Beat Night 1 and stopped, pretty good so far, runs well, controls well(with preset D or E I’m using, no custom controls which I’ll never condone) combat is fun and atmosphere is superb.
English voice acting is hilarious at times, so stiff and monotone it lightens the otherwise excessively oppressive atmosphere. I like it but I’d like a Japanese audio option too.
Not too sure what ghosts are enemies or bosses at times, I suppose I’ll know from random encounter duplicates. So far enemies haven’t been too difficult, mostly me fumbling with the controls, learning each ghosts patterns and timing shots. I’ve noticed there is a sort of delay between firing and the picture registering as a hit. As sometimes I’ll get an orange ring shot and before the picture is shown I get hit by the ghost.
I love the explosion of feedback you get from zero shots, to some I’d imagine all those numbers and words would be IMMERSION ANNIHILATING, but I love my arcade abstractions so it’s all pretty charming, especially since it’s only during viewfinder mode to juxtapose the minimal hud during 3rd person. Wacky ghost photo shoots, man Frank West would destroy these ghosts with his sick photography skills!
The combat is fairly intuitive and simple, I did notice I was able to escape grabs avoiding damage, not sure what button I hit or the timing but I’ve done it a few times. Otherwise enemies often deal massive damage with grabs on the default setting.
You have basic upgrades to the cameras charge speed, range and max value for the charge symbols I think.
As well as purchasing bonus attributes, looks like you can only equip 1 at a time but I’ve only bought 1. These cost 1 spirit stone per use and are listed as(written a bit more vague in game but the below guide makes them more clear):
*Pressure-Pushes a ghost away from you.
*Slow-Slows down the ghosts movement.
*See-disables a ghosts invisibility(I got this 1, haven’t used it but seems useful as shots can’t be charged and ghosts can’t be captured when they are invisible).
*Paralyse-Ghost is unable to move.
*Search-Camera will track the ghost for you.
I’ve been reading this:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/529305-fatal-frame/faqs/70086super useful but I’m only reading parts I’ve beaten.
Ammo hasn’t been an issue so far, the regular type-17 film can be replenished up to 30 shots infinitely from save points, which is nice as you need to use ammo to shoot key items and hidden/wandering ghosts.
As I’ve noted before, I’m not scared by horror games, I play them for gameplay, horror aesthetics and atmosphere. In this case it’s very engrossing, footsteps are loud and distinct suiting each surface they play for(wooden floor, grass, stone) and many areas have haunting wailings of unseen ghosts. A lot of detail in the general ambience, many areas have sounds unique to that area, and each ghost so far has its own theme.
In terms of the ghosts designs, some are just normal doods, some are goofy and others are actually creepy(the long arm guy and what I assume to be the final boss kiriei rope maiden or something, she has a bunch of deformed ghosts fused onto her back and the screen goes full grayscale). I got attacked by a floating head and that gave me a laugh. The clusters of desembodied hands are more disturbing than anything else so far, don’t like the idea of dozens of floating hands groping me.
I like how they have distorted voices, sounds like they are talking through a radio filter. The audio is super useful for indicating what direction the ghost is coming from, it sounds like the music helps with this too, very impressive sound design so far.
Home
