Part of Spooky Season 2023.

My original experience with Silent Hill 2 was about six years ago. I played through it alongside an old friend who would constantly tell me what to do and where to go while reading a walkthrough online. Even though we did have a good time getting spooked and making fun of the stilted and awkward voice acting and dialogue, we ultimately hindered our experience. We thought the game was kinda “meh” and never really got what made the game so special. Over the years since that original playthrough, I’ve watched numerous video essays and read several articles and fan sites for Silent Hill 2 in an attempt to better understand the story, the symbolism, and why the game in general is so beloved. Despite my initial apathetic feelings towards the game, it managed to occupy a space in the back of my mind for years. Much like how the titular town calls the characters to it, I keep coming back to Silent Hill 2 and the unsettling journey into the depths of James Sunderland’s mind and soul, learning more and more about it each time I do, even if I’m not directly playing the game. After finishing my second playthrough, despite knowing just about every little detail regarding the game’s narrative going into it, Silent Hill 2 still managed to leave a rather large impact on me, even if there are some parts of it that sadly tear me away from what is otherwise one of the most captivating games I’ve ever played.

With the change in console generations, Team Silent chose to refine the elements that made the first Silent Hill standout. The visuals and sound design, which were already some of the best in the medium on the PlayStation 1, manage to get even better here. The biggest improvement overall though, is in the game’s storytelling. While the surface level narrative of the first game was solid, the storytelling was at its best with what wasn’t explicitly shown or explained. The environmental storytelling and the ambiguous nature to certain aspects of the plot in conjunction with what was being directly shown was what made that game’s story great for me. Silent Hill 2 takes the same approach, but to a far greater extent. The game tells a story that is so hauntingly personal and horrifically tragic that words which can convey how effective and emotional it is fail me. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a piece of media where the pitch black, bottomless emptiness of immense guilt and despair is communicated so well.

Almost every aspect of Silent Hill 2 has been expertly crafted to communicate details of the plot, characters, or the themes of the narrative. The town and the locations you explore within it aren’t just dark and frightening labyrinths. The monsters you encounter aren’t just creepy flesh abominations. They all represent something, they’re all telling you things about either James or the other characters of the game’s story. The symbolism compels you to reflect upon the places you go to and the things and people you encounter, consider what it all means, and why things are the way they are. This is how Silent Hill 2 manages to suck you into its world and keep you thinking about it long after you’ve finished playing it. It is truly excellent storytelling that I haven’t really seen in many other video games I’ve played.

In terms of structure and gameplay, not much has really changed between the first and second Silent Hill. Both titles play almost exactly the same, and as a result, they both share many of the same strengths and weaknesses (which I discuss in greater detail in my review of the first game). Controls and combat are virtually unchanged aside from the guns feeling like they pack more of a punch. Boss fights are once again rather simple, though they do actually require you to occasionally move now instead of just standing in one spot and tanking attacks while you shoot them with your best guns. Still, they never get more complicated than just running to one corner of the room, firing a few shots, rinse and repeat. Once again, I found the game to be at its best when exploring the indoor dungeon-like locations such as Wood Creek Apartments or Brookhaven Hospital. You do spend more time in these sorts of locations and less time exploring the town this time around, which is honestly a huge plus. It’s clear that the goal of the devs wasn’t to really expand or alter the way Silent Hill 2 is played in any significant way, and instead to just stick with what worked.

The biggest gameplay change is how the difficulty works. Instead of an all encompassing Easy/Normal/Hard difficulty setting, Silent Hill 2 allows you to choose the difficulty for combat and puzzles separately, letting you customize your difficulty experience. Being the casual that I am, I chose Normal for both. I thought this was fine for the puzzles, which were a lot less cryptic compared to the puzzles on the same difficulty in the first game. They still require you to think outside the box, but I was able to solve almost all of them on my own. However, the Normal difficulty for combat is way too easy, and I don’t think it’s just because this is my second playthrough. What makes combat so easy is that the game showers you with ammo and health items, to an overbearing extent. Silent Hill 1 had a similar problem, but it’s even worse here. There was actually a point in the first game where I nearly used up all of my handgun ammo because I wasn’t thinking and almost put myself in a difficult position. This stressed me out and really forced me to reconsider my ammo usage despite the fact that I was eventually able to rebuild a large amount of ammo during the rest of the game.

In Silent Hill 2, you never have to think about item management on Normal difficulty. By the time I reached the final boss, I had over 150 rounds of handgun ammo, over 100 shotgun shells, as well as dozens of rounds for the rifle. I also had roughly 20 different healing items in total as well. The final area in the game in particular has a ton of ammo and healing items you can easily find. I don’t know if playing on Hard would make any difference or not. After looking into it, I’ve seen mostly mixed responses regarding the difficulty from people online. A lot of folks say that it doesn’t make that much of a difference, and that Hard also makes certain set pieces such as the Brookhaven Hospital Basement and the controls for the Boat more difficult in a detracting way. I didn’t play through Hard myself so take that with a grain of salt, but if that is the case, then I’d say that this is the biggest problem with Silent Hill 2. Since you have so much ammo and healing items, there’s no risk to just blasting away almost every enemy you come across, which dramatically lessens the threat they pose and takes you out of the horror experience. As a result, I actually think Silent Hill 2 plays slightly worse and is a bit less tense compared to Silent Hill 1.

I also feel like the camera is a lot worse compared to the first game as well. Oftentimes, especially in long and cramped hallways, the camera just won’t cooperate and rotate to a view of James from behind. It’ll swing around wildly, making it very difficult to see what’s in front of James. This is especially frustrating if the Radio is detecting an enemy nearby and you’re trying to rotate the camera so that you can check to see which direction the enemy is in, and I have gotten injured by enemies as a result of the camera not cooperating. This was also an occasional issue in Silent Hill 1, but it happened to me so infrequently that I didn’t even bother to mention it in my review of that game, and it’s a surprise that it’s a much bigger problem here.

If you are the type of player who prioritizes gameplay above all else, then I think that Silent Hill 2 may end up leaving you disappointed. Gameplay is not where the title shines, and is honestly it’s weakest aspect. However, every other element of the game is handled in a masterclass fashion. There are very few games that I have played that even come close to being as immersive or that tell a story as expertly as Silent Hill 2 does. Team Silent really played to their strengths and crafted an experience that very few games I’ve played have even come close to matching. After all these years, despite thinking that I understood it before, now I feel like I can post that Always Sunny gif of Danny DeVito and say that “I get it”. I get why this game is heralded as a masterpiece, why it’s still being talked about to this day, why I keep randomly thinking about it even after all these years since my first playthrough, and why it’s deeply impacted so many people. Despite its blemishes, there’s still a lot of beauty to it, and I think that it’s a game that’s definitely earned its cult status

Part of Spooky Season 2023.

It’s easy to see why the Silent Hill franchise is one of the two pillars of the survival horror genre alongside Resident Evil. So much of Team Silent’s first title has aged like fine wine. While it doesn’t quite stick the landing in every single regard, the aspects that the game excels in are done in a truly unparalleled fashion that very few games can compare to.

This game has some of the strongest presentation in the medium. Its art direction is succeeded only by later entries in the series. This is absolutely one of the best looking games of its generation, and I think that age has only made the game look even better. From the worn and weathered look of it’s industrial environments where you’re never quite sure if the floors and walls are covered in rust or blood, to the horrific imagery of bodies that have been merged and entangled with steel cages, to the enemies that appear to be animals and people that have been twisted and corrupted by some truly evil force that is impossible to fathom… it's all breathtakingly striking and leaves a tremendous and lasting impact.

Then there’s the game’s utterly phenomenal sound design. Words fail to truly describe how perfect it is. It does such an impeccable job at making you feel like you’re never truly alone, that the world around you is alive and is constantly watching your every move with utter hatred and contempt. There are short music tracks that just consist of noises that sound like something angrily stomping on a metal floor or high pitched whining that will play either in certain locations you discover or after you complete an action. It feels like the music and sound is constantly reacting to you and what you do, and combined with the disturbing art and imagery, it makes Silent Hill one of the most immersive games that I have ever played.

The story definitely requires you to have a taste for ambiguity to truly appreciate it. You’re going to have to put bits and pieces of the story together for yourself, as Silent Hill never really gives you the full picture of the events that lead up to and take place over the course of the game. I really like the optional items that you can find in the world that add clarity to what’s going on, like the video tape, or the various newspaper clippings you can find across different areas. I’m especially a big fan of how the game tells elements of its story through its environments.

Silent Hill’s gameplay is the survival horror standard that was established by it and Resident Evil. It has the tank controls, clunky (complimentary) combat, puzzle solving, and inventory management that the genre is known for. Compared to Resident Evil, Silent Hill seems to be a bit more encouraging of combat, and it doesn’t really place as much focus on inventory management. You’re not limited in how many items you can pick up, so you really only have to manage your ammo. Even then, the game tends to be pretty generous with ammo drops (at least on normal). However, if you’re just shooting everything, you may still end up putting yourself in a difficult spot like I nearly did. Thankfully the game has plenty of melee options to choose from (though the hammer is pretty much the go-to as far as these are concerned), allowing you to engage in combat without having to spend ammo. You are a lot more likely to take damage when engaging in melee combat, but the game is also pretty generous when it comes to healing items as well.

I think that the game is at its best when you’re exploring the various… dungeons I guess? I’m not really sure what to call these locations, but I’m referring to places like Midwich Elementary School and Alchemilla Hospital. They’re similar to dungeons from The Legend of Zelda or the Spencer Mansion/Raccoon City Police Station from Resident Evil. They’re multi-floored buildings that have various locked rooms with corresponding keys and puzzles to solve. These locations are phenomenal. They’re immensely satisfying to explore and navigate, and I especially love when they transition from a simple and mundane location to their corrupted horrific counterparts, as that’s where the game plays very clever tricks on the player, such as the bathrooms that teleport you between floors in the Hospital.

The last quarter or so of the game before the finale gets rather slow and a tad annoying. The sewers and everything leading up to the amusement park aside from the optional quest you can do at this point in the game was just really straightforward and very boring. You travel through these more linear locations that have an abundance of enemies, too many to fight, so you need to run past them in order to stay alive. There’s so many enemies in fact, that the game’s framerate will actually start to drop here. These locations aren’t nearly as interesting to explore, or even particularly frightening outside of the music and environmental noises. I think this section would be even worse if you miss out on the optional stuff you can do at this point in the game.

The bosses in this game are okay at best. They’re all pretty simple and mostly involve just blasting them with the best guns in your tiny arsenal of weapons. There’s little strategy to them, and in all honesty, thanks to the generous amount of healing and ammo you get over the course of the game, you’re able to just stand in one place and tank hits while firing at several of the game’s bosses, including the final one.

The puzzles are a mixed bag throughout the entire game. I found a lot of them to be rather decent, and others to be very obtuse. I was able to solve a few of them, but I had to look quite a few of them up, more than I was happy with. I really don’t know how much of a skill issue that is on my part and how much of it is an actual issue with the game’s puzzles. I was able to figure out the infamous piano puzzle on my own for example, but other puzzles like the zodiac one left me completely clueless as to what I was supposed to do.

Another issue I had is that it can be easy to miss items and objects you can pick up or interact with. While most of the time, items do contrast well with the background and aren’t too difficult to spot, there were times where I did miss and had to backtrack for a key or other important item simply because I didn’t see it. I also nearly missed an optional but sorely needed weapon because I barely noticed it was even there. I don’t remember off the top of my head if early Resident Evil games did this or not, but in certain titles in the series, items that you can pick up and interact with would have a little twinkle on them, which made it a lot easier to see them, especially in cluttered environments.

Despite its flaws, which I think can be mitigated slightly if you choose to follow a spoiler free guide, Silent Hill is still an extremely impressive and well-crafted game, especially for its time. It is immersive in ways few other games I’ve played can possibly compare, and when it’s at its best, it’s a satisfying and thrilling survival horror experience. It might frustrate and annoy me at times, but overall, it's still a worthwhile experience that is very much worth playing today.

This game is sublime. I was worried that it would feel dated compared to Silent Hill 2 given the hardware, but what I found was that the game holds up in basically every way. The cutscenes, areas, menus, and music are both charming and atmospheric. The riddles were pretty tough brainteasers. My favorite thing of all: the combat is sooooo fucking good. It tickles my brain in just the right way to unload a couple shots into some poor bastard while they fall in a puddle of blood and I stomp them to death. The choices of weaponry are mostly the same with the addition of a bunch more melee weapons to bash heads in, it's just enough without being overkill. On the note of killing people, the enemy variety is really great. Compared to SH2 (where all the standard enemies did basically the same thing) this game has a buffet of nasty creatures. Sprinting dogs. Pterodactyls that hit you from the sky. Leaping skin gorillas. Swamp monsters that hang from the ceiling. Little gray men with knives. You got it all in this game baby, and it's fun to kill every single one of them. Only ounce of criticism I can give is that the camera STINKS. It never feels like it works how it should and several times I was getting massacred offscreen because my camera is stuck in the corner. It also never reaches the emotional highs of it's sequel; Harry Mason never makes an impression apart from being the blankest of slates. But in terms of raw gameplay, it does everything not only right but better.

There's something really cool about snow in media. I'm not really sure why but it can make literally anything cozy to me. Silent Hill is a horror game, and while not all that scary, walking around the empty Old Silent Hill with snow falling overhead feels just right. Entering one of the suburbian houses to get out of it brings a sense of relief; not because of getting away from the monsters but getting out of the snow, the wind turning to silence, reminiscent of coming back from school on the odd snow day. Living in Ireland means I rarely get them, and when I do it's very special to me, to the point where I can remember almost every one up to now where I've had any. I always feigned being sick if it happened on a school morning, so I would go out in our expansive garden by myself to build an array of snowmen instead of sitting inside class bored to tears. Those early mornings, out in the snow, I felt at peace. Something about sick days in general were always really cozy to me; everyone else was gone, doing something else. It was the odd time I could truly be alone, like I was the only person in the whole world. Silent Hill captures this feeling too. Yeah sure my village didn't have weird skinless pterodactyls trying to peck my eyes out but the feeling persists. There was just an odd comfort walking around my village in layers of clothes with not a soul to see me. I try to replicate the feeling going out to the park at night, but it's not really the same. Maybe I'm just nostalgic. It's been nearly a couple years now since I've had a good snow day.

I love this game. I get it. I think the setting is so rich and really captures the odd sensation of being in a public place that shouldn't be empty, and I love the way Harry's straight-laced goofy dad personality comes out through his slightly weird line reads. It's interesting to compare this game to Resident Evil, because they're such contemporaries, but Silent Hill feels so much gunkier and grungier, bigger, darker.

There's a sense that you're stumbling through something that cannot be fully illuminated in Silent Hill. What happened to create these creatures? Why is there a big moth trying to kill me? Where is my child? These are the eternal questions.

At first, I was scared to play games like this, but after getting acquainted with this murky, segmented nightmare town, I hate to leave.