Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake Review

Everyone has that one series they’ve always been curious about but have never tried. As a big horror fan who can sometimes be wary of older games, for me, that’s Fatal Frame. So naturally, when I heard that Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly—often considered the best in the series—would see a remake, I was intrigued. In playing it for this Fatal Frame II Remake review, I got to see why the series is so beloved among horror fans. But is this remake the definitive way to experience the 2003 game? That’s another question.

Game Name: Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
Reviewed On: PlayStation 5
Developers: Koei Tecmo, Team Ninja
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Release Date: March 12th, 2026
Price: $49.99

Reviving a Survival Horror Classic

First, some folklore, if you will. Fatal Frame II arrived on the PlayStation 2 courtesy of developer Tecmo. The sequel to 2001’s Fatal Frame aimed to refine the gameplay of the first while also providing a greater narrative hook. In Fatal Frame, players fight off ghosts by taking pictures of them using the Camera Obscura. Fatal Frame II smoothed the controls while zooming out from the first game’s haunted mansion to focus on an entire haunted village.

Technically, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake is the second remake of the second Fatal Frame game. 2012 saw the release of a Wii-make, which only arrived in Europe and Japan. As such, this 2026 remake attempts to marry the two prior releases together. It combines the gameplay and story of the original with the over-the-shoulder perspective and environmental updates of the 2012 version. Tecmo—now Koei Tecmo—has joined with Team Ninja to add a few updates as well.

Now, some in-game folklore. This is to say, Final Frame II Remake preserves its creepy story of a Japanese village where an already macabre ritual did not go as planned. Two sisters, Mio and Mayu Amakura, stumble upon the village while wandering in the woods. Mayu quickly goes missing, so players control Mio in tracking her down.

The story is a slow burn, but it’s intriguing. Final Frame II drip feeds the narrative through environmental storytelling—letters, notebooks, etc, along with the occasional cutscene. Many of the documents you find have redactions. But it’s not too hard to fill in the blanks on your own, and the game does eventually tell you the gist of what’s going down in case you can’t figure it out. The remake adds side stories, which flesh out the fine details of the narrative. While they act as a nice world-building exercise, I rarely delved into them due to the combat. More on that later.

Really, the story exists to keep you playing through the scares. The horror fans of the early 2000s weren’t kidding. Fatal Frame II is a scary game. The remake is arguably scarier in some ways. The ghosts have been redesigned to look less like gaseous blobs and more like the detailed translucent spirits created for the Haunted Mansion ride—minus the grins.

If the designs of the ghosts don’t scare you, their movements likely will. Since you have to take pictures of these ghouls, you can’t just sneak a peek and move on. You have to get right up in their spooky business. A ghost will wander towards you until—wait, where did it go? Let me tell you, having one fade away just to scream right in my face does, in fact, take those chills and send them right down my spine.

And Fatal Frame II has a whole gaggle of ghosts to gawk at. Thankfully, not all of them are out to get you. Some will perform an action for a short period, whereupon you can snap a pic to procure points before they fade away. On the flip side, two particular ghosts can’t be damaged by photographs, so whenever you see them, you have to hide until they go on their ghostly way.

But it’s a good thing that the scares are such a good time, because ironically, it’s the camera combat that can wear you down. In the original Fatal Frame II, facing the camera at a spirit brings up a dial that gradually fills to denote maximum damage. It’s simplistic but intuitive. Fatal Frame II Remake, however, ditches the dial in favor of using depth, focus, and filters to decide damage. It’s much more realistic but also much less fun.

Now, I have no idea what kind of professional paranormal photography poltergeists preside over this place. But the standards for a strong photo are both high and fickle. Though the camera tells you how much damage you’d do, the bar oscillates wildly as the spirit moves. It’s hard to know if you’ll hit an optimal shot or whiff completely, especially with how floaty the camera is or once multiple spirits enter the frame. This problem becomes compounded by the addition of manually adjusting various camera settings, which takes time. And when a ghost is about to strike, that’s a scarce resource.

As such, if you don’t want to manually keep adjusting settings for maximum damage, you can do whatever minimal damage you can in the moment to stun a ghost. This theoretically creates an opening for better photos. Annoyingly, the film—essentially camera ammo—takes a while to reload. So by the time it does, the ghost has typically recovered. Until you get to upgrade reload speeds or damage, you can often only chip away at a ghost’s health. Combat is not that difficult—thanks to a dodge—but feels like busywork and reduces the scare-factor. It’s a shame that the photography is so time-intensive, as having to face your fears head-on would otherwise make for terrifying gameplay.

During my playthrough, I sometimes got hold of a ghost and other times chipped away diligently. For a while, I wondered, is it the game or is it me? And I found the answer proved to be both. For example, early on, I realized I wasn’t doing much damage since I had a filter on that’s generally better for photographing puzzles. That’s on me. But I did wonder, why even have it as a combat option?

As such, there is an objectively right way to bust ghosts. Mostly. The game doesn’t explain this very well, even with ongoing pop-ups to introduce its many mechanics. I’ll admit, once I took the time to learn the game’s systems, I had an easier time. That said, Fatal Frame II is supposed to play as a horror game, not an intro to photography course. The game makes players bend to its systems rather than giving multiple viable options.

A perfect example of this comes from boss battles. If having to learn the ins and outs of the camera wasn’t enough on its own, each boss has a gimmick to it. These range from okay to maddening. The worst offenders are encounters where the ghost will keep regenerating—no matter how much damage you do—until you figure out the gimmick to end its suffering. Ghosts can also regenerate health on their own, so it’s hard to know when you need to just keep at it or try something else. I might excuse these kinds of mechanics in a purely puzzle-based game, but in a survival horror where ammo is in limited supply, it just adds insult to injury.

So is the camera a total wash? No, it works alright with puzzles. Admittedly, most of them boil down to switching to a specific lens and lining up a shot. The best ones involve photographing pairs of shrine maiden dolls hidden around town. You’ll often have to get creative to line up both dolls in the same shot.

Taking photos of ghosts also gives you points for purchasing items at save spots. These items consist of herbal medicine for healing, charms for combat benefits, and cosmetic items. These points prove useful at the start for getting health and charms. But once you figure out what works, you won’t need these. At a certain point, camera points become pointless.

The camera does have one use that completely works from a gameplay and horror perspective. Looking through the camera can reveal hidden items for you to pick up, such as film or medicine. It encourages you to explore through the camera as much as possible.

Fatal Frame II Remake has a few other nice touches that elevate the horror. First, the sound design really sells the scares. Spirits can often be heard before they’re seen, building dread deliciously. In the old houses of the derelict Japanese village, plenty of things go bump in the night. I had a blast listening closely to discern the difference between a creaky board and a creepy horde.

And when opening doors, Mio does it oh so slowly. Most of the time, there’s nothing on the other side. But some of the best scares come from a door opening to reveal a ghoulish guest on the other side. Um, any way to close the doors?

If that’s not enough, this also applies to picking items up off the ground. Most of the time, you grab them just fine. But sometimes a spirit says that they want that charm more than you. Oh, and they also want to grab your hand. The charm was just a pretext for that, actually. This is another wonderfully spooky design element as it makes you think twice about grabbing every little thing over the ground, lest the grabber becomes the grabbed.

So does this remake replace Fatal Frame II? I’m not sure. The remake looks better, adds more to discover, and has a more modern control scheme. But the combat can grow tedious as you fiddle with its new mechanics. If you don’t have access to the original or a patience for older games, this remake is probably the way to go. But you’ll still need patience. The game is more bloated than the original, in combat, mechanics, and runtime. So much like the villagers of the game’s eerie village learned, you’ll have to sacrifice something either way.

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But I wonder if you could say more with less. Fatal Frame II Remake attempts to become the definitive Final Frame experience by snapping up every element and throwing it into one album. At the end of the day, a cold hand resting on your shoulder says more than enough.

If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake was provided to us by Koei Tecmo for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.