Hands-on Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
Really freakin' creepy.
by Matt Casamassina
US, July 31, 2008 - After months of waiting, Nintendo has finally released Fatal Frame: Masked of the Lunar Eclipse in Japan, and, naturally, we've already got our import copies. Tecmo's Fatal Frame franchise was born on PlayStation 2 as a nightmarishly creepy survival-horror-inspired affair whose main character used not a gun but a camera to point and shoot her ghostly enemies. The mysterious camera obscura, enabling its users to capture spirits onto its film, has become a mainstay of the series, which has seen two sequels on PS2 and Xbox over the years. Tecmo threw fans for a loop in 2007, though, when it announced that it had partnered with Nintendo to make a new Fatal Frame game exclusively for Wii. Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, a joint effort by Tecmo and Grasshopper Manufacture (yes, the same Grasshopper Manufacture headed by No More Heroes creator Suda 51) is the result of that partnership. It's an undertaking that hardcore Wii owners have anticipated since its unveiling. So now that we've finally gone hands-on with the end product, does it live up to the expectations?
In some ways, absolutely. Mask of the Lunar Eclipse follows the exploits of several different characters, of which at least three (and possibly as many as six) are playable at different points of the adventure. The story begins roughly 10 years ago, when five young girls have been kidnapped and held by an unknown assailant holed up in a shadowy mansion on Rougetsu Island. Eventually, a detective named Choushiro Kirishima rescues the girls, but their tale is hardly at an end. Present day and two of the girls, now teenagers, have been killed. Hoping to find out more about their past and how this may have happened, two more original hostages, Misaki Asou and Madoka Tsukimori, return to Rougetsu Island -- and go missing, which sets up a domino effect. Fearing the worst, Ruka Minazuki, the final remaining kidnap victim, follows, only to discover that something is terribly wrong with the mansion. (Apparently, the detective himself eventually returns to the place, but we have not progressed that far into the title yet.)
The Fatal Frame series has successfully delivered some of the best scares across the survival horror genre and Mask of the Lunar Eclipse effectively takes up the reigns. The game oozes atmosphere from the moment you start playing, partly because you're never quite sure what lies in store, either around the next corner or for your main characters, who seem disposable. Take, for example, that Asou and Tsukimori introduce the first chapter and while are we aren't completely convinced, both appear to meet horrible fates. When you finally take control of Ruka at some point a little later, you understand that anything is possible, which is a little unnerving.
Further enhancing the mood is the presentation, which is one part Resident Evil, one part Silent Hill and a third part The Ring. The game wastes no time getting started -- you're thrust into the role of innocent and naive Ruka shortly into the experience, and in the very beginning she's armed with nothing but a flashlight. As she explores darkened corridors, she will walk by rooms whose doors open, revealing ghostly faces with dead-black eyes. Some ghosts will stare at her through doorways. Others will see her and creep toward the next room. There's always an air of isolation and impending doom, which creates an intense sensation of horror and claustrophobia. Grasshoppper and Tecmo have choreographed chilling cut-scenes designed to rattle you, from in-world speaker systems that go haywire, blasting alarms, to psychedelic overlays that strip away reality. Shortly after Ruka finally does grab hold of the camera obscura, the game's primary weapon, she focuses on some nearby paintings, pans slightly to the left and right onto the staring face of a truly haunting ghost, which lurches forward. Not cool. The enemy character designs, many of them bloodied, insane women with eight-ball eyes, scare the hell out of us.
Mask of the Lunar Eclipse's control scheme works -- you manipulate the characters with the nunchuk's analog stick, open doors and pick up items with the A button, access a map with the plus button, strafe left or right by holding the C button and moving the analog stick in the appropriate direction, run by holding Z-trigger and can perform a quick 180-spin by motion with the nunchuk or Wii remote.
However, in terms of capitalizing on the strengths of Nintendo's controller, we have to cite this game as one of the biggest missed opportunities in recent times, because it completely ignores the fact that the Wii remote has an IR pointer. Why, we have no idea, because as Ruka points her flashlight around darkened environments and focuses her camera on ghosts, we can't help but wonder -- time and time again -- why we can't control both quicker and more precisely using the Wii remote. Instead, the flashlight automatically shines wherever Ruka is looking (with the analog stick) and you control the camera obscura -- get this -- using a combination of the analog stick for left and right movement and Wii remote waggle for up / down movement. That waggle stuff also extends into standard game camera control. While Ruka can look around with the analog stick, all up / down movement is mapped to pulling back or pushing forward with the Wii remote -- which, by the way, feels retarded, not to mention slow. We've come to expect stupid controls like this from Wii-ignorant third-parties, but from a game published by Nintendo, it's just sad. (We really hope someone at Nintendo didn't step in and suggest that the controls be made more accessible. If so, we might just throw up.)
Clearly, we're not thrilled with the forced waggle camera control, but even with this ridiculously idiotic mechanical decision, we continue to trek through the darkened mansion in search of answers and we think that fans of survival horror will ultimately be pleased with this latest entry into the series. We've already jumped out of our chairs several times and we haven't even brought the game home, dimmed the lights and turned up the volume yet. Truth be told, we might be too scared to try it. See why via these new 480p direct-feed movies we've posted.
Fatal Frame: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has not been officially announced for a stateside release yet, but we presume it will only be a matter of time before Nintendo of America does so. We will continue to report on the import version and let you know when NOA comments on a U.S. version.