a creepy forest and several old haunted shrines. Pretty much everyone who visits this place gets the uncontrollable urge to commit suicide as well as witness various paranormal activities. Yuri, Miu, and Ren are the three playable protagonists whose stories are all connected. As the game plays out they will revisit past areas and impact each other's journeys. Fatal Frame is a dark game with many plot elements focusing on sacrifice, suicide, incest, and religion, and it all can get pretty heavy; so heavy in fact that the Nintendo localization team sought to censor a scene that involved Miu, who was a model, pose in a bikini for an uncomfortable photo-shoot. The scene now has Miu in her regular clothes and the scene sadly loses a lot of the leery and creepy impact it had, which played with the viewer's emotions. This decision to censor an already mature-rated game was a poor one. For the most part, the game is quite linear, even so much as to have characters refuse to go off the intended trail. Fortunately the game does actually open itself up fully towards the end, where it shines its brightest and all of Mt. Hikami can be explored. It can be pretty impressive how few load screens there are even if it still does try to hide them with long door-opening animations.

Some changes make Black Water different from past games, like the removal of save-points. While it is sad to see such a staple of survival-horror disappear, Koei Tecmo sought to implement a chapter system that is similar to how Resident Evil 5 operates. Any chapter can be replayed, making it so filling up the ghost list is much more convenient over having to replay the entire game from the start. Like Resident Evil 5, all items purchased are now done between chapters as opposed to visiting the old save-lanterns to restock on healing items or more potent film. This is a fair replacement since Maiden of Black Water is also one of the longer survival-horror games out today, clocking in at about 20 hours for the first play through, and then even more hours to get the extra endings (which are actually worth getting) that hearken back to an era when these kinds of games actually had replay value. The chapter system also makes it so favourite characters can be easily replayed. Ayane from Koei Tecmo's Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden shows up in her own post-game bonus chapter with her own unique gameplay, which makes Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water into a stealth game.

Fatal Frame has a lot going for it, but it isn't perfect by any means. There are some instances of low resolution textures and low-polygon models that show up once in a while and clash with the utterly gorgeous character models. The frame rate can occasionally dip as a result of the game being rendered twice (on the GamePad screen and on the television) and some weak English performances that have utterly flat readings or just are poorly cast. Thankfully the game does include the option for the original and vastly superior Japanese audio. One concern that must be mentioned is the lack of a retail physical disc edition in the North American region, which requires a large download of approximately 16 gigabytes. Naturally this is severely limiting for many Wii U owners who do not have a deluxe model or free space in their unit. Why such a large game file is limited to download only is a completely bungled calculation on the publisher's part. However, anyone who is capable of actually downloading Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water will be in for a very depressing and dark survival-horror that will induce quite a bit of stress.