Fatal Frame III: The Tormented - First playthrough log

Prologue

Rei and her friend are in some old building for some reason. Rei mentions that she wishes this place were haunted... then suddenly she notices something, and sees what seems to be the ghost of her dead boyfriend down the hallway.

This starts out kinda similar to Fatal Frame 1. There's a grainy noir film filter over everything as you're wandering the hallways. It looks really cool when you use the viewfinder. Right now Rei just has a normal camera, although I can get points for shooting non-aggressive ghosts this early on.

Wow wtf, I just wandered into a hallway and got killed by the first aggressive ghost in the game, since my camera can't capture them yet... At first I thought maybe I wasn't supposed to go that way yet? But then when I respawned, it put me in a whole different area... what's going on?

I'm in some kind of temple/shrine looking building now. Rei sees the ghost of her dead boyfriend, and tries to catch up to him... Then suddenly she wakes up and is on the ground surrounded by a bunch of same-looking priestess girls, and they attack Rei with some cursed stakes or something... then she wakes up for real out of her daydream, she's still in that same building with her friend standing there...

Later, she processes a photo of the guy she saw in the hallway earlier, proving that wasn't just a daydream... Then that night, Rei is dreaming and ends up back at the outside of this huge temple building.

Hour 1 - The Sign

Now I'm wandering the hallways inside this temple like building... There's a few ways to go now. There's a bunch of locked doors, including some with special symbols on them... but the only way I can go is to the 2nd floor where I find the Camera Obscura, and a save lantern.

Then there's a couple fights against some angry woman and a younger girl... These enemy animations are really good.

And then Rei finds some an actual living person who is freaking out and wishing she hadn't survived... and and another person covered in tattoos who starts chasing Rei, and she freaks out and runs out of the house, and wakes up as soon as she steps out of the house.

Right after waking up, some kind of nasty bruise starts appearing on Rei's skin, but it goes away once her friend shows up to snap her out of it. The atmosphere of this bedroom looks so incredibly normal and non-spooky compared to the usual atmosphere...

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly - Hard Mode playthrough log

I decided to start a new game plus, on hard mode... I realized you can now skip cutscenes with the 1 button, awesome, that helps a lot. There's a lot of vanishing ghosts in the Osaka house in chapter 1 that are kinda tricky to get, even when you expect them. I ended still missing a couple ghosts in that chapter now because I wasn't following the guide closely enough. I then started chapter 2, and already missing 1 ghost in a group of 3 vanishing ghosts that appear at the same time... but that's fine I can leave these few stragglers for a 3rd playthrough.

Ghost list is now 66% complete.. I played for 3 hours and this playthrough is now at about 1 hour of game time...

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly part 5 (Normal Mode ending)

Chapter 8... when we went to the storehouse, Itsuki was there hanging from the ceiling... Mayu stands there crying... Mio inspects the place and finds a map showing where all the pinwheels are that are needed to unlock the tunnel leading out of the village, as well as Itsuki's diary...

This whole chapter is just going around revisiting a few areas of the village to get the pinwheel items... and you can also revisit some other places and get some extra cutscenes with Mio and Mayu... Mayu says that bridge area is nostalgic and they used to play together there... and a bunch more cool story bits...

I then went to that tree cave, which now has a spirit in front of it, and the picture of that shows me the inside of the Kureha shrine. Mayu is complaining about her leg as she follows Mio up the big staircase... I defeated the ghost there that was blocking the tree... and also found a ghost image of Sae and Yae going into that area at the back of the shrine, where that door is that is covered in talismans... I figured out that door is actually where the tunnel leading out of the village is... the twins were escaping at that point.

When I went inside the tree cave, Mayu got tired and had to rest... I couldn't do anything but leave Mayu there, again... I didn't want to though because I could see where this was going...

I then went to get all the pinwheel items without Mayu... I had to battle a bunch of ghosts, all of them refights... and got some more hide n seek ghost children in Osaka house... Then went back to Mayu... surprisingly she was still there. I used the pinwheels to unlock the exit... but then suddenly as we headed for the shrine, a whole bunch of ghosts chased us... Mayu couldn't run up the stairs fast enough, and she got caught...

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly part 4

Chapter 7 - Sae

Now I have to explore the Tachibana house without the camera... this part is really scary.. that Sae demon thing starts chasing you through the halls... I got away from her at some point, and then explored a bit of the house before running into Sae again. I felt so helpless at this part... having to hide in closets and hoping that Sae won't be there when I open the door... Then I had to do the Tachibana version of the doll puzzle. if you screw up twice then Sae catches up to you and it's game over...

Unlocked the path to the heaven bridge and crossed over back to the Kiryu house... Then I went straight for the earth passage to get the camera back... Now I can explore the Tachibana house properly.

This place kinda has a very similar layout to the Kiryu house, just with some differences in the interiors here and there... I keep getting pieces of lore about this person named Itsuki, and his twin brother Mutsiki... Itsuki is the guy who got locked up in the storehouse for letting Sae and Yae escape.. and they used these two twins as the replacement for the ceremony.. when that ceremony failed, the calamity happened, and the Sae demon took over the village and created a village of ghosts...

I see some crimson butterflies flying around now, and they lead me to where Mayu is... but when I come close to Mayu, she turns into Sae... There aren't anymore Sae chase sequences though, just cutscenes where you can't get caught by her.. I think when Mio goes around with the camera and starts shooting ghosts, Sae's influence gets weaker. That would be a pretty good reason as to why this game doesn't have infinite random ghost encounters, and eventually become completely safe (but still eerie)...

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly part 3

Chapter 5 starts to get a bit more mellow again, after you go into the Osaka house... although there are some kinda tough ghost battles now in really tight corridors or cramped rooms... Another path in there opened up, and I found the key to the door where Mayu is trapped...

Went back to Mayu... but on the way there, I encounter a really hard battle in that underground area with a well... two ghosts that have an aura of pitch darkness... the closer you get to them, the less you are able to see...

I heard Mayu's voice once I entered that corridor again.. but when I got to that door, it was already open and Mayu was gone.. went back outside, and saw Mayu up on that bridge that connects the two houses... when I try following her there, the door she went through is locked...

The prisoner guy tells me to go to the temple to find the key to the main entrance of the Kiryu house... and from the Kiryu house I can open up an underground passage into the Tachibana house where Mayu is...

The game starts actually getting hard now... I got caught by a ghost when trying to pick up the key in the temple, and got killed by the multi-ghost battle there... 2nd attempt I managed to avoid getting caught. I kinda have a feel for how to avoid those ghost jump scares now.

Chapter 6 starts when I enter the Kiryu house through the main entrance that was locked before... This is the same house that has the film reel room where you can see videos that you've found. This house is much more confusing than the Osaka house, but not as ominous as the Kurosawa house... There are a ton of non-hostile ghost appearances here... mostly of child twins...

And the lore I'm picking up here is getting really good... There was this one twin who was forced to kill her sister... and then the father created a doll of her sister to give to her... and later the doll became possessed and the girl was talking to it and stuff. The dad determined the doll was evil and must be killed, but the girl didn't want to kill the doll...

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly part 2

I tried out all 3 of the haunted house modes... That was really dumb. it's just a thing where you hold A to progress through an on-rails stage, while looking around and completing certain objectives and while also trying not to shiver or fidget... It detects your shivering from the Wii's motion sensor, I guess... but it seem very inaccurate... it automatically saves photos of the moments that made you shiver the most... it's really dumb.

Then I continued with the story... Got through Chapter 3 very quickly... At this point I'm more used to the Wii controls... I'm able to get Zero shots and Fatal Frame shots a lot more consistently now... After going through that haunted house stuff I kinda got a better feel for how the gyro works in this. It doesn't quite work as good as in Skyward Sword but I can manage, and it's definitely worth playing this version over the original PS2 version just because of the vastly improved graphics and sound.

Got part of the way through chapter 4.. Just after a doll puzzle.

It's not quite as scary as the first game... Most of the ghosts so far are very predictable, and all the scariest stuff happens during cutscenes when you aren't in control.

I'm getting really into this story now... It seems like the real names of Mio and Mayu are Yae and Sae... it's still very shrouded in mystery, but I think these twins were originally supposed to take part in the crimson butterfly ritual, where the two become one in order to seal the gate to the abyss and stop a calamity from happening... Mayu is starting to regain her memory of this place, and says "we are responsible for all these people dying..."

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly part 1

Started playing the Wii version. Immediately I noticed a huge improvement in graphics over the first game... Instead of taking place in a huge mansion, this game takes place in a mysterious village...

The twins Mio and Mayu are hanging out in the woods somewhere, when suddenly Mayu (the one with a slightly broken leg) gets lured somewhere by red butterflies... Mio follows her and they come to a village with some kind of ritual stuff going on...

The first chapter has Mayu following you around as you go into one of the houses and find the Camera Obscura, and then get locked in while battling ghosts...

At the 2nd chapter Mayu gets lured away again by red butterflies... and some creepy female ghost character takes her in... Mayu isn't even listening to her sister anymore, it's like she's brainwashed... Mio goes around trying to find a way to get to her sister who is now on the other side of a locked gate... There's a male character trapped in a storehouse who calls out to Mio through the window, and calls Mio "Yae", and says you have to find "Sae" and get both of you out of here, before you two face the same fate he did...

Fatal Frame playthrough summary/review

Quick summary of my playthrough of this game...

Clear Time: 09:55:09
Total Points: 114547
Rank D

This game was really good. Even though it had a lot of that early PS2 era jankiness with the controls and you'd often get stuck on the walls, it was a lot of fun despite those flaws.

Got a rank D for my score because I missed a lot of the vanishing ghosts in the first chapter, and probably because of that I also wasn't able to fully upgrade my camera until near the end of the game, so I wasn't getting good shots on most of the enemies for at first also. A lot of the time I would just stun-lock them until they were dead but that used up so much of my film...

I was doing that for at least the first 2 chapters... The 3rd chapter was just entirely comprised of re-exploring parts of the mansion you've already been to, but with much, MUCH harder enemies. I barely made it through the 3rd chapter with like a sliver of life left and no healing items. By the end of that chapter I had most of the camera upgrades, and was able to start taking "Zero Shots" instead of stun-locking spam in order to save film and gain more points, but it was still hard.

The final chapter was kind of stupidly easy, it was like chapter 1 difficulty. It still had a really tense atmosphere though because I didn't know what to expect. The last boss was a joke too... I really liked the ending. The whole game has a really cool story.

Not sure if I'll move onto the 2nd game right away, or take a bit of a break from this in order to not get burnt out on the gameplay...

Fatal Frame playthrough log part 3

Yep I was right... There are a couple more projectile-shooting random ghost encounters on the way back to the moon shrine, but I managed to escape them. Then I put the amulet back into the moon shrine pedestal, and a passage to the basement opened up... Down there I found another piece of the holy mirror... Then I got attacked by that crazy invincible ghost with a bunch of hands, the same one that almost got me at the end of chapter 3 (but then somehow I was saved)...

Night 4 - Final Night
This chapter is really short.. That one female ghost that always helped point out something for me... She is there now and helps me open the passage to the attic... I get a bunch of much-needed healing items and film... and eventually get to a prison cell where this helpful ghost girl is... This is where she was kept locked up until it was time for her to perform the strangling ritual.. there's a view of the atrium from there... The only link to the outside world...

I found yet another piece of the holy mirror here, as well as a bunch of diaries explaining that this woman met a guy in the garden and that guy made her more aware of the outside world and she became less willing to do the ritual... As a result, she failed the ritual and caused the calamity to happen...

After that, I got attacked by the mega ghost again... This time I had to run, because if he catches you it's automatically game over... The image is all grainy during this chase part... The path lead back down to the main floor, and eventually made it to the atrium... I don't even know if this is the right way to go, and I'm not even looking at the map, but my instincts lead me here...

When I got outside, that ghost finally stopped chasing me...

I went back down to the basement, and there's a path further ahead... Had to fight 3 ghosts at once that were a bit tough... Got a bunch more useful items... Then found some diaries from Mafuyu (Miku's brother), saying he knew about Miku being there but couldn't manage to contact her, it's like they are trapped in two different versions of the mansion... Mafuyu says that the ritual sacrifice woman thinks Mafuyu resembles her lover... Eventually I get to the end, the place where the strangling ritual actually takes place... The door here is open, the calamity is coming out through it... There's the spot where the holy mirror goes...

That multi-hand ghost appears again. This time, I figure out that you can actually damage him if you have a full charge. and luckily, I have all the camera upgrades now except for the final charge level, and plenty of strong film... This boss battle was pathetically easy... He comes toward you at a snail's pace, is visible half the time, and only teleports a little bit to the left or right...

Miku's camera lights up and rockets out of her hands... It falls on the floor and breaks... The boss ghost isn't fully destroyed yet and is still coming toward me. That helpful girl ghost points to the broken camera. I go there and find the last piece of the holy mirror... then I insert the holy mirror into its place and that ends the game...

The holy mirror destroys the demon possing Mafuyu and the ritual woman... The woman then completes her ritual to close the door and keep it closed by having herself tied up in front of it... Mafuyu is in love with this woman now and decides to stay here with her...

Clear Time: 09:55:09
Total Points: 114547
Rank D

I guess I'll try out the alt costume and at least replay a bit of the first chapter...

Wow yeah, I'm much better at this game now... Although having all the camera upgrades helps a lot.
I got some of the wanderers that I missed last time, but I still just barely missed a couple of them as I played through like half of the first chapter in about half an hour... I don't think it's worth it to go for a 100% story clear.

Oh, and I just now noticed how the grey filter when the end boss is chasing Miku... That's the same filter as when you're playing as Mafuyu at the beginning.

Oh and there's also special "battle missions" that were unlocked... Just various ghost battles where you are given only a single set of film, no healing items, and ranked based on your score and time... I beat the first 5 missions with like rank C-D... I dunno I could see this maybe being enjoyable, but I'd rather just move onto other games.

Fatal Frame playthrough log part 2

These ghosts start to get really hard at the 2nd chapter... Especially the ones that constantly cry out "my eyes, my eyes..."

I found that I can kinda cheese them a bit if I keep taking uncharged pictures of them without giving them much of a chance to move... but I don't gain many points from that... I still need a LOT more points to unlock the camera's special functions. I'm at range level 3 now which helps a lot... except for those wanderer ghosts that run by really fast, too fast for me to react..

The puzzles aren't repeating too much. The 2nd chapter has some different puzzles that the 1st didn't have...

I'm getting really into the story now... I found out the story behind the ghost women crying out "my eyes"... they were sacrificed in a blinding ritual, where they had to put on a mask with spikes in the eye sockets...

I was stuck for a while, and got to the point where I now know my way around this mansion pretty well... I had to check a guide to see where to go next, and going there activated a cutscene so that I could find the next important item to open up the next new area...

Battled a really hard boss ghost after finding the mask of reflection.. This ghost constantly teleports away, and is only visible for a split second at a time... I was able to recognize the sound it makes when it teleports so that I know when to run away, but I still ended up losing some health items.

I'm really into this game now... enough that I can look past the early ps2 era flaws like bad hit detection on the walls and stuff...

10/26/2016

End of 2nd night - Demon Tag... I finally have the blinding mask that can open the door in that ominous demon mouth room...

Had to fight a couple of really hard ghosts before that.. an annoying teleporting one in an area where you have barely any space to run around, and a blind demon...

When the door opened, the girl got visions of another person also opening this door and then getting sucked in by a ton of ghosts...

When you go in, it's quiet at first... you see the dead person from your visions on the ground... He's holding another piece of the holy mirror... Then you get attacked by a bunch of ghosts and wake up somehow back in the demon room...

3rd night - Calamity

If you go back into that demon hallway, you can get a hidden ghost there, but if you go too far in you get attacked by multiple ghosts at once. I don't think you can kill all of them, you'll just die no matter what... Although maybe if I had more powerful (and more plentiful) film I might be able to get through it...

Actually, that multi-ghost fight in the demon hall is supposed to be beatable... They aren't very hard individually, but 3 of them together are a pain. Sometimes you can get a double shot or triple shot with all 3 of them in the frame for more points.

That hallway leads to a dead end... The girl sees her brother again, passed a caved in wall, but he doesn't respond when she calls out to him...

Other than that, this whole chapter contained exactly 0 new areas... and also almost no wandering ghosts at all (I think there was 1 total).

It did have a LOT of attacking ghosts though... They seem to appear randomly, but get less and less common as you fight them. or maybe there's a set number of them that randomly appear... A lot of these random ghosts are really easy ones like the ones from the 1st chapter, but sometimes you get this really hard traveling monk ghost that spins in circles really fast and shoots projectiles at you...

I basically just re-explored the whole mansion, collecting all the items that I could. I desperately needed more film and healing items. I tried not to use up too many healing items but the sheer number of attacking ghosts in this chapter made it impossible...

Only one area that I've been to before is now locked... That shrine in the atrium outside... I eventually found the key for it by solving a puzzle with the 4 buddha statues... and that locked door was another one of those matching puzzles, harder than usual... Inside the moon shrine there was now a bunch of button terminals. 4 of them... Each had a picture leading to one of the 4 big stone/grave monuments that I've been to in previous chapters... So I had to go to each of these 4 places and fight 4 priest ghosts, They are kinda hard... sometimes they remove their head so you can't take their picture but you can still see them.. and then they put their head back on right before they're about to attack.

Oh yeah that's a thing I've started getting better at now... Shooting a ghost when the reticle turns orange, when they are coming in for an attack, gives you bonus points and also pushes the ghost back.

I now have MOST of the camera upgrades... The guide says I should have all of them by now but I missed so many wandering ghosts in the first 2 chapters... I've gained enough points to buy the paralysis special attack... it turns out to not be that good. You have to be aimed on the ghosts when you use a special or else it won't work and will still use up a stone.

Went back to the mirror shrine after defeating those 4 boss ghosts... I didn't understand how you were supposed to interpret the puzzle clues but I brute forced it easily... That made some altar come up out of the moon shrine... but instead of a thing that was supposed to be inside it, there was a bunch of blood revealed by the camera... The blood trail lead me to a previous area in the mansion, and there I had to battle the samurai ghost... This guy was insanely hard. I was all out of healing items by now, and had to use my strongest film and just barely survived on the 2nd attempt.

I'm still not even sure if that was the last battle of this chapter... I hope so because there are NO healing items available anymore in this chapter. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to take this item I got from the samurai ghost back to the moon shrine next.

Fatal Frame playthrough log part 1

I really like this atmosphere... at first you're playing as some guy coming here for research, and everything is grainy and in black and white.. The game teaches you the camera controls and stuff... Then you show up to the mansion as that guy's sister, a few weeks later... You find his camera and some notes from him.

The controls are really clunky and bad though. I'm really looking forward to playing the Wii U one which seems like a perfect fit for camera controls. Also I really hate how you don't get a prompt for any of the stuff you can examine... Oh well I guess all of the things you NEED to examine are highlighted at least.

wtf I am totally stuck already in the first section of the mansion. Every door is locked, and I've walked around everywhere several times...
Oh... so I guess there's certain hidden doors that you have to reveal by taking a picture of it...

10/22/2016

Holy shit, that really creepy effect that happens when you leave the screen paused... Bloody handprints showing up all over the screen... That is crazy.

Played for 2.5 hours tonight... Now I understand that when the camera icon turns blue, it means there is something nearby that you can take a picture of with the camera to reveal something that can't normally be seen... The icon glowing blue means that you are near a hidden object or stationary ghost that you need to shoot with the camera... The viewfinder gives you further hints about where that thing is... When the icon glows red, it means there is a mobile ghost nearby that you need to shoot... There's a lot to get used to, but it's fun once you do get used to it.

The 2 kinds of mobile ghosts are wandering ghosts that escape if you don't shoot them in time, and attack ghosts that chase you and attack you.

I'm really liking this game now. The controls take a bit getting used to, and I'm still often screwing up which button does what... I hate how sometimes you need to run away from the attack ghosts but there is literally no space to run around them and you just have to get attacked... The teleporting ghosts are especially hard, they are like boss battles...

The creepiest part yet was when I was in this room filled with expensive looking dolls on shelves... and kid voices kept calling out to me wanting me to play... and when I found the seal needed to destroy the talisman that was blocking a door in another room, at that point the children ghosts started crawling on the floor and coming toward me... Such ridiculously scary atmosphere there holy shit... Even after the ghosts were gone this room was still unsettling...

I also really like the puzzles... This kind of stuff is really addicting. it's kind of like Luigi's Mansion where you just gotta inspect everything and hope you find the object you need to open a passage in another area.. and sometimes you need to inspect with the camera... The wandering ghosts are sometimes really hard to get. They always appear within the viewing area of the screen, but not always within the viewing area of the camera in your current location.

I'm still on the Strangling Ritual chapter... I think I'm getting near the end of it though... I'm outside the mansion now, and just unlocked a torch to find some kind of key object that I probably need somewhere, and got to another outdoor area with a really hard boss ghost and a save point...