Following on from my previous review of the first Project Zero and my sole reason for purchasing a WiiU, for the Monday long review, and also Halloween! It's time for my opinion and review on the fifth instalment of the Project Zero Series!
Known as Zero in Japan and Fatal Frame in America, this Tecmo series seemed like it was done for in English localisations after Nintendo made the still unclear decision to not release the 4th instalment on the Wii in English. Still - us English speaking folk are able to play the fifth one, Maiden of Black Water so it kind of makes up for it!
Maiden of Black Water changes the previous mould that the Project Zero series had of being trapped in a haunted mansion or village, and makes it so that the protagonists are able to freely travel from the haunted Mt. Hikami, and other locations. This adds a bit of variety to the game and means that you're not constantly travelling from point A in the place your trapped to point B. However, this is somewhat let down, and somehow worse than being trapped in a mansion. While the places you do visit are beautifully designed and full of atmosphere - it's not quite the same atmosphere. And instead of the feeling that you can travel all throughout the mansion, it feels like you've just got this one set level that you can go through. To be honest it's a little disappointing; however, Tecmo manage to make the game still a good fright fest even if it doesn't have the same fear as the previous games.
Like the 3rd game, (and what I've read about the 4th game) Maiden of Black Water features three playable protagonists, two girls and one guy. The main protagonist, like Rei in Project Zero 3: The Tormented, is Yuri Kurosawa. A kind of bland character who's past isn't really touched upon enough to give her any depth (even though her past is somehow supposed to play an important role in the plot), then the second most played character is Ren Hojo. A writer who's boyish looking assistant is very blatantly lusting after, an issue that is made to seem like it's going to play out as a major plot development, but doesn't end up relevant at all. Then finally we have Miu Hinasaki, the daughter of Miku Hinasaki from the first and third game (despite the fact that her age and Miku's age definitely do not add up). Miu get's the least amount of game time, and her personality doesn't really get a chance to shine.
An episodic feature is also added into the game, something that all horror game developers need to stop doing, it completely separates the player from the story, the little text at the beginning of an episode telling you what they didn't bother to make doesn't make up for their laziness, and it just makes the story hard to follow. An issue that The Evil Within had. It's issue that a lot of modern games have been having, and it's just to me a sign of lazy development.
Still Maiden of Black Water has a lot of positives as well! the lush graphics of the game help to bring the horror truly to life (even if the ghosts were a little too... physical, for my liking), and makes the scenery of Mt. Himaki and all the horror's that come with it a truly great experience.
As you can see from the picture, their run down rail cart station has a truly great look to it, similar to that of the previous games setting. The character design has also been made a lot more realistic, especially with the wetness feature that we'll get to shortly.
The features that have been added to this instalment work incredibly well for the horror setting of the game. Firstly the WiiU Game pad as the Camera Obscura worked immensely. Despite personally having seen this get shot down as a `gimmick that wears off after a while` I found myself using it to the very end, and took great pleasure, and fear, from diving around my room at 1 in the morning screaming as I try to capture a Fatal Frame shot of a ghost that's disappeared to behind me. The WiiU and it's Game Pas were definitely the console that Project Zero has been waiting for.
Unlike previous games, there are now two separate Camera Obscura's - the one that Yuri and Miu share, which like the previous games can switch to upgraded lens's, each with pro's and con's - and Ren's, which can't change lens' but has a special function of being able to take four consecutive shots, with the sacrifice of a slower film reload for the next shot. This features did great in making it so that you really had to think about whether or not it was a good idea. There's nothing more tense than seeing a ghost lunging towards you while your film is still reloading. Of course though you still have the non-violent ghosts that you can take pictures of for points! Even if some of them aren't ghosts but simply visions.
As previously touched upon, there is also a wetness meter. This get's filled up as your character walks through tainted rain or is attacked by ghosts of drowned corpses. The wetness meter when full, means you'll take more damage from ghosts and ghosts' will become more violent - but will allow you to take stronger photo's of them! It's a high risk high reward function that Tecmo implement. It could be argued that it's simply a way to give some fan service and show a bra strap - but I would argue otherwise. The only character it really shows anything of is Yuri, and it's a tiny amount of bra strap that is barely noticeable. Miu who has the most revealing outfit, barely changes appearance at full wetness, same as Ren.
One annoying feature that works at getting a good amount of jump scares, but can also be really annoying is the way characters now pick up items. From what I've seen from the remake of Project Zero 2 (a game I refuse to play because the British voice actors are god damn awful) was implement, it may have been added into the 4th game but at the current moment in time it's not seeming like I'll get the chance to play that one. Anyway, when picking up an item the character slowly reaches out to it while the player holds a button down. This allows the game to trigger a 20% chance of a `Ghostly hand` grabbing the player and draining a pointlessly small amount of health. It happens so little tho that you kind of... forget about it? Or sort of stop caring so that when it does happen, it actually does give you quite the jump scare. If it was more damaging however, It would've been a hell of a lot more terrifying as there would've actually been consequence for it grabbing you. Still, it's the little things.
Overall, Maiden of Black Water let's itself down with large amounts of lazy development and catering to the modern style of horror when it should've just improved on it's previous games styles and creation of atmosphere. The levels can get repetitive and boring, and the story isn't as strong as the previous games, so don't expect to be nearly crying at the end like in Project Zero 3! But nonetheless it has a lot of good qualities that make it worth, like me, solely buying a WiiU for! It's definitely a bit of a disappointment in the series, but nothing could live up to the first 3 games, and modern horror is a changing genre! Still it's worth the play with the first couple of chapters available as a free demo on the WiiU store!
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