Last year, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water released as a remaster for all current platforms. According to Koei Tecmo's financial report in March 2022, the remaster sold about 340,000 units by December 2021. This was a decent number compared to its other games like Blue Reflection: Second Light, which sold 120,000 units, and Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires, which sold 150,000 units in the same quarter.
Fatal Frame is a beloved series that has collected dust for a while. Despite its good sales, Maiden of Black Water got average to mixed reviews. Many Fatal Frame fans wondered why it was Maiden of Black Water that was chosen to be remastered, since it's one of Fatal Frame's least popular titles. Since it sold well enough, it's time to remaster the titles of the series that were the best.
Fatal Frame's Best
Most of Fatal Frame's best titles are still stuck on the PS2. The first game has not gotten a port or remaster since it came out for the PS2 in 2001. In fact, those that played Maiden of Black Water without this first game may have been very confused at times because Miku's entire side story is based on events from this first PS2 game. Overall, its Metacritic score is higher than Maiden of Black Water. With how long it has been, fans were quite disappointed that Fatal Frame's most recent and lesser-loved title got the remaster instead of the first game.
The arguable best game of the series, though, was Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly. The PS2 game came out in 2003 and has the highest reviews with near-perfect scores from publications like GameSpy and Game Informer. The game was popular enough to even get a Wii remake in 2012, but it was only in Japan and Europe which disappointed many fans that lived outside of Japan and Europe. Fatal Frame 3 was not as popular but still got near-perfect review scores from some outlets. Even the fourth game that never left Japan, Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, generally had a higher score in reviews than Maiden of Black Water. Publications like Edge and Nintendo Life gave it an eight out of 10 score.
To compare, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water for the Wii U got a 5.5 out of 10 from GameInformer, five out of 10 from GameSpot, and seven out of 10 from IGN. Eurogamer put the title under the "Avoid" category. The remastered version improved a little, but still never got higher than the reviews and scores of its predecessors.
What Made The Other Games Different
On the surface, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water has all that the other games have. It has broken-hearted shrine maidens, failed sacrifices, plenty of ghosts, and the camera obscura. However, the narrative is where Maiden of Black Water was very weak. It has the most characters out of the other games, and they all make the pacing fragmented and the story difficult to follow. Adding to that, the game story does not flow well and is broken up into 14 chapters in a menu that also disrupt the pacing.
Fans have complained that the characters themselves also did not feel memorable both due to their lack of screen time and due to the writing. Rather than stay on the haunted mountain, the characters kept going back and forth as well. This made players have to go through the same linear paths over and over again. Maiden of Black Water also has only a handful of ghosts compared to other titles, which added to the sense of repetitiveness. Having the same enemy over and over also made them less scary.
The reason Maiden of Black Water was still chosen for the remaster is likely due to it being the prettiest. It may have also been a more popular game in Japan, and admittedly the older games would have required bigger updates. On the bright side, Maiden of Black Water may have sold well enough to encourage remasters of the better-received titles in the future.
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.