The speaker and vibration on the Game Pad are used effectively to layer on the atmosphere, letting you know when ghosts are near and when one is about to attack you with vibrations and eerie ringing noises. One area of the game had me walking through a flooded, claustrophobic shrine full of creepy, child size dolls, some of which spring to life when your back is turned. But more often than not, you’ll expect a ghost to jump out and nothing will appear, not even allowing you a break in the tension.
Reaching out to pick up items is a tense moment, as occasionally a spectral limb will reach out and grab you. Navigating the labyrinthine forests of the mountain felt disorienting, even with the map on the Game Pad to help. Characters periodically experience unsettling visions of those who died taking their own lives, complete with a black and white film grain filter. The feeling of dread was real as I played this game by myself, late at night. That atmosphere is the real star, dropping the player quickly into decaying mountain shrines, foggy forests, and flooded caves. Though the game tries to draw on classic Japanese horror themes, it executes the creepy atmosphere much better than the personalities. During cutscenes the characters talk haltingly and in whispers to each other, and they do seemingly stupid things that land them in danger. While they all play a little differently, you could be forgiven for forgetting them, as each character has such a wooden personality and forgettable dialogue it’s hard to recall any outstanding moments in the story. You’ll alternate playing as Yuri Kozukata, a young spirit medium, Ren Hojo, an author researching the occult, and Miu Hinasaki, a girl searching for her mother. The three playable characters in the game take turns as protagonist in different chapters of the narrative, each with their own specialties when it comes to fighting the spirits of the departed. The story of Maiden of Black Water follows a group of people drawn to Hikami Mountain, a place where people go to commit suicide, similar to the real-life Aokigahara Forest. The Fatal Frame games feature an assortment of protagonists picking up the Camera Obscura, an antique camera with the unique capability of photographing and subsequently exorcising malicious ghosts. However, while it has great atmosphere throughout, actually busting ghosts is where Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, like a panicked victim in a horror movie, stumbles. The esteemed horror games that have players fighting ghosts by taking their picture seem tailor-made for the system’s Game Pad, which allows players to hold the controller like a camera as their character does in the game. Fatal Frame is a series that seems like it’s been waiting over a decade for the Wii U console to come along.
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