I first performed Silent Hill on the unique PlayStation 26 years in the past, and after having fun with final yr’s Silent Hill 2 remake, I had excessive hopes for Silent Hill f. In the end, these hopes fell as flat because the knife-wielding monster kids of the unique recreation.
Silent Hill f is a notable departure from the franchise’s earlier entries, with no ties to the city that drives the sequence’ horror. It seems like Konami might have slapped the Silent Hill identify on an unrelated recreation, just like the web idea about 2004’s Silent Hill 4: The Room.
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To place it merely, Silent Hill f does not have the identical psychological thrill, fascinating lore and even likable characters the sequence is understood for. As a substitute, this recreation comes off like an early 2000s anime involving Japanese schoolchildren secretly hiding how a lot they wish to kill each other, which is smart contemplating the author of the story is Ryukishi07, the pen identify of the writer of the Higurashi: When They Cry visible novel sequence, which is about Japanese schoolchildren killing one another. Only a bit an excessive amount of on the nostril.
So far as I can inform, not less than in my first playthrough, Silent Hill f has no connection to the opposite Silent Hill video games. There are three further endings in New Sport Plus, which can have a hyperlink. Hell, I do not even know what the “f” even refers to. Nevertheless, it took me 10 hours to beat the sport as soon as, and I’ve zero curiosity in doing it once more only for the prospect of getting a nugget of a connection to the opposite video games.
Did I get some bounce scares? Certain. Did I get pleasure from a number of the twists within the story? Completely. Did I comment that the female mechanical enemies that freeze in seductive poses after they’re about to assault you’re a signal of the builders being a bit too sexy? After all I did, however nonetheless, I didn’t have an gratifying time with Silent Hill f.
I would like a success of White Claudia
Silent Hill f follows Shimizu Hinako, an athletic schoolgirl from a troubled household in a rural Japanese city in the course of the Sixties. Sooner or later, her mother and father get into an enormous argument, so she goes to satisfy up along with her mates. The city shortly turns into a nightmare as unusual monsters seem, in addition to some mysterious crimson plant progress.
Don’t take your eyes off these scarecrows.
All through the sport, Hinako fights monsters with a variety of weapons reminiscent of a crowbar, bat and axe. Although there aren’t any firearms sometimes seen in different Silent Hill video games, she finally will get a particular weapon later within the recreation that may decimate enemies.
Total, fight in Silent Hill f is not gratifying and feels outdated. Hinako can use gentle and heavy assaults along with her weapon, and she will be able to use a Focus assault by holding down a button (L2 for the PS5) to cost up after which hitting the sunshine assault button offers some additional injury to an enemy. Utilizing Focus depletes Hinako’s Sanity meter, and as soon as that is empty, she will be able to not focus, and enemies that may injury her sanity will take off parts of her well being bar.
The fight loop revolves round Counters, which is while you use a heavy assault when an enemy sparkles crimson for a fast second. There is a timing to this, and when you get it down, the enemies are fairly straightforward to deal with.
Apart from Hinako having a fast dodge, the fight, for probably the most half, feels prefer it’s from the PS2 period. It is simply very boring for a lot of the recreation, with the one fascinating fights being in opposition to the bosses — even then, it is nonetheless unexciting. Even worse are the annoying moments when Hinako’s large swings with sure weapons get interrupted by environmental objects requiring her to be at simply the proper angle to land her assaults, particularly in shut corridors. The enemies, nonetheless, haven’t got to fret about that very same concern, as their assaults clip by means of the surroundings.
There are some gentle roleplaying parts. Leveling up occurs at shrines utilizing Religion, earned by providing gadgets. Sufficient Religion grants Hinako a wood plaque known as an Ema that enhances well being, stamina and sanity. There are additionally equippable charms known as Omamoris, which improve attributes or injury.
Past the uninteresting fight, the sport’s UI and puzzles are irritating. The Journal, meant for lore, is poorly organized, with letters and paperwork scattered below collectibles, making it exhausting to trace older notes. That is 2025, and interfaces shouldn’t be so awkward.
Second, and this actually bugs me, is the sport’s merchandise administration — particularly, how the gadgets stack. Like different survival horror video games, there are therapeutic gadgets to select up. They’re scarce sufficient, however the gadgets even have completely different stack sizes: bandages have a max of three per stock slot, whereas a primary help package can solely have a stack of 1. Should you collect, say, seven bandages and two first help kits, that may take up 5 slots in your stock, which begins off with solely eight slots. This would possibly make extra sense if the variety of gadgets held have been based mostly on the dimensions of the gadgets within the bag, just like Resident Evil 4. All through the sport, I needed to depart behind many gadgets as a result of I did not have sufficient area.
Sure, you’ll have to go down that creepy alleyway.
The puzzles, which in earlier Silent Hill video games make you wrack your mind to grasp intelligent riddles, typically did not make sense. For instance, one puzzle includes a field that has sliding slots that uncover an image of a kind of meals, reminiscent of oranges, apples, strawberries, a pumpkin and so forth. The clue says the reply is said to a cake that somebody ate that had candy and tart fruit on it, however that description of “candy and tart” does not assist me perceive what number of fruits I must reveal to unravel the puzzle. The reply was 5, and since I am not a scholar of Japanese tradition, placing grapes on muffins wasn’t apparent. There have been different puzzles that equally lacked the identical allure present in different Silent Hill video games and have been extra irritating as a consequence of some cultural variations.
Take me again to the actual Silent Hill
Boring fight I can (principally) overlook. Irritating interface, I can cope with. But I draw the road when a Silent Hill recreation does not give me Silent Hill vibes. There’s merely not a touch of them right here.
Silent Hill video games sometimes cut up their development between a standard world and a nightmarish otherworld. Silent Hill f substitutes the Darkish Shrine as its nightmare, which is devoid of that horror panorama of splattered blood and rusted steel flooring that echo the steps of enemies approaching. It was simply repetitive. In truth, it looks as if half of the sport is just going backwards and forwards by means of the city, repeating your steps, with solely a college and two large homes to actually discover.
Additionally, I get that the Silent Hill f improvement crew needed to present the franchise a extra Japanese-focused recreation, however there are some issues for gamers unfamiliar with Japan. A giant evident concern is the dearth of translation in environmental textual content. There have been so many instances that Japanese phrases have been splattered on the partitions in blood, and I had no clue what they mentioned. So now I’ve to attend for some lore YouTuber to translate all the pieces for me after the sport comes out.
It is not a Silent Hill recreation with out a monster with sewn-up eyes.
Cultural references are additionally misplaced in translation. The fox is a distinguished determine all through the sport and has ties to Japanese folklore, however its cultural significance is not actually defined. Whereas I do not want hand-holding, it seems like some context is lacking on why sure occasions occurred within the recreation.
In truth, there’s only a lack of a cohesive lore for Silent Hill f. Like I discussed earlier, I obtained just one ending, and I am not even positive what is going on on. This can be a Silent Hill recreation, so there’s some psychological trauma that’s being performed out in some supernatural method that must be dissected. However I used to be nonetheless completely confused about the way it ended, because the mid-roll credit scene implies what you could do to get one of many different endings. There’s additionally virtually nothing giving a ’60s vibe to the sport apart from the dearth of electronics.
The sport is colourful and inventive however visually bland, with unremarkable character fashions and forgettable music, regardless of longtime Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka engaged on the sport.
To say I am disillusioned with Silent Hill f is an understatement, however I am additionally not stunned. After I noticed the primary trailer for the sport, I felt nothing that jogged my memory of the Silent Hill franchise that I like, and people emotions ended up coming true. You might give this recreation a completely completely different identify, and it could be only a satisfactory survival horror recreation. Placing that “Silent Hill” identify on it’s downright offensive to followers of the sequence invested within the lore and vibes which were constructed over a long time of the franchise’s video games.