Liquid_Chriss YaoiEnjoyer
kiwifarms.net
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- Jan 17, 2024
Silent Hill
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- Joined
- Jun 17, 2019
Trailer started decent enough. Looked like it should, some throwback music... Might be a bit of bias on my part, but im not feeling the over the shoulder camera, it just looks too much like Resident Evil.
They introduced the combat, and i was actually okay with it when it came to the melee, but when the symphonic rock remix of Theme of Laura started blasting and you got James gunning down nurses all i could think of is how basic this trailer is. Could've thrown any name at the end and it'd work the same. Surprised they didn't include a hook reveal clip at the end showing Pyramid Head or something.
Something that bugs me about the way the series was handled is how they insist on demistifying Silent Hill itself.
One of the classic rules in horror is that the subject becomes scarier the *less* we know about it, so why do they keep trying to explain how the town works? This series works better in anthology form, every title a self contained story. We don't need continuity, we don't need a recurring character that knows more than he's letting on about the place.
And now we have this thing about the "Silent Hill Phenomenon" based on "a similar event that ocurred in the eponymous US town". We going global, baby! Doctors are studying it! People are experiencing it! You don't even have to be in the town anymore! Get your own mindfuck today!
Leads into my second issue with how SH was handled: Overreliance on the series's golden years.
"A similar event..." Is not referring to Downpour, Homecoming, Origins, or Ascension. (And i actually like two of those) No, you can bet the house that the reference is for 1,2, or 3. Maybe all of them. You can't keep banking on references, at this point SH has had more regular to bad games than it had good ones, unless you put out some quality shit one more time, this comes off as desperate.
In my personal opinion, acknowledging that the "Similar event" even happened retroactively affects the good games too. In a franchise that invites so much interpretation, where vagueness and unanswered questions galore, the last thing you want to do is to establish things. Take a hint from SH4. You can learn that the apartment building's landlord is called Frank Sunderland. That's it. Everything else your mind can fill in and speculate. Does he know what happened to James? Are they in good terms? We don't know.
Establishing that the "event" took place is the beginning. Next thing you'll know they'll reference the games' endings and which one is canon, destroying one of the stronger conversations around the series.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2021
so this is how they will explain RYKYA07's japanese based game being called silent hill
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2017
One big reason is because Konami wanted mainstream success for the series on par with Capcom's Resident Evil. Mainstream audiences would be confused and less likely to engage with mysterious ambiguous experiences left open to interpretation. Especially for a series/franchise as opposed to some quirky one-off.
Frank Sunderland being the landlord was more of a nod than anything significant to the story or experience. As to the actual story of Silent Hill 4 it had a silly plot dump exposition cutscene near the end that over-explained so much about what was going on in the building/town that it was arguably even more cringe than the exposition scene in the SH movie. SH 3 had a similar scene about halfway through. Even Silent Hill 1 had some rather explain-y cutscenes about the town and events. So, it's been a thing throughout the series. It's worse in some games than in others.
I do agree that writing in the sample posted above is atrocious and is more explain-y than anything I remember from all the other games combined.
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
Download it off vimms lair and run it in pcsx2.
It seems Konami really wants silent hill to be resident evil. 4 games and a glorified tv show. They’re trying so hard to capitalize off of resident evils recent survival horror success that they’re trying to pump out a bunch of games to see what shit sticks to the wall.
Don’t I just love it when media has to mention modern events that have absolutely nothing to do with it.
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skykiii
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2018
I just watched a lets play of it. Its actually not exclusively about cyberbullying... in fact regular in-school bullying is more prominent and even that is like, just one slice of the pie. Not even a huge slice.
I thought it was okay, and for a free game not too bad...
.... But honestly, fuck the Silent Hill series.
Hot take, these past few years I've come to see the series as kinda overrated. The Team Silent games were good but the big problem I have with SH is that all its horror is too.... human-based.
Like, I'm sorry but "the horror elements are all metaphors for your trauma" or "all related to The One Bad Thing You Did" just... isn't very interesting. The first time I hear a story like that, I might be able to sympathize... I say that but I actually remember thinking SH2's story was a letdown even when it was brand new, and unfortunately it became the model.
(Not that SH1's story didn't have problems. I mean... an evil cult? Seriously?)
Put simply... I don't care about trauma. I'm not a fucking therapist. And the minute I realize all that's going on is that the character I'm playing as seriously needs to take their meds, I zone out.
Silent Hill really needs to go in a direction similar to say, a Robert E. Howard or Frank Belknap Long horror story, where there's de-facto forces in the world that exist regardless of your mental state and the world doesn't revolve around the one time you stubbed your toe or whatever. But by now the "people with trauma" angle is such an ingrained part of the series that nobody would seriously consider ditching it.
Even with Hideo Kojima at the helm, the game he was helming really looked like it was gonna go in the same shitty direction. And that's just sad.. the series always has good ideas for spooks and setpieces and horror imagery, and its all wasted on narratives that are ultimately kinda stupid.
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2015
I think the problem with Silent Hill is that everyone just says the same thing over and over about it. "oooh it's trauma, this represents that, blah blah blah". That's why I like Silent Hill 3 the most. There's a little bit of that but it's mostly "look at this freaky shit and this stupid cult". It hasn't been put on this massive "omg so deep" pedestal Silent Hill 2 has. Nobody has anything interesting to say about the series and it should have just stayed dead.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2019
It won't be ditched because everything has to be relatable to mentally broken Californian influencers.
skykiii
kiwifarms.net
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- Jun 17, 2018
Well, that and people today just have no imagination anymore.
Plus Silent Hill is one of those things where people are too in love with the established traditions that they won't be willing to break from them even if they become a straightjacket, much like what happens with superhero comics. Instead they just try to justify it.
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
I think SH should really lean into the biblical aspect and prioritize people's sins over their mental health. Like have someone outwardly charismatic and sane ravaged by drugs or something.
skykiii
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2018
Wouldn't happen because mainstream franchises are honor-bound to never be explicitly christian (unless they're criticizing it).
Even if it did happen though, it seems to me that would be just the same thing the series does right now, just with quotes from Exodus and Leviticus thrown in, like a slightly spookier version of those NES Bible games.
mrs thickness
kiwifarms.net
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- Jan 20, 2021
i watched someone else play it and it sucks ass in a way that's a little funny, except for the parts where you're being chased through a hallway looking for 5 Objects to Progress while the same 5 second aggressivegirlpanting.mp3 clip loops the whole time. that's the whole game, is just running through scary hallways and reading journal entries in between, followed up by cutscenes of annoying unlikable lesbian teens being exactly that. it's really just PT stapled onto, like, Life is Strange or Gone Home or whatever
there's a lot of suicide imagery and every single time they show any it is immediately supplemented with a Konami Trigger Warning Screen where they tell you about how bad suicide is while also recommending a mental crisis hotline, presumably because the game is so bad it makes you want to kill yourself if you have any hope for silent hill as a series.
i'll probably forget every aspect of it in two days, but there is a funny part where you're in a library and there's a book talking about how the small american town's economy went to shit because they killed the local small town Japanese witch, which cursed them. no, i'm not joking or exaggerating
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2015
Konami please post the suicide hotline number I need it bad
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
Silent Hill 2 did that. Not so much for Angela, but Eddie and James both have shit they did that they get punished for in the game. None of the other games really do that and just take the “Muh trauma” themes from silent hill 2.
Final Fantasy 2 is one of the few games I can think of that has biblical aspects but doesn’t really criticize Christianity, but that’s old. Modern games don’t really have nuanced takes on religion.
skykiii
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2018
Yeah, that part was exceptionally silly.
I watched the playthru on Krinx TV (a husband and wife team)... they gave the heads-up that apparently Konami's canon now is that Silent Hill isn't just a town, its a worldwide phenomena--they described it as being "basically an SCP or something." The thing about a witch came up multiple times and they were both like "please tell me this isn't the new canon origin for Silent Hill."
They also made fun of the dubbing, not because the acting was bad but because it had the "Hong Kong movie" problem of the words clearly not matching the mouth movements.
......
As for my own thoughts, well, I'm gonna add to your summary:
Basically, first third of the game is girl looking for her artist friend who is like, the only person she liked or something. She finds out artist friend killed herself. Player Character Girl decides to follow suit.
Second loop starts. This time Player Character Girl finds out that like her sister or cousin or something had a shitty home life, but also was friends with Artist Girl. Apparently there had been some sort of falling out between Player Character Girl and Cousin Girl because Cousin Girl was gonna go to College and PC Girl didn't know Cousin Girl had her own issues. So now PC Girl feels like shit.. and again commits suicide.
Third loop. This time she finds out more about Artist Girl, who seemed like just surreally happy, but this loop does the "oh the happy girl was secretly depressed" thing. It's also revealed that a lot of the bullying was actually instigated by Player Character Girl who got jealous that Artist Girl was hanging out with Cousin Girl, making PC Girl feel like everyone was ignoring her. Naturally it turns out that Artist Girl was a pure angel and actually had not forgotten her first friend at all.
I seem to recall there was also a thing where you find out Player Character Girl had an extremely abusive mom who like locked her in the closet so she could spend more time with a guy, and it backfired because the guy found it creepy and instead called CPS. It's unclear whether CPS actually did anything.
..... So basically, the game is like shitty fanfiction-tier writing: its one of those "let's just pile on a bunch of shitty things in the hopes of SOMETHING registering a reaction to modern day consoomers." Even Minx and Krism called it "Silent Hill for Zoomers" at one point.
EDIT: I just remembered this thing pointed out by the comments on that video:
The artist girl's name is Maya Hindenburg. Like the blimp.
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
People gave the movie shit, but I felt like the 1st one did a great job with going in that direction. It's simple, allows a lot of leeway and feels poetic.
I rather enjoy the idea it's a sort of purgatory/hell or a point where such a thing manifests in reality.
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
I miss when silent hill was just caused because of a weird fucky cult rather than being a “world wide phenomena”. It was better when it was self-contained, Konami. Silent hill 4 was already pushing it a bit but at least it can be explained because of the town being in close proximity with silent hill.
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2019
It was caused by specific people being influenced by the town. The cult is only superficially relevant to it.
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
Well, whatever it was, it was only the town itself. It should’ve stayed that way.