Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Review (PS2)

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (PS2) Review

Date Released: 27 November 2003

Date Played: 11 January 2022

Introduction:

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is the sequel to Tecmo's 2001 survival horror game, Fatal Frame.  Although it is highly related to the first game in the series in both terms of atmosphere, gameplay, and lore, Fatal Frame II is its own separate story and requires no knowledge of the first title in order to fully enjoy. According to Wikipedia and several sources, many players were too frightened to finished the first game in the series so the Tecmo team toned down the difficulty on the sequel and even attempted to give it a more interesting story so that more players would have the courage to finish the game this time around. The game was a critical and commercial success and is considered by many to be the best game in the series and survival horror classic.  Not only that, it's widely considered to be one of the scariest video games of all time.  

Story:

Although it isn't a continuation of the first game in the series, Fatal Frame II follows the same basic storyline as the first game with a few variations. The game takes place in 1988 and you play as Mio who is visiting a favorite childhood town with her twin sister, Miyu, before it is destroyed by the construction of a dam.  While exploring the woods of their youth, Miyo becomes entranced by a glowing butterfly and the two girls follow it to a mystical place called "All God's Village."  As the two explore, they soon learn that the village was home to a terrible and grotesque event known as the Crimson Sacrifice Ritual.  In the past, the village was built over the hell gate and this sacrifice had to be performed once a decade in order to appease the evil spirits in the gate and save the town from destruction.  Needless to say, something went wrong and the ritual failed.  This left the village shrouded in darkness and obviously extremely haunted.

As you explore as Mio with Miyu in tow, you uncover journals that fill in the story and explain more about the ritual and its disturbing nature.  In addition to that, you start having flashbacks of the previous events of the ritual that are extremely upsetting and horrifying.  You quickly learn that the ritual requires a pair of twins to be sacrificed to appease the spirits. Being twins themselves, this doesn't bode well for the sisters.  And, in an uncommon and surprisingly logical decision for a horror setting, Mio decides that they need to get out of the village right now. Unfortunately, Miyu is behaving strangely and seems possessed.  As you can clearly see where this is going, Miyu wanders off and you have to rescue her.  

At this point you're all alone as Mio and it's where the game really begins.  You'll soon find yourself beset by a host of macabre and horrid spirits as you explore around the village and its houses trying to locate Miyu and uncover more of the history of the village and its previous inhabitants.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is exactly like it was in the first game and is the "gimmick" and hallmark of the Fatal Frame series.  Instead of attacking spirits directly with a weapon, you instead find the Camera Obscura.  It's an old timey camera that has the ability to exorcise spirits by photographing them. This, along with your flashlight and a handful of healing items, are really the only tools you have at your disposal for dealing with all of the spirits who are actively trying to kill you.  Combat works by looking through the camera's viewfinder and photographing the spirit at the ideal time to deal damage.  This ideal time is usually right as the spirit is directly in your face and about to attack so things can get tense quickly.  Spending more time focusing on the spirit and letting them get closer will deal critical damage to the spirits and is essential to gameplay going so far to the point that certain spirits can only be harmed this way.  These critical shots not only deal orders of magnitude of more damage, they also stun and send the spirits flying backwards and give you more time to line up your next shot.  There is a glow bulb on the camera that gets brighter as you are aiming closer to a spirit and learning to master this is required of you because the spirits will hide, teleport, turn invisible, dodge, and perform any trick in the book to sneak in a hit on you. Doing well in combat will earn you more experience points and items to upgrade the strength of the Camera Obscura and its abilities.  Additionally, there are different types of film that can be collected as you explore.  These have different levels of effectiveness against the spirits in terms of damage dealt and reloading time.  Some of the strongest films are very rare and you'll need to save them for the most dire situations.  This also means you'll need to explore the environments of the game thoroughly to collect any film and healing items that may be hidden away and out of sight. This is a really great combat system that carries with it a great sense of risk versus reward and keeps the tension extremely high.  Not only that, but looking through the camera's viewfinder puts the game into first person mode so the spirits really get right up into your face for maximum fear factor.  You know what else happens when you view something in a first person view?  You can't see what's behind you...

Outside of the combat, you'll be exploring the village in 3rd person view.  It's the tried and true style of most survival horror games of the time with static camera shots from a series of cinematic and sometimes odd angles as your character moves through them.  The tank controls of the early Resident Evil games are pleasantly absent from the Fatal Frame games, but there is still the inescapable issue of walking down a hallway, having the camera angle snap to the next location, which is in a different orientation, and having the direction you press with the analog stick get reversed and you end up running somewhere you didn't intend.  It's a common occurrence in these sorts of games and should be expected if you know what you're getting in to.  However, I will say that the juxtaposition of the camera angles in this game are more extreme and jarring than usual and it's very easy to get disoriented as the camera angles shift.  I had a difficult time getting my bearings quite often and would constantly run in the wrong direction from where I was intending to go.  This led to me constantly having to check my map to orient myself.  Now, normally, I would say that doing this would interrupt the immersiveness of the experience and was a detriment to gameplay; but in the case of Fatal Frame II and it's extremely heavy and terrifying atmosphere... it was a welcome break and I didn't mind it as much.

As you continue to explore, you'll have to solve various puzzles, unlock doors, and find clues in order to continue your progress.  These puzzles typically involve a door blocked by a spirit.  You photograph it and it shows a location somewhere else that you have to find and photograph.  Once you do that, the door will unlock and you can continue. This type of puzzle is unique to the series, and you'll encounter a fair number of them during your 10 or so hours for a first playthrough. The other types of puzzles are finding specific spirits that you have to destroy to get a key item (usually a literal key) to unlock another door blocking your way.  These will oftentimes lead you to a puzzle where you have to make two statues face each other, or line up some spinning wheels to the correct positions, etc.  These are still a fun and much needed staple of the genre and give you a reprieve from the tense gameplay.  Sadly, there are a few times in the game where you're not given what I would consider to be enough information to really know how to proceed with advancing the story.  For example, there's one section where you need to find a key with a bell on it.  You encounter a spirit of a young girl in a white kimono shortly thereafter.  As you see her, there is the audible clinking of a bell which leads you to believe that defeating her will give you the key.  Unfortunately, after she's defeated, no such key is dropped.  Apparently, what you're supposed to do is wander aimlessly around the giant house you're exploring while listening for a bell chime.  Essentially, you're unknowingly playing a game of hide and seek with the girl's spirit.  Ok.... fine.     But, where it gets unreasonable is that you're supposed to do it FIVE TIMES. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong.  I would find the girl, defeat her, and nothing would happen.  I had to look up a walkthrough to help me through this part.  Needless to say, I'm not the only one who got stuck at this point.

In essence, it's the same sort of survival horror gameplay we all know and love.  Other than the novel combat mechanic, there's little in the gameplay department to set it apart from the likes of Resident Evil or Silent Hill.  And... that's a good thing.  

Presentation:

Much like the Camera Obscura adds an interesting twist on the gameplay in the Fatal Frame series, the aesthetic choices also set it apart from its peers.  Rather than have a typical haunted mansion or town set in the West, this series opts for a traditional Japanese setting with wood panel walls, tatami mats, and paper doors.  This blends flawlessly with the Japanese horror setting of the game and makes the player feel like they are in even more strange and foreign environment.  The oppressive greys and browns of the dilapidated wood walls and floors only serve to add more tension to the experience as the player has nothing familiar to cling to for comfort and the Japanese mysticism woven through story and décor only serves to increase this feeling of making the player feel out of their element and truly rounds out the whole experience.  The graphics are quite good for a game of its time and while it does tiptoe around the uncanny valley in terms of character design, they at least appear crisp and well defined. 

On top of the creepy visuals, you're also attacked by the game's magnificent sound design. There are a wide variety of moans, whispered threats, slamming objects, and spine-chilling laughs coming from the ghosts around you.  It's all very unsettling and will make your skin crawl from time to time.  In the segments where Miyu is following you, she'll often say odd and disturbing things that completely abate the tiny bit of solace you would normally get from not being alone.  There isn't much comfort in not knowing if the person you're with might snap at any moment.

On top of all of this, there is a very creepy and ambient soundtrack that fits right along with all of the other terrifying aspects of the game.  It can, at times, make your gameplay session a little too heavy and you'll be begging to find that next save point to take a break and recollect your nerves. These save points were a masterstroke of genius as when you activate them, they play an epic and sweeping song that has almost no element of being dark and sinister.  It's honestly more gorgeous and uplifting than anything else, and can be exactly what the player needs to have their spirits lifted just enough to keep playing for a little longer. I have to hand it to the designers because this was such an incredibly good idea and I wish more games did something like this to motivate the player.

As for the character and enemy design, I feel like it's a bit of a mixed bag.  The spirits are mostly all well designed and frightening with a good amount of thought put into them. But, there are often the occasional fights against the ghost of your average dead villager with a sickle that pads out the combat encounters and feels uninspired. Luckily, for every one of those, you're also given some fantastic and memorable encounters that will stick in your mind for a while. Some of these are fantastic and there are more than a few that really stand out. The Falling Woman encounter is one of the craziest, most disturbing, and unforgettable moments I've seen in a horror game and was my favorite part of Fatal Frame II.  If you decide to play this game, be on the lookout for it. 

As for the main character's design, I have to say I'm not really a fan.  Mio and Miyu don't really feel or look that interesting to me and pale in comparison to the other heroines of the series.  I was so nonplussed by their design and personality that I was finding it a little hard to sympathize with their plight during the game.  I know the developers were going for the naïve, young, and innocent sort of character stylings for these two, but it makes them come across as hollow, incapable, and one dimensional. Miyu, with her constant creepy talk, repeatedly getting lost/kidnapped, ineptitude, and general pathetic demeanor made me want Mio to just abandon her and escape the village by herself.  I feel like this was a pretty big mistake on the part of Tecmo and they could have really elevated the game by putting a little bit more into the characters.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts:

Fatal Frame II is definitely scary and deserves a lot of the praise it's given.  However, it does have some glaring flaws and issues that need to be addressed.  Firstly, it doesn't set itself apart from the first game enough to make it stand out to me.  It's basically the exact same story as the first Fatal Frame as you're exploring around trying to save someone who is going to be sacrificed to keep the hell gate closed.  This time you're in a village instead of a mansion, but you still spend most of your time inside large houses within the village.  Even though they are different houses, everything has the exact same look to it with grey and brown wood everywhere and other than the layouts and a few special rooms, almost every location in Fatal Frame II looks and feels the same.  It could have benefitted greatly from a little variety in terms of different environments. Also, I don't think the lore and story of the second game equal that of the first one.  The details of the ritual and history of the hell mouth didn't feel as fleshed out this time around and the reason for Mio and Miyu's time in the village felt a little uninspired.  Maybe if I liked the characters better and they were more interesting, I would have been more invested in the story.  The ending of the game is meant to be impactful and shocking, but because of a lack of empathy for the characters, it didn't hit quite as hard as the developers might have wanted and I was ready for the game to be over by this point. There are 3 endings on the PS2 version of the game and I only saw the "canon" ending.  There's an additional bad ending and a special ending for finishing the game on the hardest difficulty. 

While the combat is more refined and far easier than the first game, fighting the spirits can still be a huge pain and hassle.  Unlike zombies and monsters, ghosts can phase in an out, teleport around, walk though walls, turn invisible, and attack you from any direction.  There are a fair number combat encounters in this game where you're in a narrow hallway and there are ghosts attacking you through the walls (sometimes from multiple angles).  You know where they are because of the glow bulb indicator on the camera, but you can't actually see them because the stupid wall is in the way.  Or you're trying to run past an enemy for a better vantage point, but another ghost grabs you from nowhere as you are trying to sneak by.  It can be extremely frustrating when you get hit 7 or 8 times in a row and blow through all of your healing items just trying to get in one single shot on an enemy but you can't because the environment is preventing you from actually playing the game.  I finally decided the best way to do the combat was to just stand still in the middle of the room and wait for the spirits to come to you while turning to face them.

Exploring around, which is usually my favorite part of any survival horror game, is somewhat diminished this time around because of the similarity of all the environments.  Remember when I said I had a difficult time getting my bearings earlier?  Everything is dark and wooden and just blends together in the most murky and boring way. I never got that sense of familiarity with this game as you do with some other survival horror games.  Also, this game is dark.  Not only in terms of setting and mood, but also in terms of the gamma.  When I first turned it on, I couldn't see anything.  I was struggling to make out the characters on the screen and spent 20 minutes or so wandering aimlessly around a room trying to figure out what was wrong.  Looking online, I saw that many people had the same problem.  Even though I play all my retro games on a Sony Trinitron CRT TV that has fantastic lighting on it, I was forced to turn up the gamma in the game to its maximum setting and turn up the brightness on my TV a fair amount.  Even after doing this, I felt like the game wasn't bright enough.  I know that darkness adds a lot of atmosphere and scariness, but you still need to be able to see what you're doing.

Finally, there's the few times where you're stuck in the the, "I don't know where to go or what to do," loop that plagues so many games.  It doesn't ruin the experience, but I definitely had to consult a walkthrough a couple of times to avoid walking around the same bland and repetitive environments over and over trying to figure out how to advance the story. The developers could have increased the enjoyment of the game greatly by giving a bit more direction when it comes to completing these tasks.

Overall, I think that Fatal Frame II is a very good survival horror game and a bonified classic. Saying that it's, "one of the scariest games of all time," could be true for the time when it was released because it's till tense and very creepy almost 20 years later. The game looks very good for a PS2 game and I didn't encounter any bugs or graphical issues whatsoever and there were no technical issues (other than the gamma) that took me out of the experience. Sure, it has a few issues with recycling its ideas from the first game in the series, boring characters, and repetitive environments but still stands out as a worthwhile horror game overall. I feel like the first Fatal Frame edges it out just a  bit in terms of originality, story, characters, and setting.  But, the second game wins in terms of gameplay;  so I guess it's a bit of a wash. 

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is still worth your time if you like survival horror games.  It holds up very well in this day and age and still brings plenty of fear inducing moments and decent gameplay to the table.  If you haven't tried a game from the series, you're missing out.

Final Status: Beaten (10 hours)

Final Score: 8/10 (still great)

Into the Dead 2 (Nintendo Switch) Review

Into the Dead 2 (Nintendo Switch) Review

Release Date: 25 October 2019

Date Played: 3 November 2021

Into the dead is a mobile game through and through.  The fact that this game was ported to the Nintendo Switch and given a physical release is shocking to say the least.  The microtransactions have all been removed as far as I can tell, but there's still that tedious series of unlockables mixed with repetitive gameplay that is such a hallmark of the mobile game market we all know today.  However, even with this off-putting presentation, Into the Dead 2 still manages to eek out a little bit of fun and novel ideas for the gamer that gives it a shot.

The gameplay is pretty unique and I can't remember seeing or playing anything quite like it.  It's basically a first-person shooter that has an on-rails auto running mechanic.  You begin the each level in a sprint and you can never stop or slow down.  This boils down to you having to bob, weave, and dodge your way through the hordes of zombies while picking up ammunition and blasting them when they get in your way.  The objective of each level is to reach a certain distance and because you're always on the move and constantly dodging, at times this feels like more of a racing game.  And to tell you the truth, it was kind of a welcome change from the same old genres of games that we see released over and over. You begin each stage with the same amount of limited ammunition and have to conserve it until you can collect more by running over supply crates.  There are only a handful of enemy types and they all behave pretty much exactly the same and only differ in appearance and how many shots it takes to dispatch them. Mostly they stand still and just wait to meet their maker, but occasionally one will decide to jump in front of your path or chase you a bit.  This can lead to some tense sections as you try to navigate your way through the 60 main story missions.    

Since you are auto running and can only veer left and right, your choices are limited in terms of navigation. You can chose your path to a certain degree but you're always running in the same direction.  It's like being on a highway where you can choose which lane you want to drive in, but you're always heading North. Still, there is some variance in the levels and some cool temporary items to be found like chainsaws, mounted turrets, and weed eaters to help you massacre the zombie horde.  Pretty much every level feels exactly the same and after playing through all the main story missions, side missions, and arcade challenges, the game does get very repetitive.  Compounding this problem is that many of the areas feel very similar and you'll find yourself traversing the same corn fields, country farms, trainyards, mobile home parks, forests, and country roads over and over.

To help with the tedium, and true to it's mobile phone roots, this game has a bevy of unlockables. These are achieved by completing story missions, side missions, arcade challenges, and earning medals from completing mission specific objectives like killing a certain number of zombies, running through barns, exploding barrels, using special ammunition, and more.  Going back through the game and earning these medals is the key focus of the gameplay cycle and even determines which of the 3 endings you'll get for story mode. But, as you can imagine, playing through these same stages over and over only adds to the repetitive nature of the game and wears on your patience even more. At least there are tons of guns to unlock and upgrade.  These range from your standard pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and SMGs to more exotic fare like crossbows, grenade launchers, mini-guns, sawblade launchers, and more. These guns feel great and have nice sound design and a heft to them that would be most welcome in any first person shooter.  The shotguns, in particular, sound and feel amazing.  In addition to this, you also have an animal companion on each stage.  These are unlocked much like the guns mentioned earlier.  These companions can help out by killing zombies, finding ammunition, calling a pack of wolves, etc..  There are several canine buddies, wolves, tigers, bears, hell-hounds, and more to help you out and they all have their strengths and weaknesses.  Upgrading them makes them significantly stronger, and you'll find yourself really enjoying watching them run around on screen and wreaking havoc while helping you out.  

There are also several side stories that are unlocked by completing story missions.   Most of these are just supplemental parts to the main story, but there are 2 special chapters unlocked towards the end of the game.  The first of these is a separate story based on Night of the Living Dead and the second is based on Ghostbusters.   The fact that the developers of this game got the licenses to make DLC based on these well established franchises kind of blows my mind.  They are a welcome addition and really help to add some fresh content into a game that gets pretty stagnant.

As for the story, you play as a father who gets stranded on foot while out on a supply run during the zombie apocalypse.  Your sister and young daughter are stuck back at base camp waiting on you to return.  Each chapter starts and ends with you radioing your sister to move the story forward.  As a father, I was quite moved by the whole dynamic of trying to get home to your little girl.  It's a tragic story and was difficult for me to watch the events of the game unfold. Perhaps this touched me more than it would the average gamer and that's why I was more engaged with the experience than the reviewers online seemed to be.  Maybe my standards are lower, but I was taken aback to see how poor the critical reception for this game was. 

I think there's a good story here, but its presentation is severely lacking.  If you're going to tell a good story, you need to show and not tell.  Unfortunately, the developers decided to present the entire story as dialog over the main character's radio.  There are all of these events that happen that you're told about but all you ever get to do as the player is just hear it and run towards it.  Then, they use the cheap storytelling device of moving the goalpost right as you get there.  First, you're trying to get to the base, so you run that way.  Then, over the radio you hear the base is attacked and everyone has to flee.  They then tell you where they fled to and you proceed to run that way.   Then, you hear something bad happens there and they have to leave again... and you have to run to the new location.  Repeat this for every single chapter and you'll have a good idea of how the plot is expressed. It feels cheap and like it's only there to pad the story.  As someone who was invested in seeing the main character get home to his daughter, having her constantly moved just out of my reach was a demoralizing and frustrating experience.  It really helped me empathize with the main character's plight and I felt a lot of the anxiety he was having to go through. On a positive note, the voice actress who plays Helen, your sister, does a good job and is very believable.  If it wasn't for her, a lot of the emotion of the game would be lost and your waning motivation to continue would be absolutely extinguished.   Also, the game has 3 endings based on how many medals you've unlocked by completing those supplementary challenges on your journey.  The normal (BAD) ending is absolutely tragic and really sapped my energy to keep playing.  In order to get the other endings, you basically have to complete every single objective in the game... and that's a lot of grinding in a game that already has too much of that to begin with.  It's absolutely not worth it in my opinion and what little investment I had in the story was completely crushed by the developer's choice to lock the good ending behind such a difficult task.

Even with the repetitive gameplay, dull graphics, lack of music, and extremely flawed storytelling, I was having a decent time with Into the Dead 2.  I found it to be somewhat addictive to play and unlocking new weapons, stages, and companions kept me motivated... just like a mobile game is supposed to do.  I wish the game had some boss fights or something to add a little variance into the game.  There is the occasional mounted turret section, but these are always quite short and never even last for the duration of an entire level.  However, it's the technical issues of this game that really bring it down from a fairly fun experience to a very mediocre one.  Firstly, this game has a lot of overly long load times.  Between every stage and every time you die there is a loading screen.  These last for maybe half a minute, but that's like 25% of the length of some stages.  You'll find yourself reaching for your smartphone to stay entertained during these times because they're just such enjoyment killers.  Secondly, the game has a really bad draw distance.  You'll come over the crest of a hill and see an open field.  Then, 30 zombies will just pop into view all of a sudden.  This makes it really difficult to plan your routes and points of attack. Having a good run on a stage ruined by a technical issue like this is unforgivable.  I get that there are a lot of zombies on the screen at any given point, but that shouldn't be taxing the Switch's hardware.  Dead Rising game out over 15 years ago and it had similar graphics and hundreds of zombies on screen at once.  The developers of Into the Dead 2 should have been able to sort out this issue as one of their first tasks.

On the positive side, the Night of the Living Dead bonus chapter is the best part of the game.  It's mostly presented in black and white and has a really cool atmosphere and better presented story.  It also has a couple of sections that switch up the gameplay from an autorunner to a slow paced walk where you have to aim your flashlight to spot the enemies before they ambush you.  These two sections were by far the most tense and fun parts I had with this entire game. I liked the characters in this chapter and was invested in seeing what happened with them.  Having them there with you instead of just talking over the radio was a nice change of pace. I think an entire Into the Dead game based on this franchise would have worked a lot better than what we were actually given. Unfortunately, I wish I could say the same for the Ghostbusters chapter. It was a big letdown to say the least. I do have to give the developers kudos for finally giving us different types of enemies and a more fleshed out story, but the humor felt out of place and the proton packs and other weapons felt puny and ineffective.  The ghosts just pop out of walls and the ground and a single hit kills you. I had more trouble with the first few stages of this scenario than I did with any other part of the game. Dying several times in a single stage of this extra chapter after slamming through half of the main game without every dying once was very irritating to me.  Couple this with having to sit with the same loading screen over and over after I died was the worst experience I had with the game.   It was a real disappointment and I'm actually angry that it is the unlock for finishing the overly long and tedious 60 mission main campaign.  As a reward, it was a huge letdown and I feel like it should have been unlocked from the beginning so at least my hopes wouldn't have gotten me up too much.  Of course, without this special unlockable would people be willing to put in the time to finish the main game?  I'm not so sure.

So, my final verdict is that Into the Dead 2 is an extremely flawed and tedious game, but it can be fun in short bursts.  It is more designed for a mobile platform where you can knock out a stage or two here and there.  As for sitting down and playing through 10 or 20 stages all in a row... it's a lot to ask of a gamer and I would advise you not to attempt it.  If you do pick it up, there is some fun to be had here, but you need to space it out to short play sessions.  Don't do like I did and plow through the game in several days.  

Final Status: Beaten (Plus all side story content)

Final Score: 6/10 (a little fun)

Yomawari: Night Alone (Switch) Review:

 Yomawari: Night Alone (Switch) Review:

Date Released: October 26, 2018 (Switch Rerelease)

Date Played: October 7th, 2021

This game was originally released for the Playstation Vita back in October of 2016.  I remember hearing the game was pretty well received by both the critics and the general public so it was quickly put on my radar... but wasn't exactly the highest priority.  After all, I'm not the biggest fan of handheld gaming and wasn't really into collecting too hard for the Vita.  When they sequel to this game was released with a PS4 port, I knew I wanted to play it; but of course, I had to play the original first.  Unfortunately, I just never came across it and let it slowly move down my priority list.  After a couple of years, I was super excited to learn the game was being re-released on the Nintendo Switch with both games on the same cartridge.  I'm in!  Sign me up.  I ordered a copy from Amazon.   I patiently awaited the day for it to arrive.  When it got here, I was dismayed to learn that the package had been crushed and the game case was destroyed.   So, I returned it and requested another.  Unfortunately, Amazon had already sold through their stock and could only issue a refund.   I checked online and everywhere was sold out.   So, I waited, and waited, and waited... until the game was going for over $130.  That's totally insane.  The only other time I've ever seen a game go into the 3-digit mark after only a year was Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii.  So lame.  

It didn't look like Nippon Ichi Software was going to do another print of the game either.  I was about ready to just pony up the cash and grab it when I found a copy on Ebay that was missing the manual.   I was able to snag it for $85 (shipping and tax brought it up to $96.65).  I wasn't happy... but at least I had it.

So for the 2021 annual horror month, this game was selected and I was ready to find out if my investment was worth it.  I popped in the game and dove right in.  Honestly, it didn't take me very long to develop a first impression.  The game is very simple in terms of both story and gameplay, but has a unique aesthetic that I feel helps it stand out.   Now, I know you're asking yourself, "So, was the game worth the $100 you spent?"  Truthfully, no.  Not in terms of the experience I had while playing through the game.  Perhaps it will be worth it in terms of a monetary investment, but that's not something I typically think about too much.   Let me just say that I hope the sequel to the game that is also on the cartridge helps with the buyer's remorse.   

You play as a very young girl who is 4-7 years old.  After a surprise tragedy at the beginning of the game (and the most shocking part of the game, by the way) your sister heads out into the town to help.  It isn't long until your sister becomes lost and it's totally up to you to find her.  The art style is presented in a very cutesy children's book way that is very endearing and makes the game stand out from the pack.  You view everything from an isometric angle that only serves to add to the already unique visuals.  The game itself is actually survival horror... surprisingly.  You wander around a traditional Japanese town while searching various locales.  You'll visit the school, Shinto shrines, lots of both the vacant and parking variety, a factory, the forest, an incinerator, street after street of housing, and many more places you might expect to see.  It feels like it's a real town and is the real star of the game.  As you explore, there are copious amounts of Japanese spirits that impede your way. These can be crying girls (a la The Ring), black spirits, huge tentacle monsters, ghost dogs, corpses hanging from a noose, and a plethora of other grotesque and thought provoking horrors.  As you get closer to these spirits, your character's heartbeat will increase and your only recourse is to sneak by or run.  That's right, there's no combat in this game.  Sneak, run, or hide.  Those are your only options. Luckily, you are equipped with a flashlight that will reveal the location of the marauding spirits when you shine the light on them.  This does help the gameplay and adds a bit of strategy (this is especially true for the enemies that are attracted to light) but it leaves the whole experience feeling more like a stealth game than survival horror.  There are way too many enemies scattered all over the map and you're in a constant state of anxiety.  Many times these spirits polka dot the area and you have to find the best rout between them.  You have a stamina gauge that allows you to run for a short distance before it depletes, but if you're in the vicinity of a spirit, it depletes almost instantly.  With the overabundance of the spirits roaming around, managing this gauge becomes the real focus of gameplay.  When an enemy catches you, death is instant.  The fully black screen splattered with blood lingers for a few seconds and then drops you back at your last checkpoint. You'll be seeing the screen often... quite often.  Death is inevitable. Even though there are a lot of checkpoints and dying never sets you too far back, a lot of the sneaking sections are very frustrating with their tight tolerances for sneaking by, running, or finding a hiding spot.  This forces a lot of sections of the game to be an exercise in trial and error.  On more than a couple of occasions I became highly irritated to the point of yelling out swearwords and wanting to slam down my controller.  For a game that's only 5 hours long, that's too often. 

There is a little bit of resource management like you would expect in this style of game.  You collect stones, candles, fish, coins, matches, and a few other trinkets that can be used.  Unfortunately, most of these are extremely limited in their usefulness and are only used a couple of times during the entire game.  The game could have used some more items to play around with to add some variety to the whole situation.  Scattered around the town are little shrines called Jizo statues.  If you offer a coin to one of them, it will act as a quick save spot and also a teleport location to fast travel around the town. Obviously, these are invaluable and are a key focus of the game. Many sighs of relief were made when I saw one of these appear on my screen. The other key items of the game are basically just keys and other items that allow you to access areas previously closed off to you.  Unlike most survival horror games, you don't really solve any puzzles to get these key items.  Most are just lying on the ground or tucked away in some corner.  Exploration is the name of the game of Yomawari. You find a locked gate, explore the area a little, find a key, unlock the gate, and then move on. There are a few minor puzzles that involve pulling a switch to empty a pool and another where you have to jump between two realities to avoid enemies, but other than those the only real puzzle elements are puzzling out how to sneak past enemies. 

As mentioned before, the presentation of the game is quite good.  There is very little music in the game and I honestly only remember hearing any music during the final credits.  This gives the game a very isolated feel and certainly helps it live up to it's name, "A Night Alone."  The sound design is very good and there are certainly a good amount of loud and shocking sounds to give you a little jolt. I encountered no bugs or issues while playing and the play control was spot on.  The little girl walks pretty slowly, but I think that actually helps the game more than it hinders it.  After all, do you want a 5 year old that can outrun every spirit that's after her?  That doesn't sound very scary.

There you have it.  Yomawari is a brief survival horror-lite game with a cute and appealing aesthetic. The story is rooted in a very interesting Shinto/Japanese folklore setting that helps it stand out from the crowd and keeps things fresh.  The gameplay is very basic and never really improved or changed during my time with the game.  I really liked exploring the city, but the overabundance of enemies never really made me feel like I was free to just enjoy my surroundings and soak in the world the developers created.  Maybe if you were able to eliminate enemies instead of just avoiding them, then I would have enjoyed my time with the game a little more. The game isn't really scary, but it's almost always tense and a bit unsettling. I'm looking forward to playing the sequel.  Hopefully, they decide to add a little bit more nuance to the gameplay.

 Also, the ending.  Boy, was that... eye popping.  

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 7/10 (Good)

Resident Evil Zero HD (PS4) Review

Resident Evil Zero HD (PS4) Review

Release Date: Jan 22, 2016

Date Played: Aug 6, 2021

Capcom knew they had a hit on their hands with the remake of Resident Evil 1.  Before it was even done being developed, they apparently dove in with making a prequal to the game called Resident Evil Zero.  You can tell from the onset that they wanted to use the remake of the first game as a sort of template while adding a few changes.  In my opinion, using the template was a great idea, the changes... well, that's another story altogether.  

This game was originally released on the Gamecube back in November 2002.  At the time of it's release I had no idea it even existed as I had given up on the Resident Evil franchise after being scared to death while playing the first game back on the original Playstation.  Once that dog crashed through the window, my friend and I shut off the game and never touched it again.  Fast forward a couple of decades and I'm a pretty huge Resident Evil fan.  This is especially true after playing the HD Remake of the first game (also included in this compilation) last Halloween and falling in love with it.  I was extremely excited to give this one a try even though I knew it wasn't held in highest regard and was kind of considered the black sheep of the franchise.  Of course it couldn't live up to REmake, which is a masterpiece, but hopefully it could recapture some of that magic...

...and honestly, it did.  There is some of that majesty you experienced in the REmake tucked away in here. The game looks pretty amazing even now.  There are the gorgeous prerendered backgrounds with static camera angles that are so associated with the franchise.  There's the creepy mansion, the zombies, obtuse puzzles, item management, scarce ammo and healing items, and all the other things you would expect from a survival horror game.  It feels like a survival horror game and it feels like Resident Evil. That's a good thing and if that's what you're looking for this game is certainly an option if you exhausted everything else. The big difference comes in with those changes referenced above.  In Capcom's attempt to improve on the game, they shot themselves in the foot and turned a pretty solid game with a cool setting into a good game with terribly frustrating parts.

Right from the beginning, you realize that they have ramped up the difficulty a lot. Many people consider this to be the most difficult game in the series... and with good reason. There are more enemies that are harder to kill, fewer weapons and a lot less ammo scattered around, and there are significantly fewer healing items to be found. You'll spend most of your time in critical condition with no herbs or first aid sprays in sight.  While this does make the game a lot harder and more tense that I would prefer, I could see it being a welcome change for a lot of people.  What isn't a welcome change, however, are the two other choices the developers decided to put into this game.  Firstly, you play as two characters simultaneously.  Rebecca, a side character from the first Resident Evil game, and Billy Cohen, an escaped convict and former soldier.   While using one character, the other character can follow you to assist you with combat, solving puzzles, serving as a pack mule and carrying items, etc.  Or you you can leave them somewhere safe (but even this isn't certain) and go at it alone.  You can switch back and forth between the two characters at will by pressing a dedicated button on the controller.  While this idea is very interesting, in practice it is very unfun. When you have one person following the other, the A.I. controlling them will have them waste ammo constantly.  They also constantly get attacked and you're always having to save them.  So it essentially feels like a terrible escort quest with a bad partner. There is also constant flipping back and forth while solving a lot of puzzles and it can be an exercise in tedium. You'll spend around 80% of the game leaving Rebecca in a safe room and going solo with Billy.  Rebecca is so weak that just a few hits will kill her and she does much less damage with weapons.  With the ruthlessness of the enemies in this game, she's too much of a liability.  Speaking of said ruthlessness, the enemies in this game are unfair.  Many of them are too fast and are impossible to shoot before they get in a hit on you.  They also usually come in pairs and will stun lock your character with no way to take them out.  Whenever this happens, it's rage inducing.  There's nothing like using your last healing item, running through a door and two random zombie monkeys bum rush you and hit you 15 times and waste all of your health.  Ugh...

But even all of that is forgivable.  The most grievous sin this game commits is the inventory management system.  There are no more storage containers.  There are no backpack upgrades.  Instead each character gets 6 slots to hold stuff... and that's it.  All of the other crap you find scattered around you have to just leave it lying on the floor.  That's right, the freaking floor is the storage solution.  Many times I would find a room of items and I would have to shuttle them one at a time back to the safe area of the game.  Many times I had to traverse the entire map of the game (I'm seriously talking about running from the save point before the final boss fight all the way back to the foyer of the mansion) just to grab a single item.  The map shows where items are left on the floor, so this helps some, but it doesn't alleviate the soul sucking tedium of dealing with the constant item management.  Hell, I actually like the inventory management systems of the RE games, but this was just a step too far.  It's bullshit, and everyone knows it...

The setting of the game is fairly good with some nice environments even if the story itself makes little to no sense.  Rebecca and her S.T.A.R.S. teammates find themselves in the woods checking out a downed helicopter.  The soon discover it was transporting a convict (Billy).  Horror movie clichés ensue and Rebecca soon finds herself on a gothic themed passenger train separated and alone.  You encounter Billy and team up.  You'll soon realize that the standard run by the zombie to save your ammo method doesn't really work anymore.  It's hard to run by a group of zombies when you're on a cramped train and there's hardly any room in the aisle.  After solving a series of puzzles, battling through the undead, and downing a boss, you'll come crashing into the Umbrella Training Facility.  This is basically just a mansion and where you'll spend most of your time in the game.  It is very reminiscent of REmake and both it and the train are the two best parts of the game.  Of course, you'll progress down into underground areas, industrial complexes, giant elevators, and all the rest of the stuff you usually experience in these games... but it never really hits the high note of the beginning of the game. Over the course of the game you'll uncover the mystery of what has happened at the training facility.  Of course someone has been experimenting with a virus, things went wrong, now there are zombies.  It's the same as every other game in the franchise.  This one tries to up the drama by having a mysterious shadow antagonist with special abilities be the mastermind behind everything... but you soon realize it's just a revenge story and the big twist at the ending doesn't really make any sense... or even matter.  Rebecca is fine as a character and has decent design with some cool alternate costumes but, like I said earlier, is unforgivingly weak.  So, being stuck with Billy is the only option... and he isn't very likeable.  He's just a generic sort of anti-hero with a bad character model and a snarky attitude. While you're exploring around, there's lots of nice scenery to observe, creepy ambient sounds, and a heart pumping soundtrack that kicks in at the right points.  The presentation is very good and I encountered no bugs nor framerate issues while I played.  In Capcom fashion, there are a lot of fun unlockables for the more hardcore players who want to diver more deeply into this one.

As for my final conclusion, I feel that Capcom lost their way a little bit with this entry.  It does feel a lot like REmake most of the time but with less soul and passion.  The changes in difficulty, cheap enemies, using two players simultaneously, and miserable inventory management really detract from the enjoyment of the game.  I would only recommend this one to die-hard RE fans.  Maybe that's what Capcom was going for when they made this one.  Maybe they wanted to design a game just for the hardcore.  If this is the case, they missed the mark by focusing on all of the wrong things.  In hindsight, this is obviously a huge problem we have all witnessed in the franchise moving away from its gothic survival horror roots into more of an action shooter style.  It is an unwelcome change and shows how out of touch Capcom is with its loyal followers.  Resident Evil Zero, I think, gives us a glimpse of the developers losing sight of what people truly love about these games. After the release and overwhelming critical reception of REmake I feel that everyone was quite disappointed with this one.  That's understandable because I feel exactly the same way.  This game is good, but not great and it's without a doubt one of the worst and most difficult games in the franchise.

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 7/10 (Good)