Silent Hill series, a review.

[A horse of course]

I'm not sure what the best part of Book of Memories was. The hilariously awkward marketing-slash-apologies of Hulett and the team leads, or the Voices in the Static podcast falling over themselves trying to find some way to shill it. On the upside, it helped drive the nail into the coffin of the series.

 

[PlanHex]

Those games are not scary but are simply disturbing.

jumpscarefag detected

 

[Kz3r0]

Those games are not scary but are simply disturbing.

jumpscarefag detected

He is correct, it goes without saying that disturbing is worse than scary, and it's more difficult to achieve.

 

[A horse of course]

Reading other peoples' opinions on games is disturbing enough for me.

 

[PlanHex]

Those games are not scary but are simply disturbing.

jumpscarefag detected

He is correct, it goes without saying that disturbing is worse than scary, and it's more difficult to achieve.

Well, I read it the other way around. Like being disturbing was a bad thing. Hence the bad joke.

 

[Cosmo]

IT shares some key elements but overall you could release SH2 named differently and it would stand on its own.

That's why it's the best (even maybe a masterpiece).
Besides it doesn't rely on the pseudo-mythology that the sperging fans but also the creators have come to take more and more seriously between the first and the third, another way of missing the point of what makes that Silent Hill great if you ask me.

 

[Jick Magger]

Silent Hill 2 was a great game but it arguably killed the series in the long run since every post Team Silent dev hamfistedly tried to emulate it, believing it to be the 'true' spirit of the series, which resulted in a long string of games that all followed the same beat (X protagonist with shady past goes to Silent Hill and 'faces his demons', while being pursued by an demonic creature with a thing on their head who seems to be there to punish them) but nowhere near as well as the original.

You can even kinda see this mentality in the fanbase today, with people telling you that Silent Hill is a place that forces people to 'face their demons' and overcome them, when really that's only applicable to Silent Hill 2 and partially Silent Hill 3.

 

[A horse of course]

Silent Hill 2 was a great game but it arguably killed the series in the long run since every post Team Silent dev hamfistedly tried to emulate it, believing it to be the 'true' spirit of the series, which resulted in a long string of games that all followed the same beat (X protagonist with shady past goes to Silent Hill and 'faces his demons', while being pursued by an demonic creature with a thing on their head who seems to be there to punish them) but nowhere near as well as the original.

You can even kinda see this mentality in the fanbase today, with people telling you that Silent Hill is a place that forces people to 'face their demons' and overcome them, when really that's only applicable to Silent Hill 2 and partially Silent Hill 3.

Yeah, whilst I don't agree with everything in TRSHE, they really drive home how SH2 was simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to the series. The problem is that I really believe people like Tom Hulett genuinely loved Silent Hill 2 (he absolutely loves to moan about how he doesn't get enough credit for having saved the series from even worse abuse, like Homecoming's original plot being a Dragonball Z episode with characters from SH2 and 3 turning up as Avatars of This and That), and like many fans, they think: Good Silent Hill Game = Everything that Happened in Silent Hill 2. Even if survival horror in general weren't struck by ballooning costs and such, the series would've been ruined by the fact it was in the hands of people who could, at best, write good derivative Silent Hill fanfiction.

 

[Mozg]

Are any of the shit era Silent Hill games I know nothing about ripoffs of Resident Evil 4?

 

[A horse of course]

Homecoming and Downpour are pretty action-oriented but I wouldn't call them ripoffs of RE4. If you want something like that try The Evil Within by Mikami.

 

[Mozg]

I've been playing RE4 for the first time and from the vantage point of 2016 it feels a lot more like PS1-type RE/SH intentionally limited and awkward controls with proper bullet and health conservation than a pure action game. There's no strafing and you can't move at all when you have a weapon ready. The QTE and obviously the typical Capcom/Resident Evil cornball stuff is not integral to the gameplay. I think a SH game could have followed the core of that design without turning into Doom.

 

[Average Manatee]

SH3>SH1>SH2>haven't tried the rest cause I've heard they are all crap.

Biggest problem IMO is that they just aren't very difficult at all. Once you get used to the controls and camera they are actually kind of too good and you can humiliate 90% of the enemies with melee weapons easily and circle-strafe the others like its DOOM. Would fit if it was a lightheated adventure game like RE4 but not when you are trying to be more serious than the RE series. SH3 is the only one where I actually felt afraid of most of the enemies by the end game and where I was seriously down to the last of my resources by the final boss.

 

[Perkel]

SH3>SH1>SH2>haven't tried the rest cause I've heard they are all crap.

Biggest problem IMO is that they just aren't very difficult at all. Once you get used to the controls and camera they are actually kind of too good and you can humiliate 90% of the enemies with melee weapons easily and circle-strafe the others like its DOOM.

They were never hard and frankly speaking monsters were there more as part of experience rather than actual threat. It was no resident evil.


For me:

SH1>SH2>>>>>SH:ShateredMemories>>SH3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SH4>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everythingelse.

 

[A horse of course]

I replayed 1-4 a few months ago and 3 is almost certainly the most difficult and action-oriented. 1 varies in difficulty. I almost quit in the school due to running low on health and ammo but the rest of the game is a relatively smooth difficulty curve. The final outdoor areas are technically extremely dangerous with far too many enemies to waste ammo on, but the game is pretty much screaming at you to run like hell from building to building anyway. 4 can be extremely hard if you're going for the best ending, though if you don't care about that it's more annoying than genuinely hard. 2 is without a doubt, far and away the easiest of the original series, which probably helped more casual or disinterested players stick around for the whole story. As others have pointed out, the objective level of difficulty isn't so important as the illusion of tension or danger. 2 does a great job of contributing to a disturbing and dangerous atmosphere, particularly in the apartment building when you think Pyramid Head might pop out at any time, and in "Dark" Silent Hill's outdoor areas. That said, I think 1 does a better job creating a sense of overt terror and oppression, really driving home the progression of the town's descent into a hellscape.

In contrast, RE4 is probably the most difficult Resident Evil game I've played (I think I had a total of 30+ deaths in my final score, mainly to shitty QTEs), and is certainly far more challenging than Silent Hill 3. However, it's also virtually bereft of ANY real horror at all. Off the top of my head, the only slightly scary area was the first time you run into those invisible insectoid killers. Moreover, resources are actually less important than you'd expect due to the fact you burn through ammo so goddamn fast that no matter what happens in a fight, you'll always end up running around smashing vases to scrounge up supplies. In effect, RE4 has more in common with old console action games like Contra or Ghosts and Goblins than SH-style survival horror.

It is for this reason RE4 is fucking garbage and Alan Wake blows it out of the water as a horror-themed action shooter

 

[Athelas]

Having only played Silent Hill 2, I distinctly remember having to conserve ammo for the absurdly HP-bloated boss battles (I still remember those things hanging from the ceilings could survive 100+ bullets (!) fired at them at point blank range). Guess that teaches me to play on the highest difficulty without researching what it does first. If not for the atmosphere and creature designs, it would've soured the experience for me. Would've probably liked the game better if it was in first-person though.

I've been playing RE4 for the first time and from the vantage point of 2016 it feels a lot more like PS1-type RE/SH intentionally limited and awkward controls with proper bullet and health conservation than a pure action game. There's no strafing and you can't move at all when you have a weapon ready. The QTE and obviously the typical Capcom/Resident Evil cornball stuff is not integral to the gameplay. I think a SH game could have followed the core of that design without turning into Doom.

Eh? One of the most prominent aspects of RE4's gameplay is supplexing/karate kicking enemies through buttom prompts (basically QTE's) to conserve ammo/to slam them into other enemies/for invincibility frames. It's much more action-y than the previous RE's.

The tank controls are just a holdover from the developers adapting to making 3D games (with controllable camera), which Japanese developers struggled to do for quite a while.

 

[Mozg]

Agree about the RE4 horror thing. Well, I thought the section with the regenerators was a little horrorish, about as much as the invisible bug monsters. Plus the basic concept of antediluvian whole-body human parasites and the monster heads they stole from the Parasyte manga managed to shine through Capcom and Resident Evil cheese in very short bursts.

(Also one incredibly good and clever jump scare)

A big thing in RE4 is having the "economy" of bullets, potions, and money in the back of your mind while fighting, trying to be efficient. Like, experimenting to learn how to leg-shot -> melee -> knife the "monk" enemies lets you kill a fairly tough midgame opponent with one pistol bullet. That's fun to figure out and it's relevant in the poke around -> find bullets and health potions to fight with -> fight to be able to explore the next room loop. That's the survival gameplay half of survival horror.

I could easily imagine the gameplay of RE4 + a massive tone and subject matter shift could have been a good SH game, just like the relationship between SH 1/2 and PSX Resident Evils.

Edit - Responding to Athelas: the kick/suplex shit isn't a QTE, it's just getting close to an opponent in a stun animation and hitting the use button. I don't know whether somehow the Jap developers just didn't know how to implement strafe and moving with a raised weapon (I doubt it - I think they were just going for a middle ground between PSX Resident Evil and an FPS) but the overall effect was similar to classic RE/SH tank controls, where dealing with the awkwardness becomes a major element of the gameplay.

 

[Perkel]

Having only played Silent Hill 2, I distinctly remember having to conserve ammo for the absurdly HP-bloated boss battles

If you liked SH2 you should totally try SH1. It is imo even better than SH2 and i played it after SH2 not before.

 

[A horse of course]

Having only played Silent Hill 2, I distinctly remember having to conserve ammo for the absurdly HP-bloated boss battles (I still remember those things hanging from the ceilings could survive 100+ bullets (!) fired at them at point blank range). Guess that teaches me to play on the highest difficulty without researching what it does first. If not for the atmosphere and creature designs, it would've soured the experience for me. Would've probably liked the game better if it was in first-person though.

The only bosses with significant HP are the twin Pyramid Heads and the final boss. Everything else, including Flesh Lips/Hanging Men, dies to a handful of shotgun blasts. You must've been playing on the highest difficulty or something, because SH2 bosses definitely don't have a whole lot of health.

 

[Average Manatee]

IMO the numbered RE series is basically just a flat downward slope of difficulty. Every new addition tends to add new tricks or crafting or gun upgrading or something that makes the game substantially easier if you use them even moderately well.

But this is different from SH's problem, which is that most of the enemies simply don't threaten the player much. You can melee and hitstun most common enemies to death through simply hitting them before they hit you (easy since your melee tends to outrange them), and if not then the usually very wide and open SH areas make running past enemies trivial. Difficulty really doesn't change much of this except in SH3 where much harder enemies are added to the game (fucking nurses with guns, murica).

 

[A horse of course]

Nah, RE1 is one of the easier gnomes in the series. You really only run into serious problems when running out of quality ammo or healing items.

 

[Average Manatee]

Every RE only gives problems when running out of ammo or healing items. RE1 (and especially remake) is one of the quickest to kill your ammo and health reserves if you aren't playing strategically.

Compare to RE3 where ammo crafting was OP, RE4 where good exploration and making decent choices at what to upgrade gave you huge advantages, and by RE5 you can just replay earlier levels to stock up on supplies and amass more upgrades/guns whenever you need. I guess you could say that RE1's difficulty was held somewhat steady all the way to RE2.

 

[A horse of course]

I was constantly running out of shit in RE4. In RE1 I think I lacked good weapons for the Plant 42 fight, but that was it. Everything else was relatively smooth.

 

[Ash]

In this thread: a load of console retards.

JK, I've only played SH1, and it is very notable for a horror video game. That starting sequence where you explore the back alleys, it goes dark, sirens start to play, everything is bloody and rusted, and the camera fucks with you big time swaying around wildly as you run through the alley is absolutely legendary. Probably the most unsettling playable scene in a game, ever. Shat me up as a kid big time.

Resident Evil 1 is better overall imo because it has slightly better gameplay along with decent horror, exploration, a great soundtrack etc, but SH1 is simply unparalleled in psychological horror, trumping perhaps even System Shock 2 and other horror greats in that regard. Horror and atmosphere is SH1's strong point, but the gameplay is merely in servitude to those ends rather than being solid in its own right.

 

[DragoFireheart]

IMO the numbered RE series is basically just a flat downward slope of difficulty. Every new addition tends to add new tricks or crafting or gun upgrading or something that makes the game substantially easier if you use them even moderately well.

I thought RE3 was the hardest RE?

 

[Ash]

Nah RE3 had the dodge maneuver (you rarely take damage once mastered), optional auto aim (first introduced in 2, no aim assistance in RE1 whatsoever), an optional easy difficulty mode, ink ribbons were in vast supply while RE1 only handed out a few, and ammo was slightly less scarce. Still a good game though.
The first was definitely the hardest, especially so if playing as Chris. Jill was normal mode, Chris was hard.
It's sad that even "normal" back then is hardcore by today's shitty standards.