New endings not featured in previous editions of the game have been prepared for Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake. We asked director Makoto Shibata, the driving force behind the Fatal Frame series, how Mio and Mayu's new story was created.
―Please tell us what made you decide to make a new ending.
When it came to remaking Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (below, Crimson Butterfly), we started off with the plan to add a grand finale ending that would serve as the ending of Crimson Butterfly as a whole, and make that one of the centrepieces.
I was requested by producer Yasuda to make the game under the assumption that this was my last go at it, and make sure I didn't leave anything undone.
In actual fact, I'd been asked to make a grand finale ending by producer Kikuchi in the past, but struggled to write one. I just couldn't come up with any more of a good ending than the Promise ending [an ending added in Fatal Frame II: Director's Cut].
This time around, after being told to work under the assumption that this was my last go at it, I decided to think back over things and make sure there wasn't anything I'd left undone.
―What do you consider its positioning to be compared the other endings?
The previous editions of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly feature the following three endings:
I won't dig too deep into the details here, but they form a matrix depending on whether it's Mio, Mayu or the village that gets saved.
Now, with our newly made ending Sprouting Wings, I was aiming to create the most beautiful good ending.
Since our work on Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake began with the concept "the most beautiful, the most frightening", I wanted to realise the characteristics of a beautiful horror game within the ending, too.
The original plot of Crimson Butterfly was based on the story of a dream I had over the course of a single night. In the notes I'd taken about the dream, I'd written that the further Mayu went into the village, the more she'd regress back into an infantile state, murmuring uttsui, uttsui no. I didn't know what that meant, so in the previous version of the game, I portrayed her as a character who says things that don't make sense.
While I was looking back over my notes this time around, I casually looked the word up, and found out that it was part of a regional dialect or baby talk meaning "beautiful". Realising only now that Mayu had been repeating this word over and over, I decided to make it the theme of the Sprouting Wings ending.
―How did you go about making the new ending, Sprouting Wings?
Alongside searching around within myself to see if there was anything I'd left undone, I collected up people's impressions and opinions regarding the ending of the original game. I decided to look back on how people had reacted back in the day.
A lot of players said they found it "unrewarding" and "dark". There was also the question of what had become of the other ghosts, the village, and the Hellish Abyss.
Aiming also to resolve any points that had been unclear up until now, I set about creating the plot in a way that would bring together an ending realising a variety of different requests into a single consolidated story.
Furthermore, since quite some time has passed since the original, I believe that the story of Crimson Butterfly no longer belongs to me alone, so I went around asking fans of the Fatal Frame series within the company their opinions on my plot, going back and forth several times as I hammered out the details. I did the same thing when the story A Folie à Deux in August was being written for Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse's premium box, including requests and resolving points of the story that were unclear from a player's standpoint. This was very helpful indeed, as my own vision alone fell short in certain aspects. For example, the exchange between Misaki and Madoka prior to them heading to Rogetsu Isle didn't exist in the original plot, but we added it in response to people requesting to see their everyday lives. As a result of that, as a prequel, I think it ended up tying into the game better that way.
This time around, I wanted to expand on that method. However, when I tried putting it into practice, the first draft received mixed reviews. Each person who gave their opinions on it had their own impressions about the end of Crimson Butterfly, and combined with the fact that a lot of different life experiences have piled on top of people's memories from back then, the ending in my mind didn't quite match up.
Of all of the dissenting opinions, the one that stood out the most was: "everything working out neatly doesn't feel like Fatal Frame".
So I split the things I'd wanted to do with the Sprouting Wings ending in two, adjusting Sprouting Wings into something that would leave a lingering aftertaste that felt like Fatal Frame, and creating Remaining Sun to act as an epilogue. We've set the hurdles you'll have to clear to see it a bit on the high side.
Furthermore, another opinion I was given regarding Sprouting Wings was "the crimson butterfly from the Promise ending is born in a different way - can butterflies be born through a method other than that from the Crimson Butterfly ending?", which made me realise that I could make a beautiful ending that was an extension of the Promise ending. This made my vision as to how I should proceed from the initial plot clearer. This was another new discovery of mine.
―Please tell us about the new image song, Utsushie.
I've been told by Ms. Amano that she finds it tough mentally to create songs for the Fatal Frame series, songs about something coming to an end; but she readily agreed when I requested for her to write it, which was a relief.
We requested a song from her at the point when we had settled on the details of the ending and finished the storyboards. I explained to her its positioning alongside the other endings and the meaning of the theme "uttsui", and left the rest completely up to her.
Each time, she asks me how I'd like the song to sound in terms of her other songs, so I think I told her I wanted a Hakoniwa with the sprinting feeling of Onsa, but they've never once reflected my requests. This is because each time, I ask her to make certain that she creates the song as her own, and doesn't try overly hard to match it up to the game.
At the time when I requested Chou from her, I was in a mental state where I couldn't tell Mayu and myself apart, so I asked her to "make a song that I could die to, a song of demise that would make me want to die". The end result was a dark yet splendid song, that differed from what I had asked for. I remember her saying to me, "Since it's a dark story, I made the song a little bit bright." I believe she adjusted it on her end to make sure it didn't sink too deep and dark.
The endings of the Fatal Frame series bring neither total despair nor total salvation, but rather a conclusion where something important is gained in exchange for something else important, returning to zero. A large part of the reason for this is that I believe one of the roles of horror is achieving a level mental state via the experience of death. I believe that both Chou and Utsushie came out as songs that will lead you to that point of zero after listening to them.
―I hear you had an idea for another ending.
That's right. As I looked over the in-house opinions about the plot for Sprouting Wings, I realised that there was more of a demand for a bad ending than I'd thought. Accordingly, I came up with one more ending, which ended up being included within the premium box in the form of the "another ending" story, Butterfly of Black Flame.
It's an ending that serves as the reverse of the Sprouting Wings ending, acting as its counterpart, like a twin. My aim with it was to create the most beautiful bad ending.
With regards to the title of Butterfly of Black Flame... Since I had chosen the name of Sprouting Wings due to the fact that the character here meaning "wings" (羽) is composed of the same character repeated side by side, reminiscent of twins, I decided to use the word "flame" (炎), which stacks the same character vertically. We created the key visuals based on this title.
I believe the story is best enjoyed after reading through the prequel story, The Forest where the Promise Disappeared, so please be sure to give it a read.