I don't remember being scared of the other games to the point that I was dreading having to play again
I found myself watching a playthough of this on youtube. It was scaring me pretty bad, and I am usually unable to hold interest for very long if I'm simply watching a game being played. I have to be the one playing. It's not selfish, it's simply the way my attention works. After watching up to about chapter 4, I decided to look more into this english patch that was available. I read that it was very easy to set up, so I dedicated myself to actually getting this working on our household's wii.
I have to say thank you to the people who are handling this patch. Thank you for your very easy to read and very detailed step-by-step instructions. I'm not a complete technology newbie (I can handle some things, thank you very much!), but I'm by no means an expert, and I always felt that hacking game systems sounded a bit too complicated for me. The steps to get this game working in english though were very easy to follow and I had no trouble at all.
I was so excited to play this game, that as soon as I got the english working, I honestly starting jumping up and down yelling "Oh! I did it!! Oh my goodness! Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm so happy~!!!" Hahaha, needless to say, it was a celebratory moment. And thus my Fatal Frame 4 journey began.
The more I played this game though, the more I found myself not liking it. It went far beyond the level of "fun scary" and I found myself dreading to play through each new chapter. I guess my main reason is the fact that it threw in the one ingredient that is certain to push my fear past any reasonable limits - a hospital. Hospitals are scary enough; make them dark and haunted, give them a terrfying past, and add psycho patients and even crazier doctors, and well, I'm in for one rough ride.
As I was playing, I could easily say "This is the scariest Fatal Frame yet". But I dismissed that thought. I figured "No, it's just scary because it's my first time playing. Things are new and unexpected, that's why." But now that I'm finished with the game finally, and I can sit back and reevaluate my thoughts, and I think I'm going to have to restate my initial idea that this really was the scariest of the series for me.
I don't remember being scared of the other games to the point that I was dreading having to play again. And I can certainly tell you that I never cried when I got gameover on the previous titles. I got gameover on this game once, and I was holding back tears because I was so afraid of having to redo any part of this game.
I don't usually talk outloud to myself when playing games. I found myself locked in a room at one point, and I started panicking saying "Oh I do NOT like this! Let me out out here! Please open up!" I'm kind of glad no one was home to hear me yelling those things.
Also, I have no desire to replay this again, simply because it just scared the soul out of me every time I turned it on. With the other fatal frames, I had no problem replaying any of them. In fact, I wanted to. With this game, I'm putting it away, and am going to keep it out of sight for as long as I can.
Until one of my friends wants to play it that is. I'd usually be happy to accompany them on their journey through the games, but I might just have to hand them the game this time and say "Sorry, yer on yer own here."
Let me make myself clear here though. It's not a bad game at all. In fact, I'd have to say it's the best in the series. It's also by far the scariest in the series. The story and characters were wonderful, and the mystery of what happened is what kept me going. I was so interested in seeking answers that it kept me pushing forward through my fears.
The environemt is huge, but it's also fantastic. Think for a moment, Fatal Frame is scary enough taking place in old houses. Put Fatal Frame in what is resemblant of a mental ward, and you have pure awesome terror.
There were two notable things that were done different with this game, in comparison to the previous titles. The first thing is that there are no random ghosts. Mind you, things are plenty scary enough without them, and you really don't find things laying quiet for too long. The other is the lack of background music. The silence could be something that adds to the build up of fear though. I don't see either of these changes as necessarily good or bad, just different.
I'm kind of torn between reccomending this game or not. Part of me wants to only tell my worst enemies about this title, because playing it is just an awful punishment. On on the other hand though, anyone who's into the horror genre needs to give it a try. I have this evil desire to see if my friends get as terrified playing this game as I did.