Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

September 27, 2014

Nintendo SPD, Koei Tecmo Games

Nintendo

User1 rating

Critic9 ratings

Total10 ratings

PuzzleStrategyAdventure

WiiU

Single player

First person, Third person

ActionHorrorSurvival

Summary

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a survival horror video game developed by Koei Tecmo and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. The fifth main entry in the Fatal Frame series, it was released in Japan in September 2014 and worldwide in October 2015. As with previous games in the series, players navigate areas filled with hostile ghosts which must be fought by taking photographs using the Camera Obscura, which is directly controlled using the Wii U gamepad. A post-endgame story featuring Ayane, a character from the company's Dead or Alive series, is also available featuring altered gameplay mechanics. The story, which is set on the fictional Hikami Mountain, focuses on three protagonists who are drawn into supernatural events revolving the area, including an ancient ritual to seal away Yomi, a malevolent force corrupting the surrounding spirits that is tied to the fate of the titular shrine maiden Ouse Kurosawa. Planning for the game began in 2011, during the projection of the Wii remake of Crimson Butterfly. The game was first proposed by series co-creator Keisuke Kikuchi when he saw the Wii U hardware and the possibilities of the gamepad becoming the Camera Obscura. The game was a joint production effort between Koei Tecmo and Nintendo Software Planning & Development, with Kikuchi and fellow co-creator Makoto Shibata returning as to their respective posts of producer and director, together with staff from the previous series entry Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and developers new to the series. The cast went through several revisions during development, while the staff experimented with the capacities of the new hardware. As with previous games, it features a theme song by Tsuki Amano. Upon release, the game received critical acclaim for its use of the gamepad and dark atmosphere, while opinions were mixed on its story, portrayal of its female characters, and other aspects such as its pacing and controls.

Storyline

The main character, Yuri Kozukata, works at an antique shop and is able to see the "shadow" of objects she touches and can bring people back from the "shadow world". Yuri's gift is the reason she distances herself from other people but she also uses it to help others find lost items or missing people when they come asking for help. One day, a girl called Fuyuhi Himino enters the store with a request for Hisoka Kurosawa to find a friend of hers, Haruka Momose, who has gone missing around the area of Mt. Hikami. Unfortunately, Hisoka was currently absent at the time, so Yuri takes up the request herself instead. People with such intentions enter the forest during the witching hour when the border between the world of the living and the hidden world of the shadows becomes blurred. It is said that those ending their own life there can die a clean, "proper" death and not become trapped as ghosts between worlds when committing suicide elsewhere.