Spirit Fragments

Spirit fragments are a new gameplay feature in Fatal Frame V. When the player deals damage to a spirit during battles, ghostly fragments resembling faces will appear around them. Each fragment is a weak point, and capturing more than four in one shot will provide a Shutter Chance, allowing the player to do damage from a distance rather than waiting for a risky Fatal Frame shot. If left too long, the fragments will return to the spirit and they will regain some health.

When a ghost teleports, spirit fragments can show the direction they go in, allowing the player to locate them more quickly after they vanish.

Some spirits will occasionally shed purple spirit fragments. If these are allowed to merge with the spirit again, the spirit will turn purple and their touch will cause the player character to become tainted by black water. Like other spirit fragments, the purple fragments will disappear when photographed.

Some ghosts, like the Pale Mistress and Ose Kurosawa, can deliberately generate multiple spirit fragments, causing their lock-on target to disappear until the fragments are destroyed.