I've just finished playing
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake, a survival horror game developed and published by KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. Completing the base game alongside most achievements took around 15 hours. However, experiencing all six endings would likely require double that playtime.
Fatal Frame II is a survival horror adventure, featuring the twins Mio and Mayu. While relaxing by a river, Mayu is enticed by a crimson butterfly, which leads her deep into the woods. The twins soon find themselves lost in a mysterious village, trapped in an eternal nightfall. The two are separated, and Mio searches for her sister in the haunted town, aided only by an exorcising camera. A dark ritual is brewing in this lost village, and it's uncertain whether the twins will survive the night, or be torn apart forever.
Narratively, the plot of
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake closely follows the original for inspiration. The Lost Village, Minakami Village, is a dead town, whose residents were all victims of a horrific ritual gone wrong decades prior to the start of the game. Twins have always served a sacred purpose in Minakami Village, which is why Mio and Mayu were called to it from the river. As Mio investigates the town searching for Mayu, she's able to uncover hidden documents, and memory fragments from the dead villagers.
Between the assorted documents and recordings,
Fatal Frame II does a reasonable job establishing the classic Japanese horror trope of a village so entrenched in superstitious ritual, that it causes them to commit horrific acts. There are several key figures from the past, including previous twins "Crimson Maidens," a pair of researchers who came to study supernatural phenomena, and of course the village residents themselves. While the game setting is a bit lacking in originality, it creates a smothering atmosphere and establishes a sense of hopelessness for Mio and Mayu.
Putting aside the elements of horror, the central theme of the story between Mio and Mayu revolves around feelings of growing apart from one's closest companions. As is the case with some twins, Mio and Mayu's personalities are becoming more pronounced with age. While I did not find it to be the most compelling concept, I appreciated the effort to convey this divergence of personalities across the storylines of both Mio and Mayu, as well as the specters of the village.
While much of Fatal Frame II is played from an over the shoulder perspective as Mio investigates Minakami Village, there are several segments of the game which will require her fight the ghosts. Mio's equipped with the Camera Obscura, a fantastical piece of technology which can exorcise the supernatural.
While Mio can sometimes sneak up on a ghost and surprise them for extra damage, she's often on the backfoot, being frequently ambushed. During these encounters, Mio has a willpower bar and a health bar. While health is self explanatory, Willpower serves as both a shield against direct damage to the health bar, as well as her stamina while dodging and running. The Camera Obscura needs to be focused on a ghost to exorcise it, so Mio needs to aim at ghosts until they come into focus, and try to capture as much of them in the frame as she can. There are several different types of film for the camera, some reloads very quickly, while other is slower, but deals more damage. Film is limited, thus making the game lean more towards "survival" horror.
The Camera Obscura also has several filters, some of which can be used in combat for special effects, or outside of combat to reveal new doorways, or access spiritually sealed chests. Mio can also equip various charms to augment her abilities, like faster reload times, as well as upgrading the camera to deal more damage, etc. During combat, enemies will sometimes flash red, exposing themselves to critical damage, so the gameplay tends to be a very methodical retaliation style of combat.
I enjoyed the combat for its unique design around using a camera; however, the overall experience was not wholly positive. The town is very small, so much of the game is spent revisiting areas. While I would not usually mind this, there are A LOT of random encounters in Fatal Frame II, and the combat is very slow. I sometimes found myself reloading a save, just to avoid an optional combat encounter. Even after investing quite a bit into upgrading the camera, I still found myself wishing it had a higher damage output, especially because the ghosts can enter an enraged state, where they can regenerate health.
While I would recommend
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake to survival horror fans, it is also an experience which feels weighed down by a lot of intentional friction. Due to how frequently enemies keep popping up to slow progression, I could see some players becoming frustrated and bouncing off the title. Overall though,
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake feels like a very faithful retelling of the story, which makes great effort to modernize the gameplay.
