(Interview With Keisuke Kikuchi and Makoto Shibata, Fatal Frame III producer and director.)

The Deception series garnered a huge success for Tecmo, gaining a following all its own and introducing a style of gameplay that's rarely seen in games anymore. While that series will be seeing a revisit later this year with the forthcoming Trapt, producer Keisuke Kikuchi and director Makoto Shibata are also finishing work on the third and possibly final chapter in the Fatal Frame series, Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. We had a chance to sit down with both of them and talk everything Fatal Frame.

GameDAILY: How did the creative process for the series begin? How did the idea come about to create the Fatal Frame series?

Keisuke Kikuchi: We were working on the Deception series prior to the PS2 being launched, and as soon as we heard about the PS2 coming, we wanted to do something on that new system back then. That's how the creative process had started.

Makoto Shibata: Of course, the Deception series contained many elements. It was a little bit of an action game, but it also contained some horror elements in the game. I wanted to pick one thing and make that one thing better, so we decided to take the horror portion of Deception and then, of course, we wanted to use Japanese-style architecture and make the enemies (ghosts) and picked the camera as a weapon.

GD: Does the story follow shortly after the events of Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, or does it follow a path of its own?

KK: Each has their own independent stories, and this, too, will stand on its own. However, it is a continuation of the previous Fatal Frame story, and it soon takes place after the story that ended in Crimson Butterfly.

GD: What kind of research went into the game to make it more frightening than the previous entry?

KK: I believe that we can't really make each installment more scarier because Fatal Frame 1, 2, 3, they're all scary, each in their own way, and it's just not possible. We believe that each one is as scary as it can be. The thing that we can do is, of course, with the advancement of CG or other technical advancements, we can try to create an environment that is more effective to scare the players, and we like to utilize the environment where basically there is nothing but the better CG. We can create the feeling of fear, even where there is nothing, and so the whole idea is to try out different ways to recreate this fearful experience.

GD: Obviously the gameplay from the first two Fatal Frame games followed a similar pattern, always trying to involve the game. Has anything changed for Fatal Frame III, or does it remain about the same?

KK: Basically, there are two things that we focused on. One is the ability to go back and forth between the dream state and the reality. And by doing so, you can actually study up on things in the state of reality and then take that information into the state of dream and utilize the information to progress in the game, and vice versa. Just going back and forth between two worlds, that's something very different and new. Another thing is that multiple characters are playable. There are three characters that are playable. Each has one different abilities. For instance, the male playable character, his name is Kei, he's not very good with battle, but he's very good with hiding, so I guess, like Metal Gear Solid, he's very good at hiding in the house. Another character, Miku, from the previous installments, has much highver spiritual power and she's better with actual combat. Just having different abilities and multiple playable characters expanded the gameplay.

GD: Now, with all those gameplay types, how many hours of gameplay do you think the actual gamer will be able to get out of the final game?

KK: The first time around, it should take the average gamer 20 hours to beat the game. But by playing a second or third time, you'll be unable to unlock.

MS: After the first round, you'll be able to set the difficulty mode. Of course, you can also collect items.

KK: The total volume is significantly more than the previous games.

GD: What kind of process went into designing the spiritual creatures in the game? Any sort of seriousness, fright factor, anything like that?

KK: We didn't really focus on increasing the quantity of the ghosts so much, but we actually focused more on the existing ghosts, getting more polygons, getting more detail for each of the ghosts and even creating background stories for some of the ghosts. That basically became our focus. Another thing- the tattoo is a big part of this game. We made sure that the ghosts are designed to easily accept tattoo design that is beautiful to look at.

GD: Finally, with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on the way, do you feel that the series can expand even more or do you have perhaps another idea for a new series?

KK: The Fatal Frame series, as far as we're concerned, will be completed after The Tormented. The story is complete, it's done. But, of course, we're always striving to do more, and we have ideas that we wanted to implement but we couldn't on the current system. So, when the 360 comes out, I'm sure we would want to try out doing stuff we can't do now, that we couldn't do with the current system. But it could be a new series. We don't know yet.

GD: Thank you both for your time and good luck with Fatal Frame III and Trapt.