Fatal Frame: Maiden of the Black Water Reviews
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a well-intentioned addition to the Wii U's mostly family-friendly library and does an excellent job of transporting you to another place and time. That's about it, though. Its story and characters are not compelling, and the GamePad-as-camera controls are frequently unreliable. These prevent the game from attaining any real sense of excitement or drama. With too much out of sync--from wildly variable handling to the way you use items to the unconvincing character relationships--Fatal Frame: Maiden of the Black Water isn't anything more than a mediocre experience.
Enjoyable combat and bold enemy design can't save Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. With a dull, repetitive story that abandons any sense of horror, it's a shadow of what it could have been.
Fatal Frame: The Maiden of Black Water is a weird choice for a remaster. A lot of it has not aged well, specifically its story and characters, and it also remains to be a middling-at-best example of the series. With subtle but important connections to the other games in the Fatal Frame series, it’s strange Koei Tecmo decided to remaster this one. Hopefully this leads to either a new Fatal Frame or more re-releases of the other stronger titles in the series, like Fatal Frame 2: Broken Butterfly.
The introductory hours captivate with an authentically chilling vibe, but that entertainment eventually gives way to grating repetition
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Blackwater is a disappointing horror venture. It gets the creepy, Silent Hill-type atmosphere just right but drops the ball in so many other key areas. The story and characters are vapid, the movement controls are as stiff as Harry Potter’s broomstick and the general gameplay loses its lustre well before the credits roll.
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water may not have been the best entry to remaster but it still does a solid enough job delivering a chilling enough experience with unique combat.
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water versagt leider auf der kompletten Linie und bietet außer Fanservice in Form von Dead or Alive Ladies und knappen Outfits wenig. Die Steuerung auf dem Wii U Pad wurde schwach umgesetzt und auch die Geschichte bietet wenig neues für Horror Fans. Falls ihr aktuell auf der Suche nach einem neuen Wii U Titel seid, macht lieber einen großen Bogen um Fatal Frame.
Review in German | Read full review
As successful as it is in presenting an extremely frightening and mysterious atmosphere, the game moves just as far back in presenting some of its structural components.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is the weakest of the Fatal Frame games and this remastered version fails to address its biggest issues, namely clunky traversal mechanics and a seriously wooden cast of characters. However, look past these shortcomings and, especially for fans of the series, there's still a lot to enjoy in the solid ghost-snapping action on offer here. It may not be the best game in the franchise, but this remaster will still give your spine a good tingle if you let it.
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is the weakest main installment of the series and an average survival horror, although the unique combat system and climate can tempt many fans of the genre.
Review in Polish | Read full review
The haunting atmosphere of Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water means that it’s definitely worth a play for horror fans on the whole. It’s just a shame that more hasn’t been done to improve its gameplay over the original Wii U version. Combat is fun for the most part, and also rather spooky. But during the many bouts of exploration in between, you’ll become frustrated due to the clunky controls that make moving the trio of characters involved quite simply a pain.
The lack of care put into this maligned entry suggests that maybe higher ups at Koei Tecmo do not care about Fatal Frame. Maybe it should be laid to rest. If it can’t be allowed to be great, then perhaps it would be better off as nothing.
I do believe it is great to see Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water moved to the current generation devices and away from Nintendo's sadly failed Wii U console, but more could have been done for this re-release.
As should probably be expected of what's basically a port of the Wii U version, this iteration of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water offers a decidedly average horror experience.
If you've never played Project Zero, it's time to do it. Although this remastering does not involve the effort and work that I consider appropriate for such a work, the truth is that it may be a good time to enter the saga. The game is original, its gameplay is still fun, and the story behind Mount Hikami is still creepy, with grotesque elements like fighting ghost kids and their horrific deaths.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Fatal Frame Maiden of the Black Water in 2021 is just a port of the 2015's game, with nothing more than a few outfits and a Photo Mode. If you want some scary experience before Halloween, or are a fan of the franchise, you'll get exactly what you are looking for, with the same camera issues and a few technical hippcups.
Review in French | Read full review
It may not be the most compatible game to navigate, but Maiden of Black Water’s sound design, lore, and general aesthetic brings the horror of Japan’s real-life Aokigahara forest to life and will at least leave you churning with insomnia this Halloween.
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water certainly delivers when it comes to scaring the player witless, and its use of the Wii U GamePad is commendable. If only other developers had been so bold with their ideas, Nintendo's console might not be in the dismal commercial predicament it currently finds itself in.
Although it's not a terrible game, the Wii U's edition of "Fatal Frame" feels awfully dated, with sloppy controls and the type of presentation you would have expected a few console generations ago.
While I have a lot of issues with the core game I am happy to see the series return. I really want to see the original trilogy get an update it deserves. Would love to play those games again as they are genuinely some of the creepiest games I have ever played, and not for the wrong reasons. Maiden of Black Water just feels like something thrown together to gauge interest in the series return. I wanted to love it, I forced myself to finish it, but I just want the series to return to its roots.