Replaying this for the first time in ~5 years, I went in knowing I probably wouldn't end up liking it as much as I used to. I played the first Silent Hill last year, and even right after playing it it was pretty clear that it blew this one out of the water in just about every way. I can still appreciate Silent Hill 2 as an important work of art within the medium in general, but I was struck by how shallow and obvious it felt this time through. Perhaps that's a quality of replaying it regardless of experience with the largely unconnected first entry in the series, but beyond the absolutely amazing soundtrack there's nothing this game does better then the first, and very little it does well enough to even remotely justify it's position in the vague videogame "canon".
The visuals are less impactful, but you cant blame that on the higher visual fidelity making it look too clean since 3 came out two years later on the same platform and gets that classic Silent Hill rust and grime look way, way better than this. The story, which seems to be the aspect most people love about this game, is largely derivative of Lost Highway, with a dash of Possession in there as well, and not in the sort of way that makes me feel anything other than an urge to rewatch either of those movies instead of continuing to play the game. Now there's nothing wrong with a work of art being incredibly derivative. I loved Signalis last year and that game doesn't have a single original idea across it's entire runtime, and even the first Silent Hill which I adore is really just a blend of The Mist, Twin Peaks, and Dean Koontz's novel Phantoms. It doesn't matter where you get your ideas, or how much of them were taken from other places, but it does matter how well you can execute them. Considering the scariest, most effective section of this entire game is the Historical Society-Prison stretch in the middle, which has just about nothing to do with the actual plot and features very little spoken dialogue, I'd say the execution of the narrative kind of sucks. Well, to be fair, that section is just really good. It would probably be the best part of a lot of games. I feel like I should say I really don't hate Silent Hill 2. The designs are all really good, in fact the Lying Figure is maybe my favourite monster design in the series, although the monsters are altogether a lot less scary than the first game and I'll never understand how the Red Pyramid Thing became the mascot of this franchise when he's one of the worst parts of this game. He's scary in like one scene total! As soon as you get to that lame ass apartment stairway fight he becomes a complete joke and it doesn't help that the next time you fight him all you have to do is run circles around him until he literally kills himself because he's so incompetent. The presentation is still top notch though, even if it's lost something since the first game, and when you ignore all the cutscenes the themes are woven into the gameplay and level design in a really unique and impactful way. But if you pay attention to the memos you can probably figure out the story within the first hour, if not earlier, and the game is riding on you being surprised by it's big twist reveal far more than it should. I think this is basically the opposite of what most people would say about this game but literally everything it's trying to say is delivered better through the gameplay sections than the cutscenes. it's almost infuriating to play a game that's so innovative and compelling in how it's message is intertwined with the gameplay and atmosphere only for the actual cutscenes to be so weak and unsubtle. It doesn't help that the ending is so botched both in it's writing and it's actual integration into the game. It's clear that Team Silent was going for a Crime and Punishment style resolution to the plot, but as it's delivered here it's as though you only found out that Raskolnikov killed the old woman in the final pages of the book rather than the beginning. It's no surprise that most people's takeaway from this game is that James is evil and the game intends for you to hate him. I don't think those people are stupid for misunderstanding the game, it's hard to expect the player to realize it's meant to be a redemptive ending when A. you don't have a clue why James needs to be "redeemed" until ten minutes prior to the ending, and B. the game allows, and expects, the player to get literally any ending other than "Leave", thus diluting the games ability to resolve it's own narrative. "In Water" is almost effective enough to warrant it's existence as an alternate "bad" ending, but "Maria" is awful and has nothing to do with anything the game has been saying up to that point. Don't even get me started on the "true" ending, which you need to replay the game to get, just being a out-of-place Pet Sematary reference. I can appreciate the attempt to justify multiple endings by relying on players actions in gameplay rather than binary choices made in cutscenes, but I don't think it was worth it when one ending is still so obliviously the correct one. It's not a terrible story, but it's carried by Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack and the weirdness of the stilted acting (which, strangely, a lot of people really don't like. There's a couple moments where it's really bad but early on it absolutely adds to the vibe of the game).
Ultimately I feel the same way about Silent Hill 2 that I do about the movie Aliens. Both of them are sequels that are, in their own right, competently made, and somewhat deserving of their status if only for the countless imitators they spawned, practically creating the modern sci-fi action blockbuster and indie survival horror game respectively. But both of them lack all of the originality that made Alien and Silent Hill so effective in the first place. Everything unique and interesting about the world Ridley Scott created in the first Alien movie was diminished in Aliens into blue-grey action slop where stereotyped American meatheads shoot bugs for 2 hours. Similarly, Silent Hill 2 ditches everything that made the first game special without adding anything new to the iconic locations and visuals it keeps around, filling it in with a paper-thin story that's dumbed down so everyone can understand exactly what it wants to be "about" without having to employ a modicum of the nuance present in all of the works it's ripping off. The Xenomorph can never be scary again after you've watched dozens of them get gunned down by turrets, and Silent Hill can never be interesting again after you remove every ounce of historical context the town held to turn it into James Sunderland's personal mental torture chamber. Yeah, it's meant to be like Jacobs Ladder. But Silent Hill 1 did the Jacobs Ladder thing in a more effective way without robbing the setting of it's reality. AND it got the atmosphere right, which is the most important part of any Jacobs Ladder homage. I get why this game looks the way it does, and it doesn't bother me too much, but every area is far too cold and wet to accurately capture the Jacobs Ladder mood. Oh well, it's effectively depressing, I guess. Again, like Aliens, Silent Hill 2 is pretty good at being what it wants to be, it's just that what it wants to be kind of sucks.
But god DAMN Akira Yamaoka's music is fucking incredible.
Some notes, i don't want to edit this review anymore to add these in somewhere but I feel like they are worth mentioning.
- Combat is nothing to write home about, obviously, but I've never understood peoples complaints about it since its so easy i didn't die even once. you don't even have to fight two of the five boss fights lol
- the side characters, unlike in SH1, are pointless and forgettable. ESPECIALLY Eddie. Get him out of here. I don't care how funny that pizza scene is.
- the enhanced edition is great and im very glad it exists. No other way to play this now, as far as im concerned. It's not as technically impressive as something like the recent RE4 HD texture mod but the fact that the pc version of this game is even playable is cool enough in it's own right. No more comic sans!
- born from a wish is basically pointless. maybe the only game where you play as a tulpa though, so thats cool i guess
The visuals are less impactful, but you cant blame that on the higher visual fidelity making it look too clean since 3 came out two years later on the same platform and gets that classic Silent Hill rust and grime look way, way better than this. The story, which seems to be the aspect most people love about this game, is largely derivative of Lost Highway, with a dash of Possession in there as well, and not in the sort of way that makes me feel anything other than an urge to rewatch either of those movies instead of continuing to play the game. Now there's nothing wrong with a work of art being incredibly derivative. I loved Signalis last year and that game doesn't have a single original idea across it's entire runtime, and even the first Silent Hill which I adore is really just a blend of The Mist, Twin Peaks, and Dean Koontz's novel Phantoms. It doesn't matter where you get your ideas, or how much of them were taken from other places, but it does matter how well you can execute them. Considering the scariest, most effective section of this entire game is the Historical Society-Prison stretch in the middle, which has just about nothing to do with the actual plot and features very little spoken dialogue, I'd say the execution of the narrative kind of sucks. Well, to be fair, that section is just really good. It would probably be the best part of a lot of games. I feel like I should say I really don't hate Silent Hill 2. The designs are all really good, in fact the Lying Figure is maybe my favourite monster design in the series, although the monsters are altogether a lot less scary than the first game and I'll never understand how the Red Pyramid Thing became the mascot of this franchise when he's one of the worst parts of this game. He's scary in like one scene total! As soon as you get to that lame ass apartment stairway fight he becomes a complete joke and it doesn't help that the next time you fight him all you have to do is run circles around him until he literally kills himself because he's so incompetent. The presentation is still top notch though, even if it's lost something since the first game, and when you ignore all the cutscenes the themes are woven into the gameplay and level design in a really unique and impactful way. But if you pay attention to the memos you can probably figure out the story within the first hour, if not earlier, and the game is riding on you being surprised by it's big twist reveal far more than it should. I think this is basically the opposite of what most people would say about this game but literally everything it's trying to say is delivered better through the gameplay sections than the cutscenes. it's almost infuriating to play a game that's so innovative and compelling in how it's message is intertwined with the gameplay and atmosphere only for the actual cutscenes to be so weak and unsubtle. It doesn't help that the ending is so botched both in it's writing and it's actual integration into the game. It's clear that Team Silent was going for a Crime and Punishment style resolution to the plot, but as it's delivered here it's as though you only found out that Raskolnikov killed the old woman in the final pages of the book rather than the beginning. It's no surprise that most people's takeaway from this game is that James is evil and the game intends for you to hate him. I don't think those people are stupid for misunderstanding the game, it's hard to expect the player to realize it's meant to be a redemptive ending when A. you don't have a clue why James needs to be "redeemed" until ten minutes prior to the ending, and B. the game allows, and expects, the player to get literally any ending other than "Leave", thus diluting the games ability to resolve it's own narrative. "In Water" is almost effective enough to warrant it's existence as an alternate "bad" ending, but "Maria" is awful and has nothing to do with anything the game has been saying up to that point. Don't even get me started on the "true" ending, which you need to replay the game to get, just being a out-of-place Pet Sematary reference. I can appreciate the attempt to justify multiple endings by relying on players actions in gameplay rather than binary choices made in cutscenes, but I don't think it was worth it when one ending is still so obliviously the correct one. It's not a terrible story, but it's carried by Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack and the weirdness of the stilted acting (which, strangely, a lot of people really don't like. There's a couple moments where it's really bad but early on it absolutely adds to the vibe of the game).
Ultimately I feel the same way about Silent Hill 2 that I do about the movie Aliens. Both of them are sequels that are, in their own right, competently made, and somewhat deserving of their status if only for the countless imitators they spawned, practically creating the modern sci-fi action blockbuster and indie survival horror game respectively. But both of them lack all of the originality that made Alien and Silent Hill so effective in the first place. Everything unique and interesting about the world Ridley Scott created in the first Alien movie was diminished in Aliens into blue-grey action slop where stereotyped American meatheads shoot bugs for 2 hours. Similarly, Silent Hill 2 ditches everything that made the first game special without adding anything new to the iconic locations and visuals it keeps around, filling it in with a paper-thin story that's dumbed down so everyone can understand exactly what it wants to be "about" without having to employ a modicum of the nuance present in all of the works it's ripping off. The Xenomorph can never be scary again after you've watched dozens of them get gunned down by turrets, and Silent Hill can never be interesting again after you remove every ounce of historical context the town held to turn it into James Sunderland's personal mental torture chamber. Yeah, it's meant to be like Jacobs Ladder. But Silent Hill 1 did the Jacobs Ladder thing in a more effective way without robbing the setting of it's reality. AND it got the atmosphere right, which is the most important part of any Jacobs Ladder homage. I get why this game looks the way it does, and it doesn't bother me too much, but every area is far too cold and wet to accurately capture the Jacobs Ladder mood. Oh well, it's effectively depressing, I guess. Again, like Aliens, Silent Hill 2 is pretty good at being what it wants to be, it's just that what it wants to be kind of sucks.
But god DAMN Akira Yamaoka's music is fucking incredible.
Some notes, i don't want to edit this review anymore to add these in somewhere but I feel like they are worth mentioning.
- Combat is nothing to write home about, obviously, but I've never understood peoples complaints about it since its so easy i didn't die even once. you don't even have to fight two of the five boss fights lol
- the side characters, unlike in SH1, are pointless and forgettable. ESPECIALLY Eddie. Get him out of here. I don't care how funny that pizza scene is.
- the enhanced edition is great and im very glad it exists. No other way to play this now, as far as im concerned. It's not as technically impressive as something like the recent RE4 HD texture mod but the fact that the pc version of this game is even playable is cool enough in it's own right. No more comic sans!
- born from a wish is basically pointless. maybe the only game where you play as a tulpa though, so thats cool i guess
2 Comments
@Snegurochka yeah i was probably being too harsh on the side characters, I do like Angela I just feel like she needed one or two more scenes for her story to really work. Eddie is the only one I have an actual problem with, unlike Laura and Angela his backstory is left so vague that he really only works as a dark parallel to James rather than an actual character.
Snegurochka
7 months ago