Photography 201: Advanced Decomposition. Let's Play Fatal Frame!

Let’s take a picture of it!





That’s… helpful?

No, seriously, hint please?



Oh hey, it’s persistent blood! But what does it mean, exactly?

Nothing more to do here… guess we should go look around.



Ah… it’s a trail of breadcrumbs. Follow that blood!







We’re led to the Grand Hall, where there’s a big pool of blood in the middle of the room!



I just said that.



Family Master: Kirie! The Strangling Ritual!




Rematch time. The master has a new attack here. It’s a threefold slashing attack, and he can sprint at you right before he uses it. Which means he can cross a room and slash you to ribbons in seconds, so zero shots are essential. Paralyze can be useful here as well, since you can freeze him and get out of his way. Higher grade film is basically a must.

Master (death): The sacrifice is tainted now.

Here’s another tidbit out of the Zero Perfect Guide: The Rope Shrine Maiden was traditionally sequestered in what was basically a prison cell from the moment she was chosen in Demon Tag until the time of the sacrifice ten years later. During Kirie’s time, however, the family master allowed her to leave the confinement room and walk the grounds of the mansion as a kindness. It was during one of these walks that Kirie met the young man and was able to speak to him and, eventually, fall in love with him. The Calamity is entirely the master’s fault because he failed to maintain the purity and unworldliness of the Maiden, which was his primary duty.





Whatever, it’s ours now!



















Time to go open up the Moon Well! At this point we should have a Document on Binding, a Calamity Document, four Priest’s Writings, and 10 Research Scraps.

The cabinet slides backwards, revealing the Moon Well.







Miku: Down here?

Or you could just hang out here until Kirie finds you and wraps a spirit rope around your throat.



Yeah, I thought that might be motivational.







There’s a door…





… and a lot of stone wall…







And a mummy! This is the very first Rope Shrine Maiden.

The Holy Mirror is on a stone in front of the mummy.

There’s a recess in the stone. Something was removed?

Miku: *gasp* No! Kirie!





Welp, that’s it. Miku’s dead. Hope you enjoyed this LP…







Holy fight or flight, Batman! Miku’s booking it toward the ladder!









She has a determination!

Don’t look down, dumbass.





Kirie’s following, Pepé le Pew-like.









Miku’s foot slips off the rung!



Fan service!



She falls…



And manages to catch herself! But her lead is gone.

Again, I’d like to thank you all for reading…



Li’l Kirie: This way!





Li’l Kirie: We need to hurry!





Li’l Kirie: Please, please make it stop! Stop me!











She’s watching you sleep, Miku. She’ll be sabotaging your car and carrying you around piggy-back next.



Miku: Wh-who are you?



Li’l Kirie is silently disappointed in Miku’s obtuseness.





It’s the koto. We’re in the koto room!

Next Time: Kirie

Is there a plot-relevant or thematic reason why the Ghost Priests (and the cabinet) use Sanskrit letters, or is it just a matter of them looking "spookier" on the distorted ghost faces?

Probably just because they're all mystical symbol looking? If you don't want to go for kanji or Roman letters, your choices are kind of limited to Sanskrit or heiroglyphs.

This week's update will be several days late on account of 'flu.

Sorry!

I will tell you what I tell all people that give me free entertainment. Screw your well-being, I needs my updates.

Get better soon!

Image processing for Night 4 is done, I just have to write the damn thing now. I'm really kind of annoyed that I had a perfect once-a-week schedule going, and then blew it all to hell at the end. Oh well!

Right. After a much longer break than anticipated, welcome to Night Four! Miku has rope marks on her arms and legs, and only needs the neck stigmata to complete the set. And then die in agony!

When we left her, she’d just woken up in the Koto Room where Li’l Kirie drew her attention to the koto before pulling her usual disappearing act.

Is it just me, or does Miku spend a ridiculous amount of time blacking out and regaining consciousness in this game?

Anyway, koto.



Try chopsticks! Everyone knows how to play chopsticks!



Miku’s not getting out of this room, so maybe look around?



Can’t get into the closet…





Wouldn’t it suck if Li’l Kirie went to all this trouble only to be foiled by Miku not having the faintest idea how to read sheet music or play ancient musical instruments?





Fortunately for us, she seems to manage.





The closet door slides open as the tune plays. Whether the closet really is opened by an elaborate musical lock or one of the ghosts just decided not to let her leave until it got to hear “Heart and Soul” one last time is anyone’s guess.









Whichever, it seems we’ve got a way out of here. The door to the hallway remains sealed, so up into the darkness it is!

The stairway ends at an attic… well, not crawlspace since Miku can walk upright. A ray of light shines up from a crack in the floor.



Should we take a look?









Miku is incredibly trusting about putting her eye up to things in a house where people get their baby browns gouged out on a regular basis.



It looks like the hallway outside the tatami room.



Nothing really seems to be going on…



GAH!







And fight time! This Floating Head battle is probably completely avoidable if you don’t look in the peep hole, but what’s the fun in that? Besides, I one-shotted it using Type 14 film.

Moving on, there’s some medicine.







Really, game? Fool Miku once, shame on you. Fool her… oh hell, she’s gonna get fooled again, isn’t she?



Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen.

Kirie (weeping): I… I don’t want to die!





Well, that puts a kink in the whole “totally willing sacrifice” thing. Oh, well. What’s the worst that could happen?

There’s a hidden ghost in the rafters here.







The corridor ends in a door, leading to the rafters above the Buddha room.









There’s another hidden ghost nearby. Also, though you can’t see it in these screenshots, there are some items shining downstairs on the altar. Might be worth a trip to take a look.

There’s another door at the far end of the rafter maze.







This is the Confinement Room, where Kirie was supposed to spend the entire ten years between winning Demon Tag and getting ritually dismembered by her relatives.





Man, she got shitty toys.









Well, Miku may not be the sharpest bulb on the string, but she’s definitely not dumb enough to climb into a cage! Let’s look around the room.



I like to think that some kindhearted high priest in a bygone era heard about how if you give a parakeet a mirror it will think there’s another bird and be less lonely.



There’s a door heading to parts unknown, but it’s sealed.



And some ugly hotel art. Trying to make things slightly more pleasant for the Rope Maiden without actually allowing her to come to the conclusion that life is worth living is a difficult and thankless task.



Do we have to? I mean, you know what the chances are of getting sealed in here, right?



Okay. In the cage. Best idea ever. Let’s start by looking over by where we saw Li’l Kirie.

As is standard, touching a piece of the mirror activates Miku’s latent psychometry.





Of course Kirie’s lover looks exactly like Mafuyu.



She’s kind of a dish when she’s not consumed by the Malice, actually.









Kirie and…Mafuyu? No, it’s not him. Maybe it’s the man she loved when she was alive.

Because that happens.

There is an old diary, written in charcoal ink, where the Holy Mirror used to be.



”While I was looking out the window today, I saw somebody walking in the garden. He didn’t notice me. He was just walking around leisurely, gazing at the trees and hills.

“I saw him again today, walking in the garden. He saw me once, too, and waved to me. I don’t know why, but my face got hot, and I ducked out of sight. When I told the chief priest about it, he was terribly surprised. He told me I wasn’t to look out the window again for a while.”





”Today is the day I get to walk outside. I was walking in the mansion’s atrium when he suddenly appeared from out of the guest room.

“It’s the first time I’ve talked to an outsider since I came here. It was so much fun!

“He came to see me. He let me out of the room, and we went outside. He taught me the names of all of the flowers.

“Everything about this is so new to me! My face got hot again today. But I didn’t want to hide this time…”

”He came to see me again today. The chief priest said we mustn’t go out into the garden, so we just stayed in the room and talked.

“He told me so many interesting things about the outside world. I feel so happy when I’m with him…! So very, very happy!

“I walked in the garden with him today. How beautiful the cherry blossoms are!

“He’s taught me so much since we’ve met. I never even feel lonely anymore.”

So… wait. After sensibly telling Kirie not to look out the window at the young hottie, the priest suddenly decides it’s a good idea to let them hang out unsupervised? Did he slip them a condom and give them a saucy wink, too?





”The Strangling Ritual will be held soon. The master and the priests are performing their ablutions. And it looks like the whole family has gathered here at the mansion for the ritual. The mansion is usually so lonely… But for today, anyway, it’s bustling with life.

“One of the priests was staring at me today. He looked so sad.

“I’m the Rope Shrine Maiden…

“I have a very important obligation to fulfill…

“But how can I perform my duty as the Shrine Maiden now, feeling the way I do?

“Now that I’ve found out the true joy of living?

“And now that I’ve gone and gotten that poor man involved…?”

These priests are very bad at their jobs.

The cage door didn’t actually lock when Miku climbed in (and even though I’ve played this game a bunch of times I still expect it to every single time), so now that we’ve ransacked the joint let’s get out of here.





Li’l Kirie: Please! Stop me!



Let’s follow her!









Awesome.

Okay, so every single other time the screen has gone gray and fuzzy like this with Kirie in the room, the correct way to proceed was to let Miku get caught, which would trigger a cut scene. Hands up, everyone who ran toward Kirie here and got treated to a completely unexpected GAME OVER… yeah, I thought so. From here on out, touching the demon lady is an instant-kill.



No time to figure out where we are, just run!

I didn’t manage to get any shots of Kirie while running for Miku’s life, but she’s definitely back there. In classic form, she moves slowly and tirelessly, ignoring all obstacles because ghost.



Oh hey, this is that hallway near the cherry atrium!





Let’s go outside!



The screen returns to normal; we’re safe for now. We’ve also accumulated enough points to break the seal on another of the basically useless functions.

What’s the stupidest thing that Miku could possibly do right now? Well, that would probably be to turn around and head back into the hallway where the scary one-hit-kill lady is lurking. But actually, she’s already gone back to the Confinement Room so as long as you don’t try to open that door you’re safe. And from here we can visit the anteroom where we recently saw an echo of pre-ritual Kirie, and also the Buddha room where we know for sure there are some shinies waiting to be collected.



The door to the backyard is nailed shut. Get used to being very limited in the final night; while Night Three encouraged exploration and every location was available, Night Four just wants you to hurry up and go fight the boss already. There aren’t any random encounters during this night, either.



The anteroom is accessible!





”It’s been five days already since he stopped coming. When I asked about it, the chief priest told me he’d gone back to his home village. Why would he leave all of a sudden like that…? Especially now, when I soon won’t be able to see him anymore at all…?

“I had a dream about him.

“He was looking at me with sad eyes. Such sad eyes! His eyes looked like they wanted to tell me something.

“He didn’t go home. The priests did something to him… But why?”



”The priests hid him because they thought I wouldn’t have been able to properly be the Shrine Maiden otherwise…

“What did I get him into…?

“It’s all my fault!

“I just wanted to be with him…

“I wanted us to be together forever and ever!

“That’s all I wanted…

“I didn’t want him to get hurt!”

It’s all fun and games until someone gets murdered by priests and dumped in the backyard pond, isn’t it?

That’s all there is here; let’s visit Buddha.





”The mirror, blessed with the five gods’ protection, repels disaster. When the gate opens, stand before the “mirror rock,” which is in front of the gate, and point the mirror at the gate, then seal it with the maiden’s rope. All elements mentioned above must be present for the ritual to succeed.

“We must prevent the Calamity at all cost. That is the god-given duty of the Himuro family.”





”The gate is the entrance to the land of the dead. It has been feared and revered since ancient times. If the gate’s seal fails, the Calamity will occur, and the Malice will pour out from hell.

“The souls of those touched by the Malice are bound to this world and cannot be saved.

“We must prevent the Calamity at all cost. That is the duty of the Himuro family.”





”No document records the history of the gate in the mansion’s basement. The Himuros have been given the duty of protecting the gate. They built a shrine on this land and performed the ‘Rope Ritual’.

“We must prevent the Calamity at all cost. That is the duty of the Himuro family.”

They’re not going through all this for shits and giggles, I’ll give them that.

All the doors in the Atrium are sealed except for the one leading to the Abyss and the Moon Shrine. The Shrine is where the plot wants to drag us, so…

I’m guessing the Burdened Man is the guy who wound up with the short straw and had to whack the boyfriend.

Nothing else here, so time to head to the Moon Shrine.







There’s a save point here, and some medicine on the floor in the corner.









The door unlocks, allowing us to access a stone passage known as the Banned Path.

Another earthquake shakes the passage, and Miku has another psychic flashback.





Unlike the other rituals, the entire family gets together for the Strangling. Later they will watch football and ignore Uncle Yoshi’s racist remarks.



I wonder if other Rope Shrine Maidens have had to be restrained during this procession.











Kirie struggles. Or stumbles. Either way, she’s hauled to her feet.







Kirie: I want to see him one more time!



There’s a nasty fight waiting just outside the cut scene. It’s a tag team match against Wandering Man and Floating Woman. He likes to charge straight at you, and she likes to circle around and nail you once you’ve lost track of her. Together, they fight crime kick Miku’s ass!



I still think the double match in the Fish Tank Room is worse, but not by much. Do your best to keep them both in sight, take shots whenever you have a chance, and don’t try for zero shots.

After the fight a hidden ghost can be found in the dark water beneath the path.











And now it’s time to spell out the entire plot, for those who haven’t been paying attention up until now.





”Dear Miku,

“I know it’s weird, but I see you sometimes here in the mansion. I run after you, but I always end up losing sight of you… There must be some kind of warp in time here now. We’ll probably never be able to find each other… Were you worried about me? Is that why you came?

“I hope you get this note. I need you to help me. The force behind the curse of Himuro Mansion is a woman named Kirie. She was sacrificed in a ritual, and her sad spirit was exposed to the Malice that spilled out of hell when the Calamity happened.

“Now she’s a miserable creature that taints everything she comes into contact with. Apparently, I remind her of the man she was in love with. I somehow just knew that when she touched me… I plan on going to see her now. If I don’t, this mansion will keep right on claiming victims…

“Kirie laments her ill-fated life but, at the same time, she also regrets not having been able to fulfill her duty as the Shrine Maiden. I saw the image of Kirie as a child. She was looking for somebody to help her – to help her other, tortured self.

“Kirie is like a person divided in two…

“Miku, I want you to help Kirie if you can.

“You have to seal off the Hell Gate with the Holy Mirror…”

It’s a good thing he decided to just ask Miku to collect Mirror pieces, instead of actually trying to do it himself. Wouldn’t it suck if she wound up with three and he got two and they were never able to meet up?

In the next room…

Kirie’s clenched fist goes slack.





And the priests pause. She’s suspended six inches off the stone by the ropes.







She’s actually still alive at this point. I don’t think she should be. She definitely shouldn’t still be able to moan in torment.

Miku (whispers): Stop!



The priests push hard, suddenly. There’s a very final cracking sound.



Miku: No! No!









The former Shrine Maiden attacks once the cut scene ends. She’s not really any tougher here than she was during Night Three.







I’m not really clear on where the blood comes from, unless they really do keep pulling until the ropes literally dismember the Maiden.

There’s a hidden ghost above the altar.









That’s the last Stone Mirror of the game. Get it while it’s hot, especially since there’s no going back once we exit the room.



There are two items just inside the next area, in the shadows on either side of the door. One is visibly sparkling, but the other can only be seen through the camera lens.

This hallway is absolutely lousy with Shinto gates.



Surprise! Former Shrine Maiden appears behind Miku, and she’s tough this time. She’s really fast, recovers from stunning quickly, and makes a beeline for you.











”I’ve been thinking about the camera Mom left us. I know it was Mom’s, and she left it to us when she died. But it used to belong to Grandma Mikoto. They say it was the only thing Grandma brought with her when she was adopted by the Hinasaki family.

“In some documents I found here in the mansion, there were notes about a little girl named ‘Mikoto’ – the same name as our grandmother – finding a camera with an uncanny power. And then I found out that Mikoto’s mother, the folklorist’s wife, died the very same way Mom did.

“Mom was no match for the ghostly power of that camera. It drove her mad, and she had to leave this world. Now, if that camera is the same one Mikoto’s mother had…! Anyway, I don’t know all the specifics, but I’m pretty sure that camera is strongly connected to the curse on this mansion.”

The connection between the Hinasakis and Munakatas was a little less obvious, but again, this shouldn’t be a surprise to the player who was paying attention up until this point. Mafuyu’s situation can’t be that dire if he has time to ramble about some interesting but not immediately relevant family history.

At last, Miku reaches the Hell Gate.

The priests present the bloody ropes.





And literally tie the door shut with them.



The master seems pleased.







Suddenly the ropes snap!





The door opens…







And the master gets a face full of Malice.

The Holy Mirror shatters!





The mansion is completely engulfed in evil fog.









Everyone in the house falls…





But they were only unconscious, not dead! That’s good. It wouldn’t be any fun for the newly-insane family master if the only people he could behead were already corpses before he found them.



This rock looks important.



This is where the Holy Mirror is supposed to go. Do you think it matters if Miku only has 4/5 of it?

Miku: Mafuyu!

You’re not dead! How about that?



Mafuyu: M-Miku!







Kirie: We will always be together!



He doesn’t seem to be trying too hard to escape, to be honest.















Okay, I wasn’t expecting her to eat him.

That’s it. It’s ON.





Kirie is extremely slow and periodically teleports a few feet to the left or right as she advances. Occasionally there are earthquakes, which cause the camera to veer wildly as you move it. It is possible to aim during earthquakes if you’re careful, which is important because snapping her during an earthquake is automatically a zero shot. And, oh yeah, she can only be damaged by zero shots. She also regenerates periodically, and will kill you instantly if she touches you (a Stone Mirror will save you here, but only once). She’s not actually hard if you don’t panic. High grade film helps, but I did her in with 14, because I’m a showoff.







Who needs a stupid Holy Mirror, anyway? Not this girl!



Uh…









And unconscious again. It’s truly what Miku is best at.