Rating: 3/10
One thing I'll mention a lot in upcoming reviews is that there's not always a correlation between the quality of a game and the quality of its soundtrack. There are games I absolutely despise - that I nevertheless must admit have great soundtracks. With Fatal Frame, it's the sad opposite - a game I completely love, but one that has a rather terrible soundtrack.
Fatal Frame, like any survival horror game, has a soundtrack consisting primarily of dark ambience. But you could barely tell that from playing it, given that the songs are so quiet you can barely hear them, no matter how loud you turn up the volume. (And you DON'T wanna turn up the volume too much, given that a door opening is ten times louder than the soundtrack. You'll blow your ears out, kid.)
I don't even know how to describe what disappointed me about the soundtrack. One of the things I can pinpoint is that it was very cliche, with very little originality. The song that you'll be hearing the most throughout the game consists solely of that "windy-ghost voice" effect you hear used EVERYWHERE. (Literally every dark classical band I've listened to has used that stock sound effect - including Nox Arcana.)
The other huge problem is that each ghost's song is basically a background of white noise, with several of the ghost's sayings repeated. Over and over and over again. You know how much you hated fighting Blinded, right? Now imagine listening to her whining about her lost eyes for five minutes straight. Yeah, it's pretty much the same for every single ghost.
What makes this even more disappointing is that you could tell, the composers had the potential to make a great soundtrack. There's the wonderful menu and ending themes, as well as one example of really GOOD dark ambient, the Children's Room. The other two wonderful songs from the game, Koto and the unnamed song that plays in the flashback to Kirie's lover, are far too short to be enjoyed properly. (On the soundtrack, Koto is only 30 seconds long, and the second song isn't there at all!)
So yes, overall I give it a 3/10. As amazing a game as Fatal Frame is, its soundtrack is not so wonderful.
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