Mayu and Mio are back in frame but is the remake well shot or overexposed?
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake, a third-person survival horror game from Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo. As the title states it’s a remake, the original was released back in 2003, and it was also remade on Switch in 2012.
Survival Horror tends to be a niche genre in general and Fatal Frame (or Project Zero as it was known in the west) are somewhat niche within the niche. If you’re not fortunate enough to be familiar with the franchise all me to get you up to speed.
In the Fatal Frame series you’ll find yourself (most commonly taking on the role of a young girl) in a haunted setting armed with only the Camera Obscura. A magical camera with the ability to defeat the restless, aggravated and extremely aggressive spirits that are your foes. The ghosts aren’t for the most part visible in the games normal camera angle (The older games had a fixed camera, but Crimson butterfly remake has third person over the shoulder perspective) and you’ll need to lift the Camera Obscura to your eyes (which switches the game to a first person perspective), which on many occasions has resulted in some pretty epic jump scares.
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake introduces you to it’s twin (literally) protagonists, Mayu and Mia. The sisters find themselves stranded in Minakami Village, a run down, dilapidated mountain with a dark past. It’s inhabitants long since passed away, but not moved on.
Upon entering the village Mio begins to act strangely, Minakami Village seems obsessed with butterflys and twins, a very unfortunate thing for out protagonists. Despite being a remake, I’ll be avoiding spoilers here, although given that Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake has multiple endings, including a new one for remake, maybe I wouldn’t be spoiling everything.
You’ll control Mayu directly and Mio will follow closely behind, at times you’ll need to hold Mios hand. Aside from being an adorable sign of sibling affection, holding hands is actually a gameplay mechanic. Mayu’s lifeforce is split into Willpower and Health. Willpower is reduced by taking damage and when using the Camera Obscuras special abilities, once your will power is gone you’ll begin to loose health, if your health reaches zero, you’re dead. Grasping ahold of Mios hand will rapidly replenish both your Willpower and Health. This is a fantastic edition, as firstly, it really helps demonstrate the bond the siblings share, but it also means that while playing as Mayu, you’ll come to see Mio as safety. So, when the game decides to separate you from your Mio, the anxiety and horror is amplified as you really feel alone and vulnerable.
Earlier I referred to Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake as survival horror, and while the game is certainly scary, and film (think ammo) for the Camera Obscura is limited both classic tropes of the genre I can’t help but feel that the term ‘survival’ is lacking and frankly sells the achievements of Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo short. I’d describe Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake as Atmospheric Horror, don’t get me wrong, the wraiths are quite cable of killing you but battling your incorporeal foes is almost a relief from the tension.
Through eerie visuals, haunting sounds and a sense of complete exposed vulnerability the act of exploring Minakami Village is so nerve shreddingly tense that finally getting to get snap happy and kick some ectoplasm calmed me down, knowing that now the attack had come, I had at least a little respite from these twisted phantoms.
Combat is a fairly simple affair, point (the Camera Obscura) and Shoot. The Camera Obscura has focal points, the more of these you align with a Yurei daring to attack you and your sister the more damage your attack will do. The more in focus your shot, again, more damage. There are several special filters you can apply to the camera. Each has a different gameplay effect, from aiding with exploration, removing status enemies may have afflicted you with, or even adding story elements by letting you see spirits that aren’t malevolent. The camera can of course be upgraded, both base elements, and abilities specific to each filter, these range from simple damage output, the amount of film you can carry or even the cameras focal length.
Timing is key in combat, if you just snap away like a mother at a birthday party you’ll soon find yourself bereft of any useful film. You have an unlimited amount of Type-7 film, but it’s essentially useless (if it were Resident Evil, it would be the knife, but blunt and missing a handle), different types have film have different reload speeds and different levels of exorcism power. As a general rule, the more exorcism power, the longer the reload speed. Switching between film types also requires a reload, so if your timing is off you’ll be joining the ghosts in the afterlife pretty quickly. If your timing is spot on though, you might trigger a Fatal Frame, essentially you stun the spook and can rapidly snap away without using any film and kick some spectral behind.
As alluded to earlier Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake looks great, it’s not the most ‘photo realistic’ (see what I did there?) game in the world but it’s visual design is perfect, it matches the artistic direction of the franchise without sacrificing anything for the sake of modernity. However, as chilling as the environments are it’s the sound design that’s most harrowing. From the subtle themes that accompany you around Minakami, the creaking environmental sounds of the rundown homes and shrines and most hauntingly, the despair ridden groans of the spirits themselves, it all combines to suffuse every step you take with a ethereal dread, a dread that sets Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake apart from it’s contemporaries.
While brilliantly unnerved by every artistic design choice in Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake just as alarming were it’s technical abilities. The game runs at 2160p (upscaled) and on console is locked at 30FPS. For a game releasing in 2026 this is disappointing but in all honesty it didn’t dampen the experience in the slightest. Strong art design trumps technical capability every single time in my book. If the technical stats are important to you than I can’t argue, however, for me it’s the experience that will stay with you and said experience is precisely why I’d recommend you pick up Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake.
A review code was provide by Koei Temco.
