Quick tip for avoiding ghost hands! (Very slight game mechanics spoilers)

[Miketopus]

I know many here have probably played this game via... alternative means. But just in case this is your first Fatal Frame involving ghost hands reaching out every so often when you're grabbing items, here's a pretty safe way to avoid them:

After the ghost hand is introduced for the first time, it can happen in most non-key item reaches, mostly for blue/red gems. So, while you're going through the reaching animation, every so often just let go of the button. You don't need to do it like every half-second or anything, but if you do it just often enough the character you're controlling will give off an audio cue in the form of a surprised gasp. If you just hold off on pressing the button when they give that sound, the ghost hand should miss you. After it makes its swing, you should be safe to reach back in and grab the item.

Just FYI. Hope this helps.

[Khorneflakes]

If by alternative means you mean emulators, there is no reason to obfuscate things.
Emulators are legal, it is using ROMs and ISOs you don't own is illegal.
Technically at least, noone really cares, emu devs are just flashing disclaimers that you should not pirate to safeguard themselves from lawsuits.

[jbkilroy]

I was astonished that in FF5 they took the ghost hands (already a terrible mechanic) and made them even worse. At least in this game you can go back and forth to fake out the hands. In FF5 for some reason it's all or nothing: if you let go of the button for a split second you (very slowly) pull back all the way and have to start the animation all over again. So frustrating!

[Justinyl]

Originally posted by Khorneflakes:

If by alternative means you mean emulators, there is no reason to obfuscate things.
Emulators are legal, it is using ROMs and ISOs you don't own is illegal.
Technically at least, noone really cares, emu devs are just flashing disclaimers that you should not pirate to safeguard themselves from lawsuits.

Are you ignorant? OP meant pirating this game.

[Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented)]

Originally posted by jbkilroy:

I was astonished that in FF5 they took the ghost hands (already a terrible mechanic) and made them even worse. At least in this game you can go back and forth to fake out the hands. In FF5 for some reason it's all or nothing: if you let go of the button for a split second you (very slowly) pull back all the way and have to start the animation all over again. So frustrating!

Yeah, of all the mechanics that people complain about with FF4 and 5 (slow movement speeds, easier combat/ lock on abilities, combos and save lantern stores, etc) the only one I feel everyone is universally peeved about is the ghost hands mechanic. This would have been a great opportunity to just... remove it.

[Ultimate Despair]

I thought this is a remake of FF4? I doubt they would modify the game outside of graphic improvements.

[jbkilroy]

Originally posted by Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented):

Originally posted by jbkilroy:

I was astonished that in FF5 they took the ghost hands (already a terrible mechanic) and made them even worse. At least in this game you can go back and forth to fake out the hands. In FF5 for some reason it's all or nothing: if you let go of the button for a split second you (very slowly) pull back all the way and have to start the animation all over again. So frustrating!

Yeah, of all the mechanics that people complain about with FF4 and 5 (slow movement speeds, easier combat/ lock on abilities, combos and save lantern stores, etc) the only one I feel everyone is universally peeved about is the ghost hands mechanic. This would have been a great opportunity to just... remove it.

The worst part was that in the most recent release of Fatal Frame 2, which was closer to a remake than a remaster... THEY ADDED IN THE GHOST HANDS!

Why would you do this to the best game in the series!?

[NkaujNtximHlub]

Originally posted by jbkilroy:

Originally posted by Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented):

Yeah, of all the mechanics that people complain about with FF4 and 5 (slow movement speeds, easier combat/ lock on abilities, combos and save lantern stores, etc) the only one I feel everyone is universally peeved about is the ghost hands mechanic. This would have been a great opportunity to just... remove it.

The worst part was that in the most recent release of Fatal Frame 2, which was closer to a remake than a remaster... THEY ADDED IN THE GHOST HANDS!

Why would you do this to the best game in the series!?

I could never play that version of FF2 lol especially with the British voice acting lmfao

[met aalfret naar zee]

Originally posted by Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented):

Originally posted by jbkilroy:

I was astonished that in FF5 they took the ghost hands (already a terrible mechanic) and made them even worse. At least in this game you can go back and forth to fake out the hands. In FF5 for some reason it's all or nothing: if you let go of the button for a split second you (very slowly) pull back all the way and have to start the animation all over again. So frustrating!

Yeah, of all the mechanics that people complain about with FF4 and 5 (slow movement speeds, easier combat/ lock on abilities, combos and save lantern stores, etc) the only one I feel everyone is universally peeved about is the ghost hands mechanic. This would have been a great opportunity to just... remove it.

I really liked the ghost hand mechanics in 5 though.
Really makes you wary of the ghosts. And they only got you when you weren´t really paying attention, pretty easy to avoid otherwise, so, really well done.

[Thorley23]

Originally posted by Khorneflakes:

If by alternative means you mean emulators, there is no reason to obfuscate things.
Emulators are legal, it is using ROMs and ISOs you don't own is illegal.
Technically at least, noone really cares, emu devs are just flashing disclaimers that you should not pirate to safeguard themselves from lawsuits.

STEAM has mixed attitudes about Emulators and Abandonware, I know messages oftentimes get taken down for mentioning them outside of specific contexts at times, so I understand playing coy.

Also understand, when it comes to this game, there is no legal way to own a copy of this in order to defend your emulation as it was never released in the US.

Another point to consider is that I wouldn't go so far as to say "no one cares". There is a reason why they pretty much slap piracy protection like Denuvo into half the stuff that gets released. Companies care big time and try and make any kind of piracy illegal.

I've pretty much admitted in other messages I was pretty big into the Fansubbing thing in the 90s and early 2000s. At that time the big defense was basically that if Japanese companies and creators didn't want to legally release an unedited, uncensored version in the US, there was no problem in trading with other fans to get what you wanted. They weren't losing a sale if they weren't trying to sell what you wanted. There were of course many people that disagreed though, even in Japan, they had this big thing in like 1997 that some called "The Jailed" fiasco where some companies tried to arrest Japanese fan subbers, who then pressed other charges, leading to pretty much everyone involved getting jailed for something. I don't think anyone stayed locked up long, but that caused a stalemate on the issue for a long time. I confess while I read about it, it was a long time ago, and I don't remember all the details, but it was a huge mess.

One of the big side issues of course with this came down to the censorship angle when they did official releases. Part of what caused fansubbing to remain a thing even when they tried to release stuff, was that for some reason the brain cases involved never seemed to be able to comprehend that American fans didn't want "sanitized American versions", we just wanted a translated version of the work as it was intended for it's target audience. If you release a heavily censored version, we're not going to buy it if we realize that. Trust me, we weren't offended, even by the really crazy and racist stuff that was sometimes directed specifically at us, we kind of knew it was there to begin with at that point. :)

At any rate, the point I'm getting at outside of that ramble is that they do sort of care, but I'm not sure if they ever fully got the message about what causes the issue to begin with.

[Kitty Fields]

Originally posted by Thorley23:

Originally posted by Khorneflakes:

If by alternative means you mean emulators, there is no reason to obfuscate things.
Emulators are legal, it is using ROMs and ISOs you don't own is illegal.
Technically at least, noone really cares, emu devs are just flashing disclaimers that you should not pirate to safeguard themselves from lawsuits.

Also understand, when it comes to this game, there is no legal way to own a copy of this in order to defend your emulation as it was never released in the US.

Just so you know, the original fan translation patch installation method for the Wii was a channel you could install to the Wii called Riivolution, and the patch method for the fan translation required an original, imported copy of the Wii disc from Japan to install and play. However, a third party not associated with the fan translation figured out how to apply the fan translation patch to a copy of the ISO, and so the original intention of the fan translation to require an imported copy of the original game disc was worked around. (Source: I worked on the fan translation for the Wii version of the game)

As for the ghost hands, man they infuriate me. Really kind of hope someone mods them out or something, though I am not holding out any hope for that kind of mod. Heck, I'd be thrilled if someone patched the overly-slow item-pickup animation out altogether. Seriously my least favourite thing about the engine used post-Fatal Frame 3.

[MAN 🥀]

Originally posted by jbkilroy:

I was astonished that in FF5 they took the ghost hands (already a terrible mechanic) and made them even worse. At least in this game you can go back and forth to fake out the hands. In FF5 for some reason it's all or nothing: if you let go of the button for a split second you (very slowly) pull back all the way and have to start the animation all over again. So frustrating!

Usually in FF5, I would just keep doing fake out until the hands come out, then I will fully commit to taking an item. Extremely tedious and time wasting though, but at least from my perspective after it comes out, it won't come out again right after.

At least this game kind of gives an audio cue on it, which allows a more successful split second dodging. Still wished this mechanic does not exist, its extremely annoying.

[met aalfret naar zee]

Originally posted by Interlocked Lewdness:

Usually in FF5, I would just keep doing fake out until the hands come out, then I will fully commit to taking an item. Extremely tedious and time wasting though, but at least from my perspective after it comes out, it won't come out again right after.

At least this game kind of gives an audio cue on it, which allows a more successful split second dodging. Still wished this mechanic does not exist, its extremely annoying.

Wait...people actually can´t dodge the hands in time??
It works for me just fine...
I guess I understand why people hate the hands then.. o..o

[MAN 🥀]

Originally posted by met aalfret naar zee:

Wait...people actually can´t dodge the hands in time??
It works for me just fine...
I guess I understand why people hate the hands then.. o..o

It's not so bad here, but in FF5, its extremely annoying. Some of the camera angle when picking up items in that game makes it such a way that there's some crap blocking the view (e.g. tree branch), making it harder to avoid it if you aren't aware of the incoming ghost hand.