I heard almost nothing good about this or Downpour. And I haven't touched Downpour yet but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Homecoming. It does have flaws and a few issues I have with it though.

It did feel a lot more like Silent Hill games than I expected it too. The combat is a little awkward but once you get used to it it's not too bad. The game is more action oriented and maybe if the system was a bit better it would be good but i prefer the more suspenseful previous games and how they handled combat.

The story for the most part I thought was pretty good. It does really feel like it's trying to be Silent Hill 2, with even a plot point being reminiscent of it. I think including a certain element in this one from 2 was odd and didn't fit, but it barely is in the game so it didn't really end up mattering.

Overall after 1 playthrough getting what seemed to be a good but probably not best ending, I thought it was worth picking up and playing if you like the series.

Played most recently on RPCS3 at 120fps. Don't bother with the PC port. I've fiddled with it every which way, and no matter how much you patch it, you're better off staying away from the PC port.

Before I get into it, the short answer is that Silent Hill: Homecoming is not worth your time. The rest of the upcoming wall of text will cover all the ways it got close to being worth your time.

Let's push the topic of the series' reputation for story and music to the side for a second and talk about how it's also known for having bad combat. I find this an unfair and untrue observation, particularly when discussing the original 3 games. It's a huge and complex topic that's way beyond the scope of this little review, but let's say the combat in the original 3 was "inaccessible" as opposed to "bad". Might be a weird word off the bat considering none of the original 3 are particularly difficult to get through on Normal or Easy, and even Hard can be slogged through without a strategy so long as you disregard the scoring-systems, but what about being accurate? Let's use just the shooting-mechanics of Silent Hill 1 for an example. The ideal use of the weapon is mid-range for obvious reasons (doesn't do enough damage at close-range to risk closing the gap) and your flashlight needs to be on to hit stuff. That's the easy part. What dictates whether or not the shots actually land? 3 things; your proximity to the enemy, how much the enemy is moving, and how long you aim at the enemy. You can line up decently long-range shots by just taking a second or so longer to aim at one enemy, and taking the same time to line up each successive shot. This isn't explained to the player anywhere. Getting the most out of the combat requires experimentation on the player's part.

The reason I wrote all that down is that part of Homecoming's design was to address the longstanding issue that the combat isn't good in the original games, which I only really find is the case in Silent Hill 4. Silent Hill 3 was the most refined combat of the original games, and it still complimented the process of exploration well.

So Homecoming added in combos, a dodge/parry system, and made enemies weak to specific attacks. It let guns be somewhat consistently useful, but was also stingy with ammo. Playing the game as intended, the combos do work. Light-light-heavy with the pipe sets the Ferals up for executions (even from full health), the axe instantly knocks off the heads of Lurkers in one hit, and so on. The parry/dodge is a little strange. You press the button during the windup of enemy attacks instead of trying to overlap i-frames with their hit-box, like even in Silent Hills 2-4 with 2 and 3's respective blocks and 4's dodges let alone other action-games. It works though. What doesn't work is the knife, especially when just spamming with it will shut down most enemies in the game. It's less damage and overall slower than using stronger less safe weapons and playing as intended, but it's safe and easier to do than learning how to dodge or what weapon works best where. The combat has another sore spot in Siam who is typically out of range of any retaliatory-attacks after a successful dodge leaving you stuck awkwardly whiffing as you chip at it's rather large health-pool. Another strange aspect is crowd-fights. This simple system of combat does not include a crowd-control system of any kind other than just shooting everything. But, enemies, even on Hard, tend to politely wait while you dodge-roll around someone else before taking their turn.

That said, the real problem is how the combat fits into exploration. It doesn't, and it grinds level-progression to a halt as you battle something in a hallway for an extended period instead of just downing it safely and finishing it off ala the classic games. The game would've been better served by expanding the scope of the combat and just not bothering with the classic gameplay. The combat's too shallow to carry the game, but too complex to coexist with exploration and puzzle-solving. It's a shame because the skeleton of something worthwhile is here, but just the skeleton.

Alex also runs too slow for how large the environments are, which is another mixed bag because there's an ok amount of explorable town and hidden stuff here. I always want more town, but not at this speed. Huge bummer btw in not making the remade parts of Silent Hill 1's map look correct. This is something Origins nailed.

So, what we're left with is something more boring and unpolished than outright bad. It's a shame.

HALLOMAD 2.0 GAME #3

I can't believe this game exists in the same franchise with games like SH1 and 3. An embarassing game from beginning to end that not only shits on the legendary status of Silent Hill but is also a completely shit game in its own right. EVERYTHING from the dogshit combat to the dull story/characters makes for a game that feels outright broken at times. If I had to say anything positive it would be the actually impressive otherworld effects (ripped from the movie) and phenomenal OST. Otherwise this is one of the worst games I've ever played and would only recommend if you wanna see just how little of a shit Konami gave to this series post 4.

2/10

There are no words in the English language that can explain how funny this game is. A Japanese developer hands the keys to their IP known for nuanced, heavy stories, driven mostly by an incredible cast of flawed, deep, weirdo characters to a USA dev and they immediately turn it into a combat-oriented game about an army man that's all in le head with "puzzles" that insult the player's intelligence, all while dangling words "SILENT HILL" and iconic characters like Pyramid Head and Robbie the Rabbit every 15 fucking minutes of gameplay. ALL THIS without even mentioning that the story is garbage, the dialogue is written by actual fucking alien creatures, the game crashes every second loading screen (and it has A LOT of loading screens). It's certain kind of funny to play this right after 1, 2, 3, and 4, and depressing at the same time. There are 0 good reasons to EVER play this, the only thing might be satiating your morbid curiosity about how one of the most iconic gaming franchises fell.

First half I was quite invested in it. The story seemed hooking enough and I knew it was a "bad game" so I kind of took all the bad things and laughed at them, but there was a moment when it wasn't even.. entertaining, it was just painful and annoying.

Homecoming rewrites some of the canon and features a very American plot that is first presented as some kind of psychological thing that we all longed for but.. well.. it's complicated, but it's not the mental deep dive that SH2 fans are so thirsty for.

The gameplay combat was ok at first until enemies began getting complicated and spawned in hordes, because the combat is not designed for more than one enemy. The dodge input and autoaim of the melee attacks make combat quite infuriating at times.

The PC port of the game is bad. I thought it was going to be horrible but I have seen worse.

Overall it's a bad horror game, but because it's part of a franchise.. it's seen as "horrible". Does it deserve it? well.. a little bit.

The end of the beginning of the end.

There was a stench that lingered in the air. The first to emerge from the miasma, sick and shambling, was Silent Hill: Origins. Middling at its highest points, Origins was unwell. A gaiden game though it may have been — as was the refrain from fans, all collectively bargaining for this to be a singular misstep and nothing more — it warned of worse yet to come. Silent Hill, no longer in the hands of its rightful creators, had been set loose. As a pig breaks from its enclosure and becomes a feral boar, Silent Hill slipped through the fence posts and morphed into something foul.

The stench got stronger. Eyes watered. The tolling of the final bell marked the way that all would be for the days to come. Blood and shit and rust and slime wept outward from within its confines. What little hope still remained would have been better left abandoned. Silent Hill: Homecoming had at last arrived. Marked not by any ceremony nor celebration, Homecoming was the darkened star that shone over all, calling to consciousness a single truth: everything you hold dear can be taken away.

Its kingly ambition had been betrayed early, having the gall to call itself Silent Hill 5 before release. No longer intended as a simple spin-off, Homecoming was an explicit continuation of the series; the franchise being stripped from Team Silent and sent overseas to be repackaged into something with more mass market appeal. Everyone within Team Silent had been kicked down from higher positions within Konami; underdogs who warred back against the company’s internal bureaucracy to create on their own terms. Silent Hill was the end-product of years of gnashing teeth and desperate cobbling-together, the act of creation as a tool to be wielded against those who had pushed them down.

Now, it was no longer theirs.

Homecoming is a strange and unnerving amalgamation, influenced not by prior games but by movies based on them; the overuse of Pyramid Head, the sound design, the increased and ill-advised focus on “the action” over building atmosphere. The once-universally praised narratives to be found within the series, tackling impressively difficult subjects, have now been swapped out for little more than a hollow video tour, whisking the player from spooky setpiece to spooky setpiece with all the thematic depth and implication of Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride. Homecoming has nothing to say, because Homecoming does not exist. Homecoming is a few other games and movies standing on each other’s shoulders in an overcoat.

There is no imagination here, no understanding of dread. Enemies shamble towards you, lit from all angles despite the entire game taking place at night time, loudly shrieking or gurgling or barking as they charge. Too slow to be a threat, but too fast to evoke Romero-esque monsters, every enemy manages to hit a perfect balance of being both bland and generic. Left 4 Dead has more clever monster designs, and those aren’t attempting to evoke a specific character’s fears simply because that’s what Silent Hill 2 did. The meat-dogs in Homecoming stand as the strongest possible condemnation of the game’s artistic decisions; no longer lit in inky shadows, seemingly dripping through the darkness to reveal themselves, the new meat-dogs are bright-red, flayed canines who do little more than sprint shrieking at the player and bite them for very little damage. Americans think horror is when something is loud.

An utterly insipid narrative rounds out the combat-roll, knife fight gameplay, bending itself in knots in the hopes that the attempt will be enough to distract from every other element. Alex is a combat veteran, but not really. His brother is alive, but not really. His dad is a cool guy, but not really. Events seem to happen arbitrarily, perhaps each one marking a spot where the developers thought players would be getting bored; sudden black-out stage transition sequences of drunk-tank escapes and county jail gate puzzles pepper themselves through long sections of walking that were used in prior games to establish a tone, and are used here to disguise loading screens. Homecoming can only be defined by its limitations, because it makes no efforts to overcome them. It coasts on its reputation, like a bad student whose father is alumni.

This is what I despise most about Homecoming. It’s a game that’s wholly content to ride the coattails of work done by better, more talented, more passionate artists, and it’s one that was rewarded wholly for doing nothing by being gifted to a no-name studio by Konami. What did The Collective do as a studio to be handed this franchise without seemingly any publisher oversight? Was Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the Xbox that much of a hit? Did Konami believe that their seminal 2006 movie tie-in game The Da Vinci Code was evidence that they were going to handle this series with respect? Or did Konami simply sell off the rights to the lowest bidder just so they could get a quick buck off of a franchise they didn’t respect, made by employees who they loathed?

It's a despicable creation, and stands as a putrid reminder that concepts like "merit" and "self-expression" are air. Here, there is nothing besides what is most profitable for the parent company.

A foul cloud hangs over Homecoming. May it never thin.

What can I say? This game isn’t good but it’s not that bad in some areas but it’s still bad, I would say that the positives of THSI game is that I really do love the ost of this game it actually was such an immersive soundtrack that I would just trudge through the slog that is this game. Another positive if this game I would say in my opinion was the story while it is average I do like the story but it also has its problems.

Now negatives. This game really is a slog to play through and since it incorporates 3rd person shooter stuff from using guns (I won’t lie it’s been a while since I played it from the time I type this review) makes the game a mess hell the combat mechanics in general are ass and while I do understand that the main character was in the military I just wish they would do some polish in the few important part of the game that isn’t buggy as hell especially when there are boss fights in this game that requires you to use that mechanic once you ran out of bullets

Side note: I personally love the story of the bosses/monsters of this game I won’t even lie it was so immersive that it did send chills down my spine because of how good they are lore wise mechanic wise hell no

Aside from the combat stuff and general exploration being a bit stuttery this game is bad with the soundtrack being the saving grace of this hame

An entirely forgettable experience... it is a damn shame, what happened to the once legendary Silent Hill franchise. But hey, at least the composer and singer, Akira Yamaoka & Mary Elizabeth McGlynn respectively, always come to play. SH's music is always great, and here is no exception.

The only ones who could have saved SH from its current fate, is if Kojima and Del Toro were allowed to continue making Silent Hills (P.T.). Unfortunately, with its cancellation all those years ago, there now sits an enormous, vacant hole in the AAA video game landscape... nobody is making any true, psychological horror games anymore...