Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake review – the best ghost story in gaming

The video game previously known as Project Zero 2 gets a full remake and is brave enough to make some major changes to the story and gameplay.

Given how much is dependent on your own psychology, it’s really impossible to say which is the scariest video game of all-time. That said, we can’t take seriously any short list that does not contain Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Alien Isolation, Fatal Frame 2, and P.T. demo. But being scary and being a good game are too very different things.

There’s much to admire in Alien Isolation, and we’re very much looking forward to the sequel, but it’s a deeply flawed experience. Fatal Frame – which until now was known in Europe as Project Zero 2 – also has its issues but 23 years ago, when it was first released on the PlayStation 2, they were ease to ignore given the game’s impeccable atmosphere.

Crimson Butterfly has been re-released multiple times over the years, and got a Wii remake in 2012, but this is an attempt to take advantage of the current fashion for big budget survival horror remakes, that has worked so well for Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and less so for Dead Space and Alone In The Dark. How well it will serve Fatal Frame remains to be seen but taken as an isolated game this is still high tier horror.

There have been five mainline Fatal Frame games (the Project Zero moniker was an attempt to reflect the Japanese name for the series) over the years and while the first and third entries have plenty going for them, it’s the second that is widely viewed as being the best entry. However, conceptually, they’re all very similar and that has left the franchise without a new entry for over a decade now.

The original Fatal Frame games were strongly influenced by the late 90s Japanese movie scene, especially Ringu and Ju-on. They weren’t knock-offs though and instead the story of Crimson Butterfly revolves around twin sisters exploring a cursed Japanese village. The story is slow to make it clear what’s going on but it quickly becomes clear that you are dealing with a lot of ghosts, often with very different backstories.

Crimson Butterfly isn’t gory – this remake only has a 16 age rating – but it is confident enough to take its time and build atmosphere, such that some of the scariest moments in the game are simply glimpses of ghosts in distance, that you’re not even sure you really saw.

Technically, the game is played in third person (the original used fixed camera angles) but you spend much of your time peering through the aperture of the Camera Obscura. This peculiar device is often the only way you can see the ghosts and is the only weapon you have to defend yourself.

Ghosts can be exorcised by the camera, by taking as clear a photo of them as possible. Catch them at just the right moment, usually as they’re about to attack, and you’ll trigger a titular fatal frame, which does extra damage and increases your willpower.

Willpower is a new concept for the remake, that’s tied to special shots which can stun ghosts, and while it doesn’t change much, together with shutter chances – which let you take multiple shots at once if a ghost’s health is lowered past a certain level – it does add a few more layers to what is otherwise a fairly simple system.

The whole premise is very silly when you stop to think about it, but in practice it’s terrifying, since you’re constantly waiting for a ghost to attack, to get the most powerful kind of shot, which requires iron nerves in most situation. Especially as it takes so long to reload ammo film, with more powerful film types taking an absolute eternity.

You usually have no idea where a ghost is, until you look through the camera, and slowly panning around, only to get a jump scare right in the kisser is consistently terrifying, even as you kick yourself for constantly falling for such a manipulative set-up. Although things are even worse when you’re certain a ghost is on the other side of a door and you have to open it anyway.

Unfortunately, the remake can’t leave things at that and there’s also a range of new charms and upgrades to the camera that make it easier to combat ghosts. Some of these are based on unlocks from the original game, but where things go too far is the filters, that introduce additional special shot abilities that do everything from letting you see through walls to acting like a photographic shotgun. They’re all very useful but at times it feels like playing the Resident Evil with a rocket launcher on your first run.

Neither shlock horror like Resident Evil nor psychological torment like Silent Hill, Fatal Frame is a good, old-fashioned haunted house story, with only limited puzzle and exploration elements. The original game could be beaten in around 10 hours, but the remake is twice as long, with new story elements and areas that flesh out some of the secondary characters. That could have been a disaster, given the relatively shallow gameplay, but they’re integrated well enough that first time players will never guess they weren’t there in the first place.

What also impresses about the remake is that despite the various quality of life additions it still leaves you to work out what’s going on and what you’re supposed to do about it. There are no waypoint markers here and while it’s not as obscure as some elements of Silent Hill f it’s just as willing to treat its players as thinking adults.

This is unquestionably a good remake, that’s had a lot of thought and care put into it, but it does take the action elements just a bit too far. Even getting rid of the fixed (with a bit of leeway, since they weren’t pre-rendered) camera angles ultimately makes the game less scary, which is a shame as being scary is the whole point of Crimson Butterfly.

Nothing has been ruined though and in terms of winning the franchise new fans this may well have been the best approach. If it is enough to greenlight a brand new game we hope that Koei Tecmo can focus on the story and more unique scares, rather than the combat. If not, Fatal Frame is beginning to feel like one of its ghosts, forced to repeat the same actions again and again, with only oblivion as an exit. Despite the flaws we’re impressed by this remake, but we’ll be even more impressed if Koei Tecmo can produce an equally good new game.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £44.99
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Developer: Team Ninja (original: Tecmo)
Release Date: 12th March 2026
Age Rating: 16

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