I don’t have anything else to add to what other people have already said about this masterpiece. I love survival horror games and this excels far above the rest, only in competition with the RE2 remake. But what that game doesn’t have is the absolutely impeccable, beautiful story that SH2 has. I haven’t experienced a game that has a story as phenomenal as this. Fantastic symbolism, characters, atmosphere, art direction, everything. I love it so much.

I fear that a remake of this could be an absolute mess and most likely would end up being just that. The beauty of this game lies in the off kilter dialogue and voice acting, the grimy look of the environments and the thick fog that shrouds the town. It wouldn’t have the same effect without these things.

In my opinion, Planet Zoo is the current all-time peak of the zoo management genre. Other games have done specific features better or featured a broader range of topics, but none can reach the sheer detail and execution of said detail seen in Planet Zoo. The things Frontier has accomplished within this game can be truly astonishing. A player can have a zoo that is attended by over 2000 guests who are visiting hundreds of animals, yet still zoom down to the surface and get a detailed individual view of every guest, animal, and decoration. Animals look and behave realistically, they react to how they are treated, have emotions, have individual medical breakdowns specifying their precise health, and the detail is extremely minute. Somehow, all of this detail is simply a bonus. A player can easily ignore all these hyper-detailed statistics and run a successful zoo, with the game taking into account how you’ve decided to play. Your conservation rating will suffer, but if you’d rather prioritize guest experience then the game is willing to let you do so.

The game isn’t without faults, but its faults are rarely unique. Most management games suffer from the occasional odd bug that blocks item placement in a location where it should be allowed, most management games will occasionally break down slightly when larger populations are reached and have certain characters read false-positive issues. Is it still an annoying issue? Yes. Have I encountered similar issues in every management game I have ever played? Yes.

Far from being a bad game, but far from being great. A noticeable departure from what made the first 3 games so good. It’s grand level design is one big drawback for me, leading to many situations where I felt like it was far too tedious. Everything just felt needlessly padded out. Plenty of areas have too many annoying enemies and sections where you continuously run from point A to point B.

My biggest gripe with this game though, is it’s uninspired and often times convoluted puzzle design. Sometimes, the puzzles can be incredibly bland, where you find an item, read a note and solve a simple riddle. Other times, it is far too vague, leading to plenty of situations where you’ll be frantically heading from room to room in the hopes of finding the way to the next area.

Enemy design is also incredibly uninspired. The only enemies in the game that I think have an interesting and frightening design are the Twin Victims. They genuinely scared me the first time I encountered one. The rest of them were extremely boring and plain in their design. I also have to point out how awful the ghost enemies are. Having a mechanic where common enemies are invincible unless you use limited-use items on them are just frustrating and provide no satisfying challenge at all. Also… possessed wheelchairs.

Escorting Eileen ended up being more annoying than anything else too. She doesn’t provide any sort of assistance to you, except the odd attack which hardly does any damage. Adding on to that, the most frustrating thing is having to wait for her to be standing right beside you until you decide to leave the area, unless you’ll end up leaving her behind and risking her getting attacked. This wouldn’t be a massive problem if she just ran at the same speed as you and stayed by your side at all times, which would make the most sense in the context of the game, but instead, she is slower than you, and very rarely sticks by your side.

This game does have its strong points though. I thought it had some very scary moments. By far the best one for me, was when you encounter the giant Eileen head. The sudden appearance of it was really well done and the twitchy eyes freaked me out big time. I also thought the whole concept of the game was incredibly interesting, but in execution, it doesn’t quite end up being too compelling.

Pretty cool. Probably the most pre-release hype I ever had for a game. Made me think everything was possible! Came at the cost of new cool stages but I was ready to pay that price. Also the Fighter Pass price I suppose. Probably not a smart choice in hindsight I don't even have the online subscription. I put more money in DLC than Nintendo did on netcode. Holy based trying to make their players touch grass by making the online unenjoyable.

Sakurai's music direction and picks are atrocious I'd say, that's the VGM enthuthiast in me rearing its ugly head. Never play Yuzo Koshiro's Now or Never remix in front of the hoes. They should really rework veterans characters next time... maybe I'm alone in thinking that but I'd love for the next game to be a HD deluxe director's cut remaster on da Switch 2, we could fix fighters, have new stages and music from old and recent games and maybe put all the budget in a story mode then put all the new fighters as DLC honestly that scenario sounds good to me. Let's wait to see what the future unfolds.

Nothing like this will ever get made again, which is sad but...at the same time it makes this game that much more special. I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said. It's literally a masterpiece. Every single aspect of the game was done to complete perfection.

It has one of the most thematically deep stories not only in video games, but in all of storytelling across any medium. The story of Silent Hill 2 is without a doubt one of the best. The reason for that isn't just because it's well-written, but it feels like it uses the medium of video games to its full advantage which adds another layer to it. This turns it into a story that cannot be replicated in any other form of media. Sure, somebody can try to make a movie with the EXACT same story and characters as this game and it would probably suck. It's all about the atmosphere and actually going through this journey with James, exploring the town and experiencing its horrors. This game succeeds at being a fucking piece of art, but it also DEFINITELY succeeds at being a survival horror game. They absolutely nailed the atmosphere, the gameplay, the puzzles, and obviously the music.

It's perfect. It's something that should never be forgotten, and should continue to be experienced by people for decades. I'm VERY optimistic about the remake. As I said, there's just no way to replicate this game ever again, and that's why it's such a masterpiece. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that THAT ending narration is one of the most beautifully written, heartbreaking, and perfectly performed things I've ever experienced. I don't know how anyone can sit through that without bawling their fucking eyes out at the end, and that's just the cherry on top. The people do not lie. This is one of the best games ever made.