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. Finally, these hopes fell as flat because the knife-wielding monster kids of the unique sport.
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 appears like Konami might have slapped the Silent Hill identify on an unrelated sport, just like the web concept 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 thought for. As a substitute, this sport comes off like an early 2000s anime involving Japanese schoolchildren secretly hiding how a lot they wish to kill each other, which is sensible 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, a minimum of in my first playthrough, Silent Hill f has no connection to the opposite Silent Hill video games. There are three extra endings in New Game 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 possibility of getting a nugget of a connection to the opposite video games.
Did I get some soar scares? Certain. Did I take pleasure in among the twists within the story? Completely. Did I comment that the female mechanical enemies that freeze in seductive poses once they’re about to assault you’re a signal of the builders being a bit too sexy? After all I did, however however, I didn’t have an pleasing time with Silent Hill f.
I want a success of White Claudia
Silent Hill f follows Shimizu Hinako, an athletic schoolgirl from a troubled household in a rural Japanese city through the Sixties. In the future, her mother and father get into a giant argument, so she goes to fulfill up along with her pals. The city rapidly turns into a nightmare as unusual monsters seem, in addition to some mysterious purple plant development.
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 are not any firearms sometimes seen in different Silent Hill video games, she ultimately will get a particular weapon later within the sport that may decimate enemies.
Total, fight in Silent Hill f is not pleasing and feels outdated. Hinako can use mild 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 further 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 if you use a heavy assault when an enemy glints purple for a fast second. There is a timing to this, and when you get it down, the enemies are fairly simple to deal with.
Except for Hinako having a fast dodge, the fight, for essentially the most half, feels prefer it’s from the PS2 period. It is simply very boring for many of the sport, with the one fascinating fights being in opposition to the bosses — even then, it is nonetheless unexciting. Even worse are the irritating moments when Hinako’s massive swings with sure weapons get interrupted by environmental objects requiring her to be at simply the correct angle to land her assaults, particularly in shut corridors. The enemies, nevertheless, haven’t got to fret about that very same challenge, as their assaults clip by the surroundings.
There are some mild roleplaying components. Leveling up occurs at shrines utilizing Religion, earned by providing gadgets. Sufficient Religion grants Hinako a wood plaque referred to as an Ema that reinforces well being, stamina and sanity. There are additionally equippable charms referred to 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 laborious 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 assist equipment can solely have a stack of 1. Should you collect, say, seven bandages and two first assist 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 primarily based on the dimensions of the gadgets within the bag, just like Resident Evil 4. All through the sport, I needed to go away 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, usually did not make sense. For instance, one puzzle includes a field that has sliding slots that uncover an image of a sort 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 resolve the puzzle. The reply was 5, and since I am not a scholar of Japanese tradition, placing grapes on desserts 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 resulting from some cultural variations.
Take me again to the actual Silent Hill
Boring fight I can (largely) overlook. Irritating interface, I can cope with. But I draw the road when a Silent Hill sport does not give me Silent Hill vibes. There’s merely not a touch of them right here.
Silent Hill video games sometimes break 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 metallic flooring that echo the steps of enemies approaching. It was simply repetitive. In actual fact, it looks as if half of the sport is just going backwards and forwards by the city, repeating your steps, with solely a college and two massive homes to essentially discover.
Additionally, I get that the Silent Hill f improvement crew wished to provide the franchise a extra Japanese-focused sport, however there are some issues for gamers unfamiliar with Japan. A giant evident challenge is the dearth of translation in environmental textual content. There have been so many occasions that Japanese phrases have been splattered on the partitions in blood, and I had no clue what they stated. So now I’ve to attend for some lore YouTuber to translate every thing for me after the sport comes out.
It isn’t a Silent Hill sport 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 appears like some context is lacking on why sure occasions occurred within the sport.
In actual fact, 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 certain what is going on on. This can be a Silent Hill sport, so there’s some psychological trauma that’s being performed out in some supernatural approach that must be dissected. However I used to be nonetheless totally confused about the way it ended, because the mid-roll credit scene implies what it’s essential to 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 disenchanted 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 can give this sport a very completely different identify, and it could be only a satisfactory survival horror sport. 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.
