I’ll start with a confession. Never played a Fatal Frame game before and this game wasn’t even on my radar until a friend told me enthusiastically all about the ghosts and how you fight them by taking photos with a spooky antique camera. Delicious, I thought, and just in time for Halloween. Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water was originally released on the Wii U back in 2014/2015. I’m kinda gutted I missed it, because that Gamepad wasn’t good for much, but it would have been awesome for taking pics of spooky apparitions. But let’s wind forward to 2021 and it’s now been released for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and PC. I’ve seen some debate on whether it’s a remake, a remaster or a simple port. After completing the game at around fifteen hours and with an examination of some old YouTube vids of the original, I would say it’s closer to a port so don’t expect too much in the way of upgrades. The control scheme is out of the ark and the character controls like a drunk Leon Kennedy from Resi 4. But don’t let that put you off! This game has bags of atmosphere, is deliciously disturbing and can chill the spine off a giraffe.
Maiden of Black Water is set in the fictional area of Mount Hikami. It may sound rather pleasant but it’s the last place you’d want to sit your arse down and scoff a jam sandwich. This is not a place for picnics. It is a place where people go to end their own lives. It is a place where people disappear. Brace yourself if suicide is a trigger because this game goes to a very dark place indeed. There’s no comedy here, no light and almost no hope. The story revolves around 3 characters Yuri, Miu and Ren, all of whom have reason to search the mountain and all of whom are going through darkness in one way or another. The story is split into chapters. Each chapter will allow you to choose your difficulty level and how many supplies you can bring with you. You start with a base amount of health items and film types for your camera depending on your chosen difficulty and you can buy more with points earned during gameplay. You can also use points to unlock outfits. Then, you’ll be placed on the mountain (cue spooky music)
There is no doubt once you start that this isn’t Disney. Dark woodlands, vapours and fog, black waters and thin, overgrown pathways, there is absolutely nowhere to break out that sandwich. Although graphics are far from spectacular, they are decent and do a good job of representing a perpetually dark atmosphere with some very black blacks and a subdued but clever colour palette. You can almost feel the damp air if your imagination is as good as mine. A visual upgrade has certainly been attempted but be aware it does still look like an early PS3 game, and it controls like one too. It does take a little getting used to. The control scheme didn’t seem logical to my brain until a few hours of practice, and character movement is extremely clunky and very obviously two generations past.
You don’t have a weapon in the traditional sense, but you do have your camera obscura. There’s a whole lore to be uncovered within the game which I won’t go into but essentially when you see a ghost you must use the camera to take shots which damage the entity. You have different film types, some of which are more powerful and do more damage and some which take longer or shorter to load for the next shot. Ideally you want to take a shot at the last second as the ghost attacks and this will trigger a Fatal Frame where you can take continuous shots for high damage. You earn points from every fight and every picture you take of the benevolent ghosts that catch your attention. You can use these points then to upgrade your camera, films and lenses.
There’s something quite unsettling about older horror games, more so than those with smooth control schemes and life-like watery eyeballs. For me, it’s the dread that if something comes for me, I’m not going to be able to get away in a flash or vanquish a deadly foe with a simple QTE or appear exactly where I left off if I die. You must actually BE CAREFUL because failure matters more in older games or games that emulate that more difficult or clunky style. Maiden does have a good set of difficulty modes however and the easy setting is exactly that, but there’s also no manual save and the autosave is sometimes quite infrequent so if you’re thinking about going to bed, retire as soon as you can because it can be quite a while until the next autosave rears its beautiful head. Chapter lengths can vary between thirty and ninety minutes on average so it’s also a perfect game to play in reasonable chunks. Once you’re done with all the chapters there’s a bonus story to unlock which mixes up the mechanics for something a little different.
Is Maiden of Black Water scary? It’s certainly unsettling. The game’s themes put you immediately on edge and there’s something about ghosts that for me is scarier than any other type of horror. Is it terrifying? Well, no. We’re all rather hardened to horror now aren’t we thanks to the likes of Resident Evil 7, Alien Isolation, Outlast and a few other heart-stopping specimens. Maiden handles its scares a little differently. It’s not about hiding in lockers, being chased by something unstoppable or being scared suddenly to death by loud music and a well-timed close-up. There’s a sense of ongoing dread that never lets up. It’s about seeing a glimpse of a ghost out of the corner of your eye that’s only there for a fraction of a second. It’s about a truly disturbing story that builds over the course of every chapter. There is also an awesome mechanic with a ghost hand which has a random chance to grab you and cause damage every time you pick up an item. It’s kind of silly but it also managed to give me a fright more times than I’ll ever admit.
Adding to Maiden’s disquiet are the cut scenes. These flesh out the story and appear when you get a chance to touch a defeated ghost. These scenes are grainy and old, like ancient found footage showing death, murder and suicide. They are often very disturbing, but they are also beautifully put together in a way that constantly reminds you of the fear of what’s on this mountain. This isn’t a horror game that jumps in your face and shouts boo. It’s a horror game that oozes death.
I admit I have some mixed feelings. On the one hand, I adore Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water for its deeply old-fashioned control scheme and clunky gameplay. I love the rough-around-the-edges graphics that speak of a time that was slightly browner. I love the darkness of the storyline and the bleak personalities of the unfortunate characters. I love all these things, but my heart also longs for an improved version that controls better, looks better and sounds better. Maybe a new game in the series will take care of this longing, but until then we still have a very decent horror game that is well worth a stab.
-SJ Hollis