Fatal Frame lives on! I’ll admit, I was a bit worried when Fatal Frame IV: Mast of the Lunar Eclipse wasn’t released in outside Japan, but the news that Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir will be is a good sign! We’ll see it on Friday the 13th in April, 2012.

Were you one of the many Wii owners disappointed that Nintendo and Tecmo had let you down and left Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse a Japanese exclusive that you’d never get the chance to play? Well, there’s a ray of sunshine today! If you have the funds and the means, you can purchase a Japanese copy of Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen, pop it in your Wii and play it in English without any region conflicts. Even better, you don’t need to mod your Wii with the Homebrew Channel to do it!

The staff at the Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse Translation site took care of everything for you. They completely translated the game, and created a patch that works on any Wii, regardless of firmware or region. They have everything you need. There are patch loaders for Wiis running all versions of Nintendo firmware, a patch loader for people with modded Wiis, the actual patch with all the necessary data and an additional costume pack. There is also a comprehensive set of instructions to guide you through the patch installation process, whether your system is online or off. Best of all, the patch can easily be uninstalled if necessary.

Basically, it just involves putting the patch, loader and costumes onto an SD card, popping it into your Wii and running the data to install it. Uninstalling is as simple as running the patch data from the SD card again and choosing the install option when it pops up.

The final piece of the puzzle though is the game. You’ll have to purchase a copy if you want to make good use of the patch…

Dear Nintendo,

Well, you’ve done it. This time you’ve really done it. I can understand Nintendo’s failure to bring over games like Soma Bringer, Mother 3, A.S.H. and Captain Rainbow. Actually no – I can’t understand it, but I can pretend to.

But sticking it to the fans by denying them Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse? That’s cold, even for you.

We can get fabulous titles like Link’s Crossbow Training, Mario Party 37, New Play Control! Every Hit GameCube Game and Master of Illusion, but not the latest Fatal Frame. Nice…

I am a coward.

At sleepovers in my childhood, I’d close my eyes during particularly scary portions of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, I’m 25 years old and still can’t listen to Reagan’s “possessed” voice in The Exorcist and I only was able to watch about a half hour of the remake of The Omen. For a brief time after watching all of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, I would make a conscious decision to be in bed and asleep by 3am.

But I’d like to think I’m getting better, and its all because of Fatal Frame.

It all started around Halloween in 2002. I was in college, and taking a night Japanese class with my friends Shawna and Vivienne (not their real names). Often, when class would get out, we’d feel like actually doing something, rather than going home, studying and getting to bed. You know – productive stuff.

Shawna was, and still is, a horror game fan – and good at it too. She suggested we rent Fatal Frame from Blockbuster and return to Vivienne’s nearby home for a game-a-thon. Vivienne and I had never heard of the game, but Shawna made it sound interesting, so we instantly agreed. We figured it may help us get in the spirit of the season…

Good news for fans of spooky survival horror: new screens and details about the latest Fatal Frame title have just emerged. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse will be coming to the Wii (date is TBD) and Destructoid is reporting that it will be developed by Grasshopper Manufacture (No More Heroes) and will (of course) utilize the Wii’s motion controls. The new screens are coming straight from Famitsu, from a two minute teaser video that shows off the wonderfully creepy, washed out graphics and overall style of the new game.

The new game will be the fourth in the series, and will incorporate similar gameplay and atmosphere of the previous titles. The premise puts the player in a spooky house full of unhappy ghosts and tasks them with snapping ghoulish photos (a sort of combat system for photographers).