Fatal Frame III: The Tormented

Fatal Frame 3 is horror at its best, minus any cheap scares. It does an outstanding job of creeping you out while spinning a deep and distressing story that will get under your skin.

A quality title that doesn't necessarily stray from the proven groundwork laid down by its predecessors, but still manages to give you a good scare.

I'll just issue a warning that this game isn't for the faint hearted - don't buy it in haste, or you'll have plenty of time to repent at leisure when it's sat in your PS2, not getting played, because you dare not unpause it.

However, "not quite as good as the best ever" is still pretty damn good. [Holiday 2005, p.84]

It has just enough to keep you enthralled despite these shortcomings, yet the relatively low reply value means that it is not a title you’ll keep coming back to time after time.

Yes, the atmosphere is thicker than Pete Burns' lippy, and sure, this is fantastic hairraising fare, but it is hard to shake the feeling that the bare bones of The Tormented - spooky exploration mixed with shadowy combat - has been done much better elsewhere, and this feels antiquated and cumbersome and in comparison.

The sights, sounds, and feel of the game are so similar to the last two games that you’ll find the entire thing less scary. Enemies will feel less threatening, locations will remind you of past locations, and the whole thing will lose some of its edge.

Fatal Frame Series are the best games in my life. And this one is the greatest. The game only have 2 problems, the sound have very low quality comparing to the previous game. And this game is too bright, not dark like the previous game, so I recommend to low the brightest in the settings a lot. In the way it becomes equal to the 2 first games. This game is longer, deeper, better graphics, better story, better controls. You have more fun skills and personal skills from each character that adds enjoyment to the gameplay. The best fights in the series is here. The difficult is great, not too hard like the Fatal Frame 1 and not to easy like Fatal Frame 2. It is hard to say wich I prefer actually, 1 or 3. I love both, 2 is way too easy.

This is a game I consider true Psychological Horror. Instead of fighting Zombies or Monsters (or aliens), you must deal with Ghosts that will try to kill you every step of the way. As you try to explore the Manor of Sleep and try to solve its grim mysteries. You control 3 different characters throughout the story and each character handles the ghosts a different way. Rei is balanced and uses Camera Obscura in a balanced fashion. Miku has high spirit power so her attacks cause more damage though the capture circle on the Camera Obscura is a bit smaller. Kei is not so good at fighting, so he mostly should hide and wait for the bad ghosties to go away.(Unless the game is scripted so you have to fight the ghosts.) This game is scary, It's graphics are top-notch and it's story isn't half bad either. This game may have a few flaws, but none that I could find. So with all the power of an unpaid reviewer hidden amongst millions of other reviewers, I give this game a 10!

Okay, honestly, the game has a lot of downsides. First and foremost, aside from the fact that I hated the length of the game, the story... Now you're probably wondering how and why. Yes, the game's story is nice, but it's bad. It's like they put the story of the first and second games together, added the third, and threw them in a blender to create the third game. I don't have a problem with having more than one story, but it distracts you. You can't focus on one story completely. As a player, I was honestly distracted. I was barely starting to get used to Rey, and then he kept switching me to a different character. Not to mention the excessive documentation, half of which was useless. So, story-wise, it wasn't the best, and it wasn't better than the second or first game. The second downside is the length. The game is way too long and doesn't deserve it. I would have preferred the first game at 8 hours or the second at 12 hours, not 16 hours! That's way too much! And the game literally replays the same place 30 times or more each time. Ugh, so boring! I don't know how I put up with it. The puzzles are just okay, to be honest. Okay, that's all the downsides. No, there's another problem. With my copy, I played the USA version, and the character voices are in English, but where are the voices? The characters are bad and don't match the visuals, I don't know why. There are many scenes between the characters that are just text without any visuals or even sound. I think these are the negatives that really annoyed me and turned the game experience into something boring. On the positive side, there are many. The game's story, despite being drawn out and scattered, is excellent and clear, and the tattoo story was great. The area design wasn't the best; on the contrary, it was distracting and repetitive from the first and second games, with a touch of the third. I didn't like this move, but I don't know, it's up to you, I just didn't like it. The idea of ​​Rey's apartment was good, to be honest, but then it became boring and they milked it dry. But when the apartment was changed to something like in Silent Hill 4, it had more life. The ending isn't as bad as the first game, nor as strong as the second; it's somewhere in between. The game's direction, pacing, and characters aren't the best; the second game is better. And there's something annoying: I understand it's a dream, but when I collect items like healing movies or something, after finishing a chapter, it takes me back to the beginning, and I haven't collected anything. Why? The final boss is a bit boring, but it's still enjoyable. I liked it, even though it was a bit difficult. The ghosts were the worst of the three games I played. Okay, I made them fast, no problem, but when they just hit the wall, and I couldn't attack them and they couldn't attack me, it became boring. Imagine you're in a trench and the enemy is in the same trench, and no one attacks. The only positive thing I really praise the game for, and it deserves a point on its own, is Atsuko Amano. She's a legend, and her song is a 10/10. I can't describe it any better than that; her song is always legendary. In the end, Fatal Frame 3 is an average experience, deserving of a 7.5/10, and half a point for Amano.

Navigate a creepy labyrinth. Good - graphics improved from fatal frame 1 and 2 - character animations after for both enemy and protagonist. Protagonist actually gets scared with more dramatic animations, which is felt by the player too - reading thoughts from the protagonist in her notebook is nice. Gives her more personality, and makes me care more about her. It also summarizes events that just happened, allowing me to follow the story more easily. It also gave insight on every character the protagonist meets and knows - cutscenes were done very well. Voice acting was great too. - camera button mapped to triangle is a good change. It's closer to the run button, which is what's used most during a fight, meaning the transition between the two was more fluent than the old circle button mapping. - transitioning from haunted mansion back to modern city adds diversity to the environment, changing up the tone and keeping things interesting - having the house as a hub world makes the game world feel bigger. And more down to earth. More freedom as well. - Healing items are more scarce, and enemies were tougher then fatal frame 2. Though the game did allow me to full heal by exiting dream, then returning. So that's like a safety net - rei gets a full heal when she exits the dream, so it's a bit of gamble whether to use a heal or not if I felt she was gonna wake up soon - given the amount of film available, doing zero shots is almost mandatory, which makes the game heavily reaction based. If you take all easy shots, you'll certainly run out of ammo - the day time in the house gave me a nice break from the constant paranoia and fear - the disappearance of Yoshino gave me a stark alert as to what outcome rei will face - I like the continuity between the 3 fatal frames - the dream haunting in horror media is scary because as humans sleep is inevitable. So despite being safe during waking hours, the return to the horror is imminent. That's what makes it scary. Famous movie portrayal is nightmare on elm street - revisiting himoru mansion with Miku was cool - removing the need to equip spirit orbs to upgrade a stat saves time. - I'm glad they added subtitles to the audio tapes. In fatal frame 2 it was basically impossible to hear what they were saying on the radio - combining zero shots is a fun mechanic - doll looking back at me was creepy. a lot of other random objects in the background bull randomly move as well, which what's a very good addition to the fear - flash is a good gameplay mechanic. Can get out of stick situations, and can do flash into attack combo - control vibration done well. Made things more tense. - enemy design was diverse and fun to fight. Minus the mad camera angles. - glad they have English letters to denote the abilities in the menu instead of just Japanese characters - there's a lot of interesting folklore stuff that can be found. It gives an incentive to take pictures of ghosts, since I can develop them and have Miku research them which unlocks the information. - rei, Miku, and Kei each have their own techniques and abilities. Miku can charge shots. Kei can crouch which is pretty useless, since running away is more optimal then stealthing. Rei has flash - as rei spent more time in the sleep Manor she'd experience more and more hauntings in real life. - it's nice seeing hauntings in modern Life, since it hits home more. The shower ghost scene, and the attic ghost scene, and the ghost in mirror you can actually imagine that happening in your own household, which makes it scarier then a haunting inside an old run-down mansion. - it's really interesting how in the past people would believe in folklore, mythical Legends, because of a lack of wide sharing of knowledge. A village isolated in a forest would never adopt the latest technology, hence they'd likely hold on to tradition, and even inhuman rituals. - there is an old film filter later in the game that shows up if my candle lights ran out, which added an extra layer of fear when navigating in in combat - the final boss black and white segment reminds me of nightmares where I'm trying to run away but can't get anywhere - the ending was good. How yuu took the burden of carrying Rei's tattoo curse. Bad - don't understand why they still haven't added the ability to go to previous page when reading notes - I wish they included voice acting for the conversations between Miku and rei as well. It's surprising that they didn't because there weren't that many dialogues between them. Which seems like the cost of a full voiceover wouldn't have been that much - hairpin girl in kimono room has unlimited health during second encounter, wasting me a lot of film then dying to realize this fr a guide. If an enemy is invulnerable, the game should not allow the camera to target them

It is really awkward game control and the only satisfying thing in this game is that the atmosphere has a scary views . The uses of language that not really common that this game was originally Japanese , also made the game is hard to understand.. It is a good game but not Outstanding though