note to others: maybe play sh1 first? I didn’t but from what little I know this features a whole lot of threads continued from SH1 and I did feel like I was missing a bit of proper noun context

obviously i've gotta think about this one some more wrt themes but first impressions, it's great. i think it's great for very different reasons than silent hill 2 is great and that you probably shouldn't go in expecting silent hill 2 2, but the level design and visuals and audio contribute to a very uniquely oppressive experience, far more than I ever think really get reached in SH2. scary? i'm not sure (but i haven't really had luck with Any "video game" really scaring me quite as much as some other methods of telling horror narratives that make the observer much more powerless like VNs or film) but i don't really feel like this is the lens you should be approaching SH3 with regardless. story-wise, it's been said before but this is on its surface very shlocky and campy especially compared to the consistently dour SH2 but the moments where that veneer cracks are really heartbreaking. and again there's very obviously a lot of themes floating around here with respect to the misogynies that latently exist within a lot of society but im gonna need more than 30 minutes at 4 am to fully parse that, and once I do i doubt i could do a better job than most of the reviews at the top of this page.

also sidenote i played this one on tank controls BUT with the emulator bound to mouse+keyboard (wasd for dpad, right click to ready, and left click to fire, this is similar to what it was set to on killer7 i think), and this actually plays really good? the camera is a complete mess that hates you but i think i've finally found a setup for tank control games that actually doesnt suck, which makes me excited to be able to delve into this era of stuff a bit more readily