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Project Zero/Fatal Frame 5 Review Thread

A

AdanVC

Member
Wow but by the videos I had seen the game looked nice and fun and spooky (spoopy)... And no having physical release in the Americas makes it more difficult to take the decision of purchase it or not because it's freaking 16 gb!

Aostia said:
a lot of reviews are 7s or 8s, why people pay attention only to the negative ones?
Click to expand...

Because there's more negative reviews than positive ones :( it seems like that...
 
E

evilromero

Member
Sumio Mondo said:
Fatal Frame generally doesn't review well, so the reaction isn't surprising.



Well, maybe it still is.



There's going to be a demo where you can play the first 2 chapters for free. Judge it for yourself.
Click to expand...

The reviews are specifically highlighting that the game never elevates beyond what is established from the start. There's no rise in tension as you get further into the game.

Also, isn't it a 16gig install? I'd have to delete pretty much everything just to facilitate a demo. No thanks.
 
G

glassgannon

Banned
Aostia said:
a lot of reviews are 7s or 8s, why people pay attention only to the negative ones?
Click to expand...

if youre walking down the the road and you see 10 normal people and a red skinned 10ft tall man with 9arms and 1 leg.
which one are you most likely to notice and or talk about?

average scores are literally, average.
obviously the 10s and 5s will garner more attention
 
N

NateDrake

Member
evilromero said:
The reviews are specifically highlighting that the game never elevates beyond what is established from the start. There's no rise in tension as you get further into the game.

Also, isn't it a 16gig install? I'd have to delete pretty much everything just to facilitate a demo. No thanks.
Click to expand...

The free chapters aren't 16GB. You don't download the entire game, just the free-to-start stuff. It is either 6 or 8GB, I don't remember the exact size when I DLed it.
 
O

Oddduck

Member
Most of the higher scores seem to be coming from Nintendo fan sites.

Nintendo Life (7/10), Nintendo World Report (8.5 / 10), Nintendo Enthusiast (9 / 10)

Edit: It's just an observation. I'm not trying to discredit their positive reviews. They all offered well-written reviews.
 
H

Haganeren

Member
Well, i suppose with modern First Person Horror games like Amnesia, old-school Survival Horror game like Project Zero 5 seems outdated.... That's how i interpret those score for the moment.

I will see it when i will be playing the game. I'm only worried about the fact the games seems to be too hand holding which is really too bad for a survival horror game but we will see.
 
L

Linkstrikesback

Member
Wow, really?

Maybe I need to cancel my preorder, those are quite low indeed.

Pz2 got about 77 and that was good enough, at a discpunt price, but 60s with an inflated price too... Eugh..
 
F

FinnFish

Neo Member
I don't really care about the reviews. I've played every FF and I loved them. As long as FF5 has the same feel as the other games, I'm ok - and it does seem that it's mostly unchanged.

Btw Is the bikini that plays a role in the story cut too?
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
I wrote the ZTGD 8.5 score and I'm a bit shocked it's getting low scores. Being a fan of the franchise since the first game released, this feels just as I remember the series, for better or worse. It's not some new grand new vision for Fatal Frame. It's doing what the series has always done and done well. Amazing atmosphere, Asian culture folklore and scares, terrifying ghosts, and using the camera to fight. It's the best looking Fatal Frame yet and aside from some cumbersome controls, I get the feeling because the game sticks to its roots, it's getting dinged.

If your a fan of the franchise, you have nothing to worry about. Honestly. Especially in the US, we haven't had a release since Fatal Frame 3 and I'm sure happy this got brought out here as its a lovely return to the franchise. Don't belive me? Download the demo once it's up and try for yourself.
 
S

Spieler Eins

Member
I can't believe the Wii U still finds ways to disappoint me somehow, even with almost no expectations left.
It's like every studio bar Platinum tried to do their absolute worst on this console, actively trying to create one of the worst libraries ever seen on a ,,big" hardware release. At least I won't be shocked with Xenoblade, as importers already didn't give promising impressions.

I guess I still have to get the Project Zero LE, because with Nintendo's anti-consumer digital infrastructure, it's either that or never trying it at all.
 
E

evilromero

Member
NateDrake said:
The free chapters aren't 16GB. You don't download the entire game, just the free-to-start stuff. It is either 6 or 8GB, I don't remember the exact size when I DLed it.
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Awesome. That's a bit more manageable. I'll still have to delete something like Pikmin 3 though. :/
 
C

Chaos2Frozen

Member
Haganeren said:
Well, i suppose with modern First Person Horror games like Amnesia, old-school Survival Horror game like Project Zero 5 seems outdated.... That's how i interpret those score for the moment.

I will see it when i will be playing the game. I'm only worried about the fact the games seems to be too hand holding which is really too bad for a survival horror game but we will see.
Click to expand...

Which is disappointing to see because I would rather the old school style survival horror games than the modern jumpscare fest First person games

Then again FF4 was pretty jump scare heavy...
 
Bl@de

Bl@de

Member
Oddduck said:
That's why I said most.

Obviously, there are a few big sites like IGN that gave it a 7.
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IGN gives everything a 7.

Except God Hand -.-

Reviews don't seem to good. Curious what 4players will give them. They always rated the Fatal Frame games in the 8-8.5 range.
 
S

ShogunDarius

Member
so some content was replaced? that seems ok. The new outfits are actually rather cool.
If the censorship nuts are gonna refuse to buy it, that's their prerogative, but if this game sells poorly and no new one is made or doesn't get localized they have no right to complain about it.
 
F

Frumix

Suffering From Success
Some European reviews don't mention that any content has been altered, in fact they mention the contrary. This is hilarious if true and faith restored.
 
O

OrbitalBeard

Member
Oddduck said:
That's why I said most.

Obviously, there are a few big sites like IGN that gave it a 7.
Click to expand...

So, what's your point then? It seems that just as many non-Nintendo sites are giving the game decent scores as fan sites. Overall, the scores aren't great but your attempt at finding a bias isn't really coming up with positive results, outside of two websites.
 
H

hosannainexcelsis

Member
SlasherJPC said:
I wrote the ZTGD 8.5 score and I'm a bit shocked it's getting low scores. Being a fan of the franchise since the first game released, this feels just as I remember the series, for better or worse. It's not some new grand new vision for Fatal Frame. It's doing what the series has always done and done well. Amazing atmosphere, Asian culture folklore and scares, terrifying ghosts, and using the camera to fight. It's the best looking Fatal Frame yet and aside from some cumbersome controls, I get the feeling because the game sticks to its roots, it's getting dinged.
Click to expand...

The negative reviews explicitly say that sticking to the franchise's roots is a bad thing in this case, as the formula has become repetitive, tired, and lacking in inspiration.

Destructoid said:
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water seems so, so tired. Maidens, rituals, sacrifices, suicides, water, black hair growing and covering every surface...we've seen all of this done before and with more skill. Two small moments offer an enticing glimpse and what could have been: a short trip to a cable car station and a short episode where you're monitoring surveillance cameras. The second I got to the modern-looking cable car station, I realized how much this series needs to go to new places. I was wrong about Aokigahara, it was more of the same. That surveillance episode subverts the camera theme, making you helplessly watch as phantoms slowly encroach upon your friends' rooms. If new concepts like these were used throughout, this could have been something special.
Click to expand...
 
Sakura

Sakura

Member
hosannainexcelsis said:
The negative reviews explicitly say that sticking to the franchise's roots is a bad thing in this case, as the formula has become repetitive, tired, and lacking in inspiration.
Click to expand...

That seems strange considering there aren't many games like it, and there hasn't been a new entry in the series in the west in like 10 years.
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
hosannainexcelsis said:
The negative reviews explicitly say that sticking to the franchise's roots is a bad thing in this case, as the formula has become repetitive, tired, and lacking in inspiration.
Click to expand...

Yeah and that's silly. How is being like the other games, a franchise that people love, make it a bad, dissapointing game? Even I mention that it has a sense of that familiarity at times, but why does every game have to reinvent the wheel? This isn't a yearly franchise like COD. Fatal Frame fans should be excited right now and not letting these reviews bum them out.
 
S

ShogunDarius

Member
SlasherJPC said:
Yeah and that's silly. How is being like the other games, a franchise that people love, make it a horrible game. Even I mention that it has a sense of that familiarity at times, but why does every game have to reinvent the wheel. This isn't a yearly franchise here.
Click to expand...

yeah, seems like some people want change for the sake of change and that's rarely a good thing
 
E

Effect

Member
Aostia said:
a lot of reviews are 7s or 8s, why people pay attention only to the negative ones?
Click to expand...

It's not helping either that the first review they see in this thread is a 5/10. I wish the thread creator would reorder them to put the highest first and the lowest last like every other review thread. Messaged the TC to see if they'd reorder the reviews. Will have to wait and see what happens.
 
T

takoyaki

Member
Surprised by the low scores, I played through the Japanese version a year ago and really enjoyed the game. The story is great (loved the premise of the Suicide Mountain), the graphics and sound/VA are very good, the gameplay is more of what I liked in previous FF games and the playable characters were an interesting mix.

My only complaints were the motion controls (which can be turned off), the backtracking (like in every other FF game, maybe a bit more in this game) and the wetness mechanic (that one is just annoying).

If you're a fan of the series, definitely give this game a shot. I thought is wasn't quite as good as 2 or 3, but better than 4.
 
T

Tamanator

Member
This thread reminds me a lot of the ZombiU review debacle. Seems like a game you need to try for yourself, and one that is firmly aimed at Project Zero aficionados.
 
C

Colonel Mustard

Banned
OrbitalBeard said:
So, what's your point then? It seems that just as many non-Nintendo sites are giving the game decent scores as fan sites. Overall, the scores aren't great but your attempt at finding a bias isn't really coming up with positive results, outside of two websites.
Click to expand...

NWR also has a more stringent review process than a lot of other websites. Writing their review off as just something from a fansite is pretty shitty.
 
R

robotzombie

Member
Tamanator said:
This thread reminds me a lot of the ZombiU review debacle. Seems like a game you need to try for yourself, and one that is firmly aimed at Project Zero aficionados.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as a person who LOVES games like ZombiU and The Evil Within, these reviews aren't really stopping me from getting the game
 
O

Oddduck

Member
OrbitalBeard said:
So, what's your point then? It seems that just as many non-Nintendo sites are giving the game decent scores as fan sites. Overall, the scores aren't great but your attempt at finding a bias isn't really coming up with positive results, outside of two websites.
Click to expand...

Colonel Mustard said:
NWR also has a more stringent review process than a lot of other websites. Writing their review off as just something from a fansite is pretty shitty.
Click to expand...

I was merely making an observation that some of the Nintendo fan sites (like Nintendo Enthusiast) seem to have enjoyed this game a little more than some other sites. I'm not trying to discredit their positive reviews, and I'm not trying to claim bias either.

There was no cynical intention behind my post. I apologize if it came off that way.

For what it's worth, I thought Nintendo World Report actually did a very good job with their review.
 
A

AdanVC

Member
Spieler Eins said:
I can't believe the Wii U still finds ways to disappoint me somehow, even with almost no expectations left.
It's like every studio bar Platinum tried to do their absolute worst on this console, actively trying to create one of the worst libraries ever seen on a ,,big" hardware release. At least I won't be shocked with Xenoblade, as importers already didn't give promising impressions.

I guess I still have to get the Project Zero LE, because with Nintendo's anti-consumer digital infrastructure, it's either that or never trying it at all.
Click to expand...

Don't worry. By this time next year we're gonna be close to play a brand new console from Nintendo with a brand new Zelda and Wii U would be no more. That's my guess..............

That's bad because I personally love Wii U but what can you do. But hey at least you will have a cool looking LE. Here in the americas NoA is literally giving us the middle finger by only releasing this game digitally...
 
O

OrbitalBeard

Member
Oddduck said:
I was merely making an observation that some of the Nintendo fan sites seem to have enjoyed this game a little more than some other sites. I'm not trying to discredit their positive reviews, and I'm not trying to claim bias either.

There was no cynical intention behind my post. I apologize if it came off that way.

For what it's worth, I thought Nintendo World Report actually did a very good job with their review.
Click to expand...

It's all good. And honestly, reading back my posts, I kind of came off as an ass, which wasn't my intention, so I apologize as well.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
It's tough for a traditional survival horror title these days. While I don't think I would have scored Silent Hill Downpour much higher than a 7, I appreciated that it was definitely a game worthy of the name and that it did a lot cool things that were both a natural evolution and very much in keeping of what those games have always been about. Honestly, the biggest issues is that the graphics and stability are on the tire fire side of the spectrum.

Nothing in these reviews are really saying that it's a bad Fatal Frame game, so my interest remains high. I just don't think this kind of game can really review well these days, unless it's more of an action hybrid. I'd honestly wonder what today's reviewers would think of SH2 if it was a brand new game and nothing was altered about it.
 
G

grandwizard

Member
For anyone unwilling to drop 50+ bucks on this after these reviews but still itching for some Asian style horror I'd recommend DreadOut on Steam. It's heavily inspired by the fatal frame series but more based on Indonesian folklore and turned out pretty good I'd say.
 
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