Takes several pages out of the Silent Hill 3 playbook - it’s a story about a dual-identity teenage girl getting revenge on an unfair world (at the same time delving into a Keatsian bower realm of blood, shit and hair) with all the ambience to back it up…. for maybe the first 5 minutes? The enemy designs are really dumb, sorry. There’s a couple jumpscares that did get me (owed largely to some excellent sound design) but all tension evaporates like a fart in the wind when you see the first slug-thing enemy on the ground lol. Keeps narrative on a backfoot, all puzzles very intuitively designed, overall well-constructed and never overlong - by all measures, an excellent outing for the dev! Any RE/SH fan is gonna get a nice 10 hours out this one. Only complaint is there isn’t a nasty crow-man Mr. X chasing you throughout the game, but I guess if you want that, you can just play Fear & Hunger.

A lot of the reviews for this game focus mostly in the visuals, and while that's understandable given that they are both incredibly unique and give amazing feedback I'd hate to see the combat not get the praise it deserves.

Not only is the playable character's kit fluid but it also has very distinct functions for each attack, which make every action feel useful while keeping the controls from feeling bloated. A lot of 2D action games inspired by 3D character action end up struggling with this aspect and the movement, which made me really happy to see TraumaCore excel at both.

The shotgun did end up feeling excessively useful thanks to the short recharge time though, but I feel like this would be a far more relevant flaw if there were more bosses in the game, since mowing down the basic enemies with the weapon feels like part of the intended design of a game so focused in score attacking and speedrunning.

The sound design is also really underrated, even when the screen is completely covered in bullshit you can get a clear idea of what's going on because of the sound effects picked.

This is how you make a 2D hack n' slash game. I hope to see lots of devs get inspired by it.

a word of advice: if you love psychological horror, especially silent hill, YOU NEED TO READ CRIME & PUNISHMENT. i understand how a 600 page book released 150 years ago in a format that doesn't exist anymore can seem off-putting or intimidating; i promise you it hasn't aged a day. crime & punishment can suffocate you with tension and anxiety comparable to any horror movie or game using words alone. the characters are oceans of beauty and flaws that will stick with you forever. without dostoevsky, there would be no shining, there would be no subahibi, and there would be no silent hill. read it and thank me later.

I knew this was a good game when I drew a mustache on that one family’s portrait in the farmhouse, and in response, my friend erased it. This action created a tug of war, which resulted in me adding and him erasing the mustache repeatedly throughout the course of the level.

That was until finally, I trapped him in the middle of a co-op platforming puzzle and made him watch as I slowly walked back to the portrait to draw the mustache on before returning to finish the co-op puzzle, causing the level to end and emerging from the mustache war victorious as he wallowed in a pool of agonizing defeat.

I also got to beat his ass at connect four and fucking kill him at the end of the game.