Topic: Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

I got an "S+" ranking on a mission yesterday. Didn't even know that was possible.

@mr_somewhere
Switch version should not be any kind of downgrade as far as I know. It's pretty much the same game except you won't hold a Wii U gamepad which served as a real life replica of photocamera you use in game. It simply adds a couple more points to your immersion into the gameplay, but it's not that big of a deal.

@anynamereally, I don't think @mr_somewhere was saying he heard that the Switch version in particular was a downgrade, but rather Maiden of Black Water itself is a downgrade in comparison to past Fatal Frame games.

An accusation I've heard as well, though as it's my first in the series I have nothing to compare it to.

@RR529
This is a really difficult thing as it is purely subjective, but I tried to play Crimson Butterfly again a year or so ago, and I found it hadn’t aged wonderfully.

They were games of their time, I think. That was 15-20 years ago. I was a lot easier to scare and impress back then. I don’t think the games held up to my memory.

As for performance, I do have issues with docked mode but in handheld, it’s a ton of fun. A ton of fun even though I think the third person movement controls are tedious.

@RR529 Yep that's what I meant.

A good bit into it now and still enjoying it a great amount. 2 will still likely be my favourite but I certainly enjoy this much more than the original. Can't compare it to the third game as I have never been able to track it down for a reasonable price. I'd highly recommend anybody curious or any survival horror fans who can tolerate a slower pace to give this a shot.

@RR529 oh, I see.
I think horror fans are pretty diverse in their tastes. Some of them playing for scares, some of them for the story and characters. Me? I'm not even a horror fan to be honest. I've played through Maiden of Black Water just for the atmosphere and mood it creates. I cannot tell about other games in the series but this one excels at it. It gives you unbelievable sense of presence and time.

Of course it has some issues as a game - you have to deal with some nasty ghosts and some of them are quite hard, controls are really slow and unresponsive at times (deliberately made so or not, I don't really know), I didn't really figure out how to use camera effective enough to do that 'mega shot' when you can instakill most of the ghosts - but I just don't care, heh. It was all 'good enough' to drag myself through all of the stages so that's okay in my book.

I just finished it and I thought I'd give my thoughts here and hopefully this might inform any individuals lurking that are on the fence. I haven't completely finished it, I have zero attachment to DOA or Ninja Gaiden but I'll give the bonus chapters with Ayane a run and then give it a break before replaying it on the higher difficulty.

I really loved this. Overall Crimson Butterfly is still my favourite but this was an admirable entry to say the least. In all honesty I'd likely rate this as my second favourite. This could well be recency bias but I am baffled as to why this game got such a mixed reception (the re-release seems to have been rated a bit kinder). It has problems, the narrative is a little disjointed, events don't coalesce as smoothly as in prior entries, the locations while lovingly rendered never quite hit the highs of some locations there's also a total lack of actual environmental puzzles which bugged me.

All of these criticisms feel like little more than nitpicks or minor qualms in contrast to what the game does accomplish. The narrative touches on some difficult subjects but in an ambitious sensitive manner that felt very fulfilling to see through to the end. The combat is as fun as ever with some great designs that play with the theme and I don't think there were any irritating ghosts to fight which was definitely a problem some of the originals had. As with previous entries the world feels alive and the sound design is absolute top notch.

Obviously take my opinions with a grain of salt but if you are in any way a survival horror fan I'd highly recommend this. I think I have a pretty high tolerance for jank though.

Yeah, I finished up the main story last night (and the Ayane story this afternoon), and it's certainly an interesting game

Definitely a bit early 00's in terms of design (tank controls, world design is kinda like the first Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden Sigma, as in it's one interconnected world where there's some backtracking & puzzles involved, however it's split into missions that limit where you can go at any given time), however the atmosphere is absolutely top notch, the combat is unique (if a bit finicky due to the tank controls, especially in tight spaces), and it's got a ton to seek your teeth into if you're one for getting into background lore (I especially like the fact that you can occasionally see how a ghost died, with an appropriate "found footage" look, if you touch it after you've defeated it).

My biggest gripe is that there is no manual saving, and while some missions are only 30 minutes to an hour long, there are a couple that pushed 2 hours for me, so you just kind of hope that they spaced out the checkpoint auto saves well.