Silent Hill 2 Remake

[BrawlMan]

There is one thing I'm not such a fan of so far, and that's how much super armor the enemies appear to have. They tend to trade with James fairly often, and it's hard to predict when they will or won't attack you while you're winding up. And with how few healing items you get, engaging an enemy in melee tends to go badly very quickly, especially if multiple enemies join the party. It's probably intentional to some extent that fighting enemies up close is extremely dangerous, and I'm willing to admit to a skill issue (playing on Standard combat difficulty), but considering you get even less ammo and healing than in Resident Evil, it makes me dread fights. Especially in the tight interior apartment spaces where you get barely any room to dodge, and basically none to run past enemies.

Once you know how the maylee words and how you can react to enemies. You actually be saving lot of ammo. There will be struggle in the beginning, but I got to a point where I had 20 plus healing items and plenty of ammo to spare. Eventually, you will learn a method of combining your shooting and melee together. It is so satisfying when you get it figured out.

it has rusty nails in it.

How far are you now?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Why does he leave at the bell? Did he have to go to Bingo?

I was about to say "his shift pushing the wheel at the amusement park is about to start" but you'd have to watch Silent Hill Revelations to get that reference and no one should watch Silent Hill Revelations.

 

[BrawlMan]

Silent Hill Revelations to get that reference and now one should watch Silent Hill Revelations.

That movie sucked worse than the original movie.

 

[CriticalGaming]

How far are you now?

My last save is getting ready to leave the strip club with Maria. I now have a rusty metal pipe.

 

[BrawlMan]

My last save is getting ready to leave the strip club with Maria. I now have a rusty metal pipe.

Teach them the respect to pipe! Respect it!

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

That movie sucked worse than the original movie.

It's a pretty rough one.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Teach them the respect to pipe! Respect it!

I've come this far, I'm gonna beat the game with melee only this run, because....bullets are for suckers.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

That movie sucked worse than the original movie.

It still pretty much nailed the atmosphere and of course soundtrack. More-so the original though.

 

[BrawlMan]

It still pretty much nailed the atmosphere and of course soundtrack.

That's literally the only thing I can give those two movies. That doesn't even really make them unique anymore, since other movie and tv shows adaptions have come and gone and use their various soundtracks from the actual games.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I made it to the heritage museum, how much longer is the game?

 

[BrawlMan]

I made it to the heritage museum, how much longer is the game?

You're almost two thirds of the way there. The prison and its labyrinth come next. Once you cross the lake to the hotel, that will be your final area. Though the hotel got expanded as well, it is slightly longer than the original version.

 

[CriticalGaming]

i am now on the lake. The lab made no sense, the prison was a hassle, and eddie is a fucking dipshit.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Beat the game, still have no idea what it was all about. Not really.

James killed his wife who was sick, and he mercy killed her but can't live with the grief of it? It's not really clear and it just leaves the game in the aimless sense of whateverness.

Overall the puzzles and areas feel really padded and samey in the Remake as well. Almost every area is just a hotel, apartment building, or some mostly samey collection of rooms.

In the contest between Resident Evil and Silent Hill, these two games always seemed like Coke and Pepsi of the survival horror genre to me. But now that I've played the "best" SH game, i can easily say RE games for all their jank and camp are fair better games. From a environmental standpoint, level design, game progression, combat, on all fronts RE games are very easily better games in every way.

I found SH 2 ultimately disappointing considering it's reputation.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

James killed his wife who was sick, and he mercy killed her but can't live with the grief of it?

No, not really and that's kinda the point. James killed Mary because he couldn't handle caring for her anymore. At the end of the day he didn't do it to put her out of her misery but out of desperation and frustration. It was ultimately a selfish act.

SH2 isn't primarily about grief. That's what Shattered Memories is about. It's about guilt. That's the idea behind almost every single element of it. It's why James is haunted by Pyramid Head, a monstrous executioner. It's why you keep killing female coded monsters. It's why there's so many references to hell and punishment.

Most importantly, it's what the game explores by contrasting James with Angela and Eddie. They present two extremes. Angela is by most objective standards the most innocent, she killed her abuser. But she's the one who feels the most guilty and that's what she ultimately succumbs to. On the other hand you got Eddie who murdered a person for practically no reason except for his own paranoia and victim complex. He is by most standards the most guilty out of the three but also the most in denial about his own guilt. It's why he seems to be the least affected by the towns magic and dies not to any of its creatures or traps but for picking a fight with another human.

James is right in the middle between those two and the one who has the potential to go either way. He did commit a murder for ultimately selfish reasons and he is consumed by guilt so the game is his trial. There are endings where he succumbs to his guilt like Angela, namely the In Water ending. There are endings where he gives into denial, like the Maria Ending, the Rebirth Ending or, new to the remake, the Bliss ending. And then there's the ending where James actually manages to face what he did and why he did it and finds absolution. So, the Leave and perhaps the new Stillness ending.

And that's the idea, you know. Those three people were called to Silent Hill because each one of them had taken a life. They're on trial and the forces behind the town take the souls of at least two of them. But James can still save his and, well, that's what the game is about.

 

[CriticalGaming]

You have to look pretty deep to get all that information. I see that stuff because I knew the idea of the game because, again, of yahtzee videos.

So the female enemies, of which there aren't very many different types, the crimes of Angela and Eddie are quite obtuse to be honest but they are also shallow enough that you get it in their last scene.

Again I think the failure of the game for me is James' lack of reaction to anything. Laura the little girl makes no sense. But mostly James doesn't react to the town or the monsters trying to "torment" him, he just goes along and kills everything without batting an eye and it makes it hard to connect with the story that the protagonist has no reaction to.

The lack of reaction is likely a product of the time in which the original game was made but I dont think that's and excuse. Ps1 RE games had the characters react to what was happening, and sh2 was a ps2 game that had plenty of power to include James voice lines reacting to the horrors around him.

Also what the fuck is the dog and the ufo about?

 

[BrawlMan]

Ps1 RE games had the characters react to what was happening,

Not all the time. Especially if we're talking about og RE1. Neither cChris nor Jill react to the revelation that Wesker is the traitor when seeing him in the photo with all the other scientist. RE1R was slightly better about this in comparison.

Also what the fuck is the dog and the ufo about?

Running gag and joke endings. These endings have been going on since the first game. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Blue Creek Apartments didn't give me much to say about it, other than that I definitely got got by a few of the Otherworld jumpscares and that cutscene with Angela in front of the mirror was brilliantly shot, and made me depressed. There's probably some symbolism involving the mirror that went way over my head, but it looked amazing. Angela deserves the closest thing to a hug she can stand.

South Vale (West) has the first encounters with Maria, and my first thoughts about her, I've decided not to post unedited because I'm not about to start drama on purpose (this time). My second thoughts about Maria are that she has a kinda bad sense of humor, doing things like stealing clothes (yeah, yeah, James has been stealing energy drinks and bullets from everybody all day, it's different). Also got to see Eddie and Laura again. Eddie suddenly seems pretty unconcerned with everything, which is a huge change from 'I swear I didn't kill that guy' unprompted, and Laura is... creeping me out. Saying she's not really there doesn't seem right when Eddie has also mentioned her, but knowing about James's connection to Mary and running around the town unsupervised is not normal child behavior, and there's a reason that 'normal child behavior' is something children in horror media never do. It became a cliche for a reason.

Anyway, speaking of cliches, next section is the spooky hospital.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

...I am actually shook. I thought this would mostly be the atmospheric type of horror that's all in your head with a few enemy jumpscares, based on reputation. I wasn't expecting that boss fight in the hospital to be brick-shitting terrifying.

That was awesome. I'm definitely finishing this game now.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Again I think the failure of the game for me is James' lack of reaction to anything. Laura the little girl makes no sense. But mostly James doesn't react to the town or the monsters trying to "torment" him, he just goes along and kills everything without batting an eye and it makes it hard to connect with the story that the protagonist has no reaction to.

James could also just leave Silent Hill at any time. The fact that he doesn't shows he's obviously not all there mentally. Hence why his response to all the weird shit is so muted. Laura likely hasn't the psychological scars that James, Eddie, and Angela have, so the town has very little effect on her. James has reactions, but it's mostly to the other characters. The monsters and the town's horrors are mostly part of his own psyché, so he takes them as they are. In the final scene with Angela it's James that has a response to the fire while Angela has none because for her it's always like this.

The original Silent Hill 2 is more passive and depressing in its psychological horror than openly hostile.