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If you haven’t guessed yet the secondary, underlying theme to this year’s 31 Octoberween Blogs was that focus of the Fatal Frame Series. Though not all the blogs had a “Fatal Frame” theme to them, I did my best to give it something that was remotely similar to them. Hope you all enjoyed the video series “Camera Obscura”. It might not be the best made video series (mostly meant to highlight creature effects) but it was the best I could find. And if you had figured that out by now then the number 1 game for this year shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. I touched on the first and second games on this list in the “digital only” edition of my Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles for this year. And as much as I’d like to include Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, the circumstances associated with that game have obviously disqualified it this year. Rest assured though that it will possibly see an inclusion on this list in the future. From what I’ve played it is shaping up to be worthy of the Fatal Frame title. But let’s stop there before I go into more detail about Maiden of Black Water and instead focus on the number 1 game pick this year. Fatal Frame III: The Tormented.

 

This is the game that starts to change the formula in what we all came to expect out of Fatal Frame. The first game focused on a haunted mansion. The second game focuses on a haunted village. And now the third game takes to the meta realm of the subconscious sleep realm. Taking place two years after Fatal Frame and two months after the events of Fatal Frame II, the story of Fatal Frame III tells of three individuals instead of just one in particular. It tells the story of Rei Kurosawa as she mourns the death of her fiancé after a car crash caused by her own carelessness. As she tries to put her life back together, with the help of a familiar face from the first Fatal Frame game, Rei beings to suffer nightmares that lead her into the “Manor of Sleep” where she is stalked by a woman covered in tattoos. Upon being touched by this tattooed woman, Kei begins to suffer growing bruises in the real world momentarily that begin to take on the form of the tattooed woman’s tattoos as well. This “Sleeping Manor” curse begins to spread to two other people involved with Rei in some form professionally and personally to where the lines of reality and the subconscious begin to blur as Rei and her friends do all they can to break this curse and learn how it all came about to being with. What started out as a project to research urban legends takes on a deadlier meaning when the Camera Obscura and this tattooed lady become a boogieman to those in their dreams….

Fatal Frame III changes up the formula to the game series in several ways. The most prominent way it does it is by offering three different player characters to the mix. Where as in the first two Fatal Frame games, where you just controlled a secondary character for brief moments to move the story narrative forward,  in this game you control three different people in three different nightmare hours with three different abilities at their disposal. The main character Rei Kurosawa is your base character that gets to use her camera obscura much like you see in past games but with enhanced improvements that show how the series has evolved over the course of the series. This is the game where you can swap out spirit film by just using one of the directional buttons on the game controller, even if you are in viewfinder mode. I remembered that one of these games had to have that mode and I’m glad to see that it was indeed in the third game. Rei also gets the ability to use special flash attacks that can keep spirits at bay if the happen to close to you. Her camera also has the ability to see things through its viewfinder that the naked eye is unable to see. Best example of this is blood splatter on the walls and floors of certain areas being seen thru the camera’s viewfinder but don’t register if you take a picture. The return of Miku Hinasaki from the first game offers the second playable character who has her latent supernatural sensing powers returning along with her nightmare’s focusing on the trauma she suffered in the Himuro Mansion. Rounding off the group is Kei Amakura, relation to Mayu and Mio from the second game, who gets involved by associate from the events that happened to his relation. All of them have different playstyles because of this though it’s not like you are able to play just one character all the way through the story. You revolve around them as their stories get connected with the general narrative. It’s a nice change of pace for the story that shows how in-depth and involving the curse that afflictions them grows. The second change offered in this is game is the “hub” area that consists of daytime events where Rei and the others muck around the house and perform general tasks that progress the story. Rei usually develops photos she takes from in her nightmares (the camera obsura she uses in her dreams working as a proxy with the “defective” camera obscura found in her late fiancés room. Miku is the research gopher as she uncovers clues that Rei finds in her investigations and Kei fitting in somehow that I’ve yet to comprehend. These are the daily activities that these characters’ get involved in as they try to live their lives, investigate the urban legend of the Manor of Sleep and uncover the mystery that they find themselves involved in.

It’s here that the night time segments work their way in where you get to play in the Manor of Sleep with the three individuals involved at that given time. Combat and movement are similar to what you’d expect out of the series but with the difference of the game focusing on one area per person and spreading it out as that particular character explores the area further. It gives it more like a “down the rabbit hole” feel as you work your way deeper into this Sleep Manor. Some that works well when the whole night time level is set up as a nightmare dream. Though you don’t exactly come out of the world, hurt or dying near the end when morning comes, the lasting effect of awaking is still made known as the “bruise” spreads more and more. And much like a nightmare on Elm Street if you die in your dream you end up dying in the real world.

Fatal Frame III is like the culmination of what you’ve come to expect and fear in the first two games and gives you more of an inward haunting than what is offered from just haunted locations. Instead of the player character physically going to a haunted area, the player character finds themselves going to this place subconsciously. For some that may be more like a mind trip than a supernatural field trip but it’s because of this that gives this game a scarier feel. What can be scarier than being trapped in your own personal nightmare, being stalked by something that has the intention of killing you in the real world leaving nothing but a pile of black soot where your body last lay. A blood splatter would’ve been too dramatic. A simple disappearance to cliché. Black soot in the shape of a person’s body? Now that’s something straight out of the very urban legends that involved a mysterious tape that you watch that predicts your death or someone being killed with such intense rage that a grudge is born….

Ultimately in the end all that was mentioned above isn’t the main reason why this game is number 1 on my list. Truth be told the real reason why this game is number 1 is because I’ve yet to fully play this game. And by mean fully played I mean fully beaten. This is the only Fatal Frame game I own that I’ve yet to play thru all the way. I really have no excuse for that. I’ve own this game physically for a long time and with the digital version so readily accessible, I should’ve been able to burn thru this game much like I have with the prior to. I can’t say for certain that it’s truly as scary as the second game or as better controlling than the other games. I think I got mostly side tracked by this game because of all the reading and research you do in game. There is a lot of information offered in this game that gets more into the Fatal Frame story lore and in how these games are so intertwined together in ways that it almost takes a flow chart to keep track of them all. It’s probably also another reason why I haven’t fully sunk my teeth into Fatal Frame: Maiden of Dark Water yet given how Miku plays a role in that game as well.

So there you have it folks. I really can’t go into deeper detail into this game because I’ve yet to fully go deeper into this game. I don’t know if it’s a worthy title to be considered number 1 in any Octoberween Game Titles but I do plan to find that out over this weekend. Everything else before this list was either a nice distraction or Octoberween primer to gear me up and prepare me for the journey that Fatal Frame III plans to take me on. Will I beat the game by then? Will I learn the truth behind the Manor of Sleep? There is only one way to find out. And I hope if you have a chance this year that you are able to find that out too eventually, that is if you’ve gotten around two the first games in the series yet.

I got Fatal Frame III: The Tormented at the same time I got the first and second games digitally on PSN. On sale for $5.99. Again a steal of a price given how they originally cost $9.99 on PSN. And much like how it was mentioned with past postings, $9.99 is well worth the price to own this Fatal Frame “thrillogy”. Now if Koei Tecmo re-releases these games in one HD triple pack on new gen consoles I’d be sure to buy them again. Would they also make it on another Octoberween Game title list in the future? Who’s to say? But I do know that regardless of what happens this year, I will complete this trilogy. Mark my words…..

My Top 11 Octoberween Game Titles for 2015:

11) Zombie Panic in Wonderland – 1000 Wii Points

10) Trouble Witches NEO - $9.99 + $1.99 DLC character

09) Slender: The Arrival – on sale $7.49

08) Costume Quest 1 & 2 – on sale $7.49 each + $4.99 DLC “Grubbins on Ice”

07) Fatal Frame - on sale $5.99

06) Metro 2033 – Free thanks to Microsoft’s “Games with Gold” program.

05) Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly – on sale $5.99

04) Decay - $1.00 part 1 + $2.99 x 3 for parts 2, 3, &4 = $9.97

03) Guwange - $9.99

02) The Walking Dead Season One + 400 Days – on PSN Flash Sale $3.75

01) Fatal Frame III: The Tormented – on sale $5.99

Ta-ta

“N”

Bonus Video!

In the Final episode of “Camera Obscura”, Clara faces off with her Grandfather’s killer. Hope you watched it all till the end!

 

Sleep well tonight….

One more night to go….