Up to this point, now with two Fatal Frame titles under my belt that I played on the OG Switch, I’ve had the chance to settle into this series and come to understand what’s behind its appeal. Despite the experience mostly translating on the under-powered system, there’s no doubt that visual clarity and sometimes some overall performance concerns made it a less-than-ideal platform for the experience. Now, with the release of the far more capable Switch 2, it’s amazing how it has become clear that a major step in making these games more frightening, is by first making sure they’re beautiful as well.

It doesn’t take long for you to get drawn in if you’re a fan of some mystery, flashes of some pretty grim imagery, and some uncertainty as you begin to proceed. The small village you find yourself in has a pretty horrible reputation, one that appears to have been earned, and it’s clear that the spirits within it are quite restless. As you move between buildings, trying to fend off spectres, you’ll get the opportunity to review personal journals that flesh out the tragic stories of quite a number of other people who were drawn to this place and then met their demise. 

Mechanically it’s absolutely a very different sort of experience, but given the tension of the moment as you’re trying to avoid being attacked by ghosts, the controller chaos actually makes a lot of sense as you’re pretty well frantic as you try to get them into view, and often waiting for the film to advance so you can take another shot. I think the game’s action may be the major sticking point for most people, and at times it feels like the system struggles to keep everything flowing, making what can already be difficult a little tougher unfortunately. I believe my tendency to treat better films as overly precious tends to make life more difficult, but it does feel like more often than not successful snaps were based more on anticipation than seeing the reticle light up red to get the best shot. You can work around it, but it was at least a minor disappointment.

That said, as an immersive experience there’s no question that the game delivers nicely. Blending together the strong visuals with what feels like pretty effective positional audio, really brings the experience itself to life, helping to amp up the frights in a way that feels earned rather than flashy and cheap. I do think that most encounters had a tendency to drag on a little longer than felt ideal, though I don’t doubt my lack of skill contributed to that fact, but at some point the scare factor falls away to simply wondering when you’ll finally be able to put it away. I’d argue that different lenses and skill-based tools you can unlock sometimes just exacerbated the problem, mainly because new tools are only as good as your understanding on how best to use them, and the game generally provides you with limited direction at best. Still, considering how often I bemoan the generally sorry state of indie horror games on the system, this series absolutely earns its distinction of being a cut above all of those on pretty well every level.