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.

My original review was rused garbage and I didn't get to explain what I loved about his game and after playing Silent Hill 2 it's important to make the distinction.

This is the definition of a charmingly terrifying game.

The acting is terrible but it adds some comedy to an already interesting story of Harry searching for his daughter. It's simple but enough to keep you going and every little nugget of information you learn about the town makes you so much more interested to keep going because you don't know what could happen to her. I stand by the fact that both the Hospital and School are the greatest locations in any game, they are so well designed and the puzzles in both area's are truely perfect. The sewers are a mess but everything around it makes up for it.

There's so much to love about this game.

This game taught us to be afraid of ourselves. This game kicked off a horror technique that had never really been done before. This masterpiece prefers to patiently build up tension and suspense by teasing the gamer’s imagination with grotesque images and genuinely creepy effects. The game refuses to ever ease up in regards to atmosphere and mood whilst backed by an incredibly ambient soundtrack. I hope and pray that they will one day remake this game like they did with RE2. Silent Hill might be a horror game about a small town that gets swallowed up by a cultist evil. Or it might be about mental health and anxiety. This is the lasting brilliance of Silent Hill and the fascinating series it birthed. A game I honestly owe a lot to. If you love or even just like horror then you need to play this, simple as.

There's something oddly unsettling and fascinating about exploring empty human-made spaces and structures that would otherwise be bustling with life and activity in a normal day-to-day context, which for me is the biggest strength of the Silent Hill series and what made it stand out from the survival horror crowd.

Like walking inside a Giorgio Chirico painting, Silent Hill focuses on the haunting presence that pervails inside these communal gathering spots long after everyone is gone and drenches it with surrealism that brings the horror out of the ordinary and mundane. Despite its deceitful open air exterior, walking the streets of Silent Hill instils the sense of constantly being watched and trapped by something, in part due to its brilliant unwieldy and claustrophobic camera and purposefully limited draw distance.

Team Silent had a firm grasp on how to pace and escalate horror from game one, making that first treck to the school after night falls for the first time, and filling the streets with unseeable monsters, one of the most harrowing dashes for safety ever, slowly ramping the dread back up again with a seamless transition into the Otherworld that barrages your senses with nightmarish colors and sounds. This is the king of horror atmosphere, making good use of sparse and well payed off jump scares, a lesser focus on situational combat struggles in favor of a long grueling descent into the unknown, and a mastery of setting that makes the sudden appearance of a new floor on an elevator one of eeriest things ever.

One of my favorite moments in the whole game is when after what feels like an eternity in hell being assaulted by disturbingly child looking enemies, a church bell rings in the distance and the once black windows are now filled with foggy familiar daylight, as a sense of relief and salvation washes over you. You quickly end up appreciating being chased by pterodactyls and resident evil dogs during the day after the game makes you spend just a few seconds on the Otherworld version of the town, where darkness covers everything, even the grated floor in which you stand on.

Despite what some might want you to believe about the devil cult focus of the plot, Silent Hill is at its heart the story of broken people and the abuse they have suffered. Lisa's famous and outstandingly directed death cutscene represents the whole Silent Hill pathos, and Harry's inability to deal with such distressing plea for help would further be expanded and explored in the sequel. Despite the torment Alessa suffered during her lifetime and her forever distorted view of the world we witness along the game, Harry's love for Cheryl manages to get past the fog of Silent Hill and reach out to her. Was the amusement park a cheerful distant and fleeting happy memory? Was it experienced at Harry's side?

Age has only made Silent Hill better, the low poly aesthetic giving it even more of a dream like feel, and the primitive sound design of Harry's shoes being closer to reality than what we can get nowadays with modern technology. The soundscape created by Yamaoka is still as effective and essential at presenting the Otherworld as a machinery of industrial sounding evil and madness. Despite not having the cohesiveness its sequels would present with their enemy designs, cast of characters and storyline, Team Silent hit a homerun with this first entry, do not let the outdated discourse get in the way of playing this.

PS: For the love of God, change that damn box art.

I've watched so many playthroughs of this game on YouTube, so many think pieces of this its lore and influence on the world of horror, and it took until this year to play it on original hardware. It's truly a game that feels different when playing it compared to watching it, and I let it all sink in for my first playthrough for a GOOD+ ending.

I will say while the tank controls are extremely outdated, the game treats it as a feature instead of a flaw with locked camera angles that help guide the player. It takes very little time to familiarize with how well it handles these limitations. The game otherwise is a delight from the story to the atmosphere and locales. The soundtrack for the game is also to be commended. While a good portion comes from stock audio horror packs, they've aged to be permanently a part of what makes the first Silent Hill so memorable. For as large as the areas may seem, it's surprisingly linear. You won't ever feel lost unless you're doing the puzzles. Of course some may argue the second title is superior but the original story of a father stepping into cultish shenanigans while looking for his daughter is equally full of awe. This game is a must-play.