Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a survival horror video game developed by Koei Tecmo and originally published by Nintendo for the Wii U. The fifth main entry in the Fatal Frame series, it was released in Japan in September 2014 and worldwide in October 2015. A remaster for eighth and ninth generation consoles and Windows, this time published by Koei Tecmo, was released worldwide in October 2021.
As with previous games in the series, players navigate areas filled with hostile ghosts which must be fought by taking photographs using the Camera Obscura. A post-endgame story featuring Ayane, a character from the company's Dead or Alive series, also features altered gameplay mechanics. The story, which is set on the fictional Hikami Mountain, focuses on three protagonists who are drawn into supernatural events revolving the area, including an ancient ritual to seal away the Black Water, a malevolent force corrupting the surrounding spirits that is tied to the fate of the titular shrine maiden Ose Kurosawa.
Planning for the game began in 2011, during production of the Wii remake of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly. Series co-creator Keisuke Kikuchi proposed the project when he saw that the Wii U GamePad could be used as the Camera Obscura. Kikuchi and fellow co-creator Makoto Shibata returned to their respective posts of producer and director, together with both new and returning staff. The cast underwent several revisions during development, while the staff experimented with the capacities of the new hardware. Japanese singer Tsuki Amano returned from earlier entries to produce one of the theme songs. The Wii U original was greatly praised its use of the GamePad and dark atmosphere, while opinions were mixed on its story, pacing and controls. The remaster also saw mixed responses, with the main criticisms being its controls and a lack of frightening elements.
Gameplay
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a survival horror video game that puts the player in control of three different characters traversing a number of environments across Hikami Mountain from a third-person perspective, including ruined buildings and dark forests. Characters navigate environments using an interactive map, and can either walk or perform a sprint. During exploration, the characters are confronted by hostile ghosts that attack and damage them through touch. If a ghost grabs the character, they can either dodge or break free from their grip.
The only means of defense and attack for the characters is the Camera Obscura, an antique camera that is used from a first-person perspective, with shots of varying proximity and angles affecting how much damage the ghost takes. The most damaging is a "fatal frame", which hits a ghost's weak spot. During combat, after a shot is taken, fragments of a ghost will appear around them. In the original version, the camera is controlled using the Wii U GamePad, while the 2021 remaster adjusts this to work with different console controls.
Aside from the Camera Obscura, other factors are present in play. The characters can glimpse pieces of a ghost's past upon defeating them or when they launch a special attack. Characters can also concentrate on items in the environment related to missing people, generating a shade that leads them to the person's location. A wetness meter tracks how damp the character gets when navigating environments. The amount of wetness has positive and negative effects on the character: being wet increases the damage done by the Camera Obscura while increasing the number of ghosts present in an area and attacks causing more damage. In addition, characters can be inflicted with a status ailment from dark-colored ghosts or from a special attack: this ailment decreases vision and defense, and deteriorating health. The ailment is only lifted by defeating all the enemies in the area or using an item to remove all wetness.
In addition to the three main characters' story arcs, a special episode features Dead or Alive protagonist Ayane. Unlike the other characters, she does not have access to a Camera Obscura, so she must avoid ghosts. If she begins running or gets close to a ghost, they will attack. Ayane can use a special "script of hiding" to make herself temporarily invisible, and when she is caught, she can use a special item to throw back and stun them so she can escape.
Synopsis Maiden of Black Water takes place on the fictional Hikami Mountain, a place infamous for suicides and spiritual happenings connected with local bodies of water. In the past, resident shrine maidens would use their mind-reading abilities to help guide people to a peaceful death. In time, their emotions would overwhelm them, and would be sacrificed as Eternal Flowers to keep a malevolent otherworldly power called the Black Water at bay. The story follows three different protagonists: Yuri Kozukata, who can bring people back from the shadow world into the real world due to her descent from the Hikami shrine maidens; Ren Hojo, an author and friend of Yuri who goes to the mountain to research his new book with his assistant Rui Kagamiya; and Miu Hinasaki, the daughter of earlier Fatal Frame protagonist Miku Hinasaki.
Among the ghosts they encounter are Shiragiku, a young shrine maiden whose sacrifice preserved her as a wandering spirit; and Kyozo Kururugi, a man who initially went to die on the mountain but developed an insane fear of the shrine maidens due to their mind-reading powers, killing many maidens and priests before committing suicide and becoming a hostile ghost. Many of those Kururugi slew became ghosts in their own right. The central story revolves around Ose Kurosawa, whose near-death experience had left her with powerful sixth sense abilities. Because of this, she became a shrine maiden and was chosen as an Eternal Flower. Before the ritual, Kunihiko Asou, creator of the Camera Obscura, took her photograph. They fell in love, and when the time came for the ritual, Ose's feelings for Asou and the emotions caused by Kururugi's rampage overwhelmed her. The ritual failed, unleashing the Black Water across Mount Hikami, and Ose became a powerful hostile spirit.
Miu, who initially goes there to help Yuri, sees a vision of her mother on the mountain. Later venturing there on her own, she learns that her father was Miku's dead brother Mafuyu: Miu's birth as a child of the living and the dead shortened Miku's life, only surviving this long due to Hikami Mountain's power. Miku goes to see her brother one last time pursued by Miu, and two endings play out depending on Miu's final actions. In the "Bad" ending, Miku goes into the afterlife to be with Mafuyu, leaving Miu alone. In the "Good" ending, Miu saves Miku from the mountain's power.
Ren, while helping Yuri and Miu and investigating the mountains on his own account, regularly crosses paths with Shiragiku. He learns that recurring dreams he has been having are the inherited memories of his ancestor Asou. Depending on his actions, he either unites or breaks up with Ose as Asou's present-day avatar, or puts Shiragiku to rest and returns to the living world.
Yuri's search through the mountain leads to her encountering many of its ghosts and using her Camera Obscura to lay them to rest. Learning of Ose's history, she heads to a final confrontation with her. Depending on where she sees Ose before the final battle, two endings play out. In the "Bad" ending, Yuri commits suicide with Ose, leaving Hisoka in tears. In the "Good" ending, Yuri shares Ose's pain, allowing her and the other spirits to pass on, while Yuri returns to the world of the living with Hisoka by her side. If the player gets the "Good" ending, a post-credits scene plays where Rui wakes up to find Ren in front of her, telling her he will remain by her side forever.
Development
The initial inspiration for the game came to series co-creator and producer Keisuke Kikuchi after the Wii U's introduction to the industry: similar to his reaction to the Wii for Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, Kikuchi saw multiple gameplay possibilities in the Wii U's gamepad, especially the gamepad becoming the game's Camera Obscura. He was the first to propose the concept to Nintendo, with it becoming a joint production between Koei Tecmo and Nintendo SPD as with Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. The staff included Kikuchi, series co-creator and director Makoto Shibata; and Toshiharu Izuno and Tohru Osawa from Nintendo, who had previously worked on Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. Planning began in 2011, during development of the Wii remake of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly. The key themes are water and the fear of being wet, with the game's key color being black. These themes were inspired by Shibata's memories of visiting Los Angeles in 2008; compared to the damp summer atmosphere and accompanying supernatural feeling he experienced in Japan, he felt he could not find any ghosts in the local dry American summer. This experience emphasized his view of dampness as an important part of ghost encounters. As with previous games, he made it thinking that it might be the final entry in the series. Maiden of Black Water features a theme song performed by Tsuki Amano, "In This Cage"; Amano had contributed theme songs to the series since Crimson Butterfly. In addition, it features a second theme song by Japanese singer AuJu titled "Higanbana". This too tied in with the wish to create something new for the series, along with showing its status as a high-end game with the inclusion of two theme songs.
The team used traditional Japanese horror as an aesthetic starting point as with earlier Fatal Frame titles, with the main purpose being to make it as frightening for players as possible. In aid of this, the flashback videos and core concept of rescuing people from supernatural hot spots was brought in, although several proposed elements related to this were cut. The main cast went through revisions, although a male character was decided upon early on. Yuri was created relatively quickly, but the team had trouble deciding who the third character would be. An initial idea of having Miku Hinasaki as a playable character was dropped as her story arc had been resolved in earlier games. Instead, the character of Miu was created, with Kikuchi initially thinking her name was a typing error with Miku's name before reading the full story draft. Ren was initially going to record events on the mountain to offer a different perspective. The relationship between Ren and Rui was modeled after that between classic detective character Kogoro Akechi and his live-in assistant Yoshio Kobayashi. The female characters' clothing was designed to make them look "sexy" when it got wet. The story and characters combined elements from four previous Fatal Frame game proposals, with the mountain setting taken from one of those scrapped projects. Maiden of Black Water features the largest number of storylines up to that point, but due to the amount of narrative he wanted to include, Shibata ended up neglecting other elements such as Mount Hikami's history of suicides. Mount Hikami was originally suggested by Nintendo, based around multiple real locations in Japan, particularly Mount Osore and the Tōjinbō sea cliffs.