Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Horror

Players: 1

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Review:

As of this writing, the Fatal Frame series of Graphic Adventure Horror games has only had five mainline entries (and one Nintendo 3DS spin-off), with its last original release being this Maiden of Black Water, which first released in 2015 on Wii U. I reviewed that version of the game, and had mixed opinions on it.

In short, Maiden of Black Water really aimed to make the most of the unique features of the Wii U, and the results were somewhat mixed. The main problem was constantly having to shift your attention back and forth between the Wii U gamepad and the main screen, which got tedious pretty quickly. So when the game received a port in 2021 to PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, the big question was how the controls would transition to other platforms when the Wii U gamepad was so integral to the gameplay.

Like the other games in the series before it, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water features a story that has the game’s protagonists (Maiden has three) exploring an area haunted by malevolent ghosts, with the only method of defense against these deadly spooks being the mystical Camera Obscura, a camera capable of repelling and even exorcizing the dead by taking photographs of them. This story’s protagonists find themselves drawn into a search for a missing person (as well as their own missing mentor and comrade) who disappeared on the cursed Hikami Mountain, known for its suicides and its history of terrible accidents and bloody rituals.

Graphically, Maiden of Black Water was in my opinion one of the more impressive-looking games on the Wii U, and I feel like that remains true on Nintendo Switch, with absolutely gorgeous, detailed 3D character models that actually reflect the dampness of the environment. This is an important gameplay element as this game’s ghosts are tied to the mountain’s haunted waters, and whenever your character is drenched they become more susceptible to this influence too. The game’s lighting and shadows are also excellent, and while the environments themselves are merely okay, there’s plenty of imagination that has gone into making these locations memorably chilling.

I know that some others have complained about this game’s understated voice acting, but I actually think I like it – Horror games full of shouts and screams are a dime a dozen, and I think it’s understandable when we see the game’s human characters are frozen in terror to the point where they can’t speak, or traumatized to the point where they speak in monotone – I just wish the characters’ mouths were better-synced to their speech. The game’s sounds are wonderfully foreboding too – this game does a fantastic job building atmosphere, though I don’t think it succeeds quite as well as some of the best games in the genre when it comes to creating feelings of true terror.

Now, having said all of that… how well does the gameplay work on a game platform that doesn’t have the Wii U gamepad?

Well, on Nintendo Switch at least, the answer seems to be “not perfect, but for the most part about as well as we could hope for”. When playing using a gamepad, the Nintendo Switch version of Maiden of Black Water makes use of the right analog stick and gyroscopic motion controls to aim your ghost-damaging camera’s lens, with ZR to take photos. Both of these forms of movement work, but not perfectly – the analog stick moves too slowly for my tastes, but should help if you want additional help getting the aim right in addition to the gyro controls. Meanwhile, the gyroscopic motion controls work great, but it can be awkward to use the controller as you twist and contort it around to get everything you want in frame.

However, playing the game in handheld mode feels absolutely natural, and honestly feels to me like the way this game was always meant to be played, and the gyroscopic motion controls in your Nintendo Switch make moving and twisting the screen around feel pretty much 1:1 with trying to get the right angle with a real camera. And playing the game this way really helps you to appreciate this game’s unique form of camera-centric combat as you try to get into the frame as many circles representing ghostly weak spots as possible when you snap a photo.

I still have some complaints about the gameplay here. Primarily, the movement controls can be clunky and sluggish at times. However, overall, I think this port is pretty solid, and playing this game in handheld mode specifically is not only the best way to play this game in my opinion, but one of the best experiences I’ve had in the Fatal Frame series.

If you enjoy Horror games, and especially if you’re a fan of the Fatal Frame franchise, and in particular if you want to play a great Horror game on the go, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water on Nintendo Switch is a wonderful, unique experience that’s well worth playing. It’s not without its flaws, but this is a superb game that I can definitely recommend.

tl;dr – Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a Graphic Adventure game with strong Horror elements. This is the fifth game in the Fatal Frame series, where the protagonists fend off killer ghosts using a magical camera, and this installment involves the search for missing persons on a mountain with a dark past. The presentation and atmosphere in this game is outstanding, and the way motion controls are used to orient the “camera obscura” ghost-fighting camera transitions well to Nintendo Switch, especially when playing in handheld mode. The result is a solid entry in the genre, and in my opinion one of the best games in the series.

Grade: B

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