PixlBit

It’s not often that I buy a game at full price, let alone a digital only title. The cheapy gamer in me usually has me wait the X number of days till the game itself has its price cut OR I originally wasn’t sure about getting the game in the first place now with the practice of Season Passes and GOTY/Definitive/Ultimate editions now becoming the norm for most games. It’s a very rare instance, or red letter day, that I just take the plunge and buy a game outright despite most of the misgivings I get now when I comes to buying a game brand new. Will it need a day one patch? Will it have all the content on it? Will content be locked on disc? Does it have a gimped single player due to the addition/emphasis of multiplayer? Do I need to install data on the system HD? WILL THE GAME EVEN WORK OR BE A GLITCHED OUT BUGGY MESS? I probably put too much thought into buying a game these days. But there are “those games” that I reserve for an immediate buy regardless of my misgivings. That list is short and it’s very easy to find yourself off this list either by my own personal disappointment with that franchise’s game release or if anything should befall the game between the day it was announced to release day itself. To my best recollection there have only been three games where I paid full price. I’m sure there have been other times but for recently memory that’s the best I can think of at the moment. Two of them have oddly been on Nintendo systems. The first game being Mario Kart Wii for the Wii and Bayonetta 2 for the Wii U. The third title was Wolfenstein: The New Order for the PS3. All three games were titles I didn’t think twice in buying regardless of what I read about these games in reviews and the price comparisons I could make of them. When I saw them on the shelves I made it an instant impulse buy. No regrets, no turning back. And off all of those games I walked away happy in not just buying them, but playing them to the fullest. Of course it didn’t hurt these games to be from established franchises that I’ve enjoyed in the past.

Why do I mention all of this now? Because I have the feeling that Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water may also fit into this category of intentional buys. I’ve enjoyed Fatal Frame ever since I found that $9.99 copy of the first game for the original Xbox. I enjoyed it so much I made it my mission to acquire the second game for the original Xbox, buy the “thrillogy” for the PS2 AND re-buy the Fatal Frame “thrillogy” again off of PSN when I had the chance, half price of course. Though you may think this would qualify me to be a big “Fatal Frame Fan”, I held short in going as far as importing the fourth game in the series as well as the Fatal Frame II Remake. Why do I mention this as well? Mostly to show that despite my interest in these games, I usually have some sense to hold off in paying high amounts of money for these games. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and Fatal Frame II Remake fetch a high price now on most auction sites and like I mentioned above I only bought the PSN versions of Fatal Frame when they were 50% off in their original posting price. It’s here where I focus one of the main issues that has come to pass for Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water: it’s digital only. Nintendo has saw fit to make this game an eShop exclusive here in North America. Normally I don’t pay full price for anything offered digitally. Even games that only have a digital only release, I usually hold off in buying them with the thought that it’ll go down in price EVENTUALLY like we see when it comes to physical releases. I also hold off in getting digital titles given my old skool ways of actually wanted to own something PHYSICALLY. There is nothing like holding a game disc in its game case and being able to add it to your game collection. Being able to have something to collection and perhaps one day to pass down to the next generation of future console gamers. My “Little One” is already eye-balling all that I’ve acquired over my years as a gamer…

And despite me actually OWNING more digital games than physical games last gaming generation that is mostly in part to awesome sales given on those respective consoles. PSN’s $.99 Flash Sales have spoiled me. Regardless I feel I’ve now stepped my feet in both the physical game collecting and the cheap digital game buying that the last gaming generation has offered us. Why do I mention this? Because perhaps before the last gaming generation if you had told me I’d be willing to pay $49.99 for a digital only game that was up to 16 GBs in size, I wouldn’t have believed you. I would’ve held off till this game came out physically or if it went on sale. But if you had told me that the game in question was Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water then all bets would be off in my original stances about digital only. Like I said, I have a very short list of games that I’d be willing to buy without a second though. And as much as I’d like to say I wanted to hold off in getting this game upon how it was being released, I really can’t say that. This doesn’t mean though that you’ll find me buying ANY game offered digitally these days but Fatal Frame fits into that small list of “must buy” titles that even the offer of it being digital only isn’t enough to make me think twice about getting it. Indeed if my situation wasn’t ideal for buying this game I’d have found a way to make it happen. Thankfully I did have the foresight to expect such a circumstance to take place, thus why I got a deluxe model 32 GB Wii U and held off downloading any games for such a situation. But if I hadn’t you’d be seeing me jumping Nintendo’s hoops by investing in a 1 TB HDD and hooking that puppy up to my Wii U. (Which I still plan to do eventually).

So in other words, despite being a physical disc based gamer, raised on physical based media, wanting physical based media whenever I can and having a personal stance on only getting digital media when it’s on sale, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water was the game that had to be bought day one for me regardless of my misgivings on the digital future.

Take a moment for that statement to sink in. And old skool physical based gamer was WILLING to buy a digital release game for full price. Oh yeah. That’s the power of the Fatal Frame franchise on me. I may not be willing to get an import but I will get the game digitally.

But enough about me rambling on about the hows and whys I got this game. Is the game worth it to me like the other game franchises before it? In truth I honestly can’t see right off the bat if the game is good or bad. As much as I’d like to write an actual “review” about the game, I fear I have yet to fully dive into the game fully given that my Octoberween gaming plate is quite full with the current crop of Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles I’ve chosen for myself this year (Number 1 coming up tomorrow). I mostly bought this game on day one release just so I have the pride in saying that I bought this game on release. And though I have played it for a time, I don’t think I’ll be playing it enough to be able to give a full breakdown in what Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water has to offer. The best I can give you is a summary of what I’ve experienced thus far in my game playing. Besides I’m not the best of individuals to give you a breakdown “review” of a game. I’m more of a “not-review” VR sociopath when it comes to the games I play. So far I can say that this game will surely be ranked up there for me personally as a game that I have no regrets in buying full price. That I can say for certain. But as for the content and experience of what this game has to offer, I’ll have to let you be the judge in what I speak of next. So sorry if you thought this game would be number 1 in my Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles of 2015. Despite it being a “digital only” game, and thus meeting the criteria of making this year’s list, its price disqualifies it given how my Top 11 offerings are also meant for those gamers that want ideas for their Octoberween gaming on a budget.

I have to say that the way Nintendo released this game as a “free sample” might be a stroke of genius when it comes to enticing others to give this game a try. The Dual download option kind of works as a dual purpose for anyone interested in downloading this game. Despite the game being around 16 GB, Nintendo has given you the option to try out the game first as a “free sample”, this sample of course being around 6345 to 9965 MB. Despite the obvious need to probably invest in an external HDD for most Wii U owners, it gives players a chance to give the game and a try AND reduce the need to have a LONG wait time to download 16 GB right off the bat. Whether this was done to make the digital download easier to swallow or it was done in mind given the limitations of Nintendo’s online infrastructure/Wii U itself, it’s a sly way to make some of the game accessible for people to try it. I almost regret in not playing the “free sample” first just to see exactly what you get with it before you pay for the entire game. I ended up downloading both parts all on the same night just so I could have it ready to play by the onset. But I will admit that the Wii U’s download/install process is a bit cumbersome. More so than the PS3 in how you have to wait as you download the game AND wait again for it to install. I actually had to wait for installs THREE times. Once for the first part, once for the second part and one more time before I could even boot up the game. I think this was done so that the game could fully integrate itself given how it was never meant to be cut in two like this. Either way you’re in for a wait. The first two chapters of the game, and a bit of the start of the third, seem to be just the game’s tutorial sections and story primer for the game itself. Chapter one gets you use to the game’s controls on the gamepad and the second chapter is a tutorial in how you use the new functions of the “Camera Obscura” with the gamepad, with a sprinkle of the story narrative mixed in for good measure. The game does its best not to make these chapters redundant by introducing you to the world of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water by means of character introductions, location settings and cut scenes to fill you in on all you’re to expect in this game. You meet one character who ends up vanishing in one chapter then you control another character as you, along with her friend, investigate a hotel that’s seen better days. These scenes may not give you all you need to know about these heroines but it fits the mold of what you’d expect out of past Fatal Frame titles.

The controls do get some getting used to. Your character does respond much like they do in past Fatal Frame games with run, action, movement and picture buttons laid out like you’d expect. The one thing that you’ll have to get use to is how to use the Camera Obscura via the gamepad. Indeed it’s just like how you see in the promo videos that you actually use the gamepad’s touch screen as the camera’s view finder. Though you can move the camera around with the analog sticks, it’s much faster to actually move the gamepad itself within the game environment to be able to take pictures of spirits and attacking ghosts. The only drawback I had in doing this was how I would usually hold the gamepad like a standard controller, across my lap, only to quickly push the X button to pull up the camera interface. I usually had the camera still across my lap, thus causing the game to think I was pointing the gamepad up to the TV screen. So when I actually moved the gamepad up to the TV screen, I was actually in game raising the camera’s viewfinder OVER my head. I was able to compensate for this by moving the analog stick down to make it properly facing ahead of me but by that time I had either missed my chance to take a spirit picture or properly defend myself against an attacking spirit. Not exactly a game play weakness but something I had to get used to control scheme wise.

Another oddity I noticed with the game is that indeed you have a lot of narrow passage ways and walkways you have to maneuver around. It’s not like prior games where you had sections that were wide open/free roaming. You almost have a corridor-like feel to the game like when you play an FPS, or worse, Final Fantasy XIII. Even the one outdoor level had me on a woodland path. Hopefully later on in the game it does get more open ended but from the news I’ve been hearing that might not be the case.

The game also gets more technical when it comes to using the Camera Obscura and other supernatural techniques in game. Now one character has the ability to see things that other can’t see, much like Miku in the first game. But the game expanses on it  by having you enter into a vision mode where you follow the light shadow of someone who has passed, so that you can find out what they are walking to. This sometimes leads to items either notes or jump scare events. They even add different features of the Camera Obscura where you can actually “pull” items out of the spirit realm and into the physical realm with use of the camera. It’s like how in prior games if you took a picture of a certain area and the photo shows a completely different area to help you unlock something. This game still has that ability but adds onto it with the “pull” feature. You also not only have to target a person’s face to take a shot (included with a nifty lock on feature) but you have to be able to get up to five “points” of a ghosts in the circle view finder to be able to do damage to an attacking ghost, something different from prior game titles that had you get their face centered in the viewfinder and having them close enough to get a Fatal Frame shot.

The music is okay for the most part with exceptions to the sound effects. They really like to use that one “eerie” sound that you hear in some TV/movies. I don’t know what you call that sound effect but I remembered it instantly when I heard it. I remembered it mostly from its heavy use in the anime series “Ghost Hunt.” It doesn’t get annoying mind you but it’s one of those sounds that you’ll be sure you’ve heard before but can’t recall from where.

Sadly I haven’t gotten far enough into the game to see if the plot is befitting a Fatal Frame title but the introduction of multiple characters seems to continue the trend that was started in the third game of the series. I do wonder how any of them are connected in the subtle ways to others before them in the series as a whole. I do look forward to finding out and reading all the notes I can to fully understand the threat and danger that is in this game.

Lastly I can’t help but say something in regards to the characters themselves and the outfits, or lack thereof in certain outfits, which this game has to offer. These women introduced in the game look the most “mature” women I’ve ever noticed in a Fatal Frame game. You could say this trend was coming since the third game but I honestly can’t tell if these women are high school age or young adults. The one character named Hisoka Kurosawa looks like she might need to graft another spine to her back given her proportions. Not that I’m complaining mind you. I don’t see any issue with the female characters in his game. It just gives me a sense that this is a more “mature” Fatal Frame that may not involve just school girls. But that goes without saying without even mentioning the bombshell you learn when it comes to the backstory of one of the female characters you control in this game. (Short answer: ewww. Long answer: how is that physically possible?!?!?!)

Also as much as I didn’t really care that the swimsuits and lingerie were removed from this game I must admit that they might actually be relevant in Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. I know that might sound odd coming from me, the guy who keeps wondering why the girls in the game series wear short skirts to go ghost hunting, but given how your mostly walking thru water or get involved with water, you can see how wearing swimsuits would fit into the environment. The characters themselves get wet just wearing their default clothing, to the point where you see how it clings to the character’s bodies. Bellybutton visible and all! While lingerie may be a bit overkill in my book, having the girls in swimsuits isn’t as farfetched unlike how it was in seeing Mayu and Mio wear them in Fatal Frame II. But I will admit it’s rather odd seeing female ghosts have such revealing cleavage….

Basically that’s my take on Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water? Was it worth it for me? I believe so. As a fan I’m glad I have the chance to enjoy this game after the franchise’s long hiatus here in the States. Whether it’s a truth successor in what Fatal Frame is all about remains to be seen. Not sure if it’s just as scary as Fatal Frame II but hopefully it won’t be as disappointing as Spirit Camera on the 3DS. I’m glad I bought it and I’m looking forward to playing it more in the future. Whether this game is for you depends on your mindset about digital titles, your HDD space and your willingness to give it a try. Not sure if this helps but I hope someone got something out of it just the same. Here’s hoping for a physical release. If such does happen I WILL buy it again. Crazy I know but like I said I’m a physical disc media gamer at heart. I want to have my cake and eat it too!

Ta-ta

“N”

Bonus video!

In this episode of “Camera Obscura” Clare must face off the final demon on her own and meets an unexpected person in its lair. Enjoy!

 

Sleep well tonight…….