YMMV / Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

• Breather Level: The Interlude between the Third and Fourth drop consists of Yuri looking around Kurosawa Antiques for clues about missing people. There are no hostile ghost encounters, merely a few spectral images to capture, and some notes to read.
• Broken Base:
  • Being an e-Shop-exclusive release in North America. And Europe getting a very limited supply of the Limited Edition as the sole, physical copy. One base isn't happy about this decision, since they would've preferred a physical disc copy of the game. Another base is fine with this decision because Fatal Frame always has been a niche market outside of Japan, and are just plain happy that this game was localized. And a third base is absolutely indifferent to this.
  • The skimpy outfits being removed from the localized version. While this has been a given since the second game, having them being replaced with Nintendo-themed costume irks some bases. Especially since Zero Suit Samus had already been used as an unlockable costume in the fourth game.
  • There's also the skimpy costumes. One side really doesn't mind them much. But another felt outraged that the skimpy costumes for this game weren't simply bikinis, but that the outfits were dessous◊ adorned with lace. And then there's the fact that the skimpy costumes are on teenaged girls who are desperately fighting for their lives...
  • For some fans, there's also The Reveal that Mafuyu (Miku's brother) is Miu's father, making the relationship Brother–Sister Incest. Some fans were just glad to see the previous games be acknowledged in some way, while others found this extremely disrespectful to Miku's character, as she should have moved on alongside Rei in the third game's ending.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: One of the criticisms of the game is that it's much easier than previous games in the series. Healing items and even film are found in abundance around the places, and even if the player feels like they need more, they can simply buy extra items with Spirit Points before starting a Drop. The game also reworked how the Fatal Frame mechanic worked: as long as the Fatal Frame time-window is open, the player doesn't use up any film beyond the first one to start the initial Fatal Frame shot, meaning that even the incredibly small amount of Type-Zero film found in the game can be used to abuse its strength and breeze through several battles.
• Les Yay:
  • Hisoka and Yuri have a strong relationship, with Hisoka being the one to prevent Yuri from committing suicide and giving her a new home, even a new family, and teaching her how to deal with her sixth sense. Yuri heads up Mt Hikami to find Hisoka, with Hisoka revealing that she chose to become a Pillar to prevent Yuri from being turned into one. And in Yuri's Bad Ending, Hisoka is distraught when Yuri jumps off the cliff.
  • Fuyuhi and Haruka have a very obvious Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, and their feelings run deep. One of Fuyuhi's Notes mentions that she needs to find Haruka soon and tell her something, and she feels that it might be too late to say anything. It's worded in a way that it sounds like a confession.
  • Yuri and Miu become closer after Miu saves Yuri from Mt Hikami. Miu rushed into the lake after Yuri and grabbed her, begging her to not go.
• Nightmare Retardant: Critics often cited being Distracted by the Sexy because of the influx of fanservice and designs of the female characters. And having them wearing alternate clothing, making them look very out of place, served to make the game even less scary.
• Squick: It's heavily implied in the game (and later confirmed in official guidebooks) that Miu's father is the ghost of Miku's brother, Mafuyu, and she got pregnant during her final playable section in the third game.
• The Scrappy: Rui is this due to being The Load, as well as a Flat Character, serving as nothing more than a Satellite Love Interest for Ren.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Some critics complained about the game adherring to the Resident Evil's so-called tank control schemes, where the player cannot move left or right without going forwards or backwards. They described the control scheme as being clunky and frustrating to deal with in tight corridors, especially while being pursued by spirits.
  • The ghost hand first introduced in the Wii games, which has a chance of popping out whenever you grab an item, has received a lot of flak due to being something that will only scare players the first two or three times, and for wasting time, making the simple task of picking up an item a chore.
• That One Level: The Last Drop. This chapter forces you to climb the entire mountain as Yuri. The climb will feature nearly every ghost you've fought up to that point (a few of the more powerful ones are saved for later in the chapter) if you explore every area, and the game will not save until you reach the top of the mountain. Then you have to climb the whole thing again as Ren (though this second climb may not be as brutal as the first). There is more to the level after that, but save points are far more common, so getting through these two portions is the toughest part. While it isn't too bad if you're just breezing to the end, if you're trying to go for an S+ rank, this could take you a couple hours to complete.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Miu Hinasaki is nothing to write home about, when she should be. She's the daughter of the game's first heroine, Miku Hinasaki, and a Shadowborn. There's not much known beyond that, except she was raised by a friend of her mother's, and that she explores Mt Hikami in hopes of finding her missing mother. Her being a Shadowborn doesn't even factor into the plot in any significant way. It's what she is and doesn't seem to do anything, except it having doomed Miku to an early death. While her plotline does have Miku talk about Ghost Marriage, it's vastly more focused on in Ren's plotline, turning Ghost Marriage into a weak plot point that got separated into two. Unfortunately, Miu's presence in the overall game seems unnecessary and mostly comes across as just a fanservice-nod to the first game by mere relation.

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