New Silent Hill Games

[BrawlMan]

I still maintain that Shattered Memories had the right idea by removing it entirely. Just one of many reasons it's the best game in the series.

Not really. Because at that point all you have is a walking simulator with bits of running in between. Which is ironic, because Shattered Memories pretty much pre-started that trend. I know we already talked about this in the hot takes thread so we'll stop before it gets redundant.

Probably, but thats the thing. Silent Hill isn't supposed to have good combat, the clunkyness is part of being disempowered which adds to the horror. You're not supposed to be Serious Sam.

Yet Silent Hill 3 has so much better combat than the first two games. Heather's no ultimate badass, but she can more than properly defend herself. Having better combat is not an issue, because a game can still be scary. My main complaint with Homecoming wasn't that the combat was better, but that the twists don't work and that we basically just got a worse version of SH2. A trend that would continue for the foreseeable future.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Maybe, I think the ability to fight back badly can enhance the fear since it adds to the fight or flight reflex, instead of just flight. The key though is to get it just right, so its not clunky but easy or so clunky that its completely pointless. But you also want the right enemies. I think Silent Hill 1 got it really right with the enemies you fought outside, the dogs and the flying things that would be on you before you knew it. Fighting them was risky and even when you beat one, another would be by soon.

There is an interesting discussion to be had in regards to combat in survival horror games for sure. It's something that really only clicked for me when I played Signalis a few years ago. Because it's not about the combat, it's about the choice when to engage in it. Fight or Flight, yeah.

Signalis was set almost exclusively in claustrophobic indoor areas so the consideration always was "Okay, this is a corridor I have to go through a lot so maybe I should take out the enemy patrolling it rather than take a chance avoiding it whenever I come through" or "This room has a bit more space so maybe I shouldn't waste any ammo on the enemies and just try my best to stay out of their way" and that sort of thing.

Which I guess is closest to early Resident Evil, where there was actually sort of a ludonarrative harmony to that strategic gameplay style, playing a trained spec ops team and whatnot. Silent Hill 1 shook it up by introducing the town as sort of an overworld between dungeons, so where you'd take the aforementioned approach in those dungeons, in the town avoiding enemies was basically always the best option and your primary concern was to not get cornered. In some of the late game sections (the ones where the outdoor areas go into otherworld mode) it actually starts to feel quite a bit like Shattered Memories, when the amount of enemies becomes overwhelming and all you can really do is run away and hope you don't take too many hits.

Also quite telling that each subsequent game reduced the town exploration sections where 2 had somewhat less of them, 3 had almost none and 4 was just straight up a level based game.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Maybe, I think the ability to fight back badly can enhance the fear since it adds to the fight or flight reflex, instead of just flight. The key though is to get it just right, so its not clunky but easy or so clunky that its completely pointless. But you also want the right enemies. I think Silent Hill 1 got it really right with the enemies you fought outside, the dogs and the flying things that would be on you before you knew it. Fighting them was risky and even when you beat one, another would be by soon.

I think the key is to have it so you can fight back enough so the enemies give a sense of danger but not so much that you can clean out an area. I feel like REmake really nailed the balance of having enough resources to get through encounters but not enough to get through ALL of them, at least not comfortably, and the red heads added an additional danger so that even a neutralized threat could return worse so it makes avoidance when possible a logical move.

The issue with this of course, is if the game is long then you could put someone in a no win situation, so you need to either bail the balance or insert breakup points where resources are reset.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Also quite telling that each subsequent game reduced the town exploration sections where 2 had somewhat less of them, 3 had almost none and 4 was just straight up a level based game.

Silent Hill: Downpour tepidly says hello.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Silent Hill: Downpour tepidly says hello.

We don't talk about that.

 

[BrawlMan]

Silent Hill: Downpour tepidly says hello.

We don't talk about that.

Unpopular opinion, but I prefer Downpour over the fourth game. Note, that is by comparison. SH4 is way too frustrating to play.

 

[Worgen]

Yet Silent Hill 3 has so much better combat than the first two games. Heather's no ultimate badass, but she can more than properly defend herself. Having better combat is not an issue, because a game can still be scary.

If I remember right, the scares in Silent Hill 3 were much more environmental then the enemies. Like parts of that game were dripping dread and the enemies were just kinda icing. The first game was similar, but the enemies in it were scarier.

There is an interesting discussion to be had in regards to combat in survival horror games for sure. It's something that really only clicked for me when I played Signalis a few years ago. Because it's not about the combat, it's about the choice when to engage in it. Fight or Flight, yeah.

Personally I prefer when it allows a fight, but balancing that is super difficult. As I said before, you have to worry about it either being too hard to be worth it or too easy and hurting the horror.

 

[Worgen]

I think the key is to have it so you can fight back enough so the enemies give a sense of danger but not so much that you can clean out an area. I feel like REmake really nailed the balance of having enough resources to get through encounters but not enough to get through ALL of them, at least not comfortably, and the red heads added an additional danger so that even a neutralized threat could return worse so it makes avoidance when possible a logical move.

The issue with this of course, is if the game is long then you could put someone in a no win situation, so you need to either bail the balance or insert breakup points where resources are reset.

Which REmake? The first second third or fourth?

 

[BrawlMan]

If I remember right, the scares in Silent Hill 3 were much more environmental then the enemies. Like parts of that game were dripping dread and the enemies were just kinda icing. The first game was similar, but the enemies in it were scarier.

The scares a scare either way. The game did have some creepy enemies, but I don't care if they wasn't as scary or not. Some of those enemies still do creep me out.

Which REmake? The first second third or fourth?

They are referring to RE1 remake.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Unpopular opinion, but I prefer Downpour over the fourth game. Note, that is by comparison. SH4 is way too frustrating to play.

Downpour gets credit for scattering a lot more tangible story elements around the town for the player to discover, but I don’t recall much of its actual story. The combat and shooting were almost not worth bothering with. It ultimately felt like too much of a slog which is a shame because there were bright spots.

The Room was the black sheep of the first four games. There are a few really frustrating elements like the spirits, finicky room hauntings in the latter half, and the escort section being way too long and tedious. But the story, setting and atmosphere were still outstanding IMO. The were also new concepts that, while not perfect, evoked a different feeling that the series hadn’t had before. Elements involving isolation, claustrophobia, confusion, and memories are uniquely amplified as the game progresses.

It was intimidating and took me three separate tries to play through and finally finish it. It’s probably the most demanding game of the series in terms of patience and resource management (respectively with Eileen and the blades that keep ghosts pinned), but personally speaking it did wind up feeling the most satisfying to beat. Got the good ending within literally one step from losing Eileen. Certain things could’ve been tuned better but overall the game sticks out in my memory more than the previous three, and certainly whatever followed.

 

[BrawlMan]

Downpour gets credit for scattering a lot more tangible story elements around the town for the player to discover, but I don’t recall much of its actual story. The combat and shooting were almost not worth bothering with. It ultimately felt like too much of a slog which is a shame because there were bright spots.

The Room was the black sheep of the first four games. There are a few really frustrating elements like the spirits, finicky room hauntings in the latter half, and the escort section being way too long and tedious. But the story, setting and atmosphere were still outstanding IMO. The were also new concepts that, while not perfect, evoked a different feeling that the series hadn’t had before. Elements involving isolation, claustrophobia, confusion, and memories are uniquely amplified as the game progresses.

It was intimidating and took me three separate tries to and finally finish it. It’s probably the most demanding game of the series in terms of patience and resource management (particularly the blades that keep ghosts pinned), but personally speaking it did wind up feeling the most satisfying to beat. Got the good ending within literally one step from losing Eileen. Certain things could’ve been tuned better but overall the game sticks out in my memory more than the previous three, and certainly whatever followed.

You had more patience than me. What doesn't help was that The Room wasn't even going to be an SH game. You can tell, since you're barely in Silent Hill for the majority game and in a town right by it

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

You had more patience than me. What doesn't help was that The Room wasn't even going to be an SH game. You can tell, since you're barely in Silent Hill for the majority game and in a town right by it

It was apparently supposed to be a sequel but taken in a different direction. The Development section of the game’s wiki page comments on it sourcing a link to an interview with Team Silent’s composer and artist.

Spoiler

Development of the fourth Silent Hill game by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo's development group Team Silent began shortly after the release of Silent Hill 2 and alongside Silent Hill 3, with the intentions of creating a new style of game that would take the series in a different direction than the previous games. Despite what has been popularized around the Internet, Silent Hill 4 was always meant to be connected to Silent Hill and not an unrelated separate horror game that later became a Silent Hill title, although different gameplay mechanics and change were intended.

The link isn’t secure so I won’t post it but as an excerpt -

Kikizo: One of the first things I wanted to ask was about the origins of the concept for Silent Hill 4, the idea of this apartment with a tunnel to an alternate world of horrors - what inspired this idea?

Tsuboyama: We wanted to make a sequel after Silent Hill 3 and you could say that was the initial concept, but upon that we needed to implement a lot of new flavour to the sequel, otherwise it would have been the same old Silent Hill. So for that, we created "The Room" as the concept for the game, so that we could use to represent the contrast between the normal and the abnormal life which changes suddenly. For the scenario we got our general influence from a book called Coin Locker Babies, which was written by a Japanese writer called Ryu Murakami. It talks about a baby abandoned in a coin locker. That was the general background.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Unpopular opinion, but I prefer Downpour over the fourth game. Note, that is by comparison. SH4 is way too frustrating to play.

SH4 is also frustrating to think about. There's so much about it that I really appreciate. I like how surreal the story gets, the way one character tells another "the umbilical cord I keep in my nighstand has started to smell", which is a line right out of a David Lynch movie (Wait, is that why the protagonist is named Henry?), all the symbolism about motherhood and birth that honestly, I always thought was better executed than in SH3 and of course the apartment as a hub that changes everytime you return to and becomes progressively less of a safe space as the game goes on. It's just, then there's everything else. Mainly the elephant in the room that the second half of the game is just revisiting the levels of the first half, but this time as an escort quest. Which I don't think any game could pull off. But the things I like about it, I really like. You know, there's actually a really neat, short indie horror game called "Blank Frame" that takes the whole "trapped in an apartment" angle and does something pretty cool with it.

Downpour on the other hand... I don't know, I like it more than Homecoming, which strangely just took and ran with a lot of things the movie misunderstood about the games and somehow misunderstood them even harder, but it's also probably the blandest of the newer SH's. The monster designs weren't very memorable (credit where it's due, that's actually something Homecoming did pretty well), the environments weren't that memorable, it was the first one without an Akira Yamaoka soundtrack... It just kinda falls flat for me.

 

[BrawlMan]

SH4 is also frustrating to think about. There's so much about it that I really appreciate. I like how surreal the story gets, the way one character tells another "the umbilical cord I keep in my nighstand has started to smell", which is a line right out of a David Lynch movie (Wait, is that why the protagonist is named Henry?), all the symbolism about motherhood and birth that honestly, I always thought was better executed than in SH3 and of course the apartment as a hub that changes everytime you return to and becomes progressively less of a safe space as the game goes on. It's just, then there's everything else. Mainly the elephant in the room that the second half of the game is just revisiting the levels of the first half, but this time as an escort quest. Which I don't think any game could pull off. But the things I like about it, I really like. You know, there's actually a really neat, short indie horror game called "Blank Frame" that takes the whole "trapped in an apartment" angle and does something pretty cool with it.

Nah, SH3 did motherhood theme better. Not that 4's theme is bad, but it's too much frustrating to get through. The second half especially is why I can't enjoy the game. Even when you know what you're supposed to do, it can be aggravating.

Downpour on the other hand... I don't know, I like it more than Homecoming, which strangely just took and ran with a lot of things the movie misunderstood about the games and somehow misunderstood them even harder, but it's also probably the blandest of the newer SH's. The monster designs weren't very memorable (credit where it's due, that's actually something Homecoming did pretty well), the environments weren't that memorable, it was the first one without an Akira Yamaoka soundtrack... It just kinda falls flat for me.

On the opposite. I'll take Homecoming any day or Downpour. The game plays fine, the combat's good, and it's not a broken mess. The only thing I hate about Homecoming is the plot twist. That's really it.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

SH4 is also frustrating to think about. There's so much about it that I really appreciate. I like how surreal the story gets, the way one character tells another "the umbilical cord I keep in my nighstand has started to smell", which is a line right out of a David Lynch movie (Wait, is that why the protagonist is named Henry?), all the symbolism about motherhood and birth that honestly, I always thought was better executed than in SH3 and of course the apartment as a hub that changes everytime you return to and becomes progressively less of a safe space as the game goes on. It's just, then there's everything else. Mainly the elephant in the room that the second half of the game is just revisiting the levels of the first half, but this time as an escort quest. Which I don't think any game could pull off. But the things I like about it, I really like. You know, there's actually a really neat, short indie horror game called "Blank Frame" that takes the whole "trapped in an apartment" angle and does something pretty cool with it.

Downpour on the other hand... I don't know, I like it more than Homecoming, which strangely just took and ran with a lot of things the movie misunderstood about the games and somehow misunderstood them even harder, but it's also probably the blandest of the newer SH's. The monster designs weren't very memorable (credit where it's due, that's actually something Homecoming did pretty well), the environments weren't that memorable, it was the first one without an Akira Yamaoka soundtrack... It just kinda falls flat for me.

I really want to see what could be done with a remake of 4. There's so much potential for a masterpiece all the pieces there.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Regardless of people’s feelings about The Room, this is an interesting watch for the commentary -



Ha -
@MHurley21 1 year ago (edited)
Henry Townshend is by far the unluckiest Silent Hill protagonist. He's a regular dude and all he did was rent the wrong apartment.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Silent Hill: The Short Message Review - In My Restless Dreams, I Flee That Town

Silent Hill's return to consoles after 12 years away falls flat thanks to a script lacking even an ounce of subtlety.

www.gamespot.com

Jesus a 3/10!? Silent Hill is NOT back baby wow.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Silent Hill: The Short Message Review - In My Restless Dreams, I Flee That Town

Silent Hill's return to consoles after 12 years away falls flat thanks to a script lacking even an ounce of subtlety.

www.gamespot.com

Jesus a 3/10!? Silent Hill is NOT back baby wow.

Another pointless, phoned-in Konami-brand Video Game Product? Quelle surprise.

 

[Chimpzy]

Another pointless, phoned-in Konami-brand Video Game Product? Quelle surprise.

Cant wait to find out in which ways they'll fuck up the MGS3 remake

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Cant wait to find out in which ways they'll fuck up the MGS3 remake

Snake will be able to have food delivery service in the jungle for .99c per meal instead of having to hunt on his own. Convenient!