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3.5

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Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir

2012-01-12

Developer: Tecmo Koei GamesPublisher: Nintendo

3DS

Single player

Adventure

Horror

Survival

Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir introduces a mysterious girl named Maya who has been hiding in the shadows of an old house. Players must help Maya break free from a terrifying curse by aiding her escape from the clutches of a malevolent woman in black. By using the Nintendo 3DS system's built-in camera, players can view Maya in their own surroundings as the game's eerie events unfold.

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RoadToDusk_VT

Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir

10 months ago

Perfect timing of our community to turn an eerie reality of trauma into something silly XD - Road (he/him)

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RoadToDusk_VTReviewed a game10 months ago

Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir

5 hours

Soundtrack

Visuals

Gameplay

Story

"Spirit Camera: the Cursed Memoir" is a tragic story trapped by the poor cameras & unstable AR of the 3DS. As a spin-off of the Fatal Frame/Project Zero series, it has its fans as well as its critics. Nothing can be quire as strong as the main storyline, so unlike Persona to Shin Megami Tensei, "Spirit Camera: the Cursed Memoir" is the only Fatal Frame game on the 3DS. ---- The Story ---- You find the Diary of Faces alongside the Camera Obscura. There's only 1 benevolent soul of all the spirits tethered to the diary, though -- Maya. She's your guide as you meet spirits trapped by the Diary's curse of their faces "taken" by their eyes and mouths being sewn shut & their spirits bound to the Diary. It's through exorcising them with the camera that you & Maya collect her memories while hiding from the Woman in Black, a spirit of the Diary who made the curse. Maya was a shrine maiden sacrificed for a ritual to save her village from a plague, but the ritual required a soul with no bonds. Maya was isolated to ensure this but found a headmate she held close like family -- whom we'll call Haruka (Japanese for "red-black" in reference to her design) for ease of discussion as she's also called Maya in-game. They'd write to each other using their diary, & they became sisters. Sadly, Haruka faced the consequences of the ritual forced onto them & was possessed by an evil spirit upon Maya's death. Haruka thus became the Woman in Black under the evil spirit's influence, & as a spirit herself bound herself & Maya to the Diary of Faces, projecting their mutual inner world into the Diary itself. Haruka wanted nothing more than to feel like she wasn't alone, & Maya always helped her feel safe, but the evil spirit perverted that reality, making the Woman in Black possessive, vengeful, & violent. Memories lost & suddenly trapped with this entity that horrified her & demanded she stay, Maya tried to flee from the Woman in Black by staying as far away as she could within the confines of the Diary of Face's world, so the curse began. The Diary of Faces began to be suddenly found &passed around with the Camera Obscura, becoming an urban legend that impacted random individuals who became ensnared by the curse -- a curse of staying with the Woman in Black. It's through helping Maya realise all of this & exorcising her & Haruka that the evil spirit possessing Haruka is finally released. The game ends with the sisters reuniting, holding each other in relief. ---- The Gripes ---- While we adore the story & its execution, the English translation made the dialogue feel sluggish, especially when the plot information you obtain within each chapter became very redundant. Sadly, it did that very quickly. With our brain as an AuDHD Plural, the redundancy did more harm than good as it often felt like it falsely affirmed red herrings to what we knew rather than the full picture. We had to not focus on the dialogue at all & rely on a processing more akin to skimming in order to easily deduce the necessary conclusions for each chapter. Whether this confusion was on purpose or not, it made it difficult to feel connected to the story for the first half of the game. Probably the biggest offence in all this is the fad of the 3DS system -- its AR functionality. The 3DS almost flew too close to the sun with its attempt at AR technology for the 2010s, as the cameras on the system struggle considerably thanks to their low resolution. Because of this, the console often needs immaculate lighting for easy legibility of AR prompts on cards -- or in this case pages. "Spirit Camera: the Cursed Memoir" has an AR book, specifically an in-game cursed book called the Diary of Faces, & it unfortunately is one of the more mid-tier examples of execution of the 3DS' AR tech -- nothing compared to Nintendo's own AR games for their console -- & while that is to be expected it does still hinder the immersion somewhat. Throughout the gameplay the frames are low (>30fps), which makes trying to get Shutter Chances -- your most powerful means of attack against spirits -- difficult. The low framerate seems to be a fault of the GPU or RAM of the 3DS, as there is notable rubberbanding of frames from when you take a shot to where it stops for your attack to land. This is worse on original 3DS/2DS models, but while noticeable on a New 3DS XL with a capture board it did not disturb gameplay too much & became easy to work around in the end. Sadly, though, this mainly accounts for how the console renders what it sees through the camera, as the NPCs & enemies move at a proper framerate (30fps), thus may be disorienting for some. While you play the game on the 3DS, your console is the in-game Camera Obscura. You often use it to interact with the Diary of Faces to solve puzzles and dive into the diary's cursed world. However, with the faultiness of the console's AR technology, it's difficult to have easy legibility with the pages. It's better, from our experience, to use personal scanned copies or files from the Internet Archive, for example, on a modern tablet with a backlight for the best experience. Especially if you want to scare yourself & feel more immersed by playing in a dark room, your pages on your tablet will be your best friend. ---- The Graces ---- We LOVE the representation of what feels like a Plural experience, even though we know that it was never written with a Plural lens. The story & the dialogue does still use ableist language, as Maya calls herself "broken", calls Haruka "another personality", & the story recaps at later chapters refer to Haruka as a "piece" of Maya. Dated language aside, the core story -- two sisters separated due to others' superstitions, said sisters happening to inhabit the same body -- reminds us of our own experiences, both regarding our system & regarding our sibling system we've been able to finally have a siblingship with after the abuse we went through divided us. The prominent religious abuse that's such a notable plotpoint in any Fatal Frame game is not referenced much given the story is so short, & we could see so much potential for well-placed padding & worldbuilding. We feel this story could've been enhanced if there were more spirits to find and if the pacing was slower, letting you talk with Maya more personally to humanise her & the other spirits more, given her dialogue often echoes the malevolent spirits' words as they're saved from the curse. It's sad we mostly see Haruka as possessed, but seeing her so longing for her sister as who she truly is makes us smile & reminds us of our own bonds. This truly is a deep story about a hidden siblinghood tested by those that could never know, & it is a lot more real of an experience than people think.

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