Foreword: Skip to Part III below for the undub patch's history :)
Part I: My Thoughts on FF3
This morning, I completed my first playthrough of Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. I think its subtitle, "The Tormented" was a pretty apt description of how I & The Boys felt after slogging through this one. It took me nearly 27 hours to complete, no thanks to the inordinate amount of backtracking throughout the gargantuan mansion, with the game never bothering to tell me where the hell to go. Seriously, that shit put Drakengard's repetitive gameplay to shame. 27 hours is about how long it took me to finish Parasite Eve II, another survival horror title I don't look back fondly upon. But what Parasite Eve II lacked in any semblance of meaningful narrative (sorry Aya, your famous shower scene is about as profound as your game gets), FF3 was overflowing with story.
Damn, I feel like I'm on the Anime Bath Scene Wiki right now.
Like its predecessor, FF3 has a FUCK TON of in-game files to read. Probably not as many as (LORD protect me), Fatal Frame II, but damn, there are so many files, photographs, and audio tapes for the player to indulge in. Most of them are historical records, spooky stories, and other unrelated content that sets up the surrounding lore and atmopshere of the game, without needing to actually be important. I've always liked this kind of world-building in horror games, so this game definitely scratched that itch.
Finally, I can remember who the hell all the characters are.
Pictures too? You're too kind.
Some of the files ARE important though, and that's why I'm glad the notebook exists. Fatal Frame games just LOVE to write files about colorful casts of say, a dozen characters who exist only on paper, which in the past were the befallen residents of the mansions. I personally find it hard to remember which character is which in these files. Graciously (I cannot stress this enough!!) Project Zero added to the game a notebook which details the main protagonist, Rei Kurosawa's, nearly-journalistic research of every person, location, and object that's relevant to the plot. I personally found that these nice little clumps of information, which constantly update as Rei and the player make progress, help the player (me) make heads and tails of the aforementioned cryptic files. This approach to making the overwhelming information presented to the player/protagonist duo digestible is a massive improvement, and make the archaeological process fun!
Part II: The Undub
...But on the subject of lore, we come to the main purpose of this article. If you're reading this, you sure as hell didn't show up for a review of the game. You came here for the history of Fatal Frame III's undub (the one that came out in 2008, and is proudly uploaded on CDRomance). Before we get there, my opinion. Long and short of it: it fucking blows. It has subtitles, but they only appear during cutscenes and certain (like, half a dozen) critical moments. Anytime the ghosts say shit that sounds important, or more importantly, spooky? Nothing. Anytime Miku has something to say in the apartment? Nothing. At the beginning of Hour XIII, Rei says some shit before the usual spooky loading cutscene loads. Wanna know what she said? Get fucked, it's not subbed.
Someone's talking right now... too bad I'll never know what they said.
What the hell is the point of an undub if 85% of the fucker is unsubbed? I almost cried seeing footage of the original, actually being able to understand what the ghosts were saying, knowing I'd been cucked by a shitty undub project from 15 years ago. Regardless, mad respect to the guy who made it. It looks like the guy is a legend in the undub scene, and so even if I think this particular undub is shit, I'm sure the experiences they had during this project helped them become a better undubber, and helped advanced the scene as a whole. Game modders, especially fan translators and undubbers, are fucking awesome and deserve all the credit for their work, especially the psychos who do it for free!
Part III: History Lesson
The original undub for Fatal Frame III (which, AFAIK, is currently the only one) released on May 10, 2008. It was created by a modder named "somebody special" (AKA "fluffy kitty" & "asmodean"). This undub is most easily accessed via a pre-patched ISO hosted on CDRomance. The original patch itself is most easily accessed via the most recent PS2 UnDUB Project torrents. Below I've posted a transcript of the original manifest for the patch.
Part IV: Original Manifest
| Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented USA UNDUB (c) TECMO hacked by somebody special |
||
|---|---|---|
| -- Information -- | ||
| Origin: USA+Japan | DVD(S): 1 | |
| Released: May 10th, 2008 | Format: ISO | |
| Platform: Playstation 2 (PS2) | Files: 46 * 50MB | |
| -- Description -- | ||
| Here's a treat for those of you who love Japanese games but can't stand the increasingly bad english voice jobs. This UNDUB has the USA english text with the original Japanese spoken dialog. Enjoy this game the way it was meant to be played. |
||
| -- Release Notes -- | ||
| This is a change of pace, not an RPG but a stylish adventure game. For those not familiar with the series, I recommend playing it at night with your girlfriend/etc. :) This has been done for a long time and I wasn't going to release it, but since people keep asking me about it... Event, battle and movie voices are now Japanese. Be sure that subtitles are enabled in the options. Hackers/coders want to contact me? Look for a fluffy kitty. |
||
| *** USA PUBLISHERS *** | ||
| Please stop ruining your games with such horrible english dubs! We are forced to go to extremes like this because you are making the games we love unplayable! Consider multi-language or special-edition releases with the original high quality Japanese voices. |