I am doing something voluntarily today, and nobody dies if I don’t do it, nobody fails, nothing explodes, but I woke up at 4:30 am with anxiety like I’m taking a final exam. I don’t have a problem running my mouth ever, but I’m afraid I’ll forget something important because long covid turned my memory to Swiss cheese—but nobody actually NEEDS me to remember everything, they just want me to show up and have fun. I am doing this because I want to. My vagus nerve thinks I am being kicked out of grad school.
The Big Silent Hill 2 Retro, Ian-Style - Part 1 | Cleo and Ian Catch Up 001
IT’S HERE!
As part of our Silent Hill 2 commentaries, @cleolinda and I wanted to do a podcast-style discussion of our playthroughs. Cleo’s still in the midst of her playthrough, but I finished mine up in October, so we recorded a retrospective on that experience that was meant to last about an hour, hour fifteen. It lasted three hours. For your convenience, it has been split into 3 episodes that we’ll be releasing over the next few Saturdays.
Part 1 releases TODAY, and it covers my history with the franchise, some of the stuff that’s currently going on in the Silent Hill universe (or still to come), and a lot of general thoughts on the success of the Silent Hill 2 remake. Next week we’ll be digging into more of the specifics with the game itself and my playthrough. We hope you enjoy!
Silent Hill 2 remake gameplay/commentary (New Game+)
Ninth video: Otherworld Brookhaven. At midnight. In the dark.
The ninth writeup is months behind due to a house fire we had, so I'm going ahead and posting just the video here. One box, two photos, three locks, a mannequin feud, a radio quiz, a symbolic marriage ceremony, and a presentiment of doom. I want it to be noted that I don't try to do multiple takes for videos; sometimes, it just ends up happening that way, so we have fun with it.
Full list of videos:
First video: Opening scene to jukebox puzzle reveal
00:00: Opening chat & cutscene. James walks out of the observation deck bathroom and I walk him right back in. Religious graffiti ensues. Twenty-four minutes in, we are still not out of the parking lot.
24:25: We get to the cemetery, meet Angela, pick up New Game+ items, and squint at a church door.
43:26: First combat, time loop theory, and Orpheus & Eurydice.
1:20:34: Out on the town. NG+ clues for getting other endings, highly symbolic scissors, James' amnesia, the sun mural & the Lady of the Light, lots to explore. Afterwards: corrections & additions.
Sidebar: The secret Goya painting in SH2R
Second video: South Vale, jukebox puzzle, ending at Wood Side
00:00: Strange Photos, Time Loop Theory, and combat at the Happy Burger
30:50: Baby theory (confirmed), Grand Market, "The door that wakes in darkness opening into nightmares," and Your New Best Friend
51:10: The Pet Center, the alien gem, and all the records I found at Groovy Music. "If I have missed something, I will shit kittens"
Sidebar: The records at Groovy Music
1:07:40: A Time Loop James (maybe?) tries to help us; the travel agency, (Thomas) Harris Street, and Saul Street Apartments
1:38:00: "IT’S. FINE. I am not deeply upset about this at all. I’M. FINE"; repairing the jukebox, James' memory, the secret in-joke of "Anam Cara," an area I STILL hold a grudge about, and a flawless run to Wood Side
Sidebar: "Magdalene" and "Anam Cara"
Third video: Wood Side Apartments, three coins puzzle, ending in the Otherworld
00:00: My Favorite Monster, mannequin moves, lots of Mary symbolism, and the coin puzzle unveiled.
36:45: James' feud with a grade schooler, decorative storytelling, our first encounter with Pyramid Head, and the scariest scene in the whole game.
1:14:30: Wrangling the party balloon achievement and getting out of "a prison of your own making"; "What is going on in this building! What is happening!"
1:46:56: Eddie's introduction; a swimming pool full of lying figures and an apartment full of mannequins; "IF WE'RE DYING IT'S AT LEAST GONNA BE SOMEWHERE RESPECTABLE!"; canned juice.
2:26:30: Three Bright Coins in the Five Holes Be; Apartment 107: Laura and Mary; Apartment 201: Mary and James; Pyramid Head and Blue Velvet; we cross over to the Otherworld.
Extra video: Corrections, additions, and Apartment 213
Fourth video: Blue Creek, the Otherworld, the clock puzzle, Angela, and a Pyramid Head rematch
00:00: Crossing over to the Otherworld (again); the clock puzzle, Remains of the Judgment, Stephen King easter eggs, and The New Damnation.
Sidebar: Misty day, remains of the Judgment
31:00: "Anam Cara" returns with extra reverb; the radio puzzle, hallway chaos, the bird seesaw, and the Worst Toilet.
1:20:26: Mirrors, knives, "Promise (Reprise)," and camera angles; Angela has been through A Lot.
1:43:20: "Vers la flamme," moth math, green goo, the big Pyramid Head rematch with predictable betrayals; "TRACK AND FIELD LET'S GO!"
Extra video: The best I ever did it: Pyramid Head in less than two minutes
Sidebar: Mary's Silent Hill?
Fifth video: Rosewater Park, "Born from a Wish," and Heaven's Night
00:00: James gets roasted by an eight-year-old who knows too much; Special Places, statues with stories, hidden music, and MARIA.
Sidebars: Important features of Rosewater Park; The statue of Jennifer Carroll
1:02:33: Nathan Avenue: a Dead James with a safe code, bowling alley easter eggs, the jack handle you pay for, and the Southern Star.
Sidebars: Why Maria used to hate bowling
1:41:30: No-tell motel secrets; Baldwin Mansion and "Born from a Wish"; White Chrism and the secret dog key; a brand-new weapon and chaos in the backyards of Silent Hill.
Sidebars: "Born from a Wish" (2001); "We found it near Katz"
2:24:50: Maria takes us… somewhere; a lost wedding ring, the devil’s chord, and the whiskey of the lotus-eaters.
Sidebars: Backstage at Heaven's Night; James' masculine ideal; and more
Sixth video: Back to the hidden garage, Moonlight Grove, the Reverie Theater, and an hour in Brookhaven Hospital
00:00: Garage secrets (no, new ones), hair corrections, revisiting the Devil's Chord, and leaving Heaven's Night.
Sidebars: New secrets; The Brookhaven Hospital article; Rare alternate dialogue
26:20: Moonlight Grove: That's It, A Garden; The Shadows of the Lover's Tree and the Lady of the Light; the hopes and dreams of the new Maria.
Sidebar: Strange Photo: "Church entrance" solved
48:15: The Reverie Theater: An easter egg festival, Eddie and Laura, crimes against ice cream, the Best Flavor, and a spoiler in plain sight.
Sidebars: Movie posters at the Reverie Theater; Eddie's coldness; "Promise Roger your strawberry kisses"; What James can't remember
1:30:30: Brookhaven Hospital: Nurses, doctors, trees; the Jungian psyche; an enigmatic window; MARIA, GET OUT OF THE WAY
Sidebars: Outtakes (SPOILERS): "I need you to like James"; Worthlessness, comma; Great Moments in Monsters
Seventh video: Honestly just so much Brookhaven Hospital. "There's so much game in this game."
00:00: Everything you never wanted to know about bubblehead nurses while I get my ass kicked; the three crucial patients, the Director, and the secrets of his office.
Sidebars: Master post: the characters of Brookhaven Hospital; The Jacob's Ladder head shake; How old is James?; The Isle of the Dead
39:37: Louise four ever, another hidden Goya, a firearm upgrade, James' masculine ideal, Her Drawings, and Patient 0050 in water behind the Eye; "Ma'am, you're doing this wrong!"
Sidebars: Strange Photo: "Her Drawings"
1:26:45: I wander around ransacking poor Patient 0130's bedsheet tents; I'm sure climbing down between the walls will turn out fine; the Director is on my shit list; a quick chat with Maria.
Sidebar: Patient 0130, symbolizing Angela
1:55:00: Laura eludes James once again; Patients 0050 and 0090 are not having great days; moldy x-rays and MORE GOYAS; I try to compliment the hospital staff while they're whacking me with a pipe; fighting our way through the garden to drain the pool to get to the Eye; my head skeleton is too tired to combine basic items.
Sidebars: Patient 0050, symbolizing James; Patient 0090, symbolizing Eddie; Why I cannot be normal about Goya paintings in Silent Hill 2
Eighth video: Four Goyas, Three Patients, and a Flesh Lip
00:00: Let's talk about the Brookhaven Patients posts on @behind-the-null-moon and why James would see a blood specialist's certification in a mental hospital; GOYAS!!, anxiety, anger management, and what "Araxium" actually is.
Sidebars: Why would a blood specialist be at Brookhaven?; Ataraxics in control
38:29: The story of the clipboard; serious discussion of mental health and hospital horror; LOOK AT THE BIRD'S TAIL! LOOK AT IT!!
Sidebars: Commentary 8: A mental health aside; Strange Photo: "Her Drawings"
1:10:35: What happened to Patient 0090 (sensitive content); Other Games, All the Puzzles, Most of the Foreshadowing, and Black Moon Lilith.
Sidebar: The secret of Maria's bracelet
1:49:50: Hey, let's go check on Maria before we go to the rooftop! I'm sure she's doing fine! Although we also have a busy schedule of diary-reading (sensitive content), floor-falling, and Lip-fighting.
Sidebars: "I'M REELING. SHE'S GONE"; "A Page from a Diary": Mary?
Ninth video (upcoming): Otherworld Brookhaven. At midnight. In the dark.
One box, two photos, three locks, a mannequin feud, a radio quiz, a symbolic marriage ceremony, and a presentiment of doom.
SILENT HILL 2 UPDATE: I have restarted on New Game+ to do the full commentary, and… honestly I just played the first couple of hours “unofficially” yesterday to time how long it takes to get to Woodside Apartments so I’d know what I’m covering in the first installment. Do not ever doubt my love for this game, y’all, because I’d already played that part like 4-5 times just to learn how to gamer. I’m sure people very reasonably thought I might not even be able to finish SH2—not that you doubted me as a person, but it IS a lot to bite off for a first-timer. But I was like, y’all, I have watched streamers play this all the way through like 10-12 times. I know exactly what I’m getting into, I know exactly how long it takes for normal people who aren’t me, and if I’m not sick of it already, then I’m not giving up now.
I’m actually kind of excited to replay it as someone who can… uh, play? Like I’m no longer fighting for my life 24/7 against unfortunately-placed doors. James and I just went around exploring every square foot of Eastern South Vale looking for things to talk about. Just livin’. And I’m glad we did, because I immediately fucked up and locked myself out of the second Glimpse of the Past, and I missed picking up two notes and a Strange Photo. So I can make sure I get those when I do the full recording.
NG+ also means I can show y’all where all the newly-appearing extra items for endings 4-6 are, like the UFO-summoning amulet (there is a UFO-summoning amulet).
I will say, I SWEAR monsters resurrect constantly on NG+, it CANNOT just be me. I killed 393 monsters before and I got seven left to find, motherfuckers. Come get it.
What I really came here to say, though, is that… I’m having some weird, complex set of emotions about taking this character through a thirty-hour journey of confronting himself and taking accountability for his wrongs and then… putting him all the way back at the beginning and making him endure everything all over again. I subscribe to time loop theory in the game anyway, so it’s just… really something. I’m the one looping time. It’s my fault. That, and the eleven times I got him killed by Pyramid Head.
Episode 13 of Staying on Theme, and my longest yet: An examination of “After Daddy,” the music that plays in one of Angela’s biggest scenes in the Silent Hill 2 remake. MAJOR SPOILERS in this video. Also a content warning for references to domestic violence, emotional abuse, sexual assault, and child abuse.
This has been my favorite new piece of music in the remake since the first time I played it, both for how it encapsulates so much of what I love about Akira Yamaoka’s score--beautiful piano, disquieting ambiance, and ear-grabbing electronic elements--and for the way it demonstrates how effective music, acting, writing, and direction are when they’re all supporting each other and working towards the same storytelling goals.
These videos are clipped from my full spoiler/music commentary playthrough of the Silent Hill 2 remake, which you can watch on YouTube HERE. Expect a new episode of Staying on Theme every Monday!
Achievements in my first run of Silent Hill 2, the first video game I have ever played (25/43)
All plot/story achievements
No Turning Back Now (Try to leave Silent Hill in the Observation Deck area)
You Never Know... (Try to open locked doors 50 times)
Shattered (Destroy 50 windows)
Blunt Force Trauma (Kill 75 enemies with melee weapons)
No Big Deal (Kill 75 enemies with ranged weapons)
All Seems in Order (Discover the secret of Room 106)
Leftovers (Find the pizza in Pete's Bowl-o-Rama)
It's Bread (Interact with bread) (I was being chased at the time so this was very hard-won)
I was 8 monsters short of the stomping achievement, and I didn't manage to collect all the memos (or all the Strange Photos, I don't think).
I died 13 times, because I died twice in a random corner on standard combat early on, switched to light combat, then died 11 times fighting Pyramid Head for practice. It was worth it. For the record, I always survived the first time I fought a boss; I chose to go back and practice. It's the lying figures that were my genuine downfall.
Total enemies killed: 393, and this might have been out of a possible 400 and I just ran past a few unknowingly, because I made a point of practicing my skills on Every. Single. Motherfucker.
This run start to finish lasted 29 hours, but my total time on the game, adding in areas I replayed for practice, was 48 hours. (I spent A LOT of time both exploring and getting lost, and genuinely, I walked away for a couple hours one time and forgot I'd left the game paused.) Normal people who aren't me take around 16-20. CLEARLY I NEEDED IT.
I got the "Leave" ending just from my own behavior, not trying for anything. I'll shoot for "In Water" when I do the full commentary so we can compare the two. We'll start that on New Game+. I won't use the chainsaw unless we are in a really, really dire situation.
I am not telling you how many times I opened the map.
The Big Silent Hill 2 Retro, Ian-Style - Part 2 | Cleo and Ian Catch Up 002
Part 2 of our Silent Hill 2 discussion releases TODAY! @cleolinda and I dig into my favorite musical moments from the game, how the remake provided Akira Yamaoka (and Bloober Team) with the opportunity to be so much more intentional with every detail, and an in-depth, beat-by-beat examination of the Stillness ending.
I've recorded about... three hours? on the Brookhaven Hospital/Silent Hill 2 commentary and there's still... more. I can't decide if I want to try to break this up somehow--a lot of Let's Players put out immensely long videos and you just watch at your own pace, and at least the level/location is all in one video. I'm not using the New Game+ chainsaw so this is all artisan, free-range getting lost combat. I can edit out quieter sections, but then you'll have no idea how I got from one place to another. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I got from one place to another. (I have already edited out two minutes of me having a long-covid brainfog attack.) We'll see. And that's why I do writeups, so that you can read through it faster and then maybe jump into the video at parts you're interested in. Anyway, I'm taking a break today and letting my spine rest, but I'm hoping I can turn this commentary around faster than the last two.
As a side note, a really fascinating thing is happening--I tend to play each area multiple times before moving on (mostly to look for things to research and, you know, comment on), and several times, various monsters have done totally different things than they did before. Particularly the mannequins, who are smart--they go from jumping me immediately to hiding the second time and then hiding in different places every time after. One lured me into an apartment so a second one could come in from the left, instead of both of them waiting in their hiding places like they did before. Nurses come out sooner and sooner when I expected them to wait. Sure, there are several scripted encounters, but they seem to be learning. And I know this is a thing in games--I think it's the entire premise of Alien: Isolation--but I really did not expect it on replays when I wasn't even moving forward. Point being, I know a lot that's going to happen from having played the game a lot (it's my first game! I had to learn!). But what you'd be watching--even now, things keep happening that I did not see coming.
