Part of Spooky Season 2023.

It’s easy to see why the Silent Hill franchise is one of the two pillars of the survival horror genre alongside Resident Evil. So much of Team Silent’s first title has aged like fine wine. While it doesn’t quite stick the landing in every single regard, the aspects that the game excels in are done in a truly unparalleled fashion that very few games can compare to.

This game has some of the strongest presentation in the medium. Its art direction is succeeded only by later entries in the series. This is absolutely one of the best looking games of its generation, and I think that age has only made the game look even better. From the worn and weathered look of it’s industrial environments where you’re never quite sure if the floors and walls are covered in rust or blood, to the horrific imagery of bodies that have been merged and entangled with steel cages, to the enemies that appear to be animals and people that have been twisted and corrupted by some truly evil force that is impossible to fathom… it's all breathtakingly striking and leaves a tremendous and lasting impact.

Then there’s the game’s utterly phenomenal sound design. Words fail to truly describe how perfect it is. It does such an impeccable job at making you feel like you’re never truly alone, that the world around you is alive and is constantly watching your every move with utter hatred and contempt. There are short music tracks that just consist of noises that sound like something angrily stomping on a metal floor or high pitched whining that will play either in certain locations you discover or after you complete an action. It feels like the music and sound is constantly reacting to you and what you do, and combined with the disturbing art and imagery, it makes Silent Hill one of the most immersive games that I have ever played.

The story definitely requires you to have a taste for ambiguity to truly appreciate it. You’re going to have to put bits and pieces of the story together for yourself, as Silent Hill never really gives you the full picture of the events that lead up to and take place over the course of the game. I really like the optional items that you can find in the world that add clarity to what’s going on, like the video tape, or the various newspaper clippings you can find across different areas. I’m especially a big fan of how the game tells elements of its story through its environments.

Silent Hill’s gameplay is the survival horror standard that was established by it and Resident Evil. It has the tank controls, clunky (complimentary) combat, puzzle solving, and inventory management that the genre is known for. Compared to Resident Evil, Silent Hill seems to be a bit more encouraging of combat, and it doesn’t really place as much focus on inventory management. You’re not limited in how many items you can pick up, so you really only have to manage your ammo. Even then, the game tends to be pretty generous with ammo drops (at least on normal). However, if you’re just shooting everything, you may still end up putting yourself in a difficult spot like I nearly did. Thankfully the game has plenty of melee options to choose from (though the hammer is pretty much the go-to as far as these are concerned), allowing you to engage in combat without having to spend ammo. You are a lot more likely to take damage when engaging in melee combat, but the game is also pretty generous when it comes to healing items as well.

I think that the game is at its best when you’re exploring the various… dungeons I guess? I’m not really sure what to call these locations, but I’m referring to places like Midwich Elementary School and Alchemilla Hospital. They’re similar to dungeons from The Legend of Zelda or the Spencer Mansion/Raccoon City Police Station from Resident Evil. They’re multi-floored buildings that have various locked rooms with corresponding keys and puzzles to solve. These locations are phenomenal. They’re immensely satisfying to explore and navigate, and I especially love when they transition from a simple and mundane location to their corrupted horrific counterparts, as that’s where the game plays very clever tricks on the player, such as the bathrooms that teleport you between floors in the Hospital.

The last quarter or so of the game before the finale gets rather slow and a tad annoying. The sewers and everything leading up to the amusement park aside from the optional quest you can do at this point in the game was just really straightforward and very boring. You travel through these more linear locations that have an abundance of enemies, too many to fight, so you need to run past them in order to stay alive. There’s so many enemies in fact, that the game’s framerate will actually start to drop here. These locations aren’t nearly as interesting to explore, or even particularly frightening outside of the music and environmental noises. I think this section would be even worse if you miss out on the optional stuff you can do at this point in the game.

The bosses in this game are okay at best. They’re all pretty simple and mostly involve just blasting them with the best guns in your tiny arsenal of weapons. There’s little strategy to them, and in all honesty, thanks to the generous amount of healing and ammo you get over the course of the game, you’re able to just stand in one place and tank hits while firing at several of the game’s bosses, including the final one.

The puzzles are a mixed bag throughout the entire game. I found a lot of them to be rather decent, and others to be very obtuse. I was able to solve a few of them, but I had to look quite a few of them up, more than I was happy with. I really don’t know how much of a skill issue that is on my part and how much of it is an actual issue with the game’s puzzles. I was able to figure out the infamous piano puzzle on my own for example, but other puzzles like the zodiac one left me completely clueless as to what I was supposed to do.

Another issue I had is that it can be easy to miss items and objects you can pick up or interact with. While most of the time, items do contrast well with the background and aren’t too difficult to spot, there were times where I did miss and had to backtrack for a key or other important item simply because I didn’t see it. I also nearly missed an optional but sorely needed weapon because I barely noticed it was even there. I don’t remember off the top of my head if early Resident Evil games did this or not, but in certain titles in the series, items that you can pick up and interact with would have a little twinkle on them, which made it a lot easier to see them, especially in cluttered environments.

Despite its flaws, which I think can be mitigated slightly if you choose to follow a spoiler free guide, Silent Hill is still an extremely impressive and well-crafted game, especially for its time. It is immersive in ways few other games I’ve played can possibly compare, and when it’s at its best, it’s a satisfying and thrilling survival horror experience. It might frustrate and annoy me at times, but overall, it's still a worthwhile experience that is very much worth playing today.

There's something timeless about Silent Hill. I don't exactly believe that games "age", per se, but even then it finds itself born in the perfect moment of time, late enough in the PS1's life to be a perfection of the style that would be left by the wayside with the advent of the 6th generation. I made the choice to start the series with Silent Hill 2, last year, and while that is still very much my favorite of the two, there is something about the first game even it does not replicate, this hyper-detailed and yet unreal look into a nightmare world that is so much like our own and all the more unsettling for it.

I don't actually care too much for this game's story, despite its neater bits. Perhaps this is because of my love for the sequel's plot, and while that isn't a fair comparison given this is the earlier game, it was one I was inevitably going to draw up. Harry's story is surprisingly straight-forward, basically just a hero's journey to save his daughter. Throughout it he meets a few characters, with some hiding things from him and some just being victims of the town just like he is. He has no inherent reason to be here, the entity of Silent Hill as a sort of conscious Saw trap nightmare does not exist yet, to him it's just a cosmic horror he must brave through. This doesn't make it a bad story, and again there's some great moments, but I do also feel like you don't get a complete enough picture without getting a "+" ending, which I did not (I actually figured out how to do it, but using the item didn't register so I thought I must have been wrong, and locked myself out of them). Leaving bits of story ambiguous unless the player looks for them is good and admirable, but leaving important developments out... not so much, given the story is pretty lackluster without. It also does suffer from PS1 voice acting, which while occasionally funny does make it hard to take certain scenes seriously.

There's a second, greater story going on in Silent Hill, though. One told not through words and cutscenes but wordless horror and atmosphere, from enemy designs and soundtrack and skewed camera angles. I'm repeating myself but this game's sheer capacity to evoke emotions in the player is second to none - usually, it's unease or downright horror, but it takes it easy on you a lot of the time too. There's moments that are quiet or only slightly unsettling, and moments that are somber or beautiful. After the big first dungeon of the game, which is absolutely terrifying, it does sort of settle down and stop firing on all cylinders, maybe even just because the player has acquired better weaponry and more experience, and is therefore less likely to feel as unsafe. Still it's never quite out of tricks, and there's some really mean scares in there.

There are some bits that while not necessarily bad per se are pretty funny to look back at, considering what the series (well, the next few games) would become. The first boss looks absolutely terrifying, but the ones after it are... a big worm and a big moth, which is very un-Silent Hill-y. There's two levels where you just run through sewers and fight weirdo dinosaurs and bugs. Besides being kind of annoying those completely lose the "psychological" half of the horror and end up feeling pretty boring as a result. I also really don't like how easy it is to miss the rifle and make the rest of the game much harder on yourself. Still the good more than outweighs the bad, and it's generally incredible just how well they nailed what made their game unique on the first try.

-do u guys think dasha actually has played any of the sh games?? or like did online ceramics just cut her a check ?? much to think about idk fuck dasha or whatever I just think she’s aesthetic and vibes you know ?
-also speaking of the online ceramics drop I thought there was a bunch of pretty cute stuff but literally what the fuck do I look like spending that much
-unlike 3 and shattered memories I don’t find this to be all that smart and complex. the peak of the story here in terms of like writing/dialogue is nurse garland saying that all the young ppl disappeared from the town like I think that fits really well for where and what silent hill means geographically. I come from a similar rust belt town and my hs was tiny asf and malls weren’t populated with teens or even younger ppl and on Halloween kids progressively as time passed stopped going door to door. towns like that are receding from view and less people are staying there than previous generations, so what happens when all is left of a town is bureaucratic and oppressive organizations and groups of ppl. think that little exchange between garland and harry works even better considering that 3 serves as a sort of direct follow up to this and everyone Heather comes in contact w is even older than her father. the mall is the first place u visit in game but unlike any other sh game ur not meeting anyone of a like mind to u or even in ur same demographic. being a teenager in towns like that is sad and rlly awful and depressing and specifically 3 nails that vibe and that exchange in this game makes it all the better.
-in the same way shattered memories heightens and expands on 3 I feel like this does too. making it mean more in a grand sense, fleshing out this world and these 2 characters connections to each other.
-sometimes I remember there was supposed to be a silent hill gta style game and my head hurts
-lighting in this game fucking owns, especially the lens flare hitting the camera whenever harry with the light on faces the camera
-I think it’s really funny how genuinely jaw dropping gorgeous and breathtaking those fmvs are and then it cuts to the goofy looking actual graphics, fucking pixelated Minecraft ass looking trees and rusty floors, I love it.
-lisa is genuinely such a cool sad character, nurse bendy ahh. I think it’s rlly impressive that the voice actress was able to do all the lines in an hour and basically wasn’t paid anything esp when considering the fact that her voice work is the only noteworthy acting here
-yamaoka asleep at the mfn wheel, someone wake him up. jokes aside I like the score here it’s good and all the stuff in the final chapters is rlly great but it’s rlly subtle here and I think it being mostly absent in this first sh does kinda detract from the atmosphere at play here and doesn’t make it as eerie as future entries where he would lean further into haunting trip hop and dreampop lullabies where characters are coaxed farther and farther into silent hill by the beautiful music. instead harry is kind of just running around while industrial beats play and it does work, fits the geographical setting rlly well. this is seemingly the only sh that leans full into the whole rust belt dead town whereas future installments are a town on the verge of death but not quite dead yet. the music lulling the characters into a final rest, this one is so like hopeless and bleak and it does make sense that the music reflects that and mostly stays in the background only being present at all for when ur supposed to feel tense and unnerved.
-idk why this isn’t the one being rebooted and instead 2 is. I mean I do get it, 2 is the only truly iconic game in the series, at least in a widespread and mainstream way but damn this one rlly did need the remake. the story here is so vague and abstract which I like enough but it’s kind of presented as these loosely connected vignettes tying everything together and then the ending just happens. characters just show up whenever is convenient and there’s not that much flavor text as there would be later down the line. it does just seem like creating this very real world and environment and atmosphere came first and then everything else after. it’s like genuinely very difficult to play and truly get absorbed into and I do think a remake could smooth lots of things over and make it into a better experience and also ppl wouldn’t be that mad in comp lol.
-so many striking visuals though, the flying demon guy busting in through the window, the ghost version of alessa running through the halls, lisa having blood run down her face and harry shutting her out, the glowing white version of alessa at the final boss battle (a literal ray of light in Harry’s final moments as he begins to accept and understand the version of the truth he’s told) the spiral staircase and all of the dutch angles at the beginning of the game. rlly great stuff and the cutscene direction and environments are so stellar and got as much as they could out of the ugly ahh ps1.
-I also just rlly love the ending(s) and think they enhance what I already love about 3 and shattered memories. that bond that someone has with their absent parent, how ur able to create and craft this legend of who they were and contort the facts to best suit urself and ur needs to kinda deal w the very real experiences of being an orphan or having absent parent(s). like that’s by far my fave thing about shattered memories is cheryl kind of reliving and reshaping the events of this game, it’s all a lie but it’s a lie she needs to tell herself. and can it rlly be a lie to her if she never actually got to know him or what happened in silent hill. the actual in game story here is similarly fractured and fragmented and it’s ultimately up to u to contort and twist it to best suit ur needs to give urself the closure and satisfaction u need. no matter who harry was and no matter what actually happened in silent hill he still tried for heather and I think that’s genuinely really beautiful.

90% of the atmosphere in sound design
90% of the difficulty in shitty controls

"what the hell is going on this town.. it's like some kind of silent.. hill" - harry houdini

"so that's what we are, sum kinda.. survival horror " - cybil houdini

A bit of an interesting one.

I was avoiding this franchise from like leagues away, mostly cuz I don't do horror and I knew that these games will scare me, but already after finishing the first one I don't regret it a bit. Playing with the lights out really gave a whole new level to how absolutely perfect the atmosphere of the game is, just completely intricately paced from beginning to end. The horrors of the town slowly developed and enveloped the entire aesthetic as things never really stopped being intrinsically unsettling and spooky on most fronts. My favorite moments have to be the hospital in terms of art design, but the sewer to the amusement park really takes the cake on the heartpounding rush side of things. The sound design is absolutely excellent too, with the radio sound etched in my mind in a good way, as well as the industrial vibes that bleed through the hospital and dark overworld. Music's pretty swell here too.

It's really a shame then, that when removed from that aesthetical core, the game starts to have its edges dulled. And I do mean removed, the gameplay of juking monsters and """"managing"""" resources wears itself thin by about halfway through, to where all intents and purposes the atmosphere begins to be enveloped by its own form of mediocrity. You do get some neat moments, I quite liked the first boss and I think a few of the actual puzzles here are really interesting to figure out. But generally once you're used to the controls and have gotten through the hospital, you've done everything. There's also not really much here to say in terms of the story, mostly following rather straightforward beats in an incredibly obfuscated way. It does lead to a couple genuinely great moments, but a lot of it is so incredibly background that I don't think it deserves attention.

Real emphasis on how fucked the resource management is though for a second, what is most definitely the one way this game could ramp the hell up out of the tension is so massively overtuned to where you'll never run out of anything unless you realllllly try.

This kind of sums up to an experience that really peaks early and ends with more of a whimper than it really deserves, at least for me. I even went out of my way to dodge more enemies instead of just shooting them, and that still didn't save sections that could've been a lot more crazy to go through. Definitely still ABSOLUTELY worth your time, but with expectations set very low.

Vejo muitos dizerem que o jogo envelheceu mal, eu discordo em partes. Visualmente falando, pra um jogo de ps1 ele envelheceu muito bem, principalmente pela direção de arte, o ótimo uso da câmera, e como eles puderam utilizar das limitações do console pra contribuir com a estética, vale lembrar que com um filtro crt o jogo ganha uma cara nova, não joguem jogos retro sem filtro crt. Mas sim, eu entendo que andar pela cidade é boring, o combate é bem meia boca, os bosses você pode só espamar ataque e ficar se curando, e as coisas necessárias pra pegar o final bom são bem estúpidas, e são por esses motivos que eu não dou nota máxima a esse primeiro jogo. Por que sempre fui fascinado por jogos como Soma, Amnesia ou Outlast 2, que vão além do terror, sendo este apenas uma ferramenta pra contar uma ótima história, percebo agora que muitos desses jogos são frutos de Silent Hill.

I find this game to be an outstanding product, residing in the top bracket of its genre. It's in the running for best game released in 1999 for me.

I find the game to be a mechanical delight. The way your guns become more accurate based on how long you aim and your proximity to enemies, how the running strafe forces you to commit to 2 steps but can be interrupted by interacting with items or opening doors, how different enemies require different strategies based on their varying behaviors and how it's detailed down to their individual perception of sight and sound for aggro. This all adds up to a game with a decently high skill ceiling, and I've done many 10 star runs as the game always seems to be able to be pushed further. The scoring system itself is very finely tuned, and the time limit for 10 stars is perfect at 90 minutes for the amount of kills and optimization required.

I am absolutely the target audience of this game.

An incredible survival horror game that managed to stand up against the already-famous Resident Evil titan at the time! Silent Hill 1 is a chilling experience full of brain-teasing puzzles, impeccable sound design, and a mesmerizing atmosphere!

The latter is especially impressive, as all the venues you explore as Harry Mason look and feel like well-furnished areas that were once lived in, rather than set-pieces for a video game. The story is also fantastic and make it very believable that someone like Harry would put himself through this nightmare of a town.

A desperate father looking for his daughter, the only thing left he loves in this world. He has to claw his way through these hellscapes to find the ultimate truth, while you discover the tragedies of other characters involved! Silent Hill is awesome.

Playtime: 8 Hours
Score: 7/10

The start of my favorite survival horror franchise of all time! I remember watching my parents play this game as a kid and just being fascinated with the concept of the series and the town of Silent Hill in general. And while this game didn't capture me as much 2 and 3, it is definitely one of the scarier games in the series.

One of the first few praises I can give is the fog that proceeds over the town as you explore. While this was due to the PS1's hardware limitations, it was a genius idea to use the fog as way to have a bigger map, and to make exploring the town more terrifying. Other thing is the art style with its low pologon PS1 look just makes the game look even more creepy. This game also uses gore a lot in some truly terrifying ways like the alleyway sequence near the beginning. The music and sound design as well as always for this series is fantastic.

Combat is okay. Its definitely more janky then the PS2 games, which were already janky but I was able to get passed most sections.

Some of the negatives though are just some of the really annoying enemies in this game. When it came to exploring the town I pretty much ran and avoided combat all together, because some of the enemies are just really annoying to fight. In the more confined areas its a lot better though in terms of the enemies you face. Also calling some of the puzzles obtuse would be a severe understatement as the solutions are so hard to figure out sometimes. One puzzle I got so frustrated that I looked up a guide and when I found out what the solution was, I wanted to throw my controller at the screen because of how stupid it was. Also some of the levels like the sewers are just god awful and can make you quickly decide against ever replaying this game.

Overall though, a good horror game! I know their remaking Silent Hill 2 since its the most popular game in the series, but I feel like this one needs a remake the most, as its almost impossible to play it these days due to janky controls/mechanics and just being so inaccessible on modern gaming platforms. However, It definitely deserves to be played by any horror game fan!

I love this game. I get it. I think the setting is so rich and really captures the odd sensation of being in a public place that shouldn't be empty, and I love the way Harry's straight-laced goofy dad personality comes out through his slightly weird line reads. It's interesting to compare this game to Resident Evil, because they're such contemporaries, but Silent Hill feels so much gunkier and grungier, bigger, darker.

There's a sense that you're stumbling through something that cannot be fully illuminated in Silent Hill. What happened to create these creatures? Why is there a big moth trying to kill me? Where is my child? These are the eternal questions.

At first, I was scared to play games like this, but after getting acquainted with this murky, segmented nightmare town, I hate to leave.

Wow. I mean, I'm kinda blown away by this. For a PS1 game to have this much powerful imagery is kinda mind boggling for me. It gives birth to a dense and emotion packed story about abuse and manipulation, layered under the meticulously crafted setting. It honestly kinda makes me tear up inside, especially with how hopeful this games ending is, in spite of it being in an almost literal hell. Sure, the main combat is serviceable at best, the controls are a little bit clunky, and the bosses can be a bit tedious, but I feel like focusing on those things kinda misses the point. If youre playing silent hill for "the riveting gameplay" you need to play a mario game or something.

It's impossible not to compare this to Resident Evil. This game shines on a narrative level: the plot is more robust and interesting and the environment design leans substantially less heavily on existing horror tropes and ends up legitimately unsettling as a result. The mechanics, on the other hand, are much less revelatory and end up decidedly obnoxious in boss fights that turn the tank controls from an artistic decision to a pure impediment.

The biggest innovation relative to the survival horror progenitor is the wide open city overworld shrouded in the series's iconic fog. This turns the whole dynamic of the game's resource management on its head. No longer do foes exist exclusively on a room-by-room basis, where figuring out how to successfully route around an enemy is as valid a solution as killing it. Silent Hill presents a version of the dungeon crawler's core question: will you take the risk of exploration in exchange for the rewards you may find?

Broadly speaking, if you're decent at the game, killing the foes you encounter in the overworld so you can explore it thoroughly will give you more resources than you spend. On the other hand, if you (like me) try to play this like Resident Evil and conserve your healing items and ammunition by carefully avoiding combat while making your way directly to your next objective, you'll miss not just useful items but a deeper understanding of the plot and indeed the possibility of a good ending.

Silent Hill thus ends up being a very different kind of survival horror. You're certainly still hoarding resources, but you're not running scared in the same way. The game throws frightening beasts at you but it also asks that you learn to face down and overcome them. In doing so, it dilutes the fear somewhat, and I think that's a bit of a shame.

Iconic.
That's the word i am going to use for this game.
You can see just how impressive it is and how seriously it was taken... Silent Hill is a true horror, truly an experience that made me feel scared, paranoid, mad, pleased, emotional and even happy.
Such amazing visuals, the camera angles can be spotted just at the start of the game, as the camera moves everytime you move to a different area or angle, or whatever. But it's not the moving that matters- it's how interesting it looks as we do it, for an example- the staircase angle in the lighthouse. It's THAT impressing that the whole game i was just shocked.
The characters are interesting, most of them are with truly depressing backrounds, but i think that as you get more and more into the game you can just see how in depth this game takes everything, and it's amazing. It truly brings people together to unravel every little bit of the game.
Amazing puzzles- from hard zodiac puzzles to literal connect the small dots puzzles that are pretty lighthearted. I loved every single puzzle there, even the most cryptic ones. They make you think out of the box, see new posibilities, make you think critically towards everything you see and this is what truly made me want to finish the game.
The enemies- meh.... they look cool, especially the bosses, but i was not a fan of how when you go to a new area 40 enemies that need 8 shots to die are jumping you all and cornening you. I felt pretty claustrophobic, but it wasn't so bad for me to dislike the game or feel tired of it. In the contraty- i felt like i want to play more.

This game just totally brings out nostalgia. I can't argue on the fact that everything this game has make me feel sad about what the recent silent hill games are. But... This one is special, and i will appreciate it strongly, everyday.

I played this on the Twitch channel, and a lot of sweet people joined, so make sure you come by and hang out with us for Silent Hill 2!!! :D
https://www.twitch.tv/maryyhill

From the offset, this is hands down the most atmospheric and visually immersive game to come out from the PS1 generation. The textures seem blurry by today’s standards but aesthetically they contributed to the uneasy vibe of Silent Hill. Harry is sluggish to control, yet the tank controls feel very purposeful here, adding to the suspense and urgent moment-to-moment tension of strange enemies creeping around the foggy-ridden map to kill you. The only thing helping you to survive is your own heartbeat (controller vibration is a god send here) and subpar combat skills because you’re just a bumbling dad by the end of the day. Making this some of the best interweaving of story and gameplay I’ve experienced in a video game. I also cannot understate how great the sound design is for completing the psychological survival horror being cooked here.

That being said, I could only wish the rest of the game hooked me better as it went along. The puzzles felt the most dated in being a bit too archaic for my liking to solve or feel like a rewarding head-scratcher. Once you have become familiar with the game, the map of Silent Hill loses its initial appeal. The story wasn't too psychologically nerve racking as I'd expected going into this, it instead feels more like the implications of an interesting narrative actually going on. It's a little disappointing because the actual lore and finer written details of the game are actually quite interesting, like the deeper meaning behind the enemies, but the core story it’s built around doesn’t resonate too much with me. The game has 4 endings, and I narrowed down on getting the bad one so maybe upon further playthroughs in the future I’ll have a bigger appreciation for the narrative. As it stands for me, this feels shallow compared to the cool visuals and intriguing gameplay. But I think this establishes a very solid foundation and starting point for the series and I’m very interested in playing the following games to see how it gets refined and improved.

My impression of Silent Hill is admittingly tempered because I played 2 a couple of months ago, and was blown away by its level of characterization and story telling. Not to say that the original Silent Hill is bad in those respects, but it's much more direct story telling and the occult aspects vs the psychological aspects of Silent Hill 2 got me a little less invested, and the game does show its age at times with the character models and graphics. Still a great horror game to get into though if you're just looking for a classic that doesn't waste your time.

The act of witnessing itself can be a form of relief. To have someone who understands they are seeing horrible actions be performed, or suffering be endured, can itself grant one relief while putting a weight on another's soul.

The heart of Silent Hill is Harry Mason bearing witness to the tragedies that have taken place inside the town. This is made clear when he first awakens from what could either have been a dream, or a nightmare made real, when Cybil leaves him and he can collect his items. Among them stands out a stark red and white notepad, paired with the memorable "Study, dammit!" poster inspired by Stephen King. This is a message to the player, both for them and about Harry's journey, that this is not a journey that will end happily or even be resolved. You are looking in at the depths of humanity's darkness, and that is all you are expected to do.

The game never once encourages the player to seek out hidden items or paths throughout the course of the main narrative. A player can go from the opening car crash, to the ending where they are greeted with the same car crash, having never interacted with the game on a deeper level. At that point, the game for the player is the same as it is for Harry Mason, just a passing dream he viewed almost completely as a bystander, where the player didn't engage with most anything. The ending checks are minimal, but the Bad Ending assumes the worst of the player, assumes them to not have witnessed Lisa's video tape, to not have connected the monsters and their meanings, to have run past the objects of importance.

Both variants of the Bad ending conclude with the player killing Alessa, and while one leaves off on the note of a hazy dream during death, the other concludes with Cybil helping Harry, but the two are unable to move. They are left standing as the nightmare falls apart. Harry was compassionate and helped those the player may feel is deserving, but he never truly confronted the nature of the nightmare, or the actors behind it. The lack of confrontation of Alessa's trauma is again, as if the player never engaged with any of what was happening in the town. He witnessed and engaged as he felt necessary, but he could not empathize, could not fully understand the extent of the pain and suffering burned into the town.

The reason for all of this is because reaching that understanding itself is difficult. Silent Hill's ending system is an ingenious choice, where most first time players will not get anything above a bad end, it's just a fact that most players won't be very inquisitive when Silent Hill asks that of them. The pacing of the game is what is at the heart of this idea, as you inch closer to the climax the sooner you want to be out of there. To be so close to escape is tantalizing, so the player will push forward ignorant of what they might miss, what traumas may be lurking underneath.

The actions required to receive a "Truer" Ending are ones that begin to lower the veil on the nature of the town. You learn of connections between the hospital director with local establishments, you learn of a drug running ring that the inquisitive player can link back to the failed police investigation, you uncover a mysterious red liquid. But, this side quest is only truly started when Harry Mason leaves his journey to help someone else.

While Kaufmann isn't deserving of being saved (and the game agrees on that point), the idea is that Harry saved him. Harry is a witness, and he is empathetic, he is kind. His kindness allows him to see the darkness, to understand the mess going on in this town and truly understand. The end of this side quest being the discovery of the mysterious red liquid is what solidifies this idea. It is a rather blatant reference to Twin Peaks, the most famous inspiration for Silent Hill, and Twin Peaks itself is a series very much about empathy and how we lose that through just consuming these complex and emotional ideas as plain 'entertainment'. To play Silent Hill without consideration for the world outside Harry and his quest is to play Silent Hill by consuming rather than understanding.

The understanding reached is that the supposed antagonist, Alessa, was a good natured girl that suffered. She suffered for seven years of her life, bullied and indoctrinated into a religious cult that used her in ways that are implicated throughout the text. Then, she suffered for another seven years, either in a hospital bed or bound to a wheelchair, with burns that wouldn't heal, wounds that would constantly seep puss and blood, and constantly kept alive while being on the brink of death. But, this suffering doesn't birth a hateful monster, it instead birthed a kind girl. For those first seven years she suffered for her mother, and for the next she suffered for the sake of another 'self', so that Cheryl Mason could have a loving family.

The gut wrenching truth of Silent Hill is in the climax all endings show. Dahlia as the manipulator, and Alessa wheelchair bound, covered in bandages, and not unlike the crucified and mummified corpses strewn throughout the town.

Alessa's pain had been unintentionally shared with the town and Harry, projecting the images deep inside of her. A faux-God emaciated and hung in bathroom stalls or back alleys, children who either attack or just try to quietly run away, nurses and doctors who are controlled by parasites, even things Alessa took interest in become monsters in this waking nightmare. The imagery surrounding all this is equally blunt once this main text is known, the rust being symbolic of Alessa's own bodily state, while the metallic floors bearing a resemblance to a cage or a fence representing her inability to move freely, both before her almost-death and well after it. It's constant suffering that Harry walks through, and it's on the player to truly know this and take this in.

Another constant that comes up is in the usage of boilers throughout the game. The first boiler you interact with opens the door to the nightmare, and in that world it becomes the area of the first boss fight. At the heart of this boiler is a body not unlike ones mentioned before, only this time it is restrained and propped up, as it is burned. Later, the boiler room is blocked off in the hospital, but the ambient sounds let you know that it's there. Many of the ambient noises, like the lowering of the bridge bring to mind an idea of boilers, a truly underlying torment for Alessa. While the nurses and children are most prevalent as enemies, the boiler is ever present due to it representing the ultimate betrayal Alessa faced from her mother.

Alessa's trauma is not the only one faced in the game though. We see how Lisa Garland coped with having to shoulder Alessa's pain, her job having been to change the bandages after they had been ruined with puss and blood, those visceral images taking the toll on her own personal life. Another person can't just enter the life of someone who has been abused, who has suffered abuse, and just change their bandages. It's why Lisa is a tragic character, she was a woman who fell into her own tragedy caring for someone else's. It's this really harsh message, that Lisa ended up manipulated and abused herself while caring for someone in that situation, but Silent Hill is about confronting these disturbing "psychological" ideas.

"Nowhere" is the culmination of all of this pain. Only in Nowhere can you watch Lisa's video tape unaltered, only in Nowhere do you learn that Lisa was suffering. Both she and Alessa were hiding it, and when Harry learns the truth she asks Harry for help that he can't give. Harry pushing Lisa away is probably one of the most heartwrenching moments in the franchise, it is a pure act of one person being unable to comfort another, being completely unable to help. Many players I've spoken to have wished to help Lisa, but they can't. Her words also show that her relationship with Alessa was similar to Harry's with Lisa in that moment, that she is "just like the others", unable to truly help. But, at the very least Harry's actions in the Good Endings allowed him to witness the root of Lisa's suffering, with the uncovering of the drug ring in connection to Kaufmann. Lisa's appearance in the Good Endings, dragging Kaufmann with her, is the only solace Harry's actions could offer her.

That leaves the player with just Alessa and Dahlia. Dahlia the abuser, Alessa the abused. A common theme in Japanese media I've noticed is a distinct idea of lackluster or abusive parents, with father or mother figures typically found outside blood relation, and this idea is a throughline across the Silent Hill series. Harry truly tried for Cheryl, and went through all of this for her, and in the final moments when he fully goes through Alessa's psyche in Nowhere, he comes across a room he has seen before. Nowhere is a place of absolute understanding, the subtext becomes the text here, and as you get closer to the heart of everything, the game pushes you away. The final grunt enemies introduced are invisible versions of the "bully" children, a manifestation of the fact that this childhood abuse doesn't go away. They're first found in a hallway linking to several rooms, a classroom covered in graffiti that consists of targeted attacks on a single person, a bedroom where all the symbolism of the more vaguely connected monsters comes to light, and the room we have seen before. A hospital bed, a chair, and a heart monitor adorn the room, but the thing that stands out is a single picture of a young girl. The first time we see it, the teal narration text tells us the girl's name. This time, the white text of Harry's own internal thoughts tell us the name, an almost forlorn expression given purely through the reuse of text, just in a different colour.

"Alessa"

Harry reaches an understanding and empathy through bearing witness. Through seeing both the abuse and the sources of it, seeing how others have suffered similarly through trying to help, and seeing those who saw fit to ignore or to antagonize, he understands. His final actions in the game, despite knowing that his daughter is gone for good, are to protect this little girl he has never spoken to, from a woman who only wishes to harm her (in a more abstract sense in the Good Endings). The last conversation Dahlia has with Alessa, presumably before enacting the ritual that would leave her body destroyed, is a disturbing. It's dressed up under the ideas of rituals and magic, but in Japan these ideas were scams. The occult boom came with a price, the price of real occultism. Kaufmann is important because he represents the true nature of these groups, a self-interested and abusive figure at the head of it all, glad to use fanatics like Dahlia while they're convenient. That real occultism also came with sexual abuse, and Dahlia's conversation is focused on the "mother's womb." It's a tragic conversation as Alessa's words are pure, of not wanting to go through with any of these 'rituals', of just wanting to be with her mother, but that was never what Dahlia wanted and Dahlia never cared. The final boss arena is an extension of this, it is the same rusted cage look, but underneath are boilers, and the true final boss is a perverted God, its flesh visible and raw, who attacks with fire. There is no subtext here, it has become the pure text, this is the manifestation of an Alessa that spreads her pain, an ugly creature that lashes out at everything, and once Harry defeats it he can't get Cheryl back. He can't save Alessa. His journey was a failure. Everyone died (except maybe Cybli in the very best of endings) and his daughter was lost forever. But, in both Good Endings, Alessa hands him a baby, a second element of herself that is birthed at the end. While the perverted God was someone who could only spread pain, the baby is pure, a new beginning for Alessa. Harry has witnessed, empathized, and understood her pain, had cared for her not knowing of it seven years, and she trusts him. The concluding scenes, depending on the ending you get, either show Harry looking distressed after having escaped, or Harry and Cybil re-enacting the opening shots of the game, of Harry and his wife with a baby Cheryl. These should be taken as a pair rather than separate, Harry's reactions give the game an additional layer, that this isn't a solution, but it is a beginning to one. Abuse and recovering from it is a complex topic for those going through it and those trying to help, often those trying to help aren't mentally prepared and only cause more harm to either the victim of abuse or themselves. Harry can help with Alessa's abuse, but these endings present him with a vague answer to how well he can handle it. He is both distressed, and prepared.

Silent Hill is a very weird game to discuss in its themes. It is densely layered, but it leaves most of its ideas in imagery, Takayoshi Sato's cutscenes lending a lot of pathos to the work, in addition to Keiichiro Toyama's overall direction. Many unique experiences and elements, and ideas of the times in Japan and in the fiction of America bleed into this game, acting as a melting pot to portray complex themes that many don't want to acknowledge, not out of fear but out of discomfort. This is at the heart of psychological horror, to confront the uncomfortable realities. The tragedy of Alessa took place directly in the heart of suburban America, because these tragedies will always exist. I could go for much longer, but rambling is not my strong suit and I've already repeated myself far too often here.

The last idea I want to leave on is that of "Christina's World". A beautiful painting which inspired the Dahlia's house and aspects of Alessa's character in Silent Hill. Christina stares off at her home, in an almost distressing way, and she is completely alone, unable to move. Her world is that home, and the core emotion this painting evokes for me is complete loneliness and inability to move in that loneliness.

Shocklingly ahead of it's time.
There are so many little moments of absolute genius when it comes to conveying horror through gameplay. The hallway that's a slow descent into the nightmare, the elevator with a mysterious 4th floor that wasn't there before, a bathroom that secretly teleports you, etc...

If anything I would say that feeling is a bit undermined by how easy the game can be, with controls that allow more movement than Resident Evil's and a melee option that floors 80% of enemies you end up having so many resources you are never really challenged or put in a tight spot.

And the presentation, just plain beautiful, there is so much texture and detail on every corner, an atmosphere so dense you are simply transported into the game. It also helps how masterful the camera work is, static on the right places to fully capture the scenery and moving to create shots that a lot of horror films wish they could accomplish. Just something great.

Pleb-filter me once, shame on me.
Pleb-filter me twice, shame on me.

I dropped this game a decade ago and I dropped it again today.
I just cannot be assed to play this game
Sorry atmosphere chads.

Sobre el papel, exploración de espacios reales, cotidianos, desfigurándose poco a poco. Una doble realidad siniestra y corrupta accediendo y entremezclándose con la propia. Un pueblo donde los demonios internos de su gente se vuelven físicos, tangibles. Una enfermera atrapada en el hospital donde vivió un suceso traumático. Un alma infantil inocente víctima de la maldad adulta. Un padre desorientado y desesperado capaz entrar al infierno por encontrar a su hija.

La realidad, molestas carreras perseguido por terodáctilos y puzzles que rompen constantemente la atmósfera construida. Un protagonista que no refleja ninguna incomodidad sobre su situación y que se pasea firme, escopeta en mano, vaciando cartuchos en la cara de todo tipo de aberraciones como si fuera su rutina diaria. Un cierre soso y blando, dando respuestas claras y concisas a todas las preguntas que se abrieron por el camino, sin apenas espacio a la interpretación. Una decepción.

I played Silent Hill 2 first because I heard Silent Hill doesn't really hold up, that 2 is better, and the stories aren't connected anyway. However, my question now is why do people think Silent Hill doesn't hold up. I can understand distaste for 3d graphics as lifelike as origami, but this game accomplished a lot with its limited resources. Its atmosphere still works amazingly well, and the level design is even better than Silent Hill 2's. It's different from its successor, but not necessarily a lesser game. When you play it, you might start by thinking it looks a little rough, but by the end you'll wish more games had such an engrossing world to explore.

Even without having experienced much else that the Survival Horror genre has to offer, it's easy to see when looking back what made the original Silent Hill such a special game. Despite how dated it feels from a modern perspective there's so many ways in which it simultaneously feels ahead of its time—from the large open foggy areas that provide neither the comfort of visibility nor the protection of a confined space, to the way the maps update in order to help keep track of where you've been and need to go, and to the more ambiguous and contemplative tone of the story that serves to amplify the nightmarish setting of its atmosphere without giving any kind of B-Movie styled camp for relief. Even some of the more dated aspects of the game play into its strengths, like how the low poly graphics create such grotesque figures and revolting textures. It also opts for free control of the camera in most areas, with the exception being when it takes on a deliberate angle for dramatic effect, and given the openness of many areas and the speed of the enemies trying to get the camera to keep up with them proves to be a challenge, further amplifying the tension of their appearances.
What I think makes this game stand out in my mind so much is the pure effectiveness that is has at setting atmosphere and maintaining a constant sense of anxiety, and much of this comes from how it plays on one's fear of the unknown. There's a big difference between throwing scary monsters at the player to either kill or run away from, and placing them within an inescapable haze so that even fleeing could very well mean running into something more threatening or a dead end. The score for this game, while it has some beautiful tracks, is mostly made up of eerie tracks designed specifically to make you incredibly uncomfortable as you search each new area, and when it's not doing that you're left with silence which often brings its own unnerving effect. I've never felt so conflicted while playing a game in the sense that I had such a strong appreciation for what it was doing and yet I was more than ready for it to finally be over. I think that this unfortunately impacted my enjoyment of some of the exploration and puzzle-solving, since I was a bit too stressed out to want to properly think through solutions.
Combat is also kinda bad yet in some ways this served to make the game's atmosphere even more effective since killing enemies never afforded me much relief. Really my biggest complaints would be that some of the enemy types themselves were pretty annoying to deal with especially when it came to certain things like flying, speed, and grab hitboxes. There are a few bosses too which with the exception of one pretty cool fight that had a couple different solutions for it, are kinda just a point in the game for you to dump all of your stockpiled ammo onto. This almost led to trouble on the final boss for me (though I believe there's a workaround for this) but I'm glad I was still able to take it down the intended way.
Overall I have a lot of respect for this title and it impressed as I finally got a better experience at what this genre is truly capable of. I'd almost say that it's too good at what it does because now I'm gonna have to be careful going into any more games like this now knowing just how anxious they can make me.