Rituals, folk tales, legends, and tradition. These are the four quintessential ingredients to creating culture, especially within a localized region. Many years of repetition help to keep these ideas alive, being a tale of sacrifice or a simple tradition like Halloween dress-up. Over time these tales change and warp because of the fallible nature of word-of-mouth exchange. Religions and cultural shifts can change these tales of lore to fit modern narratives, making safe and clean stories from what could at one time have been a disturbing warning. The question I pose to you is this: if a tradition or folk tale never leaves its town of origin, will it create a populace with deep sinister secrets? Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly seems to think so. Through the glorious medium of video games, this sequel shows exactly how terrifying breaking these dark rituals can be.
A mere two years after the first Fatal Frame was released, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly came out in November of 2003. Like the first one, it was developed and published by Tecmo. Something interesting about this game is that in response to Fatal Frame’s itty-bitty issue of people being too afraid to finish it, the director, Makoto Shibata decided to address it head-on. How did this legendary paranormal-sensitive director solve this problem? Well, he didn’t. Instead, what he did was develop as interesting of a story as he could to incentivize the player base to complete it. Whether the story in Fatal Frame II is better remains to be seen. Through this decision, Mr. Shibata garnered overwhelmingly favorable reviews and most importantly, a large group of people who fervently believe that this title is one of the scariest games ever made. Now, I personally don’t believe that (How can we forget such wretched aberrations as Bubsy 3D?), but with so many people in consensus, it’s hard to disagree with such a strong statement.
The game opens to a scenic little creek with our two protagonists, Mayu and Mio, sitting back-to-back reminiscing about past traumas. At some point before the game, Mayu had fallen down a steep hill chasing after Mio, causing severe damage to her leg and making her walk with a limp since then. At some point, while remembering this Mio turns to presumably apologize for the tragic event that took place, but when she turns around Mayu is gone. She is seen wandering off into the woods in pursuit of a few crimson butterflies. Mio gets up to chase her down and bring her back to the creek, but upon walking past a small statue hidden behind a tree the world goes dark, into a perpetual night. As Mayu is apparently transforming between her usual look and a mysterious girl in a yukata, Mio eventually catches up. As Mayu turns, silhouetted by dispersing, glowing, crimson butterflies she whispers “The Lost Village” as the camera pans over the town and the title card is revealed. Now eternally stuck within the cursed town of “All Gods Village,” Mio must find a way to escape with Mayu and/or break the curse on this pitiful hovel.
The opening to this game is incredible. Compared to Fatal Frame, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly has really stepped it up with its presentation. The voice acting sounds great, the opening cutscene helps to establish a foreboding atmosphere and gets the player’s mind racing with the mysterious occurrences that lie ahead. I also love that you play as a twin. Having an NPC with you, no matter how useless they are, in a horror game creates a feeling of levity that helps with the crushing atmosphere in these kinds of games. For a giant sniveling baby like me, this helps tremendously. The fact that you and your twin both got trapped within All Gods Village is paramount to the themes and ritualistic machinations of the story. In short, a combination of improvements and added levity that flows seamlessly with the overarching story makes for one of the greatest tales you can interact with on the Xbox or Playstation 2.
The setting of All Gods Village is beautifully dilapidated. Although the idea of wandering through an entire town may seem a bit daunting at first, especially compared to the claustrophobic halls of Himuro Mansion, the game is really separated into four main areas. Obviously, the first area you’ll stumble upon are the streets of All Gods Village. These dimly lit paths are nice and wide with a lot of weak ghosts. It’s a great place to practice combat but, in reality, it just acts as a borderline superfluous area in between the different estates in the game. Then there is the Kurosawa house, which is the biggest place with some of the more horrifying ghosts in the game. The Kiryu house and Osaka house are interesting areas where they are two separate places connected by a bridge and tunnel. This is meant to symbolize the heaven and hell aspects of the rituals and acts as the last resting place of the twins that will be involved in the rituals. You’ll also spend brief amounts of time in a temple, tree, shrine, and graveyard. These areas are so small that they’re hardly worth mentioning, though. Each of these settings and environments are fantastic and I found myself completely enraptured in the history of this fictitious town.
With that being said, the game just isn’t as scary as its predecessor. The biggest issue is the ease with which you can stock up on items. I don’t know if it’s because I’m just such a God gamer or my survival horror instincts were kicking in, but there was a surplus of health items and film types scattered throughout the game. By the midway point of my playthrough, I had so many items that I was looking for fights instead of running from them. This may have been a way to increase the game’s accessibility for new gamers, but for people with experience it hampers the spooky experience.
This is hardly an issue, though, since the controls are a trillion, billion, million times better than the first game. I cannot understate how much of a relief it was to play such a smooth experience right off the janky roller coaster that was Fatal Frame. It may contribute to the easiness of this game, but who cares? I’ll take a less challenging game with fantastic controls over a stuttery, buggy nightmare any day of the week. Even then, I am of the firm belief that this sequel’s ease is only there because of the drastically improved controls.
Even though the controls have been greatly optimized, they certainly aren’t perfect. The game utilizes fixed camera angles instead of your standard, modern controllable camera. Although I personally love this style because it helps to establish tension through intelligent use of camera angles, I can understand if this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Another issue that carried over from Fatal Frame is the movement. The overall experience is much better, but the game still suffers from the weird issue of Mio spinning in quick circles between screen transitions. I’m sure there’s a way to avoid this little hiccup, but it’s so easy to do that you’ll find yourself pirouetting in front of the souls of the damned consistently. I can’t even imagine how dizzy Mio will be in the hands of a newcomer to the genre. The movement is substantially better than the first game, but Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly still suffers with its fair bit of jank.
Combat in this rendition has been revamped for the better. The game still uses the Camera Obscura for combat and still goes into a first-person mode when using it. Also, just like the first Fatal Frame, the controls are totally scuffed. You’ll get used to it fairly easily, but the fact that the left analog stick is still camera movement and right is character movement is still a little bit annoying. It’s just weird that it’s still the exact opposite of contemporary game controls. What they did change is the way the camera works. In the original game, the longer you held the camera on a ghost the more power you charged up. It made for strategic combat in theory but an overall frustrating experience. Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly replaced this mechanic with one that to me, is substantially better. Instead of holding the camera on the ghost, you can charge it by getting reaaaal close to them! Not only is this horrifying but it’s also brilliant because now the combat feels much faster paced. The risk is high, but the potential rewards are substantial. You can also use this strategy to bait fatal frames out of the opponents once you become used to the control, making for even faster combat! There is a lot of potential with this mechanic that is almost perfectly realized except for one fatal flaw . . .
The biggest flaw in this game is without a doubt the enemies. Yes, the ghosts look absolutely amazing. The wounds they carry from life are gruesome and visceral. One that really got me was the specter of a woman who fell to her death. Even for a PS2 game that wrinkled flesh where her spine is pushing against her broken neck gives me a deep and twisting feeling in my gut. No, the design certainly isn’t the problem. It’s how they play. These ghosts are soooooo daaaaaammmmnnnn sllllooooooowwwww! Seriously, one of the biggest issues I had with the ghosts in the first game was they were too fast for the confined areas you were forced to fight in. Here in Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly you’re given all the space in the world but you’re dealing with snails for ghosts! Even though each adversary has a different gimmick to deal with when fighting, the movement of the ghosts are so predictable that you will absolutely destroy each one you face after a little bit of experimenting. Why wouldn’t you experiment? You’re given a million health items so it’s not like you’re going to be struggling for survival anyways. Every problem with facing these ghosts comes from their speed, it’s what simplifies them to trivial degrees and what forces this game down from its pedestal of greatness.
Playing through this game was an absolute joy, and even some of the worst aspects of the game are made up by some type of caveat that makes it enjoyable. Based on my gushing throughout this review, it’s clear that I absolutely adored this game. The story is beautiful and engaging, with an ending that acts as a true emotional crescendo. It’s horrifying, tragic, inspirational, and most importantly, enjoyable. To reiterate it’s obvious that I loved this game. The only question at this point is how much?
Now, let us get to what most people are interested in— the vague numerical values given to something to help make an opinion more digestible!
Gameplay: 4 out of 5
This game was an enormous improvement over the last game. So much so, admittedly that I may even be biased at this point. Movement is much better, completely removing those strange snags you’d get on the environment, and even increasing your running speed too! The combat is more fun because it incentivizes players to get up close and personal with these ghoulish apparitions to maximize their damage. The only issues are relatively minor, such as camera angle changes making Mio spin and the simplicity of the ghosts’ combat design, but these problems aren’t enough to take away from the overall enjoyment of the game!
Graphics/Art Direction: 4 out of 5
Although the ghost design is fantastically haunting and the environment is impeccably creepy, this game looks very much like a product of its time. This isn’t always a bad thing, and obviously, graphics don’t make or break a game, but the character design is stiff. It looks better than the first game, but admittedly not by much. In fact, there are parts in Fatal Frame that I preferred over this improved version! The game still looks amazing, but to people who are less forgiving than me, this game will certainly look its age.
Sound: 4 out of 5
The sound design isn’t nearly as stock sounding as the first one, but some of the ambient noise is still a little soft. The Camera Obscura sound effects in particular took a bit of a hit from the first one. Combat just isn’t as auditorily impactful. There’s a lot more clicking, and the sounds lack that loud WHAM that you’d expect, especially from a fatal frame. The music though, especially the credits song, Chou by Tsukiko Amano is enrapturing! Music isn’t used very often but when it is it feels tasteful and appropriate.
Content: 5 out of 5
This game, like many other survival horror games, is very short. The game took me about 11 hours to beat on my first playthrough and about 5 on my second. That’s right, I played through this game twice! That’s how much I enjoyed this. Anyways, what this game does that I very rarely see from its contemporaries is give you a lot of unlockables. These aren’t unsubstantial, either. There’s a dirge of costumes and accessories you can buy with points for Mio and Mayu to dress them up as you see fit! (Yes, even the obligatory bikini options.) What I found truly intriguing were the development notes you can unlock in-game! Now, I haven’t unlocked these just yet, but when I start my third playthrough I won’t hesitate to see what that’s all about!
BUH-BUH-BUH-BONUS POINTS!
I’m adding +2 points for the story and its delivery. The game does a fantastic job of drip feeding the player information through journal entries and environmental storytelling. It does a seamless job of telling a tragic and foreboding tale that can only truly be expressed through the medium of video games. Tales like this grand exploration of folk horror are the reason games exist and can easily be argued as a true medium of art similar to books, movies, and music.
Total Score:
19/20
A Masterpiece!!
When I first took on this game, I had no idea how much I was going to like it. I was trepidatious after the outing of Fatal Frame; the first game was a frustrating jumble of ideas that I overall enjoyed but made me fearful to play the other games in the series. It’s amazing how much 2 years can change a developer’s game design, because they went from a decent game with a lot of hiccups to near perfection within that time. Sure, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly isn’t the greatest game in the world, but for this nostalgic gamer, this title became one of my favorite games of all time. As someone who is averse to change, this should be considered monumental.
Turns out, everyone, that I lied about the worst part of this game. It isn’t the ghosts, nor is it the combat, nor is it the character design, hell it isn’t even the camera change spin! No, the worst part is figuring out how to play this thing. Unfortunately, Tecmo doesn’t seem to like the idea of video game preservation, because this thing is a pain to get ahold of. You can only really play it on its original consoles, the Playstation 2 and, where I played it, the Xbox. What’s even worse is like many horror games from the sixth console generation, copies of this game aren’t cheap. The PS2 rendition will run you 60 bucks for just the disc alone! The Xbox version isn’t much better at about 40 bucks, added to the fact they aren’t the easiest to come by in the wild makes for one challenging game to find, much less play. However, if you like horror, and you don’t mind paying a little extra dosh, then this game is a must play. This game is a masterpiece, and those of you who have played it also can attest to that. I cannot emphasize enough: PLAY THIS GAME! You’ll be doing yourself a favor.
Playing Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is an incredible experience. It’s spooky, it’s haunting, but most importantly, it’s art. Normally I would write some goofy little line at the end here, but sometimes a game is so incredible it leaves me speechless. If or when you play this game, I’m sure you’ll understand too.
Take a picture it will last longer. Okay sorry, buh bye!
