This was a remake I've been curious about since Fatal Frame 2 also had a remake on the Wii prior to this. I have beaten the original years ago but it's been a while and since then I've beaten Fatal Frame 4 and tried to with Maiden of Black Water. I'm mixed on the franchise from the games I played. It's certainly more of an aquired taste by comparison to Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I can say that this remake is my favorite in the franchise out of the ones I have played.
Your milage will certainly vary regarding this but before I played this remake, it was reported to be much harder than the original game. Enemies were super aggressive, resources were very limited and battles went on for ages.
A difficulty patch got released and after playing post patch, it's by far the easiest game in the franchise. This I don't mind however since Fatal Frame combat has it's very bizarre design quirks that doesn't make it very easy to approach for people who has played games like Resident Evil, Dead Space and even Silent Hill.
Much of this game are mandatory combat encounters where in Resident Evil and Silent Hill, it's possible to run past enemies but FF, you can't run past the ghosts with the exception of the stalker wraith.
A lot of the difficulty can attributed to only being able to aim in first person, slowly waiting for the ghost to appear in front of you and hoping that once it does, you can hit it. Waiting for ideal moments to do more damage, and if you get hit, the line of sight you once had will be gone.
There's also a willpower gauge which will also hinder the performance of your player character if grabbed by enemies or hit too much.
With this difficulty patch, a lot of the weaker film you have will do more damage if you upgrade focal point, reload speed and film capacity. You'll be rolling in so much film too all though you might slowly dwindle in resources by the end of the game.
Due to this, battle can still feel have it's feeling of being tense but without the long battle attritions that the series' ghost battles can have. The balance of knowing when to hit the ghost with the right shot and knowing when to dodge out of the way. Just that now, they don't drag on as much. There is the infamous ghosts turning red and getting and angry system here but due to the reduced difficulty, they more so just spice up the last few minutes of a fight rather than making you constantly see the game over screen.
Some of the more challenging parts is during the scripted sequence where you need to run away from certain ghosts and knowing where to go and hide from them to get them off you. Mayu's crouch speed can be a little slow when trying to evage a ghost's line of sight.
Load times on PS5 upon getting a game over can also last way too long but that's where the difficulty patch cancels this part out all though not during the scripted parts.
The level design is "fine". Very similar to a Zelda game where you got a overarching hub world and there individual larger areas you have to explore. At a certain point in Chapter 6 were the objective and what you need to do becomes overly vague and confusing on what you need to actually do.
Also the late game can feel awfully padded due to spending much of the game rescuing Mio and then going on a fetch quest, just to then lose her again and then fight the final boss.
One massive improvement the remake has over the original is that the final boss is no longer a one hit kill so no unnesscary frustration here.
Story is on the okay side. It's less about the two sisters and more and more about the setting itself. I read a couple of the note but I did wish Mayu and Mio had more character in the actual story and less of a reliance on notes.
Overall, with the difficulty patch Fatal Frame 2 remake is a solid game in a series that I'm lukewarm on as a whole. There's some issues I had here and there but not enough to detract from playing the game in the moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment