Remember your rule of thirds now...
I don't appear in a great many photos. I prefer to be captured unexpectedly, in my natural state. Anything posed and co-ordinated is forced, serving more as a piece of evidence that something happened or someone was there. It feels cold and uninspiring, and so I suppose I'd rather be behind the camera taking the kind of photos I want to see. Also, as every cameraman will tell you, you are invincible behind a camera, and nothing can ever hurt you.
That's demonstrably false, but it's the comfort you'll need when playing Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, the next survival horror title of the series famed for giving you a magical camera as your one and only defence against ghostly horrors of the past.
Last time out, in Fatal Frame II, I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a look. It was certainly different from anything I was familiar with. What's changed as we move onto the Nintendo Wii?
Frustrations
Due to some strange circumstances where everyone involved with Fatal Frame seems to suggest that it is someone else's job to publish Fatal Frame IV outside of Japan, the only way you're able to play this game in the West, or in English, is to import the game, download a fan translation patch and sort of hack your way into the innards of a Nintendo Wii. The illegality of the process is... well, I don't know where the law stands on modding your console to play alternate content.
I know where I personally stand on it, however. My console, mine to do with as I please. As simple as the process to patch this game is, however, ('simple' considering all the effort you've got to go to and hoops you've got to jump through), it's not one I'm going to bother with. I don't have a Japanese copy of Fatal Frame IV lying around, and given my interests, aren't likely to have one at any point, and you need it to play this game on a Wii.
But not, of course, in an emulator.
Two girls, Misaki and Madoka, are roaming the halls of an abandoned something or other. You've got to discover the plot on your own in Fatal Frame IV, but the gist is that these two girls were kidnapped as children, put through some spooky ritual and were lucky to survive. Except they can't remember any of it, which you'd think would be a good thing, to not remember the trauma, but here they are.
After a spooky flashback that lasts all of a few seconds, Madoka loses sight of Misaki (I hope I've got those names the right way around) and is left to explore this place herself - our cue to begin exploring the game as well.
The controls feel much like those of Resident Evil 4. It's everywhere, isn't it? Inspiring this and that for the sake of better gameplay. Like Resident Evil, gone is the fixed camera of previous games, replaced with a behind the back view which pulls us into the world that much more.
It's also tremendously slow. I understand you'd be scared in a spooky environment like this, and not want to venture too far into it, but this is something else. There's a sprint button, thankfully, but it ought to be renamed to something else entirely. "Delicately job like you've shat yourself"? "Jog like you're in an amateur dramatics group but don't have enough stage space to actually run into"? It's laughable, but it's all we've got.
We're lead down corridors in search of Misaki where the only spooks come from your own making. Locked doors are everywhere, and there's nothing to do but follow the path to where we're meant to go.
We find Misaki's flashlight and I know what you're thinking. "Flashlight? Wiimote? This should be good." Well, it's not. It's terrible. The flashlight controls aren't mapped to the IR sensor, but to the tilt sensors, and then only to the up and down tilt, so that moving your Wiimote up and down to alter your flashlight beam moves the camera up and down to show you what you're looking at, and that's about it.
Everything else is on the analogue stick on the Nunchuck. You must move your character to move your flashlight fully. Why? To make it scarier? To slow the against down to match the pace of our run speed? I don't know. Let's try our best to ignore it and move onwards.
Thinking we've just seen Misaki run into this room, we find that it's locked and that there might be a key upstairs in an office.
The A button picks up objects, but only if you hold it down and watch your arm slowly reach out to grab at something, be it a scrap of paper or a key or whatever. It's a mechanic that is there to add a bit of tension to the situation, but we all know that it's only there because at some point a ghost will reach out and grab us. Why else would you get players to hold a button for a second or two just to pick up a newspaper clipping that doesn't make sense, or a healing item you don't have a use for?
Key in hand, we can jog all the way back to progress the story, and because we're going back through corridors we've already been through, it's probably time to introduce a new graphical filter and a ghost.
How good is the fan-translation that I'm relying on to tell me this story accurately and in a manner I can follow? I've no reason to doubt the fans that go to these extreme lengths to get the games they want to play, so I guess they're pretty good, and that it is simply too early on to be told anything.
We don't actually get to play with the camera very much before Madoka tries to open the door and instead appears to fall victim to a gang of ghosts. Is that it? Is that where our story ends? Did I do something wrong?
I had no time to wonder before another cutscene got rolling.
And now we're Ruka, another girl with memories that trigger at the sound of a specific piece of music, but for reasons unknown. She appears to know Madoka and Misuki (and, as it turns out, was also a child of this weird place that got kidnapped for spooky shenanigans) and is following in their footsteps to revisit this mysterious island. Again, not sure you'd really want to. I guess they're answering a call or something.
Moving no faster than Madoka did, Ruka follows in her footsteps to the Camera Obscura, and it feels like Fatal Frame IV can finally get going. Let's assume that first part was a short introduction to the setting, and this is our introduction to the gameplay. Emerging from the museum room, we're finally able to make some use of the camera, for example.
Readying it with the B button, you can move around with the stick and the sensors, but still in a fashion that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Pressing the Z button when a ghost is in sight will lock onto that ghost and keep it dead center until it is dealt with, which feels a little strange.
Fatal Frame II was made a little more approachable for newcomers. Fatal Frame IV appears to have a lock-on feature so rock-steady that combat, if you can call it that, is a breeze. Fill up the bar (I can't remember what it is called or what its purpose is, so let's go with power), snap a photo with the A button (surely the B button would be a little more natural?), and send that ghost packing.
A bunch of scores appear on the screen, breaking the immersion by turning it into some kind of arcade game, but at least the core gameplay of Fatal Frame is to be found here as well. See ghost, whip out camera, capture a ghostly image before it grabs you and wrestles your soul from your body.
There are items scattered around the room, as well as a projector that I'm sure will come in handy in future, and a couple of ghosts chilling out, trying to spook and/or kill us. I miss this one, and can't find her anymore, but she's here somewhere.
What I do find is a key, and all new keys come with an interruption from the map screen pointing out which door they're used on - another way for new players to be able to play without getting lost, and a way that is certainly welcomed by me.
What isn't welcomed is that I'm now locked in this dining room and can't figure out how to get out. This is where my run ended up. I'd played for 40 minutes, it was incredibly slow, the jump scares were telegraphed, and the plot wasn't making any sense at this point. I didn't mind stopping, put it that way.
Throughout the corridors are groups of three masks, not five. Whenever I saw a mask, I would assume it was in a group of three and ignore it.
On this particular wall, the five masks are right next to a locked set of double doors. In the bottom right of the screen, when you're near an interactable object, a little meter will glow blue in a game of hot and cold. The closer you are to a thing, the brighter the indicator. As it was next to a door, whenever I ran past the masks I assumed the indicator was for the door because I was already ignoring the masks...
Final Word
Had I not forgotten to save my progress, be it at a save point or through a save state, this would be the first thing I'd look at when I next fired up Fatal Frame IV. "Forgotten" is the wrong word, however, because I didn't forget to save at all. I simply couldn't be bothered to do so.
Horror isn't my thing, even when it is done right. I can appreciate what all these spooky games can do, I can see what they get right and wrong, but if I don't find myself wanting to experience a tale of kidnapping and ritualistic murder, then no amount of awesome gameplay will likely sway me.
But I said after playing Fatal Frame II that I could see myself at least exploring a little more of it, and I guess if push came to shove, I could see myself going a little further into Fatal Frame IV too.
I learn that there is yet another character to explore this place as, with their own ties to whatever story is going on here. I'm lead to believe that, fan-translation patch installation aside, it's an accessible game for newcomers - perhaps on the easy side and with its control quirks, but nonetheless accessible. I like the sound of that, even knowing how faffy the controls are.
Is it a must-play game? That's hard to say based on what little I've seen of it, and even harder to say when it is effectively a Japanese exclusive title. It's amazing that people have gone to these lengths to make it playable for English speakers, but you don't exactly stumble into this. You need to be looking for Fatal Frame IV to know about it, and you need to be competent and willing to mod a console to get it working. Or learn a language, I guess. You've got options...
I suppose I'm interested to know about the story, but I'm not desperate by any means.
Fun Facts
Complete the game and you'll be rewarded with an alternate costume, that of Luigi. Yes, it sounds weird. Yes, it looks weird, too. Makes a bit of sense, though, doesn't it?
Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, developed by Tecmo, Nintendo SPD, Grasshopper Manufacture, first released in 2008.
Version played: Nintendo Wii, 2010, via emulation.