In celebration of Silent Hill 2 Enhanced edition releasing it's final update, I thought I should re upload some of my older Silent Hill 2 fanarts, which I which I drew close to my first time playing the game back in 2014.
With Silent Hill 2's remake coming out in just a little while (or is already out for those that pre-ordered the digital version), I decided to do a quick replay of the first four games. I would have done the others, but unfortunately, didn't have the time.
I plan to do a second marathon to replay the post-four games, but for now, settled on the originals as I feel they're the most relevant to this.
I've been a fan of this series since there were only three games. (Not counting the SH1 mobile game.) I used to replay games 1-4 back-to-back all the time years ago, but have not done that since the early 2000s. Getting a chance to return to this series after so long in preparation for SH2R was definitely something, though my opinions from then to now have definitely changed.
Back then, Silent Hill could do no wrong in my eyes, but now I can certainly see these games were not perfect like I once believed. Even so, they're still great and by no means bad, even if I may be looking at them with a more critical eye now.
Below is some screenshots of my results after completing the games, coupled with a review for each game, and some little notes at the end of each review.
Silent Hill
(finished on 09/22/2024)
It's such a crying shame how overlooked this game is. I get that it's old, and suffers from some jank, but it's truly a masterpiece of a game. It feels like a huge love letter from the Japanese to American 70s/80s horror, and in my humble opinion still holds up as a fantastic game.
It does have issues. Being of the PSX era, it has that lovely old skool jank that I mentioned, though I'd say it controls reasonably well in spite of it. There's also its issue of being far too vague at times, especially in that the game will never give any indication to go to Annie's Bar in order to save Kaufmann. The only way you'd might find it blind is if you don't mind exploring around a town crawling with monsters and happen upon it by chance, something most players don't tend to do and end up with an unsatisfying ending.
Regardless, this is still one of my favorite games of all time, and in my Top 3 Silent Hill games (probably in first place at that). I love the story, atmosphere, music, puzzles. I love how much you can explore the town. I love Harry Mason, Lisa, and seeing what happens to poor Alessa at the end still tugs at my heartstrings.
There's just no other game like it. Not even the other games come close to its unique vibes. (The closest maybe being Downpour.)
For that, despite it's issues, I continue to rate it as the best SH game in the series.
Few notes:
*Hard mode is brutal. I remember it being tough and how much it loved spamming grey children and other enemies, but I forgot just how merciless it could be. SH3's hard mode is still the hardest for me, though. (Homecoming as well, but that's mainly because of its poor combat.)
*Did you know that by examining the teachers' list before you leave the school, Harry will mark down the location of K. Gordon's house, and later, examining the payphones after the hospital level will have him mark down the Green Lion's address? Not totally necessary to do, but I thought it was a neat little feature I hadn't noticed before.
*Learned this from Silent Hill Fact Hub. Apparently Harry was going to have a hidden dark side in this game. The more he traversed on, the more he was going to start to enjoy killing the monsters. Seems this concept got used in SH3 instead (though it might've been referenced in SH3 with it mentioning how Harry initially felt about raising Heather).
Silent Hill 2 + Born From a Wish
(both finished on 09/27/2024)
Ah, Silent Hill 2. The fandom darling. The "best game in the series", or "best horror game of all time". The "best of the best of the best of the best". I've heard it all before by now, and while I do love SH2, and can see why so many people love it, I do not share the sentiment so many seem to have towards it.
Is it a good game? Absolutely. Does it handle its topics well? For the most part, yes. But having cleared it as many times, along with the other games, in the past as much as I have, I can say with confidence it's not this perfect game so many believe it to be.
For one, it plays like ass. I have no idea how they somehow managed to make the controls of the sequel worse than the first game. James is painfully slow, and doesn't even have the benefit Harry had of being able to instantly reload his gun by re-aiming. (I'm sure SH2's fans would send me a 2,000 page essay of the meaning behind this, but I can assure you I've no interest.)
I also did the so-called impossible and played it on Hard Mode. I remember when I played it as a kid on Hard Mode that I found it to be just a slightly more challenging Normal Mode, so imagine how perplexed I was when everyone nowadays kept saying that Hard Mode is "literally unplayable". Having gotten to play it again after so many years, it did catch me off guard in some spots, but it's definitely not "impossible". Challenging? At times, yes. Tedious? Oh, definitely. Impossible? Not at all. In fact, once you get passed the more challenging parts, it's most of the time a cakewalk.
As for the story and themes, I do like and enjoy it very much. However now, and even back then, I simply just don't care about James. Never really did, honestly. I don't know why, but he just never clicked with me. I find all the other characters much more interesting, personally (especially Maria), but James? Nada. And it's not because I don't relate to him. In fact, I kinda went through something similar to what he did to some extent. Even so, he simply does nothing for me.
I may be making it sound like I dislike this game. I don't. As always with this series, the music is good, the visuals, level design, psychological horror, all of it's great. But I just don't share in giving it the endless praise it gets. For me, it's just a "good game" in the series. That's all.
Even if it's not my favorite, or in my Top 3, it's still a solid experience.
Looking forward to the Remake. Perhaps it may change my mind on a few things.
By the way, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbxW7QqwpHQ
It compares the English localization to the original Japanese script. Got some interesting things in it.
Silent Hill 3
(finished on 09/30/2024)
(Went with Easy Mode this time in order to speed things up, and also to take in as much of the environments as I could without interruption.)
If it's not SH2 getting all the praise, then it's this game, and just as well it does. This game has so much good to offer and shows how much the series has come a long way. It's easily the best-looking game in the franchise, it controls very well, and has a lot of weapon variety. The creature design is fantastic, and the puzzles are real brain-twisters (though the Shakespeare one on Hard Riddle Difficulty is absurd because it assumes everyone has read all of Shakespeare, and gives no clues or hints about the books to help out those who haven't, but hey, it sounds awesome being read out loud by McGlynn in "Walk On Vanity Ruins").
I'm especially in love with the level design. It's dark and unnerving, with strange noises happening wherever you go, making you afraid there might be some horrifying monster waiting for you around the corner, or somewhere in the dark abyss below. It's truly brilliant in its sound design, and its atmosphere.
And Heather? Easily one of the best female protagonists in horror game history. She's spunky, sassy, takes no crap, yet she can get frightened and put off by the terrors around her, and vulnerable when confronted with tender memories from her past. She also has a kind and protective side towards people who manage to win her trust, as shown with Douglas towards the end.
Not only that, she rejects the role being forced on her. Any other piece of media I've seen, when a woman is being forcefully turned into a mother for some wicked agenda, they often accept this role, despite their bodies being violated and their agency removed, all because this is the traditional role that is expected of women.
Not Heather, though. She spits right on that concept and ejects that evil god baby from her body and happily kills the monstrosity it is. It's refreshing, and Heather was far ahead of her time. To think there was a time I didn't like her because I thought she was too bratty, but when I thought of her situation, she kind of has every reason to distrust and lash out at all out around her. (Except her daddy, of course. Bless you, Harry.)
She's extraordinarily well-written that it makes me sad to say that I no longer like the story of her game.
I really don't know what happened, but I find I don't love it nearly as much as I did years ago. The level design is wonderful, the atmosphere is fantastic, it's the best looking game of the series, and does everything else right. Heather is still one of the best protagonists in the series. And yet…I find I now greatly dislike the story, or at least the execution of it.
I'm fine with the idea of returning to SH1's story, but I no longer enjoy how they went about it. The dialogue has aged so badly, with the one-liners and all the talk of "being on X's side" becoming eye-rolling and ruining the mood. I get it, Heather's a teenager, but it just started to grate on me, plus she's not the only one saying such terrible lines. It was getting so cringe-inducing that I was close to considering skipping the cutscenes just to get back to the eerie atmospheric gameplay.
The second half of the game is where it really loses me. I'm sorry, but reusing SH2's map was a huge mistake. I know they likely had to do it to save on budget, but it doesn't stop it from being such a huge clash to this game's story. Though I did like the hospital level—and even though I "enjoyed" the Stanley subplot—it really shouldn't have been Brookhaven. It has nothing to do with Heather's story, and it ultimately ended up being a waste because the thing you get from it turns out to be useless.
And since they didn't update the outside of SH2's map, Heather looks so out of place on it, with hers and the monsters' polished models clashing badly with SH2's graphics that it's easy to see that the reason why the fog is so heavy in this game is to hide how awful it looks.
And then the levels that follow just feel like member berries from the first game. Why would Claudia set up the church so close to the Amusement Park? I could see that maybe it's because that's where her and Alessa used to escape to in order to have some fun, but that's never hinted at. It's also just kinda weird that Heather battles Alessa on the carousel when that was actually where you fought Cybil in SH1. It was likely to reference that, but thematically, it feels a little off.
The main villain, Claudia, also just irritates me. I understand the hardship of her backstory, but she will never get any pity from me, and the game trying to make me feel sorry for her in the end fell utterly flat. I just can't believe this woman ever really cared about Alessa with how much she looks delighted in seeing Heather in pain without even a hint that she doesn't enjoy watching this. If they wanted to make it seem like she feels mixed about doing these horrible things to her beloved friend, then they should have shown it more, but they spend so much time making her pseudo-Dahlia, her expressing remorse last minute came off as an afterthought.
I really think making it that Alessa had a childhood friend (that was never mentioned or hinted at in the first game) was also a mistake. It feels really tacked on to me, and when you think about it, makes almost no sense at all.
There's also just how much this game loves to over explain itself. If SH1 should be criticized for being too vague, this one should be criticized for explaining too much. It spells everything out, almost to a fault. The thing that makes Silent Hill so good is the mystery, the subtlety. Things get explained, but enough is left open to figure the rest out on your own. Not with this game, however.
And the monsters, while great in design, have little to no meaning behind them. Ito-san even admitted that creatures like the Numb Bodies were just monsters he thought up with no real meaning behind them, and apparently that's the case with most of the others as well. Very unfortunate to learn.
I used to really love this story and never thought to question it back in the day, but now, I can see so many flaws with it. It saddens me, but that's how it is now, unfortunately.
That being said, I do still enjoy playing this game. It's in no way bad or terrible. It's a great game to play, but I simply no longer like the story. If/when I do replay it, I might just skip most of the cutscenes and play the game only for its design.
Though, I find it funny that the post-four games get criticized for a lot of the things this game gets praised for.
Few notes:
*Though I don't care for the main story, there's a lot of the background stuff that I would have been more interested in. Like the case involving Harry having to kill a cult member to save Heather, or the implication Douglas might've shot and killed his own son. It's a shame the game doesn't put more focus on things like that.
*There's whisperings that this game wasn't originally going to be tied to the first game and was going to be its own story. If that were true, it would explain a lot of the bizarre pacing issues, and lack of a focused direction, because I can't help getting the feeling as I played, this really wasn't the way they wanted to take the story.
Silent Hill 4: The Room
(finished on 10/04/2024)
(Again, picked Easy Mode in order to speed things up, as well as get a chance to examine and take in as much as possible.)
Poor SH4. This game has had a negative reputation since release and continues to carry one to this day. Considered the "worst of the original four", and for good reasons, I'll admit. This game really changed or got rid of a lot of what its predecessors set up. Gone is the flashlight, fog, radio ('cept the one in Henry's room). The graphics are also a major step down from SH3, and the monster design perhaps isn't the greatest.
There's also only two bosses, one of which barely counts, and your inventory is now limited, taking a page from Bio/RE it seems.
And of course, there's Henry. The so-called "blandest protagonist ever with no personality."
There are many issues with this game. Some of which I agree with, some that I've noticed that others have not, and some that I highly disagree with. This game certainly does carry many, many flaws. There's the ghosts, which were a great concept, but badly executed, as they make exploration a pain in the ass. The combat is very strange, and it's amusing to see a health bar along with a charge meter on screen in a Silent Hill game, and not in a good way.
The hauntings later, while creepy, become redundant once they start repeating themselves. There's also Eileen. I went for the "Eileen's Death" ending because I typically go for either the perfect ending, or the bad ending, so I decided this time, I would pick one of the "slightly good endings". The other reason is I wanted her to read all of Walter's diaries in their entirety to get as much of a refresher as I could.
Eileen herself is not terrible. She can be really helpful in fighting off monsters, but when you need her to step aside, (such as in the "One Truth" battle), she can be an absolute pain. It's good that you can leave her in safe places for a while, so there's that. Overall, she's not the worst escort, but I can get it if sometimes you get dealt a bad hand with her.
Though, I have no idea why they bothered with having candles recover her sanity when the effects only last a few minutes before she becomes possessed again. It makes using any candle on her useless, and pretty much tells you you're screwed if you let her take too much damage. Bad call there, I'd say.
That's just scratching the surface of the problems with this game. There's more where that came from that to mention them all, including some other problems I noticed, would take far too much time. In a lot of ways, it feels extremely unfinished.
And yet, in spite of that, I friggen love this game.
Yes, it's true. Eversince I first played it upon release, I loved it even then. I was probably one of the few that defended it back in the day, and still defend it now. I can't fully explain it, but there's just something about this game that makes me love it and enjoy it every time I play it again.
If I were to consider why, I would say it's because of how subtle the horror is. On the surface, it doesn't seem to offer much, but when you think about it, it's really incredibly disturbing. All the horror is happening so close to home, to a man who was just minding his own business and had done nothing to deserve it except attract the eyes of an occultist serial murderer that decided to choose him for his ritual.
It's extremely creepy, and almost realistic how something like that can happen in real life. Someone just somehow caught a creepy stalker's eyes, and never even knew nor intended it. To think Walter was secretly watching and spying on Henry for two years before he would enact his plan with him… That, along with the terrible things he would do like sealing him up in his own home and make him witness terrible things again and again, is just pure fridge horror right there.
It's slow, subtle, and feels like it's nonexistent, but it is definitely there, and it can creep on you without realizing it. The environments don't have a lot to offer, either, but that's because they don't need to. Just the fact these places exist and what they were for are enough. For example, Wish House. Just an orphanage, right? Except they were indoctrinating orphans, there's a trap right outside, a woman was murdered here, and there's rules about never leaving or else "the master will be sad".
The cylindrical prison… What needs to be said? Especially with what it was based on. The crap that happened here is more than enough.
It's really interesting how they built up the horror in the background without being so in-your-face about it that it's really quite clever, and it's so good.
And Henry himself.
I really don't care whatever negative remarks people make about him being "bland" or "having no personality". He's my favorite protagonist of the whole series, hands down. Each time I play, I find myself not only loving his game more and more, but Henry as well. I loved him as a kid, and now that I'm much older, I relate to him more as an adult.
The thing about him is that he does have personality, and he does react to the things around him. You just simply have to pay attention. Through taking the time to examine the things in his room after each level, as well as examining objects around the levels themselves, you learn a fair amount about him, and get a general idea of what he's like. I know most players won't care to do that, and that's how so many come away not realizing there's more than meets the eye.
Henry is very kind, helping people to the best of his ability, and getting frustrated when he fails, crushing him down to being desperate to save someone. He doesn't make a show of it, but just by watching his face, taking notice of his expressions and body language, you can see he's not as "bland" as people say. His face will drop into horror seeing something frightening. He will slump in distress when he can't save someone. He'll even roll his eyes/shake his head at Jasper when he's going off on his rant in one cutscene. Or get nervous and put off by Cynthia's advances.
There's so much there, and while I admit, he may not be as developed as the other protags that came before or after him, he's definitely misunderstood and it's so unfortunate to see many dismiss him.
With that all said, I do think more should have been done with him. If SH4 ever receives a remake, I'd want them to give him a bit more to work with, but please don't change him too much.
So, despite the issues that this game has, I can't hate it. There's stuff to dislike, but there's also enough to enjoy. I really believe if this game had gotten the time and budget the others got, it would have easily been a masterpiece, but despite the "beta-feeling" it has, it's amazing what they were able to pull off.
There's more I could say, both in praise and in criticism of this game, but I feel I've said enough. Simply put, despite its flaws, it's my second favorite game in the series. The surreal, subtle horror it manages to accomplish despite all the issues is amazing. And what can I say? It has my fav protag.
Again though, if this game gets a remake, I'd hope they address the flaws, flesh things out with the worlds and monsters more, among other things. (And let me get to explore Wish House, darnit.)
Few notes:
*This playthrough went a little longer because my friend and I decided to document as much of Henry's comments as possible. After it's cleaned up, I intend to post it.
*At the beginning of the game, you're playing as Joseph. No matter what you examine, his first few comments will always be the lines he wrote in a memo prior to his death. After you've exhausted all five of those lines, he'll start commenting on the objects you examine themselves.
*Did you know that when Walter starts chasing you in the second half of the game, he won't shoot Henry as long as he stays still? He'll still run up and try to melee him, but anytime you see/hear him go for his gun, stopping and then staying still will make him not shoot for some reason. (Naturally, this trick no longer works upon the Apartment World revisit, or the boss fight with him.)
Found this out a very long time ago, and I see no one else ever mention it, so thought I would. Plan to post a video showing it when I get the chance.
*In the second half of the game, if you wait long enough in your apartment, someone will start knocking on your door. (Though, no one will be outside…)
*In the very last stage of the game, (Apartment World Revisit), all the residents you see on the opposite side will be gone…
*I didn't get to mention it, but Walter is one of the most creepy, inventively interesting villains ever. I'd put him over Pyramid Head even.
*Check out this really neat SH4 fan film/series pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S81SL5Od8Q
Apparently, this is the director's pitch to Konami for a 10-episode series for SH4. I know it's unlikely, but it'd be neat if it happened. (Brian Dole, the guy picked to play Henry, seems to be a great choice looks-wise.)
