Fatal Frame: Maiden of the Black Water Reviews
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is so deeply Japanese that you’ll come away from it learning a bit about the wonderful horror storytelling tradition that the culture has. While some might find themselves at odds with a game that is so steadfastly traditional about how a horror game should play (especially on the back of the very modern Resident Evil: Village this year), if you go in with an open mind, understanding the cultural context that has lead to the game turning out this way, then you’re going to find it to be a really remarkable and enlightening bit of art. It’s not unlike going to an art gallery for a yurei exhibition, really.
While the characters are more bland than I had hoped, this doesn't necessarily take away from the story all that much. Some control issues do get annoying over time, but even they couldn't stop me from continuously returning to the beautiful and creepy environments of the mountain. If you're a fan of horror games with a bit more of an action feel, you could certainly do a lot worse than Fatal Frame, and now might just be the perfect time to dive in.
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a heart-racing, immersive survival horror experience thoughtfully tailored for Wii U. The perfect treat for Halloween.
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water keeps the essence of previous titles in the franchise with its setting, story, art style and gameplay, while creating fantastic atmosphere and tension. However, the combat can be fiddly, while the necessity to traverse the same location multiple times, as well as the repeated information in the story text, may leave some players with a lacklustre experience.
There is a good reason why the Fatal Frame franchise is frequently placed in top-ten lists for scariest games of all time. This is a series founded on emotional dread and torment, with themes of sacrifice and spiritualism. Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water proves to be a worthy entry in one of the more classy and dignified examples of survival-horror. The sad fact is that they just don't make games like this too often. The censorship that the localization team and publisher implemented is deplorable and disrespectful to Mokoto Shibata's work, and making this title mostly available via eShop only is not doing it any favours either. Perhaps one day Fatal Frame will be in better hands, but for now Maiden of Black Water ranks as one of the better horror games to come out in a long time.
Despite these nitpicks, this game is a triumphant revival of a series that has remained dormant in North America for several console generations, and for those who did get to play the Wii iterations there is much new spooky fun to be had. Fatal Frame is still the crowning king of the genre, and Maiden of Black Water holds the best representation of everything that makes the series great. The fact that an English release of this game exists at all is cause for celebration, and should definitely not be missed by fans of survival horror or Japanese ghost stories. Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is good to the last drop.
Those small issues aside, Maiden of Black Water is a premium title on Wii U that left me very impressed. The use of the GamePad here is a rare example of what Wii U's controller can bring to a game that other consoles can't. The familiar Fatal Frame combat takes on a whole new dimension because of the GamePad. Koei Tecmo clearly pulled from some of the mechanics introduced in Spirit Camera on 3DS (a Fatal Frame spin-off), but improves upon them greatly. Solid presentation and a gripping storyline will keep players glued to their seats, no matter how scared they might be throughout. The biggest (pun intended!) downside for some fans will be the large install for the game; Maiden of Black Water is over ten gigabytes in size, so make sure to have space available before hitting download. It'll be worth it, though, as this is a can't-miss title on a system that has been relatively light on releases of late. Maiden of Black Water needs to be on everyone's wish list.
This Fatal Frame is hoisted by one specific element. This can feel truest during some truly arduous backtracking. Not the necessity to survival kind of backtracking, but the different characters literally retracing each other's steps from chapter to chapter kind of backtracking. Thankfully, the lynchpin for this game is a pretty decent lynchpin, so if you love ghosts and Instagram and don't mind redundancy, then Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is the sixth scariest thing you can do with a camera.
Despite Maiden of Black Water’s flaws, I do think it succeeds with creating an eerie atmosphere, and some of the storytelling and lore sent chills down my spine. Unfortunately, a lot of the lore is told through found documents, and it can be hard to stay engaged by reading journal after journal. When you do see a scene through the main story or via Fatal Glances after defeating enemies, it does feel a little more important and special since they’re few and far between. If you’re looking to play a game with a spooky story and a different take on the survival horror genre, pick up your camera and head into Fatal Frame’s world.
FATAL FRAME: Maiden of Black Water blends its haunting world with rewarding gameplay to craft one outstanding horror experience.
The arrival of Maiden of Black Water makes for a major addition to the PC horror games catalogue. The use of the camera in dealing with tortured spirits and the blend of fiction and folklore from Japan is delightful. The slow pace of the plot and repetition of areas, however, make Maiden of Black Water less scary and memorable than we would have liked.
While Maiden of Black Water may not be the best example of the Fatal Frame series, it’s been long enough that a whole new potential audience has emerged in the last few years, and this, flaws and all, will be something of a new experience. It’s more important that Maiden of Black Water got this multi-platform remaster for that reason than any other. If Fatal Frame is to have a future, it will need more than a handful of existing fans championing the good old days. It needs new blood too, and Maiden of Black Water’s remaster for a wider audience gives the series that chance.
Fatal Frame is one of those series I've heard about on the wind that always sounded interesting, but I've never had the opportunity to check out...
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water provides a very effective atmosphere, with good scares and chills, and is unfortunately consumed by constant repetition, losing much or all of its "charm" in the final chapters.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Fans of Japanese horror games are advised to repeat older parts of Silent Hill, Resident Evil, or Forbidden Siren. Although Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is a thrilling horror, it is spoiled by its repetition and slowness.
Review in Czech | Read full review
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.
Sometimes scary games have hurdles to overcome, and this particular Fatal Frame will likely be the first for many players. Maiden of Black Water is scary, but it isn’t too scary, and that goes a long way towards helping players actually complete the game.
While not a perfect experience because of some clunky controls outside of combat and weird story pacing, Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water is a title that any fan of survival horror should look to have added to their collection.
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water On the level of the improved version, provided a rather good improvement, but on the level of the game, it was one of the experiences that I do not want to repeat because the control is the biggest flaw in the game and the image of ghosts may cause you to be defeated and killed due to poor image capture in the game.
Review in Arabic | Read full review