Fatal Frame control problems

[ramuji]

I've played about 2 hours of Fatal Frame IV so far.

I found the controls quite awkward at first, but feel like I've gotten the hang of them pretty well by now.
My guess is it was designed this way as a tool to build tension by slightly incumbering the player's ability to navigate the environment.

At this early stage, the pace of the game is quite slow. The control scheme combined with the low-speed character movement (very slow "running") and careful way the main character extends her arm and hand to pick up objects, all strike me as quite deliberate design choices to lull the player into this slow, methodical pace, the better to catch us off guard when something unexpected jumps out (and they do).

Our heroine is not an action star, and I feel the controls successfully mimic how one would expect a (stereotypical) young Japanese lady to act when entering a haunted building.