Fatal Frame 4 ~ 4everoutcast

Review by Malek86

Tsukihami no Kamen (Fatal Frame 4: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, or FF4 for short) marks the first time the Fatal Frame series approaches a Nintendo console, and exclusively at that. Nintendo themselves bought the right to publish this game on the Wii. Was it actually worth it? This could be the source of much debate, as this new chapter already has its fair share of detractors, as well as a number of fans.

Graphically, FF4 is more than decent. Doesn't look much different from the PS2 games, but then again, the PS2 games were pretty good in my opinion. This one adds more area details, the lighting seems a bit better, and you do get at least 480p and 16:9, but the difference is not huge by any means. All in all, I'll say the graphics are good. However, the same can't be said for the CG cutscenes - they look like someone compressed them at the lowest possible bitrate. Alright, that's an exaggeration, but they are worse than the previous games' for sure. Maybe Tecmo ran out of space on the disc, and in order not to use a double-layer, they just compressed the videos more? Another small problem is that framerate dips will often occur when entering a new room. Sure, it's no big deal... but once again, the previous games didn't have this problem, as far as I remember.

The sound department leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. In good tradition, music is scarce/absent, while ambient sounds are as creepy as ever. The voice actors did a good job, especially considering there seems to be a lot more talking than in previous games. Those who only played their PS2 will be happy to know that this time around, the game makes full use of Dolby Pro Logic II (the Xbox games already had DD5.1). Needless to say, a good surround system is recommended, especially for those bass sounds. Two thumbs up.

Story-wise, I won't say much. One of the problems in buying japanese games is that you can't understand the details. It does look pretty contrived, there are more pivotal characters around, and also a number of plot twists. They made a good job in keeping you interested to the flow of the story. You'll definitely want to see what happens next. So I think it's pretty good, and will probably be even better once I understand all the details.

Ah, the gameplay. First, I should note that many people initially expected the camera to be controlled by the pointer, but that's not the case. Instead, you control the camera with the analog stick on the Nunchuck, and then point it up and down by tilting the Wiimote (your torch also moves this way). It works relatively well, but the tilt recognition is not always precise. And now the main problem: this game is just too easy. Maybe because they tried to cater to the Wii audience or something? The previous games were easy too, but this one takes the cake for a number of reasons. Ghosts will almost always attack from your level, so you never need to look up or down. And there is a lock-on feature anyway, that assures you'll never miss a shot. Just to make things even easier, your attacks are now more powerful, even 07-films pack quite a punch. Did I mention that now ghosts can be pushed back by simple charged attacks? And there is even a shop where you can buy all sort of healing items with your points. What, what the heck is all that? Fatal Frame for dummies? Still, there are one or two difficult spots to keep things (a bit) balanced. The dolls-finding sidequest is a good addition - not a good addition, instead, is the need to lit items with your torch before you can see them. You know they are there because the filament goes blue, but will need to search around anyway, and sometimes it might take a while.... plain annoying. There are three plyable characters, and one of them fights with a torch rather than with the Camera, which is a nice diversion from the usual, but unfortunately, I think his chapters are the weakest ones. Overall, it's not really bad by any means, but I'm mostly bogged by the fact that Tecmo made it all so easy, because it also means it will become tedious at times.

The game offers the usual slew of extras to keep you playing after you've finished the story. Four difficulty modes, two endings, missions, unlockables, completing the ghosts lists... about the ghost list, there is a glitch in that you can't complete it. This also means you can't unlock everything. This is not what I expected from you, Tecmo. I can't believe no one found this during debugging. We can only hope it gets fixed (Nintendo has put a notice on their game site, so they know) for the western release.

As I said in the beginning, judging Fatal Frame 4 is not easy. On one hand there is an interesting story, a good technical department, some nice additions to the gameplay, and the whole game is scary enough. Fans of the series surely will be happy with this much. But on the other hand, the gameplay has been made too easy (a big no-no for me), the controls are spotty at times, some of the new additions are just annoying, it's not quite as scary as FF3, and the amount of small bugs (and some big, like being unable to complete the ghost list) and those framerate dips make me think the game was rushed out of the door before its time. In the end, it depends on what you're looking for: great atmosphere, or great gameplay? For me, it's a bit of both, although I'm leaning more toward the gameplay side. So I'm giving this one a 7... despite its many shortcomings, it's still decent fun, and with a good story. And if the western release gets fixed, it might even become a 7.5 overall.

Ratings

Gameplay....7/10

Graphics.....7/10

Story...........8/10

Sound.........9/10

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