Fatal Frame (2001) pt. 1 of 3 - intro & synopsis

Released in 2001 in Japan and 2002 everywhere else, Fatal Frame is the brainchild of one Makoto Shibata, who dreamed of creating the single scariest video game the world had ever seen. Inspired primarily by spooky dreams he’d had, along with a few brushes with the paranormal he claims to have experienced, Fatal Frame isn’t your average J-horror ghost story, incorporating aspects of folk horror, religion, and superstition alongside its central idea about a camera that can see things the naked eye can not. Obviously, it was a huge hit, otherwise it wouldn’t have spawned such a large franchise that still continues to this very day.

Despite being something of a survival horror hound, I’d never played the first Fatal Frame before, and after a recent run-through of Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, I decided to go back and give this one a whirl. Needless to say, this eventually turned into me playing all the way through the first four games in the series, and so now I embark on trying to give you the gist of just one of the four giant games I’ve got to encapsulate before I'll be done with this series and able to move on to something else. If I seem a little stressed, let’s just say this whole project was perhaps a mite overly ambitious.

After pressing NEW GAME on the title screen, we’re greeted by the voice of a young girl, who begins to tell us about her older brother, who was, in her words, ‘so sweet and kind.’ Yes, the two of them were always very close, owing to a shared attunement with the supernatural. Well, that and their mother’s death years earlier, that is.

All of this is told to us in the span of maybe thirty seconds. This girl, apparently named Miku, blabs on in voiceover while her brother, Mafuyu, presently approaches a dilapidated old Japanese manor. His voice then interrupts to clear things up: this place is called Himuro Mansion, and he has been seeking it out quite intentionally: he’s looking for someone.

You would think it would have something to do with their mother’s death or something along those lines, but no: he’s just looking for a famous novelist, Junsei Takamine, whom he apparently knows and owes a favor to. Takamine went missing in the area recently, along with an entire team of assistants and fellow novelists/folklorists. They were conducting research for Takamine’s newest book, which was apparently centered around ‘forbidden rituals.’

So despite having almost nothing to do with this, and despite being oh so great and having a little sister that apparently really looks up to him, he runs off on some fool’s errand the minute he hears talk of Takamine’s last known location. Miku tells us she did not get good vibes from Mafuyu’s decision, but stood aside and let him go anyway. Okay, finally: exposition done. Things are about to get much spookier. 

Upon stepping inside Himuro Mansion, it’s clear that the place has seen better days. It appears to be entirely abandoned and left to rot without any sort of maintenance or upkeep being done. It’s a real dump, and it’s hard to tell how long it’s been this way. Decades? Centuries?

Mafuyu quickly stumbles upon evidence of Takamine’s group passing through the area, where they were apparently being stalked by some kind of predatory supernatural force. It’s hard to tell, but glimpses of a spectral figure can be seen in the form of a young girl whose figure is surrounded by the outstretched hands of the dead.

Just then, something moves on the stairs, and Mafuyu moves to investigate. This turns out to be nothing, but our lead still seems shaken. He pulls out his Camera Obscura, the series’s signature weapon, and informs us that it has “the power to expose things the normal eye can’t see.” Practically, it’s a big ole' ghost gun. Just then, a specter reveals itself and Mafuyu, or rather, we must do battle with it in order to progress.

Like in most survival horror games, the player is given offensive options to deal with the many dangerous spirits roaming Himuro Mansion, the catch generally being that you have limited supplies with which to do so. The unique flavor Fatal Frame brings to the table is largely down to the presentation of its combat: our view switches from third person to first person, as though looking through a viewfinder, and from there, we have to quickly locate and track hostile ghosts while snapping photos to do damage, eventually pacifying them altogether.

This may sound like a purely aesthetic gimmick, but in truth, the combat here plays very differently from, say, a first-person shooter. You have a very limited supply of film for your camera, so the focus is on trying to be as precise and efficient with your shots as possible in order to preserve it and score the most points with which to upgrade your camera’s offensive capabilities later on down the line. At times, the combat almost feels like a strange sort of rhythm game. You wait for the approaching spirits or spirits to get as close as possible to you before you take a photo, preferably until they’re only a split second away from striking. This is an approach that feels very fitting for a slow, atmospheric horror game, and many modern examples of such could learn a thing or two from it.

The camera is also used to snap quick photos of the many unique non-hostile ghosts that appear mostly just to scare you. They're also worth upgrade points, so you can see how it can be helpful to try and grab as many of these as possible, helping keep the player consistently engaged as they explore these spooky environments. You can also find camera lenses scattered throughout the map that, when equipped, give the player special abilities like slowing down time or increased damage for a short duration. In any event, the game is a tidy little mix of Resident Evil and Pokemon Snap! the likes of which you can't really get anywhere other than this unique, long-running franchise.

Getting back to the plot, after Mafuyu defeats the anonymous spirit, he apparently decides his duty has been fulfilled. And so without ceremony, he spins on his heels and begins to head for the place where he entered. A moment later, however, something behind him moves, causing him to turn around and be greeted by… nothing. The screen fades to white, and we’re left without resolution.

Two weeks later, baby sister Miku decides to go looking for him. Thankfully, Mafuyu had told her exactly where he was headed before he left. It’s a little strange that Miku hasn’t gone looking for him before now, or rather told someone else, like the police for instance, but what do I know?

Upon entering Himuro Mansion, Miku does not like the vibes she’s getting. She can detect her brother’s presence, yet it’s masked by supernatural white noise or “interference” that frightens her. Just then, a little girl, possibly the same one encountered by Takamine’s group, appears behind Miku and begs her for help. When Miku turns to face her, however, she is gone.

Our heroine makes her way through the mansion carefully, looking for any trace of her brother. It isn’t long before she finds his discarded Camera Obscura in the hallway where he disappeared, which Miku informs us used to belong to their mother. Upon retrieving it, she experiences a disturbing vision that suggests that something awful has happened to Mafuyu, depicting him being frantically chased by the same young girl surrounded by outstretched hands. Just before the vision ends, Mafuyu calls out desperately for his sister’s aid.

As Miku explores further, now armed with the offensive power of the Camera Obscura, we begin to get a clearer picture of Himuro Mansion, before and after its decay. It was once the home of one of the richest clans in all of Japan: the Himuro clan. Apparently related is its association throughout the surrounding area as a place associated with regional Shinto rituals. It might have even been something of a sacred place. 

They say that long before Himuro clan came along and their family home was constructed, its location was believed to have housed a secret shrine meant for practicing some kind of ancient rite, itself shrouded in mystery and obscured by decades of local myth, legend, and gossip. These days, no one really takes much of it seriously. 

What is undisputed, however, was that the last Lord of the Himuro clan would finish out his tenure by slaughtering his entire clan one by one and then committing seppuku, thus wiping out their legacy in one fell swoop. And though locals once may have feverishly speculated as to why, they’ve long since stopped caring. And so the doomed Himuro clan and Himuro Mansion, by extension, have slowly faded into total obscurity.

That is until some other family, this one much smaller and supported by a layabout writer (yet another novelist/folklorist in what would become a theme throughout the series,) moves into the mansion many, many years later. In classic fashion, this world-class genius decides that his wife needs a little fresh air (and he a little extra inspiration) and so moronically uproots everything and moves into a clearly haunted property. Oh, and I forgot to mention: they’re also lugging their young daughter, Mikoto, along. Great idea, seriously! This despite a reputation in the area of children going missing on or near the property.

Though we’re not told the specifics, it's still quickly and firmly established that things did not go well after the family moved in, and they would all eventually disappear without a trace. Well, the two parents, anyway: Mikoto was actually found safe and sound on the property sometime later.

Needless to say, people don’t go anywhere within earshot of the place anymore, and it has fallen completely into disrepair as a result. That was, of course, until Junsei Takamine decided that he wanted to bring in a team to investigate its true nature, and I shouldn’t have to tell you how that went. Indeed, one of the assistants mentions that the locals warned them away from the place when they asked for directions. Too bad they paid them no mind.

Anyway, in the present, Miku is introduced to the general flow and progression of the Fatal Frame games by that same little girl in a white kimono that we keep seeing, sometimes surrounded by an army of the dead, yet sometimes appearing as a benevolent figure. Here, she teaches us how to use the Camera Obscura to reveal secrets, unlock magical locks, and just activate things in the environment in general. I hope you’re paying good attention because this is what the series apparently believes to be its defining feature: instead of interacting with a button press, you do so with two button presses! It fits the theme, sure, but sometimes definitely feels a bit thin and gimmicky as it's repeated throughout the series. The most oft-repeated gag, for instance, is to barre your progress, flash up a photo of a place you’ve been prior, and ask you to backtrack to that place in order to snap an identical photo, which will then un-barre whatever obstacle originally stood in your way and allow you to progress.

In terms of puzzles and progression, the series has always felt like an undisciplined grab bag of old-fashioned puzzles, the worst excesses of survival horror orienteering gameplay, and fun if repetitive combat. Anything and everything the designers can think of to send you back to where you were an hour ago or stall for time, they will do with a frequency that begins to wear on the player by the end of any one of the games in this series.

So it’s safe to say that Fatal Frame is a survival horror game through and through. There are lots of great things in the presentation of the game to enjoy, plenty of hair-raising spooks and atmosphere aplenty, along with an interesting, if overstuffed, narrative; but on the gameplay front, it's one of the most transparent horror games ever before seen. Make no mistake: this isn’t on the level of a Resident Evil game in terms of design, nor is it as creative or narratively-rich as a Silent Hill game. But in a world where this style of survival horror game is seldom made anymore, an example of such doesn’t really have to perform at that level to still be worth looking at for genre fans. And so, here we all are.

Getting back to the narrative, we finally learn the fates of Takamine’s team. The spirit of one of his assistants, Koji, is found in a closet, where he was apparently cornered by the supernatural presence that had been stalking his group, resulting in his death. Another assistant, Tomoe, begins to lose it after discovering Koji’s mutilated body, only to become the next victim of the vengeful specter. It draws ropes on Tomoe’s extremities and brutally strangles her while Takamine can only stand back and watch, horrified. This, alongside a photo found of Koji before the incident where he was pictured with ropes around his extremities, suggests that these marks are the ghost’s calling card and not something to be taken lightly. Whatever became of Takamine, on the other hand, remains murky.

Himuro Mansion becomes more and more obviously haunted as the game goes on, with generations upon generations of tragedy, brutality, and madness being summoned up in an effort to impede Miku’s progress. There are a variety of interesting spirits, painstakingly written into the backstory of the plot. Spirits like Long Arms, a distraught dad looking for his child whom the Himuro clan is implied to have taken to ‘use’ in some kind of ceremony. He now stalks the manor and its neighboring countryside, snatching up any child he comes across, in order to determine if they belong to him. This process generally kills them, intentionally or not, and Long Arms is thus doomed to repeat this process indefinitely. He’s the spirit responsible for the creation of many other hostile spirits that haunt the mansion, like the creepy ‘crawling girl’ who begs Miku to play with her as she drags herself around on useless limbs; or indeed, the equally disturbing ‘well girl’ who appears to be a shout-out to Sadako from the Ringu books and films.

Then there are less obviously sourced spirits, like the disembodied female head that makes an appearance from time to time, or indeed, the woman with the broken neck, head flopping around on her shoulders. Another popular recurring enemy is that of a woman with her eyes messily gouged out, screaming in pain and desperately grasping at Miku as she advances. Her backstory is complicated, and involves her being blinded, then used to select candidates and assign roles for the extremely important and extremely secret Strangling Ritual.

The particulars of that ritual begin rather hazy, before soon being revealed piece by horrifying piece to us via ghostly visions and scattered documents. A young maiden, kept isolated from the outside world for most of their life, lay on a ceremonial bed while ropes are tied to her neck and limbs. She is then pulled apart into six distinct pieces. 

Finally, the bloodied ropes used to kill her are used to tie shut what is apparently a doorway to Hell that exists somewhere underneath Himuro Mansion. A doorway to Hell you say? That would explain the location’s history as a sacred site, going back to even before the manor was ever constructed. 

The maiden's violent death is done to ’strengthen’ the ropes that bind shut the doorway dividing the worlds of the living and the dead, keeping the clan safe for an indeterminate amount of time until the ceremony would have to performed again. 

Junsei Takamine believes that Kirie, the little girl we’ve been crossing paths with since the beginning, was once a rope shrine maiden herself, only something went wrong and now she's the one taking off limbs. Oh, and somehow, some sort of ceremonial mirror is involved in proceedings, which has since been smashed into distinct five pieces scattered throughout the mansion. The completed mirror, according to the lore, would apparently be the best shot of dealing with the hostile spirit at the center of events, and so we set our sights on assembling it as quickly as possible.

Our search is abruptly put on hold when Miku discovers the body of Takamine, suspended from the ceiling in a shrine located on the Himuro property. He appears to have been done in by Kirie while searching for the five pieces of mirror himself. We finish his work by completing a little puzzle and voila! Our very first piece of mirror! Though its intended use is vague at best, progress has at least been made for once.

This elation is short lived, however, when Kirie decides to pay Miku a personal visit. She emerges from nearby mirror and corners our heroine, promising to make our poor heroine feel her pain. She thenn reaches out a ghostly hand and touches Miku, who immediately falls unconscious. 

As she lay there, she dreams of being torn apart in an identical fashion to Kirie. Just as things reach a crescendo, the scene switches to several children chanting something while holding hands. Playing some kind of game, perhaps? 

Suddenly, Miku awakens, back in the doll room and now sporting rope marks on her neck and limbs. Oh dear. Her situation doesn’t get any better once she realizes that one of those spectral brats that she dreamed about earlier has pinched her precious shard of ceremonial mirror, necessitating that she play along with their games if she ever hopes to get it back.

It’ll be a while before we have that worked out, and so for now, let’s take a minute to go back and dig into the backstory a bit more. Remember the Munakata family? The young family that moved in long after Lord Himuro slaughtered his whole clan back in the day? Well, Yae Munakata, the wife, really seemed to be enjoying the place, and her health seemed to be on the mend. And of course, young Mikoto just loved all the wide open space to play, both inside and outside the manor. Everything changed, however, when Mikoto found what is implied to be her very own Camera Obscura hidden somewhere inside the mansion. When her father, Ryozo, asks her where she found it, Mikoto will only say that a girl in a white kimono gave it to her. *gulp*

One day, the trio decided to take a scenic trip through the mountains, and Yae apparently took a turn playing with the Camera Obscura. Long story short, she saw something that she did not need to see in her condition, after which her health took a drastic nosedive. She began to see ghosts everywhere and feared for the life of her young daughter. This intensified considerably when young Mikoto disappeared while playing tag with her friends in the woods, leading Yae to take her own life soon after. She believed wholeheartedly that her dabbling in the afterlife had doomed her innocent child, and couldn’t live with the guilt. Ryozo died not long after, having decided he had nothing left to lose and no reason not to go open the huge spooky door that we discover hidden in the deepest depths of Himuro Mansion, whereupon he was snatched up and killed by a legion of outstretched ghostly hands. Luckily, Mikoto ended up being located after all sometime later, but christ: what do you tell that kid?

All of this causes Miku to reflect on her own mother’s suicide, which mirrors that of Yae to an eerie extent. Little is seen of Miku’s mother in the narrative, yet what we do see seems to suggest that she became similarly obsessed with the camera just before her death, done in the exact same manner as Yae. How strange...

But forget about all that, because after much trial and tribulation, Miku manages to track down that little prick that stole our piece of mirror and steal it right back. Now, we just need to get ourselves a ceremonial “blinding mask” and open up those huge underground doors that ended up being the death of ole’ Ryoko Munakata... Actually, I guess we didn't really think this all the way through. Oh well, maybe we’ll get lucky. To this end, we must arrange a number of different masks around a pillar.

That done and key in hand, we’re ready to brave the caverns. Once we’ve made it through the doors, we’re immediately greeted by our second piece of mirror. Our victory is short-lived, however, when Kirie decides to make yet another appearance en regalia and we have to book it out of there. 

Unfortunately, Miku can’t quite book it fast enough, and so Kirie corners her once again and touches her. Again. And so after falling unconscious again and reawakening somewhere else (again!) it’s made clear that we will have to retrace our steps across the entire mansion if we ever hope to make progress. Again. 

And that’s about all the summarizing I can take for the moment. Next time we meet, we'll be diving right into the meat of the analysis. I sincerely hope to you all then.

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