Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

Written by Chris Reiter on January 19, 2004

Full Review: Kill ghosts that kill without using a killing device? Killer!

Ghosts are a thing of the past. Get it? A thing of the past! Eh...all joking aside, there has never been a game that combined the spiritual realm with that of the living in such a way that could make a person be weary of every passing turn. That was until early 2002 when Tecmo entered into the horror foray with the first-ever game of its kind where ghost busting was not done from the bullet of a gun, but simply instead through the flash of a camera. This Fatal Frame as the title came to be called, suggested the fatality of a restless ghost through the frame of a mechanical box. As most horror entries come into fabrication, more sequels seem to follow. So inevitably, naturally, and finally, Tecmo has brought forth its second entry into the series that has come to awe those whose courage benefit the dryness of their pants, within this winter's recently released horror adventure, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly.

Ages past tell the tale of a ritual performed where one in a pairing of twins must sacrifice their other. Fast forward to today -- a present in which is a step much farther back than Miku's journey of the first Fatal Frame, but a present nonetheless -- and the twin sisters' Mio and Mayu are reminiscing alongside a river bed about their childhood about when Mio accidentally left her sister Mayu behind, and ended up with a permanent injury to her leg. Ever since that time Mio has felt a strong sympathy toward her elder sister. And suddenly it happens...a crimson butterfly unveils itself before the two sisters' eyes, when Mayu, enchanted by its presence, follows the red insect into a mysterious forest where Mio has no choice but to tag along. Eventually the sisters stumble upon a town that is all but vacant to the two. With no one in sight and a taste of intrigue on their tongues, they explore further into the village's heart, uncovering the fabled camera called Obscura. But just as the device becomes a part of their expedition into the unknown, the unseen part of this village is now manifesting itself among the living as the restless spirits that they are. The path that led away from the town has all but vanished and now it's up to Mio and Mayu to venture further into the aggregation's depths, use the camera's power to expel ghosts from their paths, and find a way from the very place they don't want to be in any longer before they become part of its forgotten history.

Flame, pistols, hammers, blades, explosives, toxic gas chambers...you can think up all of the methods to exterminate regular ghastly beings all you want, but ghosts have always been something of a unique entity. Ghosts are unlike zombies or bug eyed alien monsters. The difference is that ghosts are actually real. Or so hundreds of legends would tell you. In movies even, the realm of spirits has been one where no living person could ever attempt to physically harm that of which has been already vanquished from this Earth...in human form anyhow. So how did a developer like Tecmo come up with the first video game franchise to frighten those who've played it and at the same time permit the player to harm that which could not be touched? The best answer they could come up with was a camera. Why a camera? After all, it's been theorized that cameras can steal a person's very soul. Though, while photography in a horror game might not sound like the most perilous emphasis of dealing dead to the dead, the idea is sound and worked out well enough for last year's Fatal Frame release, which continues to do the same in the follow-up.

In using some same and some similar methods its predecessor did almost two years ago, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly reintroduces the camera system -- only this time with two female protagonists instead of just one. Mio and Mayu are these lovely young lasses' names. While both characters do manage to maintain a role of exposing the game's inner mysteries inside the game's haunted village together, it's unfortunate that only Mio alone (the younger of the siblings) is the only character that can be controlled throughout the duration in the sister's partnership. Otherwise, the only path to becoming Mayu is in a shortage of moments while the two sisters are separated, and the only ability she'll possess is walking from one end of an area to another. To call Mio and Mayu's bond a "partnership" is only out of coincidence. Puzzles, for the most part, are the only link these two (or Mio) ever require in their togetherness. Every horror game has its progression of puzzle solving. Solve a puzzle by finding a key item, performing certain feats, or uncover the riddle to a fixed device, and you can pass. Fatal Frame II is no different, just as its collection of riddles aren't the most elaborate in enigmatic craft. Assorted through your standard fare of rearranging statues to the order of which a picture you previously took portrays them, to aligning books on a book rack according to chronological order, and using Mayu like a paper holder to stand a top a switch while Mio is permitted to roam freely elsewhere on her own (as to step on a similar and out of reach switch) are just a few of the facile conundrums the game has in store. The puzzle solving in Fatal Frame II may not instill much thought (or fun for that matter), but the highlight in any horror game's never been using one's brain, but rather the will to test one's mettle against the most vile of creations.

One of the major problems that endeared throughout the original Fatal Frame was that combating spooks with the game's camera system had been too easy on many occasions. There wasn't a major variety of spirit types to battle, and the ones you could fight were always by their lonesome just like the game's protagonists. Since adding two human leads in the second Fatal Frame was key to doubling the mortal flesh, Tecmo made sure to see that there was also double the ghostly ectoplasm for the two to split down the middle. No longer will spirits abide by their own rules, as now they'll work in teams of two at certain points to bring an end to any human who crosses their paths. Multiple encounter points heighten the battle statistics, which is good for making following the attack patterns a little more unpredictable than what the first game had to offer. For instance, each type of ghost follows a certain sequence. Where one type of phantasm may approach Mio's direction slowly from the front side, another can disappear and reappear right behind her through the walls. So you never know exactly when, where, or what certain aggressive ghosts are capable of until their methods are revealed. If a ghost were to pass through Mio, strangle her, or implement its weapon into battle (the kind that brandishes torches and staffs), it'll have the ability to decrease and eventually take life away from Mio just like its own. Some ghosts are even speedy in their attacks, but most of the time that's not the case. Most of the time it's rather simple to distinguish a single ghost's capabilities quickly, as it is to finish them off using their own tactics against them. Hell, just as long as you manage to get a good distance between you and the ghost fiend (which is easy enough to do), encounters with the restless dead are never really ever threatening enough to attempt to make your heart skip a beat when you spot one.

Especially considering that you aren't in control of a weapon at any point in the game, the combat itself is meant to be less frantic than what other horror titles normally have in store. Your enemy is transparent ghouls. Your method for dispensing them is with a camera. Precisely like in the first Fatal Frame, you'll have the camera ready to open into a first-person view at any point...but first you need to know when a ghost will fathom. At the bottom right corner of the screen is a bar that indicates the presence of two sorts of spirits in a degree of colors. If the meter is highlighted orange, an offensive ghost is nearby. And if the meter is lit blue, then it's a friendly ghost. Unlike those spirits who only have the will to destroy, these types of ghosts materialize only momentarily at certain points of the game. Their purpose for being is either to occasionally unhinge a locked doorway, but for the most part they're there to rack up bonus points. Fatal Frame II's point system, like in the first game, is a score tallied each time a new photograph is taken of a spirit. These points can then be spent on upgrading the camera in making it more efficient through its various venues. Developing the camera's range of view wider, its maximum exorcism abilities greater, and heightening access to more of the spirit power gauge (used to operate the camera's special functions), these upgrades help out to decrease the overall difficulty in ghost busting.

Not every ghost is slow or does the same song and dance as the last one before it -- meaning it's best to be prepared for anything. Camera evolution also works toward its newly-fangled frame system. Obtaining new camera frames allows Mio access to add special functions to the camera such as slowing down, halting movement, and even detecting the location of vanishing spirits easier. Supplementing the camera with these improvements can only happen once a spirit orb is located, however. These items can either be unearthed within the game's vast surroundings or following combat. Running out of spirit orbs is never a problem though, just like health containers and film ammo is available in abundance -- which diminishes the stressful scare relation other games of the genre have successfully been able to implement beforehand.

Although, most of the other horror titles out there aren't as caught up to speed using full 3D controls as much as Fatal Frame II is. Tecmo's second horror entry processes its interaction with characters in a freer form, and this time the game has actually improved over certain faults from the first's. When the player was to walk through any door in Fatal Frame, Miku (the star) would automatically do a quick 180║ spin as to face the slamming door behind her, and the player would then have to manually face Miku in the opposite direction. It was annoying. Now entering upon a new room has but Mio stepping inside and remaining pointed in the direction she should be facing. It's only unfortunate that not all is well, as while cruising around in third-person is topped with almost as much molasses as its first-person counterpart. Running or walking, it doesn't make much of a difference. Both aspects are paced dully. That's not really the problem with inching toward your destination, however, as it's Mayu who acts as the clog in the drain. Get too far ahead of her for one, and she'll start to complain. So it's better to just wait up for Mayu so the cry baby gets her way. Remember, disabled people can't do what us normal folk can. Suckers! Second of all, Mayu likes to stick very close to Mio at all times when they're together...a little too close, if you know what I mean. And by that I mean she'll get right behind Mio at all times that Mio pauses. Thus, if you were to turn around and attempt to head in the opposite direction, she's liable to permanently stand in the way until you're able to shove her off completely and just bolt on out of there.

Whether you're someone who believes in ghost stories or not, witnessing the beautiful reality that makes up Fatal Frame II's cryptic eye candy is belief enough. Stepping out of the humungous mansion from the original Fatal Frame, and entering into a village, Mio and Mayu find themselves exploring both inside decrepit Japanese sanctums and through the dirt paths intertwining these compounds together. Much like its predecessor, Fatal Frame II's real-time environmental designs are elegant, but not overly compensated with visual depth. Or in other words, barren are the stages of the village's surroundings. Perfect darkness is laid over voluminous areas, while texturing fabricates subtly across the wooden and stone floors and walls that can be found throughout the adventure. Locations in disarray, from fallen shelves and dislocated doorways, to holes punctured through the walls and floors can occasionally be spotted aside from numerous candles and lamp posts lining around inner and outer placements. These lights paired with Mio's flashlight, though, add more to making the game a spectacle. As Mio shifts while making her way into unexplored territory, the flashlight's beam shines on and past any of the game's fixed objects, highlighting the bulk of each authentically. What's more is how at some specific points into the game, black and white mixes with color for some eerie, but cool effects. One portion of the game contains Mio stepping inside a room with a solitary movie projector that plays a black and white reel filmed onto an adjacent screen all on its own. While in another instance, you'll be able to enter into a few rooms where all the saturated coloring found within the game dries the entirety of everything in sight into full black and white, including characters on the screen. When exiting said room, the outer area is bled back to color, while you stand in the doorway still in a black and white state, waiting to dip into a pool of hues once again.

It's few moments like those that make the game all the more intriguing, as once again Fatal Frame II offers little in story or scares. The story mostly builds through the finding of notes left behind by defeated spirits (which isn't all that interesting to read), and the scares of course are meant to happen from these same spirits. But because the spirits are all presented in similar mannerisms, it's hard to find a decent thrill from repetition. When ghosts rear their ugly faces, it's usually from the middle of a room. In form, though, they do shape out nicely. Black and white, and hallucinogenic all over, these models are technically of little difference in quality to first Fatal Frame's spirits (just like almost everything else, it seems), except when it comes to their outer appearances. Bald men, women with lengthened hair, and priests, there's a larger variety of ghost types here, especially when considering that some of them cling to weapons. People of the game are also well adjusted enough to make them fit. Mio and Mayu who wear old-fashioned brown, white, and black frilly variations of dress articles are lovely to look at in a place so desolate as the game's village. Particularly when it comes to movement. Try to picture two young Japanese cuties with silky black hair that flows behind their head as they slowly creep down a hallway with shredded cloths hanging overhead that gets pushed aside as the sisters pass under them. Then try to imagine entering a room with a well inside where a female ghost with long hair draped over her face crawls out of the well, and slowly approaches your location. Straight out of the movie The Ring in this example, the spirit will creep and creep, and creep some more until the instant when she lifts her head up and you see the gruesomeness of her face when she attempts to charge right at you. From the dead to the living, the movement of both parties creates a nice balance for peculiar and proper attributions.

Sounds are meant to make or break the terror of a hair-raising experience that shapes the very rules each horror game sets out. Fatal Frame II seems to walk a blurred line between the good and bad points for such standards. Audio, for one thing, doesn't seem to stand out as much as it did in the first game. Lessened without its trigger events, the sequel's sounds that shape any movement pertain mostly to the flash of the camera or to the quiet creaks of Mio or Mayu's footsteps peddling across floorboards or the outside roads. Outside the almost dead of silence, a caliginous melody in music sets the wary tone for exploration. Starting from a lighter installment and building into one of a more ominous vein with an added heart thumping effect whenever a ghost appears, the music is suitably obscure for the tension it's trying to appropriate. Lacking in a more definitive storyline, the voices of Crimson Butterfly are another underused property for the main cast of characters, but for the spirits of this land, it's gravy to them. Speaking in riddles while you take aim and snap their bodies (not literally), the ghosts will warn and speak of their depressing reasons for why their past has come to haunt you. At times it's a bit hard to understand what they're saying, and even harder when listening to their voice through a radio device that allows for Mio to hear their mournful past tales using crystals left behind mixed with a static effect blaring in the background. Combine this with Mayu's faded voice murmuring complaints and random/irrelevant thoughts triggered at certain in-game points, and it's easy to say that the voice actors used, while decent, can still rub off on the annoying side of the shtick.