A sign Silent Hill might finally come out of its long slump? (★★★☆☆)
I like it. It’s not groundbreaking, but it checks all the boxes of what a current-day Silent Hill should be. It has: terrible trauma, a “symbolic” monster, the Otherworld, a plot twist about the nature of your character, nods to PT, a pivot, Yamaoka music, plus a bunch of lore notes full of red herrings that maybe the game is not really about what it says it is. It even has a goofy Engrishy ending credit song!
It doesn’t seem to be a demo for anything. It’s a full 2-3 hour game. It’s short, but not PT short, more like “indie devs would charge you 20$ for it” short. But it’s free.
Let’s start with the bad… and the game does give a bad first impression. It’s a bit too upfront about the trauma and the sob stories. Silent Hill usually eases you into this stuff. The script feels poorly written in parts. “Bad things happen because of YOU!” has got to be one of the worst trauma-inducing insults. It has odd real-actor cutscenes that have dubbing on top. The game is Japanese, but pretending to be German, but most of the in-game text is in English. Of all the things Silent Hill could pretend to be, German is a strange choice considering Signalis did such a bang up job of aping Silent Hill 2 with a Germanic touch. On the other hand, having a bit of a weird, “Who made this?” vibe is pretty much an authentic Silent Hill experience.
It also bugs me that the game has a lore file that tells you the “Silent Hill phenomenon” is that now anyone anywhere that has any kind of trauma can basically have their own Silent Hill game with fog and everything. Well duh. You don’t need to be so direct about it.
The game also pesters you with suicide prevention hotline messages. It’s mostly US-centric info, but I’m not American… I think I’m screwed. Those messages are earnest, but probably oversell how effective the game is. But they do make the game creepier, in a way. Anyway, I appreciate the thought, but it also touches on something that annoys me. The game uses the cliché media version of suicide, which is that suicide only really matters when it happens to photogenic teenage girls. The typical suicide victim is usually a middle-aged male, which incidentally commit suicide all the time in video games, with nary a help message in sight. Good luck getting the world to think about that. But I digress.
Now for the good. I like that it integrates the cell phone. It’s your flashlight, your “huh, radio” enemy radar and your source of NPC interaction. It also gets to do a bit of pulling the rug from under you, SH-style. They could have done waaaay more with it though, but it is a short game. I am, however, now fully convinced that the next great Silent Hill game has to do something with cell phones.
The game has street art as a theme, and it showcases some pretty cool pieces. The Otherworld is well handled. The game goes gradually from messed up real world, to rust world, to full blown metallic hell. The added theme here is the use of post-it notes full of high school insults. I like how those evolve in particular: they start moving and then morph into eyes, then into nostalgic photos. It’s a shame you’re too busy running away to get a good look.
Only the final segment poses any kind of challenge, but it is a bit tough. At least dying a few times shows that death is handled as a part of the story. With each death, your character is actually feeling the pain of the cycle. Also, kudos to the controller vibration/audio in the final segment. Seriously, that’s the weirdest, most unnerving controller vibration I’ve experienced.
Now for the story. I’m just going to spoil it, so spoilers ahead.
The loop idea from PT is actually used to good effect here. It basically works as three “acts”, which each one delving deeper into your character :
- Character hates herself; she’s not as cool as her idol. Kills herself.
- Character’s idol is actually dead, turns out character played her part in this. Kills herself.
- Character had a pretty shit life, so despite everything, maybe she could cut herself some slack. Doesn’t kill herself.
So yeah, the game gets a passing grade for me just from having an effective pivot.
What is a pivot? Glad you asked. You see, I have a theory. Horror for horror’s sake is gross. To make great horror, you need a pivot, i.e. to appeal to another emotion than just fear. Melancholy, nostalgia and sadness are the usual choices, joy too with the right touch, comedy if you’re feeling really brave.
Here, the game does pivot into hope quite well. Even the title screen changes for the better after beating the game. That’s a nice touch.
This game also subverts the usual Silent Hill recipe in that the thing your character is looking for in the fog is not actually some awful repressed secret, it’s something positive. She too can “bloom despite her scars”.
Some self-compassion doesn’t hurt once in a while, y’know?
Idle Thoughts 