Playing Silent Hill for the first time still genuinely shocks and amazes even today in 2023. I have no idea how these people made a game this ambitious and this high of quality in 1999, doing stuff that horror games had never even came close to accomplishing at that point in time in the industry, and frankly doing things I hadn't seen on the PS1 period. Even for as cinematic as the first Metal Gear Solid is, the way that Silent Hill purposefully uses hardware limitations to its advantage like the heavy fog to create such an oppressive and frightening atmosphere, or how the camera is used so thoroughly against the player not to frustrate but rather build tension and unease from not seeing what's ahead. Combined with some of the best sound design in the business that goes so above and beyond in its experimentation, or the ridiculous attention to detail in interiors that I'm frankly shocked the PS1 didn't set itself on fire trying to render; honestly this game runs better than many other games on the console that were trying to do far less than what SH1 goes for.

It's all of that combined with the balls on Team Silent for also throwing in a mysterious story that trusts the player to take in the elements and pieces it gives you and put it all together without always explicitly telling you exactly pinpoint what everything means, and also shockingly how much of it is missable too. You could finish the game quick and get the most miserable ending possible, but spending the time carefully to look for more items, explore every nook and cranny, rewards you not only in a gameplay sense but also with information that lets you parse more of what's actually truly going on. The fact that compared to the biggest names in the genre at the time like Resident Evil, whose monsters were from experiments gone wrong that we all recognize from pop culture, Team Silent went for a more personal and genuinely scarier direction by basing its monsters off things we know, distorted and twisted based on the traumas and nightmares of its world.

Frankly, my only real issue with Silent Hill is the combat. While having some jank in there isn't immediately a deal breaker (the old RE games are definitely clunky in their own right), Silent Hill's fully 3D environments and full freedom of movement in them seem to cause more issues than the general tightness of the RE games. Harry's auto-aim is a frustrating disaster, rarely ever actually targeting the enemy you want on first try. It doesn't matter if something is coming up on you mere inches away, if Harry isn't directly looking at that monster, the auto-aim will be more than happy to target the other monster behind instead and make you take an unnecessary hit. Having more melee options is nice but this game also starts to send more groups of enemies towards you by the later half of the game which just does not work with melee whatsoever. Everything has a grab or hitstunning animation that completely halts Harry which makes melee completely unusable by the end, combined with some weirdly inconsistent hitboxes that seemed to struggle hitting anything low to the ground. This isn't really as big of a deal breaker as I'm making it all out to be thankfully, mostly because I get the feeling that Team Silent themselves knew the combat had its issues. The game showers you in boatloads of healing items and ammo and is just forgiving in general when it comes to taking hits. Silent Hill is more concerned about its level design and atmosphere, and more than makes up for the okay combat because of how much it nails those goals. An astounding must play that I really wish was more accessible to play today through means other than emulation, instead of being forever trapped on the PS1.

i shouldn't have to say it anyways but don't spend $100+ dollars on a used copy in today's current screwed up used games market with scalpers out the wazoo that doesn't give anything towards konami or team silent, go buy the digital release on a PS3 if you're that desperate to spend money and don't want to just grab a rom and emulate it lmao

I find this game to be an outstanding product, residing in the top bracket of its genre. It's in the running for best game released in 1999 for me.

I find the game to be a mechanical delight. The way your guns become more accurate based on how long you aim and your proximity to enemies, how the running strafe forces you to commit to 2 steps but can be interrupted by interacting with items or opening doors, how different enemies require different strategies based on their varying behaviors and how it's detailed down to their individual perception of sight and sound for aggro. This all adds up to a game with a decently high skill ceiling, and I've done many 10 star runs as the game always seems to be able to be pushed further. The scoring system itself is very finely tuned, and the time limit for 10 stars is perfect at 90 minutes for the amount of kills and optimization required.

I am absolutely the target audience of this game.

Since I liked Signalis so much I wanted to play through the franchise it was heavily inspired by :3

I'm amazed that a game that old with dialogue and voice acting that awkward could scare me this much. The atmosphere in this game really is something else and I felt so uneasy so many times. Oddly enough, no area scared me more than the school (I also took the longest there because of that fact).

It got its fair amount of issues, like the gameplay probably feeling too dated for most people (although I blame the framerate more than the actual gameplay mechanics), voice acting being really rough most of the time and the puzzles can be really cryptic. But despite all of these things I still think this is a must play for sillies like me who love survival horror games :3

It's a very unique game in my opinion and I think you get used to the controls fairly quickly, so go play it! :>

Enjoy your vacation in Silent Hill


My Results Screen

An Author And His Daughter Took A Vacation To A Small Town In Maine. What Happened Next Will SHOCK You

Silent Hill was not my first horror game. That honor goes to Clock Tower on the Super Famicom, which introduced me to the innate pleasures of having your guts spooked off. It also wasn't my first traditional survival horror game - that would be the 2002 remake of Resident Evil, which made me realize that just because you have a gun does not mean you are safe. However, Silent Hill was the first horror game I played that made me feel something more than just fear. It made me think, not just about the place of horror in video games but also the things that make us afraid. It made me positively convinced that video games were the ideal medium for horror: That the easiest way to get somebody to sweat is to put them in the driver's seat. And what's more, it showed me that horror and fear are very multifaceted things, and that I had a definite interest in exploring all of the branches of that path. So basically, it ruined my life, and I'm very thankful for that.

I will note that while I'm not giving any explicit story spoilers, I will be including screenshots, music and touching on game mechanics (including how to achieve different endings), so if you want to go in completely blind, I recommend skipping on this review until you've tried it yourself.

Even after dropping the disc into my PSone, I still have difficulty reckoning with the fact this is an actual game that was released in 1999. Everything about it feels so strangely ahead of its time. The psychological slant to the game's horror immediately sets it apart from its contemporaries, which is naturally a big part of why it's so fondly remembered today. It's a visual feast, with Silent Hill's frequent switches between a dim, snowy ghost town and a fever dream of blood, steel and rust making you feel an almost perverse kind of joy when returning to the former from the latter. The series' trademark fog, assuredly as much a product of pragmatism as it was a deliberate artistic decision, performs admirably in its task of making the vast stretches of asphalt and concrete feel endless and fraught with unseen danger. Indeed, the denizens of that fog have inspired designs that are wonderfully woeful abstractions of otherwise ordinary creatures. Once the lights go out, your flashlight will be your sole source of relief - although relief is perhaps not the right word, as it will just as readily confirm your fears of the dark as it will assuage them. At its absolute best, the use of lighting in Silent Hill is stunning, providing a lovely juxtaposition between fully realized horror and the fear of the unknown. Even age hasn't necessarily rounded the edge off: The low-resolution textures lend a degree of ambiguity to everything, making your surroundings appear as a waking nightmare. This has not gone unnoticed by modern game developers. It's all capped off by Akira Yamaoka's phenomenal sound direction, which brings the horror to life in ways simply not seen in games up to that point. A symphony of frantic synths, thunderous percussion and monstrous mechanical noise punctuate the high-tension moments, while his more mellowed-out stylings provide a mesmerizing and almost relaxing vibe for the spaces between. The creaking of ancient doors and the clanking of metal beneath your feet. A screeching radio alerts you to the presence of enemies, and a droning air raid siren heralds a shift in scenery. And of course, despite the powerful soundscape, there is clearly still an understanding of the value of silence. It really is a masterclass in creating a disturbing atmosphere, and while there have been plenty of developers to follow in Silent Hill's massive footsteps, I still think we haven't seen anything quite like it to this day - even within the series itself, post-Team Silent.

Darting from building to building trying to keep your face un-chewed, especially in the later of portions of the game, is a delightfully panic-inducing exercise. Once you're behind closed doors, whatever safety you felt in managing to get off of the streets is quickly replaced by the dread of navigating dark and dilapidated corridors and rooms filled with brand new atrocities. Resident Evil famously made the opening of each door a point of suspense, but Silent Hill managed to accomplish much the same without the need to dramatize the action of it. You'll hesitate opening that door purely because you're uncertain you really want to see what's on the other side (if it opens at all, but that's a totally different conversation). Sometimes you'll hear the most awful noise with no apparent source. Sometimes you'll walk through a door only to exit into a place it very clearly should not have. Sometimes the game outright gaslights you. It's a hellish experience from start to finish, and if you allow yourself to be absorbed it will continue to haunt you for a long time after the fact.

A big part of what makes the horrors of Silent Hill so potent is the way Harry's position as "Guy Everyman" is leveraged. Once the controls are handed over to you, the player, you have about about as much of a clue as to what's going on as our hero does. Every time he says "what", you're probably right there with him, even if the lack of emotion in his delivery doesn't adequately represent your own level of concern. The antagonists know it, too - they willfully keep Harry in the dark about what's really going on in the town, aware that they can get him to do what they want so long as they're just vague enough in giving him "advice". He's getting strung along, and you are, too. Harry, for his part, doesn't have time to care. He only wants to save his daughter. You might not be able to directly sympathize with his motivations, but you can assuredly understand why he would be willing to literally go to Hell and back.

Of course, the designers are counting on you not wasting any time in your endeavors to escape town, and have at least one or two pitfalls awaiting you. If you just do as you're told, paying close attention throughout, you will likely still unravel the mystery behind this hellscape... Though perhaps a bit too late to do anything meaningful with the revelation. Admittedly, the execution here is a bit sloppy. Getting the best endings requires behaving in a manner somewhat disingenuous for a concerned father. Obscure requirements to earn your bittersweet finale are by no means uncommon in this genre. However, given Harry's objective is (understandably) to find Cheryl and get the hell out of the proverbial Dodge, it feels a little extreme that actually accomplishing this task requires putting his quest on the backburner to further risk his life in a few out of the way buildings and alleys. If there was anybody in town who both knew the truth and wanted Harry to know, it'd be a bit more understandable. But since you're largely on your own here, you're likely to have your "oooooh" moment a stone's throw from the staff roll. It makes a second playthrough feel like more of an obligation rather than the result of a lack of foresight on the player's part.

And as you can probably imagine, it's really the gameplay itself where the experience starts to fall apart for Silent Hill. Everything about it is perfectly typical for the time period in which it was released. Harry controls like a tank. You collect weapons and ammunition and health items and plot coupons. Solve puzzles, kill enemies, do everything you can to survive until that next save point. While plenty at the time were making a point of Konami's latest being "more than just a Resident Evil clone", it's easy enough to imagine how some people might come to that conclusion: Written out on paper, the two series barely sound any different. Silent Hill's interpretation of those concepts is perfectly inoffensive, and perhaps even less so than other examples due to the relative lack of static camera angles and pre-rendered environments. It also eschews other common aspects of the survival horror genre, such as inventory management and limited saves. And yet, precisely because the game is so straightforward comparatively, it makes the gameplay tropes that are here feel a bit toothless and vestigial. The handful of puzzles in the game are either brain-dead easy or weirdly obtuse, but in either case aren't what I would call mentally stimulating. Your foes are great in number and definitely unpleasant to face down, but you'll quickly find that there's never much reason to loiter out in the open and thus can spend a large portion of your time simply kiting them and saving your bullets for when they're absolutely necessary. The game is plenty generous with regards to ammunition and restoratives, and if you play your cards right you'll only rarely need to dip into those pools, as the more confined spaces you'll spend the majority of your time in are perfectly manageable with melee weapons. Once you find the emergency hammer, anything short of a full-on ambush will fall before the might of Harry. Overall, for as oppressive as your surroundings are, the game mechanics themselves don't lend to the dread as much as you might hope they would. The only real sticking point there is the bosses, some of which are capable of killing Harry in one or two hits even on Normal difficulty. While it totally makes sense for an ordinary human being to drop dead after being plugged twice in the chest, it doesn't make for an especially climactic fight. It feels like a concession for the level of challenge being fairly low otherwise, but I'm undecided on whether or not playing on Hard necessarily rectifies these issues or just makes the experience more frustrating. Of course, I am also speaking from the perspective of somebody who has played these kinds of games a plethora of times, so perhaps everything will still stick the landing for most people. There is the obligatory ranking system, so if you're eager to prove yourself, you can pour some time into trying to achieve the full ten stars.

The game's narrative can be hit-or-miss as well. The writing gets the job done but is sometimes a bit too dry for its own good, leading to some unintentionally humorous moments. The accompanying voice acting, while surprisingly decent for the time, is sorely lacking in emotional weight. The story isn't especially deep, either, although it is definitely well thought out and it leaves enough room open for personal interpretation. Other aspects of the world of Silent Hill have been explored plenty in the game's numbered sequels. On the presentation level, while many still find the chunky and muddy visuals appealing, it is nonetheless a 3D game from the 90s and it shows. At the very least, the CG - while still a little uncanny at times - has held up remarkably well and stands out as being one of the better examples from that time period, even placed next to works from the likes of companies like Square. In my personal opinion, the full package still feels remarkably fresh in spite of being nearly two and a half decades old. However, like any major media milestone, how much mileage you get out of it may largely come down to how new you are to the scene, or at the very least how cognizant you are of the impact the game has had.

When all is said and done, Silent Hill is far from being a perfect game, but I think it's a beautiful one regardless. Team Silent tried to create something unique and darkly affecting, and I think it's fair to say they wholly succeeded. Just like the protagonists of each game, some of us stepped into Silent Hill, and some may have even escaped - but I will never be able to forget that town for as long as I live. If you haven't experienced it yourself, then find a way to play it, turn out the lights and slap on a pair of headphones. If you come back from your little vacation satisfied, then you're in luck - this is only the beginning.

What Silent Hill does so well that I feel most horror media didn’t around the same time, was create a genuinely disturbing and memorable atmosphere.

Too many times in the 90s, horror media was all B tier blood and guts gory bullshit that didn’t leave an actual impact on you as the viewer. When a game can take what movies with higher budgets are attempting to do, and turn it into something I feel is top of the line in that category, it’s truly something special.

You will not find a plethora of cheap jump scares to make you squeal, but rather area after area of images and sounds that will bother something inside of you. A lot of the time during my play through, I would hesitantly go through a door or up a flight of stairs, worried the next images I am about to see are going to stick with me even more than the last.

I love psychological horror themes, often creating a sense of dread within your own mind rather than worrying only for Harry.

Even the slow movements and fixed camera compliment the tension while trying to escape as quickly as you can. It’s almost as if Toyama knew how the average Joe would respond to being in this type of situation.

Honestly the only thing here I’m not too fond of is how slow some of the melee attacks can be, considering a large portion of the in between areas encourage you to use them.

Nevertheless, Silent Hill is what more horror media should strive to be. 9/10.

"The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh"

Como um fã de Resident Evil, sempre tive vontade de jogar os Silent Hills, e finalmente estou começando.
O jogo é o que há de exploração de terror psicológico nessa vibe de survivor horror, mas de uma forma bem diferente de Resident Evil. No RE, meu "medo" é causado pela limitação, saber onde gastar cada munição, como usar cada item, nesse jogo o "medo" é causado por tudo que constitui uma atmosfera, criando uma experiência densa e pesada, seja com toda a característica sonora, os sons bizarros e distorcidos, o desorientamento do Harry em conhecimento e objetivos na cidade, ou os cenários creepys e restringidos, que por sinal, é uma ótima sacada dos diretores, esse proveito da limitação do console, criando a neblina, a utilizando e transformando em um conceito de maior tensão. Por sinal, essa característica de "medo" de RE quase não me aflingiu nesse SH, eu podia ter matado o triplo de inimigos do que eu matei que ainda sim me sobrariam muitas munições.
A historia dessa porra é bem confusa e em certo grau complexa, então após terminar fui atrás de pesquisar sobre. É bem interessante a ligação religiosa e todos os motivos de existência da cidade e dos monstros com base nos traumas da Alessa, a ideia geral do personagem e das consequências dos atos extremistas do culto é bem explorada. A qualidade das cutscenes é surpreendentemente alta pra época, além de passarem super bem a vibe da temática.
Sobre a gameplay, ele é lá travadão na pegada PS1, mas funciona razoavelmente bem. Gosto do sistema do mapa, de ir atualizando, bem eficiente. Os inimigos no geral são bem filhas da puta, é até surpreendente que o primeiro jogo da saga, de 99, conseguiu fazer uma movimentação não mongoloide para os inimigos, alguns deles tem sistemas bem específicos feitos para complicar quem tenta passar da forma mais sagaz, só correndo ou coisa assim. Há um ou outro inimigo que funciona de uma maneira merda, especificamente a nurse sem a faca, acho aquilo levemente imoral, e principalmente os bosses, que talvez seja o ponto mais fraco do jogo, nenhum deles eu consegui achar bom, todos muito travados em mecânica, o primeiro é o que mais minimamente funciona, e mesmo assim tem uma gimmick genérica com uma execução tosca, e o ultimo (apesar do design brabo) é todo errado, eu mal conseguia o enxergar, apenas atirava na fé e nem sabia se estava acertando, alem dos hits dele não serem desviáveis.

Silent Hill remains one of the best horror experiences of all time. A nightmarish yet sometimes serene atmosphere, great sound design, and surprisingly deep world building explain why it’s still so beloved to this day. Outdated controls and lame boss fights are annoying, but a small price to pay for a game this special. 



9 / 10
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[MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING! This is a review AND a commentary, and as such I’ll be talking about close to everything that’s going on in this game. If you have any intention of playing the game yourself, definitely do that before reading this.]


Silent Hill is a true classic. There is a reason it has become practically synonymous with atmospheric, psychological horror. The mere image of a suburban scene enveloped in fog is enough for a sizeable amount of people to go “That’s like Silent Hill!”, and reminiscing about the time when they first experienced stepping into this lost little town.

For me, this was only a few weeks ago (at the time of me writing this) and yet I feel like I’ve known and loved this game my whole life. I know that SH2 is the one that REALLY blew up and gained a massive cult following, but I wanted to start where it all began, and I’m glad I did. It gets regularly overshadowed by its progeny (perhaps for a good reason, I wouldn’t know as I haven’t played them yet) but I genuinely believe that, even without a boatload of sequels and spin offs, this would have become one for the history books regardless.

This has been the scariest game I’ve ever played, without a doubt. While I have experienced worse individual moments of shock,(i.e. worse jump scares) in plenty of other media, no other game or film has ever managed to constantly put me on edge the way Silent Hill did. And, like any fan of this series will be able to tell you, it does this by doing one thing better than any other: atmosphere. It does this without barely any real jump scares throughout the whole duration, which is especially impressive given how easy it would’ve been to just pack the game with them.

Before starting the game I was fairly certain that the extreme pixellation and often rather goofy-looking PS1 aesthetics were enough to probably take away a lot of the horror experience, but I’m happy to say I was very wrong. If anything, the lossy, grainy textures and strange, mechanical animations only accentuate the whole experience quite a bit. Also, the more abstracted enemy designs actually heighten the strange, otherworldly horror that this game goes for. And really, that is one of the strongest compliments I can give this game: Despite it being over 20 years old and a lot coming after it, it’s STILL one of the most genuinely creepy games out there.

But that alone a classic does not make. What really turns Silent Hill into generation defining cultural behemoth is what lies beneath the doom and gloom; a deeply tragic and melancholic core.

Equal parts bleak and serene, this game draws you into its nightmare the same way the eponymous town does with this game’s protagonist, Harry Mason - although, we could just as easily argue the town itself being the actual main character. As if descending into a dream, we suddenly, and without any real explanation, find ourselves in the eponymous city. Any recollection of our previous life is hazy at best, and only possible to be gleamed at all by carefully watching the intro cinematic. At first, I assumed that this was just a supercut of all cutscenes in the game set to some nice 90’s alt rock to set the mood but it actually sets up the story too.

We see Harry driving towards the popular tourist destination Silent Hill, at the behest of his daughter Cheryl, who really wanted to go here for vacation. On their way there, a mysterious teenage girl suddenly appears in the middle of the road, causing Harry to crash his car. When he comes to he finds himself in the middle of a town drenched in a deep, unyielding fog. While he doesn’t seem to be injured, he finds that his daughter has disappeared.

And this is where we start the actual game. No fancy intro, no long, drawn out cutscene; you’re thrust right into the maw of dread. Immediately I noticed that this game works completely without any HUD, from start to finish, which I think definitely heightens the sense of immersion the player feels. This is stark contrast to not only most horror games, but almost any games for the time. Where other titles would clutter the screen with various stats and meters, Silent Hill lets its environment take the front stage without any obstructions.

From the first second, we can already witness one of the defining factors of the intensely thick atmosphere Silent Hill conjures at just about every moment; Akira Yamaoka’s haunting, industrial Yamaha-synth soundscapes droning away, the sounds undulating like a person going in and out of consciousness. Ranging from intensely dark and oppressive cacophony, like something out of a Throbbing Gristle or Coil record, to heart-wrenchingly beautiful and melancholic Alt-rock guitar licks that give the feeling being in a 90’s high school romance movie. It needs to be thoroughly acknowledged just how much Yamaoka clearly understands this series and its tone.

The thick fog that permeates every square inch of the map isn’t just an aesthetic choice - although it is that too, and what an iconic one at that. No, it’s also used to mask the unfortunately low draw distance of the PS1 in a way that allows the game world to feel much larger, while also allowing for seamless traversal, at least within certain zones. The streets are wide, the houses all neatly rowed next to each other. Both are completely empty. Not a single person in sight. In a way Silent Hill’s fog kind reminds me of Demon’s Souls use of the same concept (or rather, the other way around) - the fog represents to us the loss of our sanity, the line between dream and reality. More than just existing here, it almost seems like the town is literally being devoured by the fog; the envoy of the true horror yet to come.

Speaking of which, let’s get back to the story. Harry climbs out of the wreckage of his car and finds his daughter gone. Not a single person in sight. After aimlessly walking through the town for a bit, we can see Cheryl in the distance but she somehow doesn’t seem to notice us. We chase after her a while until we come across an alley - THE alley. We enter and notice that things have.. changed. Without warning darkness falls upon the town. The alley has gotten narrower, the walls replaced with filthy rust, the ground with rickety metal grates. It terminates in a dead end, with a burnt corpse covered in rags adorning the wall. Before we even realise what the hell is happening, we’re getting ganked to death by a bunch of little nightmare monsters.

This whole bit is brilliant. The opening minutes leading up the alley are perhaps one of my favourite moments in the whole game. The way things go from 0 to 100 in less than a minute is legitimately genius. It sets up the core dynamic and mood of the game so damn well. If the eerie, foggy landscape wasn’t enough to make you feel uneasy, this should’ve done the trick. It teaches you that you can never know what to expect. Things might go awry before you know it. The game also shows off its cinematic chops here, utilising the camera to its fullest extent with strange angles and very deliberate movement, which is in very stark contrast to the completely static cameras of most other horror games at the time. Where games like Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark would focus on inventory management and difficulty, or puzzle solving respectively, Silent Hill clearly puts its main focus on being as cinematic as possible.

Once again Harry wakes up but this time finds himself in a diner, alongside Officer Cybil, a cop from the next town over who caught wind of every person in Silent Hill mysteriously disappearing - we can even see her drive past us in the opening cinematic.
After telling her that we’re looking for our daughter, and that we’re not leaving without her, she hands us a gun. That took me a bit by surprise. You’d be forgiven in thinking that this game was fairly combat free, given its reputation of being more about atmosphere, but you’d be very wrong. This game has a LOT of combat, much more than you’d think. I’ll be getting into why I find this to be a strange choice a bit later, but for now, our new cop friend tells us to be careful with the gun and to think about who we’re about to shoot with it before she leaves to get some backup.

If only she stayed for a minute longer, she could’ve helped us with the flying bat demon that just crashed through the window and is now trying to eat our face. After disposing of that thing (after dying to it a bunch of times because we embarrassingly didn’t understand how to use the gun at first) we’re off to explore the town, but not before grabbing the single most essential tool in the whole game: the radio.

It will alert you of nearby enemies by emitting a shrill, fire alarm-like siren. This may initially seem rather counterproductive in terms of cultivating dread in the player, since you’re almost always tipped off to nearby enemies. But like I said before, this game conjures dread not by shoving things into your face, but rather by doing the opposite, hiding the scary things outside of your immediate view. In a game that is this focused on survival and effective exploration, being able to hear them beforehand not only feels more fair, but also somehow more tense. There is always a mini-decision going on in the back of your head: “Do I fight or do I flee?”

While exploring the town, we realise that we are utterly trapped here. There is no apparent way in or out, since all streets in this place terminate abruptly into the abyss. An endless, grey, foggy chasm on all sides. This extends to roads inside of the town, meaning certain paths are completely blocked off and you have to find your way around them. What’s worse is that we’re not alone after all… patrolling the streets are various monsters ranging from dogs to bats to something more humanoid, all skinless and/or burnt. This is some nice foreshadowing into the nature of this place, as the theme of burnt bodies continues throughout the game. To navigate this town, we receive a map which Harry (or someone/something else) will continuously fill out with more hints and markers, though they only show up on the map you have to pull up every time.

While the map does help with navigation, the player is largely on their own when it comes to progressing the story. Speaking of which, after a while, the player will find a house with a door with three locks, which after opening will end the “tutorial section”. After going through said door, darkness suddenly falls over the town. The grey fog has gone, and in its place has come the night. Visibility is even lower than before, and the monsters more aggressive.

But we have to find Cheryl. We can’t give up. Through gathering context clues, we realise we have to visit the local Midswich Elementary School, which was previously blocked off. This is the game’s first “real level”. This place feels more like a typical “dungeon”, and is structured a bit more traditionally. In general, this will be the core loop for the rest of the game, a mix between scouring the “open world” for direction, and then having to clear a more claustrophobic, confined dungeon-like space. The levels are typically multi-storied places with lots of locked doors, elevators, traps and shortcuts built in there.

Inside the school, we encounter the secondary core gameplay element: Puzzle solving. I’ll come out and say that this aspect is a little hit or miss, and was sadly one of the few things that tended to pull me out of the experience, rather into it. To me, the best puzzles here were the ones that felt like they had an actual, diegetic connection to the events of the game. The sad truth is that the vast majority of them don’t. They feel more like fairly standard point-and-click type puzzles which require more moon-logic than I would have liked. Most of the time, you’re confronted with fairly simple logic puzzles, which require you to look for certain items inside the level and use them in the right place, i.e. finding a bottle of hydrochloric acid and realising you’re meant to drizzle some of it on a petrified hand grasping a medal, which you need to open the door to another part of the map. You get the idea. It feels surprisingly video gamey for a project that seems to be very careful to NOT do stuff like this otherwise.

Like I said, the better puzzles are the ones that feel like they have an actual connection to the story, like the Clock Tower puzzle, which is at the core of the other, smaller puzzles. Through solving them, and reading clues written into some school books at the start of the level, we attain 2 medals and turn on the power inside the clock tower. We crawl inside it and suddenly find ourselves somewhere.. else.

An empty school is already a bit creepy, due to its nature as a liminal space. The uncanniness of such spaces manifests when viewing a location, which usually has a purpose, outside of that context. To experience it outside of its designated raison d'etre. A schoolhouse is supposed to have teachers and students in it. An empty schoolhouse is alienated from its purpose, and therefore strange. It is not really a place. It's nowhere. It’s pretty wild to me how well the dev team understood and applied these deeply hauntological, postmodern themes about the uncanniness of lost futures and alienation back when these concepts were still fairly novel. One might even argue that Silent Hill and its copycats perhaps played no small part in spreading them. But all of that is just the beginning of this rabbit hole.

After passing through a short tunnel, we find ourselves in the same level again, only this time we’re not greeted by a normal, albeit creepy school, but rather a horrifying, blood and rust drenched nightmare version of it. We remember; this is just like the death alley in the beginning. Red, almost organic seeming coloration taints the walls. The floor has been replaced by a rusty, rickety metal grating, the abyss literally beneath your feet, a great black chasm waiting to devour you and everything here. The otherworld has invaded reality again, and this time you’re caught right in the middle of it. You’re expected to navigate the school again, but this time rooms have been swapped, doors that were previously open are now locked, and vice versa. The amount of enemies has increased, the level which has previously been uncanny and vaguely threatening is now outright terrifying and trying to kill you, to drag you down into the depths.

This is genius on so many levels, and perhaps one of my favourite moments in horror, maybe ever. The dread that unfolds here is of an intensely psychological nature and has layers upon layers to unravel. Silent Hill is incredibly good at putting you at unease throughout the whole game, while still being able to consistently pull the rug from under your feet.

While exploring the second instance of the school, we’ll discover more puzzles, more enemies and more clues. One of them is absolutely essential to actually beating the first real boss the game throws at you. After figuring out you need to start the school’s boiler to beckon this level’s boss fight, we descend down into the cellar. The boss resembles a wyrm but its face is split in the middle, giving it the ability to eat you in a single gulp. Through finding the aforementioned clue in the form of a fairy tale involving a hunter killing a drake by shooting an arrow directly into its mouth, we figure out we can do the same. If you happen to find this clue before engaging that thing, it’s barely even a fight. Either way it’s over in about 10-20 seconds.

This is where I have to get a bit more into the game’s combat.

Generally, it’s not great. I get that it’s a PS1 game, and that the extremely clunky and inconsistent auto-aim is still the best possible way of going out it without making it extremely frustrating. It still feels extremely inconsistent and a bit braindead at times, like you’re just endlessly pumping bullets into enemies. If this was just for the regular mobs, I’d be fine with it, but the bosses generally adhere to the same rule; empty your clip into it until it dies. Doesn’t matter if it’s a skinless dog or literally Satan himself, if you can shoot it, you can kill it. Melee weapons feel even worse and are borderline unusable in boss fights. The lack of any health pick ups during boss fights can also turn each encounter into a terribly frustrating ordeal if you happened to walk into one without an appropriate number of them in your inventory.

In the best cases the bosses are over and done with quickly, like Split Head, but more often than not, they either require you to run around the arena like a madman, trying to reposition so you can get a few shots in, or even worse, require you understand some random ass gimmick like during the Cybil boss fight, where you have to make her completely empty her gun so she can’t shoot you anymore, and then have to run laps around her trying to shoot approximately 700 bullets into her chest. Alternatively, if you manage to complete a certain side quest and carry a weird potion to the end of the game, you can use it on her, which apparently returns Cybil back to normal, expelling the demonic hold somehow and skipping the boss fight altogether. The problem is that this little fun fact - the potion’s anti-demonic properties - isn’t told to you literally until the final boss of the game, which BTW isn’t even a guaranteed outcome. It only happens IF you save Kaufmann, another NPC who can be very easily missed, and IF you also find said potion. I do not understand why they decided to make this whole interaction THIS cryptic, especially since if you do manage to save Cybil, Harry drops the absolute lore bombshell that Cheryl is ——— SPOILER ALTERT ——— actually adopted.

It’s not just the frustrating mechanical aspects - I can accept those as a product of their time - but also the contextualisation of combat. As mentioned before, the game has you engage in a surprising amount of it, and everything here is killable by raw physical violence. Not only does this feel weirdly inappropriate for what is ostensibly an invasion from another realm of existence, but Harry really doesn’t strike me as a battle hardened war veteran either. The actual game doesn’t really talk about Harry’s background, although some external sources like the novelisation (which came out many years after the fact) say that Harry is a writer, focussing on family matters and home security. This makes Harry’s high proficiency with firearms and melee weapons slightly more believable, but not by much. I get that we’re supposed to take this as him being a loving father, diving into the depths of hell to save his daughter but it feels kinda strange considering that Resident Evil’s protagonists - who are, by all accounts, actually trained in combat - generally have a MUCH harder time dealing with monsters than the guy who writes books on how to secure your house and got a gun handed to him by a random police woman.

Back to the story. We’ve braved the school in both versions and are done fighting the wyrm monster. Harry experiences a vision of a girl who looks an awful lot like Cheryl, but it dissipates before we understand what’s going on. We are teleported back into the real world, and we are greeted by the old, familiar fog. But something has happened: Rather than being weird or uncanny, the fog now has an almost relieving quality to it. Nothing changed, it’s just that the foggy town now seems almost serene in comparison to the absolute hell we just went through.
I love this duality so much; it gives you some desperately needed reprieve from the intensely stressful otherworld sections without ever taking the foot of the gas entirely. The fog has now become the new “normal”. This is, by far, my favourite moment in the game and encapsulates the feeling that this series is going for so well.

After this whole ordeal, a nice little jog is exactly what we need. We just heard a church bell ringing in the distance, so off we go to investigate. There we will find one of the more important characters in this game, Dahlia Gillespie, who informs us that she knows we’re here for “the girl”. She informs us that the town is being swallowed by darkness and that the “Mark of Samael” is upon us, the pyramid shaped symbol which could be seen in the school’s courtyard. According to Dahlia, it represents the demons’ attempts to invade our world, but more on that later. We get a new item from her, the “Flauros”, an enigmatic, pyramid shaped object that’s supposed to help us defeat the darkness. She also tells us to go to Alchemilla hospital, leaving just as suddenly as she appeared.

At the hospital, we meet another very important NPC, Dr. Michael Kaufmann. After almost killing us with his gun, we briefly discuss the situation at hand before he leaves again, leaving us alone in this hospital. Curiously enough, completing this NPC’s side quest is essential go attain the good ending, which would’ve never crossed my mind before knowing about it.

The hospital itself works basically the same as the school. Go through a bunch of rooms, solve a bunch of puzzles that involve grabbing certain key items. The enemies here are a bit tougher, the place is bigger, and the psychological horror aspects keep getting more intense and unpredictable. For example, take the 1st floor ladies restroom randomly teleporting you a floor higher, without explanation. While here, you should definitely look around for a broken vial of a mysterious, red liquid called “Aglaphotis”, and, more importantly, the extremely easy to miss plastic bottle which you can use to take a sample of said liquid with you - this is important to get the best ending in the game, and I have to admit I was kinda miffed at just how easily missable this whole side quest is. I feel like having something this impactful be hidden behind such a seemingly inconspicuous interaction is obtuse to the point of being unfair. You only ever find out what this strange liquid even does during the ending cutscene. I get that they made it deliberately hard to find to facilitate multiple play-throughs, but this legitimately felt impossible to figure out without a guide - I’m saying this because I found the other important side quest without looking up anything, and just using intuition.

After a while, we come across the hospital’s elevator, which is our main mode of transportation through the 3 floors and basement. But then suddenly, without really calling attention to itself, a “4th floor” button appears on the lift’s panel where there previously was nothing. Connoisseurs of Japanese culture and media will immediately notice the connection to the common phenomenon of omitting a 4th floor from houses due to superstition; it’s very similar to how in the West, esp. America, many buildings simply won’t have a 13th floor, skipping directly from 12 to 14.

Upon taking the lift to the 4th floor, darkness falls yet again, but this time even more seamlessly. We have entered the otherworld again. But we also experience a vision of the same girl from the school, this time we see her entering an old antique shop. Just like the school before it, the game makes you go through (almost) the whole hospital again and rediscover it, making you go through a series of increasingly cryptic puzzles and riddles. Once again, they are pretty hit or miss. Long story short, you unlock the hospital’s basement - but not the regular basement, but rather the basement beneath the basement. In place of the standard, rusty metal walls of the otherworld, we have an oppressively dark, claustrophobic hallway with rickety wooden walls, reminiscent of an abandoned mineshaft more than a hospital. It’s seriously creepy and perhaps the most uncanny environment of the whole game. Down here we find a single hospital bed, with a picture of the girl we keep seeing in our visions, which reveals her name to be “Alessa”. After doing what we can, we head back to the room where we first found Kaufmann, only to find someone else hiding here.

A young, beautiful nurse cowers underneath a desk. Elated at the sight of another person, she embraces us and asks us what’s going on. She introduces herself as Lisa Garland. She also has no idea what’s going on and says she simply woke up here without any idea how she got here. Scared shitless, she obviously doesn’t know anything about Cheryl, or even what the hell is happening here. Next to that, she also isn’t aware of any secret basements in the hospital. Suddenly, our conversation is interrupted by a severe shot of pain and Harry loses consciousness. Upon regaining it, we find ourselves in the same room yet again, but daylight has returned, we’re back in the “””normal””” world. I was a bit surprised to see this section capped off without any boss fight, but considering that combat really isn’t this game’s strong suit, I can’t say I was disappointed.

Lisa is gone, but instead Dahlia enters the room and spouts off more cryptic nonsense about the world being swallowed and how we’re the only one able to save it, yadayada.
Bottom line: We have to find the “second church”, and we should head to the town’s old antique shop.

From this point onwards, the game changes quite a bit. For one, we don’t have any more big, complex dungeon-like areas, at least, not until the very end. Instead, when arriving at the shop we find the so called “second church”, a small altar of worship, seemingly in service to some demonic entity. Cybil is there too, and after almost shooting her (omg, foreshadowing???) we discuss the whole situation with her, including Daliah’s strange musings on the town being devoured by darkness, to which Cybil hilariously responds with: “Must be on drugs.” She also tells us that she thinks she saw a little girl walk, or rather, float towards the lake. After revealing a hidden path behind a bookshelf, Harry steps in and finds the “other church” Dahlia told us about, only to suddenly disappear without a trace.

We find ourselves in the hospital again, talking to Lisa in the same room we found her before. Lisa then tells us some things about the town’s history, and about how Dahlia is known around town as a strange woman. Before we can ask more, we lose consciousness again. We then find ourselves in the antique shop again, but Cybil is gone and we have transitioned into the otherworld once more, but this time, the whole town has gone to shit.

From this point onward, the game fully descends into a near infinite abyss of stress and dread. Where the game previously balanced the mood between hell and fogworld, this bare minimum of comfort has been stripped away too, at least for now. While this arguably makes for an extremely powerful horror moment and still sticks with me to this day, gameplay wise it boiled down to running past everything as fast as I could whenever I wasn’t inside a building. Enemies are way too numerous and persistent to be worth fighting at this point. Harry realises that Lisa is probably his best bet at finding a way to the lake, and decides that he needs to find her again, so back to the hospital we go - only, the way there is obviously completely blocked off, so we need to take a detour through the town hall.

Another extremely cool moment comes when Harry enters the mall, where a stack of old TVs will suddenly all simultaneously turn on. On them, you can see Cheryl, apparently in a state of fear, occasionally interrupted by the so-called “Mark of Samael”. Once this is done with, the search continues. During the exploration of this mall, the ground suddenly breaks away beneath us at some point and - without warning - drops us right into a boss fight with a nasty slug monster. Once again, you defeat it by shooting at it until it dies. Thrilling.

That distraction out of the way, back on our way to the hospital. We ask Lisa how to get to the lake, and she informs us of an old sewer that runs beneath the town and connects the town to the resort area. When Harry attempts to leave, Lisa begs him not to abandon her again. Harry offers to take her with him, but she insists that she feels like she cannot leave this place, no matter what.

After this, we leave the hospital only to realise that the world has changed yet again. Where there were previously streets, there remains only a single, linear path, leading from the clinic to a strange rooftop. This is when our old friend the slug monster joins us again, only this time it has fully metamorphosed into a big old moth demon. Like the other fight, just empty your clip into that thing and don’t forget to heal occasionally. Having the player fight that thing again after what feels like 30-50 minutes tops feels like a very strange design choice, especially considering that this thing doesn’t even seem to have much to do with the plot at all. Regardless, killing the beast finally returns us to the “normal” world again, after what feels like a lifetime.

Sadly I have to admit that from this point onward, the plot and a lot of game design decisions kinda lost me the further it went on. Not that any of it was outright terrible, but admittedly I find darting from one place to the next without any reason to fight less engaging than the gameplay loop of the previous half, where you were mostly on your own to figure out what to do next. The plot also seems to lose what little footing it had in this world, which made it even harder for me to follow what was even going on at this point. The sewer section, as you might imagine, is a totally bog standard, linear walkway which feels more like an action-sequence than horror, but that is going to be a theme for the rest of Silent Hill. The psychological survival-horror edge of the game makes way for a more action-y, combat-centred approach and I can’t say I’m a fan. While it’s not on the level of Bloodborne, where you are by far the scariest thing in that universe, being this powerful and having access to this many weapons can make the game feel less tense than it probably intended. The fact that you rarely, if ever get any downtime from running from one place to the next like a madman also adds to this - you just get kinda used to it by the end.

The saving grace here would be the fact that Kaufmann’s side quest comes into full motion, and offers a desperately needed reprieve from the “run like a madman” routine. You can find him - or completely miss him - in the resort area, in Annie’s Bar, where you’ll have to same him from a mumbler. If you missed this, you just locked yourself out of the Good and Good+ endings. Luckily, the location is rather hard to miss, and inside you’ll simply shoot the monster that attacked him. Without so much as a thank you, Kaufmann leaves, but not without dropping a motel key, alongside a safe combination.
In said motel, you’ll find the only other surviving sample of Aglaphotis, the red liquid with mysterious properties. The very second you locate it, Kaufmann shows up and snatches it from your hand. While this feels annoying on the surface, this is actually what you WANT to happen. Overall, this is a nice distraction and something to break up the pace, I just wish there was more of it. By this point, you’ve probably also gathered that Dr. Michael Kaufmann was heavily involved in the drug trade of a local substance known as “PTV” which is said to possess strong hallucinogenic properties, and is used by almost everyone in town, but especially a certain collective of people that will become relevant shortly. There are many news articles in town talking about disappearing police men, and other strange happenings in connection to said drug.

After this, back to the regularly scheduled programming; a whole lot of manic running. Suddenly, it gets dark again, but this time no dream, no losing consciousness, no strange feelings; it just happens. This world is now changing rapidly and violently. Inside a boat cabin, we come upon Cybil again, and Dahlia joins the party. She tells us about how dire the situation is, and that we need to hurry. The gang decides that our best bet is for Harry to search the nearby Lighthouse, and Cybil to go to the Amusement Park.
While the gameplay loop has suffered a bit since the halfway point, the cinematography and atmosphere absolutely didn’t. The game still impresses with very experimental camera angles and intense sound design, and it’s not gonna stop now. Up on the lighthouse, we see Alessa again and a huge “Mark of Samael” on the floor. She disappears, and we’re left to wonder what we did wrong.

On the way out we notice that Cybil isn’t back from the park, so we decide to go after her. Into another sewer we go, and we do the exact same shit again as before. If it wasn’t clear before, now it’s become obvious that the game’s developers likely ran into budgetary issues by this point. But what’s interesting is that we can see Cybil being dragged away by some shadowy creature, but before we can act, she’s gone. After a rather frustrating second romp through the shitter, we’re finally here.

While the atmosphere is pretty intense, and the sound design does a lot of heavy lifting, this area felt a bit underwhelming to me personally. While, yes, still pretty creepy it didn’t quite reach the height of the school or hospital to me, mostly because those places had actual level design while this is just a very shallow attempt at a maze. The setting would’ve been amazing, but it ends up a bit unimpressive. We run into another boss fight, but this time it’s someone we know… Cybil. A dead expression on her face, slouched posture and blood-red eyes. Seems like she got herself some quality zaza. (Sorry)

She has somehow been infected by the same parasite that can be seen infecting the nurses in the hospital, and now tries to blow your brains out while riding on a carousel, trying to confuse you into running her way. While this is certainly the most creative boss in this game in terms of design, having to deal with emulated PS1 controls while also being extremely low on health without any health pick ups in the general vicinity made this fight EXTREMELY frustrating for me. I know this is mostly my own fault, but I really do not understand why you can’t find even a single damn health pick up in this whole 5+ minutes boss fight. Luckily, you don’t HAVE to kill her. Remember the random plastic bottle from the hospital you filled with Aglaophotis? Turns out you’re meant to use it in this boss fight, and you’re supposed to figure this out completely unprompted. Again, I understand that the idea was that you likely aren’t going to get the true ending on your first run through, but this just feels like the devs being needlessly obtuse just to make this happen by any means necessary. If we DO manage to save her, Harry tells her about the neat little lore detail that Cheryl isn’t actually his biological daughter?? Wait, what? Why is this extremely crucial piece of information so out of the way? I really feel like this should’ve been part of the main plot, as it is absolutely essential to understand what is even happening in this story.

Regardless of the outcome, Harry pushes onward and confronts Alessa, who is seemingly waiting for him in the darkness. He still hasn’t put 2 and 2 together, and if the player hasn’t witnessed the aforementioned conversation, they likely won’t until right at the end. In either case, he demands that she let Cheryl go and Alessa attempts to push us back using a force field, which finally activates the Flaurus, which we have been carrying around for hours now. Alessa is immobilised. But this is where the story takes a turn:

Dahlia suddenly appears and reveals that Alessa is her daughter, and that “this is the end of [her] little game”. She reveals that we’ve been doing what Dahlia wanted us to do all along, and that Alessa has been doing all of this to escape her. She speaks of a ritual that has yet to be completed. Before we can understand anything, both disappear in a flash of light. Harry suddenly wakes up in the hospital yet again, with Lisa standing there, this time with an unnerving twitch in her face. She talks to Harry about how she went into the secret basement, and how she feels like something traumatic happened there, but she can’t remember. Before we can calm her down, she runs away.

When we get control back and save our game, we notice we aren’t actually in the hospital. We’re “Nowhere”. Remember that bit about how Silent Hill’s horror works through the alienation of locations from their purpose, and how that effectively transforms them into a type of “nowhere”? Well, they’ve gone fully literal with that concept. This nowhere-space is an amalgamation of both the school and the hospital, with some hitherto unseen room types. We are trapped, there is no way in or out. We have somehow ended up in some back-pocket of reality, likely sustained by what little remains of Alessa’s power. Doors lead to rooms they couldn’t possibly connect to, space itself becomes entirely untrustworthy. And we don’t even have a map. The map has become somewhat of a crutch throughout the game - no matter what, you could always briefly pause the game and reorient yourself. Well, not anymore. You are on your own now. All of this combined makes for the scariest, and most intense section of the game, especially since I really did not expect the game to go here all of a sudden. This really feels like the amalgamation of the game’s ideas.

The puzzles here are the most cryptic and obtuse yet, with some of them being really cool, while others - like the ever infamous Zodiac puzzle - feel almost impossible to figure out on your own. The game also doubles down on its alchemical / occult themes, and outright name drops the Olympick spirits like Ophiel, Phaleg, Aratros and Hagith. I enjoy the aesthetic of it all and am impressed with the mountains of research that must’ve went into this. Imagine my surprise when I figured out that Aglaophotis was a real thing - well, not real but you know what I mean. But this is where the beauty of Silent Hill full develops, in this intricate interplay between occultism and emotion, between fear of the unknown as well as our internal darkness. The game never fully commits to either the supernatural, nor the psychological. This makes for an unparalleled sense of mystery and dread, since the edge between dream and reality is so thin.

The level takes you through various rooms, having you collect various items related to spirits, death, life and alchemical processes. I’m not gonna go through it in detail, because it feels a bit redundant at this point. Let’s instead focus on Lisa for a bit.

After going through most of it, you descend to the deepest level, where you have to collect various religious symbols. The last one - a star of David - is in a long corridor. Upon turning around, an extremely distressed Lisa is waiting for us. She has finally understood why she is the only one to remain; she has been dead this whole time. She is just like the others, but something keeps her from remembering her purpose. Lisa loses herself completely, and desperately begs Harry to save her, which causes him to push her away. We now get this game’s most iconic scene, with Lisa inexplicably starting to profusely bleed from her head, proving that whatever is happening to her isn’t normal. Harry flees the room in terror and shuts the door behind him. Lisa bangs on the door, crying for Harry, for anyone to save her from this hell. It is an extremely brutal moment, emotionally speaking. Here is this poor woman who wants nothing more than someone to look after her, and here we are pushing her away. It’s such a human moment too. Who wouldn’t act like this in such a situation? Still, it feels genuinely awful and made me hate Harry for a second there. The scene’s OST is a beautiful and heartbreaking emo guitar lick. Where other horror games (or movies) would’ve went with a something that commented on how scary this situation is, Silent Hill focuses on the tragedy of it all - and this basically sums up what this franchise is all about. It’s surprisingly tragic and depressing, with a strong focus on female trauma in particular. After this, we head towards the final room in this place: Alessa’s old childhood bedroom. The walls are decorated with insect display cases and various pictures of the town. In this room we have the final door, the door that separates us from the truth, from the end.

Speaking of which, let’s finally talk about Alessa. At this point, we should have all the information we need to finally piece together what’s going on here:

Silent Hill, Maine is the home of an ancient cult, called “The Order”. This order is for all intents and purposes the main antagonistic force for the entire series, although their role and background isn’t really touched upon here - that’s something the sequels will get more into as time goes on. This order consists of what are essentially Devil worshippers, since they worship the archangel Samael from Jewish mythology, who is often considered to be somewhat similar to the Christian Lucifer/Satan. Samael isn’t necessarily evil, but he is a destructive force that tests humanity’s faith. He is also often seen as the main Angel of Death. Why do they worship this guy? Fuck if I know. The point is, Dahlia is the current head of this order, and has been trying to bring their god into this world. To that end she tried various methods, all of which failed. When she brought her daughter, Alessa, into this world, she discovers that the little girl has considerable magical abilities (it should be noted that the game kinda implies that Alessa was created, rather than traditionally born) and decided that her best bet would be to use her little, 7 year old daughter as a vessel to birth their god by impregnating her via an Incubus demon - which is more fucked up than anything in this game, my god. Though, that doesn’t seem to have been the plan initially. Alessa has magical powers, and while it isn’t explained at all, I think the idea was for Alessa to become proficient in summoning occult powers through her magic. Dahlia keeps grooming Alessa from her very first day for her role, and tries to keep her from living a normal life. Her magical powers alienate her from her peers at school, who brutally bully and ostracise her, to the point where one of her teachers gets suspicious and suspects ongoing abuse by her mother. The case gets thrown out as a certain Dr. Michael Kaufmann suspiciously fails to notice any sign of mistreatment of poor, little Alessa - that is, of course, because Kaufmann is part of the cult, and neck deep in this whole ordeal, since he’s presumably making a killing with the drug trade.

As Alessa grows older, she is increasingly opposed to helping the Order with their schemes and starts to refuse her mother’s attempts at using her in rituals. Dahlia then suddenly realises something, that she “could have done it all by [her]self.” Now, I’m not entirely sure what happens next in the timeline of Silent Hill 1, since this game doesn’t make it super clear, but the PAL and JAP versions of the game feature a news article somewhere in Nowhere that talks about a sudden fire breaking out in the Gillespie house, caused by a “faulty boiler”, which completely charred the body of Alessa. It’s implied here that this was Dahlia’s attempt at hastening the ritual process for the birth of their god, but it failed. The sequels and prequels, Silent Hill: Origins in particular, go into a lot more detail concerning the actual how’s and why’s. In either case, the point remains the same: Alessa doesn’t die, and is instead transferred into the hospital’s secret basement. By using the Key of Aratron we can open the corresponding door a bit earlier, which hides a cutscene involving Dahlia, Kaufmann and two unnamed collaborators standing next to Alessa’s sickbed, the one we found in the secret hospital basement. They talk about how the ritual was only a partial success, since “half the soul is lost” and that regaining the other half with take time.

Without further information from the sequels, piecing together what exactly what they were aiming to achieve here isn’t easy, so I’ll just be going off my own - likely flawed - understanding of the situation: Dahlia realises that Alessa’s powers far surpass her own, and decides to use the 7 year old Alessa as a direct surrogate mother for the Demon god instead. By use of an incubus demon, Alessa is impregnated during the ritual, which involved a lot of fire, likely causing immense pain and suffering for her, which I assume was meant to be the conductor for the incubus to impregnate her. The subtext addressing sexual abuse of children is impossible to ignore, and cements Silent Hill as one of the most horrifying horror stories I’ve ever experienced. In case you’re unfamiliar; an Incubus demon’s purpose is to literally rape women and endow them with nightmares, trauma, pain or other bad things. They are said to be the cause of mental illness and sickness. The presence of the demon seed inside Alessa prevents her from dying, despite her grievous burns and horrible condition, and it had done so for 7 years by the time we arrive.

This horrifying nightmare ritual was partially successful insofar that Alessa had indeed been impregnated by the demon. But she somehow managed to split her in half soul right before the ritual was completed, with one half of her remaining inside the body, and the other being reborn somewhere outside of town - and this is where things are starting to finally click. Didn’t Harry find Cheryl on the side of a highway 7 years ago? The article about the fire 7 years ago even dates it on the exact same day Harry found her. We understand: Cheryl IS Alessa. Our little daughter was never real.

So why did we come to this town in the first place? Like stated before, the ritual prevents Alessa’s body from dying and keeps her in eternal pain and agony - at least the part that’s still inside her. “Cheryl” is doing just fine, but she is still just a part of Alessa, and after years and years of experiencing intense suffering she is just about weak enough that Dahlia can perform a spell which compels young Cheryl to return to her place of origin; which is why she is so insistent on coming to this town.

This is where Lisa comes in. If we return to the room where we last saw her, we’ll instead find her diary on the floor, which sheds light on her role in all of this: Lisa Garland was a young actress-turned-nurse with a drug problem, who was tasked with (or perhaps blackmailed into) caring for Alessa’s half-dead and burned body by Dr. Michael Kaufmann, replacing the bandages on the wounds which would never heal, and would never stop bleeding or releasing pus. It’s clear she was only ever allowed to enter the secret basement while under the influence of drugs, which is why she can’t remember it. She talks about how she asked Kaufmann to relieve her from duty, and how she starts to experience weird hallucinations. It’s not clear what exactly happens to Lisa - at least in the story of SH1 - just that she somehow dies before the events of this game, likely somehow in connection to this ordeal.

We finally reached the core of this whole experience; by the halfway point in the game, it’s getting increasingly unclear whether the horror taking place in this town is more psychological or occult in nature, with all signs increasingly pointing towards the latter. And while, diegetically speaking, the game ultimately IS about hell trying to invade the world of the living, at its heart it is a deeply psychological story about trauma. What differentiates it from other, classical psychological horror media is the shift of focus away from the protagonist / player character, to Alessa (and to a lesser extent Lisa). Instead of analysing the mind of Harry, we’re meant to understand HER fears, HER dreams and HER trauma. Harry really is just a father desperately looking to save his daughter, and going through hell to achieve that. Everything else is coming from the mind of Alessa - including Lisa’s apparition. All the enemies are things that SHE is afraid of. All the horrible places we’ve been through are the roots of HER trauma.

Silent Hill is truly fantastic when it comes to blurring the lines between what is real and what isn’t. The way the game continuously subverts your expectations and pulls away the ground beneath your feet (sometimes literally) is unparalleled in any other Horror franchise ever, including films and books. The careful mix of deeply psychological horror imagery and genuinely cryptic, occult happenings involving being haunted by the ghosts of your past - once again, calling back to the hauntological themes permeating this game both literally as well as in the abstract - makes this game the timeless masterpiece of horror it is.

All of that being said, let’s finally end this:

We confront Dahlia in the cellar of their home, the place where Alessa burned. 
Next to her are both Cheryl, as well as Alessa’s real, charred half-dead body, upright in a chair, about to be merged. Depending on our actions we took throughout the game, we have 4 possible endings we can get: Good+, Good, Bad+, Bad. These endings also influence the final boss you’ll get, and how exactly the final cutscene will play out.

First, the bad endings:

If you DIDN’T save Kaufmann at all, you’ll be stuck with one of these. Dahlia finally manages to transform Alessa - who has been reunited with her other half at last - into the godmother, also known as the “Incubator”, which takes her form but as an adult. She kills Dahlia on the spot (not sure whether that was part of the plan), and proceeds to attack us. As far as the fight itself goes; it’s not great but that shouldn’t be surprising at this point. Just run around the arena like a madman, and empty clip after clip into her. She can kill you in 1-2 hits, so you better save all your heals for this instance. If we manage to kill her, the otherworld will implode.

In the Bad ending, Alessa briefly transforms back into Cheryl, thanking Harry and saying goodbye before vanishing into thin air. Grief stricken and in utter disbelief at just having killed his own daughter he breaks down and goes down with the ship. After the credits, we see Harry still sitting in his car, dead from the initial impact. “He was dead all along!!!” This is, of course, a deliberately unsatisfying ending to make you go back and play the game again, so I’m not going to criticise it for being cliché.

In the Bad+ (slightly better but still bad) ending, if you managed to save Cybil, she’ll show up in the cellar just before you arrive. Dahlia will then give us a little extra exposition about how the “Mark of Samael” is actually the “Mark of Metatron”, which is supposed to ward specifically against the Order’s god, meaning Alessa was the one who put them up everywhere. Cybil tries to stop her, but gets force-pushed away and loses consciousness. The fight plays out the exact same, and Harry still breaks down and cries. However, this time after the credits, Cybil comes to and tells Harry to get up and run away. It’s ambiguous as to what happens to them.

The Good and Good+ endings require you to complete Kaufmann’s side quest, and hand him the bottle of Aglaophotis. In this version, just before Dahlia can complete Alessa’s transformation into the Incubator, Kaufmann shows up, furious at Dahlia for betraying him (although I have to admit I’m not sure what this is referencing) shoots her and throws the bottle at Alessa in the middle of transforming. This expels the demon living inside her, revealing the true final boss of this game: The Incubus. Just like the Incubator, this fight is pretty bad and it’s even worse due to the fact you can’t even really see him since he’s flying above the ground. Killing the Incubator with a hand full of bullets is bad enough, but literally SATAN himself? I don’t know, I feel like some more contextualisation could’ve worked wonders, but at this point I’m not surprised the fight isn’t great.

In all fairness; it should be mentioned that you CAN win both fights without firing a single shot by entering with no ammunition for any of your guns, and simply surviving a few minutes. While this is appreciated in principle, it changes nothing about the actual outcome, in both cases the boss literally behaves the exact same as though you’d just shot him to death. It’s really more of a fail safe than an alternative solution.

In the Good ending, after the fight, Alessa holds a little baby in her arm and hands it to Harry. She holds out her arm, pointing towards the light, signalling us to go. Kaufmann comes to his senses and tries to leave as well, but in this moment Lisa materialises, literally climbs out of hell to drag him down there with her. A fitting end for such a scumbag. We grab the baby and get the hell out of here. Harry runs towards the light, and off into the fog - in the post-credit scene, we see him outside of town, having escaped his fate, ready to live another day.

In the Good+ ending the same happens, but Cybil joins the party just like in the Bad+ ending. The difference being, after the fight, Cybil comes to her senses and joins our escape from hell. She is seen leaving with Harry, and after the credits, we see her and Harry hold the baby the exact same way we’ve seen Harry and his wife hold Cheryl in the intro.. Harry + Cybil = ship? Hell yeah. This seems to be the canon ending as well, at least judging from what little I do know about the other games.

Ultimately, the fact that here are multiple outcomes is cool but unless you’re not a massive fan of the actual second to second gameplay, I don’t really think that such small changes to the final cutscenes really warrant an immediate replay after getting one of the endings. If there would be more changes along the way, that would be a different story. But in the end, I do like that the ending you get is reflective of how much effort you put into understanding what’s going on.

So, that was Silent Hill. This has been the best horror game I’ve ever played, by a lot. It certainly doesn’t have the best combat, and the puzzles are pretty hit or miss, but it clearly didn’t put its focus there; instead it puts all its energy towards creating an unbelievably thick atmosphere, a never-ending occultist rabbit hole of a story, imagery that stands the test of time on multiple fronts, and a simple albeit deeply tragic story about trauma and loss. There has been no other piece of horror media that had me obsess so much about what it all meant. Nothing has ever filled me with the same kind of visceral dread, the same feeling of genuine unease. I keep thinking about this game in the days and weeks since I’ve played it. I’ve never written anything close to this long on this website, and I don’t think I’ll do it again anytime soon.

If you somehow read this entire thing, wow, thanks a lot and sorry if I was a little repetitive. I’m still reeling from this experience and I’m so fucking hyped to get into the sequels (at least the Japanese ones) as soon as possible.


9 / 10

trying to stop procastinating doing other stuff and actually play a game, i decided to play a game called silent hill...

first off, the atmosphere here is hands down one of the best ive ever played in any game ever (as you no doubt have heard said many many times). whether it's in the obscured streets of silent hill or the bloody, rusty otherworld, you will constantly be on the edge of your seat. there isn't a moment where i felt entirely comfortable aside from that ending sequence. the sound design is also a major factor to how tension works in this game - the ringing, alongside the eraserhead-esque scratching each time an enemy is within your vicinity are really unsettling, especially with interior locations where the sprawling hallways obscure your vision. the rather limiting controls of the game also contribute to this: it wasn't until the final quarter of the game that i figured out how to use l2 to widen your pov, and until that point you better believe i was turning the r stick every time i heard that damn ringing, trying to find whatever nightmarish creature was laying in wait just out of view. in a strange way the ps1's graphical limitations also add to the vibe of the game - the low-poly models sort of add to the dreamlike (nightmarish?) quality of the game and sh1 makes really good use of it. the story doesn't overstay its welcome with minimal dialogue and a fairly straightforward story although almost lynchian way of communicating information. some pretty good characters as well...harry has gotta be one of the realest dads ever...

based on what i've heard i am very much looking forward to silent hill 2. see you then...

A survival horror classic that is meticulously detailed, scary and well-crafted. It is incredible what Team Silent were able to create to run on PlayStation hardware, using the iconic fog and darkness to keep draw distances close, interesting camera shifts from third-person to fixed purposely for disorienting the player. The beginning part is so well done with how the background music shifts with the darkness as you get trapped in the alley.

Akira Yamaoka created the perfect repressive dark industrial soundtrack that fits each moment. Out of the first 4 games, Silent Hill is the most abrasive and rough. Cutscenes have dreamy psychedelic trip hop vibe, exploring the town has low drones, and harsh metal clanging sharply during enemy confrontation.

A lot can be said about this game and overall this is one that I frequently go back to and is one of my favourites.

An incredible survival horror game that managed to stand up against the already-famous Resident Evil titan at the time! Silent Hill 1 is a chilling experience full of brain-teasing puzzles, impeccable sound design, and a mesmerizing atmosphere!

The latter is especially impressive, as all the venues you explore as Harry Mason look and feel like well-furnished areas that were once lived in, rather than set-pieces for a video game. The story is also fantastic and make it very believable that someone like Harry would put himself through this nightmare of a town.

A desperate father looking for his daughter, the only thing left he loves in this world. He has to claw his way through these hellscapes to find the ultimate truth, while you discover the tragedies of other characters involved! Silent Hill is awesome.

I played Silent Hill 2 first because I heard Silent Hill doesn't really hold up, that 2 is better, and the stories aren't connected anyway. However, my question now is why do people think Silent Hill doesn't hold up. I can understand distaste for 3d graphics as lifelike as origami, but this game accomplished a lot with its limited resources. Its atmosphere still works amazingly well, and the level design is even better than Silent Hill 2's. It's different from its successor, but not necessarily a lesser game. When you play it, you might start by thinking it looks a little rough, but by the end you'll wish more games had such an engrossing world to explore.

Playtime: 8 Hours
Score: 7/10

The start of my favorite survival horror franchise of all time! I remember watching my parents play this game as a kid and just being fascinated with the concept of the series and the town of Silent Hill in general. And while this game didn't capture me as much 2 and 3, it is definitely one of the scarier games in the series.

One of the first few praises I can give is the fog that proceeds over the town as you explore. While this was due to the PS1's hardware limitations, it was a genius idea to use the fog as way to have a bigger map, and to make exploring the town more terrifying. Other thing is the art style with its low pologon PS1 look just makes the game look even more creepy. This game also uses gore a lot in some truly terrifying ways like the alleyway sequence near the beginning. The music and sound design as well as always for this series is fantastic.

Combat is okay. Its definitely more janky then the PS2 games, which were already janky but I was able to get passed most sections.

Some of the negatives though are just some of the really annoying enemies in this game. When it came to exploring the town I pretty much ran and avoided combat all together, because some of the enemies are just really annoying to fight. In the more confined areas its a lot better though in terms of the enemies you face. Also calling some of the puzzles obtuse would be a severe understatement as the solutions are so hard to figure out sometimes. One puzzle I got so frustrated that I looked up a guide and when I found out what the solution was, I wanted to throw my controller at the screen because of how stupid it was. Also some of the levels like the sewers are just god awful and can make you quickly decide against ever replaying this game.

Overall though, a good horror game! I know their remaking Silent Hill 2 since its the most popular game in the series, but I feel like this one needs a remake the most, as its almost impossible to play it these days due to janky controls/mechanics and just being so inaccessible on modern gaming platforms. However, It definitely deserves to be played by any horror game fan!

I had sort of written off the survival horror genre as "not for me", but after playing this classic I now see the appeal. Decent

My assumptions that the controls and combat would be janky and frustrating were 100% correct, what surprised me was how absolutely overwhelmingly captivating the atmosphere of this game was to make me forgive all the clunkiness, even playing it a couple decades later.

I'd also like to highlight the map showing which doors and routes are cut off to you as you explore, wandering around getting lost isn't fun or scary and this single feature almost entirely cuts that wasted time down to the minimum.

Overall great atmosphere, some pretty interesting puzzles, incredible dungeon design, and not enough ammo

Sobre el papel, exploración de espacios reales, cotidianos, desfigurándose poco a poco. Una doble realidad siniestra y corrupta accediendo y entremezclándose con la propia. Un pueblo donde los demonios internos de su gente se vuelven físicos, tangibles. Una enfermera atrapada en el hospital donde vivió un suceso traumático. Un alma infantil inocente víctima de la maldad adulta. Un padre desorientado y desesperado capaz entrar al infierno por encontrar a su hija.

La realidad, molestas carreras perseguido por terodáctilos y puzzles que rompen constantemente la atmósfera construida. Un protagonista que no refleja ninguna incomodidad sobre su situación y que se pasea firme, escopeta en mano, vaciando cartuchos en la cara de todo tipo de aberraciones como si fuera su rutina diaria. Un cierre soso y blando, dando respuestas claras y concisas a todas las preguntas que se abrieron por el camino, sin apenas espacio a la interpretación. Una decepción.

Even without having experienced much else that the Survival Horror genre has to offer, it's easy to see when looking back what made the original Silent Hill such a special game. Despite how dated it feels from a modern perspective there's so many ways in which it simultaneously feels ahead of its time—from the large open foggy areas that provide neither the comfort of visibility nor the protection of a confined space, to the way the maps update in order to help keep track of where you've been and need to go, and to the more ambiguous and contemplative tone of the story that serves to amplify the nightmarish setting of its atmosphere without giving any kind of B-Movie styled camp for relief. Even some of the more dated aspects of the game play into its strengths, like how the low poly graphics create such grotesque figures and revolting textures. It also opts for free control of the camera in most areas, with the exception being when it takes on a deliberate angle for dramatic effect, and given the openness of many areas and the speed of the enemies trying to get the camera to keep up with them proves to be a challenge, further amplifying the tension of their appearances.
What I think makes this game stand out in my mind so much is the pure effectiveness that is has at setting atmosphere and maintaining a constant sense of anxiety, and much of this comes from how it plays on one's fear of the unknown. There's a big difference between throwing scary monsters at the player to either kill or run away from, and placing them within an inescapable haze so that even fleeing could very well mean running into something more threatening or a dead end. The score for this game, while it has some beautiful tracks, is mostly made up of eerie tracks designed specifically to make you incredibly uncomfortable as you search each new area, and when it's not doing that you're left with silence which often brings its own unnerving effect. I've never felt so conflicted while playing a game in the sense that I had such a strong appreciation for what it was doing and yet I was more than ready for it to finally be over. I think that this unfortunately impacted my enjoyment of some of the exploration and puzzle-solving, since I was a bit too stressed out to want to properly think through solutions.
Combat is also kinda bad yet in some ways this served to make the game's atmosphere even more effective since killing enemies never afforded me much relief. Really my biggest complaints would be that some of the enemy types themselves were pretty annoying to deal with especially when it came to certain things like flying, speed, and grab hitboxes. There are a few bosses too which with the exception of one pretty cool fight that had a couple different solutions for it, are kinda just a point in the game for you to dump all of your stockpiled ammo onto. This almost led to trouble on the final boss for me (though I believe there's a workaround for this) but I'm glad I was still able to take it down the intended way.
Overall I have a lot of respect for this title and it impressed as I finally got a better experience at what this genre is truly capable of. I'd almost say that it's too good at what it does because now I'm gonna have to be careful going into any more games like this now knowing just how anxious they can make me.

silent hill review

+ lar
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- ler
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silent hill is a product of its time that remains timeless. it was born from several limitations and quirks of the PS1 age that make this game a one-of-a-kind experience when compared to its excellent sequels.

heavy dithering obfuscates everything in sight. the environment's textures contort themselves against the camera. the fog and pitch black darkness that compensate for the particularly low render distance force the world to slip in and out of a void at all times. awkwardly written and performed dialogue, with LONG pauses between lines that are often delivered monotonously, make each character interaction strangely hypnotic.

that paragraph makes it seem like SH1's surreal horror atmosphere was a fluke, but no, team silent went above and beyond to craft a town that feels eerily mundane yet impossible. when inside, you get environments with loads of detail that seem incredibly familiar, until you realize how nonsensical each level's architecture can get. when outside, you see basically everything that you'd expect a real small town to have (as well as blood, monsters and neverending voids), yet the contrasting vacancy makes this place appear as little more than a prison for harry.

when combined, all of these elements create a silent hill that exists somewhere between reality and limbo, dream and nightmare. over 20 years after its release, there's now a sense of nostalgia attached to the PS1 graphics and some dreamy coziness that i feel during the foggy scenes. but peaceful moments never really last in this game.

the way silent hill does horror is by inducing a false sense of familiarity and comfort into the player, only to pull the rug and flip everything they think they know on its head. there's always a dreadful anticipation for what comes next. that tension is greatly amplified by the horrifically oppressive akira yamaoka soundtrack and sluggish tank controls that betray the player, often forcing them to crash into walls and monsters.

but as opposed to the atmosphere that i've been gushing about for a while, silent hill 1's plot is a letdown. the disturbing and oppressive tone that dominates the experience simply has nothing to do with the goofy, campy cult aspect of the story. all of the endings are also anticlimactic and underwhelming.

ultimately, i'm far more attracted to how the main story is told (environmental storytelling, uncanny dialogue, the unforgettable FMVs) than to what the story actually is. some of the more subtle themes, sub-plots and lisa garland's character are all more interesting to me than the main plot.

even with its occasional shortcomings, the silent hill series is The big staple in the videogame horror genre to me, and it all began here. franchises like resident evil and alone in the dark may have preceded it, but SH1 was the game that showed everyone what kind of experience a horror game could be - and it still holds up.

Iconic classic horror game, unmatched and scary even on a PS1. Now Resident Evil as a series never truly felt the scary in this way, it was more about inventory management, oh god can I survive, tenseness of that and such. Silent Hill however has always been scarier on a deeper psychological level and this game alone proves and starts that, it's a beautiful game with beautiful visuals. Maybe this is just me but the fact that it's lower poly makes it scarier in some aspects, perhaps it's cuz it makes you use your imagination more? Tho that is something the sequels also do, maybe the fact that they look less like real human beings and such makes everything seem inhuman and disconnected in a way (but in a good way!). Either way, great start to a beautiful series.

I went for and got the GOOD+ ending.

ENVELHECEU BEM! O mais divertido de se jogar da trilogia! Ao mesmo tempo que apresenta topicos e ideias complexas para a epoca, consegue ter êxito também no simples.

+ Gráficos que com a popularização low poly conseguem agradar.
+ História interessante com temas enigmáticos.
+ Andar por silent hill é MUITO DIVERTIDO!
+ Boss fights aceitáveis (a 1ª é bem legalzinha)
+ Cenários absurdos.
+ OST de respeito.
+ Puzzles