Welcome to another installment of the Fatal Frame! It’s been a little over a week since my last entry, but I should be able to get the next one after this finished a lot sooner. I’ll be focusing on another single ghost this time, the lovely Tomoe Hirasaka. She’s the assistant to Junsei Takamine and the second boss ghost you fight on the first night. Let’s see what she’s made of!
Ghost #6: Assistant’s
Again, a very descriptive name given to a special ghost. As mentioned above, she was Takamine’s assistant, only going along with him out of a sense of duty… despite her misgivings and her sixth sense of danger. She took a picture of Koji which seemed to be the start of the appearances of the rope marks on his limbs (though that might just be coincidental with Kirie’s curse). When Koji disappeared, she and Takamine went looking for him and found his body in the closet where Kirie had found him previously. Tomoe tried to find a way to fight the curse, even discovering the broken mirror reference during her research in the mansion. However, by then it was took late. Kirie got to her in the Abyss area of the Himuro Mansion, right next to the waterwheel. The ropemarks appeared around her neck, wrists and (presumably) ankles and she saw Kirie right before she died… right in front of Takamine… who we’ll get to in our next installment.
Gamewise, she’s rather difficult, especially compared to some of the ghosts you’ve seen before her. The only ghost that really compares thus far to her is the Long-Armed Man. When fighting her, she bends low and floats, either towards you or to one of the sides. She also tends to teleport, which can lead to some rather close encounters from behind. When fighting her, she took me down to the very least amount possible before dying; then she hit me again (I was very grateful for the stone mirror in the game at that point!). She seemed to have two Zero Shot attacks, one for when she floated close to you and another for when she floated somewhat low to the ground… she’d charge up and zoom right at me, grabbing me before I could get a shot off (or I got a shot off but missed). You fight her in two locations: the Fishtank Room and the Backyard area. When you finally defeat her, she tells you, "Tell Mr. Takamine… the mirror… the mirror!"
BONUS: To make up for a lack of pictures, I’d like to include this YouTube video. The video features several cutscenes from the Fatal Frame game, including several death scenes… the first death being that of our lovely lady here. So, please, check it out!
That’s all for this installment of the Ghost Gallery. Tune in next time when I bring you Mafuyu’s good friend and mentor, Junsei Takamine! Then, we’ll be going back to the double-ghost articles, with another special coming up all about the three children ghosts you have to fight on Night Two. Until next time, this is Red Hawk signing out! Take care!
Looking for the first parts of the Ghost List? Click these: PART ONE or PART TWO
Pictured: Koji Behind Miku in Fatal Frame for the PS2
Welcome to another installment of the Ghost List for Fatal Frame! I hope that everyone viewing these enjoys them, as I plan on covering all the ghosts in all three of the games by the time we’re done here. But, that’s for the future! We’re up to ghost number 5 on our list, and he’s one of the first night’s three story-centered ghosts. So, let’s take a look at our friend!
Ghost # 5: Editor’s
Yes, according to the in-game ghost list and pics you take of him in battle, the ghost is "Editor’s", but his real name is Koji Ogata. When Takamine first decided to write a book about the Himuro Mansion, he had Koji do research on the mansion – but he couldn’t find very much. When they first went into the Mansion, Koji was the first to fall victim to the curse, seeing rope marks appear on his arms, legs and neck. As his time in the mansion continued, his sanity slipped increasely further, to the point where he was seeing more and more ropes. Finally, when Kirie came after him, he ran and hid in the closet in the Library where she found him. When Miku comes to the house, he’s the first spirt she encounters, originally peeking at her from behind a screen and watching her from the rafters in the rope hallway. It’s his spirit she sees in the Library closet, grabbing her arm when she reaches for the tape recorder and she sees what happened to him through her sixth sense. In the next room, when she approaches the tape laying on the ground, she hears a voice say "Hey" and turns, but doesn’t see anything… then, when she starts to run for the door again, he appears in front of her. She has to fight him three times before he’s finally exorcised, his last words:
"Please… please… let me out of this mansion!"
There are a few scenes with Koji that still make me jump, even after playing through the game a few times and knowing what to expect. He appears in front of you when you open the door to the Library the second time, then appears behind you when you find his photograph inside the drawer in the Kimono Room, where you first fought him. The first fight against him is generally easy. I was able to take him out with one powered-up shot of the basic camera, but he’s a bit more difficult the other two times you face him. Koji is also the initial ghost that you have to deal with when you first go into Battle Mode. All in all, a pretty good introduction to the battle system for the game’s main character.
A little while ago I posted a review of Fatal Frame (PS2 version) for the Playstation 2 and talked about one of the ghosts during the article. In this series, I’ll be bringing you every "Hatred Spirit" ghost in the game. The Hatred Spirits are the ones that you fight, basically the core of the game, outside of the back story, of course. I won’t be showing you all the ghosts at once, though, just one or two at a time, with some personal observations and comments of my own tucked in there. So, without further ado, here we go!
Ghost #1: The Bound Man
This is the first ghost you encounter in the prologue as Mafuyu. He’s somewhat easy to kill here, a trend that continues into Miku’s part of the story where he returns as a random enemy ghost (one of several to prod you along if you stall in one area for too long). The trickiest thing he does is to turn invisible for a few seconds as he approaches you (turning invisible just means you can’t aim until he reappears) but he does not use teleportation. In the game, he looks like he’s been tied up a bit but his arms are out… my guess is, maybe he’s one of Kirie’s victims (who tend to see and feel ropes wrap around their extremities before they die). As he comes after you he moans, "Forgive meeeee…"
Ghost #2: Female Head
This is an interesting one. This ghost is just a head that levitates towards you… when it lands a successful hit it looks to be trying to chew your face off. One of the first times I encountered this ghost I had Miku look through a hole in the floor. What I saw was just the regular floor of the hallway below, then suddenly an eye appeared in the hole… the Head pursued me right after that, but that was a little startling (especially since a previous hole didn’t have anything in it, other than the view). Battle-wise, she’s pretty easy. She floats towards you, staying visible and not teleporting around, until she reaches you or you blast her with the camera. Her first appearance in Night 1 is rather memorable… when you enter a room you see an object start bouncing UP the stairs in the room… this is her and after she reaches the top she comes towards you. The first time I saw this I laughed. It reminds me of a quip from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode of The Screaming Skull, when a skull rolls down the stairs and one of the guys sings, "Everyone knows it’s Slink-skull." She appears again a few battles later in the game, also, but not as frequently as other ghosts.
(Editor’s note: Redhawk has also reviewed Fatal Frame for the Playstation 2 in a special double feature and you can find that by clicking these links: Part 1 or Part 2)
I have played several horror-themed video games over the years. I’ve faced the zombies of Resident Evil, the psychological terrors of Silent Hill, the Scissormen of the Clock Tower series, the malefactors of The Suffering, the shibito of Siren… let’s just say I’ve been around. However, the best survival horror series I’ve ever played is the Fatal Frame series. Since the first game debuted in 2001, it has positively proven to be the scariest series I have played.
The first game came out with the tagline ‘Based on a True Story.’ While it’s true that the events in the main part of the game didn’t actually happen (girl goes into haunted house and fights ghosts while searching for her brother), some of the ghost scenes are based on actual Japanese folklore. The story most tied-in to reality is that of the mansion itself. There’s an old mansion said to be cursed that is in an area outside of Tokyo. Seven people died in a grisly way in that house. Bloody handprints have been found on the walls, spirits appear on the premises during both day and night, plus a window is said to have a young girl in it when you take a picture of it. There’s said to be a sealed talisman locked away in the attic, but those who’ve tried to find the talisman end up dead, their bodies broken and rope marks around their wrists.
To this day, the people of Tokyo fear the incidents of the mansion and believe those who live near it will become cursed. The other legend deals with a tree that weeps like a woman. People have seen a spirit of a woman there and many traffic accidents have occurred there, as well. The story goes that two young lovers would meet near the tree every night, for their social status wouldn’t allow them to be together. The young woman was so hurt by their situation that she hung herself from the tree which has wept in sorrow ever since. Finally, a brave young man thought that he could rid the area of the ghost and its past, so he chopped down the tree, distributing it as firewood to the nearby residents of the area. However, those who burned the firewood soon died under mysterious circumstances and the young man who chopped down the tree disappeared completely. This legend lives on as the ghost of Yae, who hung herself when she thought the spirits of the Himuro Mansion had abducted her daughter.
My love for the game started the moment I first read about it in a game magazine. It talked about a new game coming out that took place in an old Japanese mansion and that the combat style was based off of the old legend that a camera could steal a person’s soul. I was intrigued by this premise. I’ve always been drawn to games with unusual playing styles… Space Channel 5, 7th Guest and 11th Hour (both of which I’ll be covering someday soon) – just about any game with Full Motion Video, in fact. By the time I read this article, I’d played all three Resident Evil games for PlayStation, plus Resident Evil: Code Veronica X for PS2 and at least the first Silent Hill not to mention the PSX Clock Tower, as well, and had grown somewhat tired of the "big guns" approach of Survival Horror.
So, this article succeeded by lighting a spark in me. Fast forward a few months, and the game has come out. I immediately rent it as soon as I can and I’m just blown away. The game is fun and unnerving all at the same time. I learned quickly that health items came few and far between as I kept getting attacked by the mansion’s unliving residents. I also learned that the old Resident Evil strategy of running from enemies by leaving a room doesn’t work when the enemy can just float through a wall…..
More to come in Part 2, folks! (you can find Part 2 by clicking: THIS LINK)
