Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly Review

By Kristan Reed Published 29 April, 2004

Fancy a horrible end to your week?

Version tested: PlayStation 2

The camera always lies. If it's not making us look like the latest zombie half-breed candidate for www.ishaggedaminger.co.uk then its mood swings bizarrely round to the other flattering extremes. What a lovely backhanded compliment it is when someone says you're photogenic, when what they really mean is 'you don't look anywhere near as good as that in real life'. Sigh. Project Zero 2, for us, merely reinforces the principle that some things in life really shouldn't be photographed.

Think of it as a kind of spiritual paparazzi hunt for all the tortured souls out there, where the depressed restless legions of the undead of the sleepy All God's Village fundamentally object to being woken up from decades of sleep by a camera wielding teenage girl. For god's sake, can't you perform a huge, bloodthirsty sacrificial ritual without some busy body sticking their great fat zoom lens into our business? Evidently not.

Happy snaps

'Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly' Screenshot 1

Exactly like its predecessor, Crimson Butterfly twists the survival horror template by introducing a snap-happy mechanic that arms you (for the most part) with the curious Camera Obscura as a kind of makeshift weapon in order to fend off the unwelcome attentions of a procession of really not very happy individuals.

For whatever spurious reasons, the twin teenagers Mayu and Mio stumble blindly into the perma-darkness of the aforementioned village and gradually uncover the fact that several people have gone missing trying to investigate the legend behind the infernal place - not least a chap who came armed with a rather useful camera that has the cunning ability to capture images not visible to the naked eye.

The whole game is essentially built around the stupendously scary combat mechanic of the Camera Obscura, which allows the player to instantly switch to a first-person viewpoint in order to snap away at these denizens of the damned and put them at rest. For reasons you'll just have to accept, the special anti-spook abilities of the camera cause damage to these spirits every time you get within an acceptable range of them. In basic terms, the closer you can get to these fiends, the more damage you do to their souls, but also the more risk that they'll cop a feel of your tender neck and scare the bejesus out of you. Drain their soul energy and they're put to rest, often leaving behind useful upgrades or items essential to puzzles and plot.

Chapter and curse

'Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly' Screenshot 2

As you progress through the nine chapters (plus bonus) of the game, your 'firepower' gets continually upgraded with better camera 'ammo' that does more damage and reloads quicker, along with permanent enhancements to the camera via points gained during combat combined with the use of the occasional Spirit Orb that is left behind. Three key areas (range, sensitivity/firepower, and accumulation/charge power) can be powered up a maximum of three times, with four special attacks (slow, stun, see, blast) also available for you to choose from that, for example, give you increased damage, or slow down your assailant to help you creep right up to them before popping a flashbulb in their miserable faces.

Although it doesn't fundamentally feel any different to the previous survival horror outing from Tecmo, both in terms of the play mechanics or the atmosphere, it's a game that had us gripped almost throughout such is the high quality of the all round feel and mystery of the proceedings.

Visually it's consistently amazing how Temco manages to push every platform it turns its hands to, with a delicious degree of craft going into every location, creature and cut scene. Although lacking a widescreen option, the sheer quality of the immensely detailed highly textured environments coupled with superbly realized lighting and particle effects give the gamer a great desire to explore every inch of the village. The architecture itself is a wonderful example of how to design a compelling and credible gaming environment, with intertwining areas and the often superbly dramatic camera views that create an environment that remains consistent and - eventually - explorable down to the last nook.

Eternal darkness

'Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly' Screenshot 3

Being in perpetual near-darkness certainly aids Tecmo's quest to create a horrifying and unnerving environment, but it's backed up all the way by interesting lighting tricks, an excellent torch, with some truly nasty 'negative' effects and a grainy sub-reality mode where you can almost feel the characters losing their minds among the madness that threatens to engulf them. In combat, the use of simple but effective graphical trickery induces a sense of panic that even Silent Hill can't compete with. Wrestling unarmed against an increasingly aggressive posse of twisted, tortured souls isn't something you can rest easily over when they're busy sucking the very life out against a backdrop of an orchestra of truly unsettling noise.

In fact, the audio is possibly as important an ingredient as anything else in the game, with an alarming barrage of disconnected voices pleading for answers ("why do you kill? Don't kill") against a twisted cacophony of screeching feedback and the rumblings of troubled souls. Seriously, at the risk of sounding like a cliché, playing this on your own with the lights off and the bass up must rank alongside the most unsettling gaming experiences ever. The tension's literally pouring out of every keystroke, and anyone even vaguely interested in survival horror, or narrative-focused action adventures owes it to themselves to check Crimson Butterfly out.

There are, of course elements of the game that conspire to niggle away at our desire to praise Tecmo's latest to the rooftops. Top of the list of complaints is that the gameplay just hasn't really moved on in any meaningful way since we last waved our cameras around at spooks. In a sense, this isn't a criticism as such as the same issues apply to the entire Ressie Evil and Silent Hill series, and there's arguably a whole lot more innovation going on here than either of those, but it still feels like you're playing largely the same game in a different setting.

The wanderer

'Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly' Screenshot 4'Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly' Screenshot 4

Possibly the most damning criticism is the way Tecmo has structured the game so that you're forced to wander around areas again and again, with scripted events constantly needing to happen in order to advance the plot at all. If, for example, you happen to have not gone back to a specific, predetermined room, then literally nothing can move on until you do. This tends to result in a mass bout of headless chicken wandering and map-checking to ascertain where you've been, and can hold you up for literally half an hour at a time if you're unlucky.

Not only that, while you're stuck in limbo land it's possible that there's literally nothing else to do if you've already taken care of the pre-scripted baddies, and merely running around empty environments can be a frustrating slog. There does appear to be a sort of handy in-game hint device in the form of a white haired boy trapped behind bars, but until you actually discover that for yourself, there will undoubtedly be times when you'll just wish you could move things on.

It's also worth pointing out that beyond the excellent combat encounters, the actual core of the game still conforms rigidly to the old school survival horror template of finding the key to unlock the myriad of doors that you face. Some of the puzzles are genuinely good fun, though, but if you've played your fair share of horror adventures, the whole map check/item search slog does feel more than a little tired 12 years on from Alone In The Dark.

Static and silence

With a static camera system causing a few headaches in terms of disorientation and not actually being able to see where your enemy is coming from half the time (although camera power ups eventually help you with this), it's a game you're more likely to accommodate through your experiences with similar titles than if you're new to this sort of thing. Having played the new Silent Hill this week, some of the general mechanics feel rooted in the old school, and that's a little disappointing. Still, discarding relatively minor mechanics issues, Crimson Butterfly gets along by virtue of its intensely unnerving atmosphere, crafted by delicious graphics, decent storyline and even better-than-usual voiceovers. It's not perhaps the hardest game in the world, but the fact that frustration was kept to a relative minimum can only be a good thing.

If you feel like you've had your fill of this type of game, then there's not a huge likelihood that Crimson Butterfly will change your mind about that. For the aficionados, though, it’s another wonderfully honed effort from Tecmo that firmly establishes the team alongside Konami and Capcom in the horror adventure stakes. Although not much of an advancement from the woefully ignored original, its storyline and atmosphere carry it into 'worthy sequel' territory. Would we shell out full price for it? Yes, on the basis that it's one of the most gripping, if not exactly groundbreaking games we've played so far this year, but check out the cheap-as-chips original first if you haven't already - if you have the stomach for the fight.

8 / 10

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Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • valli #1 8 years ago

    Whoo! Playing the NTSC version now, excellent game!

  • pjmaybe #2 8 years ago

    / does white wee wee in the dark


    Peej

  • Razz #3 8 years ago

    Where's me GC version? :'(

    I'll never buy a PS2! NEVER!!!! Give us a GC version NOW!

    IS there one on the cards then?

  • Dr.Haggard #4 8 years ago

    No fecking Xbox version :(

    /grumbles

    Yep, shame :o(

    Then again I still haven't completed the first game, its too damn scary. I really want to but it just freaks me out, I can only play it in small doses, and not at all if I'm alone in the house.

    In some games I love being scared - System Shock 2 for instance, that kind of sci-fi horror stuff is a different kind of scary and I love it - but things like Project Zero and Silent Hill et al just make me too nervous. Jesus, you'd think at 31 I'd be able to cope, lol.

    /can't watch Most Haunted

  • Kami #5 8 years ago

    If you've not played the original, your backside needs a serious kicking.

    PZ2 looks brilliant. Budgeting... budgeting...

  • renzo #6 8 years ago

    "If, for example, you happen to have not gone back to a specific, predetermined room, then literally nothing can move on until you do. This tends to result in a mass bout of headless chicken wandering and map-checking to ascertain where you've been, and can hold you up for literally half an hour at a time if you're unlucky."

    Gnnnnnhhh... I think I'll wait for it to get a little cheaper before I buy.

  • Decoded #7 8 years ago

    Getting stuck/lost on the first game was more than just a pain in the arse, the random respawing ghosts that you couldn't even run away from (at least I couldn't) would suck up valuable life and ammo. Does Crimson Butterfly have the same problem?

    At least we have 60hz though, was a little worried after UbiSoft didn't bother with one for PoP.

  • space_ace #8 8 years ago

    i agree with the reviewer, the game is extraordinarily well crafted.

    i played it till the middle some months ago and everytime i glance at the disk... brrr. alone, in the dark, on a projector on the wall, you can't bear more than 20 minutes!

    imo this is the real successor to the original "alone in the dark". finally, eh? :)

  • Razz #9 8 years ago

    Fix00rd! :)
    Edited by 1 at 30/04/04 @ 09:13

  • Blerk #10 8 years ago

    www.ishaggedaminger .co.uk
    Arf! Is that a real site? I daren't check it from work. :-)

    Aaaaaaaaaanyway. I loved the original. This looks top as well. I will buy. Yes.


    Where's me GC version?
    Don't hold yer breath, Razzie.... :-)

  • Machiavel #11 8 years ago

    Anybody reading this didn't copy ishaggedaminger into their browser?

    Thought not.

  • bink #12 8 years ago

    > /pendant on
    >
    > "a bars"?
    >
    > /pendant off

    Was that your +4 pendant of pedantry? ; )

    Edit: added winkysmiley in a fit of paranoia
    Edited by 1 at 29/04/04 @ 14:37

  • renzo #13 8 years ago

    So can anyone confirm whether or not www.ishaggedaminger .co.uk is a real site?

  • ssuellid #14 8 years ago

    For the cowardly posters - its not real.

  • UncleLou #15 8 years ago

    Oh dear, the "aimlessly wandering around" sounds not good at all. That's exactly the kind of game design that makes me not finish something.

    /waits till it gets cheaper

  • Sko #16 8 years ago

    Essentially most games that feature clues as to 'what to do next' are going to involve a certain degree of aimless wandering. It all depends on how good you are at solving the puzzles and progressing.

    Beyond the odd rotting corpse popping up and bill-boarding exactly where you have to go next, it's a bit difficult to know what is expected of a game to counter this kind of criticism.

  • UncleLou #17 8 years ago

    Read the bit in the article about it again, Sko. It doesn't sound like you can avoid this if you're good in puzzle-solivng, but rather like you need to trigger certain scripted events by backtracking somewhere without having a clue where you have to go.

    Looks like bad game design to me.

  • mOth #18 8 years ago

    Is it longer than the first one?

    I'm desperate to get this but refuse to pay over £25 for a game evah.
    I'll probably have to sit on my hands for a month :(

  • valli #19 8 years ago

    You have a point there UL: I recently played and completed PZ, with a 3 weeks pause in the middle of it. Picking up from there was a mess, I didn't know what I was expected to do. Ended up running around until I entered the right room and triggered the cut scene that made the story progress. Quite annoying I must say!

    However, as the review says, this problem was adressed in the form of a character telling you what to do. That's always the problem of hard story driven, trigger based games and I don't see a way around it.

  • Cubfan #20 8 years ago

    Does the 101st survivor horror rehash really deserve an 8/10? And the review wasn't any more creative- 'Play this with the lights out, its scary'... Providing the disclaimer 'I know its cliche, but...', doesn't make what your saying any less a cliche. I expect Eurogamer to be a bit more clever than this, a bit less the same old shit. You failed, now go cry.

  • bungalooBunny #21 8 years ago

    I finished the first a couple of times, first on PS2 then XBox and thought it was a good game but not great. I really don't understand why people get scared with this game.. yes it had a couple of boos that made me jump out of my seat but that was it. Once you get into the game it's just ghost after ghost.

    I'll probably spend my money on Forbidden Siren rather than this.

  • Shinji #22 8 years ago

    Different things scare different people. I'm completely nonchalant about the bulk of allegedly scary games - the Resident Evils and so on - but Silent Hill and Project Zero scared the shite out of me. Then again I'm the same about movies... I snore through the bulk of horror flicks, but Ring and a couple of other Asian ones like JU-ON screwed me up for days afterwards. It's all pretty subjective, really.

    Very much looking forward to PZ2. Think I shall buy a copy tomorrow and then wish that my guests over the weekend would piss off so I can play it...

  • David_W #23 8 years ago

    I loved the first one it might very well be one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. Certainly the scariest.

    I'm a bit concerned though, some american reviews complained over Tecmo's decision to make the sequel a lot easier than PZ, and while doing so making it way too easy. I for one really loved the challenge of PZ, any comments on the difficulty?

    In general, games are way too easy these days it seems. I really like to sink my teeth into something like Devil May Cry or PZ that really gives you a challenge.

  • bungalooBunny #24 8 years ago

    If you like hard games and Devil May Cry I highly recommend Ninja Gaiden. It might change your perspective about difficult games.. :)

  • valli #25 8 years ago

    very minor PZ2 spoiler below




    Booted up the game for a quick nightmare-fodder game before bedtime and found this kind of isolated room (won't give away any more). Inside, a few items, some file, the usual. On my way out I thought "weird, no monsters here". Just to take a better look I aimed the camera and this big ghost priest fucker was standing right there 1cm in front of me!!! Made me jump for sure! Just out of nowhere, no warning on the ghost proximity lamp or anything. You gotta love this kind of stuff! =)

  • bungalooBunny #26 8 years ago

    Now that sounds scary.. It reminds me of when in PZ1 you open a door early in the game and there a ghost right in front of you. It was my favourite moment in the game, got scared shitless.

    Let me know if there's lots of those situations further into the game (but don't expose them to us!) and if there are I might have a look at this after all.

    Shinji, yeah I know what you mean. The only thing that made feel a bit frustrated about the PZ1 was that I felt scared at the start but soon it was all gonne, and I always play at night, all lights off. By the time I confronted the final boss I was more 'scared' of having to replay the section all over again other than anything, not good! A bit the reverse of Silent Hill, this one really disturbed me (mainly the first one, it got seriously demented.)
    I hope I'm not groing 'Survival Horror' immunity because I love this kind of game!
    Edited by 1 at 30/04/04 @ 02:50

  • Blerk #27 8 years ago

    Does the 101st survivor horror rehash really deserve an 8/10?

    Too scared to play them, you big wussie?

  • Kami #28 8 years ago

    "Does the 101st survivor horror rehash really deserve an 8/10?"

    Are you a bit wet? Answer to both: Yes, very much so.

    Project Zero is a totally different survival horror angle. While, admittedly, some don't like survival horror, a lot of people do. And it's still a refreshing change to see another angle on the genre. Project Zero for me is equal with Silent Hill and Resident Evil as the best examples of how to pull off survival horror.

    It's different. It's what we want. And I'm off out the door to see if GAME has a copy in stock.

  • valli #29 8 years ago

    Let me know if there's lots of those situations further into the game
    I bet there are similar things later on.

    It was cool: a classic "boo!!" moment with a real twist - the player triggers it not by passing some point but when activating the camera. The game engine must track your position and make sure the ghost is in front of you. Very original and very very scary!

  • space_ace #30 8 years ago

    > Does the 101st survivor horror rehash really deserve an 8/10?

    everything in this game screams "quality". from the menus to the probably best-ever english dub of a japanese product.

  • Tiger_Walts #31 8 years ago

    I think Tecmo are going for the developer of the year crown.

  • krudster #32 8 years ago

    Not from the opening screen, but it might be an unlockable. Gamefaqs might tell you more.

  • valli #33 8 years ago

    Alright, later Saturday night, the house is quiet except the TV room where horrible screams, cacophony music and drone sounds can be heard! Been playing this gem for a few more hours so here's my input: first the good stuff, then the bad:

    + graphics: an improvement in every way over PZ, esp. texture resolution and world/character detail

    + loading times: slightly shorter at the door opening sequences, a lot shorter boot/load game times

    + dubbing: bloody excellent English dub, excellent voice acting

    + audio: same high quality as before plus lots of work on the radio/chrystal thing (requires subtitles though since some parts are almost inaudible)

    + difficulty level: after reading US reviews I expected it to be v. easy; tbh I've died several times on this one than PZ; not being able to reload the type-14 film at the save points makes it a bit more challenging. The difficulty seems "just right" imo.

    + story: good story again, supported by disturbing cutscenes

    as the bad stuff... not much, just a few very small details but since I feel like Mr. Pedantic, I'll go through them anyway:

    - a slight loading time when displaying the map: very short, but it's there
    - the vibration function is TOOO STRRROONNNGGG
    - no more 180 deg. turns when in camera mode (triangle)
    - no Japanese voices
    - get lost factor: if continuing the game after a few weeks pause (just like PZ)

    So that's about it. The only real problem would be that it's a bit too similar to the original and some people expecting a revolution will be dissapointed.
    Edited by 1 at 02/05/04 @ 14:46

  • Decoded #34 8 years ago

    "not being able to reload the type-14 film at the save points makes it a bit more challenging"

    I didn't even realize you could do this in the original until I read it in the EG forums after completing the game. Doh.

    "save game size: over 3MB on the memory card, wtf?"

    Piss take. I've needed a new memory card for a while to be able to save Cricket 2004 (4MB!) so it looks like I'll get one and almost fill it with just two games. GRRR.

  • valli #35 8 years ago

    "save game size: over 3MB on the memory card, wtf?"

    Piss take.

    Ouch, my fault: for some reason I mixed up PZ2 with "SOCOM II" (they're both sequels, eh?). "SOCOM II" is the villain here with 3MB on the save card, NOT PZ2. PZ2's save file is a mere 370K or so. Good thing I checked, one less negative thing about the game.

  • valli #36 8 years ago

    KaiLover, have you considered importing it from Europe? No idea about the AU release date.

  • WoodenSpoon #37 7 years ago

    Nah, it makes sense on it's own. I've not played the first one either.