In a 1999 developer interview. Keiichiro Toyama says “What is it that sets Silent Hill apart from other games? If I had to answer that question in a nutshell, it would be the atmosphere, which I suppose is vague and ambiguous. However, if you play the game, I think you will understand. Silent Hill is an orthodox game with no outlandish or innovative gameplay mechanics, but it is suffused with a unique atmosphere and mood, not only in its appearance but also in the story and sound.” - Director of Silent Hill 1(SH1).

I couldn’t help but come to the same conclusion as Toyama’s answer of ‘atmosphere’ as the final credits rolled in my blind playthrough of Silent Hill 1. The atmosphere permeates throughout my time running through the titular town full of dense fog. As I controlled the main character. Harry Mason. An everyman who has no special titles, or special powers, is neither rich nor an individual who has super connections of note. He is simply a regular dad desperately searching every house and street for any clue, to recover his missing daughter Cheryl after a car crash gone wrong. And so begins our journey, as he battles/evades otherworldly creatures all while unknowingly trying to survive in this horror-filled place.

Storywise, I found his journey to be a cross between safe storytelling mixed with a jigsaw puzzle. Looking back I can construct how the narrative is achieved by effectively omitting key details. By the time I had all the pieces, I could complete the ‘puzzle’ so to speak. In doing so I was treated to a relatively safe journey in regards to not throwing my suspension of disbelief into smithereens while spreading the plot breadcrumbs interesting enough to lure me further into the mystery. In spite of the slow threads in the beginning. Be that as it may, once I hit my stride in schools and hospitals my will to continue deepened further. Enabling me to question everything and everyone within the bounds of not delving too outside the box to conjure. The regular who, what, where, when, why whodunit. Kept my brain tingling for morsels of information to seek the answer to my relentless inquiries. And thankfully the ending I received satisfied me to a measure I cannot help but applaud for. Well at least for receiving the ‘G+’ ending. And while there are other endings I’ve seen on YouTube. The overarching narrative felt uncommonly used amongst the other horror games I've played thus far. I wish I could give more concrete examples, but that would inadvertently lose the magic and surprise.

The atmosphere toes the line between the unknown and frightening to an absurd, but realistic degree. As I traveled deeper into the mist surrounding the locations of Silent Hill. Taking inspiration from Stephen King's The Mist among other influences. And to its credit, the close draw distance to maximize fog nearly in our faces works cleverly to hide the technical limitations of the PS1 era. The missing inhabitants while replicating a small town out in the country oozes with mystery in a sort of “Will there be something?” is teased mercilessly. I enjoyed exploring to my delight and wasn’t scared too much despite the oppressive silence and lack of inhabitants. Instead, I found otherworldly creatures prowling the dead of the day. Hairless malformed dogs prowling the streets, as winged creatures fly indiscriminately above Mason’s head to claw at him. To the nurses and doctors who are out of their freaking mind looking like a zombie at times. I admit to being scared and simply ran away from these ghastly enemies. The dense fog adds to the intrigue with incessant questions in the back of my mind. “What's happening? Where is Cheryl? What should I do? Why is this happening? How can I survive? Am I dreaming? Is this real?” These questions and more will inevitably pop up as you stumble & struggle.

The struggle is real. As I cautiously checked for enemies in rotten corridors, clean hallways, and entering empty rooms splitting the real and unreal. Confusing me, yet a handy map can be found nearby upon entering a new location. Making backtracking painless. Allowing me to easily strengthen my will, admire the presentation and reference what I had already been to. The map updates as you explore making it a vital tool to utilize. Reinforced by how simple the mechanics are. Mason can run, walk, use guns, and melee weapons, and interact with objects in the environment. The radio too helps as a sort of sound radar for nearby enemies. Helping us to prepare for what's to come. As a result, no gimmicks or very innovative systems at work as Toyama stated above. Focusing on other elements brings the core strengths to the front and center for players to devour. Grayish mist compliments well with the dead air of the soundtrack while feeding breadcrumbs to the player early on to piece and make their deductions. It is fascinating if not slightly stressful since I am playing a survival horror game. Yet I wasn’t all too bothered by the gameplay formula.

Puzzles felt adequate without being too complex. The simple systems lend themselves again and again. Becoming cyclical as you progress further in new buildings without feeling like a drag. Encounter a mysterious item? Maybe we can use this later to open a door or slot into a mechanism to open a path. Hmm, bottle? Must be some liquid I need. Keys? Oh, a locked door I couldn’t enter before surely will this time. Every puzzle I found difficult had a nearby solution to help players give off clues to solve their current dilemma. And usually, they may connect to another component, solving a dilemma could be a key to finally removing an obstacle. Out of all the puzzles I encountered. Only one of them is incredibly difficult. This was the only time I felt compelled to check a walkthrough and once I found the solution I couldn’t help but smack myself silly. So here’s a helpful tip. Check your surroundings to make sure of any missing pieces, having a separate monitor or paper on hand to visualize text hints can offer a different point of view. There are puzzles here without a hint so visuals and any patterns as delicately as I can vaguely say will prove invaluable to the naked eye. Don’t overthink, sometimes the easiest and most gut feeling may prove to be the right one.

Combat I wasn't fighting every step of the way like tank controls. Instead I embraced the simple fighting system and abused them to my advantage. Harry can equip one weapon at a time. Utilizes a multitude of melee and ranged weaponry. From pipes to knives to a pistol, shotguns, etc. The armaments helped tremendously like a hammer and the shooting mechanics aren’t all too complicated due to the absence of a reticle. As long as you focus in the direction of the enemy. You can shoot them with extreme prejudice. And man does it feel good to lay them out on the floor and kick em when they're down. Go close to an enemy? Eat a full round from my shotgun. Enemy closing in? NOPE. Time to run in a zigzag and not look back. Dying in about one blow? Excuse me while I chug a kit and some bottles without a required animation to take effect. See several mobs? Yeah forget that, Ima run past them. Pick your battles, don’t fight everything, to conserve ammo.

Felt the resource collection and using my stockpile satisfactory. Supplies are spread throughout the town so you’ll have to do some exploring off the beaten path to see any health kits or bottles to replenish your vitality. I had a surplus of bullets and avoided combat where I could to save ammo. Didn’t need to heal every time, only when I needed to. I wasn’t hindered by any inventory limit, nor was there any sort of stamina meter. He does have a health meter once you enter the menu with a press of the button. Making the lack of any real user interface where you would traditionally see one noticeable, albeit not necessary to see. I didn’t find any major issues with finding resources.

I’ll talk more about this later, but for now, I'll praise the tank controls. The mechanic where you move the player is similar to the process of how a tank moves. And this is a process you’ll need to contend with throughout the entirety of a playthrough. Nevertheless, as I became more familiar with tank life(This was my first time experiencing the phenomenon.) I found it weirdly satisfying to look at the element from a different angle. The controls accentuate certain camera angles to invoke a sense of anxiety and unease. The combat adds to this which I didn’t mind at all considering the game doesn’t shout to the high heavens to play for the fighting module. This in turn creates anticipation and tension adding to the already unsettling atmosphere. So I like it. For adding depth to the combat and fleeing.

Honestly, this emphasizes cutscenes when they play by displaying different camera angles while the dialogue occurs. And boy do I have some good news. I’m surprised by how little text there is in the conversations. Thereby not slobbering players with text logs or lore logs. Though as a lore nut, I firmly believe as long as you have enough relative lore in hand it could prove beneficial. But that is neither here nor there. Words and phrases are used sparingly as if to uphold a sacred tenet that fewer words equals good. SH1 for example follows this rule to a T. I did not see any wasted text. Puzzles and hints are included. It's like a subtly minimalist Chekhov's gun here. And oddly enough I am praising the usage of short conversations between Harry and whoever is speaking to him to excellent effect. Why? This adds mystery and intrigue to the central locations while increasing tension, fear, etc. Reinforcing the enigmatic atmosphere Toyama envisions. Seriously this is great stuff preserving minimal, but essential text to have players piece their own conclusions. Showing us, but not telling us.

In a 2015 interview from Factmag Akira Yamaoka(composer of a majority of the Silent Hill series) talks about the franchise's soundtracks and why it continues to be as influential as ever. “One of the greatest ways that Yamaoka enhanced Silent Hill’s fear building is by using music and effects in ways that run against what you’re expecting. “I wanted it to be unpredictable: maybe during a big scare I cut everything out, and maybe if nothing was happening at all there would be a lot of sound.” You have an empty hallway? Layer a few sirens and mix it in the red. You have an establishing moment with a villain or environment? Use only the sound of a sharpening knife.”

This unpredictability by Yamaoka works to an impressive degree throughout the entire soundscape. Where I felt the absence of regular conventional instruments in favor of creepy silence, air vibrations, the beating of unconventional items like banging of doors, the scrapping of blades, and the heart-pumping scratches and fluctuating radio frequencies awakens dread. Some examples I’ll pull from the OST have silence integrated well such as: ‘Downtime, never end, never end, never end, alive, nothing else, justice for you, heaven give me say, far.’ These tracks accompany many of the gameplay segments and cutscenes in a congenial manner yet interlaced wonderfully facilitating differences from the usual effects we often hear. Creating an unsettling tone to repeat for days on end as you boot up the game. Not to the point of over-use since a lot of tracks differ in tempo, rhythm, and how untraditional sound works. Seriously listen to any of those tracks and see how it differs from classical instruments. The names of these tracks also share similar connotations. Giving off a break if you will. Or time of rest. By comparison, there is another layer. And that is the panic tracks. Imagine low drums combined with a background of haunting wails or cries of ghastly echoes.

While the foreground is immersed with a layer of banging utensils harshly being hit on steel walls in a pattern that evokes slow encroaching terror. Yeah, terrifying isn’t it? Try listening to these tracks: Die, ain't gonna rain, half day, dead end, ill kill you, bitter season, don’t cry, for all, devil’s lyric, over, until death. I had to stomach through the OST again and it is incredible if not spooky. Yet thankfully enough here’s a secret to lessen the tension and anxiety. Lower the volume, no shame in doing so. I admit to doing so! The naming sense also is interesting to note again, with most of the tracks I chose from a small sample conveying notions of death, threats, and bittersweetness. I could’ve added more, but you can see the rest here and suit the tracks in other patterns. Regardless, I want to focus on a pattern. The silence tracks and panic tracks from the ones I listed earlier follow a theme, eh? The former inhabits an eerie vibe throughout yet doesn’t go to the steep lengths of making the player run to the hills. In my ears, I felt they were used to excellent effect, conveying a tingle of mystery as I ran to new rooms and buildings. By comparison. The latter displays the rush, the unbearing suspense mixed with a persistent rhythm forming an incessant need to get out. Run faster and get the hell out of traps and dead-ends. As a result, the panic tracks I think work in its favor and complement the silence to a proportion, I find myself fascinated by the two accompanying themes.

However, a third and smaller portion of tracks not of the two kinds emerges. And this brings to the forefront the classical tracks to a shotgun-filled bar full of emotions and relief. These tracks finally make use of classical instruments like the guitar strings. For example in the track ‘She’ I felt they provide a profound degree of closure. Some may see this as an abrupt slap of whiplash, on the other hand, I found it comforting. In the near silence and panic-filled corridors of ambiance. I found at the end of my main character’s journey and to my great satisfaction a longing feeling of contentment and tranquility. It is apt and so powerful to hear classical instruments shine so bloody hard. I am amazed how different Yamaoka's style conveys so uniquely and so beautifully to listen to. Granted, the effects on the unused may be perceived as annoying to hear repetitive noise effects. Although, I think it works to its benefit. Complementing the game to magically transport the player into the Yamaoka’s soundscape. Like a puppet master controlling how we feel. Just wow. Very different from other Japanese composers I'm familiar with listening such as Nobou Uematsu, Keiichi Okabe, Yasunori Mitsuda, Yoko Shimomura, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masashi Hamauzu, Masayoshi Soken, Keiki Kobayashi, Kota Hoshino, Falcom Sound Team jdk, and Xenoblade composers. The OST manages to ride the fine line of not being either bombastic or slamming us with gentility. Filling the player with enough suspense to not overflow in sheer terror while giving enough intrigue to the limit of genuine courage. It is as Yamaoka talks about earlier. Unpredictable in building fear.

As much as I could continue praising and analyzing every morsel. I must talk about my mixed feelings. These are neither positive nor negative, but simply some things that gave me pause, could be better and perhaps a hot take down below.

First tank controls for the unused can make it difficult to achieve the right balance in the beginning. When Harry moves in a single direction, turning becomes difficult. So you’ll have to swerve to the right or left before coming around. Takes some getting used to. I was never familiar with these types of old movements and considering it was my first foray into it. My first 15 minutes were clashing onto walls. I understand it's a product of its time. And while some may say it adds tension and anxiety, which I agree to a certain extent. More often than not I crashed into walls and wished it controlled better. Could be a dealbreaker for some. I’ve heard the newest entries after the first have better controls. Though for a first entry, it's not something I'll judge too harshly. Once an hour passed by I became used to them. To help, quick-turn using L1+R1. Helped immensely for my playthrough and thankfully the game’s runtime isn’t too long or medium to deal with. HLTB estimates put this at a short length.

Second, this might be a hot take. But I think going into the game blind completely would be a mistake. I tried playing blind for 95% of my experience and while I did have a good time, once I removed some tips to know beforehand along with some of my friend's advice I would’ve unknowingly struggled. Please check out some tips. I'll put some links further below to help newcomers. Therefore to prevent further suffering. Not required, but it doesn’t hurt to know ya know? For example, Running away from enemy mobs in the streets to conserve ammo. Quickturn if you hit a dead-end and I abused the hell out of that to counter the rough tank controls. Furthermore, going blind may inadvertently cause players more trouble when trying to achieve certain endings. They can be strict. Without going into concrete details of spoiler territory. To get the G+ ending, players need to somehow pick up a liquid in a hospital and use it in a boss fight. Not the last one. There’s a bit more, but I'll let Before I play handle that. Highly recommend referencing that in hand while you play. I hope that’s vague enough to say. I am not advocating for everyone to achieve that outcome, rather I think it would help in the long run when thinking about the game as a whole. It is simply a suggestion.

Third, boss fights I think could’ve been improved a little more to induce more puzzley in design without reverting into too gimmicky territory. As vaguely as I can say. I usually evaded their attacks, then shot bullets during appropriate moments. I’m torn on this point since I think this ties into the combat not being a true highlight to look forward to. I didn’t come to SH1 to be amazed by fighting. Yet unironically Toyama in another interview back in 1999 echoes similar sentiments by saying how “The action part of the game is really just something to create the horror.” A medium to enhance the horror if you will. Although, I still can’t help but add my suggestions on how this could be remedied to make boss fights more horrory. Off the top of my head: More on escaping, instead of traditional fights. Destroying objects in surrounding environments then switching to a different weapon like melee. Surprise me with dialogue maybe and if I answer wrong, game over. Taunt me while chasing me. I wouldn’t say they're bad by any means. The first, second to last boss and final boss do a decent job.

Fourth, I wish there was more interaction in the environment instead of literal observations anyone can make. When exploring anything of relative interest in his surroundings. Harry will make a direct, blunt phrase. “No useful books.” “Nothing unusual.” “Drugs? Better leave it.” “Just a wall.” Granted, there are plenty of notes, diaries, letters, and documents to give some relevant lore or plot hooks so it’s not all bad. Feels weird though. Why not have him say different lines like “Cheryl would’ve loved this book.” or “Ah I remember this drug from long ago my wife used to use.” See how those suggestions would’ve changed some of the stale observations? Makes me wonder if the other installments made some changes to his inspection.

Ultimately I found Silent Hill 1 to be largely a leap of faith as one Ubisoft franchise likes to say. While it does have some dated mechanics like the tank controls which may vary from person to person. And the story may not resonate with everyone. Along with my other mixed feelings. In the end, hidden beneath these varying qualities I found the everyman plot to be equally as satisfying as my time in Signalis. I can only leave pretty positive after my ten hour playthrough. And oddly enough, I regret not playing this title back then in my childhood. Never played any other entries in the series either. And yet for a PSX title released in 1999, I am pretty impressed how much it holds up. Stands tall amongst the other horror games I played. Sure the title doesn’t boast the Lovecraftian edge Bloodborne grasps. The excellent pacing of The Last of Us. Great lessons from Omori or hitting the fine balance of horror and action in the Evil Within series and Metro 2033. Nor does it provide richly diverse cast to the gills like Shadow Heart and Koudelka.

Rather, Harry Mason’s troubled venture to recover his daughter is a powerful incentive to keep in mind. And the feelings of “annoyance, anger and incredible kind of powerlessness” evoked by the protaganists voice actor Michael Guinn moved me enough to see what happens in the end. Strong to witness amongst the clever backtracking, colliding with interesting and well-thought-out puzzles. Constant showing, not telling, and remarkable use of minimal dialogue I found in contrast to Parasite Eve. Demonstrating how much this little gem can achieve in a concise manner without padding. I wasn’t bombarded by useless cutscenes or tearing my suspension of disbelief a new one. Beyond the palpable unique atmosphere, intriguing everyman story and excellent sound design lies something special to anyone who has never played Silent Hill 1. I’d even go as far as to say the game has made me appreciate horror much more than I thought.

8.5/10

References & Additional Material:
1st interview - Shmuplations translated the 1999 interview with Toyama and others
Wiki links - Everyman - Inspirational works of Silent Hill - Tank Controls - Chekhov’s Gun - SH1 OST - Soundscape
2nd interview - Akira Yamaoka interview
3rd interview - Another interview with Toyama back in 1999. Different from 1st.
4th interview - a 2018 interview with none other than the original Silent Hill voice actor for Harry Mason. Michael Guinn. Fair warning does contain spoilers for SH1 & SH3. I only read the SH1 portions.
Silent Hill 1 Before I Play Tips
Silent Hill 1 manual
A short history article on the origin of Tank Controls - Cool TIL tidbits.
My spoiler thoughts on Silent Hill 1 - Heavy spoilers from beginning to end of the game

Nobody gets it perfect on their first try, but some get a lot closer to it than others.

When something exists for as long as you've been around, it doesn't tend to impress. We're born onto an oxygen-rich planet with a sun and a moon and seasons and weather and days and nights, but these have all been around for as long as humanity has been, so nobody's really all that surprised by them anymore. Electricity in the home is a fairly recent development in the history of the imperial core, but most of the first people to get power have died off by now; us, the ones left, have almost all lived in a world where electricity has always been there. Video games at large are certainly a very new development, and your grandparents probably grew up long before the first consoles released. For you, statistically speaking, video games have always been here.

For me, Silent Hill has always been here.

I didn't really become self-aware until sometime in the later months of 2001, and Silent Hill had already been out and influencing developers for two whole years by that point. I was late to the party, to be certain. I've never been conscious of a world without Silent Hill in it. When you're in a position like mine (and judging by the site demographics, most of you are, too), it becomes difficult to truly appreciate the influence that this has had. Everyone "knows" that Silent Hill is probably one of the most important horror games ever made, but it's another thing entirely to experience it for yourself, to see the origin point; everything branching off from this central root like little fingers, stretching just far away enough until they're distinct enough to become something new. Fatal Frame, Signalis, Deadly Premonition: all titles with other inspirations, to be certain, yet enough of their branches reaching directly back to Silent Hill as veins to a heart.

What you're looking at here is primordial ooze; bubbling, boiling-hot muck that will one day form the foundations of all that is to come. It drips from the stitches holding together the stretched-hide wallpaper and weeps from the sores of the skinless monstrosities roaming the rusted steel streets. It pours in from the gaps of reality. "Blood and pus flow from the bathroom faucet", Lisa Garland writes in her diary, and there's no better way to describe Silent Hill than with that.

Silent Hill is a town unplugged from life support. It's a decaying corpse long before the nightmares start becoming real. The only usable roads are the ones that leave town, and the rest have fallen into disrepair. The young people are leaving in droves — seemingly the only ones to realize that there's nothing here left worth sticking around for. Around the corners of the tourist traps that keep the town's blood pumping, in the dark places where no one ever looks, a black market drug ring works through every night. They churn out bottle after bottle of little white pills, flooding the streets with product. The real, hard stuff. Addictive, hallucinogenic. The type of shit that you'd kill for another dose of. When you can make something that moves that fast, the only thing you need is a distributor. Some people will do anything for money.

Silent Hill 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and Silent Hill 2 occupied that same position for the several years before I’d gotten around to its sequel. In spite of that, though, I’d never actually played the first Silent Hill. The second game in the series is essentially standalone, which means it's more or less fine as a starting point, but the third is a direct continuation of the first. I went into Silent Hill knowing exactly how the game ends, because Silent Hill 3 assumed that I already knew. Oops.

The game starts slow. Real slow. Too slow, for certain. It makes me feel like a bit of a Philistinic dipshit to say it, but there’s a line between slow-burn horror and dragging your feet, and Silent Hill steps well over the former and into the latter. I mean, I get it. There’s very clear intent here — stumbling through an ocean of fog so thick that it actually hurts your eyes trying to make out whatever’s lurking within, groping blindly at painted-on doors and litter on the ground in the hopes of finding something to advance the narrative — but in practice, it's mostly made up of sprinting down a road for a minute or two before realizing you're going down another fucking dead end. Enemies in the early parts of the game are too slow to keep up with Harry at a full sprint, meaning you’re not really in any danger unless you slam face-first into a wall while one is on your heels. Given how wide the streets are, avoiding enemies is pretty trivial, and outrunning them until they de-aggro is even easier. This gets far more complicated as the game goes on, the passageways get narrower, and the monsters get faster and more aggressive, but the town of Silent Hill isn’t especially interesting to run through at the start.

Luckily, it’ll only take about half an hour tops before you get to the school, and that becomes the point where the game immediately picks up and never stops going. You really don’t spend a lot of time in that opening part of Silent Hill; once you clear the school, you cross the bridge to a different part of town and never return. There’s a constant forward momentum that keeps pushing at your back like a strong wind, always demanding you keep driving forward. Monster chases get longer, and the game will start actively fucking with you by playing loud crashes and roars during sprints down long corridors. There isn’t really anything there (provided you’re enough of a Darwin Award winner to actually stick around and find out), but the masterful sound design works in tandem with the tank controls to ensure that you really never want to waste time lingering turning around to check it out. Your radio is squealing at you, the monsters are growling and snapping, the music sounds like someone taking a rotary saw to a concrete sidewalk. Stopping to investigate will often mean eating a hit, if not dying outright. So keep moving. Don’t look back.

It ties in nicely with Harry Mason's character, especially in regards to how given he is to just charging forward into the gaping maw of danger to find his daughter. Unlike a lot of the intense, angry, Liam Neeson Taken-types that have cropped up in a lot of popular media, Harry is just kind of a cool guy. He loves Cheryl and he's willing to fling himself deeper into this hellish town to find her, no matter how many people tell him she's definitely already been killed by the roaming monsters; he wants to protect and help the other people stuck in the town with him, even at his own expense. He's there for Cybil, for Lisa, for Kaufmann. I like Harry. It's refreshing to see a game starring a guy who's completely normal and just wants the best for everyone else, especially when you put him in the middle of the most evil setting imaginable and he still doesn't compromise on those ideals.

The constant escalation offers some great thematic cohesion, reflecting this building fear of running out of time. As Harry chases down one dead lead after another, the town devolves deeper and deeper into a nightmare-scape, no longer able to hold itself together in material reality. It culminates in the absolutely incredible Nowhere, a place constructed from the pure id of a dreaming girl who's been dying for nearly a decade straight — her divided soul keeping her perched on the line between life and the void. Doors lead to different floors despite no change in elevation, keys are hidden inside bags of jellybeans, symbols of protection need to be collected and bartered in order to progress. Harry's already spent enough time today destroying the one symbol that would have solved everyone's problems, so now he gets to collect five of them to open the boss door.

If you play Harry as a decent guy who tries to solve everyone's problems, you're rewarded with a shockingly positive ending for something that, until this point, has been so relentlessly horrific. It's almost completely unambiguous. Everyone who deserves their comeuppance gets it, and everyone who deserves a break gets one. After all of the suffering — felt by both the characters and by you — it's nice to feel your head breaking through the surface of the water to get a gasp for air.

While it feels a little quaint to call the game gorgeous, I can't find another word for it. This is probably the best looking game on the PS1, and now that we've got a glut of indie games going for the same low-poly look, Silent Hill looks remarkably fresh today. What's old is new again, I suppose. I do wish that they had prioritized the performance a little bit more, though, even if they would have needed to compromise on visuals; the game often dips down into the low double digits when there's a single monster chasing you in an open part of the map, and god help your frame rate if you ever get unlucky enough to be attacked by three monsters at the same time. A minor performance hit here and there is acceptable, but this likes to border on unplayable just a little bit too frequently.

Still, though, what's here is phenomenal. It never manages to hit the highs of Silent Hill 2 or 3, but this was their first try. It's already impressive before you take that into account. All it needed was a little more money and a little more time to be truly perfect, and that was a luxury only afforded to the following games after this showed sufficient potential. This one was the first, and it was made by employees who had been kicked down into Konami's basement in the hopes that they would quit. This might be the absolute best that anyone could have done, given the circumstances.

If you stick around past the credits, you’re treated to a little blooper reel of all the characters laughing and mugging for the camera, complete with Happy Days-esque name plates that fade in over a freeze frame while they do something silly. There’s something about making this the final sequence you leave the player with that really stuck with me; this is a game that’s confident. Team Silent is swinging dick. They made something that was impressive, and they knew it was impressive. Nothing reserved, nothing to be humble about. “Yeah, we can end our horror game on shots of Dahlia smooching the lens and Harry posing on a diner booth like he’s auditioning for Vogue. Of course we can. Why wouldn’t we? We’ve earned it. We just made Silent Hill.”

Damn right they did.

I only had a Genesis at home well into the early 2000s, so a lot of my early experience with the 32-bit era was courtesy of the many afternoons spent on the PS1 at my cool uncle's place. We'd take turns watching each other play, and he let me play Resident Evil when I was 13 (as I recall, he was also the one who introduced me to Doom at the tender age of 9).

So it came as a surprise to me when I saw a copy of Silent Hill lying around at his place, recognized it ("hey, it's kinda like Resident Evil right?") and he flat-out refused to let 15-year-old me play it. A fact that, on finally getting around to playing it just now, I will be forever thankful for.

The RE series' brand of horror focuses on startling the player and grossing them out - much of its iconic feeling of tension and dread comes from the resource-management aspect of the mechanics. By contrast, Silent Hill's flavor of horror focuses on, well, horrifying the player. It's really telling that one of the first items you find is a radio that spits out white noise when an enemy is nearby, as if the game is telling you it doesn't need to resort to jumpscares to be scary. Indeed, the shock appearance of new enemies when going through old environs - a favorite technique from the Resi and Doom jumpscare toolboxes - is almost never utilized in this game! Nevertheless, it managed to evoke a primal feeling of unsettled dread in me as I played - it was not uncommon for me to spend what felt like hours in the nightmarish otherworld only to look at the time and see that 15 minutes had passed!

Resident Evil invites you to engage with it as a game once the initial horror aspect has worn off - it's all about knowing where the resources are, the optimum routes to get where you need, the mastery of movement, and the good judgment to put it all together. Silent Hill is comparatively clunky in all those respects, but as a 32-bit horror experience it really has no parallel.

Not to say that this wonderful first outing in the Silent Hill series is perfect - I think its chief weakness lies in its pacing. It feels rather unfinished, with plenty of sequences in the second half (especially the trip to the lighthouse and a nondescript second sewer level) somehow feeling both too skimpy and needlessly 'fillery' at the same time. And I spent an inordinate amount of time being lost - my first run was over 10 hours and my second (where I didn't do anything particularly different besides just knowing where to go) was 4, which equates to roughly 60% of my first run wandering aimlessly around.

I really do hope that in addition to the inevitable increase in production values, the later games in the series will manage to preserve the special brand of nightmare that this game hit on in its first try. If you'll excuse me, I'll go hug my daughter now.

(Endings unlocked: Bad, Good+)

Silent Hill is without question one of the most incredibly immersive games i’ve ever played, with its mix of a horrifying atmosphere supported by a brilliant soundtrack to back it up and classic untouchable survival horror gameplay the game is a struggle to put down as you try and unravel what is exactly happening in this town. Even with its flaws like the emotional beats marred by the wooden voice acting, and puzzles that feel a little too abstract for my pea sized brain, I felt the general experience was, unsurprisingly, an incredible time. Truly a beyond special video game that I feel everyone should experience.

The one Silent Hill that gets shrugged off as dated and uninteresting, which I couldn't disagree more.

The weakest of the main 4 games plotwise (even still, features a more than decent story compared to modern horror games like Amnesia: Rebirth or Alan Wake), but who established most of what makes Silent Hill the best horror franchise in gaming: The dream-like nature, woven with the echoes of Alessa's psyche reverberating through the world; the esoteric symbolism around emotions and trauma; and the relentless suffocating atmosphere of the Otherworld, and its alien nature. All these elements, combined with the game's remarkable art design, graphics and an unforgettable soundtrack (that somehow only improves with each subsequent installment), solidify Silent Hill as a timeless classic.

On a more specific note, I love the piano and zodiac puzzle so much. I remember as a little kid playing this game at a friend's house and never figuring out the solution to the first, even though we tried like the whole day. Well, this time around I spent like 20 minutes alone trying to make sense of the second, and when I figured the solution it only made me feel dumber for not realizing how simple it was, goddammit. As a positive, now I know a little bit about astrology... lol.

★★★½ – Great ✅

KOBE! (That's a dog head)

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.

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.

-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.

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

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.

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.

Iconic classic horror game, unmatched and scary even on a PS1. Now Resident Evil as a series never truly felt the scary in this way, it was more about inventory management, oh god can I survive, tenseness of that and such. Silent Hill however has always been scarier on a deeper psychological level and this game alone proves and starts that, it's a beautiful game with beautiful visuals. Maybe this is just me but the fact that it's lower poly makes it scarier in some aspects, perhaps it's cuz it makes you use your imagination more? Tho that is something the sequels also do, maybe the fact that they look less like real human beings and such makes everything seem inhuman and disconnected in a way (but in a good way!). Either way, great start to a beautiful series.

I went for and got the GOOD+ ending.

I loved this; I think it's my favorite PS1 game so far. It's the first time I've finished a game and thought "Yes! THAT was worth buying a PS3 for!"

I found it surprisingly scary. The sound design in particular was incredible; I was recently impressed by the soundscapes in Doom 3 and I feel like that pulled a lot from this. Just a huge range of atmospheres from unsettling to outright panic-inducing. It blended so well with the cold rusty aesthetic of the graphics which, again, wow.

What really stood out to me throughout Silent Hill was how well they made the system's limitations work for them. Low resolution, polygon count and draw distance would be a fetter to a lesser team, but this game leans into them as strong artistic choices that end up being the pillars of the game's aesthetic.

The whole game is a testament to the Jaws thing: the scariest things are unknown. The graphics, sound and plot all use ambiguity and limited information in the best ways possible. Even with the stilted acting and muddy graphics I was glued to the screen every cutscene trying to soak in any scrap of information to understand what was happening to Harry. Understanding would give me power, but this is the kind of game that withholds more power than it gives and it constantly kept me wanting more.

My favorite TV show of all time is Lost. I love how the plot is doled out in tantalizing chunks, each a degree weirder than the last. I felt that same drip-feed of "Wait what?!" moments playing Silent Hill.

In addition to loving the creative choices, I was also really impressed with the technical presentation. The camera in particular seems ahead of its time. Third person cameras even today struggle in small interior spaces and I was kinda blown away by how they were able to split the difference between a curated experience and full player control. I felt like I could always see what I needed to see, and I was hardly ever fighting the camera.

It's actually kind of funny to see how much of Sony's first party formula is all right here. Cinematic presentation, over-the-shoulder camera, wide linear world design with open segments, ranged/melee action, in-engine cutscenes, sad dad... hell this game might as well be Last of Us Part 0.

I think the game's biggest weakness is its boss fights. I had to retry each one of these a bunch of times which really drained a lot of the momentum and tension. It would be different if it weren't so clunky to control, or the fights were designed around that clunkiness. But it felt like they required a level of dexterity that was hard to achieve, then wouldn't be needed again until the next fight.

I'm not really holding that against it, though, because they always gave you a nice checkpoint and they were good pace breaks. Considering you spend 90% of the game running around and like 5% of it in boss fights, it's probably a good thing that the running around is the best part. Being scared of what's behind you, dreading what's ahead of you, piecing together clues while a horrible sound plays at an uncomfortable volume is where the game is at its peak.

Silent Hill is in such an intriguing position historically; it feels like it sits on a little sliver of the Venn diagram between 20th and 21st century design. You've got these forward-thinking, gorgeous lo-fi 3D environments that are filled with old-school touches like giving each little cabinet and desk its own text description. It really feels unique and special and I'm really glad for my time with it.

The way the camera shifts defines the space so much in Silent Hill. Even right off the bat in the dream sequence intro, the game's dynamic angles evoke much disorientation to further emphasize the oppressive mood. These sparks of unsettling creativity aren't limited to just the regular exploration but continue in the cutscenes that slowly piece together the cryptic narrative, world, and characters of the game. The merry-go-round sequence is striking where Harry reveals to Cybil that Cheryl isn’t his biological daughter as the text scrolls by with the obscured attraction in operation. The whole final act in general is so thoroughly cinematic and tense with its own stylish flourishes. Everything terrifying, tragic and so effective can be seen with the scene where Lisa comes to realize her fate as she begs Harry to stay, and he flees and shuts the door on her. It’s the peak of the game for me in communicating Silent Hill’s nightmarish tone and themes on the occult, trauma, and religious abuse and domination, and everything else across the short journey adds to that.

Also contributing to the foreboding atmosphere of Silent Hill is the stellar sound design. The densely fog world is eerily quiet with wind howls and Harry’s footsteps filling the zones until the radio static comes alive alerting of nearby fleshy monsters approaching to kill. The flapping, quick successive pattering, distorted laughing, distant creaks, and many other disembodied groans and moans; it's all very threatening as they chase Harry across the town until he reaches the various locales of Silent Hill. It's hard to pick a favorite out of the many as the brilliant sound design is just consistently great across the board; the hospital, elementary school, nowhere and the sewers are particularly oppressive and unnerving to walk and run through, the darkness obscuring the threat of what lurks beyond. Even silence is a powerful tool in raising anxiety on what happens next.

On less frightening things, the progression of main areas through puzzles felt very intriguing to solve. It's very Resident Evil 1 like but sometimes even more cryptic in a handful of puzzles. Outside of those is a good sense of exploration with extra items that can be collected around the areas and many, while still completely optional, can have fascinating effects on how Silent Hill wraps up in the various endings, upping the replayability of the game. How the game controls might be the only sticking point for those filtered by tank controls, but they never felt too unwieldy and are easy to adjust to. Not to mention the game is far easier and more forgiving than Resident Evil's early titles as a surplus of resources are always around the corner and shooting or hitting enemies connects as long as you’re facing them. This might undercut some tension since you can just mow down or run away from them with little risk to taking damage and ending up saving more resources, but this didn’t bother me. Additionally, the boss fights are pretty simple and short to kill, but again who plays these games for the riveting gameplay?

(Note: The following is the blurb I wrote for Silent Hill as part of user Pangburn's epic "Sight and Sound Poll"-style project where he essentially established Backloggd's definitive canon. Can't say enough good things about that massive undertaking and the work he put in - and for making me write this. Despite SH being my own "canon" favorite game for, I don't know, fifteen years or something now, I've never written about it. I find it extremely difficult to articulate its qualities - which in my mental laziness I feel like should be totally self-evident - and it's effected me in such a strongly and weirdly personal way that I don't feel I have the vocabulary to describe it. But I do love it, and he knew that, and despite me initially demurring like a chickenshit, he got me to stand up and be counted for this absolutely beyond-godlike classic. So, since I don't know that I'll ever find my way to writing more about it outside of passionate defenses and references in random comments, I figured I should repurpose it here, for posterity. Anyway.)

Building further on the steady development of its progenitors SWEET HOME, ALONE IN THE DARK, and RESIDENT EVIL, Silent Hill expanded the scope of video game horror both outward and inward. Rather than a mansion or series of interconnected buildings, it gave players a sprawling, fully three-dimensional town full of terrors to explore, yet focused on assaulting them mainly with their own fear of the unknown, clouding the story, characters, monsters, and environments in metaphor and dream logic, keeping them submerged in an oppressive sense of dread that made opening any new door genuinely unnerving. The aesthetic - essentially unmatched on the PlayStation - married Japanese sensibilities with the nightmarish imagery of its developers' favorite western horror media, and created a dark and atmospheric, crisp yet deliberately obscured look and sound that threw the doors open wide for a whole subgenre of J-Horror games that would follow. Silent Hill's project and effect on the player can be understood through its most indelible image, one that continues to define scary video games to this day - a normal person alone on an abandoned city street, faced with an enveloping gray fog ahead, crippled by the fear of taking even one step farther into it.

The birth of psychological horror in gaming.

If Resident Evil is an sci-fi action horror with zombies and monsters, then Silent Hill is an psychological horror arthouse drama with cults and demons. Another thing, this is in fact my favorite PS1 game.

The level design and music are the best of the series and the story is amazing aswell since it offers some great mysteries and the arguably most tragic character in gaming.

It's worth mentioning that this is also the scariest Silent Hill game and thus the scariest game ever made. It for sure has the scariest monsters in the franchise. The puzzles are also well thought out but not overly complicated. The boss fights are fine aswell. Better as in SH2 but not than SH3.

The characters are also alright with Alessa being the most interesting in it. There isn't much else to say other that it gets overshadowed way to much by it's successor.

10/10 nightmares become reality.

Check my review for the movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill/

This is basically a "parenting fail" compilations

This game is a work of art, plain and simple. The atmosphere created is completely in symbiosis with the materials of its time. The vibrant and peculiar 3D of the PS1, its inability to render depth of field, the audio limitations that slow down the dialogues (it feels like being in a Rohmer film): remove one of these elements and the house of cards collapses. Remastering this title is impossible.

The game is TRULY frightening on many levels. To highlight just one element: the radio alarm. You always know there's an enemy nearby, but where? No jump scares: the game doesn't aim to scare us, but rather to terrorize us. I finished the game in 3 sessions and sometimes I was relieved to turn off the PlayStation because the atmosphere is so oppressive. My neck is still tense from this experience. Harry is never in a safe space; the player is always in danger.

The sound atmosphere and music, like any good horror film, are the scoliotic backbone of this hell. Between haunting drones and dark industrial sounds, the hearing is put to the test. Let it be known, I don't think I'll buy the vinyl to listen to it on a Sunday afternoon, unless I'm in need of an anxiety attack (aka never).

However, I must admit that I played it like a 'walking sim' by putting the game on 'easy' mode. The gameplay itself has aged relatively poorly, and the boss scenes are particularly bad. The interesting part lies in exploration and puzzle-solving. Its way of revealing the game's lore through objects and descriptions enhances immersion. I also have to admit that I am particularly a fan of the 'evolving' map system that prevents us from having to repeatedly open a locked door 15 times in a row. I look forward to playing the sequels

"The fear of the blood tends to create fear for the flesh."

A child's psyche materializes into shifting nightmares. Abstraction becomes the norm, and degradation follows suit. Mere sounds induce terror, yet the horror lies in the physical space itself.

Will you run or will you face the unknown terror?

Silent Hill begins with a montage that quickly establishes a vibe of dread and curiosity with its odd musical composition of folky, eerie strings and adventurous guitar. The game brazenly employs creative camera angles, adopting a visual style that is inventive and distinct. The limitations of the PS1 led to the addition of fog to limit vision, creating a lurking sense of claustrophobia despite being in an open area. Harry is characterized by the gameplay itself. He staggers and puts his hands up when he runs into walls. He gasps for breath after running. His aim is unpredictable, either landing headshots after headshots or just completely missing the enemy 5 times in a row. It's obvious the guy has no experience with the situation he finds himself in, but he's intelligent enough to deduce from the clues around him. It disempowers him, which in turn disempowers us, the players. The everyman aspect of Harry Mason is also what makes him an endearing protagonist, navigating and overcoming otherworldly obstacles in search of his daughter. It makes him more believable in his fatherly plight. He also behaves like a father. I mean, marking stuff on your map, charging at freaky creatures with a pistol, going, "Have you seen a little girl? Short, black hair? Just turned seven last month?" every time he meets someone? No bachelor is doing that shit in a haunted town. As Harry explores the desolate town, the details start to get muddier, the plot makes less sense, and even the physical space starts to wildly contradict itself as you go from "Fog World" to "Otherworld" and finally "Nowhere."

The side characters are really interesting on their own and reveal a ton of details about Silent Hill. Cybill is a fearless officer who comes to Silent Hill to investigate the lack of communication in the town. She's the rational, skeptical voice, questioning the paranormal and attributing the cultists to craziness or drugs. She trusts Harry with her gun and takes it upon herself to do whatever it takes to find Cheryl. She's an unfortunate soul dragged into the wrong place at the wrong time. The blues of Cybill stand out starkly in her environment, especially in comparison to Lisa, who wears a red jacket and red shoes. Lisa is another innocent yet tragic character who had to endure years and years of abuse from Kaufman. Oblivious to her dark fate and refusing to come to terms with it, she cries out for help from Harry until she starts bleeding. It's a devastating moment because, unlike Cybill, you can't save Lisa. That melancholic, guilt-ridden score that plays right after does NOT help either. Kaufman himself is an odd figure. He's the director of Alchemilla Hospital who forms a contract with Dahlia to station Alessa in the hospital. The mutual benefits of this flew over my head. Presumably, Kaufmann wanted money, and Dahlia just wanted Alessa taken care of. Kaufman stations Lisa and hooks her on drugs to take care of the unhealing Alessa. Dahlia is the creepy, abusive cult leader nun trying to invoke god into a physical form by having her psychic daughter supernaturally impregnated or some shit. Tame stuff like that, you know. Alessa does not want to do that, so she splits her soul in half. One half turns into Cheryl, who is abandoned and later adopted by Harry and his wife, and the other remains with the cult. In the end, both Lisa and Alessa get to enact some form of vengeance, either by electrocuting their abuser alive or by taking them to the pits of unending nightmares. So there is catharsis, somewhat.

The apocalyptic world is a nightmare in its purest form. The level designs are basic at first but reveal themselves to be brimming with details. Degradation follows wherever you look. Hospital wards coated in blood, rooms with stained beds, mutilated bodies hung on crosses, and school corridors filled with the quiet laughs of children and murky, disgusting creatures roaming about. All of these are manifestations of Alessa's psyche. Her distorted perceptions of classmates, her fear of animals, insects, creatures from fairy tales, doctors, and nurses who kept her alive. 240p baddies die bloody ass deaths for no reason. Innocence and purity are tainted with blood. These buildings that are usually bustling with people and kids are in bottomless decay, reflecting the deep psychological and physical scars inflicted upon Alessa by these spaces and its inhabitants. It's unsettling, and that feeling is accentuated by the ingenious sound design. Every footstep, every door crack, and every shriek of every enemy is designed to induce terror. You don't ever get used to it. Least of all that industrial, solemn background music. It's beautiful, serene, yet creepy. I don't know how to describe it properly, but it is etched in my mind. It's one of those aesthetics that just does not leave you. It sets an astonishingly high bar for later horror games to follow. Within the depths of hidden items, comes its replay value. One playthrough is satisfactory but to truly experience the story you have to play it more than once. I made the "mistake" of not saving this game at relevant points. So after I landed the Bad+ ending, I had to replay it in New Fear mode from the beginning. The surprising thing is that that only grew my appreciation for this game. And that's really the lasting brilliance of this 25 year old game.

The more I play these pre-extinction PS1 games (MGS1 and that's about it), the more I realise that graphics are just not that important if the game is made by talented people and can bear its weight despite the technological limitations. As I mentioned earlier, the said technological limitations birthed one of the most iconic looks of a video game ever. As you play games from that era, it becomes so much easier to lose yourself in the world. You stop caring about the number of pixels that you can probably count on your fingers, you stop caring about the fiddly controls of the PS1 era (I'm not even gonna pretend these were a bitch to get used to at first), and you stop caring about Harry jittering all the time for no reason. You just lose yourself in this bewildering, mystifying world. I don't wanna say it, but it is soothing in a way.

I think what I find fascinating is how much the story is treated as a means to explore psychological breakdown, rather than solely concerned with being part of a larger narrative or mystery. Even if your experience ends up being somewhat like mine and the story doesn't make much sense unless you read the Wikipedia page, there's still a basic understanding of mental deterioration that makes itself evident through the environment alone. That, to me, is a commendable feat of storytelling. The various endings further prove that Silent Hill is essentially a player's own story. It doesn't matter what speaks to you.

There's always something for someone in Silent Hill.

9/10.

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.

Coming back to this after playing SH2 first is definitely a time, because no matter what, this game was gonna feel date, despite that, SH1 is still an enjoyable experience. It may not be as scary in terms of enemy design and symbolism, but it makes it up for it in the oppressive atmosphere and sound design. The controls take a bit of getting used to, being a tank control PS1 horror but it really does click fast. It can be a bit obtuse as times but overall I didn't struggle as much as I thought I would. Another solid trip into Silent Hill.

An Author And His Daughter Took A Vacation To A Small Town In Maine. What Happened Next Will SHOCK You

Silent Hill was not my first horror game. That honor goes to Clock Tower on the Super Famicom, which introduced me to the innate pleasures of having your guts spooked off. It also wasn't my first traditional survival horror game - that would be the 2002 remake of Resident Evil, which made me realize that just because you have a gun does not mean you are safe. However, Silent Hill was the first horror game I played that made me feel something more than just fear. It made me think, not just about the place of horror in video games but also the things that make us afraid. It made me positively convinced that video games were the ideal medium for horror: That the easiest way to get somebody to sweat is to put them in the driver's seat. And what's more, it showed me that horror and fear are very multifaceted things, and that I had a definite interest in exploring all of the branches of that path. So basically, it ruined my life, and I'm very thankful for that.

I will note that while I'm not giving any explicit story spoilers, I will be including screenshots, music and touching on game mechanics (including how to achieve different endings), so if you want to go in completely blind, I recommend skipping on this review until you've tried it yourself.

Even after dropping the disc into my PSone, I still have difficulty reckoning with the fact this is an actual game that was released in 1999. Everything about it feels so strangely ahead of its time. The psychological slant to the game's horror immediately sets it apart from its contemporaries, which is naturally a big part of why it's so fondly remembered today. It's a visual feast, with Silent Hill's frequent switches between a dim, snowy ghost town and a fever dream of blood, steel and rust making you feel an almost perverse kind of joy when returning to the former from the latter. The series' trademark fog, assuredly as much a product of pragmatism as it was a deliberate artistic decision, performs admirably in its task of making the vast stretches of asphalt and concrete feel endless and fraught with unseen danger. Indeed, the denizens of that fog have inspired designs that are wonderfully woeful abstractions of otherwise ordinary creatures. Once the lights go out, your flashlight will be your sole source of relief - although relief is perhaps not the right word, as it will just as readily confirm your fears of the dark as it will assuage them. At its absolute best, the use of lighting in Silent Hill is stunning, providing a lovely juxtaposition between fully realized horror and the fear of the unknown. Even age hasn't necessarily rounded the edge off: The low-resolution textures lend a degree of ambiguity to everything, making your surroundings appear as a waking nightmare. This has not gone unnoticed by modern game developers. It's all capped off by Akira Yamaoka's phenomenal sound direction, which brings the horror to life in ways simply not seen in games up to that point. A symphony of frantic synths, thunderous percussion and monstrous mechanical noise punctuate the high-tension moments, while his more mellowed-out stylings provide a mesmerizing and almost relaxing vibe for the spaces between. The creaking of ancient doors and the clanking of metal beneath your feet. A screeching radio alerts you to the presence of enemies, and a droning air raid siren heralds a shift in scenery. And of course, despite the powerful soundscape, there is clearly still an understanding of the value of silence. It really is a masterclass in creating a disturbing atmosphere, and while there have been plenty of developers to follow in Silent Hill's massive footsteps, I still think we haven't seen anything quite like it to this day - even within the series itself, post-Team Silent.

Darting from building to building trying to keep your face un-chewed, especially in the later of portions of the game, is a delightfully panic-inducing exercise. Once you're behind closed doors, whatever safety you felt in managing to get off of the streets is quickly replaced by the dread of navigating dark and dilapidated corridors and rooms filled with brand new atrocities. Resident Evil famously made the opening of each door a point of suspense, but Silent Hill managed to accomplish much the same without the need to dramatize the action of it. You'll hesitate opening that door purely because you're uncertain you really want to see what's on the other side (if it opens at all, but that's a totally different conversation). Sometimes you'll hear the most awful noise with no apparent source. Sometimes you'll walk through a door only to exit into a place it very clearly should not have. Sometimes the game outright gaslights you. It's a hellish experience from start to finish, and if you allow yourself to be absorbed it will continue to haunt you for a long time after the fact.

A big part of what makes the horrors of Silent Hill so potent is the way Harry's position as "Guy Everyman" is leveraged. Once the controls are handed over to you, the player, you have about about as much of a clue as to what's going on as our hero does. Every time he says "what", you're probably right there with him, even if the lack of emotion in his delivery doesn't adequately represent your own level of concern. The antagonists know it, too - they willfully keep Harry in the dark about what's really going on in the town, aware that they can get him to do what they want so long as they're just vague enough in giving him "advice". He's getting strung along, and you are, too. Harry, for his part, doesn't have time to care. He only wants to save his daughter. You might not be able to directly sympathize with his motivations, but you can assuredly understand why he would be willing to literally go to Hell and back.

Of course, the designers are counting on you not wasting any time in your endeavors to escape town, and have at least one or two pitfalls awaiting you. If you just do as you're told, paying close attention throughout, you will likely still unravel the mystery behind this hellscape... Though perhaps a bit too late to do anything meaningful with the revelation. Admittedly, the execution here is a bit sloppy. Getting the best endings requires behaving in a manner somewhat disingenuous for a concerned father. Obscure requirements to earn your bittersweet finale are by no means uncommon in this genre. However, given Harry's objective is (understandably) to find Cheryl and get the hell out of the proverbial Dodge, it feels a little extreme that actually accomplishing this task requires putting his quest on the backburner to further risk his life in a few out of the way buildings and alleys. If there was anybody in town who both knew the truth and wanted Harry to know, it'd be a bit more understandable. But since you're largely on your own here, you're likely to have your "oooooh" moment a stone's throw from the staff roll. It makes a second playthrough feel like more of an obligation rather than the result of a lack of foresight on the player's part.

And as you can probably imagine, it's really the gameplay itself where the experience starts to fall apart for Silent Hill. Everything about it is perfectly typical for the time period in which it was released. Harry controls like a tank. You collect weapons and ammunition and health items and plot coupons. Solve puzzles, kill enemies, do everything you can to survive until that next save point. While plenty at the time were making a point of Konami's latest being "more than just a Resident Evil clone", it's easy enough to imagine how some people might come to that conclusion: Written out on paper, the two series barely sound any different. Silent Hill's interpretation of those concepts is perfectly inoffensive, and perhaps even less so than other examples due to the relative lack of static camera angles and pre-rendered environments. It also eschews other common aspects of the survival horror genre, such as inventory management and limited saves. And yet, precisely because the game is so straightforward comparatively, it makes the gameplay tropes that are here feel a bit toothless and vestigial. The handful of puzzles in the game are either brain-dead easy or weirdly obtuse, but in either case aren't what I would call mentally stimulating. Your foes are great in number and definitely unpleasant to face down, but you'll quickly find that there's never much reason to loiter out in the open and thus can spend a large portion of your time simply kiting them and saving your bullets for when they're absolutely necessary. The game is plenty generous with regards to ammunition and restoratives, and if you play your cards right you'll only rarely need to dip into those pools, as the more confined spaces you'll spend the majority of your time in are perfectly manageable with melee weapons. Once you find the emergency hammer, anything short of a full-on ambush will fall before the might of Harry. Overall, for as oppressive as your surroundings are, the game mechanics themselves don't lend to the dread as much as you might hope they would. The only real sticking point there is the bosses, some of which are capable of killing Harry in one or two hits even on Normal difficulty. While it totally makes sense for an ordinary human being to drop dead after being plugged twice in the chest, it doesn't make for an especially climactic fight. It feels like a concession for the level of challenge being fairly low otherwise, but I'm undecided on whether or not playing on Hard necessarily rectifies these issues or just makes the experience more frustrating. Of course, I am also speaking from the perspective of somebody who has played these kinds of games a plethora of times, so perhaps everything will still stick the landing for most people. There is the obligatory ranking system, so if you're eager to prove yourself, you can pour some time into trying to achieve the full ten stars.

The game's narrative can be hit-or-miss as well. The writing gets the job done but is sometimes a bit too dry for its own good, leading to some unintentionally humorous moments. The accompanying voice acting, while surprisingly decent for the time, is sorely lacking in emotional weight. The story isn't especially deep, either, although it is definitely well thought out and it leaves enough room open for personal interpretation. Other aspects of the world of Silent Hill have been explored plenty in the game's numbered sequels. On the presentation level, while many still find the chunky and muddy visuals appealing, it is nonetheless a 3D game from the 90s and it shows. At the very least, the CG - while still a little uncanny at times - has held up remarkably well and stands out as being one of the better examples from that time period, even placed next to works from the likes of companies like Square. In my personal opinion, the full package still feels remarkably fresh in spite of being nearly two and a half decades old. However, like any major media milestone, how much mileage you get out of it may largely come down to how new you are to the scene, or at the very least how cognizant you are of the impact the game has had.

When all is said and done, Silent Hill is far from being a perfect game, but I think it's a beautiful one regardless. Team Silent tried to create something unique and darkly affecting, and I think it's fair to say they wholly succeeded. Just like the protagonists of each game, some of us stepped into Silent Hill, and some may have even escaped - but I will never be able to forget that town for as long as I live. If you haven't experienced it yourself, then find a way to play it, turn out the lights and slap on a pair of headphones. If you come back from your little vacation satisfied, then you're in luck - this is only the beginning.