The Short Message looks great and the cherry blossom monster design is actually really well done - it looks like a Silent Hill game (despite not being set there at all) and it gives me that grimey feel to the world that the trailers for the upcoming Remake feel like they're cleaned up a bit too much. Sure there are some framerate dips but I'm rarely too fussed by them and they didn't really distract from the experience. It also mostly sounds good - there's another great Yamaoka track in the credits and the intermittent background audio throughout does its absolute best to keep you on edge. It is unfortunately let down a little by less than stellar voicework and an especially unconvincing dub on some live-action cutscenes - not sure if this was meant to be intentionally ethereal but it ended up just looking and sounding bad.
It's major problems come with just about everything else though - the story, script and I guess the Short Message we're getting are eyerollingly blunt and really doesn't tackle any of the themes it mentions with anything more than a puddle's depth of thought. In general, wandering around an abandoned tower block isn't inherently bad but the lack of any kind of tension or real environmental storytelling while you're doing so just makes the experience a bit dull. I think it's trying and I appreciate that, but it just doesn't quite get there in execution.
There are segments with the aforementioned cherry-blossom monster that do give you something to think about, but only fleetingly - you're put through Otherworld maze sections where you're chased until you reach a magical exit door but these sections are mostly pretty linear until the very end where you find yourself wishing they had stayed that way. You're thrown into mazes which are likely meant to disorientate you and ratchet up the tension, they only really succeed in the first point. Chase sequences have been a staple of the first-person horror boom since Amnesia Dark Descent but this feels like another example of something being implemented because it's a genre thing - there's no thought as to how or why this relates the story or characters involved. It's a chase through a maze because that's what horror games do.
It's a very large map and so easy to get lost through doors and hallways that all look very similar, having to collect four items and then an exit all while being chased, with one wrong turn meaning you could run into the monster and need to start again. Less scary and more frustrating, and eventually pretty boring.
Even for free I don't think this is worth your time, even for Silent Hill fans. There are some nods to other games in the series but they're just reminders of better games. I've seen people say you can't be too critical of something that's free but I absolutely disagree - yes, I'm sure a lot of work went into this but it's still a finished product at the end of the day.
It's major problems come with just about everything else though - the story, script and I guess the Short Message we're getting are eyerollingly blunt and really doesn't tackle any of the themes it mentions with anything more than a puddle's depth of thought. In general, wandering around an abandoned tower block isn't inherently bad but the lack of any kind of tension or real environmental storytelling while you're doing so just makes the experience a bit dull. I think it's trying and I appreciate that, but it just doesn't quite get there in execution.
There are segments with the aforementioned cherry-blossom monster that do give you something to think about, but only fleetingly - you're put through Otherworld maze sections where you're chased until you reach a magical exit door but these sections are mostly pretty linear until the very end where you find yourself wishing they had stayed that way. You're thrown into mazes which are likely meant to disorientate you and ratchet up the tension, they only really succeed in the first point. Chase sequences have been a staple of the first-person horror boom since Amnesia Dark Descent but this feels like another example of something being implemented because it's a genre thing - there's no thought as to how or why this relates the story or characters involved. It's a chase through a maze because that's what horror games do.
It's a very large map and so easy to get lost through doors and hallways that all look very similar, having to collect four items and then an exit all while being chased, with one wrong turn meaning you could run into the monster and need to start again. Less scary and more frustrating, and eventually pretty boring.
Even for free I don't think this is worth your time, even for Silent Hill fans. There are some nods to other games in the series but they're just reminders of better games. I've seen people say you can't be too critical of something that's free but I absolutely disagree - yes, I'm sure a lot of work went into this but it's still a finished product at the end of the day.