Critic of the hour

Now that we've come to this, I had to say, Resident evil and Silent hill deals with monsters and man monsters. But this one, you gotta look out for because you cannot fight the enemies with bats, rods, guns, or crow bars. You only got one weapon: and it's a freakin' camera.






In the past, we've decided to buy this new game called "Fatal Frame III: The tormented" that's out in the local video stores. Before we bought the CD, we had history on this game because we already tried playing Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly when I was younger. So we really had an idea what this game is about.


Next, playing it on when the lights are all out and the doors are all shut.


Me, my older sis and bro tried to make a new game before the video clip of the main character's side story played off. The thing is, we entered this "Old Japanese Mansion" through her dreams (finally knew where the permanent setting of the game would take place) and it was just plain creepy.


The graphics are meant to be a little blurry but good enough to see the hallways and stairs. The sound effects were as crazy as hell. Trust me, if you muted it, it will be less horrifying. Although the first scene in the game, where you control Rei Kurosawa (the game's sexy main character), made us jump in front of the television. There was a ghost with a knife or something in his hands and he was chasing over us!
THE ANNOYING thing is: The ghost runs 1 meter per second and Rei runs like she was in labor.
Even how many times we tried to mutilate the analog stick to make her go faster, she was just plain sissy.


But if it was in real life I think I would've froze to death in the middle of the manor, shaking and praying.
At some point in time in the game, after the "dream mansion" ghost adventure, you could wake up by exiting on the Mansion gate. Every time she wakes up, she gets this snakes and holly tattoos on her back.

Here's a picture of a fight scene where a woman's ghost is seen trying to attack Rei.

The game's ultimate weapon to exterminate the ghosts is the "Camera Obscura", an object from a very old japanese folklore that was said to carry supernatural abilities to see ghosts. It's quite simple, you capture the ghost in the camera screen, make sure the inner circle of the camera turns red for it to take a hit, and press x to attack.


Now this is kinda tricky, sometimes a ghost would just float from a far and just comes near to you. That's easy to fight. But if the ghost is teleporting from room to room, then you must stay more focus than ever. That means that you cannot just stand there and move your camera east to west, but you have to run and avoid the ghost. There's also a situation where the ghost dives in front of you, or worse, there are two or more ghosts for you to fight. Another thrilling fight scene is the woman whose limbs were stretched so severely that she looks like she was wearing really long sleeves. She can stretch her arms to you and shake your life bar off like a jingle bell in Christmas.


At a very unfortunate situation, we have encountered the boss, Reika Kuze, walking (more like dragging herself) unto the halls and moaning. Saying stuff like, "No one will survive" or "I'll kill them all" or in the bonus round we thought she said, "Sushi but no tomatoes." [Oh come on, that is not discrimination. I love the Japanese. Peace!]

Here's us raiding the manor when this woman suddenly appeared opposite our wall. The camera views are a thrill.

We also encountered several ghosts in the mansion (Not to mention that there were also ghosts that haunts Rei's real life house and increases in number while the story progresses). The first was the guy with a butcher knife chasing our tails, then the mother and daughter (their video clip was pretty shocking), a ghost with a number of arms and hands that can stretch itself to double its length, a woman crawling under a vent (it was hard to capture her because she was faster than any ghosts we've met so far), and a group of little creepy girls called the "impalers" or whatever. Their job is to assist a priestess and drive a stake through her hands and feet. Shinto Rituals are pretty scary and twisted, eh?


There was also a woman with her hair ripped off and pinned against the wall (They say she was waiting for this guy who found her while she was brushing her hair in front of her mirror. She fell in love with him and waited for him to come back but he never did. They say she just kept brushing her hair in front of her mirror so when the guy visits again, he'll find her in the same way he left her. Well her story went awfully wrong and ended up in chaos).


A lot of ghosts have taken their horrible pasts with them, and the most horrible of them all is the story of this young woman who was heart broken, her name is Reika Kuze. They say that she belonged to this Kuze family who practices dark shinto rituals. The family tried to close the hellish abyss (Just imagine it's the gates of hell) by sacrificing women who suffered pain, any sorts of pain. They do it in the mansion and guess what, men are strictly not allowed to come in the mansion except if they need more daughters. It says that if the child is a male, they will kill it. If it is a female, it will serve the Kuze family as a hand maiden.


When the ritual is successful, the family had prevented the hellish abyss to devour them or that's what I thought they were scared of happening. But after Reika Kuze's lover was killed by the head of the Kuze family, the ritual became unsuccessful and the hellish abyss killed everyone in the mansion. They say that Reika's lover was butchered in front of her eyes. At that time, she had snakes and holly tattoos that already spread all over her body like a colorful wrapping paper. Because of ultimate rage, she was the only priestess who let the tattoos reach her eyes.


In the end, we had to fight the boss. Reika Kuze is one of the few ghosts that can drain your life bar IMMEDIATELY after touching you or getting in contact with you. The nerve wrecking thing is, your television will be in a complete darkness with only Rei with a spot light following her. Nothing else.


Your mission is to RUN. Because Reika Kuze will be chasing over you and once she appears in the darkness and stretches her arms to you, you'll die automatically.
The scariest boss fight ever. Imagine it if your controller accidentally breaks and your analog stick won't work. Rei is a sitting duck.


Anyway, after a horrifying mess and lots of hand sweats that almost destroyed our controller, we finally finished the game. You could say we were freaks, but how about real ghosts in video games? Alright, fine, Stay Alive sequels aborted.
Post a comment about your scariest experience in this game or if you haven't tried it yet, the game is available in your local video store or in the mall. Maybe you'd get an alternate ending. Enjoy this game and it is better to play it when you fully understand the story. What can I say? It's a dream. Well...isn't it?

If this scene is in real life, I could've fainted and get a coma for a month.

For your Critic of the Hour, I'd give this game a
4.79/ 5. You can rate it in your comments, too!
Have luck and prepare for a scream which works way better if played with a group of people.