15
(Non-spoiler review, but the third paragraph contains minor spoilers for the second half of the game)
I probably shouldn’t have made Silent Hill: The Short Message my first foray into the Silent Hill franchise, and although it shares no connection to the other entries, I wish I would’ve played those first to be able to give more insight into how well it stands against them, but the damage is done… so whatever! I’m not going to go too deep into this one, as it’s a free—two hour horror game akin to some random steam indie, and I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about this—honestly? Complete and utter fucking waste of potential.
The idea of a self-contained, standalone, high-budget horror game aiming to convey a brutally honest and sincere story of anguish with mental health undertones is brilliant, but the execution is shockingly piss poor here. At times—most times… it feels as if this was written by a film student without a single creative bone in their body. It’s generic, with blatantly underdeveloped themes due to its tight—not even two hour—runtime, and its worst aspect is how on the nose the writing is; throwing constant talking points at you with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Some people are excusing and chalking this up to how short the game is, and that’d make sense—clearly that’s part of the issue, but it’s still an issue. It doesn’t matter if there’s a reason for a particular shortcoming… a shortcoming is still a shortcoming. And for me personally, if a game is talking at you rather than guiding you through the experience… it becomes exhausting to play. “Bullying is bad”, “Suicide is not the answer”, “Talk to people you’re close to about your problems”, is it me or did I just get transported back to 2017 when Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why released? Like fuck me! Come up with something more interesting to say about such complicated issues. I know this isn’t the best comparison, but a game called Gris delved into similar topics and was substantially more subtle and in-turn meaningful about them—and not only that, it had gameplay that meshed well with its writing and aesthetic to a degree. But that’s on the completely opposite side of the spectrum as people said it felt too abstract; and I guess that’s a line these games have to toe sometimes… but I much prefer the latter.
And it pains me to say all of this, because there are some good ideas at play here. Specifically the whole child abuse angle, I think the game does well to showcase the dread of having to endure a parent’s—a monster’s spiraling mental stability; circumstances continuously worsen until you finally break and all of their mistakes ripple into the rest of your life… leaving you to pick up the pieces. Like a dark cloud hanging over you, chasing you through every step of the way known as life—every loud thud, getting closer and closer; wondering if you’ll ever escape them... It’s a haunting metaphor that the game doesn’t fully pursue, as I’m sure “the monster” is linked more so to Anita’s friend: Maya, as they both share the same sweater—rather than her mother. I suppose the metaphor works both ways. Maya and Anita’s mother are two sides of the same coin, both events drastically propelled Anita’s life into chaos and pure misery; so I think it makes sense if they’re both chasing her throughout the maze, acting as a personification for life itself. But that’s sadly where the positives end. The 15 points I gave has everything to do with that thread. Whereas everything to do with the: “I’m ugly”, “She gets more likes and followers than me” story is woefully inept at conveying anything engaging… at least for me. And I’m not saying real people don’t experience feelings like that—they obviously, very much do! It’s sometimes hard not to when so much of your life is based around seeing the highlight reels of other people’s lives in the form of social media, but a game isn’t real life—and I don’t think it has any business portraying something so mundane with nothing new to say. I genuinely think my personal experience with bullying is more creative, and it feels weird to power scale “bullying”, but fuck me if it isn’t true! You’ll have to take my word on that one though, I am not elaborating further… But that’s pretty much the entire reason why the story didn’t click with me; and so the ending with the clear, hopeful sunrise directly contrasted against the bleak and fog-filled start menu… didn’t feel earned to me. It’s a nice way of conveying an arc of sorts, but at the same time… was it impactful enough to make me care about it? Nope, I can’t say that it was. But that’s not even the worst part… the gameplay is.
I’m not well-versed with walking sims, I don’t think I’ve ever really played one for longer than a few hours. But as far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be much here? It’s very linear in the way that the player is literally tasked with going from one room/hallway to the next, to look at notes, which more often than not will trigger a chase section—you then complete it, and the cycle restarts. It’s nothing groundbreaking—in fact, it’s among the most generic gameplay loops I’ve ever seen; and along with all the issues I’ve gone over forms a really dull experience. Its most aggravating aspect are the aforementioned chase sections. These are little “puzzles” that you have to solve by finding the correct door in a maze while outrunning a monster. And there’s definitely something exhilarating about them; running—but seemingly never being able to escape it, hearing those powerful footsteps bang against the concrete floor every step of the way—right behind you, while you slowly open doors and what-not… but when it’s so heavily rooted in trial and error—which it is, it becomes a slog. The final chase is the most guilty of this, because you’re essentially running through countless rooms that all look the same trying to find five random photographs, and if by chance you die then you'll have to repeat the entire thing; and I can’t emphasize this enough… it’s BORING, it’s AWFUL, it’s HEADACHE INDUCING. I had exactly zero fun with it.
The funniest thing by far is that Silent Hill: The Short Message is basically a UE5 tech demo… with the one huge downside being that it runs like complete fucking ass! The FPS go from the high 50s to the 30s very often due to how many assets are on screen. I’m convinced there’s forced motion blur too? But I’ve seen nobody mention this so I can’t be sure, all I know is that turning the camera felt like shit—and I couldn’t see anything. Lip syncing is also terrible, although maybe that’s intentional? Either way, it doesn’t look good and makes focusing on the cutscenes difficult because I’m constantly distracted by its weird visuals. And if this is what the future of UE5 looks like for the Playstation 5… then I don’t want it. I’d rather get a technically competent UE4 game with consistent performance that doesn’t take me out of the experience. I don’t think UE5 is viable for this console generation, as the only way to achieve stable performance would be through very heavy-handed upscaling techniques that we’ve seen plenty of games use so far ahem Jedi: Survivor, ahem Final Fantasy XVI; and both of these are using older engines! So yeah... but maybe on the Playstation 6!
All in all? This game made me want to kill myself.
Playtime: 1.6 hours
Every Game I’ve Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Playstation Exclusives - Ranked
Silent Hill - Ranked
2024 - Ranked
(Non-spoiler review, but the third paragraph contains minor spoilers for the second half of the game)
I probably shouldn’t have made Silent Hill: The Short Message my first foray into the Silent Hill franchise, and although it shares no connection to the other entries, I wish I would’ve played those first to be able to give more insight into how well it stands against them, but the damage is done… so whatever! I’m not going to go too deep into this one, as it’s a free—two hour horror game akin to some random steam indie, and I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about this—honestly? Complete and utter fucking waste of potential.
The idea of a self-contained, standalone, high-budget horror game aiming to convey a brutally honest and sincere story of anguish with mental health undertones is brilliant, but the execution is shockingly piss poor here. At times—most times… it feels as if this was written by a film student without a single creative bone in their body. It’s generic, with blatantly underdeveloped themes due to its tight—not even two hour—runtime, and its worst aspect is how on the nose the writing is; throwing constant talking points at you with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Some people are excusing and chalking this up to how short the game is, and that’d make sense—clearly that’s part of the issue, but it’s still an issue. It doesn’t matter if there’s a reason for a particular shortcoming… a shortcoming is still a shortcoming. And for me personally, if a game is talking at you rather than guiding you through the experience… it becomes exhausting to play. “Bullying is bad”, “Suicide is not the answer”, “Talk to people you’re close to about your problems”, is it me or did I just get transported back to 2017 when Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why released? Like fuck me! Come up with something more interesting to say about such complicated issues. I know this isn’t the best comparison, but a game called Gris delved into similar topics and was substantially more subtle and in-turn meaningful about them—and not only that, it had gameplay that meshed well with its writing and aesthetic to a degree. But that’s on the completely opposite side of the spectrum as people said it felt too abstract; and I guess that’s a line these games have to toe sometimes… but I much prefer the latter.
And it pains me to say all of this, because there are some good ideas at play here. Specifically the whole child abuse angle, I think the game does well to showcase the dread of having to endure a parent’s—a monster’s spiraling mental stability; circumstances continuously worsen until you finally break and all of their mistakes ripple into the rest of your life… leaving you to pick up the pieces. Like a dark cloud hanging over you, chasing you through every step of the way known as life—every loud thud, getting closer and closer; wondering if you’ll ever escape them... It’s a haunting metaphor that the game doesn’t fully pursue, as I’m sure “the monster” is linked more so to Anita’s friend: Maya, as they both share the same sweater—rather than her mother. I suppose the metaphor works both ways. Maya and Anita’s mother are two sides of the same coin, both events drastically propelled Anita’s life into chaos and pure misery; so I think it makes sense if they’re both chasing her throughout the maze, acting as a personification for life itself. But that’s sadly where the positives end. The 15 points I gave has everything to do with that thread. Whereas everything to do with the: “I’m ugly”, “She gets more likes and followers than me” story is woefully inept at conveying anything engaging… at least for me. And I’m not saying real people don’t experience feelings like that—they obviously, very much do! It’s sometimes hard not to when so much of your life is based around seeing the highlight reels of other people’s lives in the form of social media, but a game isn’t real life—and I don’t think it has any business portraying something so mundane with nothing new to say. I genuinely think my personal experience with bullying is more creative, and it feels weird to power scale “bullying”, but fuck me if it isn’t true! You’ll have to take my word on that one though, I am not elaborating further… But that’s pretty much the entire reason why the story didn’t click with me; and so the ending with the clear, hopeful sunrise directly contrasted against the bleak and fog-filled start menu… didn’t feel earned to me. It’s a nice way of conveying an arc of sorts, but at the same time… was it impactful enough to make me care about it? Nope, I can’t say that it was. But that’s not even the worst part… the gameplay is.
I’m not well-versed with walking sims, I don’t think I’ve ever really played one for longer than a few hours. But as far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be much here? It’s very linear in the way that the player is literally tasked with going from one room/hallway to the next, to look at notes, which more often than not will trigger a chase section—you then complete it, and the cycle restarts. It’s nothing groundbreaking—in fact, it’s among the most generic gameplay loops I’ve ever seen; and along with all the issues I’ve gone over forms a really dull experience. Its most aggravating aspect are the aforementioned chase sections. These are little “puzzles” that you have to solve by finding the correct door in a maze while outrunning a monster. And there’s definitely something exhilarating about them; running—but seemingly never being able to escape it, hearing those powerful footsteps bang against the concrete floor every step of the way—right behind you, while you slowly open doors and what-not… but when it’s so heavily rooted in trial and error—which it is, it becomes a slog. The final chase is the most guilty of this, because you’re essentially running through countless rooms that all look the same trying to find five random photographs, and if by chance you die then you'll have to repeat the entire thing; and I can’t emphasize this enough… it’s BORING, it’s AWFUL, it’s HEADACHE INDUCING. I had exactly zero fun with it.
The funniest thing by far is that Silent Hill: The Short Message is basically a UE5 tech demo… with the one huge downside being that it runs like complete fucking ass! The FPS go from the high 50s to the 30s very often due to how many assets are on screen. I’m convinced there’s forced motion blur too? But I’ve seen nobody mention this so I can’t be sure, all I know is that turning the camera felt like shit—and I couldn’t see anything. Lip syncing is also terrible, although maybe that’s intentional? Either way, it doesn’t look good and makes focusing on the cutscenes difficult because I’m constantly distracted by its weird visuals. And if this is what the future of UE5 looks like for the Playstation 5… then I don’t want it. I’d rather get a technically competent UE4 game with consistent performance that doesn’t take me out of the experience. I don’t think UE5 is viable for this console generation, as the only way to achieve stable performance would be through very heavy-handed upscaling techniques that we’ve seen plenty of games use so far ahem Jedi: Survivor, ahem Final Fantasy XVI; and both of these are using older engines! So yeah... but maybe on the Playstation 6!
All in all? This game made me want to kill myself.
Playtime: 1.6 hours
Every Game I’ve Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Playstation Exclusives - Ranked
Silent Hill - Ranked
2024 - Ranked
2 Comments
@TheQuietGamer Yeah, I realized that after writing my review. God it was so distractingly awful I legit couldn't focus on the cutscenes half of the time...
TheQuietGamer
1 month ago