![]() ![]() Besides a few notable locales, many locations blend together-an issue I also had with the otherwise excellent Dead Space remake. You’ll comb over the same haunted hotel and hospital environments many times during the 10-hour journey. The game has a fantastic atmosphere as a whole, but individual rooms seldom stand out. A modern control scheme with more sensible button-mapping options is included along with the classic controls, but that doesn’t do much to address the overall feel. Even with a dedicated quick-turn button, it's a chore to line yourself up with a target. Overall, the game feels stiff and clunky. Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has intentionally disempowering mechanics, such as stretching out the time it takes to pick up an item so a ghost hand may grab you. Survival horror games rarely have the most fluid movement-again, to make the player feel weak. When you put down the camera, Fatal Frame’s more dated elements become apparent. In this remaster, there’s even a full-on sandbox photo mode for arranging custom snapshots. You can take pictures of spectral items for puzzle hints or catalog wayward roaming ghosts as you would with critters in New Pokemon Snap. ![]() The camera also has uses outside of battles. It’s creative and fear-inducing as you fumble and fight to regain footing in claustrophobic corridors. All that’s missing is a vacuum and a proton pack.įatal Frame’s camera combat is a high point. Another playable character swaps a camera for a flashlight that's great for damaging multiple vengeful specters at once. You can also customize the camera with new lenses with different attack types, as well as gems that buff stats like strength and reload time. With expert timing, a “fatal frame” shot does massive combo damage, but you'll be wide open for a costly counterattack if you miss.ĭefeating ghosts gives you points to spend on health items and more powerful film stock. Closer pictures deal more damage, but put you in harm’s way. Ghosts move in erratic patterns and teleport without warning meanwhile, your camera takes time to recharge after each shot, so getting the right angle while staying alive is a constant source of tension. Many in-game factors combine to make all this way harder than it sounds. Pressing the other trigger takes the shot. Pressing a Switch trigger button swaps the game view to a first-person perspective where you aim to get the ghost in your sight. Whenever you encounter a ghostly enemy, the Camera Obscura basically becomes a gun. Overseas, Fatal Frame is called Project Zero, but Fatal Frame is such a cooler name for describing the game’s central mechanic: defeating ghosts by taking their pictures. Unlike Fatal Frame 5, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is rated Teen, so the spookiness is more cerebral than outlandishly gory. ![]() Sometimes those documents have vital hints for making progress, but many others flesh out the lore. Mask of the Lunar Eclipse features subtitled Japanese voice-acting for its cutscenes, but much of the story is told through various notes, tapes, and film strips you collect along the way. What is Moonlight Syndrome? Why can no one remember anything? How did all these people die? It’s a pretty fascinating story, told across multiple intimate perspectives and timelines. Newcomers can enjoy Mask of the Lunar Eclipse’s story as a standalone experience. However, the gameplay is the real connecting thread. The Fatal Frame games have shared plot elements involving the creator of the magical Camera Obscura at the center of the game. The gameplay revolves around snapping photos of supernatural beings, so it helps that Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has strong imagery to produce genuine frights, unlike Ghostwire Tokyo. You feel lost in a fog haunted by entities who are barely there, but still dangerous. With its emphasis on restless spirits and ritualistic curses, the series fits right alongside stuff like The Grudge and The Ring. ![]() The Resident Evil franchise taps the globe for its inspirations, but Fatal Frame is a proudly Japanese horror series. It also helps that Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has a strong and enduring art direction. That said, I experienced mild slowdown and loading pauses while opening doors, but that may be due to playing Mask of the Lunar Eclipse on the Nintendo Switch instead of on a powerful PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/ S. You may spot the occasional low-res wall texture, but the game has been reasonably upgraded to contemporary standards. Grainy filters offer a spookier ambiance to decaying locales. Ghosts fade in and out with more ethereal menace. The character models are more complex, and they come with bonus costumes (although the Nintendo-themed costumes have been removed). Mask of the Lunar Eclipse doesn't receive the full Metroid Prime Remastered treatment, but the new version represents a significant visual bump over its predecessor.
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