A brilliant use of the Wii U’s GamePad gets over-exposed.
By Daniel Krupa
At its best, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (known as Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water in Europe) is an elegant and disturbing work of survival horror. Its sodden ghosts are genuinely unsettling, and many of its locations – foggy woods, water-logged shrines, a wooden house full of dolls – have a palpable malevolence. I can still recall rooms that were so forbidding I didn’t want to enter. But that sinister edge – brilliantly cultivated through great sound design and creepy visuals – is all too frequently undermined by some clumsy controls and repetitive combat.
Like most ghostly tales, Maiden of Black Water is obsessed with trauma – the idea that something terrible in the past can reach out and affect the present. And so it unfolds a complicated story, involving three protagonists and events that span three distinct time periods. There’s a lot going on, but it handles all these moving parts remarkably well. Over the course of a single night, all three protagonists journey up the fog-shrouded Mount Hikami. Each expedition reveals more about what took place there. It’s a satisfying structure, and I enjoyed being cast simultaneously in the roles of archaeologist and detective.
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The revelations throughout this 12-hour investigation are dark and frequently disturbing, with murder and ritualistic drowning among the terrible secrets uncovered. It’s disturbing stuff, and the flashbacks make for uncomfortable viewing, but it gives Maiden of Black Water a raw sinister edge – and that’s something I’ve not experienced in a horror game for a while.
It’s disturbing stuff, and the flashbacks make for uncomfortable viewing.
It’s so potent that when I found out what terrible event had occurred in a particular location, I became much more unsettled the next time I had to pass through. Sound design and lighting obviously play an important part, but simply knowing what had taken place here in the recent past was just as effective. There’s a fair bit of backtracking to be done, but the threat of repetition is well countered by the feeling of uncanny suspense created by this new information.
The only protection characters possess is a camera obscura, a mechanical device which allows you to exorcise spirits by taking pictures of them – an idea the Wii U’s GamePad was made for (or vice versa). When you activate the camera, the screen on the GamePad functions as the camera’s viewfinder. If you take the perfect shot, with the ghost and stray pieces of its spirit in view, you inflict more damage. It pleasantly reminded me of a light-gun game, but instead of being tethered to the TV, you can spin around with the GamePad, and effectively hunt ghosts around your living room.
The general characters’ controls, however, are much less intuitive and precise. This is a game with a lot of tight corridors and small rooms, and it’s fiddly to manoeuvre with any precision. This is all the more frustrating since you’ll often want to turn around quickly and put distance between yourself and an evil spirit. Occasionally, I found myself accidentally leaving a room I had just entered or heading directly into the embrace of a ghost I wished to avoid. Considering how well the GamePad is implemented, it’s such a shame these more basic controls aren’t better.
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Speaking of the GamePad, although the novelty of using it as a camera endures to the end, it can’t mask some highly-repetitive combat. There’s a whole range of subsidiary abilities which should lend variety and tactical depth… but they don’t.
although the novelty of using it as a camera endures to the end, it can’t mask some highly-repetitive combat
Camera lenses can be swapped, unlocking secondary abilities like being able to freeze ghosts or forcefully knock them back. Different characters also have slightly different cameras, too – one, for instance, can take four pictures in rapid succession. But after some experimentation, I found myself using the same lens – the one that dealt the most damage – all of the time. It’s powerful enough to render all the others pointless, unless you want to deliberately handicap yourself.
There are a few other mechanics which feel similarly unbalanced and underdeveloped. Water, for example, is a prominent element, both in terms of story and gameplay. A lot of the environments are flooded, and becoming wet makes you more susceptible to attacks. You can dry yourself using a consumable, but it’s almost impossible not to immediately get wet again. Eventually I stopped drying myself off, and played through the entire game ignoring this central mechanic without any notable problems.
Again, I’d like to stress that for the first two thirds of the campaign I really enjoyed the combat system, and using the GamePad as the camera works brilliantly – it’s engaging and fun. But disappointingly, in the final stretch, you’re sucked into a succession of encounters where you fight the same handful of ghosts a ridiculous amount of times. Early on, encountering drowned shrine maidens is a chilling experience, but by the end you’ve fought so many, seen them up close so many times, that their impact is almost non-existent. In particular, the final mission feels interminable: you go through the same locations with different characters and fight droves of the same enemies. Along the way I’d used up all of my decent gear, so the end boss had to be be faced with the most basic provisions. That wasn’t fun.
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Even though the repetitive combat lessens the impact of many enemies by the end, there’s still plenty of scares to be found. Most of frightening moments come from exploring Fatal Frame’s eerie locations and spotting non-aggressive ghosts wandering around the mountain. Sometimes, when you’re in the forest, if you look into the distance you can spot a ghost just staring at you through the trees. My favourite, most chilling moment came when I was exploring the second floor of a ruined house and at the window I spotted the grinning face of an old ghost just watching me. I held up my camera, but she was gone. These sinister but also elegant moments really make it stand out from most other types of survival horror.
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a disturbing tale well told. While the GamePad brings the series’ camera-as-a-weapon concept to life in a way that feels very natural, the combat lacks real mechanical variety, which, combined with overly repetitive encounters, undermines the impact of its most terrifying enemies. Fortunately, there’s an abundance of darkness to be found, with some of the most unsettling and stylish scares I’ve experienced in a while.
