Blood is thicker than water... let's play Fatal Frame II!

Hey you guys, let's play Fatal Frame II! Because this game is about butterflies, and it's springtime, and there are butterflies in springtime!

Either that, or I wanted to replay this game now and not have to wait until Halloween.

The original Fatal Frame was a modest success, and a so a sequel was planned to release in 2003. Among other proposed changes, series director Makoto Shibata wanted to address the common complaint that Fatal Frame was "too scary to finish".

So... instead of trying to tone the horror down a bit, the idea was to make the story so compelling that players would doom themselves to a lifetime of pretending that the nightlight is for the kids, just in order to see what happens next?

This sounds like a great idea to me! So let's get this show on the road.







A split-second flash shows a little girl crumpled on the ground, one of her legs obviously broken.



The sepia tone and film grain indicates that this is a flashback.









And welcome to the present day. Meet our protagonist, Mio...





And her twin sister, Mayu.









Subtitles are a shiny new innovation for this game, and very welcome after all the transcribing I had to do for Fatal Frame I. It would have been even more helpful if they'd indicated who was speaking, but it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I hope.



Here's a handy guide for telling our twins apart: Though their outfits are similar, Mio is wearing a white skirt over leggings, and has white lace along her neckline. Mayu has a black shirt under her jumper, no leggings, and a bandage wrapped around her right knee. She also walks with a pronounced limp.







A red glowing thing flits across the screen, in Mayu's field of vision.



It seems to have made her lose her train of thought.





And we're back to our flashback. Mio runs through the woods along the edge of a cliff, and Mayu struggles to keep up.



She loses her footing...



... and tumbles over the edge.



Mio clearly feels some lingering guilt over the incident.

But Mayu appears to have gotten bored during the flashback and wandered off.



Oh, there she is! She's following the glowing thing into the woods. Remember, kids: being lured away from civilization by otherworldly beings is always a good idea and never, ever results in deadly curses, being kidnapped by elves, drowning in swamps, or any other horrifying and completely preventable fate. Also, if you should ever meet any little old ladies begging for food at a crossroads you should tell them to fuck off and get a job. Vagrancy shouldn't be encouraged.

Important localization note: In the English language version of the game, Mio shouts her sister's name with about the same frequency that Navi shrieks "Hey, listen!" in Ocarina of Time. But in the original Japanese, she's calling out "Onee-chan!" instead. For the monolingual non-weeaboos out there, this means "older sister". There wasn't really a way to bring that information across in the localization that wouldn't have seemed really awkward and weird, so they pretty much just didn't. So please make a note, because this will be on the final: Mayu is the older sister and Mio is the younger. Got it?







Back to the action. Mio chases her sister through the woods at a breakneck pace that will not be duplicated in actual gameplay. She passes a small stone bearing a carving of two figures on it...



Who turned out the lights?



Undaunted by the sudden darkness, Mayu keeps on keeping on.





For an instant, Mayu looks like someone else, but quickly returns to normal.





She starts flickering back and forth between herself and a girl in a white kimono.



Going to black-and-white is never a good sign.







Touching her sister sparks a horrifying vision of being strangled.



When her vision clears, she's alone in the darkness.



On a distant hill there seems to be a bonfire going. Perhaps some local teenagers are having a kegger.



That's the end of the opening movie, and I am getting the fuck out of here. Hope you get home safely, sis!



Or not. FINE. I'll go check out the party. But there'd better be some goddamn s'mores at that bonfire, let me tell you what.



Looks cozy, but I'm not really getting a drunken frat boy vibe from the sound of things. More... creepy chanting? Well, I can't go back, so onward!



Oh, hey, a Shinto gate. As we all know, Shinto is a positive and life-affirming religion.





Kimono Lady appears without Mayu. She seems to be upset about something. She'd better not have forgotten the marshmallows.



Our first clear view of the glowing red thing, which turns out to be a butterfly. It flits away...



... and the fire is gone as though it never existed. So much for beer and party food.

It's Mayu! How the hell did you get up here so fast, Mayu? We've already established that your only speed setting is a pathetic hobble.





This seems like a good point to stop for a moment and talk about butterflies. They're considered lucky in many cultures around the world, including Japan. But also, due to their unique life cycle, they're widely regarded as symbols of transition and transformation. Death being the ultimate transition, it's not surprising that they're seen as psychopomps in many parts of the world and are thought to bear the souls of the dead to the afterlife. In some myths, the departed soul is the butterfly, manifesting physically for a brief time before leaving the world of the living forever. Butterflies are also associated with reincarnation.

... but I digress.



Black collar; this is Mayu speaking, trancelike.







....Nah, what are the odds?

... I love it already.

I know I didn't say much back when you were posting it, but I enjoyed reading your LP of the original Fatal Frame, and it looks like I'll enjoy this one too!

When we last left our young heroines, they were on the outskirts of what may or may not be the cursed Lost Village of local folklore (SPOILER: IT TOTALLY IS), carrying nothing, and wearing clothing that is totally inappropriate for adventuring.

On the other hand, Miku (remember Miku from Fatal Frame?) knew damn well she walking into a potentially dangerous situation what with the multiple missing people and all, but still couldn't be arsed to put on pants beforehand. Mio is wearing leggings, so is automatically a better protagonist than Miku.

Anyway. We're standing on an embankment overlooking the maybe-definitely-Lost-Village. We came from the left, so time to explore right.





If by "singing", you mean "creepy chanting", sure. There was singing earlier. But now it's gone, and that's probably for the best.



Mio seems pretty unfazed by this discovery.

Continuing down the path toward the village, there is a glowing blue orb on the ground. Beginning in this game, it's what the series will be using for "HEY OVER HERE THERE'S AN ITEM YOU CAN PICK UP." They're pretty hard to miss!



This orb is impossible to miss, actually. As soon as you get close enough, you automatically get the contents.









Ten days seems a little soon to call off a search for a missing person, if you ask me. But this explains why the twins were talking about the forest being gone soon; once the river is dammed, the whole area will be underwater.



In addition to the stuff in the bag, we also received a Memo. This isn't a physical item; when triggered to do so by the plot, Mio writes down some of her learnings or other observations in her diary. The game gives absolutely no indication when this happens; you just have to check the Memo submenu periodically and hope for new entries.



The game isn't even trying to play coy about whether this is an ordinary village. It's all "This is probably that place I heard about in that ghost story!" "You're right, it totally is!"

Anyway, with the beginnings of what will no doubt prove to be a massive pile of documentation filed carefully inside our brand new leather courier bag, it's time to head down the hill and into the village.



Oh, it's a person. Excuse me! Hello! Is this your bag?

She seems to have... vanished through the door of that nearby house. How odd. If only we had a camera of some sort, we could take a picture of her for points, although it would not count as an official entry in our Spirit List, should such a list exist.

Following this strange individual might not be the best idea ever, but it's really our only option.



I think this is Mayu speaking. I guess she didn't notice Kitty Pryde over there.



Aww... she's laid a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder.



...



uuuuuuummmmmm...





Nope! Nobody there! You sure have an imagination there, Mio!

So they go into the building and find themselves in a little foyer-like area.





There's that lady again! She'd be the first entry on our Spirit List, if we had a camera to photograph her with. Not possessing such an object, all we can do is look at her. Mio's career as a paparazzo is not off to the world's greatest start.





More inside than we already are, you mean? Sure, what the hell -- it's already breaking and entering. Might as well explore.



Mio turns to Mayu, who is freaking the fuck out. She is trembling violently and whimpering, her eyes darting back and forth.

Shocked and horrified by this nightmarish vision of a fairly unassuming hallway, Mio pulls away from her sister.



But Mayu clutches at Mio's hand.



The facial expressions in this game are still a bit wooden, but they're an improvement over Miku's trademark look of dull surprise. I think they've got "oh crap" down pretty well.







This vision shows us a proud graduate of the Miku Hinasaki School of Wearing Stupid Mini-Skirts When Looking for Missing People walking down a hallway, interspersed with very brief flashes of some seriously creepy things.



















We have compatible goals, unknown scary voice! I am interested in hearing more and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.









Mio wrenches out of her sister's grip.





From the look of things? Psychometry, or picking up psychic impressions of past events through touch. Mio, have you ever tried... not being a mutant? You know... conceal it, don't feel it?



Here's our map of the house. This room has a large fireplace built into the floor, and several exits. We can't leave -- attempting to do so gets us an unsubtle message suggesting that we explore the house before doing anything else.

Delightful. Was it too much to ask to be trapped in the Village of Kittens and Chocolate Pudding?

Let's start exploring to the (south)east. The door looks like it's blocked, but it really isn't.





The first game did this "partitions made of kimonos" thing, too. Is this an actual thing that people do in Japan?



The red glowing lantern is a save point. There's also an item here.





There's a little alcove in the back of the kimono room, with some storage boxes. This is Mayu speaking. Sometimes the text is in yellow and sometimes it's in white, but it seems to be random and certainly doesn't do anything as incredibly useful as denoting who is actually talking.



Don't rely on just picking up the glowing balls or you'll miss a lot of stuff. You need to do some good ol' fashioned RPG-style rummaging through other people's private property in order to get everything.



The next stop on our grand tour of this house is the western room.



Another missed photo op (the person is walking outside the window -- mostly just looking like a white blur here). In case you were wondering, you get the camera immediately upon starting a New Game + after beating the game once on any difficulty level. So these ghosts can be captured, just not right now. The first Fatal Frame pulled this trick as well, but there was only one ghost that couldn't be captured on your first playthrough. In this game there are several pre-Camera ghosts and several more that can only be detected if you have certain functions equipped. Replayability is pushed hard here.





We've got a name for our inappropriately dressed rescuer. Is it just me, or are they going a little overboard with the M-names? We've got Mio, Mayu, Masumi, and Miyako. They're getting hard to tell apart.





It's hard to see, but there's a crate by the door.



Okay, we've explored all of the rooms off the entryway. Our remaining options are to go upstairs, or to go down a hallway that pretty much looks like the one from the vision. And while it's not wrong per se to change floors before you've fully explored the one you're on... yes, it is. It's wrong. We shall game correctly and check out the hall.



Mayu gets pissy at Mio if she gets too far ahead.



There's a little lit alcove to the right that totally looks like it should be something, but it's not. You don't even get flavor text if you try to examine it. Nothing to see here.



More stairs going up, and a branching path to the left. We're going straight.



I'm starting to think that something may have happened to Miyako. As in the first game, ghost sightings let you know you're on the right track to advance the plot.



The hallway ends in a little room with a charcoal brazier, an item on the floor, and a deck leading to a garden that's invisible-walled off.





The room on the other side of the garden courtyard is the room with the mosquito netting and the not-at-all-bodylike lump in the bedding.

There's nowhere left to go here except back up the hallway.



Miyako's leading us down that corridor we passed earlier.



If we'd actually tried to enter this room earlier, it would have been locked. You can't get in until the ghost leads you inside.



It's a partitioned room with more stuff! We're going to ignore the glowing balls for now and go straight to find an obnoxiously hidden notebook.



Yes. Yes, thank you, Mayu. You are definitely contributing.



Notebook. Since the camera angles are fixed there is basically no way to know that this is here.

Flashlight! Yes!



For as much as this series likes to play up the "using this camera can be just as dangerous to your soul as not using the camera" angle, it's never actually come up in actual gameplay. In four games plus a crappy 3DS spinoff, not once has a player-controlled character been driven mad by the camera. This is an affliction that only targets weak-minded NPCs.

Anyway, while all of this is very interesting I'm sure, it's moot because we don't have a camera, obscure or otherwise.

Oh hey, what's that over there?





It's a text glitch! Mayu is crying "That's...!" and lunging forward as if to stop her sister from touching it. She fails, and Mio's super psychometry powers kick in once again.







Before breakfast!















...so I will leave it where any passing thirteen-year-old can find it!





There's a sudden knocking noise.









The noise seems to be coming from the door. And we're going to stall in here as long as possible before checking it out!

There's that glowing item in the other part of the room, and Mio has also taken a moment to record her thoughts in her memo book.

That's a big exposition dump to take while you're scared because you heard an unexplained noise! So the village has a name, and the guy from the vision has a name and a profession. Folklorists seem to be nothing but trouble in this series.



The only other item in here is some medicine. Time to check out the door. Mio cautiously opens Door Number One and finds...





A G-G-G-G-G-GHOST!



But this isn't our first battle. It's a lesson on hidden ghosts and how to locate and photograph them.

That gauge in the lower right corner of the screen glows blue when there's something nearby that you can't see normally. You have to use the camera to see them.

Good idea! Maybe this means the plot gate on the front door will be gone! Let's head back to the entrance and see!



That's... that's just mean, game.

Suddenly, Mayu gasps!





Another g-g-g-ghost! This one is a vanishing ghost, like the ones we've seen leading us around before now. They only stick around for a limited amount of time, so act quickly!



There's an interesting emulation issue that took me a while to figure out. It's not listed on the PCSX2 Wiki page for this game, but if the graphics are set to hardware mode you have to be really, really close to vanishing ghosts in order to be able to photograph them. The capture circle doesn't light up, and if the capture circle isn't glowing the shot won't count. It was taking me 5-6 tries to capture any of them, and these are supposed to be the easy ones! Switching to software mode fixes this problem.

Anyway, Miyako seems to want to lead us back into the room with the mosquito netting and disturbing bedding.



There's a blue haze over the door. Let's see what it looks like in the camera.





This type of puzzle is a carryover from the first game. A door is locked by dark plot devices, and you have to find the place shown in the hint picture in order to break the seal. This is the room at the end of the long hallway.





The seal should be broken now. Immediately upon photographing the brazier, a new ghost shows up to say hi.





This looks like Miyako's boyfriend, Masumi.

Back to the sealed door!







Yup, still creepy.



AH-HA! The box in the corner is open now! That must be the reason we're in here.





What the hell, game? There's nothing else here. Let's get out of here.





There we go. Try to leave the room, and the panel falls open.





Miyako shows up again. She's behind Mayu's head in this shot.

Shouldn't mosquito netting be more ... enclosed or something? Bugs can generally fly higher than four feet. Maybe this room doubles as a volleyball court.





Head out of the room, and we're immediately guided to the one place we haven't explored yet: upstairs.





There's one door in this hallway, and the other end leads to that other staircase in the downstairs hall.







The upstairs is a series of interconnecting rooms.









While Fatal Frame does have fixed camera angles like many survival horror and RPG games of its time, we do have access to a first-person viewpoint through the camera. This "hidden" film is easy to spot if we look around through the lens.

And speaking of film... like in the first game, higher grade film gives us better loading speed and attack power than lower grade films. But FFII introduces Type-7, a seriously slow and crappy film that we have in unlimited quantities. It's garbage, but we can't run out of it mid-battle. It's also useful for shooting nonhostile ghosts and taking the other incidental pictures that we need to throughout the game. Why waste the good stuff?





I think we've figured that one out by now, thanks. It doesn't show up in subtitles, but Miyako also says "Why?" a lot.



This is from the glowing ball we saw earlier.











This ghost is a pain because unlike Fatal Frame 1, this game doesn't have a "turn 180 degrees" button in camera mode. Also, it's basically impossible to not wind up with a Mayu photobomb here. This doesn't affect our getting credit for the shot.

That glowing ball in the middle of the floor is a plot trigger, so we're going to ignore it for now in order to loot the room. There's not much here, but there is something on a bookshelf.



From this we have learned that Seijiro Makabe is a both a wordy bastard and a lousy folklorist if he thinks Hades is the name of a place and not a god. We have also learned that among All God's Village's charming rural folk beliefs is the idea that the town is sitting on a Hellmouth. That's so quaint and totes adorbs.

Okay. Time to move the plot along.

Mio sounds like she's telling a ghost story here, slow and spooky in her cadence. If I were Mayu I'd be telling her to cut that shit out.





Wait... who said that?







What the hell is your problem, sis? You look like you've seen a...







Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?



ThanksbutI'msecularShintoAUGHDON'TEATME





It's the first fight of the game! Masumi moves slowly and spends a lot of time crying motionlessly. She can teleport around the room, though, and also likes to attack Mayu.



It's great when she does, because that's always a Zero Shot and/or Fatal Frame, meaning more damage and points. On the other hand, Mayu can die. And her health bar is invisible and (as far as the internet knows) non-replenishable. And dead Mayus are not only not much fun but are also an instant Game Over, so we need to make sure we protect her.





It's a good idea to get out of camera mode when ghosts teleport out of our view.

After the battle there's a final cut scene to end the chapter.















Mio wakes up alone where she had apparently passed out. I hope this isn't going to become a trend; Miku spent like a third of the first game unconscious.

So where's Mayu, anyway?

Maybe Mayu is hanging out with the Twin Shrine Maidens.

And if she really never regenerates her invisible health bar that's hilarious. Imagine getting all the way to the end of the game, and then having her die because of a ghostly noogie for no reason that you can possibly figure out.

She went out for a cheeseburger and will no doubt be back shortly.

There are only a few points in the game where Mayu's ability to die is an issue; most of the time she's not following the player around. Which is good for gameplay, because among the screenshots I didn't save were the ones where I had gone into a corner to get an item or whatever and had a hard time getting out again because my stupid sister was blocking me. She does make an indignant noise and try to get out of your way if you walk into her, but it doesn't always work very well.

I didn't actually know Mayu could die, either. It's apparently something that's really only an issue in Nightmare Mode, when every hit does three times the damage.

Before I begin this week's update, I am indeed aware that Photobucket is hiding all of my images in an attempt to extort cash moneys out of me. I can't actually figure out how I'm supposedly going over the bandwidth cap, since it's never happened before and I haven't uploaded anything recently at all. Maybe reddit found my godzilla-topped yule tree pictures? I boannnt knooooow. The important thing is that I'm using imgur for this LP, so it won't be an issue for this Let's Play. My Fatal Frame 1 LP is affected, and I will be slowly migrating the pictures over to imgur. Emphasis on "slowly" because it's a big project and Past!Me was apparently under the impression that she needed to screencap every single frame of the game in order to authentically convey the mood. Go me?

So I apologize for any inconvenience these Photobucket shenanigans may cause, but I just don't have the resources to subscribe to more than one image hosting service right now. And be sure to tune in later this weekend to find out if one of the twins gets bitten by a radioactive butterfly.

Last time on My Little Lepidopterists: Friendship Is Tragic, our heroines explored a dilapidated house, found a camera, saw some ghosts, photographed some different ghosts, and read other people's diaries. Then they were attacked by the diary-writing ghost, presumably because she was mad at having her private thoughts read without permission. Finally, Mayu took off, probably to find a bathroom.



Chapter Two begins with an automated loot-grab.









I'm pretty sure that's not how you crystal radio, actually, but okay. Through sheer coincidence we just so happen to have a crystal here, so let's try this puppy out. And while I could just transcribe the Spirit Stone Radio recordings, it would be a shame to deprive you all of the all the fantastic scenery-chewing that goes on in them, so here you go:



You're welcome.

The Spirit Orb we picked up is related to camera upgrades, which I'll get into later. And finally, we have a couple new Memos to read.

It sure is a good thing that Mio seems to be psychic, or how else would we get all of this important exposition about the life and times of Dr. Aso? The purpose behind the memos seems to be to make sure that the player knows the gist of what's going on, just in case they're bad at exploring and fail to collect some or all of the documents. But we are not bad at exploring, and are in fact obsessively collecting all the things, so most of the memos are just going to be summarizing stuff that we know already.

Enough reading for now; let's go find Mayu. Again.



After we figure out why the camera filament is reacting to this area behind the standing kimono, natch.





The rest of the second floor does not contain anything interesting, so time to head downstairs.









Seriously, how do you have a house with no bathroom in it? I have to go, sis!





After the door closes, the screen goes all monochrome and we get to control Mayu for a bit. All we can do is follow the butterflies; the game invisible-walls any other movement. Mayu heads north from the Osaka House that we were in, turns left, then turns right. She comes upon the kimono-lady from earlier, and then the scene shifts back to Mio who is quite miffed at being left behind as she also needs to pee rather urgently.



More stuff at the bottom of the stairs!





We've got some new equipment for our camera! One of the less-well-known reasons why Eastman Kodak is failing as a company was the decision to produce a whole line of specialized lenses and other accessories for Dr. Aso's Camera Obscura, despite there being only a handful of the devices in the world. (Also their dogged insistence that digital photography was a gimmicky fad and would never impact film use among real photographers. Long live the buggy whip!)

So we have a lens and a function. Lenses must be equipped one at a time and can be used in combat by pressing the appropriate button. The Slow lens that we have here will slow a ghost's movement and extend the length of zero shot/fatal frame opportunities. Functions, on the other hand, offer mostly passive bonuses to the camera, are equipped automatically, and stack with each other. The Measure function lets us see an enemy's HP bar. If there is more than one enemy on screen, it will show the health meter of whichever ghost we're currently targeting. Good stuff.

Now let's talk about camera upgrades.





Like the first game, we can spend the points that we earn photographing hostile and non-hostile ghosts in order to upgrade our weapon. But whereas spirit orbs were previously used as consumable items needed to activate lenses in combat, they have been repurposed in this game. In order to unlock the ability to upgrade a function or lens, we must first install a spirit orb in the slot. This process is irreversible, so it's generally a good idea to hang onto the orbs if we're not sure exactly how we want to deploy them.

I don't plan on mentioning every time I upgrade the camera unless there's a general demand to see it. My strategy is going to be to max out the basic functions of Range (size of the capture circle), Accumulation (spirit power storage needed for using lenses), and Sensitivity (damage output and effective distance) before looking to put points into lenses. At that point I'll just play it by ear based on what seems to be the most useful.



Range is now at Level 1 and is significantly more expensive to upgrade in the future.

That's enough boring behind-the-scenes stuff. We should head out after Mayu, but what about the rest of Osaka House? Could there be new loot and/or ghosts to find here? Hint: yes. Let's start in the kimono room, where there is a glowing orb on the floor.



Picking up the herbal medicine triggers the box in the back area to lose its lid rather violently.



Meet Woman in Box. I hate her.



She's constantly hunched over and shuffles toward you with her head down, presumably because she died while stuffed in that trunk? Anyway, she can only be damaged during a zero shot moment when the circle goes red as shown above. The problem is that such opportunities are very short -- by the time I hit the button, the moment is already over.

I think this was meant to piss off the player and get them to try out their new lens, but there are a couple problems with that. First, we need to charge our spirit power by scoring points. Until that happens, the spirit point and lens indicators in the lower left corner of the camera view remain dark and the lens can't be used. Points are earned by successfully hitting ghosts, which we've already established that I'm having trouble with here.



I managed to hit her a couple times, and now our lens is charged. And the ghost is charging at us. Which brings us to the other issue with using the Slow lens here: activating the lens counts as hitting the shutter, and the lens only becomes effective if the shot connects. Which, again, is my entire problem with this fight.

The ghost went down eventually, and left behind some keepsakes.

Nothing else here; next stop is the room with the bedding and the really short mosquito net.





Leaving this room triggers our first random encounter.



Most of the fights in this game are scripted, but random ghosts can appear if the game thinks we're taking too long to advance the plot. It's up to the player to determine whether the potential rewards of exploring are worth the risk of battle.

These guys are Men in Dark and their MO is to shuffle toward you slowly, then lunge when they get close. They're only even remotely a challenge because they always appear in groups of two or three. It's important to keep moving and make sure to keep them all in view in order to avoid being flanked.



Double shots not only damage both ghosts at the same time, but also net extra points for being fancy.

With the Men in Dark down, it's time to finish exploring the rest of the house. There's nothing in the room where we found the camera, but the back room starts an important side quest.



The camera is not reacting, but the air looks hazy near the garden deck.





The glowing ball contains a plethora of reading material.

So we've been given three very specific location descriptions, and one completely bullshit "location" that could be referring to absolutely anywhere. We need to find these four places.

That's all there is to find here; time to head outside. There's one last unavoidable item left in the foyer.



Mayu's charm looks like it's made of dyed agate. Which is a type of crystal. And we have a crystal radio. Is spying on one's sister's thoughts unethical?

Yes. Yes, it probably is.



We're going to hell for this.

Let's go check out the village proper. Right outside Osaka House is a Twin Deities statue. It's not the one the surveyor was talking about, but it does have some film in it.





So now let's track down Miyu. We follow the route she took through the village and when we get to the point where she disappeared...



Oh, there she is! She's strolling lackadaisically across the alley! I bet we could take her picture! I bet it would be totally easy and certainly would not take upwards of a hundred and fifty attempts, which would then have to be compiled into a video of shame and published on Youtube for all to see!



GODAMMIT MIO YOU HAD ONE JOB

So. Butterfly Chaser. This is the hardest photo in the game, and there are horror stories all over the internet about it. At least one of the walkthroughs on gamefaqs claims that it doesn't even exist. The trick here is distance. You're too far away for the picture to count, so you have to run forward until absolutely the last instant before she disappears behind the building to take your shot. It also helps if you're not experiencing a combination of emulation/video recording lag. Near the end of the thirty-seven minutes it took to get this shot I was desperately poring over my task manager, recklessly shutting down everything that wasn't directly related to either PCSX2 or Fraps. If you're not dealing with that extra hurdle, your best chance seems to be this:

Stand near the center of the path, and aim with the camera so that you're targeting just to the left of the corner of the building that Mayu is walking towards. Exit camera view and press the "run" button to run forward directly toward the corner. When you reach about the center of the double doors to your right, enter camera view and immediately take the shot. Do not attempt to aim or otherwise touch the left analog stick in any way.

You can also try to get it on a New Game + playthrough when your Range and Sensitivity would presumably be maxed out, giving you a larger success window.



Let us never speak of this again.



The path ends at a large courtyard between two buildings. Mayu is opening a pair of large double doors at the far end of the courtyard.





Immediately after the doors slam in Mio's stunned face, we are attacked.





Seeker and Pole Bearer are the upgraded version of Men in Dark. They have similar movement patterns but also bear weapons, which gives them a longer reach and higher damage output, particularly the dude with the pole. The strategy is basically the same: keep moving in order to keep them both in the frame.



After the fight we learn that the door Mayu waltzed through effortlessly is locked for us. It requires two keys in order to open.



The camera reacts to the door; maybe we'll get a hint.



Thanks?

At this point, Mayu has something new to say via her charm. Like the Memos, the game does absolutely nothing to bring this fact to the player's attention; we just have to remember to keep checking the charm periodically.











There's nowhere to go but back the way we came...

Oh, hey. I guess now it's our turn to follow the butterflies. Because that's served Mayu so well.



The butterflies lead us back toward the village entrance, only east of the Osaka House instead of... you know what? Screw this. Have a map.



We were in the Kiryu-Tachibana area directly south of Kurosawa House, and we're heading towards the storehouse.

There's a hidden ghost in one of the buildings that are too wrecked to enter.







The butterflies continue to beckon, but here's a well. And the surveyor had something to say about a well.







After reading his notes, Masumi himself appears as Mio starts to walk away from the well. This will happen in each of the four locations. We must not only collect the full reports, but also get the photographs in order for this quest to proceed.



The storehouse is locked... but the butterflies were hovering a little past the door, near the fence.



This door is not locked. It leads to a small area behind the storehouse building.







Good question, Mio. Well asked.











Still don't know who this kid is, but let's get a picture of him.



The Twin Deities stone is causing the camera to react.





Looks like we're on the lookout for more butterflies, which will hopefully lead us to the two keys we need.

As we leave the area, our new friend has one more thing to say:





Because we're totally going to accept escape advice from someone who is locked up in jail and thinks Mio is named Yae? Well, he does seem to be more or less alive, so there's that going for him. And he is friendly, if a bit cuckoo.

Next time: Key hunting!

Mayu sure can run fast when there's a photo finish on the line!

Thank goodness that Trapped Boy is around to take over her duties of ruining all of Mio's photos by looking away at the last second and jumping into the frame.

Uh... Is it just me or is that name a little bit racist?

I think it's just you. That's a real Japanese surname (says wikipedia), and the game itself is Japanese so I very much doubt they're taking potshots at themselves based on an American caricature.

When we last left Mio, she was accepting side quests from strange boys. Currently our objectives are:

* Visit the locations described in Masumi's notes (3 remaining)
* Find two keys which are hidden in Twin Deities Statues (2 remaining)
* Catch up to Mayu
* Escape the village

We're going to start by heading out of the village proper and back up to Misono Hill. One of the village reports talks about the Shinto gate there, and if we take a look at the map from the previous update we can see that there's an area to the west of the Hill that we haven't explored yet.



Up at the hill near the creepy altar. This is theoretically the gate we passed through to get here, but the path is completely gone and our girls have a religious objection to trailblazing or something.



Rural Japanese villagers must have perfected indestructible paper technology, as well as indelible ink. So many of these notes are completely exposed to the elements but are as fresh and legible as the day they were written. Maybe it hasn't rained since Masumi and Miyako arrived in the village.



OH NOES THIS EIGHT-INCH-TALL GRASSY GROUND COVER IS TOTES IMPASSABLE I ARE TRAPPED HERE FOREVER

Also, it appears that Masumi is collecting documentation from around the village as well. Maybe we will find his bones file and be able to pick up his cache of diary entries -- ooh, and maybe Grayswandir or Magicsbane! There's an altar right here to start making holy water...





Walking away from the gate triggers our photo op.

Now to explore that area to the west of the hill...



Perhaps this is one of the Twin Deities Stones the white-haired boy mentioned?



Yup.

I'm not sure how I feel about having the game put circles and arrows around the correct stones like that. There are only maybe ten stones in the village and none of them are indoors; it shouldn't have been that difficult a challenge to just make the player search for real. But then, Fatal Frame has never really done true environmental puzzles.

Anyway, onward! There's a path...



And a bridge...



And a big-ass tree...





Like the insurmountable eight-inch grass, this can't be entered now.



The path finally ends in a cemetery. It's very dark and a little maze-like, but there are a couple items to get.





I assume that this man is discussing a symbolic pantomime. No actual young women were harmed during this quaint rural folk Ritual.





Heading back up the hill toward the village, we're attacked by three ghosts at once.





Seeker (the guy with the torch) and Pole-Bearer we've met before, but they've also brought their friend, Sickle Bearer. Same strategy applies; keep moving to prevent them from flanking us.



Oh neat -- a Fatal Frame. Zero shots are when the circle turns red, but Fatal Frames are a specific moment during a Zero shot. We don't have the camera function that will detect Fatal Frame opportunities yet, so getting them is pretty random at this point. Like in the first game, stacking bonuses such as Core Shots, Zero Shots, Fatal Frames, kill shots, lens debuffs, etc. mean bonus damage as well as extra points.



The ghosts leave behind an object when they're defeated.



Time to head back into the village.





Immediately upon reentering the village proper, a short cut scene indicates that a torch-and-pole-and-sickle-bearing mob is after us. Not only will we encounter these guys often during the rest of the chapter as scripted events, but randomly as well.

Now it's time to check out the north-west part of the village.



Behind Kiryu House you can see butterflies in the distance.

We're attacked immediately upon getting the second key.





And it's a pincer attack! Who didn't equip their Alarm Earrings this morning? Anyway, despite being all sneaky and ambushy, these guys still aren't any trouble.

Moving onward...



The road forks here. There's a hard-to-see path to the left, and some steps lead upwards from this Shinto gate. Mio has a black and white psychic flashback to some guys in fancy dress ascending the stairs while chanting.





Back at the bottom of the hill, Mio has found a small red pinwheel spinning in the wind. Remember that Village Report location that was super vague? Well, it's referring to this area. We have to examine this wall between the pinwheel and the Shinto gate.



Dude, have you never seen a horror movie before? Never split the party. That's almost as bad as having sex while being teenaged or calling out "Is that you, Johnny?" at a strange noise coming from the darkness.

I am amused that the player, who is playing Amateur Anthopologist in order to figure out how to escape the village, stumbles upon the writings of an NPC who was doing the exact same thing.





The left hand path ends at the same giant tree that's near the cemetery.



It can't be entered from this side, either.



The only place left to go is up the stairs, to the grounds of a shrine.





As we approach the shrine, the camera indicates a hidden ghost nearby.



It's got to be around here somewhere....



AUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHH!

And this right here is the beauty of screenshot LPs vs. video. Because that random encounter popped up very suddenly right in my face, and I shrieked, and poor Folly who was sleeping in her little cat bed on my desk next to me freaked out and bolted, and then I was doing embarrassed laughter in an empty room. Right after I killed that twerp with extreme prejudice. And while that may be a thing that happened, at least it didn't happen during a live stream.

Anyway, I eventually found the stupid hidden ghost.





Checking the door to the shrine reveals the last surveyor note.







This ghost is a bit tricky because, having clicked on the door to get the document, it also triggers the game to ask if we want to go inside the shrine. If we were to enter the shrine now, Man at Shrine would not trigger. So we said "no" and backed away from the door to get him to appear as usual.

The game is not completely evil, however: this ghost returns in a later chapter and can be photographed then as well. We can get points for the shot both times, but it counts as a single spirit list entry.



...of what, the sky?

Regardless of what order you do them in, once you've read the other four complete Village Reports and photographed their corresponding ghosts, you are awarded this final report.

Again with the splitting the party. This guy deserves to be a ghost. At any rate, now we may enter the shrine.

There's also a glowing item that can be reached through a hole in the lattice behind the altar.



And that's it for the shrine. We're just about ready to follow Mayu after tying up a couple more loose ends.

First, I'm not sure what event triggers it, but there is an item we can pick up at the well that was not there before.



After getting attacked on the way there, natch.









And, finally, while most of the structurally sound houses are locked, there is one house that we can explore a little bit of. This is the Kiryu House, and it's on the way to where we need to go.







This room contains a film projector, which starts up when we enter the room. Not much exciting is happening in this movie; the filmmaker is walking through a hallway or tunnel. At one point a fly lands on the camera lens, but that's about it.



Yes. Yes, we must have this important record for our collection.



Back in the hallway, there's a glowing item and a staircase going upwards.







After going through a door, we're in a bridge connecting two houses.



There's a semi-hidden crystal in the center of the bridge.







Back inside Kiryu, exploring the rest of the second story.



This lens, when activated, temporarily paralyzes a spirit at intervals.





And that's it. There are other doors in this house, but they're all locked. Time to go see what Mayu's been up to.





There's a very long bridge across a lake. A glowing object is sort of visible to Mio's left, but first...



Halfway across the bridge, bubbling water sounds can be heard, as well as a woman's voice. Then this ghost appears.

Then...





She attacks!



Sunken Woman immediately charges Mio and tries to grab her. Then she will swiftly circle, angling for another charge attack. Sometimes she teleports. And occasionally she jumps in the water and disappears, which is our cue to get out of finder view and run away if we do not want our ankles grabbed from below.



Despite having a fair number of tricks up her sleeve, she's not too difficult.



An item appears at the far end of the bridge after defeating Sunken Woman, and a hidden ghost as well.











Now let's go get that item Mio left back on the other bank.



And time to enter the double doors at the far end of the bridge.





Hey, I saw you in a psychic flashback or two!



Not much on the grounds, though there is a save point and one item.



Noplace left but inside the house...



Mio sees someone in an alcove.



The door slams behind her!



And the person she saw is gone.



Then the flashlight dies!



Mio expertly applies percussive maintenance...



The light flashes on briefly, illuminating some ghostly figures in its beam...



... but ultimately goes out for good.



Great.

Next update: a series of black screens because this game is dark enough with the damn flashlight.

I was going to say, the outdoor areas are enough of a pain to look at now that mood lighting has set in. I hope Mayu comes back from the store with some fresh batteries and breakfast sandwiches soon.

Well, the good news is that the flashlight not working is strictly a "feature" of Kurosawa house. Leaving makes it magically come back on again. But I think I'm going to see if I can play with the brightness settings in PCSX2 and see if I can't improve things a bit.

Mio's really getting close to Mayu now! In fact, there's a new message recorded on Mayu's charm.



Okay, let's get one thing absolutely straight: if you sacrifice me, I am totally telling Mom and Dad on you. You got that?

Anyway, onward!



A priest appears behind Mio as soon as we start running forward from the doorway. Fortunately, this is one of those instances where she automatically turns to face him upon going into finder mode, making him a relatively easy shot.



There's a hidden ghost in this room, but it can only be located if the camera is equipped with the "Sense" function, which is awarded to the player upon completing the game. This is a standard playthrough and not a New Game+, so it will have to stay unphotographed.



There are two doors in the back of the entrance room. One is locked...



... and there's a ghost hanging out in the other one.





He'll actually sit there forever as long as you don't approach too closely! The ghost leaves behind some camera equipment.





This function adds a Fatal Frame light to the camera's finder view. All camera equipment found in the game also comes with 30 free exposures of Type-14 film. The game really wants you to use Type-14 as your basic film; Type-07 is garbage and bad for fighting (but good to throw away on non-hostile ghosts and environment shots!).

There are a couple more hidden items in this room.







Leaving this room by the far exit results in a perspective switch back to Mayu.



These ghosts are stumbling, they're running so fast. Do we really want to see what they're running from?



Approaching the kimono-clad lady reverts the scene back to Mio, who can now enter the door that triggered the scene change. Behind it is the exact same hallway Mayu was just walking through. It contains two hostile ghosts that can be fought individually if we don't run too far ahead.



This is Limbo Man. He is covered in slash wounds and is missing an arm. Similar to Man in Dark, he's faster and more aggressive. But still pretty easy on his own!



There's a branch of the hallway that ends in a door. The wall next to the door is covered in bloody splotches and handprints. We can't enter (darn!).



And here's Limbo Woman. She's tougher than Limbo Man, having the ability to teleport a few feet to her right or left, and some kind of ranged attack. She can be nasty in a group melee.



A large set of double doors mark the end of the hallway. There's a glowing item, and something hidden in a hole in the floor.





That's a hole in the floor. Stupid broken flashlight.





Now we're in the room where we last saw Mayu.







Picking up some more stuff around the Great Hall...

Exploring the room any further triggers a cut scene.



There's a storm outside, and lightning flashes through the windows. Mio trips on something in the dark, looks down, and...





IT'S A BODY



THERE ARE BODIES EVERYWHERE



At least someone finds this funny.



That blurry light behind the ghost lady resolves into Blanka from Street Fighter 2.







And we're back in control. Everything is in black and white, and grainy; this means we are in Trouble. This ghost can't be fought, and (Like Kirie from Fatal Frame 1) a single touch is a one-hit kill. Let's get out of here!

But first, Mio has taken the time to record some thoughts in her journal about the event she has just witnessed. Those signs buildings are putting in the stairwells telling people not to tweet about fires until they're safely out of the building are about you, Mio.

Mio is writing about herself in the third person. She also somehow knows the name of the scary murder ghost, despite the game not having revealed it properly at all yet. This can't be a good sign.

Oh, and there's another memo that I missed last update:

She's... she's writing self-insertion fanfic, isn't she? In the next scene all the ghosts will fall in love with her and then she'll develop a superpower or something.

Anyway. Running for our lives. Let's get back to that.



It sure is a good thing this superghost is slow -- let's stop and pick up some really good film in the gap between these two screens.



NOW we can go.



Color (such as it is) has returned, signifying that the superghost has not given chase beyond the Great Hall.



This is an outdoor courtyard with a staircase leading to the second floor.







This shot is tricky (mostly getting the camera to swing upwards in time to get the shot) but nowhere near as hard as Butterfly Chaser.

There's another hidden ghost that can't be found until New Game+ here; I won't be mentioning these anymore since they're impossible to get now. But they're scattered throughout the game, tempting players to attempt additional playthroughs.



Upstairs! There are two doors off this hallway.



One is stuck, and the other leads to a guest room.









I love how blazé the folklorist is about the idea that the village might still be sacrificing people.

There's another door in the back of the guest room, leading to a bare room where the lights are flickering off and on.





The closed door is making the camera react.