Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake Review

The survival-horror genre has been in a great spot in the past few years. With Resident Evil returning to its former glory with the seventh entry in the series and every game that has followed it, culminating with Resident Evil Requiem, the Silent Hill series returning with a remake of the second entry in the series and the first brand new game in years, and a wealth of solid indie titles, fans of the genre have had plenty of scary experiences to immerse themselves into.

While it doesn’t enjoy the same level of popularity as the CAPCOM and Konami series, Koei Tecmo’s Fatal Frame series also contributed to this second golden age of survival horror in some way, with remasters of games such as Maiden of Black Water and Mask of the Lunar Eclipse which brought the former Wii and Wii U exclusives to all current gaming platforms, allowing modern players to experience some of the series’ unique quirks, including the Camera Obscura mechanics that makes the series so unique. In early 2026, it was time for the second entry in the series to return with a full remake, which does an excellent job modernizing the experience without completely doing away with what made the original so unique, for better or worse.

An Ancient Ritual

Despite being a complete remake of the original, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake doesn’t introduce any major changes to the story. Following the twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura, whose relationship has been strained by a childhood accident, players will head into Minakami Village, a mysterious Japanese village where it is said people disappear without a trace. Guided by a mysterious crimson butterfly, the twin sisters will eventually understand why they have ventured into the village, and come to terms with a past that is very different from what they remember, influenced by a dark, bloody ritual that has been conducted for years and years.

Although this story setup is not particularly original, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake does its best to make it engaging right from the get-go, and if you are into survival-horror stories, you will likely get hooked from the very beginning. The story is greatly paced, the protagonists are compelling and their complex relationship develops naturally as their journey into the village proceeds towards its conclusion. A conclusion that is in no way set, as the game features multiple endings, including a brand new one created specifically for the remake. The inclusion of multiple endings not only works wonders for the story but also brings welcome replay value, which was needed for a story that reaches its conclusion in roughly 10 hours.

Look at the Camera

If the story has been expanded without any massive overhaul in Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake, the developer has gone all out with the gameplay to deliver a modernized experience. Before this remake, the second entry in the series was remade for the Nintendo Wii to take advantage of the Wii Remote controller, but having never played this version of the game, the jump from the PlayStation 2 and Xbox release to the current-generation remake felt huge to me.

For starters, the remake does away with the fixed camera angles of the original in favor of a third-person over-the-shoulder camera, which has now become part of the industry standard for third-person survival-horror games. As such, the game plays a lot like other modern games using the same camera perspective, so it won’t take long, even for those who never played the series before, to ease themselves into the experience, collect resources, discover documents that provide more information on the story and characters, and solve different puzzles. These, in particular, are well designed, and mostly rely on the mechanic that defines not only this game, but the entirety of the series: the Camera Obscura.

Shortly after the game begins, Mio discovers a mysterious camera that allows her to interact with the ghosts prowling Minakami Village. These ghosts, however, are hardly friendly, and it will be up to the young girl to dispose of them using the camera itself while making sure Mayu stays safe.

This camera-powered combat system is relatively simple, but has some interesting mechanics. Using different film types and filters with special properties unlocked as the adventure proceeds, Mio simply has to take the best possible shots of these ghosts, making sure they are in focus and fully visible. There’s also some sort of “parry” mechanic in the game: if you time your shot at the right time before your enemy attacks (which is clearly indicated in the game’s interface), you can briefly stun the ghost with a Fatal Frame shot, and if enough damage is dealt, Shutter Chance will activate, speeding up the camera’s cooldown, allowing you to take multiple shots in quick succession for massive damage. With the special shots made possible by any of the aforementioned filters and a decent enemy variety, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake’s combat system has plenty of unique mechanics going on for itself that, on paper, should have made for engaging combat.

Unfortunately, combat doesn’t always work great. While it is easy to appreciate what the game aims to do, at the start of the game, with no upgrades and limited access to more damaging film types, and limited knowledge of the mechanics, fighting ghosts can be a bit of a chore, especially with some enemies that like to hide. Having to also keep Mayu safe during several encounters, fights can last way too long, resulting in an early game that sometimes gets more frustrating than fun.

Some Camera Obscura upgrades, a new dodge maneuver, and the multiple difficulty settings alleviate this issue, thankfully, and as the adventure proceeds and the player better understands the combat pace and its intricacies, things do get better. To be fair, combat never reaches the heights of other survival horror games such as Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Requiem, so I wasn’t really relishing fighting enemies.

Puzzles, thankfully, fare a lot better. Although most of them essentially involve finding items and activating contraptions by placing certain elements in a specific order, a few of them are centered on the Camera Obscura and take advantage of its well-designed filters. Thanks to such filters, it is possible to see not only friendly ghosts, but also to see residual memories of past events, highlight certain hidden elements in the environment to remove curses, get a glimpse into the past to see how to solve some puzzles, take special photos to restore certain elements, and so on. All four filters also enable a special shot with unique effects such as stunning enemies briefly and more that lightly alleviate some of the combat issues explained above. Everything considered, I found the Camera Obscura to have been masterfully implemented in the game’s puzzles, so much so that, in conjunction with the engaging story, it made it easier to look past the shortcomings of the average combat.

Horror Renewed

The over-the-shoulder third-person camera, a new ending and some new Camera Obscura filters aren’t the only new features added to the experience by Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake. For starters, the game’s lore and story have been expanded with side stories accessible by picking up Broken Spirit Stones and completing set side objectives. Most of these can be easily completed while following the story with minimal backtracking, so they are naturally woven into the experience to provide additional story and setting details in a very organic way.

Similarly, the relationship between Mio and Mayu has been expanded very naturally. Quite often during the game, Mayu will accompany Mio, who can hold her hand to guide her through the ghost-infested locales of the village. While this, by itself, would have been a nice addition that raises the tension considerably, especially during the obligatory escape segments against a powerful, undefeatable stalker ghost, holding hands also slowly restores Health and Spirit (used for special Camera Obscura shots). Implementing this feature to enhance both story and gameplay is a great touch that highlights the nice level of care that went into this remake.

Rounding up the additions are new locations not found in other versions of the game, such as the Umbral Mound and the Eikado Temple. Much like the rest of the new elements, they have been added in a very natural way to the experience, and do not feel like padding at all. They aren’t always major additions, to be sure, but they do give the feel, in conjunction with every other improvement, that Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake is indeed the ultimate edition of the game.

A Shiny and Dark New Coat of Paint

The biggest change over the original PlayStation 2/Xbox release and the Wii Edition featured in Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake are the enhanced visuals. Every element of the previous releases has been rebuilt in the latest iteration of the Katana Engine, Koei Tecmo’s proprietary game engine, with some excellent results. While the game doesn’t support any advanced tech like ray tracing or path tracing, Team NINJA’s recreation of Minakami Village looks eerily beautiful, its haunting atmosphere intact and enhanced by more detailed models and solid texture work. It’s not the most visually advanced game of the generation, but it achieves the atmosphere required to make the experience one to remember.

Given Koei Tecmo and Team NINJA’s history with problematic PC ports, I was surprised at how well Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake runs on my system (i7-13700F, RTX 4080, 32 GB RAM), with little to no stuttering issues and no other performance issues, possibly thanks to the shader precompilation step. However, there’s a catch: the game only supports 30 or 60 FPS, so a high-framerate experience isn’t available at launch.

Not having to try and hit the 120 FPS cap of my monitor, I did not have to worry about lowering settings or using NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR 2 for upscaling. At native 4K resolution with DLAA, max settings with the exception of Volumetric Fog Resolution and Volumetric Cloud Quality, the game runs at a solid 60 FPS in most scenarios, with only small dips into the high 50 FPS range, which is very rare nowadays for most games, even on the most powerful rigs. Unfortunately, cutscenes are locked to 30 FPS, which makes gameplay transitions a little jarring with the 60 FPS gameplay cap.

The new coat of paint, gameplay tweaks, and additional content go a long way in making Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake a remarkable survival-horror game. While the combat system can make the experience a tad frustrating, the story, atmosphere,and solid puzzle design make these frustrations a price well worth paying.

PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

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8.5

WCCFTECH RATING

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake