which one is scarier? fatal frames 4 or fatal frame 5?

[Adrazns]

as the title says, which one is scarier? from the atmosphere, the ghosts, and the soundtracks?

[Pure Mind Games]

4

[Jeffrey Dahmer]

5 isn't scary at all, unfortunately, due to awful filter choices and poor ghost design - 4 by a significant margin.

[pilot]

4

[Karosu-Maker]

IMO, Scaryness order:

1.FF2
2.FF1
3.FF3
4.FF4
5.FF5

I think FF1 and 3 are almost at the same level, but I played FF1 younger.

[Slurp Dog CDXX]

IMO, in terms of both scares and overall quality, the ranking is:

1. FF2
2. FF4
3. FF1
4. FF3
5. FF5

FF4 is absolutely top tier, almost as good as 2. 1 Isn't far behind. Then there's a bit of a power gap with 3, which is still a great game but not what I would consider an absolute all-time genre classic. 5 Is at the bottom by a pretty huge margin, as it has a lot of design issues that totally kill the pacing and the scares, like being mission based and the home base completely removing the tension, tons of backtracking up and down the mountain, and overall forgettable level and enemy design. I still like it, but it's definitely at the bottom of the power ranking for me.

[Firehawk]

I found 5 scarier on account of several ghost fights taking place in areas with severely limited movements, like the room with the coffins or watery graveyard. Every time I went there I was groaning how much I will hate it because the already slow speed would crawl to a snail's pace even with "running", and the terrain objects made sure I couldn't move freely anyway even if I wanted. The coffing room and other similar ones sucked for much the same reasons with the addition that I usually got tag teamed in there, so I also dreaded when I had to go there. Add to that the fairly high rate of spawning random ghost all the time, so you get the numbers (if not the quality) of why it was scary.

Personally I think the ghost are all better in 4, only the priestesses come close in 5 and maybe the last boss.

[NobakeGaming]

5 was scary at the start, but I adjusted after a couple chapters and was fine through the rest of the game. But the ghost designs are much more interesting in that game than 4.

4 hasn't scared me at all other than a couple jumpscares. I just get so irritated at how slow the movement is that I'm not engaged enough to be scared.

[sling_shot]

4 has the more upsetting plot, areas and boss fights. Islanders are pretty boring.

5 has the creepier ghosts and some of the relevant encounterrs are pretty intense. Also, you can see these ghosts memories and the move very robotically.


However it needs to be said that both 4 and 5 pale in comparison to 1 and 2.
3 wasn't scary at all, just very melancholic. You know, "it's raining again" and all that stuff.

[Firehawk]

Originally posted by Point Man:

4 has the more upsetting plot, areas and boss fights. Islanders are pretty boring.

Oh yeah, Ayako dragging that poor nurse through the corridor was so messed up, calling it upsetting would be an understatement.

Originally posted by Point Man:

5 has the creepier ghosts and some of the relevant encounterrs are pretty intense. Also, you can see these ghosts memories and the move very robotically.

While the glance thing *was* interesting, the extremely poor quality of the videos made for a weak show because you could barely tell what's happening and them being ghosts' memories is no excuse for that either.

Originally posted by Point Man:

However it needs to be said that both 4 and 5 pale in comparison to 1 and 2. 3 wasn't scary at all, just very melancholic. You know, "it's raining again" and all that stuff.

Fighting the Himuro family head or that instant kill boss that could only be hurt during fatal frame moments, ouch. Really wasn't looking forward to them.
Personally I prefer FF2. The first game was sort of a prototype for the later games, which shows in the more refined mechanics and story, though I could just call it better designed all around.
I very much disliked FF3 though because it felt like a mishmash of the previous two games, given how you have to explore maps from them which spelled lazy design to me. Even if the home base parts were fairly nice (I like rainy stuff).

[Pure Mind Games]

Originally posted by Firehawk:

While the glance thing *was* interesting, the extremely poor quality of the videos made for a weak show because you could barely tell what's happening and them being ghosts' memories is no excuse for that either.

Except it is, you wanting everything to be crystal clear doesn't change the designers artistic vision.

[Firehawk]

Nice try, but I never said crystal clear.

[Pure Mind Games]

I didn't say you did.

[Firehawk]

You did imply it.

[Pure Mind Games]

It's actually called hyperbole.

[Firehawk]

Neither helps your case.