Fatal Frame III: The Tormented (2005) pt. 4 of 4 - spoilers & conclusion

After tackling the first two-thirds of the plot in pts. 1 and 2 of this exhaustive analysis, digging into their specifics and rendering a verdict on how I felt in pt. 3, it's time to begin wrapping things up in this final bit. Be warned: there will be spoilers from here on out.

Welcome back, dear readers! Last time we were summarizing this absurdly dense tale, we were just beginning to get a full picture as to what the so-called “Strangling Ritual” entails, and it wasn’t pretty. Now, it’s time to learn a bit more about our “Sleeping Priestess” who lies at the center of the events that led to whatever calamity broke out in Kuze Manor.

So, if you’ll recall, the Kuze clan is an all-female clan, so much so that they callously dump baby boys that are born to members of the Kuze clan down a well (Kei even comes across the well at one point while exploring and hears the wailing of babies coming from its depths.) Only one day, as was inevitable, a mother decided she didn’t much care to throw away her precious baby boy, and so managed to somehow smuggle him out of the Manor alive, and without raising any suspicion.

Many years later, the mother spills the beans to her daughter, a young girl named Amane that we’ve encountered throughout the game as something of a guiding spirit (not unlike young Kirie from the first game) and it’s thanks to her diary that we are able to finally get the doomed Sleeping Priestess’s name: Reika. If you’re wondering how the baby boy fits into all this, I’m getting to that.

But first, Reika: she became the priestess out of a sense of duty, but seemed to carry around a lot of baggage for someone who was fated to become a faceless martyr. She’s lonely and obviously depressed. Oh, and did I mention that she’s not of blood relation to anyone else in her clan? Yes, like Kirie from the first game (take a drink,) Reika was actually adopted by the Kuze clan, but unlike Kirie, she was specifically adopted to serve as a sacrifice. Her entire family was killed in some kind of horrible accident, and so she was picked up by the Kuze clan more or less because no one would miss her. So her entire family is dead and she was raised by strangers who intended to use and discard her for their own benefit, why’s she so upset again?

Well, you see, it gets worse. Like Kirie from the first game (take a drink,) Reika somehow manages to develop a crush on a young man who comes to offer his pain at the Kuze Shrine, and this leads to her growing even more distant than usual. Amane, the friendly handmaiden, notices this and decides to help out, because guess what? The young man is actually her long-lost brother, Kaname; the one who was smuggled out rather than unceremoniously dumped by his mother. Reika’s ritual is getting ever closer even as she grows more distant with each passing day, and so Amane contacts her older brother with a plan to allow them to see each other one last time before Reika “goes under” so to speak.

We don’t the get details quite yet, but it’s clear one way or another that if this meeting did in fact ever take place, it must have not gone very well, and presumably has a lot to do with the awful state of affairs our characters are trapped in. Oh, and whatever happened also led to Amane being found out and murdered in cold blood by her fellow handmaidens. So yeah, probably not good.

"We're going to die."

But anyway, back in the present, Kei decides to give Rei a call, and this is where the previously-mentioned unfinished conversation between the two plays. Rather than lying to Kei when he asks about Yuu, or indeed, spilling the beans right then and there, Rei simply begs Kei to continue investigating the Tattoo Curse. There’s a loaded silence after this and then… Kei asks if he can come pay his respects to Yuu. Huh? Did they forget to type up the back half of this conversation when they were developing the game or what? Regardless of the reason, however, this culminates in Kei vowing to shlep his research over to Rei’s luxurious apartment so they can collate their information and form a game plan.

Miku, meanwhile, is not doing very well. She stays up all night, wandering around the house, and humming the handmaiden's song to herself; and when Rei speaks to her, she comes across as though she’s in a fugue state. This reaches its zenith when she confides in Rei that she hears Mafuyu “calling her” and that she just wants to “go to sleep.” This of course troubles Rei, but since the two of them have no idea how to communicate with or comfort each other, that’s as far as things go. Oh well.

That is until the very next morning, when Rei walks in on Miku only to find her covered from head to toe in tattoos of her own. At this point, they finally attempt to have a moment of genuine communication. Miku tells Rei how empty and depressed she feels, and how frightening it is that her precious memories of her brother grow fainter and fainter with each passing day. For her part, Rei takes a very motherly tone with Miku, holding her and attempting to comfort her. It’s clear though, that despite the sincerity of the interaction, there’s a pervading sense of desperation here, as though it's only too clear that Miku, and probably Rei as well, may be well beyond saving at this point. In fact, before Rei leaves her bedroom, Miku says as much.

That night, Miku chases after her brother into the very place where the restless Priestess is said to reside. Rei follows after her, begging her to stop, in a very melodramatic scene that has much of its impact ruined by the fact that the editors decided to have two monologues going on simultaneously, each drowning the other out, but hey: making games is hard, I suppose. Needless to say, the next morning when Rei checks on her friend, she’s comatose and surrounded by a ghostly entourage of spirits as she sleeps. 

But have no fear! Kei is on the case! His knock at the door announces his arrival at Rei’s very looowest point, and boy is their first meeting incredibly awkward. Blame it on the animation, the lack of voice acting, the pacing, whatever: this whole sequence is hilarious and shows just how far the developers were willing to go to have as little voice acting in the game as possible. Making things even weirder is the way Rei hangs on Kei from the moment he walks in. First off, isn’t this the series that fans praise for having ‘strong female protagonists?’ But beyond that, the way the whole scene plays out, it really just seems like she’s got a raging lady boner for the guy. You could argue she’s just glad to no longer be alone in the apartment, but she barely ever even registered Miku’s presence in the apartment unless she needed her for something when she was still around. She certainly never clung to her the way she’s clinging to Mr. Studmuffin over here.

Anyway, Kei has a plan. You see, he’s of a mind that what Reika needs in order to be forever pacified is to be subjected to the Impaling Ritual. This of course will require the use of the four sacred toothpicks of Soolaimon or whatever, each of which happens to be hidden in, you guessed it, four Doll Altar rooms spread out across the game map. Wonderful. Oh, and this sacred ritual needs to be conducted in the sacred Chamber of Thorns as indicated in Kei’s research, which up until this point we’ve been unable to break in to. We’ll leave aside the fact that there’s no good reason to suspect that Reika hasn’t already been subjected to all of this, like in each Fatal Frame game before this one, but whatever: let’s play along with this stupid, stupid plot and even dumber cast and go pin our restless Priestess!

All fetching done and the Chamber of Thorns finally opened, Detective Kei steps in and finds himself faced with a truly gruesome sight: emaciated, questionably alive or dead Sleeping Priestesses absolutely litter the floors and walls of the chamber. As disturbing a sight as it is, however, it’s nothing compared to the next thing Kei notices. 

He gasps. “It can’t be!” 

In the center of the mass of bodies lies Reika. Surprise, surprise: she’s already been staked, and clearly, it didn’t have much effect. Turns out, Kei’s plan really was as stupid as it sounded. And before the audience can even really parse out exactly what the scenario writers were thinking with this reveal sequence, Kei turns and attempts to flee, only to have the chamber door slam shut in his face, sealing him inside the accursed place forever.

And if that brought a smile to your face, considering it proves the devs thought as little of the character as you did, just wait until Rei wakes up the next morning and goes to check on the guy. He’s been vaporized, exactly like Yoshino. Rei has exactly zero to say about it as well, which makes it even funnier, not to mention the fact that she’ll be needing to purchase a new couch soon.

So clearly, a new plan is required if Rei is to have any hope of bringing this wretched tangle of a plot to a close, and so she decides to go over everything she knows of the curse so far to see if anything stands out. When she comes across a previously undiscovered tape of Kaname laying out his plan to break into the Chamber of Thorns and see Reika one last time, Rei is suddenly reminded of that whole plotline and decides that reuniting the two is probably her best shot if she ever hopes to see end credi-I mean, finish this! This is the point of no return: either she saves the day, or is consumed, along with Miku.

Setting things right.

So you know the drill, we’re nearing the end of a Fatal Frame game so here’s yet another extensive fetch quest before we go: Rei must walk the entire manor searching for the five lost mirror fragments of Zeus in order to open the door leading to Reika. Never mind that Kei was able to get in with no problem only a moment ago, just do as the game says so we can get this show on the road already.

Once that massive undertaking is completed, we begin making our way toward the Chamber of Thorns and are greeted with the final revelation of the game. Well, maybe more of a clarification, but still: Kaname did make it all the way into the Chamber of Thorns thanks to his little sister’s (Amane) help. He approached Reika, seemingly unaffected or disturbed by all the bodies lying all over the place, and smiled at her (again, seemingly not upset that she was covered in incredibly painful-looking tattoos, from head to toe, and lying in something of an induced coma.)

Anyway, he makes it to her and gives her a big ole smile, which seems to spark something in Reika. She smiles back, and despite her awakening, her tattoos stay where they are and her eyes are unaffected. It’s a sweet moment. Perhaps, like in previous Fatal Frame games, there are aspects of the ritual that the Kuze clan has forgotten or simply no longer understands. Whatever the justification, the couple enjoy each others presence for a warm moment, and our priestess remains nominally ‘asleep.’

However, wouldn’t you know it? Yashuu Kuze, matriarch of the clan, is told about the intrusion, presumably by one of the handmaidens. She orders Amane executed, before making her way to the Chamber of Thorns. 

While Kaname and Reika share a moment, Yashuu manages to sneak in, and just as things seem alright with the world: WHACK! Yashuu clubs Kaname in the back of the head, letting his body fall. He lands right next to Reika, still staring into her glazed eyes, only now, there’s nothing behind his own. He’s dead.

At that moment, Reika’s tattoos begin to ripple and spread, moving into the whites of her eyes and signaling her awakening. The rest is history. The clan would later attempt to seal her up in a dream in order to prevent further disaster, but this only made the situation worse. And so here we are.

Now we know why our antagonist is so angry, and just in time, I might add, for a final boss fight. In the ranks of Fatal Frame's many memorable final bosses, Reika is easily the most impressive and climactic of them all, though she’s still hardly much of a challenge. 

After the final blow has been dealt, Rei lulls Reika back to sleep, placing her sleeping body in a small boat along with the body of her dead lover, before sending them both across the nearby river as a voiceover lays out the process. Don’t ask how or why this is happening. Just take your happy ending and be glad that the game didn’t end with Rei making some idiotic mistake and getting vaporized like Kei. Actually, that sounds pretty awesome. If only…

In classic Fatal Frame fashion, setting right this historical blunder causes all the spirits that have been trapped in the Manor of Sleep, both modern-day victims and ancient ones too, to take off down the river as well, onward to greener pastures. Rei watches them wistfully until she notices something: Yuu. In a crowd of mostly faceless spirits, Rei’s dead fiance stands out very clearly from the rest. Rei calls out after him and begins to give chase.

When she catches up to him, Rei asks to go with. She no longer wants to be a survivor. She’s tired of the pain, the mourning, the empty hole in her heart, the way the memories of him grow fainter with each passing day; she’s ready to follow him into nothingness and take a well-earned rest. 

As she clings to him weeping, Yuu watches her for a while before waving his hands and somehow transferring her tattoos, by now readily visible, to his own body. He then answers her: she can’t come with him. 

She looks hurt, but he explains further: the dead only have an identity as long as someone among the living stills remembers them; still mourns for them. If Rei were to die and go along with him, he would cease to be Yuu anymore. He’d be just as faceless as all the other dead crossing the river behind him. No, Yuu needs Rei to keep on living, for both their sakes. The two share an embrace before Yuu follows his fellow spirits and Rei wakes up in her apartment, sobbing. What a sweet ending; thank god it’s over. 

Oh, and I guess Miku is okay now. I mean, they never confirm it or even hint at it, but trust the wiki and just accept that she technically survived, alright? All that matters is that we got a sort of thematic resolution for one character in a story packed with them who couldn’t have had less of an arc or personality if she’d been freshly lobotomized. 

But here’s the thing, they technically do address the fates of Miku and even Mio, but only if you play through the game twice. Now, I want all of you to think back to the second Fatal Frame game, and how that game not only had three distinct endings in its original PS2 incarnation, each with its own unique cinematic and two of which contained unique boss fights. Just keep all that in mind as I explain the two “unique” endings for Fatal Frame III, alright?

If you happen to follow a series of obscure steps involving backtracking to an out-of-the-way location as Kei and use your strength to unblock an important door, you’ll actually find a way to unlock the Brushing Woman’s drawer, where she keeps an Echo Stone earring, along with some illuminating documents that seem to suggest that the ritual isn’t complete until the Sleeping Priestess is sent across the river of the dead, just as Rei instinctively does in the regular ending. No idea how she knows to do that, but fine. Come to think of it, I have no idea why getting the Echo Stone earring has any effect on the situation at all, but trust the writers: it totally keeps Kei alive after his encounter with Reika in the Chamber of Thorns that, on the first playthrough, ends up being entirely fatal. It’s said that this earring allows the Brushing Woman to ‘protect him,’ but personally, it kind of feels half-assed. If the Brushing Woman thinks Kei is her long-lost lover because he looks so similar, why does it take wearing the earring to earn her protection? And how exactly does she protect him? Eh, you know what, nevermind: just accept it so we can move on.

So obviously all of this has the effect that Kei doesn’t die, but in practical terms, all it really means is that you get to play through the final chapters with a man sleeping on your couch the whole time. The actual ending, cinematic, boss fight and all, is exactly the same as the canon ending. The only slight difference is the fact that, while the credits are rolling, we get to see a few tiny photograph slides that, apparently, confirm that everyone is okay in the end and met up for drinks afterward. 

So you can see how, in comparison to Fatal Frame II, this is quite a step back. Why even have alternate endings if they’re going to be this similar? I know game development is hard and all, but having all these plates spinning in the air, multiple characters with their own stories, only to end in such a fashion that feels like tunnel vision, where most characters and hints of a wider story are all just forgotten about as the game barrels towards a sloppy conclusion (sort of like this review.) A few still photos tacked onto the credits, if and only if you complete a bunch of obscure shit on a second playthrough, doesn’t really improve things in my eyes one bit. It all just feels extremely anti-climatic, especially for a game so densely packed with narrative, standing at a whopping fifteen or so hours to complete.

In closing...

Before I wrap all of this up, let’s sum up all my points, starting with the narrative: it’s a mess. Not only is it all too familiar at this point, going for a sort of find-and-replace of previous games when it’s not just straight-up stripping them for parts, but it’s also poorly paced, unfocused, and unsatisfying by the time you reach its abrupt and melodramatic ending. The characters are painfully boring and written so as to seem doped up or something, and the potent theme of mourning just doesn't seem to have been done justice, ending on a rather sudden, sappy note. Sure, it’s a nice thought, but it just leaves me feeling empty. And it doesn’t feel like the appropriate capper for a story that mostly concerns everyone except the one character who is given any payoff whatsoever.

Gameplay-wise, Fatal Frame III is easily the peak of the entire series. Yeah, I said it (trust me, it ain’t getting any better from here.) It’s very long, and with a suuuper slow first third, but it's ultimately one of the most immersive and frightening survival horror experiences I’ve ever had. Is it repetitive? Yes. Does it send you on endless errands? Yes, but this is the first game in the series that actually makes it all feel intentional, as opposed to a by-product of laziness and/or a troubled development. And on top of all of that, Fatal Frame’s signature rhythmic combat has never felt as good as it does here.

As far as presentation goes, the game is a mixed bag. It looks gorgeous, and the various ghosts the player encounters look incredibly detailed, not to mention wonderfully animated, but there are also lots of rough edges and jank that try their darndest to get in the way. In a game with an already surreal atmosphere, it's often hard to tell what’s a glitch and what is intended to be unsettlingly off. Aurally, besides the minimal amount of voice-acting, things have never been better in the series.

But most importantly, as was just alluded to, this is the scariest entry in a series renowned for being horrifying. It knows exactly how to use its fifteen or so hours to create a very competent loop of horror, of both the startling kind and the atmospheric kind. The length way wear on your nerves over time, but at least they make great use of it to allow the scares room to breathe, and the atmosphere time to develop before the next startling setpiece. For this reason, and this reason alone, this is a must-play survival horror title. It doesn’t completely make up for a disappointing narrative, but it makes suffering through the slowest bits totally worth it.

So despite all of my bitching and complaining, this is still a great game and a contender for best Fatal Frame. Whether you like this or Crimson Butterfly more will likely depend on how much you care about narrative versus the experience of playing the game. Well, that and being chilled to the bone, as Fatal Frame III: The Tormented contains a higher density of such moments than is the norm for this already-notorious horror franchise. Knowing, as I do, where the franchise would eventually go, I can say definitively that this stands as something of a swan song for the series as I would like to remember it, representing the last of the ‘golden age’ entries before the Nintendo-published era of Fatal Frame would begin with 2008's Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. And guess what? That’s exactly what we’ll be talking about when next we speak. Stay tuned!

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