I had the immense pleasure of drawing this commission for the wonderful @meowgon and @starhalation from their Dungeon Meshi fanfic!! In which Laois and Rin behold the debut of girlmode Kabru ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ ) Read it here!! https://archiveofourown.org/works/57600757/chapters/146567869
Drawn with pen and markers on bristol board! I said I'd provide a simple background like a fool, forgetting that I don't know the meaning of "simple background"
here I go, here I go, here I go again
Girls, what's my weakness?
[chorus of women shout back]
how—how did... what? I... please, girls—please!—you *cannot* share this information with my nemesis. please, girls. my nemesis will kill me with this information
Only two days left to get my Silent Hill posters for 20% off!! If you don't get these bad boys, you will be haunted. i'm sorry. there's nothing i can do.
Get these and a bunch more arts in my SHOP!
I don't usually do this, but we live in extraordinary times and I have Opinions.
So here is my review of the new Silent Hill 2 Remake. (tl;dr: when it's not bad it's... good? kinda?)
If you go into this game holding up the original and looking for all the ways the remake falls short, like that Bobvids reaction video, you will have no shortage of material to work with. The remake is inconsistent and I legitimately do not understand what they were attempting to achieve with some of the changes they made. This game is incredibly easy to make into something profoundly disappointing if that’s what you want to do. Like Bobvids points out, almost all of the most iconic or emotionally-powerful scenes from the original were fumbled. Not like “they tried to do something different and it didn’t quite work,” no no, no: They were fumbled. They dropped the ball and it shattered like glass upon impact. It's ironic: The game has what it calls "Glimpses of the Past," which are little shrines to iconic scenes and objects from the original game, with their own bespoke camera angle and a little jingle, but then they somehow manage to fail at preserving the scenes people care about most.
If you're reading this, we have both probably been passionate about this game and franchise for a huge chunk (if not the majority) of our lives on this dumb planet, and seeing someone botch something we’ve managed to hold precious for so long can be very painful to watch.
But there’s also a lot to legitimately like about this game that using that lens will obfuscate. And I’m generally of the mind that we should try to scavenge for whatever joy we can find, wherever and whenever we can, because the world fucking sucks in general. And besides, it’s not like we haven’t had to endure other SH games over the years that ran the gamut from “aggressively mid” to “well at least it’s funny in a bad b-movie kinda way.” I think the best way to enjoy this game is to go in with the assumption that basically everything you care deeply about is going to be butchered in some way, so that you won't be hyper-focusing on those mistakes when the game actually manages to do something good. By all means jeer and throw popcorn at the screen whenever they mess something up—that's a lot of fun too!—but don't let the bad completely shadow the good, especially if it's only bumming you out.
To be clear: I'm not arguing that anyone should buy the game. Other people already have, and their playthroughs are free to watch.
The game is overly long, which leads to some pacing problems. They fill up some of the extra space with places and story beats that feel on point, but a lot of it is filler with only the faintest, somewhat-sour Silent Hill flavor. They do some interesting new things with the combat and enemy AI, but that also gets old quickly because combat is more mandatory, more frequent, and there's only like 3 different enemies in total.
The characters are all different enough that I think comparing them to the originals is just going to make everyone sad. I do not love most of the new takes on the characters. But I also do not hate most of them. At times, they’re even surprisingly good.
I like the new James most of the time. He's different, sure, but he feels more like a pathetic worm man hiding behind a facade that he's only barely able to maintain. His voice cracks with exertion and desperation as he kicks downed enemies, and after he hears a spooky noise he asks a wavering, "hello?" There are times where his facial acting is incredibly well done and there are times where he basically doesn't react at all, like his "k bye" exit from Angela's final scene that's worse than if they'd just teleported you to the next room with no transition.
The first two Eddie encounters made me roll my eyes, because he feels like a caricature of the original. They made him look and act a lot grosser in the remake, like they imported the original into a character creator and pushed all the middle sliders to one extreme or another. But despite nothing about his design or initial characterization saying “this was made by someone who appreciates subtlety and nuance” he still managed to have some legitimately subtle and nuanced character moments that are their own thing, separate from the original version. When James asks him, "You're gonna go out there alone?" and he gives that slight smile and a distant, barely audible "yeh"? That's good shit.
I think my hottest take is that the new Angela is Good, Actually. I love the original Angela. I think she was perfect. This is not her. Trying to draw any comparisons between the two is a shortcut to feeling depressed and disappointed. There are several interactions with her that actually hewed too close to the original version, which didn’t work *specifically* due to these changes. And her finale is nowhere near as good. Despite all that, I like the new take. She stands on her own as a different (but obviously similar) character. I like her new VA, I like her new scenes, and the new Abstract Daddy boss fight is, I think, the absolute highest point the remake manages to hit.
Maria is the one character where I legitimately don’t understand what they were going for. Even putting the original aside and letting the new Maria be her own thing… what… *is* that thing, exactly? To start, she’s barely in the game at all—she's absent during many of the scenes she was present for in the original. When she does interact with James, she’s so inconsistent that I can’t get a sense of what they intended her character to be. Hot, cold, charming, socially awkward—in any case it definitely doesn’t seem like they intended her to be “the Mary James fantasized about,” so then… what *is* she? James and new Maria’s overall vibe is “people who only barely tolerate each other because they have a shared friend group." In fact, one of the better interactions between Maria and James is the lead ring scene, where instead of being flirtatious, James dejectedly accepts the ring with a flat, “Oh… thanks...” like she just spat in his hand. So ok fine, they don't like each other this time around. But in the finale she still claims to be able to provide James with everything Mary couldn't, which... no? I don't get what she's attempting to provide, but whatever it is, James certainly doesn't seem into it.
Overall, the environments and music were amazing and on-point, but there were also times where neither was true. The non-otherworld hospital in particular struck me as generic to the point where I’d believe it was made from asset store prefabs. And the newer version of Promise (Reprise) that plays after the video tape is… weirdly up-tempo? Like, to the point where it undermines the tone of the scene (don't worry, it wasn't great anyway).
Look: being a SH fan has been tough for *multiple decades* now. And I have no love for Bloober Team. They most certainly did not stick the landing here, and even if they did, I would be reluctant to give them credit for it.
I understand feeling passionate about the original. *I* feel passionate about the original. I understand how someone could experience this remake while hating every second of it. I believe I understand how Bobvids feels too, because he’s objectively correct: The remake does not treat any of your most precious memories with care.
And that’s why I wanted to write this. Because it’s very easy to view this game through a lens where it sucks shit, is disappointing, ruins your enjoyment of the original, and spells doom for the future. This game provides a scenic vista full of eye-catching trash fires where all the famous landmarks should be. But if you choose to look elsewhere, away from all the hot garbage, there’s a lot to see that’s perfectly fine or even beautiful. And it makes me sad to imagine all that going ignored because the trash fires burn too brightly.
And also: trash fires can be fun too, right? When they're not bumming you out, at least. Given the choice between "mid" and "trash fire," I'd choose the latter every time.
Silent Hill 2 came out in 2001. Since then we’ve had SH3 in 2003, SH4 in 2004, Origins in 2007, Homecoming in 2008, Shattered Memories in 2009, Downpour in 2012, PT in 2014, and, most recently, Short Message and Ascension.
We have been scrounging for food and sustaining ourselves on dumpster crumbs for a very, very long time. So let’s not throw away this opportunity to eat a bite or two just because the chef is a piece of shit and the food is partially spoiled: A lot of what’s on offer is perfectly edible. It’s not the best food, no, but we're already used to picking through garbage for a few savory morsels. And within that context, SH2R is a smorgasbord for anyone willing to eat around the moldy bits.
I recommend we eat what we can, while we can, because we're not likely to get a better meal any time soon.
so one thing I ran into when making this (along with all my other posts that use a static vignette effect) is that it's really difficult to determine exactly how low-contrast details are going to show up on anyone's screen, given that different social media sites tend to use their own compression, that different screens handle black and near-black values differently, and that there's no way to control for the viewer's ambient lighting.
what I was going for: a spooky face that was, at worst, obvious but subtle and, at best, wasn't immediately obvious, but still visible on most screens if you examine the dark doorway for few seconds.
the ideal degree of perceptibility for a spooky face.
to my eyes and on the screens I looked at, a 10% opacity spooky face seemed like the best bet on the most screens and sources. but I only tested on a handful of different screens and they definitely ran the gamut from "too obvious" to "actually invisible."
the future of spooky face art seems uncertain, given such modern trials and tribulations.
also, the gif as it exists here on tumblr looks super different (to my eyes, at least) compared to how it looks on mastodon, let alone other social media sites.
here's a few different takes (alt text describes differences). I think it's interesting how different they look despite such small changes. (also, here's the same pics on imgur, where everything looks very slightly different)
some context: this is a notable work of surrealist art in the world of my game. it's often singled out by detractors as evidence that the current surrealist art/political movement is just meaningless gibberish.
part of the art's meaning hinges on "moon stories," which is an old fortune-telling technique from the artist's (and not their critics') culture. the planet has three moons that are visible each night and have one of three states: full, partial, and dark (these states have nothing to do with shadows, like our own moon's phases, so any moon can be in any of the three states on any given night). full moons have positive connotations, partial moons represent change/ambiguity, dark moons have negative connotations. by "reading" the moons’ states, from left to right, you’ll get a short narrative—that’s the moon story. for example, a moon story tragedy would be like, partial > full > dark, to represent things starting out in flux, changing for the better, then suddenly changing for the worse at the very end.
so. as the central figure witnesses the forks changing as they get further and further away, their eyes represent them seeing full > partial > dark, which is meant to be interpreted as order dissolving into chaos. but the moons above them, both real and representational, are all partial: their moon story is constant, consistent change, with no beginning or end.
gummygunk
vaporwave
theartofmadeline
