💔I hate my father too💔

a different kind of silent hill I like it

Silent Hill is a series I adore; it changed what a horror game could be when I played it. Focusing more on how narrative and atmosphere interact with gameplay. But over the years, as my opinion of Konami soured, and how the series was treated by them, and how mediocre remakes started being pumped out, I lost hope in the series. While I wouldn’t say Silent Hill f brought back my hope in the series, it did show me that they can still do some interesting things within it. There isn’t much about Silent Hill f that feels Silent Hill; more so, it feels inspired by it. As long as you can go into the game being OK with that, it shows you something special.

My favourite aspect of this game is its art direction. It’s genuinely phenomenal. If this game should be remembered for anything, it should be the writing and art. It melds body horror, j-horror, and psychological horror and presents it fascinatingly throughout the game. The way key themes and ideas in the writing are represented through the art makes them very memorable. The Japanese mythology, folklore, as well as the time period aid this game’s atmosphere and sound. They all blend to create a very unique atmosphere that helps this game stand on its own.

While looking at the character models and textures, especially faces, I was reminded of Forbidden Siren. Even the facial animations gave me those vibes. The graphics themselves look great and work well with the amazing art direction. Excellent sound design as well. It can be incredibly unnerving and creepy with the scattered sounds and noises that make you think twice about what you just heard. The audio mixing was done by someone who really knew what they were doing. The soundtrack is amazing as well. Akira Yamaoka did a great job with his side of the soundtrack, but I think the music that shone the most was done by the other composers, Kensuke Inage, and, of course, dai and xaki from 07th Expansion.

Knowing Ryukishi07 was gonna be responsible for this game’s narrative was what got me interested in this game in the first place. At first, I was a little bummed because I was patiently waiting for the next Ciconia phase, but when I saw footage of the game, I was more excited. I adore Umineko, and it has some of my favourite writing in fiction, so my hopes were decently high. And thankfully, it’s handled very well both through cutscenes and exploration. Some very tricky topics to tackle, like child abuse, spousal abuse, and societal expectations of men and women in Japan, were handled with great care.

Ryukishi is no stranger to writing about these topics, as well as mystery, so they couldn’t have picked a better writer. Like his other mysteries, he loves taunting the reader/player to solve the mystery before it reveals itself. This is no exception; it's done in a way that ties together the gameplay and story in a satisfying way. It’s really fun theorising what each monster represents, and it's satisfying when we get some sort of answer. Its combat faults were mostly ignored by me by the time I got all the endings, because I was so engrossed by the game’s writing and atmosphere. In that way, it feels very Silent Hill.

I initially played the game on the hardest available difficulty for both combat and puzzles and found it fine. Hinako is a lot faster than I thought she would be. The story tells us she’s very athletic, but I’ve never seen a person dodge like that in my life. At first, it was very jarring and silly, but I got used to it. Then again, I’ve never seen a person run as Harry does in the original Silent Hill either. Weapon durability and charms work pretty well with the game, but I do wish the durability was harsher with how many weapons you’re given throughout the game, as I never found myself running out of weapons, except for towards the end, where you’re forced to fight a bunch of monsters. Health and stamina upgrades are fine, but the perfect dodge and counter mechanic trivialises stamina, so they could’ve easily made stamina something that’s upgraded a few times through the story at most. When I started using focus more, the combat became more fun, but it's still definitely the weakest part of the game.

The puzzles in the game are great. There was maybe one puzzle that relied on knowledge outside the game, but other than that, the puzzles were built up well and were executed very well. I found that the puzzles gave me enough to go on and had satisfying solutions. I especially love how puzzles work in New Game Plus.

The final level of the game was pretty irritating and poorly designed. As I previously mentioned, you’re forced to fight a bunch of monsters towards the end of the game, and I really didn’t enjoy that. It’s boring and a slog that was always the worst part of my runs. My first run ended with me feeling pretty underwhelmed. I had a good time, but I wasn’t at all satisfied with the game or story. I expected the other endings to remedy the story aspect, but not the gameplay. I was surprised to find myself enjoying the game much more with New Game Plus.

New Game Plus makes a number of changes to the game, which surprised me. It has different enemy placements, different bosses, different notes, some different puzzles and puzzle solutions depending on the ending you’re going for, and of course, new endings. I found the unlock requirements for each ending to be very interesting. It engages with some of the mechanics in the game, which make for some really cool narrative moments. The changes in all these things with every run make it feel like a mystery that’s being peeled back. I found this to be the most unique and special thing about this game; it reminded me a lot of Drakengard and Nier.

While I’m still not very optimistic about this series, and I don’t care for whatever remake Bloober is making next, I’m at least glad I got this game because it made me replay the originals and fall in love with them in new ways. And artistically and narratively, this game has so much to unpack that makes it stand above all the other Silent Hill spin-offs. Honestly, the only other thing I want from this series is a proper remaster of the original 4 games, and the fact that we don’t have that yet really shows where Konami’s focus is. And it’s in the wrong place, as per usual for them.

8/10