Posted on: October 29, 2021
glasratz
Games: 514 Reviews: 28
Worst of the original Series
I'm a long time Silent Hill fan and bought this full price when it came out on the PS2. It wasn't good back then and it's not good now. The story is lacking any of the depth of the other games and suffers from a disjointed, episodic nature. The main character's lack of emotional reaction could be seen as a nod to the first game, but that just doesn't work with the better character design and voice acting. Even the different endings are just an empty shell: They seem like an afterthought, being all based on what you do directly before or during the last bossfight. With just a savefile, you can get them all in one playthrough. Instead of a somewhat consistent world, there are distinct levels, all trying to convey a different feeling. However, they lack the level of detail of even the first game. They are also almost all rather straight lines instead of the looping, shortcut-based design of the other games. Because of this, the constant backtracking feels extremely tedious. This is paired with unkillable enemies that hurt you by their sheer presence and limited inventory space. This was surely done to add challenge to a otherwise not very difficult game and to create some kind of threat. That did not work out in my opinion. It makes you just unable to take in the atmospehere, rushing through linear levels back and forth because you forgot to bring a important item. It was an experiment and surely a brave game to make, but it did not go well.
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