if games had stopped aiming for graphical fidelity/realism beyond what this game achieves the medium would be lightyears ahead as a vehicle of storytelling & communication (and a more ethical one at that). anything beyond heather's model is diminishing returns.
was talking it over with a friend and we agreed that one of the smartest things this game does is to entirely elide questions of depiction and gratuitousness re: sexual assault and abuse by unfolding the violence almost entirely through threat, metaphor, and implication. the looming possibility is signalled by the very first interaction even, the encounter of our favorite skinny, vulnerable teenage girl Heather Mason with a bulking, growly strange man stalking her. the eventual unraveling of the "God" plotline obviously also scans as about sexual trauma, the violative experience of unwanted procreation without the explicit need for an assaulting figure (which of course ties into the parody of the Virgin Birth, again, not subtle but appreciated), and the central dynamic between Heather and men is defined by distrust, fear, and manipulation (the memo you read where even her benevolent father and blankfaced video game Good Dad Harry Mason confesses to wanting to murder Heather as a child is heartbreaking), while her relationship to the only other woman in the cast is defined by outright hostility engendered by their equally understandable if slightly manichean responses to unbelievable pain and suffering at the hands of a patriarchal and matriarchal figure, respectively. to really hammer it home the game pens you in to dark, cramped, filthy spaces right from the start, barely ever giving you an overworld to interact with: Heather Mason is not her father or James Sunderland, she's a 17 year old girl, railroaded through the terrifying world that the men of the series navigate more freely (this is also reflected in the games lack of traditional Silent Hill branching endings, at least on a first playthrough). maybe there's nothing interesting or new left to say about these games but i loved this so much i wanted to at least put something here to commemorate it
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.
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.
Silent Hill 3 finds itself in the deeply unenviable position of being the first Silent Hill game to not really have an identity of its own. When you’re following a game as titanic as Silent Hill 2 I think it would be easy to be destroyed by the question of what the fuck you do next and I’m extremely glad that Team Silent had the good sense to make the answer “not that again.” Conceptually I think there’s something interesting in the idea of returning to a lot of the aesthetics and narrative ideas of the original game, as the unbelievable technical mastery over the PS2 that’s on display here definitely affords them a little bit of victory lapping that warrants such a thing. Still though, I’m glad that this game manages to firmly stake its own atmospheric identity even if I think ultimately it doesn’t all come together quite as well as its predecessors.
A big part of that is the overarching narrative of the game. At first I was kind of put off by the structure. Where previous Silent Hills stuck to the same formula of dropping your character in the titular town and making those foggy streets the hub world of sorts between the “dungeon” locations of municipal buildings and hospitals and stuff, 3 is a very linear game that shuttles you from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon with very little narrative tissue as Heather Mason just tries to go from the mall back to her apartment with very little understanding of what the fuck is happening to her.
And that’s kind of all you get! For a long while! Initially I was fatigued by this gauntlet of what in previous games would be considered set piece dungeon areas back to back to back to back but I came around. Partly this is because all of these areas are just good – Silent Hill 3 really is all killer no filler. Partly, though, it’s because I don’t find the actual narrative of the game particularly interesting. There is a renewed focus on the cult from Silent Hill 1 and they’re back to their old hijinks some seventeen years later. There are seeds of good shit here – conflicts between three emergent factions with differing philosophies about the purpose of their dark god and how best to weaponize it against the world, implications of what the lives of surviving characters from the original game (and at least one who didn’t) looked like in the intervening time – but none of that stuff is really given any time to be developed into anything more than cool seasoning sprinkled over something that feels disappointingly seen-before for this series. I’m conflicted about it though, right, because the REASON this stuff is so underbaked is because almost all of it is squished into the back half of the game to make room for The World’s Most Stressful Walk Home, which is sick! Also, I’m about to get into MORE shit that is very cool in this game, and that stuff persists into that second half as well along with these things that don’t work as well, it just sucks that the thing that was sacrificed here is, ostensibly, the primary narrative of the game haha.
Who even CARES though because the TRUE focus of the game is Heather Mason, perhaps the best video game protagonist of all time? She’s a delight, an absolute pleasure to inhabit and spend time with. She faces a gauntlet of intensely physical and increasingly targeted psychological horror and meets almost every challenge with annoyance and fury. Eye rolls and ughs and a brandished katana rather than fear. Even in her relationship with the game’s one other overtly cool character (something this series has never REALLY had and it’s nice! I really like Douglas – SH1 contrived a lot of situations to keep Cybil and Harry off the same page) who is a fifty-something year old man she is the clear leader, and she never lets any of the villains get in her head. She’s goofy, she’s angry, and always ready to fuck up some asshole cultists who don’t understand who they’re dealing with. A Queen.
And fitting this protagonist who is much more self-assured and much less susceptible to bullshit than the ones we’ve previously seen in the series, the game’s atmospheric dials have been adjusted accordingly. Of course the heavy symbolism and psychologically specific nature of the monsters and locations is still there, but it’s less intense than in either game, and it does seem to roll off Heather’s back a bit, like water off a duck’s. She’s not a scared, traumatized kid and she’s not committed any great sins; she’s not in a place where this stuff is gonna just work on her automatically. To compensate, everything else is dialed up. The fidelity offered by the PS2 is taken full advantage of in a different direction than it was in Silent Hill 2, and only two years later Team Silent is squeezing every polygon out of the machine. It’s a technical marvel, maybe the most photoreal game on the console, and every nasty, gritty detail is dialed to eleven here. Things are grimier, rustier, flakier, bloodier than they’ve ever been, a real sicko grungefest. Monsters are more varied and more aggressive, but Heather is more mobile and has better tools for dealing with them at her disposal than her forebears. The sound design is at a series high, leaning harder than ever into the industrial crunches and whines and pounding clanks. The appearance of any enemy is not just a threat to Heather’s health but now a jarring assault on the senses in a much more visceral way than ever before.
There’s also the introduction of a lot more General Horror stuff in a way that I think really works for the game. Each Silent Hill game has progressively flirted more and more with the idea that the town and the otherworld are just kind of Normal Haunted, by, like, ghosts and shit, and 3 takes this and runs with it, leaning into Haunted House Bullshit in a way that I could never get enough of. Be it a ghost pushing me onto the train tracks, getting scary messages in the hospital, or the literal haunted house sequence you run through in the amusement park late in the game, it was ALWAYS scary and ALWAYS fun. The game’s sense of humor is a lot more overtly goofy than Silent Hill 1’s but it works completely, never kills the vibe, and always contributes to a scare even as it’s making me smile. It’s a hard thing to balance but Silent Hill 3 makes it look easy.
I feel like this review has bounced around a lot, like I’m describing a lot of disparate things that maybe sound weird on paper and that’s because Silent Hill 3 feels like that, a bit. A mish mash of a lot of really different elements that I wouldn’t have expected to work as well together as they did, and in fact it did take a couple hours to start winning me over. But despite what I personally found to be a somewhat unsatisfying main plot (that is, admittedly, buoyed by its focus on a character who has quickly become one of my personal favorites in any game), everything here just kind of clicks. It’s just fun. A Silent Hill game that’s not as focused and cohesive is, it turns out, still a game made by a team of master craftsmen at the absolute top of their game, at least at this point in time. It really seems like they can’t go wrong!
A big part of that is the overarching narrative of the game. At first I was kind of put off by the structure. Where previous Silent Hills stuck to the same formula of dropping your character in the titular town and making those foggy streets the hub world of sorts between the “dungeon” locations of municipal buildings and hospitals and stuff, 3 is a very linear game that shuttles you from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon with very little narrative tissue as Heather Mason just tries to go from the mall back to her apartment with very little understanding of what the fuck is happening to her.
And that’s kind of all you get! For a long while! Initially I was fatigued by this gauntlet of what in previous games would be considered set piece dungeon areas back to back to back to back but I came around. Partly this is because all of these areas are just good – Silent Hill 3 really is all killer no filler. Partly, though, it’s because I don’t find the actual narrative of the game particularly interesting. There is a renewed focus on the cult from Silent Hill 1 and they’re back to their old hijinks some seventeen years later. There are seeds of good shit here – conflicts between three emergent factions with differing philosophies about the purpose of their dark god and how best to weaponize it against the world, implications of what the lives of surviving characters from the original game (and at least one who didn’t) looked like in the intervening time – but none of that stuff is really given any time to be developed into anything more than cool seasoning sprinkled over something that feels disappointingly seen-before for this series. I’m conflicted about it though, right, because the REASON this stuff is so underbaked is because almost all of it is squished into the back half of the game to make room for The World’s Most Stressful Walk Home, which is sick! Also, I’m about to get into MORE shit that is very cool in this game, and that stuff persists into that second half as well along with these things that don’t work as well, it just sucks that the thing that was sacrificed here is, ostensibly, the primary narrative of the game haha.
Who even CARES though because the TRUE focus of the game is Heather Mason, perhaps the best video game protagonist of all time? She’s a delight, an absolute pleasure to inhabit and spend time with. She faces a gauntlet of intensely physical and increasingly targeted psychological horror and meets almost every challenge with annoyance and fury. Eye rolls and ughs and a brandished katana rather than fear. Even in her relationship with the game’s one other overtly cool character (something this series has never REALLY had and it’s nice! I really like Douglas – SH1 contrived a lot of situations to keep Cybil and Harry off the same page) who is a fifty-something year old man she is the clear leader, and she never lets any of the villains get in her head. She’s goofy, she’s angry, and always ready to fuck up some asshole cultists who don’t understand who they’re dealing with. A Queen.
And fitting this protagonist who is much more self-assured and much less susceptible to bullshit than the ones we’ve previously seen in the series, the game’s atmospheric dials have been adjusted accordingly. Of course the heavy symbolism and psychologically specific nature of the monsters and locations is still there, but it’s less intense than in either game, and it does seem to roll off Heather’s back a bit, like water off a duck’s. She’s not a scared, traumatized kid and she’s not committed any great sins; she’s not in a place where this stuff is gonna just work on her automatically. To compensate, everything else is dialed up. The fidelity offered by the PS2 is taken full advantage of in a different direction than it was in Silent Hill 2, and only two years later Team Silent is squeezing every polygon out of the machine. It’s a technical marvel, maybe the most photoreal game on the console, and every nasty, gritty detail is dialed to eleven here. Things are grimier, rustier, flakier, bloodier than they’ve ever been, a real sicko grungefest. Monsters are more varied and more aggressive, but Heather is more mobile and has better tools for dealing with them at her disposal than her forebears. The sound design is at a series high, leaning harder than ever into the industrial crunches and whines and pounding clanks. The appearance of any enemy is not just a threat to Heather’s health but now a jarring assault on the senses in a much more visceral way than ever before.
There’s also the introduction of a lot more General Horror stuff in a way that I think really works for the game. Each Silent Hill game has progressively flirted more and more with the idea that the town and the otherworld are just kind of Normal Haunted, by, like, ghosts and shit, and 3 takes this and runs with it, leaning into Haunted House Bullshit in a way that I could never get enough of. Be it a ghost pushing me onto the train tracks, getting scary messages in the hospital, or the literal haunted house sequence you run through in the amusement park late in the game, it was ALWAYS scary and ALWAYS fun. The game’s sense of humor is a lot more overtly goofy than Silent Hill 1’s but it works completely, never kills the vibe, and always contributes to a scare even as it’s making me smile. It’s a hard thing to balance but Silent Hill 3 makes it look easy.
I feel like this review has bounced around a lot, like I’m describing a lot of disparate things that maybe sound weird on paper and that’s because Silent Hill 3 feels like that, a bit. A mish mash of a lot of really different elements that I wouldn’t have expected to work as well together as they did, and in fact it did take a couple hours to start winning me over. But despite what I personally found to be a somewhat unsatisfying main plot (that is, admittedly, buoyed by its focus on a character who has quickly become one of my personal favorites in any game), everything here just kind of clicks. It’s just fun. A Silent Hill game that’s not as focused and cohesive is, it turns out, still a game made by a team of master craftsmen at the absolute top of their game, at least at this point in time. It really seems like they can’t go wrong!
This review contains spoilers
(Content warning for unreality.)
The Otherworld bleeds into the real. The industrial, dull and muted tones of our ethereal counterpart appear all over reality. Heather Mason is subjected to the nightmare both in and outside of it. There is barely any distinction.
Likewise, the spaces of the Otherworld are far more visceral this time around to make up for it. Pulsating, bloody walls and the corpses of humans with their babies in clear view. It's an onslaught on her mind, with no escape from it. Unlike James and Harry, Heather has no overworld to escape to for a bit - there is scarcely a town of Silent Hill for her to clear her head in. It's a never-ending nightmare.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the time of me writing this, I am about to be placed into a mental residency against my will for a few weeks. While I'm there, I will be almost completely isolated from my support network and unable to write. In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm about to face a never-ending nightmare with very little help.
I don't know what they're going to do to me there. But the uniform walls and ambience of the place all feel familiar. Like I've been trapped there before. I feel as if I'm entering another reality that I've visited in a dream, shrouded in darkness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is an extremely compelling choice to kill off Harry Mason in this entry. When Heather comes home from her long way home, which comprises the first half of the game, she finds his corpse sitting in his armchair. It's something I didn't expect, I thought Harry was just going to be absent throughout the game.
Harry's death marks when Heather starts to truly see the cult as a threat: something that she was earlier able to relegate as his responsibility. Now, it's on her shoulders to handle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I used to look up to my father.
I used to aspire to be like him, to want to make him proud of me.
Now I don't know what to think of him.
The proverbial death of my father's image in my mind some years ago came with it my political evolution. As I started to see the systems we live for what they really are through reading more theorists, I came to see what my father was. A slave to capital who worshiped those systems, and didn't like me pointing that out. I was thrust into the true darkness of our world without support and it broke me.
He is still superficially kind to me. He claims to have my best interests in mind.
But then he sends me away against my will. He tells me to not think of it this way, but I know that the version of my father that I looked up to so much back then never existed. He was always just looking out for the interest of capital, and I need to be "fixed" and become more useful to it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Heather comes to the end of her journey, after defeating the reborn god like her father did seventeen years ago, she is born anew - but retains who she was before in some respect.
She's gained a greater sense of who she is, regained her memories of her previous life as Alessa.
But she's still the same Heather we've followed throughout. She even keeps her hair the same.
Was the journey through Silent Hill worth it to gain a greater understanding of herself?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the day, I don't know what's going to happen to me when I'm away. I played Silent Hill 3 with my boyfriend as one of our last calls together and just... felt it. Silent Hill has a way of doing that to you.
However, I think that if Heather could make it through hell and come out better, maybe I could too.
That doesn't make me any less terrified, but it does make it a little easier.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my restless dreams,
I see that site,
Backloggd.
I promise I'll return there someday.
Wait for me...
The Otherworld bleeds into the real. The industrial, dull and muted tones of our ethereal counterpart appear all over reality. Heather Mason is subjected to the nightmare both in and outside of it. There is barely any distinction.
Likewise, the spaces of the Otherworld are far more visceral this time around to make up for it. Pulsating, bloody walls and the corpses of humans with their babies in clear view. It's an onslaught on her mind, with no escape from it. Unlike James and Harry, Heather has no overworld to escape to for a bit - there is scarcely a town of Silent Hill for her to clear her head in. It's a never-ending nightmare.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the time of me writing this, I am about to be placed into a mental residency against my will for a few weeks. While I'm there, I will be almost completely isolated from my support network and unable to write. In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm about to face a never-ending nightmare with very little help.
I don't know what they're going to do to me there. But the uniform walls and ambience of the place all feel familiar. Like I've been trapped there before. I feel as if I'm entering another reality that I've visited in a dream, shrouded in darkness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is an extremely compelling choice to kill off Harry Mason in this entry. When Heather comes home from her long way home, which comprises the first half of the game, she finds his corpse sitting in his armchair. It's something I didn't expect, I thought Harry was just going to be absent throughout the game.
Harry's death marks when Heather starts to truly see the cult as a threat: something that she was earlier able to relegate as his responsibility. Now, it's on her shoulders to handle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I used to look up to my father.
I used to aspire to be like him, to want to make him proud of me.
Now I don't know what to think of him.
The proverbial death of my father's image in my mind some years ago came with it my political evolution. As I started to see the systems we live for what they really are through reading more theorists, I came to see what my father was. A slave to capital who worshiped those systems, and didn't like me pointing that out. I was thrust into the true darkness of our world without support and it broke me.
He is still superficially kind to me. He claims to have my best interests in mind.
But then he sends me away against my will. He tells me to not think of it this way, but I know that the version of my father that I looked up to so much back then never existed. He was always just looking out for the interest of capital, and I need to be "fixed" and become more useful to it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Heather comes to the end of her journey, after defeating the reborn god like her father did seventeen years ago, she is born anew - but retains who she was before in some respect.
She's gained a greater sense of who she is, regained her memories of her previous life as Alessa.
But she's still the same Heather we've followed throughout. She even keeps her hair the same.
Was the journey through Silent Hill worth it to gain a greater understanding of herself?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the day, I don't know what's going to happen to me when I'm away. I played Silent Hill 3 with my boyfriend as one of our last calls together and just... felt it. Silent Hill has a way of doing that to you.
However, I think that if Heather could make it through hell and come out better, maybe I could too.
That doesn't make me any less terrified, but it does make it a little easier.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my restless dreams,
I see that site,
Backloggd.
I promise I'll return there someday.
Wait for me...
for my playthrough of silent hill in the last couple weeks, I was comfortable on the couch in my living room, surrounded by earnest support and goofy comments from friends. I played silent hill 3 in the opposite setting, trapped in my room alone, unable to see virtually anyone thanks to a positive covid test. wood-panel floors, nauseating warm light bleeding through closed blinds, and the industrial cacophony of silent hill 3 on the tv in front of me. dunno if this made the experience any more or less authentic, or helped me channel my ennui into a suitably hateful object. didn't really make me much less miserable regardless.
silent hill was a redemption, silent hill 2 was a masterpiece, and then team silent split into two teams, prodded on konami to strike while the iron was hot. while the silent hill 4 team tore up the prior canvas and created a new concept wholesale, silent hill 3 meandered in circles until finally being patched together and sent out the door. it is, without a doubt, the gimped entry. slightly shorter than silent hill 2, the game reuses the hospital locale from that game nearly wholesale along with the slice of silent hill around it, which happens to be only time heather actually gets to wander the streets of the titular town at all. it lacks the side quests of the original and the player psychoanalysis of the sequel, concluding with only a single ending on a first playthrough and slightly different one if you prioritize combat on a subsequent run. on structure alone it feels unfortunately slight.
a purely structural view of a silent hill game diminishes the importance of its indelible imagery, and silent hill 3 comes out guns blazing in this regard. this is a vengeful silent hill, dripping with bile and blood and pulsing with constant stark red. heather, mother of God, intensifies the usual otherworld into something even more hellish. the usual flayed-flesh walls and rusty grating give way to squishy fatty surroundings that completely choke out light and close in around heather, sapping her health. crucified corpses found in the cages of prior games now brazenly hold their dead offspring, barely beyond that of a fetus. behind cracks in the walls and gaps in the floors heather is constantly stalked by loyal servant valtiel, who will drag her corpse away if she is to die. however, when she finds him curled within a wooden womb in woman's locker room of the hospital, she can't help but feel pity at his childlike mannerisms. the game heavily ruminates on these ideas of maternalism and the body being violated, making true on the potential wrought from silent hill 1's story.
which I must say, silent hill 3 returning to the occult origins of the series allows the developers to reinterpret and heavily expand upon the first game's concepts. while that game only plays with the implications of its plot, silent hill 3 centers the experience around the tortured soul at the heart of silent hill 1: alessa. her consciousness within heather allows her trauma to bubble to the surface as the game continues, reliving and recontextualizing moments from the first game that were only glimpses past the blank eyes of harry mason. heather's sense of unreality within the fog and other worlds are not simply expressions of fear but furthermore her grasping with the hidden memories she must let percolate from within her. she is not who she thinks she is, and her struggle with silent hill is not simply one of unleashing smothered guilt but rather letting the memories of alessa relive within her without overtaking her. the endgame reflects this heavily, as the bowels of the order's church turn into a garden of memories from the original game remade for heather to navigate and relive her past life. loose connections in the first game are made concrete here, immortalizing alessa not just as an off-screen torture victim and a vanishing spirit but a real girl, one who tried to reconcile both an earnest belief in god with the fury and broken psyche of her abusive mother. indeed, the game analyzes the cult itself heavily in these closing chapters, focusing on religious doubt and the interplay of accepting a community versus actually adhering strictly to said religion's practices. vincent and claudia's relationship is at the center of all of this, with vincent wishing for restoration as he succumbs to pleasures of the flesh, all the while naively hoping to restore the status quo of the cult he helps run.
the absence of this lens within analyses like that of super eyepatch wolf reveal an inability to dissect this game outside of the lens of silent hill 2's individual psychological breakdown. clinging onto poorly sourced interviews has allowed such a belief to exist, when really it seems more clear that silent hill 3 simply had a troubled development (starting off as a... rail shooter?) and shuffled into its current state with a small team and truncated budget. the story threads from sh1 may have been used partially to help buoy the creatively adrift project, but they certainly are integrated with a thoughtfulness that does not seem solely some executive-level demand to "franchise-ify" the series. the narrative this game presents features a psychologically-damaged protagonist that heavily distances itself from simply repeating james sunderland's story; heather struggles to maintain her emotions and frequently lashes out in comparison to james' near-suicidal indifference to the events around him. she learns to accept and show love to her alessa side, giving her the strength to press on and challenge her role as vessel for god. she's expressive even in her flavor text and perfectly shifts moods on a dime in her cutscenes; I would dare say she's the best of the original three protagonists. to lament that she needed an identical arc of suppressed guilt to james sunderland trivializes the many undercurrents this game implants within its understanding of the events of the original game.
so why did I like it less than the first two? the rail shooter origins for this game may shine through more than expected given that the game overall has a somewhat heavier focus on action. for the first half of the game this is not much of an issue -- you can play the game running past each monster with little problem, just like in the prior entries. a few new systems are added to supposedly spice things up such as a clumsy block and beef jerky for distracting the dogs, but actually putting these into practice feels difficult. investigating doors also now takes place in real time, meaning that the usual gameplay loop of clicking through dozens of doors with jammed locks now feels genuinely dangerous. solid change, and one that I think benefits the series more than anything. it's into the second half of the game with much more involved boss fights and strong enemies that completely block off certain hallways where the gameplay begins to fall apart. healing items are actually somewhat scarce, and I managed to finish the game with absolutely nothing left. having to navigate these awkward shooting sections with combat that has changed little from the first entry just feels like a waste of time, and frankly reduces the horror aspect for it for me. the enemies may feel less powerless than in prior entries, but their presence becomes more of an annoyance when you stumble into rooms with several identical ones all swarming on you or when they begin to use firearms against you.
but this is the second half of the game, right? what about the first half? possibly the real extenuating factor that really lost my interest was the subway/sewer/construction site/office building section. in what makes up easily over a quarter of the game, heather runs through endless concrete halls and through the same copy-paste building format over and over again. endless reception desks and subway signs and sewer hallways just... don't scare me. you get a little otherworld taste at the end of that office building section that saves the experience a little bit, but after so long of just wandering about with little threat from the enemies around you, it feels almost too brief. the second half has the excellent amusement park locale which is just absolutely sickening to look at and to hear, but it's sandwiched between the hospital reused from sh2 and the church by which point the combat focus becomes more annoying. this whole second half is littered with virtually every great setpiece in the game (shame on me for somehow walking past the infamous mirror room, the womb otherworld is really hard to see in), but there's just so many more nitpicks here than I had with the prior two games.
the process of writing this honestly makes me think that I particularly enjoy thinking about this entry much more than I do playing it. a lot of the best reviews on this site come from this game as well imo. it's a shame then that this particular game goes a little overboard in making each of its areas truly dangerous. when I laughed at silent hill it was a way of hiding my true fear; when I get annoyed at silent hill 3 it simply dilutes that real fear and renders it secondary. and wow did that final boss have a fuckton of HP.
silent hill was a redemption, silent hill 2 was a masterpiece, and then team silent split into two teams, prodded on konami to strike while the iron was hot. while the silent hill 4 team tore up the prior canvas and created a new concept wholesale, silent hill 3 meandered in circles until finally being patched together and sent out the door. it is, without a doubt, the gimped entry. slightly shorter than silent hill 2, the game reuses the hospital locale from that game nearly wholesale along with the slice of silent hill around it, which happens to be only time heather actually gets to wander the streets of the titular town at all. it lacks the side quests of the original and the player psychoanalysis of the sequel, concluding with only a single ending on a first playthrough and slightly different one if you prioritize combat on a subsequent run. on structure alone it feels unfortunately slight.
a purely structural view of a silent hill game diminishes the importance of its indelible imagery, and silent hill 3 comes out guns blazing in this regard. this is a vengeful silent hill, dripping with bile and blood and pulsing with constant stark red. heather, mother of God, intensifies the usual otherworld into something even more hellish. the usual flayed-flesh walls and rusty grating give way to squishy fatty surroundings that completely choke out light and close in around heather, sapping her health. crucified corpses found in the cages of prior games now brazenly hold their dead offspring, barely beyond that of a fetus. behind cracks in the walls and gaps in the floors heather is constantly stalked by loyal servant valtiel, who will drag her corpse away if she is to die. however, when she finds him curled within a wooden womb in woman's locker room of the hospital, she can't help but feel pity at his childlike mannerisms. the game heavily ruminates on these ideas of maternalism and the body being violated, making true on the potential wrought from silent hill 1's story.
which I must say, silent hill 3 returning to the occult origins of the series allows the developers to reinterpret and heavily expand upon the first game's concepts. while that game only plays with the implications of its plot, silent hill 3 centers the experience around the tortured soul at the heart of silent hill 1: alessa. her consciousness within heather allows her trauma to bubble to the surface as the game continues, reliving and recontextualizing moments from the first game that were only glimpses past the blank eyes of harry mason. heather's sense of unreality within the fog and other worlds are not simply expressions of fear but furthermore her grasping with the hidden memories she must let percolate from within her. she is not who she thinks she is, and her struggle with silent hill is not simply one of unleashing smothered guilt but rather letting the memories of alessa relive within her without overtaking her. the endgame reflects this heavily, as the bowels of the order's church turn into a garden of memories from the original game remade for heather to navigate and relive her past life. loose connections in the first game are made concrete here, immortalizing alessa not just as an off-screen torture victim and a vanishing spirit but a real girl, one who tried to reconcile both an earnest belief in god with the fury and broken psyche of her abusive mother. indeed, the game analyzes the cult itself heavily in these closing chapters, focusing on religious doubt and the interplay of accepting a community versus actually adhering strictly to said religion's practices. vincent and claudia's relationship is at the center of all of this, with vincent wishing for restoration as he succumbs to pleasures of the flesh, all the while naively hoping to restore the status quo of the cult he helps run.
the absence of this lens within analyses like that of super eyepatch wolf reveal an inability to dissect this game outside of the lens of silent hill 2's individual psychological breakdown. clinging onto poorly sourced interviews has allowed such a belief to exist, when really it seems more clear that silent hill 3 simply had a troubled development (starting off as a... rail shooter?) and shuffled into its current state with a small team and truncated budget. the story threads from sh1 may have been used partially to help buoy the creatively adrift project, but they certainly are integrated with a thoughtfulness that does not seem solely some executive-level demand to "franchise-ify" the series. the narrative this game presents features a psychologically-damaged protagonist that heavily distances itself from simply repeating james sunderland's story; heather struggles to maintain her emotions and frequently lashes out in comparison to james' near-suicidal indifference to the events around him. she learns to accept and show love to her alessa side, giving her the strength to press on and challenge her role as vessel for god. she's expressive even in her flavor text and perfectly shifts moods on a dime in her cutscenes; I would dare say she's the best of the original three protagonists. to lament that she needed an identical arc of suppressed guilt to james sunderland trivializes the many undercurrents this game implants within its understanding of the events of the original game.
so why did I like it less than the first two? the rail shooter origins for this game may shine through more than expected given that the game overall has a somewhat heavier focus on action. for the first half of the game this is not much of an issue -- you can play the game running past each monster with little problem, just like in the prior entries. a few new systems are added to supposedly spice things up such as a clumsy block and beef jerky for distracting the dogs, but actually putting these into practice feels difficult. investigating doors also now takes place in real time, meaning that the usual gameplay loop of clicking through dozens of doors with jammed locks now feels genuinely dangerous. solid change, and one that I think benefits the series more than anything. it's into the second half of the game with much more involved boss fights and strong enemies that completely block off certain hallways where the gameplay begins to fall apart. healing items are actually somewhat scarce, and I managed to finish the game with absolutely nothing left. having to navigate these awkward shooting sections with combat that has changed little from the first entry just feels like a waste of time, and frankly reduces the horror aspect for it for me. the enemies may feel less powerless than in prior entries, but their presence becomes more of an annoyance when you stumble into rooms with several identical ones all swarming on you or when they begin to use firearms against you.
but this is the second half of the game, right? what about the first half? possibly the real extenuating factor that really lost my interest was the subway/sewer/construction site/office building section. in what makes up easily over a quarter of the game, heather runs through endless concrete halls and through the same copy-paste building format over and over again. endless reception desks and subway signs and sewer hallways just... don't scare me. you get a little otherworld taste at the end of that office building section that saves the experience a little bit, but after so long of just wandering about with little threat from the enemies around you, it feels almost too brief. the second half has the excellent amusement park locale which is just absolutely sickening to look at and to hear, but it's sandwiched between the hospital reused from sh2 and the church by which point the combat focus becomes more annoying. this whole second half is littered with virtually every great setpiece in the game (shame on me for somehow walking past the infamous mirror room, the womb otherworld is really hard to see in), but there's just so many more nitpicks here than I had with the prior two games.
the process of writing this honestly makes me think that I particularly enjoy thinking about this entry much more than I do playing it. a lot of the best reviews on this site come from this game as well imo. it's a shame then that this particular game goes a little overboard in making each of its areas truly dangerous. when I laughed at silent hill it was a way of hiding my true fear; when I get annoyed at silent hill 3 it simply dilutes that real fear and renders it secondary. and wow did that final boss have a fuckton of HP.
heather enjoying her BLONDE hair
A disturbing yet emotional ride into living hell.
This is probably the 24th or 26th time I played thru this game. I just love it. It's the greatest horror game ever made and my #3 game of all time. Were to start?
Heather is arguably the closest that I would consider a "4-dimensional" character. You could make her a mute and the flavour texts alone, while clicking the X-Button to investigate on things would still give her more personality than 99% of all other video game characters. The story about her finding out about her true self and how she deals with it along with another tragic incident that is going to happen to her, is very intruging and gives alot of depth to her character.
The side characters are well written aswell, better than those of SH1 for the most part but inferior to those from SH2. The voice acting for all characters is flawless as long you play with the original voices, avoid the HD collection as far as possible.
SH3 is also pretty much the best looking game of the PS2. The only games from 6th gen that come close to it are SH2 and 4, the Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil Zero and Black. It's art design is truly magnificent. The character faces look closer to reality than most games of 7th gen.
The score once again composed by Akira Yamaoka is terrific. It's sad, moody and scary at the same time.
Now lets get into the gameplay department. It's the most polished game in the series. If you consider tank controls clunky, you might not consider them that clunky anymore after playing SH3. There is also an option to play without tank controls so there is actually no reason, not to play this game. It improved on the little things when compared to SH2, most notably the inventory. There are also plenty of unlockables like a lightsaber for example.
The level design this time offers a lot of variety even though I still consider SH1 level design the best in the franchise but this is a close 2nd.
So for all the people that just circle jerk around SH2, give SH1 and 3 a chance. You will not regret it if you love storytelling in gaming. This for sure is an underrated hidden gem and I think it's the best game in the franchise and of the survival horror genre.
10/10 puked out demon fetuses.
Check my review for the abysmal movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill-revelation-3d/
This is probably the 24th or 26th time I played thru this game. I just love it. It's the greatest horror game ever made and my #3 game of all time. Were to start?
Heather is arguably the closest that I would consider a "4-dimensional" character. You could make her a mute and the flavour texts alone, while clicking the X-Button to investigate on things would still give her more personality than 99% of all other video game characters. The story about her finding out about her true self and how she deals with it along with another tragic incident that is going to happen to her, is very intruging and gives alot of depth to her character.
The side characters are well written aswell, better than those of SH1 for the most part but inferior to those from SH2. The voice acting for all characters is flawless as long you play with the original voices, avoid the HD collection as far as possible.
SH3 is also pretty much the best looking game of the PS2. The only games from 6th gen that come close to it are SH2 and 4, the Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil Zero and Black. It's art design is truly magnificent. The character faces look closer to reality than most games of 7th gen.
The score once again composed by Akira Yamaoka is terrific. It's sad, moody and scary at the same time.
Now lets get into the gameplay department. It's the most polished game in the series. If you consider tank controls clunky, you might not consider them that clunky anymore after playing SH3. There is also an option to play without tank controls so there is actually no reason, not to play this game. It improved on the little things when compared to SH2, most notably the inventory. There are also plenty of unlockables like a lightsaber for example.
The level design this time offers a lot of variety even though I still consider SH1 level design the best in the franchise but this is a close 2nd.
So for all the people that just circle jerk around SH2, give SH1 and 3 a chance. You will not regret it if you love storytelling in gaming. This for sure is an underrated hidden gem and I think it's the best game in the franchise and of the survival horror genre.
10/10 puked out demon fetuses.
Check my review for the abysmal movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill-revelation-3d/
How many trans women changed their name to Heather because of this game?
P.S this is better than 2.
P.S this is better than 2.
¿Les pasó eso de encontrar a su par gracias una obra de ficción? A mi si y fue gracias a este juego.
En la secundaria conocí a una compañera que en poco tiempo terminamos siendo mejores amigas. Al principio ella y yo contrastábamos un montón por gustos y actitudes, nos prejuzgábamos mutuamente y había cierta distancia inconscientemente pero nada agresivo. En un recreo la veía haciendo unos dibujos tipo figuras raras a escondidas y después quemaba unas partes de la hoja, al ver eso quedé en plan "¿pero que hacés con eso?"
Me animo a preguntarle y me dice que estaba intentando dibujar su juego favorito. Yo reaccioné como extrañada y le pregunté "Si es tu favorito por qué lo quemas? Si están buenos tus dibujos", luego de charlas y cagues de risa ella me lo quiso aclarar todo con estas palabras que hasta el día de hoy las tengo grabadas: Este juego es una quemadura.
Me explicaba de que trataba el juego y de su precuela, conforme más la escuchaba, mas turbio me parecía todo pero estaba super curiosa. Cuando ambas nos ganamos una buena confianza me prestó el juego, yo le decía que no jugué ningún otro de la saga y que no juego casi nada de terror, pero ella me decía que igual lo juegue y que no sea una cagona.
Al jugarlo tenía exactamente la misma sensación, la piel de gallina pero la curiosidad me mataba. No la entendía bien al principio cuando me hablaba de SIlent Hill 3 en clases sobre educación sexual. ¿Que tenía que ver una cosa con la otra? Bueno, poco a poco iba profundizando en el juego hasta llegar al final y... wow
A mis 13 años nunca antes había jugado algo tan íntimo y abierto. Mas allá de entender su historia o "lore" o como quieran decirle, yo sentía que iba entendiendo cada vez más a alguien y a los propósitos del juego conforme yo iba creciendo, no tuve del todo una mirada clara hasta haber cumplido 19 y viendo para atrás.
Silent Hill 3 es para mi uno de los juegos mas femeninos que conozco, va en serio, denle esto a un chico joven y a una chica joven y verán que hay una diferencia de reacciones de ambas partes, no es por querer generalizar pero yo lo veo así. También fue uno de los juegos en donde más lloré, no por tristeza o miedo sino por como te puede afectar una obra en donde trasmite muchas cosas en las que que una por lo general lo vive en carne propia a partir de la pubertad y de conocidas o familiares que atravesaron desgracias parecidas a las que suceden en Silent Hill 3.
En fin, el juego que nos unió de una forma muy fuerte e intima a nosotras dos.
En la secundaria conocí a una compañera que en poco tiempo terminamos siendo mejores amigas. Al principio ella y yo contrastábamos un montón por gustos y actitudes, nos prejuzgábamos mutuamente y había cierta distancia inconscientemente pero nada agresivo. En un recreo la veía haciendo unos dibujos tipo figuras raras a escondidas y después quemaba unas partes de la hoja, al ver eso quedé en plan "¿pero que hacés con eso?"
Me animo a preguntarle y me dice que estaba intentando dibujar su juego favorito. Yo reaccioné como extrañada y le pregunté "Si es tu favorito por qué lo quemas? Si están buenos tus dibujos", luego de charlas y cagues de risa ella me lo quiso aclarar todo con estas palabras que hasta el día de hoy las tengo grabadas: Este juego es una quemadura.
Me explicaba de que trataba el juego y de su precuela, conforme más la escuchaba, mas turbio me parecía todo pero estaba super curiosa. Cuando ambas nos ganamos una buena confianza me prestó el juego, yo le decía que no jugué ningún otro de la saga y que no juego casi nada de terror, pero ella me decía que igual lo juegue y que no sea una cagona.
Al jugarlo tenía exactamente la misma sensación, la piel de gallina pero la curiosidad me mataba. No la entendía bien al principio cuando me hablaba de SIlent Hill 3 en clases sobre educación sexual. ¿Que tenía que ver una cosa con la otra? Bueno, poco a poco iba profundizando en el juego hasta llegar al final y... wow
A mis 13 años nunca antes había jugado algo tan íntimo y abierto. Mas allá de entender su historia o "lore" o como quieran decirle, yo sentía que iba entendiendo cada vez más a alguien y a los propósitos del juego conforme yo iba creciendo, no tuve del todo una mirada clara hasta haber cumplido 19 y viendo para atrás.
Silent Hill 3 es para mi uno de los juegos mas femeninos que conozco, va en serio, denle esto a un chico joven y a una chica joven y verán que hay una diferencia de reacciones de ambas partes, no es por querer generalizar pero yo lo veo así. También fue uno de los juegos en donde más lloré, no por tristeza o miedo sino por como te puede afectar una obra en donde trasmite muchas cosas en las que que una por lo general lo vive en carne propia a partir de la pubertad y de conocidas o familiares que atravesaron desgracias parecidas a las que suceden en Silent Hill 3.
En fin, el juego que nos unió de una forma muy fuerte e intima a nosotras dos.
Man, playing on the PS2 sure does take some getting used to. Clunky controls and god-awful camera aside, Silent Hill 3 was more engaging for me than a lot of more modern games, a massive credit considering 90% of the time I couldn't see a thing and for the first third of the game I kept failing to find maps and only ever found the correct way by accident!
Once I got a feel for it though, started finding maps, playing as was intended, that was it. The hooks were in and I didn't want to stop. The combat is.. well it's Silent Hill, but I always prefer to prioritise avoiding enemies than fighting them. I find the added fear of never knowing where or how close something is when you re-enter an area compliments the tone as a whole, and the sounds that accompany the enemies make it impossible to feel close to comfortable when one is around.
Heather is my favourite SH protagonist so far - granted I've only really played 3 of the games myself so far - but I've been into the series for years and trying to find copies of all the games is hard and expensive :p
Overall, love it. Now to go watch the other endings online lol :)
Once I got a feel for it though, started finding maps, playing as was intended, that was it. The hooks were in and I didn't want to stop. The combat is.. well it's Silent Hill, but I always prefer to prioritise avoiding enemies than fighting them. I find the added fear of never knowing where or how close something is when you re-enter an area compliments the tone as a whole, and the sounds that accompany the enemies make it impossible to feel close to comfortable when one is around.
Heather is my favourite SH protagonist so far - granted I've only really played 3 of the games myself so far - but I've been into the series for years and trying to find copies of all the games is hard and expensive :p
Overall, love it. Now to go watch the other endings online lol :)
After playing through Silent Hill 2 last October and the original Silent Hill in December, I decided to embark upon the final leg of my journey in the original trilogy. Silent Hill 1 I think emphasizes the power of the macabre while Silent Hill 2 emphasizes guilt and psychological struggles. So where did Silent Hill 3 choose to take me?
It's definitely a sharp contrast from Silent Hill 2, which had this gloomy and somber ambiance about it; Silent Hill 3 seemed much more visceral and angry, and as a result, it's constantly in your face about nothing seems right in this twisted sick world and how rejection is everywhere. The increase in graphical fidelity from Silent Hill 1 makes the Otherworld from the original seem almost tame; this other world is constantly growling and glaring crimson, prowling just around the corner, stalking you and assaulting you with screeching and thumping noise as you have to fend off yet another meat demon Yeti Kong while your strikes barely graze the creature. This effect gets even more grotesque and infernal as you progress, where there are even certain sections where the walls seem to bleed around you while static flares up with danger becoming omnipresent. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, that Silent Hill 3 is easily the most terrifying and acutely uncomfortable of the original trilogy; this demented universe around you is constantly rejecting your ever approach as you trudge through to you next destination, and hell feels just a slip away. This unrelenting assault on the senses will absolutely wear you down, and not even the first two installments of Silent Hill have really conveyed this to me to this extent. It really speaks volumes that this was the first of the games where I did not feel the need to take down every enemy around me, and in fact tried to actively avoid conflict as much as possible.
And more than that I suppose, it still manages to maintain that troubled visage that comes with all the Silent Hill games, only now that there's an active layer of anger felt from all the characters as they struggle to find their own meaning in a world that has mostly abandoned them and left them to their own devices. The game is great at setting up Heather as this troubled teenager trying to reconcile her past, present, and future, and her interactions with those around his characterize just how unwilling everyone is to let go of their troubles. The soundtrack of course, reflects this perfectly; my favorite track would still have to be Breeze in Monochrome Night, which starts off with the distant ring of dark bells and then leads right into a trippy, ambient synth alongside the cascading piano. The game understands that there's this haunting beauty to be found in this messed up psychologically damaging world, and it's such a vibe.
All in all, it's exactly what you would expect from a great psychological horror game, but unlike the original Silent Hill, those shiny new graphics have aged magnificently and will absolutely leave you wondering when the nightmare starts and ends. Not a single moment wasted as you deal with the consequences of 17 years ago; just sit back and watch the horror unfold.
It's definitely a sharp contrast from Silent Hill 2, which had this gloomy and somber ambiance about it; Silent Hill 3 seemed much more visceral and angry, and as a result, it's constantly in your face about nothing seems right in this twisted sick world and how rejection is everywhere. The increase in graphical fidelity from Silent Hill 1 makes the Otherworld from the original seem almost tame; this other world is constantly growling and glaring crimson, prowling just around the corner, stalking you and assaulting you with screeching and thumping noise as you have to fend off yet another meat demon Yeti Kong while your strikes barely graze the creature. This effect gets even more grotesque and infernal as you progress, where there are even certain sections where the walls seem to bleed around you while static flares up with danger becoming omnipresent. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, that Silent Hill 3 is easily the most terrifying and acutely uncomfortable of the original trilogy; this demented universe around you is constantly rejecting your ever approach as you trudge through to you next destination, and hell feels just a slip away. This unrelenting assault on the senses will absolutely wear you down, and not even the first two installments of Silent Hill have really conveyed this to me to this extent. It really speaks volumes that this was the first of the games where I did not feel the need to take down every enemy around me, and in fact tried to actively avoid conflict as much as possible.
And more than that I suppose, it still manages to maintain that troubled visage that comes with all the Silent Hill games, only now that there's an active layer of anger felt from all the characters as they struggle to find their own meaning in a world that has mostly abandoned them and left them to their own devices. The game is great at setting up Heather as this troubled teenager trying to reconcile her past, present, and future, and her interactions with those around his characterize just how unwilling everyone is to let go of their troubles. The soundtrack of course, reflects this perfectly; my favorite track would still have to be Breeze in Monochrome Night, which starts off with the distant ring of dark bells and then leads right into a trippy, ambient synth alongside the cascading piano. The game understands that there's this haunting beauty to be found in this messed up psychologically damaging world, and it's such a vibe.
All in all, it's exactly what you would expect from a great psychological horror game, but unlike the original Silent Hill, those shiny new graphics have aged magnificently and will absolutely leave you wondering when the nightmare starts and ends. Not a single moment wasted as you deal with the consequences of 17 years ago; just sit back and watch the horror unfold.
When the hills are silent idk
This review contains spoilers
Unfortunately, I already knew a few things about this game upon starting it.
I watched the ending on YouTube a few weeks back, including the encounter against the final Boss, and the final cutscene where Heather reveals her real name.
By the way, this youtube video was the reason I decided to get into the series. So I guess it was a necessary evil!
It's overwhelming how the game starts without introducing Heather. During the first half of the game, we don't know what's her motive, and there isn't any exposition.
In Silent Hill 1, we know from the beginning that Harry needs to find his daugher.
In Silent Hill 2, we know immediatly that James wants to find his wife.
But in Silent Hill 3, we don't know what's Heather's motive.
It takes so long before the story really starts. From the beginning until the moment she reaches her home, it looks like Heather is just wandering around aimlessly. So I had trouble being invested.
But once her dad got murdered, Heather finally had a motive, and it made the game much more engaging!
There's that sound effect that keeps playing everytime you meet Claudia, from the first encounter with her in the Mall, up until the very end, right before the final Boss fight, and that really got under my skin. The track is called "Expecting".
Not only did Akira Yamaoka make a great job with the music, he also knows how to make effective sound effects to scare the player.
On a lighter note, I love Heather's look & voice. They did a great job with her design, and playing a young female protagonist felt quite appealing. It was a welcomed change after playing as Harry Manson and James Sunderland. Plus, her face is well animated, she looks so expressive. It added a bit of flair to the cutscenes.
There's a moment in the Sewers section that really gave me the creeps. At some point you have to walk across a bridge, and you can see a creature lurking just below your feets, completely immobile.
You then have to visit a room across the bridge to find a hair dryer. But when you backtrack over the bridge again, that creature is nowhere to be found.
For several minutes after this moment, I thought I was about to get jumpscared...
The cutscene in the car when Heather and Douglas head toward Silent Hill hit me right in the feels: "I never had a chance to tell you how happy you made me."
The music in this scene has become one of my favorites in the game, along with the one used in Heather's apartment: "Letter - From the lost days" & "Please love me... Once more" respectively.
The nightmare Hospital in Silent Hill 3 scared the shit out of me. I was absolutely terrified in the hallways where it's all red and blurry. The room with the mirror and the bathtub was also horrifying.
This is probably the scariest area in the entire franchise.
And that fucking psycho who's in love with Heather made me so uncomfortable with his letters.
The last area was equally disturbing. It was interesting to revisit some places from the 1st game, like the school, the place with the carousel horses, or the room where Alessa got tortured.
And I enjoyed reading Harry's notes along the way, while I was exploring this area. It was another great callback to Silent Hill 1.
The final stretch of the game was really intense. Heather throws out the God inside of her, and Claudia immediatly devours it, allowing it to be born. Like I said earlier, I already knew what the final Boss looked like, so it didn't have its full effect on me. But this Boss fight was still intense nonetheless.
It was also the most difficult fight in the game. I died a few times, and I ran out of ammo near the end, even though I was playing meticulously. I had to finish it off with the katana and I didn't have any healing item left, so it was really close.
I can't tell you how relieving it felt to beat this Boss and to put an end to this nightmare.
The game has an interesting subtext on unwanted pregnancy, the conflict between the acceptance of abortion, and its prohibition by the Religion, especially Christianity. It only became obvious to me during the final encounter with Claudia.
Seeing ̶H̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ Cheryl give a proper funeral to her father, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, Harry Manson was touching. It was a satisfying conclusion, and the credits song was a great tribute to Harry.
It lived up to the 1st game for sure!
----------Playtime & Completion----------
[Played in early May 2023]
Playtime: 8 hours
I got the Normal ending. And as always, I watched all the other endings.
I watched the ending on YouTube a few weeks back, including the encounter against the final Boss, and the final cutscene where Heather reveals her real name.
By the way, this youtube video was the reason I decided to get into the series. So I guess it was a necessary evil!
It's overwhelming how the game starts without introducing Heather. During the first half of the game, we don't know what's her motive, and there isn't any exposition.
In Silent Hill 1, we know from the beginning that Harry needs to find his daugher.
In Silent Hill 2, we know immediatly that James wants to find his wife.
But in Silent Hill 3, we don't know what's Heather's motive.
It takes so long before the story really starts. From the beginning until the moment she reaches her home, it looks like Heather is just wandering around aimlessly. So I had trouble being invested.
But once her dad got murdered, Heather finally had a motive, and it made the game much more engaging!
There's that sound effect that keeps playing everytime you meet Claudia, from the first encounter with her in the Mall, up until the very end, right before the final Boss fight, and that really got under my skin. The track is called "Expecting".
Not only did Akira Yamaoka make a great job with the music, he also knows how to make effective sound effects to scare the player.
On a lighter note, I love Heather's look & voice. They did a great job with her design, and playing a young female protagonist felt quite appealing. It was a welcomed change after playing as Harry Manson and James Sunderland. Plus, her face is well animated, she looks so expressive. It added a bit of flair to the cutscenes.
There's a moment in the Sewers section that really gave me the creeps. At some point you have to walk across a bridge, and you can see a creature lurking just below your feets, completely immobile.
You then have to visit a room across the bridge to find a hair dryer. But when you backtrack over the bridge again, that creature is nowhere to be found.
For several minutes after this moment, I thought I was about to get jumpscared...
The cutscene in the car when Heather and Douglas head toward Silent Hill hit me right in the feels: "I never had a chance to tell you how happy you made me."
The music in this scene has become one of my favorites in the game, along with the one used in Heather's apartment: "Letter - From the lost days" & "Please love me... Once more" respectively.
The nightmare Hospital in Silent Hill 3 scared the shit out of me. I was absolutely terrified in the hallways where it's all red and blurry. The room with the mirror and the bathtub was also horrifying.
This is probably the scariest area in the entire franchise.
And that fucking psycho who's in love with Heather made me so uncomfortable with his letters.
The last area was equally disturbing. It was interesting to revisit some places from the 1st game, like the school, the place with the carousel horses, or the room where Alessa got tortured.
And I enjoyed reading Harry's notes along the way, while I was exploring this area. It was another great callback to Silent Hill 1.
The final stretch of the game was really intense. Heather throws out the God inside of her, and Claudia immediatly devours it, allowing it to be born. Like I said earlier, I already knew what the final Boss looked like, so it didn't have its full effect on me. But this Boss fight was still intense nonetheless.
It was also the most difficult fight in the game. I died a few times, and I ran out of ammo near the end, even though I was playing meticulously. I had to finish it off with the katana and I didn't have any healing item left, so it was really close.
I can't tell you how relieving it felt to beat this Boss and to put an end to this nightmare.
The game has an interesting subtext on unwanted pregnancy, the conflict between the acceptance of abortion, and its prohibition by the Religion, especially Christianity. It only became obvious to me during the final encounter with Claudia.
Seeing ̶H̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ Cheryl give a proper funeral to her father, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, Harry Manson was touching. It was a satisfying conclusion, and the credits song was a great tribute to Harry.
It lived up to the 1st game for sure!
----------Playtime & Completion----------
[Played in early May 2023]
Playtime: 8 hours
I got the Normal ending. And as always, I watched all the other endings.
This game is chocked full with easily the best imagery in the series. It takes much of the groundwork that had been established SH1 and fine tunes it. The world is more oppressive, atmospheric, and is vehemently trying to kill you.
I find that most people are quite critical of the series' return to an occult based narrative over a psychological one, but the occultism is one of the things I personally love about Silent Hill in general. Even so, I found Heather's coming of age story to be pretty touching. It has a lot of subtlety that I think people occasionally don't give it credit for.
I find that most people are quite critical of the series' return to an occult based narrative over a psychological one, but the occultism is one of the things I personally love about Silent Hill in general. Even so, I found Heather's coming of age story to be pretty touching. It has a lot of subtlety that I think people occasionally don't give it credit for.
The most terrifying, oppressive, claustrophobic experience I've had in the medium is no surprise a stalking disturbing message of an encroaching patriarchal faith. Heather wants nothing to do with it, and neither will I. Monsters of repressed memories and physical/sexual trauma stalk the corridors, but catharsis is found in making them all Burn. Aborting god is probably the rawest turn on killing god tbh. I personally got lost in the woods of the threads near the end but I think on just initial reflection that there's a large point in there about an incomprehensibly massive societal issue that makes it difficult to form into something tangible (e.g. male gaze and abuse). It's also like a crystalized end to everything the series culminated in before, tying everything back together. Genuinely super well crafted, and a crazy good final message. That cycle of disparaging hatred is still overturned by the real spark of sympathy, we just want love.
If I've learned anything, it's that the people who think this is better than 2 are probably lesbians, and that's just fine.
Content warning for discussions of misogyny, child abuse, reproductive rights, and sexual and physical assault.
Silent Hill 2 deconstructed Silent Hill. Silent Hill 3 deconstructs Silent Hill 2.
The entire ethos of Silent Hill 2 uses Silent Hill as a place of punishment. Rather than being a town filled with monsters brought forth by a cult as it was in the first game, the Silent Hill of Silent Hill 2 is a functional purgatory. It is a place where the guilty must face constructs born of their own sins, taking shape specifically to torment those who have done wrong; children are unaffected, those who can work through their guilt may survive, and those who cannot (or will not) overcome it are punished further with death.
The town in Silent Hill 3 exclusively hurts the innocent.
Heather has done nothing wrong. The worst she’s done is take up smoking, and she’s dropped the habit long before the events of game kick off. She keeps to herself, she doesn’t seem to have any vices, she isn’t promiscuous — which itself is not a bad thing to be, but it’s common knowledge that the horror genre generally doesn’t look too fondly on the libertine — and it’s hard to find something that anyone could fault her for. Why, then, has this world dictated that she must suffer?
Because Heather is a woman.
Technically speaking, she’s only a girl. She’s still just 17. But the horrific acts that men have historically committed against women — stalking, abuse, physical and sexual violence — don’t have a minimum age. A poll conducted in 2018 found that 81% of all female respondents had faced sexual harassment; roughly 27% of those women said that their first time being sexually harassed was between the ages of 13 and 17. 16% said they were as young as 11 to 13 years old. None of these cases happened because they were deserved. There was no justification. There will never be one, because there cannot be one.
But they were women, and for those who are willing to commit these acts, that’s enough of a reason.
I am not myself a woman, nor have I ever identified as one. I’m hesitant to explain my feelings towards this game and the world that it reflects back against ours, because I think it’s easy to come across as a capital-M, capital-A Male Ally who props my voice above those who don’t share the luxury of having a platform like my own. There's a line that must be walked between a point of demonstrating how awful the lived experience of many women is for those who are ignorant, and a point of spouting data and surveys as though these experiences can or should be boiled down to numbers rather than the people behind them. I am an outsider looking in; none of this has happened to me. I don’t face the ever-present threats of patriarchal society in the same way that women do. I’ve never been afraid to walk home by myself. I’ve never had to think my way down a list of what might happen if I reject a guy’s advances. I’ve never been concerned that my government could strip me of my bodily autonomy.
These are not aspects of my reality, but it is the reality of many.
Silent Hill 3 is not a subtle game, nor should it be. Our introduction to Douglas has him silently following behind our protagonist, chasing her into the bathroom and forcing her to escape through an open window; many of the monsters evoke phallic, fetal, or imposing masculine symbols through their appearances; Heather carries a pocket knife for protection on her person long before she becomes aware of the Otherworld. The character of Stanley Coleman is a stalker obsessed with Heather, skulking around to follow her through the hospital and leaving notes to confess his unrequited love for her; always boiling beneath his adoration and fixation is the unspoken threat that he will hurt Heather and/or the people around her if she isn't willing to reciprocate his feelings.
Perhaps most blatant (and thus what guides people into believing that this is the only theme of the game) is the unwanted pregnancy parallel. Heather has been selected against her will to be the one who will give birth to God, constantly being told that she doesn't understand the importance of her role when she says she doesn't want to. The one person who she can rely on to respect her choice — her father, Harry — is unceremoniously killed as retribution for Heather's unwillingness to carry God to term. And the end of the story, moments before Heather is about to be killed by Alessa to stop God's birth, Heather swallows a substance that causes her to expel the fetus from her body.
Silent Hill 3 is a horror story about being a woman.
Heather is an outstanding character. Despite her running through as close to Hell as one could imagine, she refuses to succumb to her environment. She fights. She struggles. She makes jokes and glib observations about the surroundings, studying everything that she can get her hands on to figure out how to survive and push forward. She's funny, and she isn't afraid to call people out on their bullshit directly to their face.
But there's a quiet moment at the middle of the game where she's sitting in Douglas's car on the way to Silent Hill, and she tells him the story of her adoption. She tells him how much she misses her dad, and that she never got the chance to tell him how glad she was to be his daughter.
And her heart just breaks.
No game made in the twenty years since this came out has been able to replicate the sheer amount of pain and exhaustion on her face while she stares out the window and chokes back tears. It's brutal. Her pursuits of revenge and closure and freedom mean that she cannot stop, no matter how worn she is.
A character as strong as Heather needs an equally strong supporting cast, and Silent Hill 3 is no slouch in this regard, either. The game is wonderful at creating these real, multi-faceted characters who carry with them at least one fault for every virtue. Douglas is a careless, headstrong dickhead when it comes to his private investigation work, but we gradually discover that he's a warm, damaged man who wants to be a better person than he was before his son died. Vincent is a shady, narcissistic bastard who's playing all sides for his own selfish desires, but he does legitimately help Heather put a stop to the cult's activities. Claudia is a ruthless murderer, but being abused as a child caused her to adopt a martyr mentality and throw herself wholly into her religion; the bitter irony is that Claudia perpetuates the same cycles of abuse which she suffered in the the name of bringing Paradise to Earth.
There's something to be said about how the non-Otherworld environments seem so keenly tweaked to be strange and dangerous, almost as though they're places where people aren't meant to be. An employees-only hallway in an abandoned shopping mall, an empty subway station that goes five stories underground, maintenance tunnels deep beneath the city, a derelict office building, the manifestation of a nightmare you had about an amusement park; being here feels wrong. Heather — and by extension, you — are all alone in these ethereal places, wandering around in the dark and wondering if every little creak or radio crackle is a warning of something nearby intent on doing harm. In some ways, the scenes in our world are more frightening than the ones in the Otherworld; our reality has the exact same monsters, but you wouldn't know that by looking at it.
As it stands, I'm kind of shocked that this game winds up with a general reputation of being the inferior younger sibling to its big brother, Silent Hill 2. For years I'd heard nothing besides the fact that 2 was the best entry in the series — perhaps the best horror game ever made — and none of the other entries could measure up. I love Silent Hill 2. I love the themes. I love the way it looks. I love the story of Mary and James.
But I think some people love Silent Hill 2 for the reason that it's easy to delve into. Picture in your mind the average person who would be playing games like these in the early-2000s, and then ask yourself if you think they would have an easier time immediately relating more to James or to Heather. It shouldn't be hard to figure out who, and it should be even easier to figure out why.
I think Silent Hill 3 is the better of the two.
Abortion is still de jure illegal in Japan. Those seeking to terminate a pregnancy may only do so if they can demonstrate that the pregnancy would cause a sufficient health or fiscal risk, or if their pregnancy was the result of rape. Married women require written consent from their husbands before they can even be considered. In a Japanese survey conducted during the campaign of an 86,000-signature petition to put an end to mandatory spousal consent, some 13% of women reported being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will.
Heather Mason took the aglaophotis in her pendant to terminate God in 2003.
Emergency contraceptives wouldn’t be legalized in Japan for another eight years.
Silent Hill 2 deconstructed Silent Hill. Silent Hill 3 deconstructs Silent Hill 2.
The entire ethos of Silent Hill 2 uses Silent Hill as a place of punishment. Rather than being a town filled with monsters brought forth by a cult as it was in the first game, the Silent Hill of Silent Hill 2 is a functional purgatory. It is a place where the guilty must face constructs born of their own sins, taking shape specifically to torment those who have done wrong; children are unaffected, those who can work through their guilt may survive, and those who cannot (or will not) overcome it are punished further with death.
The town in Silent Hill 3 exclusively hurts the innocent.
Heather has done nothing wrong. The worst she’s done is take up smoking, and she’s dropped the habit long before the events of game kick off. She keeps to herself, she doesn’t seem to have any vices, she isn’t promiscuous — which itself is not a bad thing to be, but it’s common knowledge that the horror genre generally doesn’t look too fondly on the libertine — and it’s hard to find something that anyone could fault her for. Why, then, has this world dictated that she must suffer?
Because Heather is a woman.
Technically speaking, she’s only a girl. She’s still just 17. But the horrific acts that men have historically committed against women — stalking, abuse, physical and sexual violence — don’t have a minimum age. A poll conducted in 2018 found that 81% of all female respondents had faced sexual harassment; roughly 27% of those women said that their first time being sexually harassed was between the ages of 13 and 17. 16% said they were as young as 11 to 13 years old. None of these cases happened because they were deserved. There was no justification. There will never be one, because there cannot be one.
But they were women, and for those who are willing to commit these acts, that’s enough of a reason.
I am not myself a woman, nor have I ever identified as one. I’m hesitant to explain my feelings towards this game and the world that it reflects back against ours, because I think it’s easy to come across as a capital-M, capital-A Male Ally who props my voice above those who don’t share the luxury of having a platform like my own. There's a line that must be walked between a point of demonstrating how awful the lived experience of many women is for those who are ignorant, and a point of spouting data and surveys as though these experiences can or should be boiled down to numbers rather than the people behind them. I am an outsider looking in; none of this has happened to me. I don’t face the ever-present threats of patriarchal society in the same way that women do. I’ve never been afraid to walk home by myself. I’ve never had to think my way down a list of what might happen if I reject a guy’s advances. I’ve never been concerned that my government could strip me of my bodily autonomy.
These are not aspects of my reality, but it is the reality of many.
Silent Hill 3 is not a subtle game, nor should it be. Our introduction to Douglas has him silently following behind our protagonist, chasing her into the bathroom and forcing her to escape through an open window; many of the monsters evoke phallic, fetal, or imposing masculine symbols through their appearances; Heather carries a pocket knife for protection on her person long before she becomes aware of the Otherworld. The character of Stanley Coleman is a stalker obsessed with Heather, skulking around to follow her through the hospital and leaving notes to confess his unrequited love for her; always boiling beneath his adoration and fixation is the unspoken threat that he will hurt Heather and/or the people around her if she isn't willing to reciprocate his feelings.
Perhaps most blatant (and thus what guides people into believing that this is the only theme of the game) is the unwanted pregnancy parallel. Heather has been selected against her will to be the one who will give birth to God, constantly being told that she doesn't understand the importance of her role when she says she doesn't want to. The one person who she can rely on to respect her choice — her father, Harry — is unceremoniously killed as retribution for Heather's unwillingness to carry God to term. And the end of the story, moments before Heather is about to be killed by Alessa to stop God's birth, Heather swallows a substance that causes her to expel the fetus from her body.
Silent Hill 3 is a horror story about being a woman.
Heather is an outstanding character. Despite her running through as close to Hell as one could imagine, she refuses to succumb to her environment. She fights. She struggles. She makes jokes and glib observations about the surroundings, studying everything that she can get her hands on to figure out how to survive and push forward. She's funny, and she isn't afraid to call people out on their bullshit directly to their face.
But there's a quiet moment at the middle of the game where she's sitting in Douglas's car on the way to Silent Hill, and she tells him the story of her adoption. She tells him how much she misses her dad, and that she never got the chance to tell him how glad she was to be his daughter.
And her heart just breaks.
No game made in the twenty years since this came out has been able to replicate the sheer amount of pain and exhaustion on her face while she stares out the window and chokes back tears. It's brutal. Her pursuits of revenge and closure and freedom mean that she cannot stop, no matter how worn she is.
A character as strong as Heather needs an equally strong supporting cast, and Silent Hill 3 is no slouch in this regard, either. The game is wonderful at creating these real, multi-faceted characters who carry with them at least one fault for every virtue. Douglas is a careless, headstrong dickhead when it comes to his private investigation work, but we gradually discover that he's a warm, damaged man who wants to be a better person than he was before his son died. Vincent is a shady, narcissistic bastard who's playing all sides for his own selfish desires, but he does legitimately help Heather put a stop to the cult's activities. Claudia is a ruthless murderer, but being abused as a child caused her to adopt a martyr mentality and throw herself wholly into her religion; the bitter irony is that Claudia perpetuates the same cycles of abuse which she suffered in the the name of bringing Paradise to Earth.
There's something to be said about how the non-Otherworld environments seem so keenly tweaked to be strange and dangerous, almost as though they're places where people aren't meant to be. An employees-only hallway in an abandoned shopping mall, an empty subway station that goes five stories underground, maintenance tunnels deep beneath the city, a derelict office building, the manifestation of a nightmare you had about an amusement park; being here feels wrong. Heather — and by extension, you — are all alone in these ethereal places, wandering around in the dark and wondering if every little creak or radio crackle is a warning of something nearby intent on doing harm. In some ways, the scenes in our world are more frightening than the ones in the Otherworld; our reality has the exact same monsters, but you wouldn't know that by looking at it.
As it stands, I'm kind of shocked that this game winds up with a general reputation of being the inferior younger sibling to its big brother, Silent Hill 2. For years I'd heard nothing besides the fact that 2 was the best entry in the series — perhaps the best horror game ever made — and none of the other entries could measure up. I love Silent Hill 2. I love the themes. I love the way it looks. I love the story of Mary and James.
But I think some people love Silent Hill 2 for the reason that it's easy to delve into. Picture in your mind the average person who would be playing games like these in the early-2000s, and then ask yourself if you think they would have an easier time immediately relating more to James or to Heather. It shouldn't be hard to figure out who, and it should be even easier to figure out why.
I think Silent Hill 3 is the better of the two.
Abortion is still de jure illegal in Japan. Those seeking to terminate a pregnancy may only do so if they can demonstrate that the pregnancy would cause a sufficient health or fiscal risk, or if their pregnancy was the result of rape. Married women require written consent from their husbands before they can even be considered. In a Japanese survey conducted during the campaign of an 86,000-signature petition to put an end to mandatory spousal consent, some 13% of women reported being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will.
Heather Mason took the aglaophotis in her pendant to terminate God in 2003.
Emergency contraceptives wouldn’t be legalized in Japan for another eight years.
This day has finally come.
That's right -- the day when you and I will meet.
I was always thinking of you,
here with this DS4 controller in my hand.
I never even knew your name
or face until today.
But now I know.
Oh how I love you, Heather.
It's okay that you run funny
with your feet out to the side.
Or that you got killed by a mirror.
Hey, it happens.
You are still a great protagonist.
Your skill rivaling Sekiro,
with a blade as sharp as your snark.
I guess a hair dryer works too, in a pinch.
I knew you'd defeat your competition.
She doesn't even have eyebrows.
Wait, did she really just eat that???
Either way, great job at being cool.
Thanks for letting me play your game.
After all, you and I exist as one.
What I give to you is the same as
what I give to me.
- Stanley Coleman
That's right -- the day when you and I will meet.
I was always thinking of you,
here with this DS4 controller in my hand.
I never even knew your name
or face until today.
But now I know.
Oh how I love you, Heather.
It's okay that you run funny
with your feet out to the side.
Or that you got killed by a mirror.
Hey, it happens.
You are still a great protagonist.
Your skill rivaling Sekiro,
with a blade as sharp as your snark.
I guess a hair dryer works too, in a pinch.
I knew you'd defeat your competition.
She doesn't even have eyebrows.
Wait, did she really just eat that???
Either way, great job at being cool.
Thanks for letting me play your game.
After all, you and I exist as one.
What I give to you is the same as
what I give to me.
- Stanley Coleman
This review contains spoilers
the main character gets told that she's pregnant with God and immediately gives herself an abortion, and if you don't think that's the tightest shit then get out of my face
To the person who changed the cover art I wish you a very DIE
My friend brought this to my house so she could laugh at me getting scared of it and then she got scared of the bathroom bit
just about as good as everyone says, mostly just have scattered thoughts on this one
-me and my bf kept commenting every like half hour on how fucking good and iconic heather’s outfit is
-this whole game but especially the ending give me the same vibe as the suspiria remake from a few years ago
-my only other experience w this series is playing about half of 2 (very good but didn’t at all hook me like this one did) and watching the 2006 movie like five years ago, was pretty good from what I remember. I’ll probably play all of them aside from 1 and the vita game, will probably just read through the play novel as it seems pretty cool.
-vincent literally on his huey emmerich wave. funny guy, why is he 24 and why does sexy kit harrington play him in the second movie
-tbh only really played this bc for the last year I’ve been absolutely obsessed with akira yamaoka’s scores for the series. Got introduced to them via the boyfriend of a girl me and my boyfriend were friends with, he played sissy hypno one time while drunk and then proceeded to spend the entire night puking in my bathroom. Good times. You’re not here goated song.
-played this on easy action level easy riddle level bc fuck that this game is like a little archaic and I was pretty much entirely here for the story and the atmosphere. Only time I really had a hard time with the game was in the haunted mansion with the red light chasing you. Think that bit and it’s difficulty works for the best given the fact that up till that point red lights are almost seen as something comforting for the player and now the thing that’s helped u out sm through ur play through kills u almost instantaneously.
-me and my bf kept commenting every like half hour on how fucking good and iconic heather’s outfit is
-this whole game but especially the ending give me the same vibe as the suspiria remake from a few years ago
-my only other experience w this series is playing about half of 2 (very good but didn’t at all hook me like this one did) and watching the 2006 movie like five years ago, was pretty good from what I remember. I’ll probably play all of them aside from 1 and the vita game, will probably just read through the play novel as it seems pretty cool.
-vincent literally on his huey emmerich wave. funny guy, why is he 24 and why does sexy kit harrington play him in the second movie
-tbh only really played this bc for the last year I’ve been absolutely obsessed with akira yamaoka’s scores for the series. Got introduced to them via the boyfriend of a girl me and my boyfriend were friends with, he played sissy hypno one time while drunk and then proceeded to spend the entire night puking in my bathroom. Good times. You’re not here goated song.
-played this on easy action level easy riddle level bc fuck that this game is like a little archaic and I was pretty much entirely here for the story and the atmosphere. Only time I really had a hard time with the game was in the haunted mansion with the red light chasing you. Think that bit and it’s difficulty works for the best given the fact that up till that point red lights are almost seen as something comforting for the player and now the thing that’s helped u out sm through ur play through kills u almost instantaneously.
Some scattered thoughts:
Three 5/5's in a row for this series... which is honestly mind blowing to me.
Heather has got to be my favorite protagonist in the series so far. She's such a perfect example of a strong female protag. Spunky with youthful energy and attitude, able to fend for herself, and nuanced. The ending really solidified this for me. Without spoiling, the simplicity of it absolutely confirmed my feelings about her. Brilliant stuff.
This game is absolutely terrifying, more so than the first 2. There were so many moments that legit got so under my skin, and I feel like the locations are so unnerving and effective.
The music?? Holy shit?? I think 2 has the better soundtrack, but I love the melodic and trip hoppy moments on the ost so much. Really brings out the beauty in so many moments.
Fuck, I really loved this game. I wasn't sure I would give this a 5/5, but it absolutely sold me by the end. Absolutely brilliant game, so excited to play 4.
Three 5/5's in a row for this series... which is honestly mind blowing to me.
Heather has got to be my favorite protagonist in the series so far. She's such a perfect example of a strong female protag. Spunky with youthful energy and attitude, able to fend for herself, and nuanced. The ending really solidified this for me. Without spoiling, the simplicity of it absolutely confirmed my feelings about her. Brilliant stuff.
This game is absolutely terrifying, more so than the first 2. There were so many moments that legit got so under my skin, and I feel like the locations are so unnerving and effective.
The music?? Holy shit?? I think 2 has the better soundtrack, but I love the melodic and trip hoppy moments on the ost so much. Really brings out the beauty in so many moments.
Fuck, I really loved this game. I wasn't sure I would give this a 5/5, but it absolutely sold me by the end. Absolutely brilliant game, so excited to play 4.
most of my reviews are prompted by a problem with a game, its fanbase, or its critical reception. silent hill 3 is... perfect, and everyone with their head on straight knows it. no notes.
Keeping in mind that God is nourished by hatred and that he will be born of it, Silent Hill 3 assures you, or rather: somehow prevents you from delving into that sentiment towards the otherworld and its architecture.
And so Silent Hill 3's efforts came into focus: its aim is to annihilate the possibility for us, the players, to give birth to a God. Such world is truly possible.
And it seems, and feels, that all it takes to pull that off is a constant remembrance and a hyperbolic credulity (I'm sure there are better words to fully comprehend Heather, but there's no doubt about her importance after the player feels her heart through the controller).
And from all that comes an obvious implication: aborting doesn't spring from hate.
On another note: proceeding to try every door at the mall after escaping the otherworld, expecting all of the doors to be closed, but fearing that one of them might open to take you back to the nightmare... was one of the most significant moments of Silent Hill 3. After this point, instead of experiencing relief, the "spectacle" of a door actually opening would morph into a disheartening feel. (While at the same time feeling good after leaving a certain sound behind a door).
Moreover, the game consciously utilizes doors to convey pure rejection. Take for example one of my favorite sequences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7zSmMQqtCM (specially around 5:30 to 5:40 or so).
But yeah, having also played Illbleed this year, I must confess that Silent Hill 3 was lackluster after the hospital... and by the time I reached the church I was already tired, except for a couple of moments. I would have removed the use of the map for most of the game among other things
Other thoughts in spanish:
Me percato de lo poco que conozco lo familiar: una misma casa, en otros tiempos. ¿Qué es el otherworld?
La materialización de las causas del espacio.
Las sombras del espacio desplazándose al ángulo superior izquierdo del ojo tras apagar las luces.
And so Silent Hill 3's efforts came into focus: its aim is to annihilate the possibility for us, the players, to give birth to a God. Such world is truly possible.
And it seems, and feels, that all it takes to pull that off is a constant remembrance and a hyperbolic credulity (I'm sure there are better words to fully comprehend Heather, but there's no doubt about her importance after the player feels her heart through the controller).
And from all that comes an obvious implication: aborting doesn't spring from hate.
On another note: proceeding to try every door at the mall after escaping the otherworld, expecting all of the doors to be closed, but fearing that one of them might open to take you back to the nightmare... was one of the most significant moments of Silent Hill 3. After this point, instead of experiencing relief, the "spectacle" of a door actually opening would morph into a disheartening feel. (While at the same time feeling good after leaving a certain sound behind a door).
Moreover, the game consciously utilizes doors to convey pure rejection. Take for example one of my favorite sequences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7zSmMQqtCM (specially around 5:30 to 5:40 or so).
But yeah, having also played Illbleed this year, I must confess that Silent Hill 3 was lackluster after the hospital... and by the time I reached the church I was already tired, except for a couple of moments. I would have removed the use of the map for most of the game among other things
Other thoughts in spanish:
Me percato de lo poco que conozco lo familiar: una misma casa, en otros tiempos. ¿Qué es el otherworld?
La materialización de las causas del espacio.
Las sombras del espacio desplazándose al ángulo superior izquierdo del ojo tras apagar las luces.
𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯?
I’ve taken a considerable amount of time between my experiences with each of the main Silent Hill games. I played the first entry around six-seven years ago when I was still in a mutually toxic relationship and found it excellent yet downright baffling. Containing industrial and metallic horrors beyond immediate comprehension and freaky cults and oddly touching ‘chosen family’ dynamics, it pushed the limits for what I believed a PS1 title could achieve through sheer atmosphere and symbolic prowess alone. After nabbing a decently priced copy of the second game a year post my separation from said relationship (and in the wake of the pandemic), I found myself shattered by its oppressive deconstruction of a guilty conscience and the interconnective nature of trauma- both shared and isolated. How pain binds fractured souls together, and winds them up into botched and abstracted spaces of American normality to fend for themselves on a primal level. It took everything the first entry accomplished and confidently treks into bold territories that challenged the player’s allegiance to their supposed protagonist as well as call attention to their adjacent relationships to side characters- who upon the surface don’t directly contribute much to James’ arc but rather gracefully ebb and flow with the intention of supplementing the themes of the story. These first two games were exhausting to push through, almost sadist in quality and punishing in developer motivation with how they marry deeply complicated and expressionistic narratives with deliberately stunted and claustrophobic gameplay. They are, to me, a primordial testament to what the medium can achieve as singular works of art (as well as propelling the interactive possibilities of horror).
Anyways, Backloggd word salad aside, it has been nearly four years and I have finally gotten to the trilogy capper. I have since healed from my own personal traumas from the relationship that haunted my experiences with the previous two games (but still write the inflated wordy nonsense on here for the four people that actually read my reviews). That word, “healed”, succinctly captures what it felt like to play through Silent Hill III. It is an encompassing coming of age narrative about origin and birthright and interrogates the identity that we are born with versus the one we ultimately choose for ourselves. The game also wraps itself back into the thematic backbone of the first game in a clever way, weaving in ideas of evangelic persecution that removes women’s agency from their bodies and intertwining that with emotional struggles of familial belonging. Team Silent fills the game with the adequate amount of angst, grief, and sass that any teenage girl confronts as they are exposed to the chronic realities of impending adulthood. And yes, it is also very scary; utilizing some fairly cursed sound work and utterly hideous (and frequently phallic) creature designs in addition to incorporating another deliciously brooding soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka. Everything in this game carries the instinct to exercise hostility and discomfort towards Heather. Who didn’t feel that way about the world as an insecure adolescent? At the very least the sense that nothing is quite “okay” permeates much of the game’s wildly structured first half leading up to the story’s venture to the titular town in the second. The player navigates through malls, subway stations, construction sites, office buildings, and apartment complexes with the overall goal of getting home and then from there we are thrust into the familiar spaces we’ve walked before as other characters.
Despite its messy development, this is as much an effectively bittersweet culmination of the franchise’s mythology as it a deliriously unique exploration of its own themes. While I wasn’t as taken with the characterizations here as I was with the previous entry (Douglas didn’t do much for me, sorry), that remains somewhat the only sour note to an otherwise masterful game that I imagine will smooth over with time. Just writing this I look back on my nights playing this fondly and already with slight tinges of nostalgia. Every dream-like moment is so committed to utmost immersion for the player, inducing unease within the most mundane of everyday locations- at least before they are transformed into otherworldly distortions of malice incarnate. This dynamic allows for pulpy levity that toggles self-reflexive tone shifting; registering discordant humor, occasional dramatic poignancy, but mostly unhinged beats of urban surrealism. The game’s iconic visual and thematic aesthetic teamed with Heather’s infectious presence providing a much-needed cushion for the player to fall back on for reprieve against the most ungodly of manifestations, this is truly as well-rounded as horror games can be. Now if someone out there wants to lend me Silent Hill IV..
I’ve taken a considerable amount of time between my experiences with each of the main Silent Hill games. I played the first entry around six-seven years ago when I was still in a mutually toxic relationship and found it excellent yet downright baffling. Containing industrial and metallic horrors beyond immediate comprehension and freaky cults and oddly touching ‘chosen family’ dynamics, it pushed the limits for what I believed a PS1 title could achieve through sheer atmosphere and symbolic prowess alone. After nabbing a decently priced copy of the second game a year post my separation from said relationship (and in the wake of the pandemic), I found myself shattered by its oppressive deconstruction of a guilty conscience and the interconnective nature of trauma- both shared and isolated. How pain binds fractured souls together, and winds them up into botched and abstracted spaces of American normality to fend for themselves on a primal level. It took everything the first entry accomplished and confidently treks into bold territories that challenged the player’s allegiance to their supposed protagonist as well as call attention to their adjacent relationships to side characters- who upon the surface don’t directly contribute much to James’ arc but rather gracefully ebb and flow with the intention of supplementing the themes of the story. These first two games were exhausting to push through, almost sadist in quality and punishing in developer motivation with how they marry deeply complicated and expressionistic narratives with deliberately stunted and claustrophobic gameplay. They are, to me, a primordial testament to what the medium can achieve as singular works of art (as well as propelling the interactive possibilities of horror).
Anyways, Backloggd word salad aside, it has been nearly four years and I have finally gotten to the trilogy capper. I have since healed from my own personal traumas from the relationship that haunted my experiences with the previous two games (but still write the inflated wordy nonsense on here for the four people that actually read my reviews). That word, “healed”, succinctly captures what it felt like to play through Silent Hill III. It is an encompassing coming of age narrative about origin and birthright and interrogates the identity that we are born with versus the one we ultimately choose for ourselves. The game also wraps itself back into the thematic backbone of the first game in a clever way, weaving in ideas of evangelic persecution that removes women’s agency from their bodies and intertwining that with emotional struggles of familial belonging. Team Silent fills the game with the adequate amount of angst, grief, and sass that any teenage girl confronts as they are exposed to the chronic realities of impending adulthood. And yes, it is also very scary; utilizing some fairly cursed sound work and utterly hideous (and frequently phallic) creature designs in addition to incorporating another deliciously brooding soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka. Everything in this game carries the instinct to exercise hostility and discomfort towards Heather. Who didn’t feel that way about the world as an insecure adolescent? At the very least the sense that nothing is quite “okay” permeates much of the game’s wildly structured first half leading up to the story’s venture to the titular town in the second. The player navigates through malls, subway stations, construction sites, office buildings, and apartment complexes with the overall goal of getting home and then from there we are thrust into the familiar spaces we’ve walked before as other characters.
Despite its messy development, this is as much an effectively bittersweet culmination of the franchise’s mythology as it a deliriously unique exploration of its own themes. While I wasn’t as taken with the characterizations here as I was with the previous entry (Douglas didn’t do much for me, sorry), that remains somewhat the only sour note to an otherwise masterful game that I imagine will smooth over with time. Just writing this I look back on my nights playing this fondly and already with slight tinges of nostalgia. Every dream-like moment is so committed to utmost immersion for the player, inducing unease within the most mundane of everyday locations- at least before they are transformed into otherworldly distortions of malice incarnate. This dynamic allows for pulpy levity that toggles self-reflexive tone shifting; registering discordant humor, occasional dramatic poignancy, but mostly unhinged beats of urban surrealism. The game’s iconic visual and thematic aesthetic teamed with Heather’s infectious presence providing a much-needed cushion for the player to fall back on for reprieve against the most ungodly of manifestations, this is truly as well-rounded as horror games can be. Now if someone out there wants to lend me Silent Hill IV..
As much a game about architecture and spaces as the people within them.
this review is pretty stupid in retrospect, ill write something better and more insightful next time
this review is pretty stupid in retrospect, ill write something better and more insightful next time
i like how the final areas look like you're in a bowl of goulash
This review contains spoilers
BREAKING NEWS: Teenage girl gives birth to god and immediately kills her with a samurai sword.