>Shitty story
>Shitty characters
>Shitty villain
>Shitty dungeons
>Cryptic ass way to get the ending for some reason and in the rest of the game you never do something similar
>Half the content being a carbon copy of the previous game with bad qol changes
>Cards shuffles are broken as shit (You can get an izanagi with 99 stats in everything easily)
>Unlike previous game, no punishment for farming
>Everyone knew this game is ass before and made fun of its fans
>Suddenly, when it came to PC everyone started to lick this game ass
I fucking hate pc gamers

Now that the franchise is plagued with a bunch of Silent Hill 2 imitators, it's striking and quaint to see how quickly its direct sequel distanced itself from many of SH2's touted hallmarks that seemed like the success formula to exploit from then on. Silent Hill 3 doesn't waste much time with preambles, knowing already what you came here to see, and presents itself as the most predatory entry in the series, with highly aggressive and pursuing enemies, unlike the more passive and slow moving foes of SH1 and SH2, a very limited item and ammo count that forces you into a constant fight-or-flight response state that wasn't present in the series before, and more expansive and disorienting spaces to trudge through that more often than not have you staring into deep darkness as you scramble for a way out with monsters bitting at your heels.

Silent Hill 3 takes the unrelenting nature of the Historical Society stretch in SH2 and extends it into a full game. The Otherworld is ramped up even further as one of the most nightmarish settings every produced in videogames, filling it with bloody and rusty metal, grotesque disfigured monsters, dream-like disturbing visions, and disquieting noises that constantly make you feel like something is about to come out of the walls. The soundscape of SH3 might be Yamaoka's best work in the series, shifting the indiferent and somber tone of the previous entries into a much more hostile and invanding presence that assaults your ears constantly. Of the trilogy, SH3 is without a doubt the deliberately scariest one of the bunch, and bluntly makes its case as to not be fucked around it.

Which is why it's fascinating how much the main protagonist undercuts that vicious horror with her disinterested personality and musings on the whole ordeal. Beyond having a natural knack for making every interaction with the antagonists feel like a sitcom during cutscenes, Heather's charismatic remarks and quips during exploration create a certain detachment between her and the player's control, that wasn't as present in Harry's passive voyeurism or Jame's ambivalent resignation. SH3 puts tremendous effort in its oppression of the player, and yet Heather ain't having none of that shit. It's easy to understand why SH3 doesn't enjoy the same prestige and adoration that its prequel does, and I can't really blame people for that. SH2 interweaves both text and subtext so seamlessly that interpretation becomes highly accessible for anyone who experiences it, unlike SH3's more metatextual concepts that can easily be ignored if you just take the plot at face value.

But if your take away after playing the whole game, and witnessing Heather abort a God inside a church at the end, is that Silent Hill 3 disappointingly doesn't contain psychological horror and is just another devil cult story with little substance, then I'm afraid you missed the forest for the trees. There's an ever present underlying theme that permeates most of SH3 of imposed expectations of young women, that extends beyond its devil cult plot and impregnates with meaning the institutionalized settings of the game and its towering and stalking monsters that constantly harrass Heather. And having such an ubiquitous character push back the assaulting nature of SH3, mocking and making light of its villains, and in the process the Silent Hill concept itself, makes for a very refreshing and compelling subversion of what came before it.

We will never know what Silent Hill 3 could have been if it had gone the same route as Silent Hill 2. Hell, we will never know what it could have been if it had been a rail shooter, like intended. But this is the Silent Hill 3 we got, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Nocturne is Shin Megami Tensei distilled and evolved. It strips the series' mythology down to its bare essentials, giving you a barren world and a distant echo of a story to hold onto as you try to figure out your demi-fiend's place in this game's interstitial world. This sort of arms-length approach to storytelling usually doesn't do all that much for me, see my opinions on Dark Souls for that, but here it felt really purposeful. Here is an event that turns all participants into potential kings, of course human nature would push the few humans apart so they can try and achieve that power.

As a sort of inverse to the simplicity of Nocturne's aesthetic and story, the gameplay has been deepened significantly from the previous installments. Magatama now acts as both a replacement for equipment and a sort of Final Fantasy V-esque job system. The press-turn system is introduced here and it turns the challenging-but-flawed battle system of games past into a locked-tight, competitive-feeling system that makes every boss encounter feel like a genuine triumph. I could sit here for days trying to explain just how amazing this system is, and how its steadfast set of rules perfectly make the game easy to understand and soul-crushing when you slip up. It's brilliant stuff.

I spent like 70 hours on this thing over like two and a half weeks and I'm feeling a sort of withdrawal from it days after. It's an utterly fascinating and exciting experience and I'm so excited to explore the rest of the series to see where it's gone from this crystallized gem of a game.

Note: I did play this for the first time on the HD remaster, and yes it has some pretty big flaws that your mileage will surely vary on. Personally, I didn't care that much about the frame drops or whatever but I did find the compressed music and DLC situation a huge bummer. The portability on switch and skill inheritances for demons pushed this version over the edge for me though, so that's why I'm here and not on the PS2 page. My score reflects my feeling on the game itself though and not the port. I do hope Atlus has learned something from this port and tries to do better on (hopefully) more ports in the future.