Fatal Frame II is Better Than I Remembered

I played all three of the original Fatal Frame games alongside my cousin, usually in his large house surrounded by the tall, dark pine forests of the Cascade mountain range in Northern California. It was an apt setting for these ghost stories, and one that elevated the horror of the experience to my poor, naïve teenage self. The games impacted me in more ways than one, teaching me to appreciate horror in a way I hadn't before and further deepening my love of interactive storytelling.

The stories themselves, however, left something to be desired in my mind. Ending spoilers for both games ahead: not in detail, but ending spoilers nonetheless.

I've already talked about how the first Fatal Frame left me cold at the end, having dropped much of the thematic groundwork it built in favor of, oddly, affirming the torturous suffering inflicted on its characters as a necessary evil. In playing through the sequel, I held out hope that it might rectify that problem and give me a more satisfying conclusion.

It didn't do that. It ends in much the same way as the first game, at least canonically; the ritual is performed, the protagonist suffering its trauma, and the perpetuation of this horrific cycle is what ultimately lifts the curse and resolves the conflict of the story. 

I was disappointed, to say the least. If anything, the actual manifestation of this ending in Fatal Frame II is more traumatic, on account of the far more personal and emotionally distressing nature of the Crimson Sacrifice ritual compared to the body horror of the first game's Strangling Ritual. It felt like the game was simply retreading the ground of its predecessor, opting for empty tragedy and scares over any kind of satisfying conclusion. 

It didn't help that the game's outsized reputation very much does not agree with me. Fatal Frame II is treated as the first game's superior in every way, a masterpiece of horror that iterated and improved on everything that made the first game such a unique and successful experience. But to me, it felt fairly rote; everything it did well, the first game did well too, and its failure to rise above the flaws in the first game's story cemented it as firmly below the first in my eyes. 

But a weird thing has been happening as I work on this video: the more I think about Fatal Frame II, research its various endings and hidden details... the more I come to appreciate it. Maybe love it, even. 

I do still think its status as a superior sequel is somewhat overstated. The gameplay, visual presentation, and moment-to-moment storytelling are certainly improved in a variety of ways, but for the most part that improvement is very iterative. Small steps, rather than large leaps. But rather than disparage Fatal Frame II in response to its reputation, I think the first game simply doesn't get enough recognition. It's not that Fatal Frame II is worse than everyone says, but that no one seems to acknowledge just how well the first one accomplishes its goals. The perceived difference in quality between Fatal Frame and Fatal Frame II is still overstated, in my opinion, but only because the first one is better than people give it credit for. 

But even so, digging this deeply into Crimson Butterfly has made me confront just how well constructed it is, and how much more depth and nuance the story holds than I had realized at the time. Its backstory is more focused than the first game, allowing each miniature ghost story the player confronts to speak directly to the themes of the overall narrative. The design of the world and pacing of the story result in a more focused, easy-to-follow progression that makes the story of Mio and Mayu feel just as important as the story of Yae and Sae. 

And most importantly, the alternate endings add layers of depth and detail that drastically changed my outlook on the canonical ending, in a way few alternate endings have accomplished for me. 

The canon ending is tragic, yes, and alone there's little redemption for it. But through the other endings, we see the way both twins can rely on each other. We see how they can work through the trauma that kept them from truly becoming close. We see a strongly implied explanation for Mio's actions in the canonical ending, and the tragedy of it takes on more meaning for that added nuance. And together, all this forms a picture of a far more complex and thematically rich story than the first, with a significantly stronger emotional core at its center. 

I'm still writing the script and working through my feelings, and I'll of course share my conclusions with more detail in the video itself. But I've had quite the journey with this one, and I hope the resulting video will be all the richer for it. 

Thanks for reading my ramblings, and I hope you'll enjoy the video when it releases!