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

That's the room downstairs with the bloody handprints outside it. Presumably we'll be able to get into it now..?

There's also a dresser with an herbal medicine hidden in it.



And another one in a planter.





Time to run past Blanka...



...back to the hallway with the branching corridor.





Even in death, the villagers are scared of Sae.





This is actually two ghosts; the dragger and the dragee. It's possible to capture them both in a single shot, but we won't actually know if I've managed to do it until postgame when the spirit list unlocks.



There is way more blood everywhere actually inside the room. Photographing this closet caused a pair of ghosts to appear.



This fight against Limbo Man and Limbo Woman is actually really tough. It's a small room, and the floor is littered with boxes that are short and hard to see. And she teleports around.



That red light directly below the filament is the Fatal Frame indicator.



An item orb appears after defeating both ghosts.





Score! This lens will push a ghost back even without scoring a zero shot. It's great for giving yourself breathing room to maneuver or charge up another shot.





This game seems way more generous with items than the first game. We've got around twenty-five of these things hoarded, and they recover about two-thirds of Mio's lifebar. In harder modes, the recovery is less.



This wasn't here before.







The only thing left to do is go back upstairs and use that key.



He's barely even scary anymore.



Back in the guest room, there's a new vanishing spirit.





Approaching the glowing orb triggers a flashback.



Quick flashes show a figure bound and being plunged into a pit.

And then back to the period piece.











... it will definitely end well.





So the implication here is that the villagers sacrificed the folklorist Seijiro Makabe, probably because he got too close to secrets he had no business knowing. This somehow turned him into the creature known as the Kusabi. He is now hanging out in the Great Hall and making first-floor navigation annoying.



Picking up this diary has also inspired Mio to write some more memos.

Who seriously looks for the gate to hell, anyway?



There's a ghost lying on the floor of the flickering room. She can't be photographed -- she's just there.





YAY CREEPY DOLLS





Is Sae talking to a skull? Sae is talking to a skull, isn't she?



Wait... Mayu was talking to a skull? And where's the skull?









NO SACRIFICING ME. NO. BAD.

Best idea ever.

Mio Sue?

In the next chapter we'll discover that she's actually Sailor Earth and is destined to be with Peter Parker.

"Oh, Spiderman-sama, I've been thinking about you, desu!"

I don't know if anyone is interested, but here is where I keep my notes for item locations and events in this game. I don't know if it really makes sense to anyone but me, but it's already more accurate than anything on gamefaqs, so there's that.

I'm enjoying reading this LP.

This is a good LP.

Yay! I'm glad you are enjoying it.

Also, I noticed the youtube link was broken for the Fluorite and fixed it. Out of all of the crystals so far (other than Mayu's) this is the one that's actually kinda sorta vaguely plot important.

MIO SEE PRITY LIGHT MIO PRITY GIRL

RITUAL BAD

We finally caught up with Mayu, and now we can focus our efforts on getting the heck outta here.



As the chapter begins, we can see a glowing item partially hidden behind the screen.



It appears our white-haired boy has a name: Itsuki. Also, the young girls know that Makabe is going to be killed horribly, and Sae is kind of creepy.



Speaking of creepy, Mayu spends most of this chapter babbling incoherent and disturbing things as we walk around.



The camera is reacting to the doll shelf. Because of course it is. Massed dolls with their unblinking glassy-eyed stares freak me out. My grandmother's apartment is full of the soulless things, just waiting for the opportunity to devour me...

Anyway.





Why are the two orange garbed dolls missing their heads?



In the image they have heads, and have been moved to the top shelf. Well, there aren't any random doll heads lying around here, so time to go. Remember that dead lady who was just lying on the floor in the next room?



She's finished her nap and wants to say hi.



It's another Woman In Box. She's still a pain in the ass even though our camera is much more powerful, because she can still only be damaged with a zero shot or Fatal Frame and the zero shot window is very short. But she likes to pick on Mayu as much as Miyako's ghost did (all ghosts will target Mayu given an opportunity -- she's a sitting duck) and using your sister as bait is a good way to avoid damage. You monster.



An item appears once she's been defeated.



Well, that was the easiest fetch quest ever.





Reuniting the dolls with their heads starts a short and simple mini-game. It's a variation on a sliding tile puzzle where your goal is to get the two orange dolls up to the wooden platforms at the top. The placement of the other dolls is unimportant. The only challenging thing about it is the minute timer, but if you fail you can start over as many times as you need to without penalty.



There's a drawer?



Oh, hey. This unlocks the door in the entrance hallway that we couldn't get into last chapter. Pity we won't need it, since we're getting out of here as soon as possible.



Mayu continues to natter dreamily.



The puzzle is solved, but the camera is still reacting to something. The signal seems to be strongest where the shelves meet the wall.





Is it a doll or a person? Do dolls have ghosts? Let's keep moving.







Telling the folklorist that a ceremony is coming up without explicitly telling him he's going to be horribly murdered as the main attraction probably wasn't the best idea. He's making sure his young assistant is safe, but is too curious to be sensible on his own behalf.



This is the side door Makabe mentioned. But we shouldn't need that -- we're leaving through the front entrance. ...Right?



Dude. Have you seen the walking movement speed in this game? If we didn't run, the playtime would be sixty-five hours.

Mayu again.



The locked door in the corridor is still locked.



Nope, I was born to be wild. Or maybe born to run. Or born to fly. Born to be... Natalie Grant? What the hell, Google autocomplete? That doesn't even make sense.

The point is that, evolutionarily speaking, I was actually born to pass on my genes, which means absolutely no being ritually murdered at fourteen. Call me a broken record, but I really can't stress that enough.



Mayu's photobombs do not affect points scoring for ghost photos. Thank goodness.



The camera is reacting to this tiny garden area at the base of the staircase.





She looks so happy, but then she gets to haunt the pretty bamboo atrium. The phantom stuck spending eternity in the toilet is far more surly.





This is a good function! Now if we hit the shutter button just as we're being grabbed, the flash will go off and startle the ghost, allowing us to escape taking damage. Timing is tricky, but this is a serious help.





The Kusabi is gone from the great hall, but Mayu marches ahead to stand motionless in the center of the room.











Sometimes when a girl says nothing is wrong, she means that nothing is wrong. But sometimes she means that she's slowly being possessed by a murderous ghost and getting ready to set off on another rampage of bloody destruction. It's important to learn to read body language and tone in order to tell the difference!



Look, you're the one standing around in an abattoir. I've been trying to get us out of here this whole time!

Except... there's a closet in the corner that we couldn't get into before because with the Kusabi around it would have been a death trap. Time to check it out.









So this is where Masumi bought it, huh? This ghost and ring only appear if Mio has all five Village Reports in her inventory from Chapter 2. Otherwise, this would be an empty (blood-spattered) closet.



Yes. Excellent. We have compatible goals, Mayu. Keep on keeping on with the not-killing thing.

...Why exactly am I letting you walk behind me, again?



Upon leaving the great hall, a hand reaches up ominously.



It's a Limbo Man. Sadly, he can't be damaged while he's laboriously climbing onto the wooden walkway. On the bright side, he's still a piece of cake on his own.

He leaves behind a present.





NO. BAD.



A ghostly pair of legs can be seen behind the tattered curtain.



We're finally back at the main entrance! Time to--



How did I know that was coming?



We've been over that. And the running speed is ridiculously slow and plodding too, just sayin'.



This is one of two ghosts in this room that can be captured after Curtain Shadow but are mutually exclusive. Since we spawned this guy by touching the front door, the other one ("Hopes for Ritual") will no longer appear. He'll need to be captured during New Game+.



Unlocking this door is what would have triggered him to appear.







Note the glowing item in the ceiling. I wonder how we get that?







Approaching this door causes it to swing open.



If I hadn't been so hair-triggered on this shot, I could have gotten this boy's head in the frame when he peeked out for a lot more points. Oops!



Let's check out those stairs, since we know there's an item up there.





I believe I have made my opinion abundantly clear re: sororicide, Mayu.







There's the hole in the floor, with the item glowing within.



Yes. And even though it's clearly within easy reach, we can't get it. Apparently despite having fought for her life against the restless dead, Mio is still squeamish about spiders.

There's a door in the back of this room, but we're heading back down the stairs instead. I don't remember if the door was locked or stuck; we just didn't go there now.



A ball drops down through the hole in the ceiling.





It's a real ball, not a ghost ball. Hey, maybe if we toss it down the hole, it'll dislodge the item..?



Yep!



We haven't come across a door with this lock on it yet. Let's check out the doorway where the little kid was peeking from earlier.





This is a tricky shot because the little brat is fast. He didn't appear in the picture, but we still got credit for it so yay.







Here are some very fancy double doors, but they're not opening.





Continuing down the hallway for a really hard ghost. This kid is blurry because he's sprinting across the hallway. He's only on the screen for maybe half a second; Mio will automatically turn to face him when we press the finder button, but she won't be fast enough.

The way to capture him is to go into finder view while next to the double doors, and face the direction we came from. Then, while hugging the wall on Mio's right, moonwalk down the hallway while angling the camera down and toward the center of the hall. The screen will go fuzzy and there'll be a heartbeat sound right before the kid runs into view; snap the shot about three quarters of a second after the heartbeat, without waiting to actually see the ghost.



Once again, Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Photo. But it counts, and that's all that matters.



The hall ends in a door.



Coincidentally, we just happen to have the key for that.





This is the ghost of the folklorist speaking, not Mayu.



There's a cell in the back of the room. Because most ancestral family homes are equipped to store prisoners. Approaching it causes the perspective to shift to the inside of the cell.





I think that moving so that his face is unobstructed by bars will net more points, but whatever.



Makabe speaking again.



Looks like we're gonna need a key to get out of this house. And Makabe had the key, so it might be still in the cell? We need to get in there.

Reading this file also inspires Mio to write a new Memo.



Anyway. Cell.



Well, crap. Looks like we're searching for another pair of keys. I really hope the cell keys aren't in Osaka house like the folklorist thought... I mean, if we need to get into the cell to get out of the house, but can't get into the cell without leaving, we're kind of screwed, you know?

This seems like a good place to take a break, at any rate.

Next update is most likely going to be a week late because my husband and I are going on vacation. I mean, I suppose I could scramble to get it done before we leave, but don't hold your breath or anything.

I'm sorry I haven't spoken up sooner, but the writing in this LP is fantastic. I don't even care about the game, but the LP is still worth coming back for.

Wow, thank you!

I think this needs to be posted in the Relationshippy Talk thread. It's valuable advice!

Okay, so we're looking for two keys in order to get into this jail cell where just maybe we'll find the key to get out of Kurosawa House. Note to self: Next time roll a rogue instead of a psionic.

Anyway, there's more stuff to see here. There's an unexplored corridor leading off of the room with the cell.

It has a storage closet...





...from which emerges a ghost to attack Mayu!





Interesting note about this one: it only appears if you're running well ahead of Mayu. If you're actually being a good sister and limiting your pace to her creeping limp, the ghost won't be emboldened enough to appear.

And on that subject, did ChildhoodInjury!Mayu get absolutely no medical attention whatsoever after her fall? Kids heal like freaking Wolverine -- there is no reason why a broken leg caused by a fifteen-foot drop should turn into a permanent affliction unless her parents were neglectful assholes and just told her to walk it off or something. Maybe Mio isn't the one who really deserves to feel guilty here.





The corridor ends in a cellar, where we make the acquaintance of a new friend!



Veiled Priest throws skulls! He also swings that staff of his, and teleports. Get used to the ghosts teleporting; they basically all do it by this point. This first encounter isn't too difficult, though, and he leaves behind an orb upon defeat.





The other end of the cellar has a save point and a set of stairs.





We need at least three keys; haven't you been paying attention?



Toldja so.

Nothing else here! Time to do some backtracking.





Oh, FFS. I don't even look like Yae!



"Hey, would you like to try a Crimson Sacrifice Ritual? All the cool kids are doing it, and you want to be cool, don't you? Of course you do. First taste is free; I'll only murder you a little bit and you can decide if you like it. No pressure!"



Those ornate double doors are magically unstuck now.



It's an altar room! And a rematch with our new BFF, Veiled Priest!





He likes to attack Mayu as much as everyone else seems to.



Mayu continues to lose it.




Do these people really not understand why teenage girls might not be on board with being sacrificed?

Anyway, there's a lot of stuff in here.

Dude. Have you considered moving away? There are lots of areas in Japan that aren't sitting directly on top of a Hellmouth. Very nice places. Good schools. No?



There is a staircase going up, and two going down. Let's try up.





It's been said before, but there is something deeply wrong with Sae.











It's an actual RPG puzzle! Mayu agrees to hang out on the switch so that we can go through the little half-door.

But first, there's some camera equipment on the ground.



Um, I haven't used this one in a while. I think it makes ghosts that have gone invisible show up, but I'm not exactly sure. Here's a description: "While this effect is active, the spirit is easier to locate. This is especially effective against spirits that vanish for extended periods." So... whatever that means, it does it!

Can you tell I just don't use lenses that much? And when I do, I go for the more active ones that stun or provide knockback.

Anyway. Little door.



It's a closet!



On the one hand, I'm kind of wondering why these conversations needed to be written down for Mio to find later. I mean, couldn't they have just spoken to each other?

On the other hand, when an entire village is invested in sacrificing you, you're probably being monitored pretty closely.



The other end of the closet is a lattice where we can look in on a room. The ghost of the Ceremony Master is inside, talking to himself.





Now, this part is important. We have to hang out and listen to him until he's done talking.



Now we can leave.



For pity's sake, Mayu, I was just in a closet like six feet away. You freak out when we're in separate bathroom stalls and I wasn't going to say anything but it's kinda creepy.

Back in the altar room with the red candles, it's time to explore downstairs. There are two staircases, but they both lead to the same place.





We've seen this type of switch before...







Lost Vikings this game ain't.



Seriously? I'm right here! ... You know what, forget this. I'm going into the room we just unlocked.



Nope! But we get mistaken for them all the time.

Yay, it's one of the cell keys!





Again, it doesn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to come up with a plausible motivation here. I remain baffled at their bafflement.



Tell them they have the wrong number!



No problem, we already have a key with a butterfly on it! Oh... a different butterfly key? Poop.

Well, where is there left to go? There was that door in the back of the room where we had to drop the ball through the hole... how about there?





See that little alcove in the pillar with the statue in it? If we hadn't listened to the Master's monologue from the closet that would appear to be a blank panel. Also, the Master wouldn't be here talking (and soon to be attacking) now.





This fight was annoying! The room is small and he kept hiding in the walls where the camera couldn't reach him, chucking skulls at Mayu.







Oh hey, we've been up here before! This is the second story hallway with the guest room and the door that was locked.



It's not locked now! Shortcuts are always good.



There's a lot to pick up here before we examine that alcove with the statue.





Everybody's dead, Dave. They're all dead. Everybody is dead, Dave.



Yeeeah, I'm gonna go with "not guilty" on that one.



On each side of the hexagonal pillar, there is a book to be picked up.



Oh, I see. You pretend to hate the demon gate, but secretly worship it because you think it grants you power. That explains a lot, really. And removes like all of your moral high ground.





I'm copy-pasting the formatting here and it's still super annoying to type.





Key!



Wait... it's a puzzle? Surely we could just force the key out of the statue's hand, right? No?

Anyway, we have to insert the books into the slots in the correct order. We could do this by figuring out the way that the individual texts make the most sense when read together as a whole... or we could just look at the red words and not have to think at all.

Guess which one I did.



Leaving the Master's room gets us attacked by a single Man in Dark.



They're really a joke when there aren't three of them.



Another one in the hallway on the way to the cell.







There are two sections to the cell. The first area has a glowing item.







Around the corner is a small library area. This is the folklorist talking, not Mayu. And no, dude, the keys were in the Master's room and the rope temple.





A folklorist in a library... what are the odds that he wouldn't leave something on the shelves?





Good to see that imprisonment and your impending demise hasn't dulled your intellectual curiosity.

You know, the curiosity that got you into this mess.





Mio has written some more memos based on the folklorist's findings.

"Two bodies, one soul" is a pretty common myth about twins. The nastier version is that some cultures believe only one of the twins gets born with the soul. The other one is either soulless or actively demonic -- and the soulless one is considered ripe for demonic possession anyway. Demons are expert liars, so you can't reliably tell which is the good twin and which is the evil twin, so you'd better kill them both to be sure.

Sadly, infanticide of twins is still occurring in some parts of the world due to these superstitions.

I really hate euphemisms, you know? Call someone a witch, and everyone knows what word you're really calling them; stop insulting everyone's intelligence and own your language choices. If you were that morally upstanding, you wouldn't be calling people names at all. Similarly, not talking about the horrible ritual where you make children kill each other does not make it any less horrible.





Hooray!





IT'S ABOUT TIME



What. No!



DAMMIT.







This is going to involve searching Osaka House, isn't it?

Starving to death would be a pretty silly way to die.













Thanks so much for the guilt trip, sis. No, really.









That's not Mayu's voice there; it's Sae's.



Mio looks back, but it's just Mayu looking like the Crown Princess of Forlornia.

Mayu's leg healed up just fine. She's just got one hell of a case of Munchausen's Syndrome.

I want a story!

I'm with Dawnswalker... you brought it up, now you're obligated to tell!

There's definitely more characterization going on here than in the first game. I know I'm a lot more invested in Mio than I was in Miku. But then, I'm not sure if that's due to actual better storytelling or the fact that Miku was a complete idiot...

But yeah, the story itself really isn't complicated at all.

I'd kind of been thinking along the same lines, to be honest. I think it's just fanon, but a lot of Crimson Butterfly sites claim that Mayu fell off of the embankment on purpose, too.

Ugh, being tied to a drunk person would be plenty bad enough for me, never mind the having to stand there while he peed! I wonder whether any of the women journalists had similar issues...

So this was the worst update ever to produce. Fraps decided not to play nicely with PCSX2 all of a sudden, resulting in a single hour of gameplay taking nearly six hours to record. Then when it was time to upload the screencaps yesterday, my internet went down for several hours. Imgur decided to get in on the act by getting all flaky, too. So this update has been brought to by the letters S, N, A, F, and U. Please enjoy it!



At the start of chapter 5, the game automatically pulls up the map that we found in the folklorist's cell. It really wants us to understand that we need to go to the Osaka house, which is the first house that we explored. The room marked with the red X is the family altar room -- where we found the camera.



Mayu still doesn't want to be left alone. While understandable -- I would not want to be left alone in a haunted village either and everyone knows that splitting the party is for stupid people who deserve to become ghosts -- the alternative is to hang out on opposite sides of the door until both girls starve. Action must be taken!



She does look very sad, though.





As we are already horrible people who are going to hell for eavesdropping on our sister's private thoughts, it probably won't hurt to keep doing it.





Anyway, with our shiny new key in hand, it's time to get out of here through the basement exit.



Why is she called Woman In Box when she's only actually been inside a box once? Why not Woman On Floor or Woman In Well?



This fight was actually super easy. The basement is huge so I was able to keep lots of space between Mio and the ghost.



She left behind an item.



With nothing left between us and sweet, sweet freedom, it's time to get out of here!





A ghost appears on the covered walkway between two of the houses.



The way to catch it is to keep running until the end of the pathway, then turn and snap. It's tricky, but doable.





As we head toward Osaka house, a number of vanishing ghosts draw us toward the storehouse instead.













If there was ever any doubt that Sae is the one possessing Mayu, it should be gone by now.



She's actually a stationary ghost here -- she'll only vanish if we approach too closely. When she disappears, she leaves behind some stuff.

So the logical thing would be to go talk to the boy behind the storehouse (presumably Itsuki), right? WRONG.

... Well, yeah, it is actually logical. It also seems to be what the game wants us to do right now. But if we did that then we would miss a ghost sighting. Visiting the storehouse at this point would make the folklorist not appear in Osaka House.







This is the spot where the ghost was hanging out, but there doesn't seem to be anything interesting. Maybe we should go to the storehouse now? (Hint: yes)





...after picking up this Ultimate Film. You know it's badass when you only get 2-3 exposures of it at a time.

To the Storehouse!





The butterflies are still hanging around from earlier.

I don't know what he expects us to find; we were just there and all there was was boring ritual stuff.

I took another picture of him because I can, but I think it's the same spirit list entry as the other one. Pictures of Mayu and Itsuki aren't worth any points, at any rate.



He was actually looking at the camera this time!

So we're supposed to go back to Osaka House how, but we're going to take a quick side trip to the cemetery for a ghost hunt.



Stop pretending you guys are even remotely threatening. Really, it's embarrassing.





This cute little girl is worth a whopping 1400+ points and is pretty easy to snap. By contrast, the infamous Butterfly Chaser gave us a piddling ~400 points. Being an obsessive completionist really sucks sometimes.

Enough delay; let's go back to Osaka House. But before we reexamine the family altar room, let's see if there's anything interesting going on in some of the other rooms.

First up: the back room with the brazier and garden access.



A black-and-white cut scene is never a good sign. Mio is shining her flashlight around the room.







Masumi is not pleased to be interrupted.





A flashback within a flashback!





Who cares? Time to loot the room! Before we grab the item that the ghosts left behind, there's something on this cushion.





This function gives a sound alert in addition to the flashing light when there is a Fatal Frame opportunity. This is also our reward for completing the Masumi and Miyako side quest, by the way; if we had not taken all the surveyor photos and obtained the Bloody Ring in the Kurosawa House closet, this would be an empty room and the cut scene would not have happened.



Presumably he meant the ring, not the strangling. Vengeful ghosts do not have the same priorities as regular people and are no longer interested in proposing marriage.







... Oh, dear.

This fight is brutal. This room is not only small, but it has partitions and obstacles on the floor like the brazier that make running around a challenge. In addition, both ghosts teleport and actively attempt to pincer attack Mio. Miyako hits harder but seems to go down faster. He's relatively weaker but has tons of hit points. I used Type-61 film and still had to heal several times.

Here is the Evade function at work: one of the ghosts grabbed Mio and I was able to get away without damage by mashing X.



It doesn't work all the time...



After the battle, Mio writes a final Memo as a coda to the Masumi/Miyako storyline.

The rest of the house is going to be pretty anticlimactic.

There's a ghost sighting of Miyako in the mosquito net room...





And a cute ghost kid in the rafters upstairs...





He seems to be in the middle of the rafter, but is it really a clipping error if it's a ghost?

The game got annoyed that we were exploring instead of heading straight for the altar room, so sent a random Man In Dark after us.





Still upstairs, there's an object on the floor near some kimonos.



And.... that's all the stalling we can do here. Time to take another look at the altar, which we totes examined the crap out of earlier, but whatever...





HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY MISS THIS

This is a gear-turning style puzzle that doesn't actually exist before you visit Itsuki. The object is to rotate the outer pinwheels so that the colors on the petals that are touching one another match. Rotating an outer pinwheel also moves the center one, however. It has to be done within four turns; failure makes the puzzle reset. Like most puzzles in this game, it can be restarted as often as needed without penalty.





Success!

The passage leads to a staircase to the "cellar", which appears to be a natural cave. Apparently the folklorist made it down here at one point.









This area was used for storage, so there's a lot of stuff we can pick up here!

We needed a cut scene for an empty box?

Mio stands up, turns around, and...







The ghost swings!



And misses!



And continues to flail around blindly!



Mio holds her breath...



And the ghost turns to walk away, dropping a key as it goes.







Mio sighs silently in relief.



And then she accidentally kicks the box. It thumps hollowly.



Did it hear her?



That would be a yes.

Mourners are the spiritual successors (heh, get it?) to Fatal Frame 1's Blinded. Moving or snapping the camera will make them instantly home in on Mio's location, but staying still will confuse them. The difference is that Blinded would basically never find Miku unless by accident if the player didn't move, while Mourners will get wise eventually. The strategy is to snap a shot, run away quickly, then stand still and wait for a zero shot opportunity.





Yes! It's the cell key!





I hope this will be as riveting as the last home movie was.

That's everything down here -- let's go get Mayu!



Miyako comes to say hi when we try to leave the altar room. She's not at all difficult without her boyfriend to run interference.

Heading back to Kurosawa House...

Mio is attacked by a Sunken Woman on the big bridge. She's still no real challenge.





And back inside Kurosawa House. The lack of a flashlight isn't anywhere near as crucial as I remembered it being, to be honest.



A pair of Mourners attacks in the basement. It's tricky when attacking one alerts the other one to your presence.



And we're back! Hey Mayu, I've got the key!





The cell is... completely empty. This is seriously not fair.



That writing on the wall wasn't there before.







Flashback time! Itsuki peers around a tree while shadowy figures pass by him.











This looks familiar...





Wait... is Sae going to--







--yep.

Sae falls off the embankment with a scream.



Yae looks back in shock...



And the next thing we see is Sae, captured by the village.







Yae Kurosawa never came back. She kept running, escaping the village with the folklorist's assistant, Ryozo Munakata. And if those names sound familiar, it's because they are -- from Fatal Frame 1. Yae married Ryozo and together they had a child named Mikoto before Yae became plagued with ill health. A full-fledged folklorist himself by that time, he decided to both further his research as well as give his wife a healthy rest in the country by purchasing and moving into the Himuro Mansion. There Mikoto found the Camera Obscura, which Yae used until it drove her mad and she eventually ended her own life. Yae and Ryozo are Miku and Mafuyu Hinasaka's great-grandparents.

After the flashback we get to see what Mayu is up to. She's not far...



I guess we should go after her. Again. Sigh. Her charm has been updated with some new mad babbling, too.





A couple Limbo Men attacked on the way back out of the mansion. They went down quickly.



Mio dashes around the corner to where we last saw Mayu in cut scene, once again rubbing our noses in the fact that the in-game running speed is a quarter as fast.





Don't bother, Mayu, we've already been up there. The door's locked.



She's being followed by a g-g-g-ghost!



This is the same spirit list entry as the other Corridor Woman, and much easier to shoot.

And Mayu appears to have made it through the locked door. It must be open now, unless the ghosts are still letting her cheat physics. I bet the ghosts are letting her cheat physics; they always liked her better than me. She gets bigger checks from them at New Years, too.

Well, we'd better go check. On the way we can go see if there's anything important on that film reel.





Well, that was riveting. Oh, well. The bridge access is upstairs.





That's what I thought. Jerk ghosts.

That Broken-Neck Lady is still hanging around, though.



She mostly just advanced and lunged. Her zero shot windows were nice and big, so she went down quickly. Heading back inside triggered another meeting with the folklorist's ghost.





Makabe leaves behind an item.









There's a new Memo about this new information. I think I was wrong about the Memos existing to bring players up to speed in case they missed finding an expository document, because in a lot of cases it's finding the document that triggers the Memo to be written. Maybe it's to have all of the plot summation in a single place in case the player gets confused?

Well, now we've learned that there's another way to get into Tachibana House where Miyu went: through the basement of Kiryu House. We're inside Kiryu House now, but this area is completely locked off from the rest of the house. We'll need to find another way in. This may seem like a radical notion, but what about the front door?







It's locked via mystic seal. Because of course it is.



This is the well near the storehouse. We manage to head over there without incident.





And back to the house....





That was abrupt. No cutscene or boss fight, just walk in the door and Welcome To Chapter Six. Good enough for me!

BORING BEHIND THE SCENES UPDATE: Our camera's basic functions are at full power. I will now focus on upgrading the lenses, starting with Blast.



See you in a couple weeks!