"Keep The Ghosts In The Creepy Old Mansions, I Don't Want Them In My House!"

It still makes me laugh that people praise games like Resident Evil as being the scariest games of all time, although that's usually because sites like ign tells them it is, and the fact that most times it's the only survival horror series they've played. Project Zero 3 continues the tradition of combining great storytelling with edge of the seat gameplay and pulls it off well, swapping ancient mansions for your own house and dreams. You won't find a shotgun here, and even if you did it probably wouldn't help… except maybe for killing Miku after she says “It's raining again” for the 50th time!

===
Storyline (8/10)
===

This game's title character is Rei; a freelance photographer, who's fiancé, Yuu, died in a car crash they were in. As the game starts, we are introduced to Rei who is taking pictures of a ruined mansion, but in the process of doing so sees Yuu and gives chase. This ends up in Rei being touched on the shoulder by a woman(/ghost) with a blue full body tattoo. After this experience, Rei is summoned to the manor of sleep every night in her dreams. The majority of the game takes place inside the manor of sleep, however, you can leave the dream and wake up, taking you to Rei's house, also once you've finished a chapter, you wake up automatically, and the tattoo on Rei's back gets larger and larger.

For the most part going around Rei's house isn't that important, but you can get important information by using the house's dark room to develop photographs you took in the dream world and asking Miku to investigate them. You also get some spooky cutscenes within the house, which is some ways is worse since you don't have the precious camera obscura to protect yourself with, and then makes you paranoid as you go around your own house.

You also get to control characters relating to the two previous games; Miku, from the first game, gets summoned to the manor looking for her brother, Mafuyu. There's also Kei, who is in the manor of sleep looking for his niece Mio, from crimson butterfly. The addition of having these two characters means that the stories from the previous games are also intertwined with this game's and as well as wrapping them up, helps to explain the rituals.

As can probably be seen from the brief description above, the storyline is quite complex and understanding it does rely heavily on finding and reading all the game's diaries and researching all the pictures. The fatal frame series has provided a pretty original storyline and this game does nothing to change that, however, in comparison to the previous game, this storyline can get pretty confusing. It could be because there's essentially three going on at once, but it does give a feeling of you don't know what's going to happen next. With the previous game it was easy to see who Mio and Mayu represented from the original village, however, while it does seem that the ghosts see our characters as someone else, for example “You said you would come back” is said quite a lot by one ghost, it's never really explained. The end of the game does unfortunately leave some questions unanswered and isn't really the ending to the series I would have liked, I also hope it isn't the end, but another game may be too many for the series.

===
Gameplay (7/10)
===

As always, you use the camera to battle the ghosts, and for the most part it behaves pretty much the same as the previous game. The damage you do to a ghost depends on it's distance, and this game provides many different ways to get close up damage easily, such as “slow” which shouldn't need explaining, and also the ability to zoom in. There are a variety of ghosts to do battle with, each of which have their own attack patterns, and thus there's a decent challenge to be had, but the fact that they can just disappear and appear on the opposite side of the room can get pretty annoying. The controls are also a little fiddly since the button for taking the picture doesn't seem very responsive and this results in a lot of missed shutter chances just because the game didn't respond. The point of view is also pretty infuriating since the camera always seems to be behind things, or gives strange views meaning it's pretty hard to see what's actually going on in a room without going into camera view.

The gameplay hasn't changed a huge amount from the last game, and in some ways that's good, since in my opinion it's a very good system. However, the controls are a bit unresponsive and doesn't really offer much difference in gameplay than the last game. That said, these games are all about the story, which is told well and progresses at a decent pace. There's also a number of puzzles again, most of which are similar to the last game and most just involve finding the right key, but they do keep you occupied and keep you going along the right path.

===
Graphics (8/10)
===

The ghost designs have been improved and look a lot better for it. They still retain their washed out human like appearance, which is very effective, but look a lot prettier as well. Again they have the choppy cutscenes when you go into the manor, which still hurt my head, but they're still pretty important for the story, so I can live with it. I did get a little tired of everything looking monochrome, since while you're in the manor pretty much everything's a shade of blue/grey. The alternate outfits look pretty good as well.

===
Sounds (7/10)
===

Despite being integral to the storyline, some of the chants are extremely irritating after a while, such as the child counting, it's not that creepy and I never really understood why they were doing it. Some of the things the ghosts say just sound stupid, and don't really make much sense, whereas some haven't been filtered very well, so they just sound like someone in a recording studio saying their line into a mic. Miku also gets irritating very quickly with her constant chanting of “It's raining again” almost every time you speak to her. However, other than those minor problems, which don't really cripple the gameplay, the sounds are good and also the absence of sound is done really well for building up tension.

===
Lifespan (7/10)
===

The game takes a fair amount of time to finish, although it can get frustrating if you get lost and if you don't play the game for a while then come back to it it can be pretty difficult to work out what you're doing without looking up a guide. There's quite a few things to keep you coming back after you finish, such as an alternate ending, alternate outfits, mission mode etc. Also, because of the way the storyline's told, it does become a bit clearer on a second play through, which also gives the chance of noticing things you didn't see the first time round, such as creepy goings on in the house.

===
Summary (7/10)
===

Even though the storyline does get a little confusing, it's well told and offers a different experience to the previous game. It's also nice the way it draws from the previous two games without spoiling them. As with the previous game, it's a lot scarier than anything Resident Evil could ever throw at you, without having to resort to outright gore, however, I know there are people who prefer that kind of “fright” because it's more straightforward. There's plenty of scares to be had with this game, but I did prefer Crimson Butterfly, simply because it did always feel as if you were all alone in the creepy manor whereas here you can always retreat back home.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/07