Reviews from

in the past


Sinceramente no tiene las 5 estrellas por 2 cosas en concreto al principio no es nada intuitivo y sin guía es muy facil perderte es un infierno pero sé que es la "esencia" del verdadero survival horror japones. Luego como detalle "Extra" hay que aclarar que los NPC son gilipollas. Pero la historia, la ambientación y en general lo que hay detras de esta obra. Se puede considerar un "arte" muy escondido. Os recomiendo Forbidden Siren 2 si quereis experimentar una sensación de estar pedido y de agonia y de frustración contante (Todo en buen sentido desde el punto de vista de los survival horror). <3 Seguidme en twitch y en youtube
"StichTheGame"

I love Siren, but I think anyone who shares that love and reveres it as a cult classic will admit that part of why it's so terrifying is often because of its clunkiness and cryptic mission requirements-- it's a game in which one wrong step WILL get your ass beat, and this can genuinely lead to you being paralyzed with fear. This is such a fascinating sequel to me, then, because it's so polished compared to the original Siren, to an extent where I earnestly feel as if it's one of the most well-made PS2-era survival horror games I've played. This does make it a bit less terrifying. First of all, playable characters in Siren 2 seem to have useful weapons more readily available, and from what I noticed, there's less shibitos where running into them is a death sentence (ie. pistol wielding ones), and therefore you can sightjack and stealth a bit less. On top of this, I do think that the Yamibito and Yamirei are less scary than the actual shibito, and they replace them entirely halfway through the game. Maybe this is unpopular, but the Yamibito especially lose their edge once you realize you can just run towards them with your flashlight on and lay into them. Compare this to late-stage shibitos from the first game, which are horrifying and disgusting... not quite the same. Though I do think the designs for the evolved Yamibito are incredibly uncanny. Having said all this... Siren 2 is still scary as shit, lol. These games are so good at just feeling evil, like something you shouldn't be witnessing.
Besides those minor complaints, though, I think this game is fantastic. It has an incredibly eerie and melancholic atmosphere (as to be expected of a Toyama game), and, similar to its predecessor, really neat folklore. Its plot is far more decipherable on a moment-to-moment basis than Siren, while still maintaining that mysterious Siren fever dream storytelling. The settings in the game are memorable as well, with the Bright Win ship, the apartment complex, and the amusement park sticking out as some pretty scary and unique areas. I don't know if it will haunt me as much as the first game (Tomoko Maeda and Miyako's respective fates and, what I consider to be the scariest survival horror moment for me, Harumi Yomoda's Day 2 missions, come to mind), though it DEFINITELY has its moments, but I enjoyed actually playing it more, fwiw. And you can tell they had so much fun making this! All in all, it's another incredible showing from the Siren team-- it's a shame they don't make these anymore!!
My favorites were Ichiko, Akiko, Ikuko, and Soji. I love Soji! I think I would behave the same way if I washed up on Yamijima (bumbling around and whining, confused).

better gameplay than the first
I think the first one had a better premise

é o siren 1 mas mais facil

Does a lot to improve upon the previous game, but the story doesn't hit as hard and honestly I kind of liked the first game's gameplay more. Still worth a play.

This review contains spoilers

This game is bloody amazing. Every pet peeve i had with Siren 1 have been addressed here, great atmosphere, stealth flows better, also managed to pull some good scares a bunch of times. Maybe some weaker aspects could be the cast (i quite enjoyed it so i'm not sure maybe i'd need to replay the first one), and the final boss having a weird final phase where i had to pray it got close so i could smack it around but yea not really dealbreakers.
Overall extremely happy i played this.

it feels weird finally playing this after so long, years of being an elusive game only released on Europe is quite the tragic tale

anyway

Siren 2 is in general a great improvement on the original with better controls, movement and combat, Siren 1 was design on a very specific way where dealing with enemies were more of a puzzle that actual combat, which you needed to outsmart them to progress, Siren 2's improvements puts in equal grounds with the Shibitos which lets you deal with them as you see fit, combat being very viable as long as you play your cards right and armed enemies can be fought back against, of course with this, the shibitos needed a big mix up to keep things fresh, with more unique types and increased in numbers, turning into more of a game of ammo management and speed more that a slow paced puzzle that you needed to figure out like in the original, alongside on certain characters having unique gimmicks exclusive to them helps the game still feel puzzle-like, though, if i had a single criticism about it, its that made wish for more levels certain gimmicks they introduced

in terms of horror, Siren 2's follows up an approach that was just implied in the previous game, making you feel like you the game's reality is seeping into yours as it links many website that treats certain events and characters as real people that existed, along side with the back of your head remembering how it presented the idea of alternative universes, as it is part of its core gameplay of fulfilling tasks in the past to complete future missions

though sadly, these websites are now defunct, so it feels like some of its immersion is lost

the game in a nutshell is a huge escalation on what was introduced in the original, the only thing missing is the cryptic nature, which they over-corrected at certain points seeing how Normal Mode just spells out what to do instead of actually giving you decent hints, highly recommended to play on Hard if you want a more similar experience to Siren 1 without working on schizophrenic logic.