Is Fatal Frame underrated?

Despite the Fatal Frame games recieving (mostly) solid reviews on gaming sites, it still seems to be a very underrated series.

When gamers think of "survival-horror" they automatically think of Resident Evil or Silent Hill, while games like Fatal Frame are either shrugged off, ignored, or not even known about. It seems to be hard for other series to become popular in the survival-horror genre.

Do you think that the Fatal Frame series is underrated? Or not well-known?
Why do you think it is/isn't?

I don't think it is well known mostly because I have only heard a handful of people talking about it.

When people talk about horror games, usually Resident Evil and Silent Hill come up, but never Fatal Frame.

I think some of the problem is the lack of advertising too.

Resident Evil and Silent Hill have a constant flow of news that keeps people talking. There are new screenshots, gameplay videos, trailers, etc. being released every few weeks. When excitement dies down, a new batch of screenshots or info will be released.

The Fatal Frame series doesn't have that sort of marketing.
We only got a few official trailers for each game in the West (and iirc, some of those trailers weren't even in English). And they are usually released too late to build up any large amount of "hype".
More explanations of the gameplay and storylines would also create more interest. Many people shrug off the games because of the camera as a weapon, but that's also because the camera isn't explained properly. If there were more gameplay videos - that went through the basics of the camera, and explained why the camera is used in a game like this, then more people would be inclined to try it out.

The series' marketing over here sucks, tbh.

Fatal Frame definitely needs alot more publicity. If Nintendo doesn't do agood job of publicizing the game this time around, then I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see any more FF games (in the West, anyway). It'll end up with a similar fate as Siren.

And considering the game is going to be released this Summer in Japan, I'm getting a bit worried. We only have a few screenshots of the game, and it's expected to be released in a few months?! Nintendo better step up to the bat quickly, or this'll become yet another decent third-party title that gets completely ignored.

A movie would definitely help the Fatal Frame series become more popular (though it looks like the movie has been put on hiatus for the moment).

But the RE and SH series have been popular long before the movie versions came out.

Though I suppose that's another thing that they have over the FF series... RE and SH have been around since the early PSone days, while FF has only been around since the PS2.

Yes nobody I know has ever heard of fatal frame. they all know about other horror games but when I explained the camera to them they thought it sounded like a stupid game.

It's just that, without knowing the game or the story, the idea would sound really boring, I.e. What would be your reactions if I told you: "You know, I really like Fatal Frame games, you should play them if you have the chance(...) You know, you are normally trapped on a kind of place, and what you need to do is to keep photographing the ghosts that appear (...) Yes, yes, hostile ghost appear, too, you just need to take some good pictures of them to make them disappear (...) But not any kind of camera, if you don't own a Camera Obscura in your game, your efforts to damage hostile ghosts would be futile (...)"

Anybody who hasn't played Fatal Frame in its life wouldn't imagine how can a little old camera can dispel evil entities just by taking pictures of them. Everybody is accustomed to "kill" evil entities with things like pistols, shotguns, pipes, even psychokinetic beams would work; that ideology doesn't make possible a little flash to work on evil entities. I.e based on this ideology, how could you stop an evil entity with just sharp photos? You throw them at it? I doubt it.

In consequence, the game would seem boring: you cannot "kill" evil entities, according to the last ideology exposed, you are trapped on a single place, you are constantly harassed by ghosts and, especially if you have played Silent Hill 4, can begin to think that ghosts will be a constant annoyance, that will pursue you forever. I think the exact opposite of this, but it can sound boring.

You know, even if we think it's a great game, many others can think that it's boring without even playing it. But that's the way games like silent Hill and Resident evil has educated them about what's scary and what's annoying, and we cannot change the way they think.

But I do believe a movie would help tremendously on Fatal Frame's popularity, that way at least one person out of 10 would say "Wow, I've never thought about that!", and that would consequently would make the person buy the games, if it plays games. In my personal opinion, the best storyline so far to make the movie would be the one from the first or third game.

Maybe cause people are afaird to play, I think its fun though some scarry parts but you get over it

quote maskalade

For me is was definitely the camera.　People DO NOT GET how it can be a weapon D: And it's like ... 'Oh, so SHOOTING ghosts is any more believable?'

yes! that is like me and my friends. they dont get how the camera is a weapon so they assume its s stupid game or its not scary. and when i went to look up a website and show them what Fatal Frame was like,the site had put it under the genre 'horror' and 'photography simulator'

'photography simulator'??? just because Fatal Frame uses a camera as a weapon its a photography simulator?? does that make Resident Evil a 'gun simulator' or Silent Hill a 'wooden bat simulator'? stupid sites and stupid people who dont understnd Fatal Frame are the problem!