Deadly Body 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake is completely terrifying.
Crew Ninja delivers unequivocal, spine-chilling survival horror, if — and it’s a very huge if — you’re keen to abdomen just a few acquainted frustrations.
Lately, Koei Tecmo has tried to resurrect the Deadly Body/Mission Zero sequence with combined outcomes. Each Maiden of Black Water and Masks of the Lunar Eclipse obtained the remaster therapy, although we weren’t notably impressed with both.
Deadly Body 2: Crimson Butterfly, nonetheless, will get the total works. This can be a correct top-to-bottom remake, and it is clearly paid dividends.
Probably the most notable shake-up is the removing of the mounted digicam angles typical of late-’90s survival horror video games. Of their place is a contemporary third-person perspective that makes exploring Minakami village far much less cumbersome.
It’s simply the primary of many welcome modernisations from the devs at Crew Ninja. Further facet tales supply further narrative juice for returning followers of the unique PS2 title, and an all-new unlockable ending awaits these courageous mad sufficient to aim New Recreation+ on Nightmare problem.
As a result of the story explores the origins of the Digicam Obscura, we predict this remake serves as a super entry level for brand spanking new gamers unfamiliar with Deadly Body’s distinctive mixture of survival horror, puzzles, and the famously divisive digicam fight.
Graphics and gameplay fare significantly better too, however right here’s the rub: this can be a trustworthy revamping of its supply materials. It follows carefully within the footsteps of the unique, and whereas it undeniably appears to be like and performs significantly better in 2026, it nonetheless falls sufferer to most of the identical criticisms of the previous. Which feels virtually ironic, if you realize something in regards to the recreation’s darkish story.
The sport follows Mio and Mayu Amakura, twin sisters lured deep into the forest by a crimson butterfly. Sinister forces quickly separate the 2, trapping them in Minakami Village — a settlement lengthy erased from the map and shrouded in everlasting darkness.
Minakami is straight away creepy: an infallibly darkish ambiance stuffed with vengeful ghosts and ghoulies. These wraiths search to hurt Mio, abduct Mayu, and carry out the forbidden Crimson Butterfly Ritual. As Mio searches for her sister, she begins to uncover the village’s grim historical past and the tragic destiny of one other pair of twins whose story mirrors their very own.
Crimson Butterfly remake is constructed like a traditional survival horror recreation, and performs like a nostalgic lock-and-key shuffle by a handful of fear-inducing environments, harking back to style all-timers like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Put together your self for loads of backtracking!
Structurally, you creep from constructing to constructing, studying notebooks, discovering keys, listening to spirit packing containers, and snapping pictures of some fairly rancid-looking ghosts to progress by the sport’s nine-chapter story.
We love an excellent leap scare, and Crimson Butterfly Remake has loads to maintain you in your toes. We discovered ourselves bracing throughout each drawn-out door opening, and each lengthy attain for one thing simply out of grasp — moments clearly designed as the proper setup for a wraith to pop up and scare the residing daylights out of you.
However the devs are intelligent sufficient to not bombard you and uninteresting the strain. As a substitute, a lot of the concern comes from what isn’t there.
Actually, the final time a horror recreation made us really feel this tense was after we performed 2005’s Condemned: Legal Origins. Hell, this may simply be the scariest recreation we’ve ever performed.
Early on, Mio and Mayu encounter their first wraith — an offended murder-ghost with a hankering for strangling twins. Fortunately, simply moments earlier we had been launched to a magical ghost-killing digicam, and supplied with copious text-based tutorials on kill an offended murder-ghost. Phew.
However this additionally brings us to the principle cause we’re hesitant to outright suggest Deadly Body II: Crimson Butterfly Remake, and all of it comes all the way down to the sequence’ signature weapon: the Digicam Obscura.
As you discover Minakami Village in quest of Mayu (and a strategy to escape) Mio can defend herself from wraiths by snapping photos to deal harm.
Taking pictures portraits of your ghoulish enemies is an effective way to get an excellent take a look at their unsettling new faces, however the true trick lies in timing your pictures. Ready for a wraith to maneuver in shut and snapping a brand new face card mid-lunge can set off a Deadly Body, countering the assault and considerably boosting your harm output.
The digicam comes preloaded with a limitless provide of Kind-07 movie, however a handful of different rolls will be loaded too, every with their very own quirks. Some reload quicker, whereas others possess larger exorcism energy, dealing rather more harm when used.
Toggleable Filters additionally introduce their very own exploration gimmicks and particular shot skills. We notably favored the Publicity filter, which slows wraiths down throughout fight while additionally revealing hidden trails and treasures throughout exploration.
Battling wraiths is a tense affair, a novel and fulfilling strategy to take down enemies, albeit a little bit clunky at occasions. Fortunately, the remake provides just a few fashionable concessions. Now you can click on R3 to auto-lock onto ghosts in body and press X to dodge incoming assaults. When you become familiar with focal factors, focus, and slap on a few upgrades to the Digicam Obscura, fight begins to really feel rather more fulfilling.
Sadly, it’s nonetheless not with out its frustrations.
One mechanic we weren’t so eager on is when a wraith turns into aggravated. At any time throughout a scrap, there’s an opportunity they are going to flip purple and get correctly offended about being papped.
Managing an aggravated wraith isn’t the issue. They nonetheless transfer and assault the identical approach, just a bit faster. The true downside is that in addition they regenerate well being and may seemingly faucet into this state at any time when they bloody properly really feel prefer it.
We received’t spoil something, however throughout an enormous set-piece second in opposition to a boss wraith, we merely couldn’t exorcise it. Each time Mio had the groany git on the ropes and was able to ship the ultimate body, the wraith would sit back into its aggravated state and we’d spend one other 15-20 minutes duelling with them. What ought to have been a tense and pivotal second rapidly turned a bit exhausting.
We weren’t a fan of the stealth sections both. A number of sections take away Mio’s capability to combat fully as her digicam is both misplaced, or ineffective in opposition to an enormous unhealthy ghosty, forcing you to run and conceal from them.Initially, we favored the variation it supplied, however in the end discovered it relied too closely on trial and error for our liking. It typically seems like we had been anticipated to fail on the primary event, that means it may take possibly two or three makes an attempt at navigating a sequence to get it proper. Which is a disgrace, as a result of it subdues an in any other case terrifying expertise.
