Posts Tagged ‘tecmo’
Review: Project Zero (Fatal Frame) 2: Crimson Butterfly
Console: Playstation 2, Xbox, Wii
Released: 2003
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Digital Release? Yes, PSN version compatible with PS3 for $9.99
Price: $24.77 (disc only), $26.88 (complete), $56.88 (sealed) per Price Charting
Jam’s Take:
Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly is a sequel to the original horror PS2 hit that brings more of everything. More ghosts, more places to wander around and more pictures than a bachelors degree in photography. But is this game a picture worth hanging on your wall or maybe more suitable as a Christmas greeting card?
After surviving the mansion incident from the first game you find yourself now playing as a totally different character in a different setting. This time you play as a young girl called Mio Amakura and occasionally your messed up twin sister Mayu. After becoming lost in Minakami forest you stumble across a village. What could possibly go wrong here? Well it doesn’t take long for you to figure out that the place is haunted with the tortured souls of its dead inhabitants as well as that something weird is affecting your twin sister Mayo. The plot is completely separate from the original Project Zero title. The only main link being that you find the Camera Obscura, which is the same device in the first game, as a weapon. You use it to snap the things that go bump in the night – this time its an entire village as opposed to just a mansion. The plot of this game is rather complicated and felt quite hard to follow. Like the first game, there are several documents littered around the place providing you with some background information on what happened to the village and its inhabitants.
Podcast: Crimson Butterfly
This week Fred and Jam tackle a horror game that is often mentioned as one of the scariest and best horror games to ever release. Oddly enough, neither of the guys have played it despite being self-proclaimed survival horror fans. Regardless, they tackle this popular title about a pair of twin girls who descend upon the spirit-infested Lost Village and uncover the tragedies that happened there.
Review: Project Zero (Fatal Frame)
Console: Playstation 2, Xbox
Released: 2002
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Digital Release? Yes, PSN version compatible with PS3 for $9.99
Price: $15.65 (disc only), $23.99 (complete), $24.25 (sealed) per Price Charting
Project Zero (or Fatal Frame in America) is one of those horror series that has a small but dedicated fan base. It’s a horror game where you take pictures of ghosts to exorcise them. On paper, the game ticks all the boxes for a fresh and new design, but does it live up to its expectations?
The story entails a pretty typical horror cliché. You play a young girl (of course) named Miku Hinasaki heading into a dark scary mansion alone (as you do) looking for your brother Mafuyu who has gone missing. Of course the mansion is filled with a plentiful amount of disturbed souls and the only way to force them to rest in peace is to take pictures of them with an old antique camera called the “Camera Obscura.” As you venture through the mansion you discover more of the background story as to what is going on in this creepy place and there are various cutscenes regarding this. But the in-depth details to the tale are found in notes and diaries scattered around the game, which you can read at your leisure. Overall the story seemed hard to follow until the very end of the game where they tie up all of the loose ends – which is no pun intended should you be familiar with how this game concludes. Project Zero shares a similar tone to popular horror films like The Ring (Ringu) and The Grudge (Ju-On) especially with its use of girls with creepy long hair that covers their eyes. The game does seem to go for the obligatory jump scare a little too often to the extent it starts to become predictable (ex: “Oh I wonder if there is a ghost hiding behind this door, of course there is, but it’s okay it just wants me to take a picture”).
Gaming History 101 