Reviewed on:
PlayStation 2The Good:
Yep, it's scary. Deep and thoughtful story. Three characters to play as. Ties to previous games in the series for long time fans. Excellent audio.The Bad:
Lots of backtracking. Story can get confusing.The Verdict:
The series holds steady with a third instalment.
REVIEW:
Rei Kurosawa is a photographer, snapping photos of a supposedly haunted house. She's not particularly impressed with the house's spectral credentials … but then she has a vision of her dead fiancé, Yuu. That night, Rei has a dream. She's in a dark crumbling house infested with hostile spirits. One, a tattooed woman, manages to touch her. Now, Rei keeps having dreams about that house. And every time she wakes, she keeps seeing a vision of her body with a tattoo spreading across it like an infection…
The games in the Fatal Frame series are horror action/adventure titles where you explore haunted locales in third person (a little like the older Resident Evil games), until you encounter a ghost. As always, your only defence against the ghosts is the Camera Obscura. When you ready the camera, you go into first person mode to take photographs of the ghosts. With every successful photo you manage, the ghosts take damage until they're dispersed. The better the photo, and the closer your subject is, the greater the damage.
Along with the ghostly combat there are items to collect, puzzles to solve, and mysteries to unravel. Every game in the series has a deep story to pursue, and number three is no exception. This one is wrapped with Japanese folklore, sacrifice, family bonds, and cruel evil forces hungry for murder.
First question; is Fatal Frame III scary? Oh yeah. It's yet another game that should be played with lights off and sound up. The ghosts are horrible, twisted entities, and most deeply resent the living and will attack you in some gruesome fashion. Some attempt strangulation. One inventive ghost tries to suspend you in the manner that she died.
While the graphics are not the greatest thing you've seen on the PS2, Fatal Frame III has a very effective art style that keeps a dark cloud labelled "dread" above you at all times.
As with previous games, there are wandering and hidden ghosts that you can snap pictures of (for bonus points to upgrade the camera), provided you don't drop your controller in shock. Fatal Frame players often use the camera to go into first person mode to get a better look at things. The designers, gleefully aware of this, sometimes make this a trigger for some horrific event. Once, I pointed the camera at something, and a crawling woman snaked out of the darkness, necessitating a change of shorts for me.
While the hallmarks of the series — the Camera Obscura, rich story — are back, the game is structured slightly differently than before. There is more switching of characters.
You mostly play as Rei, but you also get to play as Kei Amakura, her fiancé's friend, and Miku Hinasaki, Rei's assistant. Fans of the series will recognize Miku as the heroine of Fatal Frame I. They will also find her levels hauntingly familiar, pun intended. The game has strong ties to previous games in the series, with references to Mio and Mayu from Fatal Frame II.
Each character has different abilities and advantages. Miku, for example, has the ability to slow the ghosts down, and also use the camera's new charging ability to dish out extra damage. Kei can hide from the ghosts, which is useful in his first mission, which he starts without the camera, and no way to defend himself. The new characters add a little variety to play, though nothing too drastic. They do offer different perspectives on the story though.
