#project zero v

Project Zero V | Yuuri Kozukata

Finally got round to this one and it really wasn’t as bad as some people were saying. Weaker than the rest of the series but it was still good. I had it on PS4 instead of the WiiU so maybe that helps.

It looks good for the most part, except for the hair effects, which is kind of a bollocks when creepy hair floating in the water is part of the scares. The lack of facial expressions were odd though, like they’ve never been the most expressive in this series but here they barely react to ANYTHING. You could put that down to everyone being jaded with their trauma but it came across as lazy. There is obvious fanservice here and it was off-putting. like at one point a girl was just standing their talking and her tits were jiggling. Despite running about in the pissing rain at night and wading through flooded caverns the girls are wearing see through shirts, tiny skirts and heels. It’s so dumb. And even some of the enemies have been affected, it’s hard to be scared when an enemies' big bouncy ghost tatties are in the middle of your viewfinder. They wore skirts in other games but here it’s just silly.  The enemies were ok, but a lot where just ghostly people, only a few were really creepy looking and there isn’t a huge amount of variety. The first game still has the best ghouls for me. Environments are nice, more outdoors space this time round. 

The camera in this game worked really well, I had a lot of fun with it. I picked it up faster this time round and was pretty soon getting A/S ranks for every level. I think it’s probably my favourite battle style so far, with the weak point strategy added. Movement is a bit stiff, like your character feels SO heavy, and a bit unwieldy moving around when not using the camera. They can run a lot faster this time  so that’s nice.   They’ve added a mechanic here were you are more vulnerable the more damp you are and while I get the idea (the whole tainted water thing is a big deal here) it’s implemented terribly. If it’s raining you can’t avoid it, and the game is far more linear this time around so if you don’t have much of a choice when it comes to wading through water. They also left in that stupid grabby ghost hand gimmick and that got annoying as fuck, it’s only scary once and then it’s just a waste of time. One gimmick that works though is the new fatal glance ability, where you get treated to a cutscene showing how each  ghost met their end. Some are sad, other’s surprisingly gruesome and one is just funny. I hope they keep that for the future, it was so cool. Learning about the different ghosts is one of my favourite things about this series and it’s done so well here. Only 2 of the ghosts really got on my nerves this time round as well.

One thing that pissed me off is the excuse used to keep going back to the scary haunted mountain to repeatedly look for people, often a person you literally just found. I get it, they're ‘possessed’, but it’s still annoying doing it over and over and over again. Like I just saved their stupid ass only for them to say they’re going right back? Get tae fuck. Not only that but you often have to play through the same areas back to back with different characters. And the pacing is bizarre, most chapters can be done in 30 mins or so but one in the middle just kept going, and going. And kept going after the boss with a chase scene. And kept going after that. It brought me through new areas that are never actually used again into the bargain. So much blatant padding

The sound is as good as ever. I had headphones and it’s very creepy.  Especially the unique encounter music for each ghost.

Story is a mixed bag. It feels muddled honestly, like a lot is happening and they couldn’t decide what to focus on. 3 characters makes it even more complicated and there’s 2 subplots that frankly, it could have done without. It was enough to keep me interested, but it unravels painfully slowly and a lot is told through diaries and notes, like the first game. I don’t mind reading lot’s of stuff, but some of it didn’t quite seem to tie back into the current story all that well  And some of it still isn’t clear to me, especially the timeline of events from the actual ritual. Some cutscenes seem to imply something that isn’t ever followed up on or is left obtuse. None of the playable characters are very interesting imo, not helped by their  lack of facial expressions and how bored they seem a lot of the time. The baddie, as usual, is more interesting. But even her motivations this time are a bit weak compared to previous games and i felt the endings didn’t make sense depending on the characters choices. 

I honestly found some of this game scarier than 2, the atmosphere is heavy and there’s no safe place once you head to the mountain, plus no friendly ghosts so the tension is always high. Not many jump scares that I can recall, although one ghost in particular is very un-nerving whenever it appears.

So a lot of fun, creepy enough and aside from one dogshit subplot it’s engaging storywise. Excited to finally get to play 4 next year, I’ve heard mixed opinions on that one as well.

 Spoilers about some of the endings here: