Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir

"Still... not... enough... Please forgive me."
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"One of the faces is warped."
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Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir (心霊カメラ ～憑いてる手帳～; Shinrei Camera ~Tsuiteru Techou~) is a Nintendo 3DS exclusive japanese survival horror game and spin-off in the Fatal Frame franchise, co-developed by Tecmo Koei and Nintendo. In this game,you must discover how to escape the curse of a house that is haunted by a mysterious ghost named The Woman In Black.

The game comes with an "AR (Augmented Reality) notebook",called "The Diary of Faces",with the player uses in junction with the game.

Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir is a spinoff of the Fatal Frame franchise for the Nintendo 3DS, which utilises AR technology. The game has so far only been announced for release in Japan and North America.

In this game, the player serves as the game's protagonist, and the game is played from a first-person perspective. The game uses a single save slot and is single-player. It retails at 3,800 yen in Japan, and is available in North America for $35(USD)/$40(CAD).

Storyline

Zero: Purple Diary / Zero ~Murasaki no Nikki~ (零 ～紫の日記～)

One day, the diary suddenly arrived. "The Purple Diary" It's an old diary that has been whispered about in urban legends for as long as anyone can remember.

On the first page of the diary, eerie photographs and cryptic words... Those who see the words that shouldn't be there, suddenly appearing on the page that was blank only a second before...

They're spirited away, and eventually found with a completely different appearance.

A corpse, with its face cut up...

--From the official site

Release dates

• Japan - 12 January 2012
• US - 13 April 2012
• Europe - 29 June 2012

Gameplay

The game has three modes: Story, Ghost Camera and Horror Notebook.

Story Mode (Purple Diary)

The main story mode, during which the plot progresses. The player finds the Purple Diary and allows Maya to escape from it. In this mode, the player must use the 3DS camera, serving as the Camera Obscura, to find hints within the diary and battle ghosts in the real world environment around them. Clearing Story Mode takes roughly two to three hours and unlocks an outfit for Maya, Story Mode (Extra), and Battle mode.

Story Mode (Extra)

Unlocked after completing Story Mode for the first time, this is a more difficult version of story mode, in which you can obtain extra game notes. The messages in the Purple Diary at the beginning and end of the story are slightly different.

Battle Mode

A mode in which the player can freely take photographs of and battle characters appearing in story mode. Clearing battles in this mode adds a new costume and new battles.

Ghost Camera

This mode can be played in a total of three different ways. Using the 3DS' camera to take photos of the player's surroundings will result in images of ghosts appearing in the pictures. Players can also "diagnose" someone as being haunted, by taking a photo of the player or other people, which will reveal an image of the "ghost" haunting them. Ghosts from previous games seem to appear in this mode, such as Fatal Frame II's Veiled Priests. Players can also take photographs of their own face or the faces of others and put them onto a ghost's body, and fight them in a mode called Defeating the Cursed Face. This mode is unlocked after completing the masked boy's mask game during the "Eyes Peeping From the Mask" chapter.

Horror Notebook

In this mode, the player must use the 3DS camera to search through the AR Notebook to find the ghost of the Masked Boy hiding within it, which will trigger a mini-game. The other known game in this mode is "Curse of the Japanese Dolls", in which the player must correctly identify the real doll out of a group, and photograph it to exorcise it within the time limit.

Main Characters

Maya (眞夜) - A girl you, the player, have brought out into the real world. The player must work with Maya to solve the diary's curse, and regain Maya's lost memories.

Kaito Hasebe - This man was investigating the diary, and eventually became cursed by and trapped within it.

Old Woman (老婆) - A mysterious old lady who appears to those who become involved with the diary. The magic words she chants seem to have something to do with the diary's hidden secrets. People who hear her chanting can never escape from the diary. Akira (仮面の少年) - The Masked Boy. A boy who was spirited away after once becoming trapped in the diary. He appears before those investigating the diary, inviting them to play. Those who lose the game are spirited away, just like him.

Woman in Black (黒い服の女) - The antagonist of the game. Her words appear on the first page of the diary, and she lures people inside and imprisons them there.

Shiori Hasebe (操られた女) - Another victim of the Purple Diary. She has taken the form of a human-sized doll.

Chapters

Spirit Camera is not divided into numbered chapters during gameplay, although there are different sections. The titles below come from the "Scene Selection" menu you unlock as you play through story mode, and do not overlap perfectly with full sections.

• The Cursed Diary

The purple diary -- a book spoken of in urban legend -- came into your possession. With the Camera Obscura, you looked at the diary's first page, the blank page.

• The Vanished Man

You escaped the hallucinations of the purple diary. While speaking to Maya, a girl trapped in the diary, an eerie voice filled the air. The voice seemed to come from a photo of a man in the diary.

• The Blocking Hands

A man trapped by the curse disappeared into the diary once again. To learn more about the diary's secrets, you decided to follow him.

• The Prisoner

You fended off the white hands that were blocking the door. Behind that door within the diary are the man imprisoned by the curse and the woman in black.

• Hide-and-Seek

While investigating the diary's curse, your eyes stop at an old photo of a young boy.

• Hidden Words

An old diary left behind by the boy. Seemingly cryptic words are written inside.

• Peek-a-Boo

You found photos of four masks on a page of the diary. Looking at them with the Camera Obscura, you notice four dark sets of eyes staring back at you.

• Crumpled Picture

An old picture left in the diary looks like it was drawn by a child. It has something on it that's hard to discern, like it was crumpled up in a strange way. The voice of the boy whose face was taken can be heard coming from the picture.

• Girl Afraid of the Dark

There might be others inside the diary - people whose faces haven't yet been taken. While looking at other pages in the diary, Maya's eyes stop at the picture of an old doll. There's something familiar about it.

• Mysterious Score

A mysterious song drifts from the diary. Maya thinks she's heard it before. The melancholy song turns out to be coming from the piece of sheet music within the diary.

• Beyond the Screen

You solved the riddle of the sheet music and then saw the silhouette of a young girl, alone and terrified in the darkness. The girl could be Maya's family. You search the diary for a way to save her.

• Ancient Rite

The old records in the diary are opening the doors of Maya's memory. They're all connected in some way to an ancient rite.

• The Last Door

Maya discovered the true identity of the woman in black and figured out the cause of the curse. Now she's disappeared into the diary. You follow her, searching for the last hidden door.

Regional Differences

• The title of Story Mode is Fatal Frame: The Diary of Faces in the US version, and Project Zero: The Purple Diary in the European version.
• The stockings and shorts in Maya's unlockable Gothic Lolita Costume are changed to leggings in the North American and European releases of the game.
• In the European version there is an option to switch from English to Japanese audio, which is not available in the North American version.
• In the North American version models of Mio and Mayu as they appear in Fatal Frame II: Deep Crimson Butterfly were removed.
• In the North American version, Akira's name has been changed to Koji and the Old Woman is known as the Seamstress. These changes have been reversed in the European version.
• In the American and European versions, Maya's age has been changed from 15 to 18.
• In both Japanese and European releases of the game the player can see eyes peeking through the game box, in reference to a Japanese ghost called Mokumokuren. This extra is absent in the North American release.

Character Appearances

Several characters from previous games in the Fatal Frame Series show up in Ghost Camera Mode. Following characters are confirmed.

• Mio Amakura  - Deep Crimson Butterfly outfit
• Mayu Amakura - Deep Crimson Butterfly outfit
• Ruka Minazuki
• Veiled Priests
• Hisame
• Broken Neck Woman
• Yoshitatsu Kiryu
• Kazuto Amaki
• Men in White
• Kei Amakura
• Sae Kurosawa
• Itsuki Tachibana
• Rei Kurosawa
• Miku Hinasaki
• Misaki Asou
• Choushiro Kirishima
• Madoka Tsukimori
• Yashuu Kuze

Walkthroughs

• Zero零Zero

Misc. Info

• The main staff who work on the main Zero series are in charge of its development, though Makoto Shibata took on a "supervisory" role rather than his usual role as director.
• The game was originally titled "Dr. Asou's Spirit Camera" (麻生博士の心霊カメラ, Asou Hakase no Shinrei Camera) by Keisuke Kikuchi, since he has been mentioned in every other game in the series, but so many people didn't know who he was that the idea was quickly dropped. Another suggestion was "AR Horror Games".
• One of the promotional movies added to the official website was a mini-drama about three girls, Rina, Saki and Kaori, who play the game and become cursed by it.
• The game's music was composed by Ayako Toyoda.
• This game was released in America on Friday the 13th, a day known for superstition.
• The game sold 0.09m units globally.