Project Zero (called Fatal Frame in the US), is a survival horror game series based on the concept of exorcising ghosts by using a device called the Camera Obscura. Think Ghostbusters armed with ancient cameras, just WAY more terrifying. The series is almost fifteen years old now, and Maiden of Black Water is the 5th game in the main series. A number of years back, we got a chance to review the Wii version of Project Zero 2, so it’s interesting to see how far forward the series has come since then. And since it’s the month for scary things… come, take my disembodied hand and let me tell you a tale of spine-chilling terror.
Maiden of Black Water tells the tale of three people: Miu (daughter of Miku from prior games), who is searching for her mother; Ren, a writer researching a book; and Yuri, a friend of Ren’s and someone gifted with second sight. 
The lives of these three are inextricably bound and entwined as they try to understand the truth about Mount Hikami, a place famous for hauntings and suicides. The game’s watery themes bring to mind such classic Japanese horror films as Ju-On, Ringu, and Dark Water (the Japanese originals, natch, not the horrible Hollywood remakes).
In practice, it plays a lot like prior games in the series, with you controlling whichever character is the protagonist of the particular chapter you’re playing. To heighten the tension of things, the characters naturally walk slowly, often in the dark, holding a dim flashlight. The camera obscura is now even more personal than before, with the Wii U’s gamepad acting as the camera’s viewfinder. To keep things creepy, like before, spectral hands appear intermittently when you’re trying to pick things up. New to the game is a “wetness meter”, which tracks how much water your clothing’s absorbed as you explore the various locations of Mount Hikami. This has two effects: it makes the Camera Obscura’s attacks stronger, but it also strengthens ghost attacks, and makes more spirits appear. To play well and do more damage to attacking spirits, you need to let them come close to you, risking damage and sanity. This risk/reward gameplay style serves to heighten the tension and up the scare factor. And of course, since you’re now holding the Gamepad inches from your face, it’s only made creepier by the fact that there’s no longer a large tract of living room separating you from the TV.
As a sidelight, this sort of game makes me cross with the characters. They’re living near a mountain that’s famous for being creepy as all hell, so OF COURSE let’s all go visit the damned place at night. Because common sense clearly has no place in horror. Anyhow, pathfinding in this game is never too much of an issue, thankfully. When the Gamepad is not being used as a camera, it displays the map of the area. Maiden of Black Water is a bit more expansive than prior games, and the maps are larger and creepier than before; if you can stomach dealing with hordes of creepy things coming after you, the game rewards you well for exploring the area. Items are dotted around, and they’re yours for the taking, provided you’re willing to risk the aforementioned spectral hands.
You’re rewarded for playing well in the form of points, but for once, the points DO matter, because you can use them to upgrade the camera. Of course, one of the first things I did was upgrade the camera’s film reload speed, because the base reload speed is slower than a tortoise crawling through a molasses puddle in the dark while high. Like before, you have several kinds of film and lenses available to you, with the more expensive and rare film types dealing more damage to the malevolent spirit.
The graphics in the game’s environments are beautiful, as creepy as they are. The mountain’s paths must be a delightful sight during the day. The abandoned, spook-filled ruins are less so, but the Wii U’s full HD graphics make this game pop. A pity, then, that the character models don’t match the detail thrown into the rest of the game. The uncanny valley is strong here, and their mouth synchronizations and movements are horribly wooden and fake. It breaks the immersion with the game, sadly. Even worse, if you’re playing the game with the English voices (which are horribly acted, horribly cast, and just horrible to listen to), the lip sync is off. You are far better off playing the game in its original Japanese, if you don’t mind reading subtitles for the rest of the experience.
While the game is great fun to play in the earlier chapters, it starts getting a bit repetitive towards the end, and you’ll probably come to strongly dislike trekking up and down that cursed mountain, no matter how beautiful it looks. The game has a number of endings as well, depending on how you play it, but either way, the story is brutal and sad. The history of the mountain shrine is steeped in melancholy, and the ghosts make that fact very apparent to you. What I like is that the game doesn’t content itself with cheap jump scares to get you, but relies very strongly on deep, psychological terror instead. For example, you can walk to a ghost that’s in its last throes of dying–again!–and touch it to reveal a short video of how it died. It’s all disturbing as hell and I stress that this game is not suitable for children at all, and probably not suitable for the depressed either. The themes of suicide are strong.
If you enjoy horror games, this is a great one to play, despite the later repetitiveness. It’s got oodles of atmosphere and creep, and the spirits’ manifestations and raison d’être are menacing enough to keep you creeped out long after the console has been turned off. I’m looking over my shoulder as I type this, and it’s full daylight. Obviously, if you don’t enjoy a good scare, this one isn’t for you, but since it’s October, I really do suggest that you at least give the trial of the game a try. You might like what you see. And what you see might just see you back from the depths of the waters. If you weren’t terrified of remote lakes and pools at night before, I guarantee this game will put that fear in you.
Final Score: 7 Ghostly Prawns out of 10
Detailed Information:
Developer: Koei Tecmo
Publisher: Nintendo
Distributor: Nintendo South Africa
Platform: Nintendo Wii U
Age Rating: 18+
Website: https://www.nintendo.co.za/games/oms/project_zero_maiden_of_black_water/index.html