Silent Hill

[Becomemysoulreaver12]

Konami is really dumb if they didn't approach SadSquare to make an SH game. Those guys clearly love the series since they went through the effort of remaking the apartment from SH4 for a 10 second gag in Visage.

Oh yeah forgot that was in Visage, they also made an outright good horror game that is also fun to play, unlike the blair witch and layers of fear

 

[Korpon]

I might be misunderstanding but I think you're mixing up Ito and Yamaoka. Ito is the creature designer responsible for Pyramid Head amongst others. Yamaoka was the sound guy. Also, another thing I might be wrong about, isn't Akira kind of responsible for watching the series go to shit as a producer on the garbage western projects? And last I checked his music and sound hasn't been anything to talk about since maybe 4, but even that was pretty inconsistent (burping nurses, anyone?).

My bad, I could have sworn I read somewhere he helped design some of the monsters. He did become a producer and do all the sound design though starting with SH3. As for the later games, he worked on Origins, Shattered Memories, and Homecoming, but I don't believe he had much influence on the overall game design, just the music and sound stuff. For the movies iirc he was only executive producer and just made some songs. Also SH4 was my personal fav OST of the games so maybe I'm a bit biased lol.

 

[Brain Problems]

My bad, I could have sworn I read somewhere he helped design some of the monsters. He did become a producer and do all the sound design though starting with SH3. As for the later games, he worked on Origins, Shattered Memories, and Homecoming, but I don't believe he had much influence on the overall game design, just the music and sound stuff. For the movies iirc he was only executive producer and just made some songs. Also SH4 was my personal fav OST of the games so maybe I'm a bit biased lol.

3 and 4 have okay sound design but the cracks start showing up more pronounced, imo. 3 has some truly obnoxious what-were-they-thinking SFX like the piece of shit flying monsters that make a noise like someone scraping nails on a chalkboard, and the sniffers. Balancing seems off at times too but maybe it's on purpose who knows. It's also when you start to see more vocal tracks appearing prominently on the OSTs that are... fine I guess but kind of cheesy and wouldn't be out of place in an anime outro or something. 4 has some great tracks (room of angel is really really good) but similar issues. Also annoys me when Yamaoka dips into sound libraries and uses some obviously stock sounds like he couldn't be bothered to even pitch them or distort them in any way.

 

[Psyduck]

Whatever the new games end up as, i at least appreciate the discussion it brought up here, haven't sperged about SH like this in a while and it feels great

 

[Gravemind]

I'll just say Silent Hill 2 remake looks better than expected. It's almost impossible to recapture the specific visual aesthetic of 5th & 6th gen games.

A town with thick fog and absolutely oppressive silence is not an aesthetic that's hard to recapture, especially not if it's been done once already.

The biggest part that lent to the atmosphere was the sound design on top of that, and the camera angles to some extent in a very specific scenes.

This remains one of my biggest grievances with what's been shown about the remake: How much they're leaning on weather effects as a clutch to evoke "horror".

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

A town with thick fog and absolutely oppressive silence is not an aesthetic that's hard to recapture, especially not if it's been done once already.

The biggest part that lent to the atmosphere was the sound design on top of that, and the camera angles to some extent in a very specific scenes.

This remains one of my biggest grievances with what's been shown about the remake: How much they're leaning on weather effects as a clutch to evoke "horror".

On paper it's not difficult, but on paper it doesn't even sound that great either, it's all in the execution.

The camera and controls are considered clunky these days but that also contributed to the experience.

One of the bigger issues I've noticed is the way James looks and sounds. I doubt it's the same actor, he just doesn't sound creepy. Most characters in the previous games had a (likely purposefully) strange sort of tone.

 

[Ravana]

I had to drive a couple hours today and I started questioning if the voice direction in Silent Hill 2 was supposed to be that way. A lot of people say it's intentionally weird but I don't recall any VA saying that they were directed to read every line like it was the first time they'd ever read anything before.

 

[Zaryiu2]

Reminder that Umineko went downhill after Ryukishi07 was the only one left of the project, in fact

Spoiler

The ending require the rules he set in place be not respected for events to happen as is revealed and other stuff like that (The Higurashi Gou/Sotsu thread explained it better)

.

And he allowed this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis...sodes#Higurashi:_When_They_Cry_–_Sotsu_(2021)

Spoiler

Satoko goes full edgelord on Rika because *GASP* how dare Rika not help her with her homework and spend more time with her new friends except Sakoto refused help and to be included in that group activities, so she kill herself and Rika and keeps killing Rika over and over until they fight in a magical girl fight which ends in a deus ex machine or whatever the term would be, oh and along that there one or two characters looking like characters from Umineko and the Sotsu makers trying to connect Higurashi and Umineko throught the series events

Yes he did not write Sotsu but he didn't step in and tell them to stop their bullshit

 

[Soycast Guy]

I had to drive a couple hours today and I started questioning if the voice direction in Silent Hill 2 was supposed to be that way. A lot of people say it's intentionally weird but I don't recall any VA saying that they were directed to read every line like it was the first time they'd ever read anything before.

It definitely wasn’t intentional. It’s just the fact that they were unprofessional VA’s made them sound like how actual people would talk, and that worked out for SH2. Didn’t make them sound like actors like Troy Baker.

 

[Psyduck]

It definitely wasn’t intentional. It’s just the fact that they were unprofessional VA’s made them sound like how actual people would talk, and that worked out for SH2. Didn’t make them sound like actors like Troy Baker.

...Who ironically would go on to voice James in the SH HD Collection, and iirc the new voiceover was widely shat on

Its so weird lol intentional or not, it just felt right. Ive said it before and i'll say it again, Silent Hill was lightning in a bottle, and we most likely wont experience anything resembling that impact again

 

[Pissmaster]

One of the bigger issues I've noticed is the way James looks and sounds. I doubt it's the same actor, he just doesn't sound creepy. Most characters in the previous games had a (likely purposefully) strange sort of tone.

James had a pitch-perfect image and tone to his character, considering how he's presented at first, and what kind of revelation the twist at the hotel brought forth. I know I could never pull off something like that, nor could... just about anyone, frankly. The voice acting seemed just perfect; the uncertainty of the amateur voice actor perfectly reflected James' own muddled mind, as his true actions and what he wanted to believe were at odds with one another in his head.

Silent Hill 2 is perfect as-is. No remake will ever do it justice.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I had to drive a couple hours today and I started questioning if the voice direction in Silent Hill 2 was supposed to be that way. A lot of people say it's intentionally weird but I don't recall any VA saying that they were directed to read every line like it was the first time they'd ever read anything before.

Well, of you look at Resident Evil, it had bad voice acting and was just standard corny B-movie stuff. If Silent Hill actually just so happened to nail the acting for the most part and it wasn't deliberate then it's even more of a lightning in a bottle performance.

...Who ironically would go on to voice James in the SH HD Collection, and iirc the new voiceover was widely shat on

Its so weird lol intentional or not, it just felt right. Ive said it before and i'll say it again, Silent Hill was lightning in a bottle, and we most likely wont experience anything resembling that impact again

I didn't even read your post before making mine, couldn't agree more.

 

[John Titor]

In case anyone needed a reminder, James' actor wasn't a professional one and auditioned for fun because he was dropping off his daughter to try out for Lauren; Konami happened to like his performance.

 

[Soycast Guy]

...Who ironically would go on to voice James in the SH HD Collection, and iirc the new voiceover was widely shat on

Its so weird lol intentional or not, it just felt right. Ive said it before and i'll say it again, Silent Hill was lightning in a bottle, and we most likely wont experience anything resembling that impact again

Oh yeah, silent hill definitely isn’t something that can be done again. As I’ve said, even games like SH4 still had that silent hill feel unlike the games that came after.

 

[Fools Idol]

A town with thick fog and absolutely oppressive silence is not an aesthetic that's hard to recapture, especially not if it's been done once already.

The biggest part that lent to the atmosphere was the sound design on top of that, and the camera angles to some extent in a very specific scenes.

This remains one of my biggest grievances with what's been shown about the remake: How much they're leaning on weather effects as a clutch to evoke "horror".

You can thank the PS2 for that. Everyone remembers the PS3 for the wacky hardware bullshit Sony tried to push but the PS2 was just as retarded. I'm not really qualified to talk about how the PS2 works but one of the things I know is that the machine could do alpha effects extremely fast. So fast in fact that those effects where basically free for the dev.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

...Who ironically would go on to voice James in the SH HD Collection, and iirc the new voiceover was widely shat on

Its so weird lol intentional or not, it just felt right. Ive said it before and i'll say it again, Silent Hill was lightning in a bottle, and we most likely wont experience anything resembling that impact again

Troy is a fucking faggot who completely shit on the original cast for wanting residuals.

 

[Psyduck]

Another "Lightning in a bottle" moment for that ass

Apparently the whispers you hear are an outtake from one of the va's they just forgot to take out. That shit made me freeze on my seat first time i heard it. Seriously, how much "unintentional yet works" stuff is in this game?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Well, of you look at Resident Evil, it had bad voice acting and was just standard corny B-movie stuff. If Silent Hill actually just so happened to nail the acting for the most part and it wasn't deliberate then it's even more of a lightning in a bottle performance.

Part of why it was like that was that the japs didn't know english and couldn't properly judge a performance in english.
If they insisted on recording in Japan it meant scraping together the round eyes that were around and that can be slim pickings. Shenmue might be the peak of jap devs liking how it sounds despite not knowing what is being said.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Also the og actor isn't much better. Guy Cihi. He is a crazy conspiracy theorist nut now. It is unfortunate.

 

[The Fair Lady]

Another "Lightning in a bottle" moment for that ass

Apparently the whispers you hear are an outtake from one of the va's they just forgot to take out. That shit made me freeze on my seat first time i heard it. Seriously, how much "unintentional yet works" stuff is in this game?

It turns out the whispering is actually just a stock sound effect. Still creepy as fuck though, it got me too.