Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly

PROJECT Zero II: Crimson Butterfly is the scariest game on the Nintendo Wii.

PROJECT ZERO II: CRIMSON BUTTERFLY

PRICE: R439

SYSTEM: NINTENDO WII

AGE RESTRICTION 16

Twin sisters Mio and Mayu are playing in the woods when Mayu sees red butterflies and starts chasing the titular crimson insects. The sisters get lost.

Eventually they stumble upon the "Lost Village", a town shrouded in permanent darkness.

The crimson butterflies call the place home, along with ghosts who grab at our schoolgirl protagonists.

The only weapon the girls have against the ghosts is the Camera Obscura, an old film camera that captures the souls of its subjects. This makes it the sort of thing you probably should not use to take family portraits.

The controls are shaky, but I found that this added a bit of edge to the game as it helps create a feeling of vulnerability while playing it.

The village is the star of the game, with rotting wood and ragged curtains; it has that sinister feeling of abandoned places.

This is something Project Zero II gets right that a lot of horror games get wrong. All too many rely on either restricting your ammo or reducing your line of vision, making them bad first-person shooters.

Project Zero II would be scary without the ghosts because of where the game takes place. The town broods.

This game is designed by people who understand the concept of suspense.

All of this said, it does say something that the best horror game on the Wii is a remake of a Playstation 2 title, and that is out so soon before Nintendo's next-generation console.

THE GOOD

The aesthetics, the mood, the writing, the scares. This game gets horror right in ways that stun.

THE BAD

It is a remake and while I didn't mind the shaky controls, you may feel differently.

RATING: 9/10