Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

Did You Know?

• The game was promoted with a free DVD distributed through gaming stores in October 2003.
• A novel telling an alternate version of the game's story was released in December 2003.
• Video game writer and director Neil Druckmann described the game as 'the scariest kind of experience in any medium' in a 2014 interview.

Gameplay

In Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, players guide Mio Amakura through the eerie Minakami Village. The experience centers on exploring this haunted location, either alongside her sister Mayu or while searching for her, with a few short segments where Mayu becomes the playable character. The world is presented from a fixed third-person camera angle, shifting to a first-person view whenever Mio wields the Camera Obscura, the primary tool for both combat and puzzle-solving. The main objectives involve navigating the village, solving puzzles by photographing specific objects, and battling the ghosts that dwell there. When Mayu is present, she can assist by uncovering clues for puzzles, but she is also vulnerable to ghost attacks. Puzzles range from riddles requiring careful observation to obstacles that demand timely actions. Ghosts are signaled by a filament: a blue glow marks non-hostile spirits that can be photographed as collectibles, while a red glow indicates an enemy. In combat, Mio uses the Camera Obscura to inflict damage, with more powerful shots possible by capturing a ghost mid-attack. The strongest move is the Shutter Chance, triggered when the camera display turns red, and within that window a Fatal Frame opportunity allows multiple chained shots for extra damage. If either Mio or Mayu sustains too much harm, the game ends and must be reloaded from a prior save. The camera can be upgraded with points earned from photographs or with Spirit Orbs left by defeated ghosts or found throughout the village.

Synopsis

Twins Mio and Mayu Amakura return to a forested valley in the Minakami region where they once played as children, a place soon to be submerged by a new dam. Their bond is tight but strained, partly because Mayu’s crippling leg injury was indirectly caused by her younger sister. When a crimson butterfly lures Mayu away, Mio chases her into Minakami Village—a legendary site said to trap anyone who enters. Inside, the sisters search for an exit while hostile ghosts haunt the streets. Mayu is repeatedly drawn deeper by more crimson butterflies, eventually becoming possessed by the spirit of a girl named Sae Kurosawa. Mio receives help from Itsuki Tachibana, a friendly ghost who mistakes her for Sae’s sister Yae. Through documents and flashbacks, Mio learns the village’s history: it was built over a gate to the underworld called the Hellish Abyss, and a ritual required one twin to strangle the other to appease it. After several failed attempts, Yae and Sae were the last twins. Itsuki tried to help them flee, but Sae allowed herself to be captured so the sacrifice could proceed. Yae escaped, Itsuki killed himself in despair, and the villagers sacrificed Sae alone. This failure consumed the village and turned Sae and a previous sacrifice into vengeful spirits. Mio discovers that, according to village custom, she is fated to kill Mayu. She tries to flee, but Sae captures Mayu, determined to complete the ritual by forcing Mio to reenact it.

Development

Not long after the first game wrapped up in 2001, Tecmo started work on Crimson Butterfly. Makoto Shibata and Keisuke Kikuchi came back as director and producer. The core gameplay stayed similar to the original but got tweaks and new features. The team also worked on balancing the difficulty, since players had said the first game was either too simple or too punishing. The camera angle was changed right up until the final version, and anything that blocked the player’s view was taken out. Daisuke Inari handled the CGI cutscenes and called it a tough challenge to mix horror with a Japanese sense of beauty, using reference material from Shibata. Development happened at the same time as the Xbox port of the first game, and Kikuchi picked early staff to push the gameplay further. Once other projects were done, the full team came back to finish Crimson Butterfly. Because some players found the first game too frightening to finish, the team decided to focus on a compelling story. Shibata had a dream with a complete plot and ending, which became the scenario. Tsuyoshi Iuchi returned as the script writer. The story centered on the symmetry of twins and butterflies, with horror coming from losing one half of a pair and drama from contrasts between them. Kikuchi named Seishi Yokomizo’s stories and both Japanese and Western horror movies as influences, especially The Shining, his favorite film. Legends, folklore, and unspecified natural disasters also inspired the game. As in the first game, female leads were chosen to highlight the protagonists’ weakness and make players sympathize with them. The theme song Chō was made by singer-songwriter Tsukiko Amano. Midway through production, Kikuta wanted a theme song, and Shibata suggested Amano after hearing her debut single Hakoniwa. Amano, a video game fan, agreed before knowing what kind of game it was. She got concept art and a plot summary to help her write. She said the lyrics came from Mayu’s point of view, losing Mio, and the image in her mind was a butterfly losing its wing.

Reception

Crimson Butterfly landed as the tenth top seller in Japan during its debut week, moving more than 64,400 copies by the close of 2003. The Xbox port, while critically well-received, never cracked the UK best-seller charts. Its PSN re-release topped the North American Classics category in October 2013. Critics generally liked the game. On Metacritic, the PS2 version scored 81 out of 100 from 40 reviews, and the Xbox version earned 84 out of 100 from 37 reviews. It was up for GameSpot’s 2004 Best Adventure Game award, and the Xbox version got a nod from the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers in the Direction, Cinema category. Many reviewers called it a solid survival horror title but said it didn’t push the genre forward. Famitsu called it first-class horror entertainment, though its writers disagreed on whether it was scarier than the first game. Eurogamer’s Kristan Reed praised the atmosphere and design as the best survival horror she could recall, but noted the gameplay and mechanics weren’t new. GameSpot’s Bethany Massimilla liked the story and gameplay, only complaining about the low difficulty. Game Informer’s Lisa Mason enjoyed the scares and story but found the camera upgrades clunky. GameSpy’s Steve Steinberg criticized the controls and the lack of co-op, but still saw it as an improvement over the original. IGN’s Jeremy Dunham called it the fulfillment of the first game’s goals. XPlay’s Justin Speer said the atmosphere was absolutely chilling and praised the combat, though he thought the scares got repetitive later on.