Project Zero is a series that caught my eye back in the day but I never got around to playing, so with the recent release of Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, I thought now would be a great time to take the plunge and see what the series has to offer. I’m a huge fan of Japanese games and I love Japanese Horror, so after watching the trailer for the game, I knew it would definitely peak my interest. I heard good things about the game when it was released original for the Nintendo Wii, so with its recent release on Steam, I wanted to jump in a see what all the hype was about.
Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a Japanese Survival Horror game and is the fourth instalment in the Project Zero Series. Originally released in Japan in 2008 the game got a recent upgrade graphically after the remastering of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. Rogetsu Kagura is a festival held once every ten years on Rogetsu Isle in southern Japan. During this festival five girls mysteriously disappeared and when they were rescued by a detective they had all lost their memories. After ten years, two of the girls were killed one after the other and no one knows why. Determined to solve the mystery surrounding their friends’ deaths, Misaki, Madoka and Ruka agree to travel to Rogetsu Isle to find out about their missing memories and dead friends. There are a pleather of new features added to this version of the game which do add to the gaming experience, the two main ones being improved graphics and the new Snap Mode which is like the camera feature most games have nowadays. This is a neat feature as I love taking photos in games.
Mask of the Lunar Eclipse has a very interesting combat mechanic that revolves around the mysterious Camera Obscura. When you come into contact with spirits you are able to pull out your camera and snap a shoot. Not all your encounters with spirits end in combat you’re able to take photos of certain spirits to unlock photos for the gallery. Though when you do encounter a spirits that is hostile toward you, the Camera Obscura is your only defence. By taking photos of the spirits, you are able to deal damage to them and eventually kill them. This is a cool mechanic though it does feel repetitive after a while, there isn’t much difference between spirit encounters other than some spirits are slippery than others. You are able to enhance the camera to make it stronger as well as add upgrades, lenses and films, this make combat a little bit easier to handle as when you get swamped with numerous spirits at once it does become a tad bit difficult to manage.
You can trade points for items that can be used to heal you and give you more film for the camera. Gaining points can be done in various ways, the easiest is taking photos of the spirits or killing them. They can also be used to unlock extras and costumes, which isn’t a huge features but is a nice added touch. There are loads of collectibles in Project Zero and it is fun trying to find them all. It can be frustrating though if you miss out on taking a photo of a encounter as you aren’t able to go back and get it, unless you die or go back to an old save. One of my favourite things to look out for are the Hozuki Dolls, there are a number of them scattered around the map and by taking a photo of them adds them to your ghost list, they are fun little collectibles to go alongside the numerus others.
The game heavily relies on the Camera both in combat and exploration, you can use the camera to reveal items, take photos of hidden messages and a few other things. You can also get hints on the screen from various prompts when you are near items or areas of interest to help direct you and give you aid, at times I did find myself looking for ages to try and find the items as you have to reveal them with the camera or flash light first. This is frustrating at times as you could end up completely missing out on items purely because you didn’t angle yourself properly. The game tries it’s best to keep the suspense and sometimes it does manage to give me a good jump scare but sadly I feel that it doesn’t do enough to completely scary me when I’m moving around the map. It feels super sluggish, repetitive and when you go to interact with things you get an annoying animations that you have to go through every time you interact with something it just isn’t needed. Just let me pick it up instead of my character reaching for it all the time.
The main enjoyment I had with Project Zero was with the combat and storytelling, it does a fantastic job at intertwining multiple stories and protagonists that keep you engaged as the player and makes you want to unravel the mysteries surround them. The combat can be super frustrating at time and the controls could have used a good upgrade like they did with the graphics but it is where I as the player felt most venerable and tense as you had to time every shot to perfection to protect yourself against the spirits. Not only that but can you think of anything more scarier than having spirits menacingly approach you and the only thing you have against them is a camera. I’m just glad that this is a game and not real life.
Graphically Project Zero is stunning and I love what they have done with the characters and spirits, there were a few areas where I noticed frame drops but all in all it is a refreshing look from it’s original self. The atmosphere created is truly horrifying but I wish that I was able to move quicker as my character, even when you come across hostile spirits your character will not move quick enough. If I saw a ghost I’d be legging it out the building not just picking up the walking pace to slightly quicker. I understand that moving slowly can help create suspense in the game but certain situation it would have been nice to run a little bit quicker. The audio is perfectly done to help keep you feeling on edge, nothing is more scary to me than walking around a abandoned building and hearing an evil little girls giggle, that’s just not on my list of things I enjoy. Partner this with good voice acting and it helps paint the picture for a horror feel that could be something truly petrifying, if it wasn’t for the awkward movement controls and sluggish pace.
Project Zero is one of those games that once you have completely the story you have done most of the game, if you manage to collect all the collectibles along the way you might not even need to go back and try and get them. It would be something that you can play through multiple times as it is an enjoyable story but for me personally I can’t get over how outdated this game feels. A lot of remakes/remasters nowadays that are coming out do modernise the gameplay and it would have done this game justices if they had done that. Even if they just change the way the movement and camera worked it could have made my time playing Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse a whole different experience, one that had less deaths due to silly camera angles and sluggish movement.
Conclusion
Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse doesn’t sadly follow suit with the recent remakes/remastered that we see today. Yes, visually the game looks a hell of a lot better than its 2008 counterpart but I feel that they could have done a bit more with it in terms of the controls and movement. If you can put up with it’s slow and repetitive elements then you will enjoy the interesting camera mechanics and story. I feel that it does a great job at being a solid Japanese horror experience but it does come with a number of flaws that hinder it to be something greater and for those reasons I’m giving it a score of 7 out of 10.
Grab your copy here https://www.koeitecmoeurope.com/zero/mask/
This review was made possible thanks to a code from the publisher, in no way is this an advertisment, but an opinion
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