Konami’s most recent entry in the Silent Hill series is eulogised by a reader who is impressed by its storytelling, as well as its gameplay and graphics.
It was less than two years ago that the Silent Hill franchise and Konami were a laughing stock. All the new Silent Hill games were terrible and yet Konami kept announcing more, even though the series had never been that big a seller. It seemed like they’d gone crazy and with every new flop the chance of an actual hit seemed less and less.
Then the Silent Hill 2 remake came out and it was, shockingly, kind of amazing. Maybe even better than original. Then his week I see that it sold 2.5 million copies, which is a lot for a horror game and more than twice the PlayStation 2 version.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because it was a remake of the best game in the series. Surely it was a one-off and the next attempt at an original game would be another laughable failure? But no, the next game was Silent Hill f, which is incredible.
The initial signs were always good, because the reveal trailer was great, but at that point we knew nothing about the game, so there was nothing to really get excited about, especially if, like me, you didn’t know who the writer guy was.
Setting the game in 1960s Japan was definitely a choice but I was shocked to learn, in an interview from GC, that this was because it was going to explore some heavy themes about sexism at the time. Silent Hill was always a lot more cerebral than other horror games but that is a very specific and challenging subject matter to cover in a game about hitting monsters over the head with a lead pipe.
It’s also something that could come across as very heavy-handed, but in reality it’s a really clever story, that’s very subtle about its themes, and has a sympathetic main character who comes across as an ordinary woman who doesn’t want to get stuck in her assigned role in life.
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Only by the end of the game do you really start to understand what’s going on and then the New Game+ walkthroughs allow you to try and change her fate a bit more directly. It really is fantastic storytelling and Hinako is absolutely my favourite new character in a very long while.
And then there’s the game itself, which looks amazing in terms of graphics and Is very spooky with the fog and creatures. I’ve seen some people say the game isn’t scary, but I don’t really agree. I won’t pretend it’s the most scary horror game ever but since Hinako is so vulnerable I was constantly worried about what was going to pounce out of the fog at me.
Of course, there’s also those scenes later in the game, which are absolutely horrible. You don’t really understand what they mean until later, but they cause an immediate change in the gameplay and the whole thing is so shocking I was just kind of in awe.
The combat isn’t flashy, but it is exactly what you’d expect from a young woman who’s just flailing about. Silent Hill has always been about controlling someone who’s not a fighter and if anything I would’ve made the combat even ‘worse’ just to make it even more realistic.
I even liked the puzzles, which I thought I was going to regret putting on hard but are just the right pitch of difficult to be a real obstacle but one you can figure out if you take a step back and think about it.
Everything about the game is great, even the UFO ending, and I couldn’t recommend it enough to anyone that isn’t sure about it. It has virtually no connection to the original games (the only one is so obscure only a hardcore fan would piece it together), so you don’t have to have played them and there’s plenty of options to change the difficulty.
Silent Hill f isn’t just a great survival horror game, it’s an intelligent story game that I would put above anything else I’ve played this generation. I don’t know what comes after this, but Silent Hill fans have never eaten better than right now.
By reader Wotan
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