All around them, old and angry ghosts begin to move.

Fatal Frame is hard to explain, because sooner or later, you have to tell whoever you're talking to that this is the game where teenagers hunt ghosts with a camera.

The premise does sound silly, like Pokemon Snap played for keeps, but the game itself wasn't silly at all. As you progressed through a haunted Shinto mansion, the site of too many past atrocities to list, you were constantly served notice that you were in way over your head. Simple howling spectres gave way to the sword-wielding shades of madmen and murderers, which in turn were replaced by flowing clouds of utter darkness, ghosts so old that they were no longer even human. Running did no good; if you saw one, it would pursue you through walls and ceilings until you turned and fought, thus depleting your already scarce supply of special film.

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly is better.

Tecmo, like Konami before them, understands that horror is all about what you don't see. All God's Village, where Fatal Frame 2 takes place, is a place where time and space seem vaguely wrong somehow, like the rules are subtly different here. Every shadow could hold a secret, and every room a threat.

The subtle little hints are what'll get you scared, and keep you there. A camera angle may veer around unexpectedly, as though someone has arrived and is now watching you. Your footsteps across a tatami-mat floor may seem out of sync, until you stop moving and they keep going, as though someone else is in the room with you but you can't see them. Your flashlight goes out at the worst possible time, and its last fading beams of light show you that you aren't alone in the room. Objects don't cast the right shadows; the soundtrack sounds vaguely like voices, muted by passing through walls; once, I tried a locked door, and somewhere very close to me, a madwoman began to helplessly laugh.

The other best method, of course, involves the ghosts. They serve as both window dressing and the game's antagonists, as they can literally appear at any time, for just about any reason; boiling out of a wall, rising up from the floor, descending from the sky, or, in one memorable instance, coming straight at you, screaming, from the heart of a flashback sequence.

Fatal Frame 2's combat engine is the weirdest part of the game, but it's gained some flexibility since the original title. When a ghost arrives, or you need to take a picture of something, you press the Circle button to go into first-person viewfinder mode; in this mode, you can strafe with the right thumbstick, while moving your perspective around with the left. If you can see an enemy ghost, and it's in range, keep the ghost centered in the viewfinder to power up the camera. Once it's powered up, or you set the shot up just right, you can fire off a special photograph that hits the ghost, dissipating some of its essence. If you want to actually damage a ghost, as opposed to annoy it, you'll need to use some of the special film that's lying around the village, usually out of sight inside drawers or chests. The Camera Obscura does come preloaded with really weak, infinite-exposure film, but bringing down any but the weakest ghosts with it is like tearing down a concrete wall with a cocktail straw.

On the other hand, it's a lot easier to run away in this game than it was in the original. Ghosts are more territorial in Fatal Frame 2, which means they usually won't follow you if you duck into the next room. Usually. They often drop stuff when they're defeated, such as quest items or Spirit Orbs, so you'll almost always need to fight.

Speaking of Spirit Orbs, fighting ghosts is also the way to unlock the powers that lie dormant within the Camera Obscura. Taking a photograph of a ghost is worth a variable amount of points, depending upon the damage you did or the composition of the shot, and you can use those points, in conjunction with both discovered Spirit Orbs and camera parts, to improve the camera.

They do look good, though. Fatal Frame 2 looks and sounds a lot like the original game, right down to the protagonists' mellow and distant voice acting, but there are a lot of improvements everywhere if you choose to look. The ghosts in the first game were almost too ethereal, and you could frequently lose track of them if you weren't careful. These spectres are more solid-looking, but you can still clearly see the environment behind them; it's amazing to watch, even if you see it while you're trying to frame a shot.

The sound's on the same kind of minimalist track. The effects are top-notch, naturally, as they'd have to be to create the effect they do, and the voices have improved. (Mafuyu Hinasaki, in the first game, was voiced by Tecmo's mail clerk. I'm sure of it.) When there is music, it's quietly discordant tones that are there entirely to create a mood, as opposed to anything you're going to want as an OST. Much like everything else, it's there entirely to scare the holy bejesus out of you.