Silent Hill 3, despite the name, is not a direct sequel to Silent Hill 2. Although it takes place after the events of that game, it is instead a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1, following up on some of the plot points and characters of that game. As a result, I highly recommend you play the original before SH3, as the narrative beats will be more impactful and frankly, why would you play the third game in a trilogy without playing the other two.
The game stars Heather, a normal 17-year-old girl who, after a frightening nightmare, is seemingly stalked by a creepy detective and encounters grotesque monsters in the now-abandoned and hellish shopping mall she was napping in. She traverses many areas throughout the game, most notably a subway station, a rec center, a mental hospital (making a return from SH2!), an amusement park (the same one from SH1) and more. Narratively, while I don't think SH3 is nearly as thematically deep or as cleverly told as SH2, it still holds its own and is heads and shoulders above most video game stories. Heather is a very likable protagonist and I found myself really connecting with her, but in a different way than I connected with James in SH2. I suppose seeing someone my age going through Hell and back felt, relatable almost, like I had been represented in a medium that usually relegates teenagers to over-the-top anime settings or children's games. Heather is a very realistically written character and I really enjoyed her feisty yet terrified responses to the situations she found herself in. The supporting cast was great as well. While not as thoroughly explored as the ones in SH2, I enjoyed them all. Douglas as the gruff, jaded old man, Claudia as the devout, crazy religious freak, and Vincent as the intelligent, yet utterly insane bookworm who thinks he's better than everyone. Especially Vincent, he was such a joy to watch. I love how the scenes with him are both deeply unnerving yet almost funny.
Also, I did NOT expect the game to be as much of an emotional gut-punch as it was. I nearly cried at two scenes in the game at LEAST, though no full-on waterfalls like in SH2. Heather Morris, the VA for Heather, is a very convincing cryer. As the game progresses and the narrative unfolds, you get to find out more about the supporting cast and their tragic backstories, all told in a natural way and not like the "boo hoo look at my trauma I'm so complex" way that quite a few Hollywood films take after nowadays.
The worldbuilding is also great and fleshes out the world in a way that never ceases to fascinate me. We learn a lot more about the town's local cult, The Order, and their religion, (which appears to be heavily based on Christianity) through notes and memos written by people in universe scattered around for the player to find.
Thematically, the game has less going on than SH2, but that doesn't mean there's no value or moral message that can be taken from Silent Hill 3. In fact, quite the opposite. The game has two major themes: How organized religion can easily corrupt people and turn them into morally-driven monsters (in both a figurative and literal sense) and how revenge is self-destructive and will only eat away at your mental state, not solve your problems. These two themes are handled with grace and tact and the game never overextends to pretension with it's themes, and I feel director Kazuhide Nakazawa and the rest of Team Silent clearly had a lot to say about these issues. Some other, more minor themes the game tackles are body image issues, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, loss, and growing old.
This game's story fucking rocks, both the main narrative and the deeper subtext. Highly recommended based on this alone. Thankfully, the rest of the game is (mostly) just as excellent
Gameplay-wise, many fans consider Silent Hill 3 significantly improved compared to Silent Hill 2. I only partially agree with this sentiment. It is true that Team Silent has made combat more complex than previously, with the addition of strafing by pressing the bumpers, quickturning by pressing both bumpers at once, and blocking by holding down the B button. These are both really nice additions and while I didn't find strafing all that useful in most scenarios (other than the final boss, where it was essential for survival), I still appreciated it's existence. Blocking was easily the coolest addition to me, as it made combat a little more strategic. The game provides the option for both traditional tank controls and more modern controls (labeled in-game as 3D and 2D controls). I say this with only a small amount of bias but, I HIGHLY recommend tank controls, as the game is pretty much fucking unplayable with the modern controls. The camera shifts too much for it to be viable in the slightest, causing a lot of disorientation and wasted time that simply does not occur when using the tank controls. Clearly the game was designed and playtested with tank controls, so don't even bother with the modern ones.
The game adds numerous new weapons to the game, including a MAC-10 SMG, a katana, and a maul, all of which have their uses in the game. None of the weapons feel useless and it feels like they each have an enemy type that they are particularly effective against. Now, this is where I begin to disagree that SH3's combat is necessarily better than SH2's. For some reason, melee weapons feel a lot less viable in this game, with the pipe having received a serious nerf, perhaps because it was the most effective melee weapon in SH2. I also think they toned down the auto-aim by a significant margin, as I found myself wasting ammo because I wasn't always properly lined up for the auto-aim to take effect. Now, I don't think this is that big of a deal, despite maybe sounding like it
This is survival horror after all, and combat should only be used as a last resort if avoiding enemies is more harmful than fighting, or if it is not possible. I still found this game's combat to be exciting and scary. The new enemies are implemented in the game pretty well and are all "fun" to fight or avoid, with the exception of the slurpers. They often appear in pairs and they can continuously knock down the player and serve as a general annoyance rather than a fair threat. Thankfully, they only appear in two major areas. The boss fights are actually pretty well done, with the final fight being my favorite in the series, so in that sense I find it to be much improved from SH2.
Speaking of which, this game is FUCKING SCARY. I had two nightmares based on events in this game, and I think that's a good indication that Team Silent did something right. The game cleverly uses enemy placement, as well as limited healing and ammunition resources to scare the player. I played on hard combat difficulty and every single enemy felt like a real and present threat to my life. I won't say the game was particularly difficult and I've certainly played harder games (even in this genre), but I still felt challenged and died quite a few times. Even something like a tiny, bipedal mound of flesh was enough to send me dashing in the other direction yelling "GET THE FUCK AWAY GET THE FUCK AWAY GET THE FUCK AWAY". This is in combination with strong art direction and sound design, but I will touch on that a little later
I played the game on the default puzzle difficulty, and still felt challenged. The puzzles were all cleverly designed and I found myself having to take physical pen-and-paper notes in order to solve them. The solutions are not always obvious and require a decent bit of out-of-the-box thinking. My only criticism is that it seems like the frequency of the puzzles have decreased compared to the previous entry, with there only being 5 major ones I can name off of the top of my head.
The final gameplay related topic I have to mention is the game's length, which was commonly criticized when the game first came out. It's important to realize that Konami originally mandated that Silent Hill 3 be a rail shooter, which Team Silent fought against heavily. Eventually, Team Silent managed to convince Konami to allow them to develop the game as traditional survival horror, but the failed rail shooter concept still ate up a decent amount of the game's budget and development time. As a result, some things do feel scaled back compared to SH2, and I feel like this is understandable. For example, when you do finally get to Silent Hill in the game, the exploration is fairly limited compared to SH2 or SH1. I managed to beat the game in a little less than 7 hours, but most survival horror games aren't any more than 10, and I feel like the game's pacing was pretty well done considering. There is still a lot to do and see in the game and while it is a good 3 hours shorter than SH2, I didn't particularly mind.
This game is graphically gorgeous, really pushing the PlayStation 2's hardware to its limits. In fact, I'd argue that if one were to play it in widescreen at 720p, you could convince someone that it was a launch title for the PlayStation 3. The game makes great use of dynamic lighting and texturing, which greatly adds to the atmosphere. Heather's flashlight realistically casts shadows across the environment, and there are many points where bloody textures dynamically move across the walls and disappear, and I have to wonder how exactly they accomplished that, especially since the PS2 is underpowered compared to its competition at the time. As for the art direction, it is more of an evolution of the "rust and guts" style of SH1, rather than the waterlogged look of SH2. As a result, the game feels more aesthetically "over the top" than the previous entry, but not in a way that dilutes the scares or makes me take it any less seriously. The environments are very detailed and clearly tons of effort was put into making sure an environment felt as realistic (or unrealistic) as possible, perfectly fitting the franchise's brand of surrealist horror.
The monster design is excellent and as series tradition, reflects the major themes of the game. All of the monsters are horrifying in their own right, and in combination with absolutely disgusting sound design makes the player fear them, in combination with their physical danger. I think it's a good trait when the simple sound of a monster is enough to send me into a panic.
Akira Yamaoka returns to compose the original soundtrack, and Silent Hill 3 is the start of a series tradition: vocal tracks sung by the very talented Mary E. McGlynn. The OST has a somewhat more youthful, punk feeling as a reflection of the significantly younger protagonist. The non-vocal tracks are very atmospheric and complement the visuals very well. I find that it is one of the few video game OSTs where one can listen to it as an individual album and still appreciate it regardless of having played the game.
The vocal performances in the game once again follow the tradition started by SH2 of being, at points, intentionally stilted and awkward in order to unnerve the player, though SH3's voice acting is more conventionally "good". I think every actor in the game gives a good, if not great performance, but some are better than others. For example, it took a little bit for me to warm up to Douglas' VA, but I found it to be an effective performance by the time I completed the game. Heather Morris does an excellent job as the protagonist, and like I said earlier, really helped me to identify with her. Vincent's VA perfectly synchronizes with the snarky pretention of the character, and Claudia's VA is so dedicated to her role that I think they may have just dragged some religious nut off of the streets. The voice work truly is unnerving, but that doesn't stop me from connecting with the characters
Overall, Silent Hill 3 is an excellent survival horror game, and one that I believe all future titles in the genre should turn to inspiration for. While I still believe Silent Hill 2 is better by a significant margin, that's like saying SH3 is simply "utterly fantastic" instead of a "masterpiece". I loved pretty much every second of the game and I cannot wait to eventually replay it.
The game stars Heather, a normal 17-year-old girl who, after a frightening nightmare, is seemingly stalked by a creepy detective and encounters grotesque monsters in the now-abandoned and hellish shopping mall she was napping in. She traverses many areas throughout the game, most notably a subway station, a rec center, a mental hospital (making a return from SH2!), an amusement park (the same one from SH1) and more. Narratively, while I don't think SH3 is nearly as thematically deep or as cleverly told as SH2, it still holds its own and is heads and shoulders above most video game stories. Heather is a very likable protagonist and I found myself really connecting with her, but in a different way than I connected with James in SH2. I suppose seeing someone my age going through Hell and back felt, relatable almost, like I had been represented in a medium that usually relegates teenagers to over-the-top anime settings or children's games. Heather is a very realistically written character and I really enjoyed her feisty yet terrified responses to the situations she found herself in. The supporting cast was great as well. While not as thoroughly explored as the ones in SH2, I enjoyed them all. Douglas as the gruff, jaded old man, Claudia as the devout, crazy religious freak, and Vincent as the intelligent, yet utterly insane bookworm who thinks he's better than everyone. Especially Vincent, he was such a joy to watch. I love how the scenes with him are both deeply unnerving yet almost funny.
Also, I did NOT expect the game to be as much of an emotional gut-punch as it was. I nearly cried at two scenes in the game at LEAST, though no full-on waterfalls like in SH2. Heather Morris, the VA for Heather, is a very convincing cryer. As the game progresses and the narrative unfolds, you get to find out more about the supporting cast and their tragic backstories, all told in a natural way and not like the "boo hoo look at my trauma I'm so complex" way that quite a few Hollywood films take after nowadays.
The worldbuilding is also great and fleshes out the world in a way that never ceases to fascinate me. We learn a lot more about the town's local cult, The Order, and their religion, (which appears to be heavily based on Christianity) through notes and memos written by people in universe scattered around for the player to find.
Thematically, the game has less going on than SH2, but that doesn't mean there's no value or moral message that can be taken from Silent Hill 3. In fact, quite the opposite. The game has two major themes: How organized religion can easily corrupt people and turn them into morally-driven monsters (in both a figurative and literal sense) and how revenge is self-destructive and will only eat away at your mental state, not solve your problems. These two themes are handled with grace and tact and the game never overextends to pretension with it's themes, and I feel director Kazuhide Nakazawa and the rest of Team Silent clearly had a lot to say about these issues. Some other, more minor themes the game tackles are body image issues, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, loss, and growing old.
This game's story fucking rocks, both the main narrative and the deeper subtext. Highly recommended based on this alone. Thankfully, the rest of the game is (mostly) just as excellent
Gameplay-wise, many fans consider Silent Hill 3 significantly improved compared to Silent Hill 2. I only partially agree with this sentiment. It is true that Team Silent has made combat more complex than previously, with the addition of strafing by pressing the bumpers, quickturning by pressing both bumpers at once, and blocking by holding down the B button. These are both really nice additions and while I didn't find strafing all that useful in most scenarios (other than the final boss, where it was essential for survival), I still appreciated it's existence. Blocking was easily the coolest addition to me, as it made combat a little more strategic. The game provides the option for both traditional tank controls and more modern controls (labeled in-game as 3D and 2D controls). I say this with only a small amount of bias but, I HIGHLY recommend tank controls, as the game is pretty much fucking unplayable with the modern controls. The camera shifts too much for it to be viable in the slightest, causing a lot of disorientation and wasted time that simply does not occur when using the tank controls. Clearly the game was designed and playtested with tank controls, so don't even bother with the modern ones.
The game adds numerous new weapons to the game, including a MAC-10 SMG, a katana, and a maul, all of which have their uses in the game. None of the weapons feel useless and it feels like they each have an enemy type that they are particularly effective against. Now, this is where I begin to disagree that SH3's combat is necessarily better than SH2's. For some reason, melee weapons feel a lot less viable in this game, with the pipe having received a serious nerf, perhaps because it was the most effective melee weapon in SH2. I also think they toned down the auto-aim by a significant margin, as I found myself wasting ammo because I wasn't always properly lined up for the auto-aim to take effect. Now, I don't think this is that big of a deal, despite maybe sounding like it
This is survival horror after all, and combat should only be used as a last resort if avoiding enemies is more harmful than fighting, or if it is not possible. I still found this game's combat to be exciting and scary. The new enemies are implemented in the game pretty well and are all "fun" to fight or avoid, with the exception of the slurpers. They often appear in pairs and they can continuously knock down the player and serve as a general annoyance rather than a fair threat. Thankfully, they only appear in two major areas. The boss fights are actually pretty well done, with the final fight being my favorite in the series, so in that sense I find it to be much improved from SH2.
Speaking of which, this game is FUCKING SCARY. I had two nightmares based on events in this game, and I think that's a good indication that Team Silent did something right. The game cleverly uses enemy placement, as well as limited healing and ammunition resources to scare the player. I played on hard combat difficulty and every single enemy felt like a real and present threat to my life. I won't say the game was particularly difficult and I've certainly played harder games (even in this genre), but I still felt challenged and died quite a few times. Even something like a tiny, bipedal mound of flesh was enough to send me dashing in the other direction yelling "GET THE FUCK AWAY GET THE FUCK AWAY GET THE FUCK AWAY". This is in combination with strong art direction and sound design, but I will touch on that a little later
I played the game on the default puzzle difficulty, and still felt challenged. The puzzles were all cleverly designed and I found myself having to take physical pen-and-paper notes in order to solve them. The solutions are not always obvious and require a decent bit of out-of-the-box thinking. My only criticism is that it seems like the frequency of the puzzles have decreased compared to the previous entry, with there only being 5 major ones I can name off of the top of my head.
The final gameplay related topic I have to mention is the game's length, which was commonly criticized when the game first came out. It's important to realize that Konami originally mandated that Silent Hill 3 be a rail shooter, which Team Silent fought against heavily. Eventually, Team Silent managed to convince Konami to allow them to develop the game as traditional survival horror, but the failed rail shooter concept still ate up a decent amount of the game's budget and development time. As a result, some things do feel scaled back compared to SH2, and I feel like this is understandable. For example, when you do finally get to Silent Hill in the game, the exploration is fairly limited compared to SH2 or SH1. I managed to beat the game in a little less than 7 hours, but most survival horror games aren't any more than 10, and I feel like the game's pacing was pretty well done considering. There is still a lot to do and see in the game and while it is a good 3 hours shorter than SH2, I didn't particularly mind.
This game is graphically gorgeous, really pushing the PlayStation 2's hardware to its limits. In fact, I'd argue that if one were to play it in widescreen at 720p, you could convince someone that it was a launch title for the PlayStation 3. The game makes great use of dynamic lighting and texturing, which greatly adds to the atmosphere. Heather's flashlight realistically casts shadows across the environment, and there are many points where bloody textures dynamically move across the walls and disappear, and I have to wonder how exactly they accomplished that, especially since the PS2 is underpowered compared to its competition at the time. As for the art direction, it is more of an evolution of the "rust and guts" style of SH1, rather than the waterlogged look of SH2. As a result, the game feels more aesthetically "over the top" than the previous entry, but not in a way that dilutes the scares or makes me take it any less seriously. The environments are very detailed and clearly tons of effort was put into making sure an environment felt as realistic (or unrealistic) as possible, perfectly fitting the franchise's brand of surrealist horror.
The monster design is excellent and as series tradition, reflects the major themes of the game. All of the monsters are horrifying in their own right, and in combination with absolutely disgusting sound design makes the player fear them, in combination with their physical danger. I think it's a good trait when the simple sound of a monster is enough to send me into a panic.
Akira Yamaoka returns to compose the original soundtrack, and Silent Hill 3 is the start of a series tradition: vocal tracks sung by the very talented Mary E. McGlynn. The OST has a somewhat more youthful, punk feeling as a reflection of the significantly younger protagonist. The non-vocal tracks are very atmospheric and complement the visuals very well. I find that it is one of the few video game OSTs where one can listen to it as an individual album and still appreciate it regardless of having played the game.
The vocal performances in the game once again follow the tradition started by SH2 of being, at points, intentionally stilted and awkward in order to unnerve the player, though SH3's voice acting is more conventionally "good". I think every actor in the game gives a good, if not great performance, but some are better than others. For example, it took a little bit for me to warm up to Douglas' VA, but I found it to be an effective performance by the time I completed the game. Heather Morris does an excellent job as the protagonist, and like I said earlier, really helped me to identify with her. Vincent's VA perfectly synchronizes with the snarky pretention of the character, and Claudia's VA is so dedicated to her role that I think they may have just dragged some religious nut off of the streets. The voice work truly is unnerving, but that doesn't stop me from connecting with the characters
Overall, Silent Hill 3 is an excellent survival horror game, and one that I believe all future titles in the genre should turn to inspiration for. While I still believe Silent Hill 2 is better by a significant margin, that's like saying SH3 is simply "utterly fantastic" instead of a "masterpiece". I loved pretty much every second of the game and I cannot wait to eventually replay it.