Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water (Multi)
By: Koei Tecmo
DESPITE the name, Maiden of Black Water isn't a lovely ladies competition on the Armagh/Tyrone border, though it's just as terrifying.
Wallowing in Japanese folklore and with unique camera-based gameplay, Project Zero (known as Fatal Frame in the US) has become a cult standard for horror connoisseurs since the 2001 original, though the last time it darkened a PlayStation console was back in 2005.
Since then, Project Zero has been an occasional Nintendo treat – and it's the Wii U's final fling, Maiden of Black Water, that's revived here to mark the series' 20th anniversary.
With gameplay based on the superstition that cameras can steal a person's soul, and with nothing but Jessop's finest to protect you, this Asian antidote to the usual zombie and slasher fare lands on modern consoles just in time to put the frighteners on bored gamesters for Halloween.
As one of three characters, players explore saucy sacrificial shenanigans atop the cursed Mount Hikami, the scene of a roll-call of Japanese terror tropes laden with stomach-churning horror involving raven-haired schoolgirls.
From its ashen-faced maidens and watery graves to VHS-quality flashbacks, fans of The Grudge, Ringu and the like will be right at home snapping spectres amid Japanese ruins, poking around more dilapidated back passages than a proctologist.
And on top of the poltergeist papping, there are plenty of puzzles to crack, with your camera revealing hidden doors and plotlines. All tatami mats and Shinto shrines, Project Zero's history book design sets it apart from other videogame horrors, though such classiness is tarnished somewhat by the pneumatic design of its young stars, who jiggle around in revealing outfits, even battling spirits in their skimpies thanks to unlockable togs that range from goth gear to bikinis.
It's all a slow burn – perhaps too slow for some – with comatose voicework and painfully rheumatic movement as our heroines mince along like Larry Grayson on the moon. Worst of all, cumbersome camera combat can make this horror picture show rather rocky.
Spruced up in HD, Project Zero is a crisper, quicker loading affair on modern rigs, though still obviously a last-gen game, and while the PS5 controller makes a fair stab at the Wii U's motion controls, you do miss that second screen.
Eager to create a new game, Project Zero's producer is pinning his hopes on the success of this second wind for his series' most recent, rather than best, entry. However, horror gaming has come a long way in the last decade, and Maiden – which was already old-fashioned when it first came out in 2015 – is so aged it should be queuing for its booster jab.
One for fans of Japanese horror, whose Hollywood remakes have been clogging up Netflix accounts since the success of The Ring in 2002, it's still the most atmospheric creepshow in town for Japanophiles this Halloween.
