by:	December 18, 2004

The Xbox is a system with few survival horrors, until Fatal Frame II Crimson Butterfly Director’s Cut we had only seen three that stood in our minds. This new entry into the survival horror genre however is definitely a welcomed one and will bring chills to anyone who plays it. You may remember playing the original Fatal Frame on Xbox or even PlayStation 2. Like the previous Fatal Frame, you are in a game heavy with dark, brooding atmosphere, with a lot of traditional Japanese style. You also discover a camera that will capture the souls of spirits and send them packing. The story follows the horrifying journey of Mio and her twin sister, Mayu, as this lost village and a strange, symbolic crimson butterfly lead them on a strange and frightful journey that will leave you trembling for more.

The Director’s Cut has a lot of neat features you will only get on the Xbox. Besides the sharpened visuals, audio, and slightly attuned fighting mechanics you have FPS Mode. FPS Mode is exactly how it sounds and is available to try when you first start playing. This gives you the option of playing all the way through the game in first-person view, or the traditional third-person view. The interesting thing about the first person view is, you get more of a sense of unpredictability. There could be ghost surrounding you at all sides and you wouldn’t know it because you can’t see behind and in front of yourself. Another new mode, the Survival Mode just pits you up against a lot of ghost to see how long you last. It is unlockable when you complete the game, but other than that it’s nothing special. The worst thing about the title is, it takes only nine hours to beat it. When you beat the game you get some extra costumes such as a bikini (and who doesn’t want to see meek, ghostly Japanese girls in bikinis?) as two different endings that depend on what you do.

The game starts you off in a forest with the two sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura. Mysterious crimson butterflies lead you to an abandoned Japanese village. You see ancient rituals going on first, but then suddenly disappear. You go inside a building in the village and then the “creepy” starts to set in. You see ghosts staring out you down the hall in the corner of your eye, and then they disappear. They might also walk by as if they are fetching something in the other room. Whatever they may be doing it scares the crap out of you. As you go through the game, you see flashbacks through the girls of what happened to the village, and the story is told very well to finally shed light on what happened. The majority of the game, you take on the role of Mio, but it isn’t really a downfall since she would of just tagged along with you anyways.

Not to long after you find the village and go into a building, you pick up the camera that makes ghost disappear when you take a picture of them. The camera can also help you find your way through the town, unlocking doors held by spirit blocks. You also have the option of saving every single picture you take so that you can look at it later if you felt like it. To get into the camera mode you press B, and then line up the aim circle with whatever you want to take a picture of. The circle helps you out a lot, and if it is green there is something to capture in the area, if its locked on red you have a for sure snap shot of a spirit coming towards you. The first few spirits are fairly easy to capture as they don’t move around a lot or don’t disappear out of sight. When you finally come to a spirit that is not messing around it is actually exciting to try and destroy them with the camera. They disappear in and out as they come towards you, and then you must time it just right before they grab you and take their picture. It is even more heart pounding thanks to the chaotic sounds the ghost makes, along with the static of the camera. The camera itself is more complex then you would have originally believed. There are three different grades of film to choose from, each being more or less powerful than the other. So think of the low-grade film it comes with as pistol ammo, the mid-grade as a shotgun, and the high-grade as a rocket launcher. The camera can even be level-up ala RPG style. To do this, you have a new upgrade for it, and enough spirit points for that upgrade. To get spirit points, you have to defeat spirits.