Fatal Frame (2001) pt. 3 of 3 - spoilers & conclusion

In the previous two parts of our Fatal Frame analysis, we got up to speed with the general thrust of the game's plot, and took time to put it all under the microscope a bit before doing the same with its presentation and interactive elements. You can read pts. 1 and 2 here and here, respectively.

For those of you who wish to go into this game without knowing all the details of the ending, this is where you get off the bus, I’m afraid. It's really no biggie, as I’ve taken pains to say most of what I wanted to say prior to this point and most of this last bit will consist entirely of summarizing not only the ending but also my own thoughts, but still: fair warning. I will be freely spoiling everything from here on out.

If you’ll recall, we last left Miku after she fell unconscious after letting herself get grabbed by Kirie yet again. Now, as she comes to, still in the spooky cavern, everything seems quiet once more, and so we set out. Well, that is until Miku stumbles upon a collapsed tunnel and notices a gap in the rocks large enough to peek through, whereupon she sees who else by Mafuyu standing on the other side, seemingly in good health, though a tad unresponsive. And so now our goal is clear enough: we’ve got to make it over to the other side so we can finally be reunited. Thankfully, our pal Good Kirie is here to help us along towards our goal.

As we progress, we begin to fill in some of the big gaps in the narrative. We see the particulars of "The Calamity," where after a failed ritual, Lord Himuro became possessed by something and brutally slaughtered every living man, woman, and child in the mansion before doing himself in. It’s during this segment of the game that we begin encountering him as a hostile ghost as well, and he’s still a tough cookie despite being dead for over a century.

But wait, you may ask: how exactly did the ritual fail? Well, apparently, it all comes down to a boy. Kirie, now a budding young woman, had somehow bumped into a young village boy who was visiting Himuro Mansion one day, and ever since then, a change in her disposition was noticed. She became ‘distracted,' and thus the Himuro clan elders decided to have this young boy murdered in cold blood, quickly disposed of, and hushed up for good. They tell Kirie that he went home without saying goodbye and is never coming back, and besides being brokenhearted, she’s immediately suspicious that they did something horrible to him; all thanks to her. She falls into a deep depression as a result. 

This is implied to be the ultimate cause of The Calamity, as by the time of the ritual, Kirie had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar, which was not the way it was apparently meant to be done. After they tore her apart, wet their sacred ropes with her blood, and tied shut the door to Hell, it would simply blow open, causing “the Malice” to spill out and invade the world of the living and Lord Himuro to start cutting folk down.

But that’s enough background for now, because guess what? Remember that bit I complained about in the last part of this review? The bit where you have to stop everything just as the plot is picking up steam and barrelling toward a conclusion to… re-explore the whole damn mansion one last time and locate the spirits of four headless priests? Well, guess what time it is? After doing battle with them, we must take a sacred symbol that each carries and place them on a big puzzle contraption that, once activated, opens into a second entrance to the underground caverns. That done, Miku begins to descend into the bowels of the earth. And surprise: at the bottom of the ladder, she finds a third mirror piece! This is really starting to feel like the end of the game, huh?

Just then, Miku is hit with a vision of Kirie being graphically pulled apart by ropes and pulleys, only to have her appear for real and chase us right back up the damn ladder, totally foiling our plans to finally make some damn progress.

At the last second, when it seems like we’re not going to be able to ascend quite in time, Good Kirie helps us out of the hole (somehow,) and begs us to put a stop to her once and for all. This prompts something of a ‘once more with clarity’ sort of chapter, where we see the events leading up to The Calamity from Kirie’s perspective as a serious, duty-bound young woman who just so happens to fall in love. This causes her to feel quite torn (you see what they’re doing?) between what she's been raised to do and what her heart now desires. It’s a classic love story. Real Romeo and Juliet-type stuff. Duty says she's to be a sacrifice that will prevent horrible things from occurring, but she’s also human and needs to be loved (as a not-particularly great man once sang.) And even though she doesn’t break her oath, tragedy still strikes when her clan believes it to have been, ending in a decidedly Shakespearean fashion when everybody fucking dies.

Back in the present, Miku finds the fourth piece of mirror hiding in Kirie’s pitiful, isolated dwelling. This should make for a moment of pure elation, yet we’re standing in a big ole' reminder that Kirie’s life just plain sucked, man. She was locked up like an animal for most of her life, always being reminded that she was to die when she reached a certain age, and yet she never rebelled against her so-called ‘family.’ And as thanks, they murdered her one accidental friend. 

Speaking of Kirie’s friend, we see a strangely vivid flashback (featuring actual background music, no less) which depicts the two greeting one another, whereupon it’s brought to Miku’s attention that Kirie’s old flame looks exactly like… Mafuyu?

Apparently, it’s just a coincidence though, unless you believe in reincarnation, I suppose. It should be clear by now that Mafuyu was taken and locked away by Kirie’s possessive spirit after that loaded fade to white in the opening chapter. Not ideal perhaps, but this does at least bode well for Mafuyu’s health, especially seeing as we saw a glimpse of him earlier. So you know, silver linings and all that.

Almost immediately, we find a note addressed to us from none other than Mafuyu, where he confirms our suspicions and tells Miku that he is somehow going to "confront" Kirie in an attempt to stop this curse from claiming any more lives. Well, okay then. Too bad it's taken you until now to try and break free but yeah, give it a shot! He also imparts a little sage advice, though he doesn't explain how he knows this: the holy mirror and the holy mirror alone can defeat Kirie. Good thing it’s nearly complete.

Before he signs off, however, our idiot brother decides to casually throw out a bombshell: remember little Mikoto? The daughter of Ryozo and Yae Munakata? The one who disappeared with the rest of her friends playing tag in the woods? The one who found her own Camera Obscura? Well, she was apparently Miku and Mafuyu’s grandmother, and that Camera Obscura is the very same one Miku is now holding in her hands. Mikoto passed it down to Miku and Mafuyu’s mother, who drove herself insane with it and committed suicide, just like Mikoto’s mother had done decades before. And so the cycle infinitely repeats, skipping a generation each time. Needless to say, it’s about time someone ended Kirie’s reign of terror and put a stop to the madness spilling out from the Hellgate, said to be located somewhere underneath Himuro Mansion. So naturally, that's where we decide to head.

When we get there, we see Mafuyu standing out in the open in front of us. But guarding him voraciously is none other than Evil Kirie, who, upon noticing us, turns into a horrible monster and gobbles Mafuyu up whole. Shit! Well, there goes the whole rescue mission. Might as well turn around and cut our losses at this point, no?

Well, anyway, you know the drill. She’s the final boss, and you don’t generally get through those by aggressively solving puzzles. The only difficult thing about this fight is that, if you’re playing on PCSX2 at least, there’s a show-stopping bug present here and nowhere else where raising your camera when not standing somewhere very near the Hellgate causes the game to hang. Every. Single. Time. There’s no way around it, and so you just better hope you made a save state at the beginning of the fight, otherwise you’re sent all the way back to a checkpoint that’s back behind a couple of annoying minibosses. Luckily, Kirie herself is rather easy, but this is still an annoyance, especially to anyone who has no knowledge of the impending bug and who will lose progress to it almost certainly.

Anyway, after getting her down to a fraction of her health, Kirie somehow manages to take your precious Camera Obscura and break it into a thousand pieces on the ground, just in time for Mafuyu, now freed, to throw us the final piece of the holy mirror. We quickly complete it, drop it into place, and watch as Evil Kirie gets instantly vaporized during a fade to white.

When the dust settles, everything seems to have gone back to normal! Mafuyu is alive and well, and so is… Kirie? Oh… sure, sure. Okay. Awesome, everyone is alive again, except all the people Kirie killed as a ghost, but don’t pay any attention to that! Not that it matters, as when Miku suggests the three of them get going and put as much distance between them and this place as possible, Kirie tells her "No." 

She can’t leave, you see, because otherwise, the Hellgate would remain open and the Malice would continue to spread. Kirie is a Rope Shrine Maiden, goddamn it, and she will fulfill her duty this time. 

Well, alright, I guess that makes sense. Hope you have a chill rest of eternity strung up in front of the door, but I think my brother and I will go ahead and leave you to it... 

Only, Mafuyu isn’t going anywhere either. For you see, our horny brother has now decided that he wants nothing more in his life than to stay and keep her company. And, well... you know, help her out watching a door for all of eternity in a damp, dark dungeon. Miku sorts of objects to this, but is very easily persuaded shortly after to just say "Screw it," wish the two a happy life, and book it to the nearest exit.

And so Miku escapes the mansion alone. As she looks up at the sky, she sees the spirits of all those that have been claimed by the curse rising into the sky, finally free from their eternal torment. Well, all besides our brother, the one we came to rescue in the first place, but I digress. This would go on to become the formula for every ending cinematic in the entire franchise, done better here because they don’t interrupt it with pop music.

Then we get a freeze frame of Miku’s face as she explains to us in voiceover that ever since that day, she’s been unable to see things that others can’t. What a magical ending. Yes, as in later games, there are other endings, but they make such minuscule alterations that they hardly seem worth discussing. Compare these endings to the two diametrically opposed endings and final boss fights you get in Fatal Frame 2, for example, and Fatal Frame's meager offerings come across as unrealized, especially the Xbox-exclusive one that’s just the “Mafuyu Lives” ending from the PS2 game with additional still shots during the credits.

And that’s Fatal Frame. Or at least, that’s the end of my summary. I still have more crap to say, if you don’t mind sticking around for a moment longer.

So as I’ve hinted at throughout this analysis, the gist of Fatal Frame’s narrative boils down to ancient folklore and ritual being used as metaphor for relatable struggles, such as the one described here: have you ever felt torn between what you want and what’s right? Or between what’s good for you and what’s good for everyone else? I can only speak for myself, but let’s just say that that weight isn’t exactly unfamiliar to me.

I like this postmodern approach to old folk and fairy tales, mixed with religious references and symbolism that feels appropriately shadowy and mysterious seeing as I’m entirely unfamiliar with Shintoism. It’s simultaneously high brow and low brow; teenage frustration and disillusion, a bleak world where sacrifice is demanded to keep the Gods happy, a magical old piece of technology that can exorcise ghosts, not to mention a Lynchian reliance on dreamlike atmosphere and irrational horror. It’s a potent blend, even if the narrative is sort of messy at times. However, where it ends up more than makes up for it, both as a satisfying story and a satisfying horror story that has the power to get under your skin. 

Both this first game and its sequel have a moment just toward their respective ends, where the central metaphor that drives each game’s story and the violent machinations that result suddenly ‘click.’ Here, it’s during Kirie’s spotlight chapter, where she mentions being pulled in many directions, almost exactly like what the Strangling Ritual entails. It’s a little thing, but I quite like it. It’s like a narrative pun, and it feels satisfying to me as a connoisseur of storytelling.

However, it also is true that, when it’s all said and done, a lot of the backstory and elaborate plotting is nothing but smoke and mirrors: something that’s there to give us the illusion that we’re learning more about the story as the game stalls for time. It’s true that we learn little details about the world and those who exist within, but too much backstory can get in the way of a nice simple tale, and at its core, that’s what Fatal Frame is. Obviously, I understood it all well enough to write this summary, but I undoubtedly left something semi-important out or misconstrued some small point in the story because that’s just how overstuffed the narrative is. It’s impossible to grasp it fully until you’ve played it several times through or have gone over the wiki an equal amount of times, and that's something that's only gone on to become an even bigger problem as the franchise has continued into the current era. Still, in this first installment, it hadn't become so absurd yet, and so I’m really just nitpicking at this point. It all makes sense, at any rate.

So yeah, the narrative is definitely a draw for this game. Well, that and its wonderful horror atmosphere and scares of both the subtle and startling varieties, not to mention plenty of (mostly) implied grisly violence sprinkled throughout the story. 

Gameplay-wise, though? Well, no one is going to pick this up nowadays and play it unless they know what they’re getting into. It's a PS2-era survival horror game, and will probably, justly or not, only appeal to fans of that particular era of horror games. And seeing as that is the case, a prospective new player would be unlikely to expect much from the gameplay, though it's still hard to quite prepare yourself for such an awful in-game map and the amount of thinly-veiled errands the game will send you on to pad itself out. Still, the combat is a major strength when viewed against many of its contemporaries who were also following in the shoes of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, mostly thanks to its unique rhythmic quality and the fact that it enhances, not dispels, the game’s slow-burn horror. It is a shame that it pairs awkward DMC-style 3D movement with its wonderful fixed camera angles, as I find real tank controls to be far more precise, but now I'm the one stalling for time by repeating myself.

Fatal Frame’s presentation, at least visually, isn’t going to garner much praise from modern players. It doesn’t look bad exactly, it’s just sort of muted, and the fact that the environment designers so accurately brought across the dilapidated, dirty look of a crumbling old house is small comfort by the time you realize that you're still traipsing around the same handful of corridors eight hours in. I guess it does create something of an ‘earthy’ look that fits the game’s eventual descent into more cavernous environments, but that’s probably a generous stretch. 

Aurally, the game is much stronger, even without trying. The murky, nightmarish atmosphere is accomplished mostly by discordant choral samples and low-frequency rumbling, and it’s somehow furthered by some of the most artificial and dull voice acting ever before seen in a video game.

And that’s just about all I have to say about Fatal Frame. It’s worth taking a look at if you’re a big fan of survival horror games, or if you’re a particularly desperate fan of horror games in general who is willing to put up with old-school design decisions. It’s no Silent Hill in terms of story or scares, and it’s no Resident Evil in terms of design and structure, but damn if it isn’t enjoyable and admittedly nostalgic all the same. 

This era of horror games will always win for me. There’s just something about fixed camera angles that allowed them a heavy-handed control that newer horror games just don’t have anymore. That's one of many reasons why I’m always down to check another one of them off my back catalog. And I can’t say I was disappointed by Fatal Frame, even if I was spoiled by playing the sequel for many years before going back and trying this one. I can’t necessarily say the same for the rest of the series once I decided to go ahead and review the first four games, but that’s hardly relevant for the time being. Until next time!

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