![]() Forensically scouring every location takes an order of magnitude longer than it should as a result - a process also hindered by treacle-slow turning speed and a 'running' speed best described as sedate. ![]() Aiming your viewpoint is excruciating, forcing you to slowly and steadily point in the direction you want, gently tilting the Wii remote up or down as required. Comparisons with Silent Hill are unavoidable - both are third-person games which involve exploring darkened, abandoned environments with a torch - but the two control systems could hardly be more different.įor one thing, you can't simply point the torch beam in Fatal Frame IV freely and fluidly like you would naturally. The stark truth is that much of the experience is a sluggish chore in terms of control and quest design. Whereas Silent Hill's recent reinvention, Shattered Memories, was bold enough to discard the shackles of the genre's ancient history, Tecmo strides back into the old frontier, shirt tucked into its stonewashed denim. It's clear from the outset that the developers are content to stick to what they know and repeat the creaking formula. The air of dark mystery remains an engaging hook, although some may find it a little over-familiar - particularly grizzled survival-horror veterans who eat crazy conspiracies pieced together via flashbacks and endless journal fragments for breakfast. Set 10 years after the incident, three of the girls return to Rougetsu Island ("the island nearest the underworld"), followed by a detective who's still investigating the man behind the mayhem.īroken down into chapters, Fatal Frame IV takes a similar approach to its predecessor, with each of the main characters starring in rotation and gradually peeling away the layers of obfuscation. Still, with a tone as unremittingly bleak as ever, this is about as far from Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray as you could imagine, focusing on a bizarre ritual that robbed a group of young girls of the memories of a kidnapping and the events surrounding it. The setting shifts and the cast changes, but essentially Fatal Frame is still content to be Ghostbusters with a magic camera, frail high-school girls and a penchant for knee-high socks. But it's actually surprising how little has changed in years since the original. Having gone to all that effort, one would assume that the collaborative efforts of Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda (aka Suda 51) and series developer Tecmo must be amazing. Undeterred, a talented group of fans set about developing an unofficial English-language patch which, remarkably, also manages to circumvent region-locking shenanigans, giving import gamers peace of mind that they can go ahead and buy the game without having to consider shady hardware modifications. Passed around no fewer than four publishers for its first three incarnations, the fact the Fatal Frame series - known as Project Zero in Europe when it bothers to show up here - never gained more than a loyal cult following has been a perennial source of frustration for survival horror fans.Īs if that wasn't bad enough, Nintendo has elected to deny Western gamers the Wii-exclusive fourth chapter in the series, The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. I can wiggle fine to fight the movers, so I hardly ever use this lens.Rarely has a such a great series been dogged by such careless disregard. Lowest priority: Spirit Absorption (because again, in my playstyle I don't really use the lenses much unless it's a complicated boss)ġ) Blow: This is again a Me thing, but I'd rather charge a shot as much as possible and then hit with as much power as possible, so I prioritize this one.Ģ) Blast: This one is next for whenever I do actually want to give my shots a lil boost.ģ) Slow: TBH it's the teleporting ghosts that trip me up more than the moving ones, and Slow doesn't do anything for the teleporters. Mid Priority: Range those hallway fights can be a chore so being able to hit from farther away gives me more wiggle room. I want to hit hard (Power), I want to hit frequently (Charge) and I want those hits to be strong every time (Sensitivity) I also want to defeat spirits quickly! so with that in mind.īiggest priority: Power, Charge and Sensitivity. I don't have a lot of issues dodging/finding ghosts, and I tend to save power of special lenses on more finnicky bosses, so I don't use them often. I always ask myself this! This is my personal guide, although your mileage varies depending on play style.
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