Alongside the giants of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, Koei Tecmo’s Fatal Frame series is a largely hidden gem of Japanese horror gaming. Popular enough to continue to this day, Koei Tecmo’s horror series is jumping back to life with a remake of its best entry, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, next month.
In an interview with GamesRadar, the remake’s directors oto Shibata and Hidehiko Nakajima explain that Crimson Butterfly is built around the core foundations of J-Horror, the same style of creepy, poetic horror that you may see in films like Ju-On: The Grudge, Ring, or Dark Water.
As with the original game, the upcoming remake of Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly is drenched in a thick layer of foreboding atmosphere, something the directors state is “”the essence of Japanese horror.” While American horror loves a good slasher film, J-Horror delights in making the viewer—or in this case the player—as uncomfortable as possible.
The directors told the outlet that a good Japanese horror title needs to be good as “restraining jump scares and graphic violence, instead stimulating the player’s imagination”. Over the decades, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly has been renowned for its restraint compared to the likes of Resident Evil, allowing its creepiness to build while still engaging in its arcade-y Camera Obscura gameplay.
As for the setup of the game, the director’s explain that Fatal Frame 2 is very poetic in its view of beauty and how terrifying beauty can be, similar to something like Junji Ito’s iconic Tomie story. This is one of the central themes of Fatal Frame, even down to the series’ last new entry, Maiden of the Black Water.
“I feel that beauty often contains fear or even poison within it,” the directors said. “Beautiful things can be frightening, and frightening things can be beautiful.”
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly is my second-favourite horror game of all time following Konami’s Silent Hill 2, and it’s great to see the game come back with a new lick of paint. So far, the remake appears to be incredibly faithful to the original game, although it will probably lack the Nintendo Wii unlock costumes which let Mio dress up as Maario and Mayu dress up as Luigi.
