JUST in time for Halloween comes a Japanese fright machine as our Asian cousins show us how to do videogame horror.
The Fatal Frame series has become a cult standard, thanks to gameplay based on the superstition that cameras can steal a person’s soul. It’s a throwback to the golden age of survival horror, and with nothing but Jessop's finest to protect you, the perfect Asian antidote to Sony’s recent slasher fare Until Dawn.
As one of three playable characters, players explore the cursed Mt Hikami, a famous suicide spot and centre of a cult, which explains the many wooden boxes stuffed with dead girls. Like some Japanese Blair Witch Project, fans of Ju-On, Ringu and the like will be right at home with its roll call of J-horror tropes, from raven-haired girls to deliberately shoddy VHS-quality flashbacks.
Combining the twin Japanese loves of sexy teenagers and photography, snapping spectres has never been easier thanks to the Gamepad’s use as a second screen. Spooks are not the only problems you’ll encounter – puzzles crop up as well, and the camera can reveal hidden doors and passageways.
Our sodden schoolgirls also need to keep an eye on their, erm, wetness, as soaked-through snaps deal more damage, though the ghosts hit harder, too.
For the most part, it’s business as usual for the series, meaning plenty of ancient Japanese ruins and forests to explore, though a painfully brief period in a modern train station comes as a breath of fresh air while a setpiece involving security cameras is a spine-tingling highlight.
The adherence to series tradition also means players will battle the controls as much as spooks, with our heroes slowly mincing along like Dale Winton on the moon. Running as though suffering from a combination of rickets and incontinence, everything is molasses slow, not helped by the endless notes to read.
The game always holds your hand, pointing out where to go next and with much raking over old ground between characters. And for a series that trades on traditional Japanese stylings, an inexplicable amateur night English dub replaces the original language. Surely subtitles would have been preferable?
With Silent Hill dead and Resident Evil kicking it action-style, horror-philes have had little to scream about these days, making Fatal Frame’s poltergeist papping a rare Kodak moment.
And given the fourth in the series never saw the light of day on these shores, its very existence is cause enough for celebration. It may seem tailor-made for Japanese schoolgirls, but Fatal Frame will still have you screaming like one – even if its young audience don’t actually know what photographic film is.
