"The fear of the blood tends to create fear for the flesh."
A child's psyche materializes into shifting nightmares. Abstraction becomes the norm, and degradation follows suit. Mere sounds induce terror, yet the horror lies in the physical space itself.
Will you run or will you face the unknown terror?
Silent Hill begins with a montage that quickly establishes a vibe of dread and curiosity with its odd musical composition of folky, eerie strings and adventurous guitar. The game brazenly employs creative camera angles, adopting a visual style that is inventive and distinct. The limitations of the PS1 led to the addition of fog to limit vision, creating a lurking sense of claustrophobia despite being in an open area. Harry is characterized by the gameplay itself. He staggers and puts his hands up when he runs into walls. He gasps for breath after running. His aim is unpredictable, either landing headshots after headshots or just completely missing the enemy 5 times in a row. It's obvious the guy has no experience with the situation he finds himself in, but he's intelligent enough to deduce from the clues around him. It disempowers him, which in turn disempowers us, the players. The everyman aspect of Harry Mason is also what makes him an endearing protagonist, navigating and overcoming otherworldly obstacles in search of his daughter. It makes him more believable in his fatherly plight. He also behaves like a father. I mean, marking stuff on your map, charging at freaky creatures with a pistol, going, "Have you seen a little girl? Short, black hair? Just turned seven last month?" every time he meets someone? No bachelor is doing that shit in a haunted town. As Harry explores the desolate town, the details start to get muddier, the plot makes less sense, and even the physical space starts to wildly contradict itself as you go from "Fog World" to "Otherworld" and finally "Nowhere."
The side characters are really interesting on their own and reveal a ton of details about Silent Hill. Cybill is a fearless officer who comes to Silent Hill to investigate the lack of communication in the town. She's the rational, skeptical voice, questioning the paranormal and attributing the cultists to craziness or drugs. She trusts Harry with her gun and takes it upon herself to do whatever it takes to find Cheryl. She's an unfortunate soul dragged into the wrong place at the wrong time. The blues of Cybill stand out starkly in her environment, especially in comparison to Lisa, who wears a red jacket and red shoes. Lisa is another innocent yet tragic character who had to endure years and years of abuse from Kaufman. Oblivious to her dark fate and refusing to come to terms with it, she cries out for help from Harry until she starts bleeding. It's a devastating moment because, unlike Cybill, you can't save Lisa. That melancholic, guilt-ridden score that plays right after does NOT help either. Kaufman himself is an odd figure. He's the director of Alchemilla Hospital who forms a contract with Dahlia to station Alessa in the hospital. The mutual benefits of this flew over my head. Presumably, Kaufmann wanted money, and Dahlia just wanted Alessa taken care of. Kaufman stations Lisa and hooks her on drugs to take care of the unhealing Alessa. Dahlia is the creepy, abusive cult leader nun trying to invoke god into a physical form by having her psychic daughter supernaturally impregnated or some shit. Tame stuff like that, you know. Alessa does not want to do that, so she splits her soul in half. One half turns into Cheryl, who is abandoned and later adopted by Harry and his wife, and the other remains with the cult. In the end, both Lisa and Alessa get to enact some form of vengeance, either by electrocuting their abuser alive or by taking them to the pits of unending nightmares. So there is catharsis, somewhat.
The apocalyptic world is a nightmare in its purest form. The level designs are basic at first but reveal themselves to be brimming with details. Degradation follows wherever you look. Hospital wards coated in blood, rooms with stained beds, mutilated bodies hung on crosses, and school corridors filled with the quiet laughs of children and murky, disgusting creatures roaming about. All of these are manifestations of Alessa's psyche. Her distorted perceptions of classmates, her fear of animals, insects, creatures from fairy tales, doctors, and nurses who kept her alive. 240p baddies die bloody ass deaths for no reason. Innocence and purity are tainted with blood. These buildings that are usually bustling with people and kids are in bottomless decay, reflecting the deep psychological and physical scars inflicted upon Alessa by these spaces and its inhabitants. It's unsettling, and that feeling is accentuated by the ingenious sound design. Every footstep, every door crack, and every shriek of every enemy is designed to induce terror. You don't ever get used to it. Least of all that industrial, solemn background music. It's beautiful, serene, yet creepy. I don't know how to describe it properly, but it is etched in my mind. It's one of those aesthetics that just does not leave you. It sets an astonishingly high bar for later horror games to follow. Within the depths of hidden items, comes its replay value. One playthrough is satisfactory but to truly experience the story you have to play it more than once. I made the "mistake" of not saving this game at relevant points. So after I landed the Bad+ ending, I had to replay it in New Fear mode from the beginning. The surprising thing is that that only grew my appreciation for this game. And that's really the lasting brilliance of this 25 year old game.
The more I play these pre-extinction PS1 games (MGS1 and that's about it), the more I realise that graphics are just not that important if the game is made by talented people and can bear its weight despite the technological limitations. As I mentioned earlier, the said technological limitations birthed one of the most iconic looks of a video game ever. As you play games from that era, it becomes so much easier to lose yourself in the world. You stop caring about the number of pixels that you can probably count on your fingers, you stop caring about the fiddly controls of the PS1 era (I'm not even gonna pretend these were a bitch to get used to at first), and you stop caring about Harry jittering all the time for no reason. You just lose yourself in this bewildering, mystifying world. I don't wanna say it, but it is soothing in a way.
I think what I find fascinating is how much the story is treated as a means to explore psychological breakdown, rather than solely concerned with being part of a larger narrative or mystery. Even if your experience ends up being somewhat like mine and the story doesn't make much sense unless you read the Wikipedia page, there's still a basic understanding of mental deterioration that makes itself evident through the environment alone. That, to me, is a commendable feat of storytelling. The various endings further prove that Silent Hill is essentially a player's own story. It doesn't matter what speaks to you.
There's always something for someone in Silent Hill.
9/10.
A child's psyche materializes into shifting nightmares. Abstraction becomes the norm, and degradation follows suit. Mere sounds induce terror, yet the horror lies in the physical space itself.
Will you run or will you face the unknown terror?
Silent Hill begins with a montage that quickly establishes a vibe of dread and curiosity with its odd musical composition of folky, eerie strings and adventurous guitar. The game brazenly employs creative camera angles, adopting a visual style that is inventive and distinct. The limitations of the PS1 led to the addition of fog to limit vision, creating a lurking sense of claustrophobia despite being in an open area. Harry is characterized by the gameplay itself. He staggers and puts his hands up when he runs into walls. He gasps for breath after running. His aim is unpredictable, either landing headshots after headshots or just completely missing the enemy 5 times in a row. It's obvious the guy has no experience with the situation he finds himself in, but he's intelligent enough to deduce from the clues around him. It disempowers him, which in turn disempowers us, the players. The everyman aspect of Harry Mason is also what makes him an endearing protagonist, navigating and overcoming otherworldly obstacles in search of his daughter. It makes him more believable in his fatherly plight. He also behaves like a father. I mean, marking stuff on your map, charging at freaky creatures with a pistol, going, "Have you seen a little girl? Short, black hair? Just turned seven last month?" every time he meets someone? No bachelor is doing that shit in a haunted town. As Harry explores the desolate town, the details start to get muddier, the plot makes less sense, and even the physical space starts to wildly contradict itself as you go from "Fog World" to "Otherworld" and finally "Nowhere."
The side characters are really interesting on their own and reveal a ton of details about Silent Hill. Cybill is a fearless officer who comes to Silent Hill to investigate the lack of communication in the town. She's the rational, skeptical voice, questioning the paranormal and attributing the cultists to craziness or drugs. She trusts Harry with her gun and takes it upon herself to do whatever it takes to find Cheryl. She's an unfortunate soul dragged into the wrong place at the wrong time. The blues of Cybill stand out starkly in her environment, especially in comparison to Lisa, who wears a red jacket and red shoes. Lisa is another innocent yet tragic character who had to endure years and years of abuse from Kaufman. Oblivious to her dark fate and refusing to come to terms with it, she cries out for help from Harry until she starts bleeding. It's a devastating moment because, unlike Cybill, you can't save Lisa. That melancholic, guilt-ridden score that plays right after does NOT help either. Kaufman himself is an odd figure. He's the director of Alchemilla Hospital who forms a contract with Dahlia to station Alessa in the hospital. The mutual benefits of this flew over my head. Presumably, Kaufmann wanted money, and Dahlia just wanted Alessa taken care of. Kaufman stations Lisa and hooks her on drugs to take care of the unhealing Alessa. Dahlia is the creepy, abusive cult leader nun trying to invoke god into a physical form by having her psychic daughter supernaturally impregnated or some shit. Tame stuff like that, you know. Alessa does not want to do that, so she splits her soul in half. One half turns into Cheryl, who is abandoned and later adopted by Harry and his wife, and the other remains with the cult. In the end, both Lisa and Alessa get to enact some form of vengeance, either by electrocuting their abuser alive or by taking them to the pits of unending nightmares. So there is catharsis, somewhat.
The apocalyptic world is a nightmare in its purest form. The level designs are basic at first but reveal themselves to be brimming with details. Degradation follows wherever you look. Hospital wards coated in blood, rooms with stained beds, mutilated bodies hung on crosses, and school corridors filled with the quiet laughs of children and murky, disgusting creatures roaming about. All of these are manifestations of Alessa's psyche. Her distorted perceptions of classmates, her fear of animals, insects, creatures from fairy tales, doctors, and nurses who kept her alive. 240p baddies die bloody ass deaths for no reason. Innocence and purity are tainted with blood. These buildings that are usually bustling with people and kids are in bottomless decay, reflecting the deep psychological and physical scars inflicted upon Alessa by these spaces and its inhabitants. It's unsettling, and that feeling is accentuated by the ingenious sound design. Every footstep, every door crack, and every shriek of every enemy is designed to induce terror. You don't ever get used to it. Least of all that industrial, solemn background music. It's beautiful, serene, yet creepy. I don't know how to describe it properly, but it is etched in my mind. It's one of those aesthetics that just does not leave you. It sets an astonishingly high bar for later horror games to follow. Within the depths of hidden items, comes its replay value. One playthrough is satisfactory but to truly experience the story you have to play it more than once. I made the "mistake" of not saving this game at relevant points. So after I landed the Bad+ ending, I had to replay it in New Fear mode from the beginning. The surprising thing is that that only grew my appreciation for this game. And that's really the lasting brilliance of this 25 year old game.
The more I play these pre-extinction PS1 games (MGS1 and that's about it), the more I realise that graphics are just not that important if the game is made by talented people and can bear its weight despite the technological limitations. As I mentioned earlier, the said technological limitations birthed one of the most iconic looks of a video game ever. As you play games from that era, it becomes so much easier to lose yourself in the world. You stop caring about the number of pixels that you can probably count on your fingers, you stop caring about the fiddly controls of the PS1 era (I'm not even gonna pretend these were a bitch to get used to at first), and you stop caring about Harry jittering all the time for no reason. You just lose yourself in this bewildering, mystifying world. I don't wanna say it, but it is soothing in a way.
I think what I find fascinating is how much the story is treated as a means to explore psychological breakdown, rather than solely concerned with being part of a larger narrative or mystery. Even if your experience ends up being somewhat like mine and the story doesn't make much sense unless you read the Wikipedia page, there's still a basic understanding of mental deterioration that makes itself evident through the environment alone. That, to me, is a commendable feat of storytelling. The various endings further prove that Silent Hill is essentially a player's own story. It doesn't matter what speaks to you.
There's always something for someone in Silent Hill.
9/10.