HomeReviewsFatal Frame IV: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse review: a frightfully frustrating flashbackOops, all ghosts
Oops, all ghosts
Fatal Frame: Mask Of The Lunar Eclipseplunges players into the dreadful past of Rougetsu Island as three(Young women? Girls? I have no idea how old they are supposed to be and for some reason that’s not surprising.)survivors and a stalwart detective revisit the ruins of a hospital that was once home to a haunting ceremony. They all have amnesia, of course, because that’s a low-effort way to generate an air of mystery. Well, except the detective, who is just confused because he never really figured out what was going on in the first place.
Overall, it’s a thoroughly okay game from 2008 that’s been papered over with some hazy lofi graphics to justify selling it at full price in 2023. It’s up to you if you think that’s worth it – I bought theMass Effectremaster, so I’m hardly one to judge – but while the graphics have been thoroughly airbrushed, that’s no cure for Fatal Frame’s dated gameplay and undead pacing.
PROJECT ZERO: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse - Announcement TrailerWatch on YouTube
PROJECT ZERO: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse - Announcement Trailer
You learn all of this within the first ten minutes of the game and there are no additional mechanics or approaches to combat. These encounters don’t really get more challenging as you progress through the game either, it just gets longer because the ghosts have more health. This is where the frustration comes in. Fatal Frame might be wearing the mask of a modern game, but it is very much from 2008 in the way it wastes players' time.
Escaping the spectre of death is part of what makes survival horror games fun, and my reflexes are not the greatest, so of course I expect to fall in combat every once in a while. What is not a cool fun time is making me replay 20 to 30 minutes of banal item collection and minor battles that barely held my attention the first time around (see: every fight is exactly the same) because there are only a handful of save points scattered throughout each sprawling section of the island.
I’m not talking about punishing gameplay here –nervously trotting over the same ground after dying in Fatal Frame (because you can’t actually run) doesn’t make the game more challenging or satisfying the way it might in a game likeElden RingorHades, it just makes it longer.
The strength of Fatal Frame, comparatively speaking, is its atmosphere. As someone who swore offAmnesia: The Dark Descentbecause my (obviously haunted) laptop crashed during the first jump-scare, I feel qualified to say that Fatal Frame isn’t scary, but it is creepy.
Contrary to horror cinema’s “Don’t Show the Monster” rule, this game won’t stop showing you ghosts so the effect wears off real quick. Instead, it’s the grainy black-and-white flashbacks of Ruka, Misaki, and Madoka’s past that will haunt you. A woman dancing feverishly beneath the moon within a circle of masked children. A little girl pulled from a crowd to be led deeper into a cave. A father obsessed with crafting an otherworldly mask.
These moments are as beautiful as they are unsettling, but as I near the end of Fatal Frame, it’s hard to believe they’ll lead anywhere I want to be… but, depending on what you’re looking for, maybe that’s okay.
As critical as I’ve been, considering its age, Fatal Frame really is an alright game. It’s the kind of thing I could see a younger me playing in windowed-mode while listening to a podcast, chatting on Discord, and eating a bag of sour candy in my dorm room. These days, though, I really only have time for games that bring a little more to the table, and Fatal Frame, like its protagonists, is very much stuck in the past.
