Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse

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Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a good remaster. It can give you a dozen hours of a solid thriller about a terrible disease, scary rituals and haunted houses.

Fatal Frame / Project Zero - Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a fair update of a 2008 Wii game that does a solid job bringing it to a new audience. Sure, it's not a brand-new main series entry, but it's good. Just don't try and run in the game, it's more of an exaggerated shuffle.

Despite generational gameplay flaws, like awkward camera controls in areas and slower pacing, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a worthy remaster and offers fun value to any survival-horror fan.

We're thankful for this game finally coming to the West, because it's a well crafted, amusing survival horror. It needs a greater improvement on the graphical side, though.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse seems like a masterpiece that should have released 2 or 3 generations ago, as its visuals are dated and its control mechanisms is something that we don’t see anymore these days. But on the plus side it offers a mysterious world and atmosphere, a great sense of fear and a solid story. Just the like the old days.

Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a good remake. It paints an engaging and delightfully horrific world to delve into, with shocking twists and secrets to uncover at every turn. While players will very likely be left picking up the pieces of its narrative largely told through readables, it’s rewarding when it all clicks into place, painting a harrowing picture set in Southern Japan. It may be a remake that is still very of its era, with finicky camera movement and some questionable female character skins that can only come from that of gaming in the 2000s. However, in every other aspect, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse revels in its origins. On offer is wicked, tense and tight combat performed creatively through the Camera Obscura. It’s environmental design and scares are begging to be picked apart in true throwback fashion. Well worth the resurfacing indeed.

It may not be perfect, but the localization of Fatal Frame: Mask of The Lunar Eclipse polishes the original product in ways that only benefit the package. Some things can't be easily improved, like stiff main characters or combat fundamentals, but this is a solid effort to bring this game stateside. Horror fans will have a great time here, but it might not be enough for everyone to jump into.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is an excellent, beautiful horror experience that works on modern platforms. From a game design perspective, it works brilliantly to guide the players through the nightmare with minimal confusion. However, the gameplay hurts the pacing with slow-moving characters, control issues, and repetitive structure, making you spend too long getting through it all.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a good horror and survival game that many of us missed out on because we didn't have it in our region. Facing the enemies is still fun and oppressive, the game is very close to the formula already seen in Maiden of Black Water but more evolved. The essence of the original game is a huge problem.

This sense of gradually increasing paranoia, along with a story that only becomes more metaphysically unhinged as it goes along, makes for a title that ultimately rewards patience and those players who are willing to slip into its atmospheric world like they would a warm, spooky bath. That said, I think many players will probably give up on Mask of the Lunar Eclipse after they’ve been asked to photograph another slow-walking ghost for the billionth time, but if they stick with it they’ll be rewarded with a survival horror experience unlike any other.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse‘s fair controls and slightly dated design are things I can accept because this is an old game that was given a layer polish rather than a complete overhaul. I’m sure its small pool of veteran players will appreciate bonus content like unlockable costumes and filters for the photo mode. But ultimately behind all that is a solid horror game, warts and all. And like many updated classics, this could potentially serve as a litmus test of whether a long-running franchise will receive a new entry. Maybe the same applies to Fatal Frame.

Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a good game for horror fans, but as a remaster there are some noticeable shortcomings.

Playing Project Zero / Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse just reaffirms to us that we really need a new entry in this under-appreciated series. But until then, there are a lot of enjoyable chills to be had with this remaster. Its controls may be archaic by today’s standards, but everything else stands the test of time. Add in a wealth of unlockables, including a mission mode, and this is the type of horror game you might return to time and time again.

There's a decent horror game somewhere in here, but frustrating controls and barebones remastering work hold it back.

The unexpected arrival of a new episode of Project Zero, 15 years after its debut in Japan, in a reworked version translated into French, may delight us to the highest degree, but above all it highlights the urgency of modernizing the gameplay from the series. As it stands, this remaster is therefore only intended for fans of the franchise who have been waiting for a long time for an opportunity to discover this fourth opus.

FATAL FRAME: Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse sports a new paint job that could still use a few more coats in some areas, but nevertheless offers an interesting horror mystery. However, even with the upgrades, the pain points of past entries are still present, and is not aided by a non-linear narrative that may not be enough to entice everyone to smile for the camera.

Fatal Frame Mask of the Lunar Eclipse proves to be too conservative, characterized by slow and anachronistic game rhythms. It is true, in any case, that structural changes could not be expected from a purely aesthetic remastering. For sure, historical fans will greatly appreciate the improved graphics, more realistic lighting, controls adapted to a traditional pad and the alternative costume compartment. Instead, those who have never tried a Fatal Frame will hardly digest a visibly dated play system.

With Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, you must take the good it offers along with its regressive design in order to even begin to ride its eerie wavelength. Which, for what it’s worth, is an exceptionally uncanny ride that never puts on the breaks long enough for boredom to ever set in, as even its wildest swings result in some considerably discomforting set pieces (the funeral-themed room inhabited by the hostile spirit Kageri Sendou and her maleficent doll Watashi, while a tad on the nose in its design, is a disturbing highlight). This may not be a game that was made for these modern times, but for those willing to put up with its old-school frustrations, it’s also one that will certainly keep you up at night and stick in your subconscious for weeks to come.

Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is an old school survival horror game for better and worse. It's charmingly old school, and for people who grew up on a healthy diet of Resident Evil and Silent Hill back on the original PlayStation like we did, there'll be something nostalgic to the control foibles and camera issues. But there's no getting away from the fact that this is a game that feels older than it is, and the leaden pace will be off-putting to many.

If you’re looking for a nostalgic J-horror experience, and you’re prepared to put in the effort and work with the control scheme, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is an enjoyable, highly atmospheric adventure, with many brilliant moments of fear and dread. The spirits are wonderfully designed, and spotting a black-eyed ghost child lurking behind you, or in the corner of a room, never fails to send a shiver down the spine. For those of us who believe the Project Zero series should be as revered as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, it has been a pleasure to step, once again, into its chamber of horrors, with just a camera to protect you and the remnants of an ancient ghost story ready to be exhumed.

This re-release of the 2007 Wii horror game has echoes of what make this classic horror series great, but is stifled by a lumbering pace, cumbersome controls, and lack of genuine scares.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is an interesting snapshot of a time gone by, but that’s essentially the only intriguing thing about it. More an historical curio than a game worth playing on any kind of merit, its torturous pace and general lifelessness absolutely murder any sense of tension or basic intellectual involvement. A plodding narrative, as well a disgraceful amount of backtracking, serve only to enhance the ennui.

We would have loved to like Project Zero 4: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse which, let's face it, is still above the fifth installment. But now, by choosing the path of the remaster, Koei Tecmo prevents the game from erasing its defects of yesteryear. Between the race which is akin to walking, the worries in moving, the slowness to pick up even an object, the title drags more than a ball. As it stands, like Project Zero 5, it would have needed a remake. Besides that, the catchy scenario, the atmosphere and even the basic concept are more flattering arguments. A game that is primarily aimed at fans who would not have had the opportunity to make this episode, and who can now enjoy it in VOSTFR with a very good Japanese soundtrack.