FATAL FRAME II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE review

Twin sisters Mio and Mayu find themselves lost deep in the woods, beckoned there by an unknown force that draws them into the mysterious lost Minakami Village. It's here within the ruins that a dark and ancient ritual failed, with the sisters now poised to become new sacrifices. With only an occult camera to defend herself, Mio must seek a way to alter fate and save Mio from the darkness.

The majority of the gameplay in Fatal Frame II revolves around seeking a way out of the cursed village while also keeping your sister out of harm's way. The wicked souls bound to this place, however, want to repeat the failed ritual sacrifice and haunt your every step. Each chapter of the game explores a new location as you slowly unravel the history of the village and the ritual, slowly revealing the motives of the spirits possessing your sister.

One of the first things you will notice about the remake is that the game no longer uses fixed camera angles, instead opting for a modern over-the-shoulder perspective. While the tank-controls of the original were certainly a hallmark of the time, the updated controls certainly feel a lot better to use when exploring the haunted halls of the village. Sure Mio still runs terribly slow, but at least now you aren't fighting the movement controls nearly as much, especially in combat.

For those unfamiliar with the Fatal Frame series, the protagonist doesn't fight with conventional armaments, and instead wields the Camera Obscura. This is a mystical photography device that can exorcise spirits, and tasks you with lining up the perfect photo to deal maximum damage. Damage is calculated from a number of different aspects, including focus, distance, film type, and more, and you can also get a Fatal Frame by taking a photo the moment a ghost goes in for an attack. Having to get up close and personal with tortured spirits creates some tense gameplay moments, and I've always loved this feature in these games. The ghosts can also now 'sprout wings' and become enraged, in a similar vein to how enemies could grow more powerful in FATAL FRAME: Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse.

The Camera Obscura has also seen some modernization in the remake, with new filters and lenses that serve various functions both in and out of combat. My favorite was definitely the radiant filter, which allows you to charge up your next photo to deliver a devastating blast. This can deal big damage to enemies or unseal hidden binding wards on doors and containers. Other options like the Exposure filter can reveal items or even locations that have vanished, and the Paraceptual filter can help with exploration when following in the footsteps of missing people.

Extending beyond the new gameplay additions, the remake has also upgraded the visuals substantially from the PS2 era of graphics. Both the indoor and outdoor locations in the village look both beautiful and haunting in the best ways possible. From the moonlit bridge extending to the Kurosawa House to the hauntingly ominous Deep Path; it all looks fantastic and was very nostalgic to explore. There are even a handful of new locations added to the village that help flesh out the lore just a bit further. The one issue I have with the graphics is that while the gameplay can run at 60fps on PC, the cutscenes are still running at 30fps. It's just a shame to see such a beautiful game running at such low frame rates, and will certainly be seen as a dark mark on an otherwise great looking game.

The character models especially have seen a ton of love, with the twin sisters Mio and Mayu being stand-outs. Some of the basic enemy wraiths do still look a bit strange, but notable ghosts like Sae Kurosawa and the vengeful Kusabi look both stunning and terrifying.

The remake keeps the story of Fatal Frame II largely the same, but there is some additional storytelling through the inclusion of side stories. These are discovered at various points in the narrative and serve as optional side quests for you to track down in between chapters. These varied a lot in terms of how much story they contained, from hide-and-seek stories of village children to exploring the final moments of previous ritual victims. My only issue with these is that some of them require a tremendous amount of backtracking, and once again, Mio runs very slowly. Still, the side stories provide an avenue of learning more about the strange mystery surrounding the lost village, and does it in an optional way that still leaves the overarching narrative intact.

As you explore, you'll also come across pairs of Twin Dolls hidden throughout the environment. These are a new type of collectable to find, and when photographed, open new items in the point shop for purchase. The shop itself is accessed through save points, and typically will grant you access to new stickers to use in the newly added photo mode. I suppose it only makes sense that a game centered around using a camera would add this feature in the remake.  

Some of these dolls will also unlock charms, which offer some minor benefits when equipped. I enjoyed these in concept, but in practice, the majority of them don't really offer much outside of very niche benefits, like doing extra damage to spirits when Mayu is also in frame. I found myself sticking to one or two charms for nearly my entire play through, which is a shame considering how many of these little trinkets you can find.