Ffmobwbanner

Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water PC Review

Project Zero (or Fatal Frame for none European regions) never hit the mainstream popularity that the likes of Resident Evil or Silent Hill did, but Koei Tecmo’s survival horror game does have a cult status with video game horror fans. The first three games in the series were released during the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era and offered many hours of chilling survival horror content, especially the sequel, Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly, which is a game I regard as one of the most unnerving, agonizingly tense and scariest horror games still to this date. Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly, and in essence the series as a whole, is more than jump scares. These titles have the atmosphere and themes, something the Japanese have a superb knack of doing, somehow managing to give players disturbing visuals and noises that crawl under the skin. Combine all that with the terrifying ghosts, which the game requires the player to look directly at through the lens of a camera to vanish them, then you have some genuinely frightening times.

Project Zero is just about to come up to its 20th anniversary in December for the original Japanese release. Developers often like to celebrate such milestones by releasing either a new game or a compilation of the series to allow old fans to play the games on newer systems or bring in new fans who have never had the chance to play the games before. In a bizarre fashion, Koei Tecmo has decided to bring an older game to the current platforms, but it isn’t the best game in the series, Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly, or its Wii remake, instead, they have opted to bring the last full title, Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water, which released on Nintendo’s Wii U in Europe back in 2015. This is not the title I would have expected to come to celebrate the 20th anniversary, because while it is a decent enough game, it is not the original trilogy. Not only would it be nice to see those games updated, but they are also some of the better games in this series, better than this title, and so giving new fans the best introduction makes sense to me. Still, it does make for an interesting revisit, since Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water no longer has the Wii U controller to work with its controller screen camera gameplay.

Maiden of Black Water piles on the Japanese folklore with its fictional location of Mount Hikami in Japan, an infamous area that has been known as a suicide spot and has a history of spiritual activities. People have been known to go up the mountain and then never come back, indefinitely missing with no evidence of what has happened to them. The game features three protagonists as the player explores to uncover the dark and tragic happenings up on Mount Hikami. Yuri Kozukata, who works at an antique shop with her mentor Hisoka Kurosawa, a fortune teller who also knows how to use the Camera Obscura to see the unseen and their memories through a skill called Shadow Reading, and is teaching Yuri this knowledge during the opening part of the game. The other two characters are Ren Hojo, an author who is researching the mountain for his new book after seeing visions of himself as a kid murdering a young girl that looks like to be at the mountain, and Miu Hinasaki, a character who is looking for her mother (the protagonist from the first and third game), who vanished when Miu was a young girl. The story eventually has these characters crossing over after a few chapters and they must help each other survive the harrowing elements of Mount Hikami.

Taking around 12 hours to beat, Maiden of Black Water is a decent length. The plot is linear, but the last chapter offers the chance to feature eight various endings split across the three characters. Certain aspects of the story are fascinating, it is the supernatural after all, and if there is one thing I have learned from watching Japanese horror is that they like to go deep into their backstories and lore giving it a sense of realism. The game relates to issues of suicide and depression, topics that are sadly all too common in the modern age but it does approach them with an earnest display. It is a bummer that such an intriguing story is bogged down with poor pacing. Often the game can be moving at a snail pace before it truly gets going, especially when the story likes to make sure you know what is going on by retreading plot points, but with different characters. Some story elements are unique and are what make playing the three characters different since their gameplay is identical bar a couple of bespoke Camera Obscura skills that each one has.

Two main elements build up any Project Zero title, the third-person exploration, and the first-person action. The latter involves the Camera Obscura, a critical component. It is the only weapon the player has against the vengeful ghosts. There are no guns, grenades, chainsaws, or anything of the like, just a special exorcist camera with various film types that alter the damage or reload speed of the device. Sure, as a mechanic, it is still something you aim and shoot at the enemy to defeat them, but since enemies are ghosts, they are free to emerge in the most random of places and can retreat and appear in a 360 area around the player. Expect to see these none friendly ghosts drop through roofs, come through walls, raise out of the ground or simply fly towards you at speed.

The original release of Maiden of Black Water on the Nintendo Wii U was curious due to its use of the GamePad. The camera view was shown on the GamePad’s screen and using the gyros in the device, the player had to try to fit all the spirit orbs that would detach from the ghost when damaged from a photo to deal more damage and gain more points (each chapter has a scored rating at the end). Using the GamePad added that interaction, a feeling that you were actually looking through a camera and shooting ghosts. The PC version does not have the capability to do this, and there was initially no mouse support, but game patch 1.0.0.2 added support for this last night as I was writing this. Using a controller is still my preferred way to play the game.

How does this translate from Wii U Pad to general controller usage? Well, the core element of the combat is still here. The developers have not stripped away the concept of tilting the camera to fit all the ghost orbs in. It is a mixture of feeling like the older games in the series, but now with added buttons to tilt the camera left and right at a constant pace. Does it work? Yeah, but it is more cumbersome to tilt the camera, less fluid or accurate than using the gyros of the GamePad, but the actual act of taking photos and fighting off the ghosts works well. There is something immersive about trying to fight ghosts with a camera, a satisfying snap of accomplishment when the ghosts shriek in pain and then melts away. There are times where it feels the combat against a single standard foe is drawn out because they take so much damage before vanishing, but this also means that the player has to train their ability to dodge incoming attacks with the press of a button when the ghost is in their attack animation. Camera-based combat is joyous. The randomness of the enemy digs into the insecurity of the player. Ghosts can come at you from anywhere, and this with the camera gameplay gives this horror game such a unique feel over using a gun.

Exploring is done in third-person, a mix of the traditional shoulder view and classic fixed camera angles. The game also uses tank controls, which translates to the moving of the character being a tad cumbersome. Expect the character model to hit objects while sprinting, or struggling to get out of small spaces. It makes movement more awkward than it needs. It does add panic when in desperate situations, but the game does not need this since it creates such great tension without having to artificially add cumbersome controls. This is not the case for camera movement, since movement in camera view uses standard first-person controls.

Creating a haunting atmosphere is where Maiden of Black Water shines with its environment. Each location, be it the abandoned inn, the dense, foggy forest, or the creepy shrine with dolls scattered around most corners, adds to the wonderfully crafted atmosphere. This re-release is not much of a visual upgrade compared to the Wii U title. There are some sharper textures, but most of the benefits is being able to run the title at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second – taking hardly any powerful hardware to do that. There are still lingering elements of the Wii U, with some of the environment having poor texture work. It doesn’t quite feel like a remaster, more a port that happens to run at higher resolution and frame rate, but this also allows it to be presented in a clear image, enabling the game to better present itself to the player in all its intended spooky glory. What I am trying to say is that even though nothing much has been done to it, it still looks good. Maiden of Black Water is spot on with bringing a natural environment with a hint of danger that keeps the player on edge.

It is a shame that getting around the mountain is so slow. I imagine this was done on purpose so that combat with the ghosts does not turn into a simple game of sprinting away until it is safe, but they do move plainly slow and their animations follow in a similar fashion. It also does not help that many environments are played multiple times within the story with the three protagonists. The number of times the shrine with the dolls is visited must be near double digits. The developers obviously saw this as an issue, because some of the later chapters in the game throw the characters further up the mountain without having to explore some of the past locations again. Combat is kept active, as ghosts do return from the dead, so there is thankfully something to entertain during a retread back up the mountain at a snail’s pace.

I do believe it is great to see Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water moved to the current generation devices and away from Nintendo’s sadly failed Wii U console, but more could have been done for this re-release. It is not really worth a revisit if you have already played the game, as this is a bare-bones port with improved image quality and frame rate due to the power of the platforms the game has been ported to. Unless you are a hardcore fan, existing players will not find much to gain from picking this up. This is a release for newcomers, which to be honest, there will be millions who would have missed this due to the platform it was originally released on. For those people, you can expect a creepy game that oozes atmosphere, but is hampered by cumbersome controls and poor pacing. A trade-off I personally feel is worth taking to experience Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water‘s bespoke approach to horror.

6 out of 10