Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse sadly never came to the United States in 2008, to the disappointment of many fans fifteen years ago. Koei Tecmo is here to right that old wrong, giving us the long-awaited localization to this missing Fatal Frame. Was it worth the wait?

First, we need to address the obvious elephant in the room: being a survival-horror game, Fatal Frame is intentionally janky. Your character trudges along at a glacial pace, even if you're holding down the Sprint button. It's a necessary evil for a horror game: your character is scared and alone in an environment trying to kill them, and it's important for them to feel weak when coming up against the unknown. But on the occasion that you're lost and wandering through all of the rooms you've previously visited in the hopes of coming across the one item you missed, you'll wish there was a way of getting around faster—especially since past a certain point, you're not exactly going to be bumping into any random specters or wraiths anymore.

There's also the flashlight mechanic: as you wander these rooms, you can use the right control stick to direct your flashlight around you. Doing so can reveal hidden items. This is a holdover from the old Wii controls and its use of the nunchuck peripheral. Make no mistake, it works, and picking up items isn't even a simple matter of just holding down the A-button because there's a chance a ghostly hand might grab at you in a jumpscare and make you lose what you were reaching for. It's all very well implemented, but it's nevertheless janky to control in enclosed environments; you may struggle to flash your light on a wall or shelf right in front of you if your character lacks elbow room.

And finally, the objectives might be somewhat unclear; there was a moment in my playthrough where the objective was to “find evidence of the director” of a certain hospital. This did not mean investigating his office; I needed to follow the stairs outside his office and examine a table on the other side of a grated wall to find a missing key item. It wasn't even immediately apparent that I could interact with anything on the other side of that wall.

But with that said, janky controls and unintuitive objectives are par for the course regarding a survival-horror title. While it's disappointing that Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse succumbs to these flaws, it still manages to overcome them and deliver on the horror experience. You play as three characters: Ruka and Misaki hunt down ghosts with the series' traditional Camera Obscura, while Choshiro utilizes the Spirit Lens Flashlight to ward off wraiths. These are used to ward off ghosts in tense battles; you need to photograph them, with certain modifiers dealing greater damage to the ghost per photo. The flashlight is a little different, acting more like a luminescent shotgun. These sequences can be tense, requiring you to weave out of the way of wraiths and their threatening grapples as your camera and flashlight recharge. While they can be very clumsy if they take place in enclosed areas like hallways or rooms with lots of objects in them (and make no mistake, many do), these are nevertheless fun and Fatal Frame constantly looks for ways to add new wrinkles to the formula, like tossing more ghosts at you or the elusive “bloomed” version of ghosts.

Doing well in photographing ghosts earns you points that you can use to buy restorative items or fun outfit components at save points. You can also photograph lingering specters in the hallways for bonus points and extra lore. Properly searching rooms can also earn lenses for your camera and flashlight, as well as blue and red gems that can be used to upgrade them. The costumes do run the risk of deflating some of the more tense moments of Fatal Frame, but it's nevertheless fun to be able to modify your character's outfits.

There are also the standard-issue survival-horror puzzles that you can find in many rooms. This will often require you to carefully search rooms for mysterious spots to photograph clues in hidden places. While I did have that one confusing moment earlier, the other puzzles are nevertheless creative and well-thought-out. Solving puzzles as Choshiro can be a bit more annoying than with the other two characters, as his flashlight requires an extra lens to take photos—one that must be constantly removed for him to be able to fend wraiths off in battle. Nevertheless, I was always excited to find a new puzzle in the many rooms, if only because they would usually be rewarded with more ghosts to photograph.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse will release on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam; my time with the game was spent on the Nintendo Switch version. It's pretty obvious that the hesitant door openings were designed to mask load times, and a close examination of the textures will reveal Wii-era graphics. But the rest of the game looks great, especially for a horror title. The constant visual filters denoting supernatural events add tons to the atmosphere. Best of all, this game version has a Photo mode where you can take photos of the characters along with any ghost you've encountered, utilizing any of these spooky filters.

Anyone who has no patience for your typical slow-burn Japanese survival horror with tank controls probably won't have their minds changed with Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. But folks who've been waiting for this title can walk away assured that it's been worth the fifteen-year wait to see this game come to America. And for folks feeling the survival-horror itch, you've got quite the album waiting for you. There might be some bumps on your knees while you seek out the things that go bump in the night, but it's a fun, spooky trip while you get there.