F is for fun!
Some early thoughts on Silent Hill f. Minor spoilers ahead!
I like Silent Hill, SH2 and SH3. I’ve also played SH4, Origins, and Shattered Memories. I don’t mind watching playthroughs of those latter games, but wouldn’t want to play them again myself.
I like the Japanese countryside. It’s a cool setting with great vibes. A horror game set in 1960s rural Japan? Guess I have to end my ten year boycott of Konami.
Things I like so far
- The setting oozes atmosphere.
- The story has me intrigued; it appears to be pretty small-scale.
- The protagonist is likeable and seems to have a fairly normal reaction to the strange shit going on around her.
- The architecture in Ebisugaoka reminds me a lot of Hanuda in Siren.
- The game encourages exploration by giving you a general direction to go in but offering a fairly big area to explore. The side paths and optional locations have items to collect and documents to read, making them rewarding.
- Jump scares aren’t totally absent, but neither are they the main source of scariness. The game understands that stillness is terrifying.
- The soundscape and music are pretty decent.
Things that are neutral
- Combat is more of a focus than I would have preferred, but it’s manageable. May be interested in trying the harder action difficulties just to see how it changes the experience.
- A bug/glitch: when descending the hill from Sakuko’s family shrine, I saw Shu waiting for me on the pathway. Approaching him started a cutscene where he reminds me that Rikako’s house is in a different direction. The cutscene started, but the Shu model waiting on the path didn’t disappear. So the custcene featured two Shus: one who was moving and talking, and another that was just staring up at the hill. It made me chuckle. Games are difficult to make bug-free. Wonder if others will encounter this particular glitch?
Things that are maybe not so great
- The PC version is poorly optimized (will maybe be fixed eventually; still unacceptable for day one performance).
- New games are expensive!
- The limited inventory is a little annoying when there is no item box to store things. Wish it wasn’t so easy to miss the backpack items as well.
- Why did it have to be called Silent Hill? The obvious answer is because the owners of Konami know that slapping that name on a game will likely make it sell well. With that said, this could have been the start of its own series. I’m not trying to gatekeep the Silent Hill “brand”. It’s great that we’re branching out and doing something different. Still, why not start something new? All media companies (film, TV, video games, etc.) have been leaning on so-called “established properties” for far too long.
- The puzzle box in the school was a little lame. The icons were difficult to decipher.
- Having the big blobby enemy respawn after spending the time and effort to defeat it felt annoying. Honestly would have been better if it was just invulnerable to all damage? Arguably the feeling of “oh, well, trying to fight them is pointless” is intentional.
- To the above point, it appears that many (not all?) enemies in the other world areas re-spawn. I guess that explains why your weapons don’t break there.
Looking forward to seeing how the rest of the game shapes up. Was worried I wouldn’t like it, but I have been digging the mood so far.
2025-09-29
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