Silent Hill

[Brain Problems]

Guess SH2 remake is on GOG now. Really screams of desperation when you drop the game on a platform with no DRM that no one uses and a massive discount.
View attachment 7336771

I saw the email notifying me about SH2 on GOG and I immediately went oh shit, they shadow dropped the PC version, this is incredible!

Boy do I have egg on my face!

Kind of interesting that the enhanced edition of OG SH2 PC implicitly understands that almost everyone is playing a pirated copy of the game. I own a legit multi CD physical version of the game and I still just default to the downloaded copy for simplicity.

 

[blackface enthusiast]

Kind of interesting that the enhanced edition of OG SH2 PC implicitly understands that almost everyone is playing a pirated copy of the game.

I think legally it's abandonware, you can host it and assuming Konami DMCA'd you (and you had the lawyer money) you'd win the case. Pretty much every guide telling you how to play SH2 and SH3 in this day and age tells you "google 'silent hill abandonware' to download the game". You don't even need a torrent or know how to mount an ISO, they just have the full game in a zip file and you're good to go.

Even then there's still a lot of people who won't bother which is a shame. SH2 in particular is a really beautiful game, while SH1 is one of the best looking PS1 games. Both being readily available on PC would be really nice.

I did buy Silent Hill 4 off GOG because it's on sale (and I want to try to financially incentivize both GOG and Konami to work on the other games) and I was impressed at how seamlessly it works. It's pre-patched, modern resolutions are in the options menu and works, it recognized my controller right away, I didn't have to fuck with a bunch of cfgs and download 30 .dlls just to make the game semi-work like you usually have to with these early 2000s Japanese PC port abominations. It just works right out of the box. Here's hoping the other 3 games get the same treatment, you can't get more accessible than that.

 

[Imperial Commandos]

The hype is baffling. These games aren’t life-changing. The stories are decent, but the tank controls are awful (even its contemporaries like MechWarrior, where you pilot a walking tank, feels better). Team Silent seemed more far interested in making great movies than decent games that played well. Like a lot of Japanese developers at the time did. Such as Kojima and the overrated MGS series. Not known for the mid gameplay, just the memorable story.

Spoiler: Plot summaries SH 1-4

SH1: Alessa manipulates Harry and others (SH0), forcing them to come to silent hill using her eldritch powers to escape her abusive life, sacrificing his daughter Cheryl, who goes missing in Silent hill. The true ending where she reincarnates herself and gives her reincarnation to Harry is canon. (a proto-isekai plot to be sure). A comic/VN explored Harry’s moral conflict over potentially killing her reincarnation. This problem is ignored in-game and in the rest of the series as Harry comes to accept his real daughter is gone and killing her would only disrespect the real Cheryl's memory.

SH2: James’ grief warps the town, but fans reduce it to "therapist town" instead of an eldritch anomaly reflecting your inner state. (like the mirror room in SH3 that is probably a manifestation of anxiety. As it only kills the player if they stay in there long enough). Some characters see a sunny town like the girl Mary wanted to adopt; others see hell.

Pyramid head is a glorified zombie shambling around with a giant cleaver or javelin. Take off the silly headpiece and they're just another generic butcher zombie but they can one hit kill the player. They aren't even in most of the game and dont feature in any other SH game like newfags will insist he is in SH1, will also insist they are the "guardian" of Alessa based on the movies. When he didn't exist until SH2 and is more of an aspect of James personal judgement manifested in Silent Hill 2.

SH3: Heather avenges Harry’s murder and finally ends the cult that has been hunting her all these years. no modern "moralfaggotry" mentioning therapy about sparing Claudia. She cries, moves on, and gets a happy bittersweet ending after killing whatever creature Claudia sacrificed herself to create. Picking up the shattered pieces of her new life with Detective Douglas as her new adoptive father figure and moving on.

SH4: Still feels like its own IP even with all the silent hill rebranding. Plot: Edgelord murderer with a lolcow tier Oedipus complex tries to resurrect his mother. Locks some dude in his own apartment with eldritch magic in the process which ends up being his undoing. There's also a tunnel sized hole in the bathroom that leads him to wherever he needs to go with the occasional ghost haunting and home exorcism kits you need to use.

 

[Shaneequa]

Edgelord murderer with a lolcow tier Oedipus complex tries to resurrect his mother

That's a good line lmao

 

[Scarthew]

This problem is ignored in-game and in the rest of the series as Harry comes to accept his real daughter is gone and killing her would only disrespect the real Cheryl's memory.

This isnt true, the journals in 3 go over this. Also none of the comics are canon

SH4: Still feels like its own IP even with all the silent hill rebranding.

Its not really rebranded the decision to make it an SH title happened very early one which is why the forest and prison levels are concepts are based on the news article in 3. Also the entire basis of the story is Walter conducting a ritual he was tricked into doing by Dahlia.

 

[Shaneequa]

Also none of the comics are canon

He means the gameboy advance visual novel.

 

[blackface enthusiast]

Alessa manipulates Harry and others (SH0)

SH0 isn't canon, it's fanfiction created by a developer unaffiliated with Team Silent.

forcing them to come to silent hill using her eldritch powers to escape her abusive life

She's in constant agony and only kept alive by black magic. She would have died otherwise. She's left in this state for years as the cult's demon god is still inside of Alessa, feeding off of her pain.

Some characters see a sunny town like the girl Mary wanted to adopt; others see hell.

Not a sunny town, the town is still abandoned to her, she just doesn't see any of the manifestations as she's too young to have any darkness for the town to manifest.

Locks some dude in his own apartment with eldritch magic in the process which ends up being his undoing.

Basically instead of the entire game taking place inside of the town and the nightmare version of the town, the entire game takes place in Walter's dreams. The ritual he performs lets him spread the corrupted power of the town to the apartments, contained in his dreams. It's kind of an inverse of what they were doing with Alessa where she was like an antennae for the cult's demon god's powers and physically changed the town, instead he's channeling that power into his dream, characters like Henry and Cynthia get pulled into Walter's dream world.

the tank controls are awful

Skill issue but also the only game with tank controls is SH1, S2-4 have analog controls.

Team Silent seemed more far interested in making great movies than decent games that played well.

The point of survival horror is that you're not playing an action hero, you're playing as a character who sucks at fighting which is translated to the controls and experience. Even then the combat is very easy.

 

[𒀭Δημιουργός χάος]

Alessa manipulates Harry and others (SH0), forcing them to come to silent hill using her eldritch powers to escape her abusive life, sacrificing his daughter Cheryl, who goes missing in Silent hill

If you're summarising SH 1 though 4, why for love of gog are you inserting that psp mutt abomination into the mix.
That vidya's irredeemable trash except for the soundtrack.

Pyramid head is a glorified zombie shambling around with a giant cleaver or javelin. Take off the silly headpiece and they're just another generic butcher zombie but they can one hit kill the player.

The point  is that his  silly headpiece is actually his head. There's nothing under it. If you knew the mongoloid culture little better you would have already realised he's representation of James's Sexual frustration/“desire“ as one big, rotting, walking Phallus defiling all the innocent mannequins he can laid his greasy hands on.

Edgelord murderer with a lolcow tier Oedipus complex tries to resurrect his mother

Excellent qoute fren. Walter truly lived his supreme gentleman's life until his self-inflicted crucifixion

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

This popped up randomly on YouTube; bit late, but I figure someone could use a chuckle or two:

 

[The Strongest Haaton]

While I'm a big Survival Horror fan, I avoided every Silent Hill after 3. But I decided to try 4. That was a really interesting game. I got the best ending, which requires that you exercise like 80% if the apartment hauntings and keep Eileen alive. This was a bizarre experience, but I came off unsure if I liked it or not.

The escort side of things is kind of mixed in my mind. If you keep a tight leesh on her, she's not too annoying to deal with. I think many of the complaints people had came from impatient people who just ran from everything while leaving her in the dust. She does have a habit of getting swarmed, with one moment in particular at the end of the Prison section being the worst for it. And I presume many people just let her get hit a lot and left her alone in other rooms to keep taking damage so she dies more easily at the end, which also frustrated people.

As for the inventory being limited, I don't mind the idea, but it's a bizarre decision. This is the ONE Silent Hill game where a limited inventory is awful. With 10 slots, you need to manage your pistol, ammo (which has 10 bullets take up a slot each), melee weapons, Eileen's weapon, healing, amulets, candles, silver bullets, the swords, and important puzzle items. I've never ever felt so limited with an inventory before in a game like this. Even Chris's inventory in Resident Evil 1 was more manageable (which I had no problem with). It got so bad that I needed to basically give up on guns and stick to melee only until I needed to use a silver bullet. Plus, I just didn't give Eileen a weapon to conserve space.

I get that the reason they did the inventory like this was for you to actually go to the apartment. Well, in the beginning it also heals you, but once you get Eileen and the hauntings begin, you only go for inventory management and saving. It's the way to get you to actively see them and use a candle against them. I did like the "gotcha" where Sullivan gives you a doll, and if you choose to pick it up and put it in the item box, you get an extra haunting. The lesson is to not accept gives from psycho murderers, I guess. And with how few candles there are, it may be tough the first time to get the best ending. You should basically never use them for anything but hauntings.

The puzzles were fine. I liked the silver bullet + Sword combo being how to deal with certain special boss ghosts if you're smart.

The voice acting was so fucking hilariously bad at times. But it's an endearing level of bad. For example, this guy here caring so much about chocolate milk was the funniest part of the game (if it doesn't embed properly, it's 28:58-29:40.)

Overall, while I prefer the first 3, I'm happy I finally gave this a chance. It had an atmosphere and gameplay loop that was very unique. Don't know if I'd say I "liked it" though. But it was fun.

 

[Brain Problems]

Overall, while I prefer the first 3, I'm happy I finally gave this a chance. It had an atmosphere and gameplay loop that was very unique. Don't know if I'd say I "liked it" though. But it was fun.

It's a great game that I think about the most out of all four but which out of all four could benefit from a remake the most. Just don't know how they'd fix the tedious HERE WE GO AGAIN! padding of the second half but I'll let the giant corporations think of something and then bitch them out anonymously on New Zealand Agricultural forums.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

The 2nd half is particularly bad gameplay, but the Apartment shit remains really interesting, so much so that Koji would rip it off for some bits in PT (Pretentious Teaser). And there's subtext that Walter might be possessed by Valtiel, making his fall quite tragic as he started out as an abused child "back up plan" if Alessa couldn't birth a god. The first 3 SH games are able to hook you pretty much right from the start, but 4 requires you to kindov look up supplementary material and really dig into the story for it to get good.

 

[blackface enthusiast]

Just don't know how they'd fix the tedious HERE WE GO AGAIN! padding of the second half

I guess by expanding upon the levels and having more new stuff to see on your second go through, or maybe making the second go through more of a nightmare segment like other SH games. Changed environments, more corruption and decay, stronger/more aggressive monsters.

 

[Nameless One]

Silent Hill 4 doesn't need a remake because it isn't that bad of a game and it's entire CONCEPT was fully realized. The game holds up very well graphically for a PS2 game. Barely ANY cut content exists enough to repurpose anything with the game. The game is not as good as 1-3 but it serves as a better work of art than the junk we got after Team Silent was disbanded. It was an experimental game first and foremost. Why do you want to see the same shit over and over again? No one learns from the terrible remakes we are served. They will make Silent Hill 4 less special and weird with a remake then rip away anything unique it has going for it all in the name of "pleasing the disgruntled fans", no. You either love or hate SH4 or you feel mixed about it and thats the end of the story. Seriously fuck off with the remake bullshit, we have everything we want to know about it available, if it ever gets a Nightdive remaster though or rerelease they should just include the extra victim files material throughout the levels and the Japanese CD with the unrelated folk story. Nothing more or less. I don't want any soul to touch 4. They objectively cannot do it justice because of the way the game was made. Remaking it would never live up to whatever fantasy you have of it. The fantasy, that "wish" for demakes. How about you fill in those lines and make a conceptual successor to SH4 yourself like Kojima almost did.

I want to see what Team Silent was cooking with the Shadows game I constantly bring up and presumably SH5 which repurposes the original fucked up SH3 script. I want new games that are influenced by Team Silent's era. I want real loveletters and great experiences. I want something compelling, emotional, thought provoking. Nothing like what we've got since 2006 aside from PT. Even if you hate SH4 it still had a fairly compelling story and atmosphere and concept and soundtrack that makes it a valid Tetralogy.

Akira Yamaoka fell off hard after 4's OST by the way. Change my mind. I say this as someone who started with loving the Origins/Homecoming/Shattered Memories soundtracks as a kid. 1-4 are SILENT HILL. What follows and even 2's remake are a weird and pale imitation of what skillful mixing he used to have even if he did riff from Portishead. Now it's gone. Acoustic radio rock and shitty movie sounding bullshit. What a fall from grace when we had some of the best tracks in 4 (most that never appeared in-game sadly).

 

[X Prime]

original fucked up SH3 script

More detail please.

 

[Nameless One]

More detail please.

Here is the only thing we know versus the bullshit Supereyepatchwolf made a retarded video about (which made this "alternate story draft" more popular and known):

GW: What was the original scenario for SH3? Are you allowed to divulge that?

Yamaoka: Unfortunately no, since we plan on using it for a future game. (laughing) It was much more along the lines of the second, where the main character was a damaged human being, summoned to the town for a very specific reason. It was, or should say is, the darkest story we have come up with.

Imamura: I'm sure a lot would have to be cut. Just the preliminary scenario had elements that would most likely not be approved by the ratings boards. Another thing is we really didn't want to use a similar template as SH2 for the game that followed it. That was another deciding factor in changing SH3.

Gameworld doesn't exist anymore as far as I know, but it was thankully archived to the silent hill memories site. I have no clue how this retard managed to gaslight fans and newcomers with anti-SH3 propaganda. Konami didn't force Team Silent to not pull another SH2 guilt trauma faggot story for 3, they chose to stick to something else according to this interview.

My speculation due to how vague they were and mentioned it being a problem with the ratings boards would be an actually pregnant female protagonist or something involving the topic further and her child is sacrificed or placed at risk because of the occult, but its just speculation. It could be anything, we only have a few straws hinted at in 3 to grasp and we don't know what they would have done since it was just an idea for later, which never came around.

Anyways there was a recent vfx breakdown video I saw about this film called Brazil
And guess what I found out about Silent Hill 4 inspirations?

It was always there in front of our eyes. I love finding new information and trivia.

 

[Wesker]

Guess SH2 remake is on GOG now. Really screams of desperation when you drop the game on a platform with no DRM that no one uses and a massive discount.
View attachment 7336771

Fuck, this game dropped off the radar within the first month. I briefly gave it a pass until I saw more of it through streamers, and it's just more modern worthless remake slop to pacify literal fucking retards that think tank controls are too hard in the original.

 

[Lady Adjani]

Fuck, this game dropped off the radar within the first month. I briefly gave it a pass until I saw more of it through streamers, and it's just more modern worthless remake slop to pacify literal fucking retards that think tank controls are too hard in the original.

All it took for me was a single snippet of uninterrupted gameplay footage and the bloober logo and I knew the game was going to be fucking ass.

I guess you could get some minor enjoyment out of seeing old locations remade in a fancy new engine, but that's about it.

 

[Marc]

Any time I see people discussing the Silent Hill 2 remake, it feels like they were tricked into doing so. That game's a seven month old, dried-out, white, peanut-sized turd some fat retard named Konami paid another fat retard named Bloober to crap out onto a sidewalk, and then they both hid around a corner wringing their hands while they waited for people to notice and discuss it as though it was something more profound than a turd. This thread occasionally appearing under "new posts" is the only time I'm reminded that mediocre, single halloween season product exists.

 

[Shaneequa]

Despite the huge amount of budget spent on things like environmental art and assets, SH2R cuts corners in some bizarre spaces. For example, there's no Theme of Laura 2 OP music video, there's no re-rendition of the Dog Ending slide show.

There's also many choices I genuinely cannot comprehend like why add a second park? I don't have a problem with the movie theater section but I do wonder why it exists if the Bowling Alley is still there AND explorable. Why change the location of Heaven's Night if you can literally still walk to its original location. Why add a THIRD apartment complex? The post office exterior is extremely prominent and it LOOKS like it should be explorable but we never go in it. Why not go in the post office instead of making a third apartment complex or a second park?

Also, where is the Born from a Wish DLC?