I've watched so many playthroughs of this game on YouTube, so many think pieces of this its lore and influence on the world of horror, and it took until this year to play it on original hardware. It's truly a game that feels different when playing it compared to watching it, and I let it all sink in for my first playthrough for a GOOD+ ending.

I will say while the tank controls are extremely outdated, the game treats it as a feature instead of a flaw with locked camera angles that help guide the player. It takes very little time to familiarize with how well it handles these limitations. The game otherwise is a delight from the story to the atmosphere and locales. The soundtrack for the game is also to be commended. While a good portion comes from stock audio horror packs, they've aged to be permanently a part of what makes the first Silent Hill so memorable. For as large as the areas may seem, it's surprisingly linear. You won't ever feel lost unless you're doing the puzzles. Of course some may argue the second title is superior but the original story of a father stepping into cultish shenanigans while looking for his daughter is equally full of awe. This game is a must-play.

Played on PS3
Playtime: 12-15 Hours(Estimated)
Play Status: Beaten
Completion Date: December 18th 2022
No Spoilers

A Horror Legend
The latest Silent Hill Showcase announced a bunch of upcoming Silent Hill games. Including, Silent Hill 2 Remake. 2? Where was 1? I know that they are not directly connected but I wanted to play the first game before I got to the second one. PS3 came to my help with offering me the first game in it’s original PS1 form. I bought it, finished it and absolutely loved it.

But I will start with the part that I did not like. Story. The beginning is great. We play as Harry Mason, he comes to the town called Silent Hill with his daughter. Unfortunately, a car accident happens and when Harry awakens, he sees that his daughter is gone. So, he enters the Silent Hill. And discovers that it’s a town filled with monsters. Like I said, it’s a solid start, a solid goal. And it continues great as well.

The game sets up a bunch of mysteries. Weird items that does nothing but sits in your inventory, weird people talking about weird things. You feel like there will be something, a revelation that will shock you. But it never happens. The ending of the game gets very very ridiculous. To be honest, my ending was a bit more ridiculous. I got the Bad ending. In the good ending, the story makes a bit more sense.(Getting the good ending was never explained in game)

But still, I think the game did a poor job at trying to tell it’s story. It’s not a complicated story either but yeah, I think it wasn’t good. Characters and dialogues are also very bad. No one except Harry matters and no one is interesting, including Harry. Dialogues are very robotic.

While the story and characters were disappointing, the gameplay did not disappoint. So, what do you do in Silent Hill? It’s a survival horror. You loot, you solve puzzles and you fight. Let’s start with the combat. The combat aged poorly. I agree. Tank controls were hard to adapt. But once I did adapt, I think it was nice. I rarely used the ranged weapons but I think they feel nice.

I really liked the hand to hand combat. You need to carefully adjust your position. And there are different types of melee weapons. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. Ammo economy isn’t too tight but you’ll have to do some melee at some point. I used melee whenever possible and really enjoyed it. The controls are a bit old but I think the combat is still good. Bosses are not that good though. They are bullet sponges.

Puzzles. Let’s talk about them. I loved the puzzles in this game. I never looked at the direct solution of a puzzle but I searched the internet for some of the things I felt were necessary to solve the puzzles. Like some kind of common knowledge that I don’t know but the developers might have expected me to know. Though they were not the solution. Solving them requires lots of patience, trying and observation skills but they were worth it for me. And if you are scared about the puzzles. Don’t worry. There are only 7-8 of them.

Finally, exploration and looting. I already talked about the ammo economy. I think it’s nicely tuned. Health economy is also nicely tuned. Exploration in this game is great. The best part of the game is definitely definitely definitely the atmosphere of it. The game is creepy. It gets under your skin. There is one scene where I literally gasped out of shock. It came out of nowhere and while it wasn’t a jumpscare, I was like “Oh my god, how will I get out of this? I can’t do this.”

I said these things for a PS1 game. It’s incredible. The atmosphere is incredible. Thanks to great visual design and music. Visuals first, I promised no spoilers so I can’t go into detail but the foggy streets are just one part of the game. Art design is very strong. And music? Some rooms has incredibly tense music. I was literally begging for the music to stop because I was so scared.

Before the verdict, I want to talk about the pacing and the structure. Because I think it’s so good. I am a big Resident Evil fan and every Resident Evil has more than 1 location. They start in a very big, complicated location and then continue with a few smaller locations before ending the game. And usually in every Resident Evil game, the locations after that big first one are trash. Resident Evil 1’s mansion, Resident Evil 2’s police station and Resident Evil 7’s Baker House. Silent Hill solves this structural issue.

None of the locations in Silent Hill is as big as those 3 I mentioned. But there are a few complicated, multi floored buildings where you unlock rooms one by one and get into close quarters combat. Thanks to this, all of those locations became very memorable and iconic for me. In between those indoors areas, you walk around the town of Silent Hill which is quite big.

It may seem old but Silent Hill is a very very very good horror game. The story is lacking but the game fills it’s spot by having great gameplay and incredible atmosphere. This is a must play for all horror fans. During this age where horror games are interactive jumpscare experiences, Silent Hill felt like medicine to me. And I highly recommend it.

Sillent Hill (nowadays) is sometimes frustrating to play due to the tank controls, you gotta push the analog down to go foward!! It was quite confusing for a while but then I got used to it. It's manageable for exploring, for the combat it's quite messy and just frustrating sometimes.
The story is nice, the characters are interesting, although the voice acting can be quite bad at times which may break your immersion completely.
The atmosphere for a 25 year old game is insanely good. The enemies designs are cool and so is every location you go in.
The game can also be quite confusing sometimes, either the puzzles or realizing what you need to do, the later is incredibly worse in the last area of the game, super confusing.
Overall, the game can be scary quite a couple time, the visuals are nice, I really liked the pre-rendered cutscenes, the gameplay is (understandably) very clunky and the story is cool.