Still somehow not the worst Silent Hill game (I genuinely had a more frustrating time with Homecoming) but I struggle to come up with redeeming qualities for this game beyond it being baseline functional. The gameplay is beyond basic, with the usual dungeon-crawler furnishings but without anything that makes it unique or exciting. You walk into a series of interconnected rooms, kill the enemies, and acquire keys and puzzle items to proceed to more rooms. It doesn't need to be nearly as long as it is and the new level gimmicks later dungeons provide don't do much to make things more interesting. The biggest problem has to be the unique tiles, which provide specific effects when you or enemies stand on them, such as healing you, slowing down time, or draining your health to name a few, but these tiles are invisible unless you're standing directly on top of them, meaning its incredibly easy to forget where they are and just get fucked over randomly with no real strategy to avoiding them or using them to your advantage. The respawn system is more complicated, as post-launch updates actually overhauled it significantly, and I forgot to update my game until halfway through, so I got to experience both. Originally, if you died in a level, you'd have to either restart all of your progress or restart from your last save point, which doesn't sound unreasonable but considering how labyrinthine the levels are and how much needs to be collected it makes the game feel extremely frustrating and repetitive. The update changed it to where you respawn immediately at the beginning or a save point without any progress lost, and you simply have to backtrack to your death point to collect your lost items which while still not ideal is significantly less frustrating. It almost felt like cheating, since it was clear the levels were not designed around this and the update was a hasty response to player feedback. The game also has a blood/light system, which determines which ending or abilities you acquire based on which enemies you kill. This isn't frustrating by any means but it's very underdeveloped and having to monitor which kind of enemy I'm about to bury an axe into kinda sucks what little fun there is out of the combat. A lot of enemies also just suck to engage with, such as the Insane Cancers which take up an absurd amount of damage and explode upon death, or the Bogeymen who are often surrounded by black fog which miraculously makes every attack miss and stalks you throughout the entire level. There are also puzzles, which are randomly generated and technically different every time you play. This RNG element doesn't matter though, as the puzzles are almost entirely the same every time. They all amount to "this item is sorted this way, in this direction" and the variation is astoundingly limited considering its random nature. At some point you don't even need to read the puzzle memos, you can just guess them via very quick trial and error. It makes you wonder why they even bothered to have them at all. It's not an outright painful gaming experience by any means and is largely functional in moment-to-moment gameplay, but it's boring, repetitive, and oftentimes frustrating.
The story isn't anything to write home about either, written by at the time series producer Tomm Hulett, who also has a story writing credit on Silent Hill Downpour. The story changes based on the player's actions, and whether you've absorbed more blood or light, negative consequences can occur for those whose memories you are attempting to change. Unfortunately, this element also feels underbaked. You never actually meet any of the characters whose memories you change, and although the game attempts to fill in the blanks via memos and TVs which broadcast past conversations, it's hard to feel connected to any of it because you never get to feel their reactions to the changed events, you are simply told them. Beyond that, these characters are very one-dimensional and essentially just serve as light context for why the player is exploring these levels. The game also pretty much tells you its themes at the end of the game, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't do it in any way that feels earned and rather a shoehorned way to catch the player up on whatever they may have missed. The game also seemingly tries to be a canonical Silent Hill story, which again isn't necessarily a bad thing, but considering how much it also tries to be a game filled with fanservice for all of the previous entries these two elements do not mix. It's difficult not to feel rubbed the wrong way when the game is trying to tell a serious and emotional story set within Silent Hill's world setting while also having Pyramid Head and other monsters manifested specifically for other characters appear willy-nilly like they're Umbrella BOWs.
Unfortunately, Book of Memories' presentation isn't up to par, and can't elevate an experience that is otherwise a bit hollow. The art direction seems to miss the appeal of Silent Hill entirely, and if it weren't for the copious amounts of blood, feels almost like a bowdlerized interpretation of the series made for younger players. The Otherworlds you run through aren't remotely creative, and not only do they feel demonstrably "not Silent Hill", but also wouldn't feel interesting on their own in an original title. The game may contain rivers of lava, stinging hot metal walls, lush forests, and musty temples, but I feel like I could grab any other dungeon crawler and find similar if not outright identical environments. The only one that stood out to me was the Water Otherworld, as its metal catwalks, pouring rain, and lived-in feel reminded me a lot of Downpour. While I may not consider that the "right Silent Hill" to take inspiration from, it certainly feels more at home than the game's otherwise substandard environments. Although the game lifts enemies from prior entries, a missed opportunity to design original creatures fitting the game's themes in my opinion, the game does present a few newly-created monsters. The biggest examples are the Guardians, the bosses at the end of each zone who symbolically represent the individuals whose memories the player is trying to rewrite, and their designs honestly confuse me. While not strictly bad designs, they feel like they come from a PS3-era God of War clone, and fail to stand out on their own or appropriately blend with the rest of the series. There are a few new mooks too, such as the Mothers and the Blood Babies, neither of which I care for. The former feels like yet another oversexualized Silent Hill monster without any real thematic reason to be so, and the latter feels like a Grey Child knockoff, which is even odder considering the children are added to the game in the DLC. Once again, they fail to stand out in any sense.
The game's tech isn't much of a looker either, and upon sharing screenshots with my friends, they remarked that it resembled an early 2010s iOS game in a negative sense. Textures are all absurdly low-resolution, which wouldn't normally be a huge problem considering the game's camera is set at a far distance, but ground textures often look stretched and resized poorly which removes any benefit this could have. Character models look outright uncanny, with most facial features conveyed through textures, making it resemble an early Dreamcast game. Environments all look samey with little variation, and what little detail exists usually doesn't add quite enough. The game tries to mask this by using at-the-time current gen graphical features such as specular mapping and normal maps, but it's simply putting a bow on an otherwise unsatisfying presentation. Performance is also quite bad, with the game seemingly targeting 30 FPS but rarely hitting it, and often chugs along like it's nobody's business. The patch seemed to iron out some of the performance issues, but later areas still struggled to maintain a consistent framerate in any sense of the word. I understand that Book of Memories probably didn't have a AAA budget, but considering there are much better-looking games on the Vita I find the poor performance to be inexcusable, and the game itself to look rather poorly put together.
The soundtrack was composed by Daniel Licht, who worked on Downpour the same year and is also known for working on the Dexter and Dishonored franchises respectively. While I wasn't necessarily a fan of Licht's work on Downpour, I'll admit that it was competent enough to suit most of what that game needed. Here, however, I struggle to describe the game's score. I'll simply call it "video game music" because it is that unmemorable. None of the tracks give the levels a defined atmosphere, instead, I naturally tune it out while playing, as they fail to immerse me in the game's world nor are they catchy enough to be memorable in their own right. The only one that stood out to me was Water World, as just like the level itself, it had an atmosphere that I thought was surprisingly competent in matching the atmosphere the area provided, which the other tracks do not do for me. I'll also say the game's credits theme, a rendition of Akira Yamaoka's Love Psalm, is genuinely fantastic, is one of my favorite Silent Hill vocal tracks, and is a perfect closer for the game.
Silent Hill: Book of Memories gets a lot of flack within the Silent Hill fanbase, but due to the Vita's low sales and the game's general lack of availability, I honestly doubt most of those people have played the game for themselves and are criticizing it on concept alone. I don't like doing that as I do want to give every game a fair shot, and unfortunately, I'm sad to report that I think Book of Memories, even when approached on its own terms, is a below-average and sometimes even bad dungeon crawler which fails to bring a fresh breath of air to the series or expand on the universe meaningfully. I don't think it's as awful as some claim, it's entirely functional for the most part, but it simply isn't fun. The mechanics feel half-baked and poorly thought out, the story is simplistic and difficult to get invested in, the game doesn't have much of its own identity, and the presentation is bland and uninspired. I don't have many positives to give the game, but I'll simply say that it wasn't painful enough to give anything less than a 4/10, there is a baseline competence here that I can't put aside. I can't recommend this game to anyone though, because I don't even think the game itself knows what audience it is targeting.
The story isn't anything to write home about either, written by at the time series producer Tomm Hulett, who also has a story writing credit on Silent Hill Downpour. The story changes based on the player's actions, and whether you've absorbed more blood or light, negative consequences can occur for those whose memories you are attempting to change. Unfortunately, this element also feels underbaked. You never actually meet any of the characters whose memories you change, and although the game attempts to fill in the blanks via memos and TVs which broadcast past conversations, it's hard to feel connected to any of it because you never get to feel their reactions to the changed events, you are simply told them. Beyond that, these characters are very one-dimensional and essentially just serve as light context for why the player is exploring these levels. The game also pretty much tells you its themes at the end of the game, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't do it in any way that feels earned and rather a shoehorned way to catch the player up on whatever they may have missed. The game also seemingly tries to be a canonical Silent Hill story, which again isn't necessarily a bad thing, but considering how much it also tries to be a game filled with fanservice for all of the previous entries these two elements do not mix. It's difficult not to feel rubbed the wrong way when the game is trying to tell a serious and emotional story set within Silent Hill's world setting while also having Pyramid Head and other monsters manifested specifically for other characters appear willy-nilly like they're Umbrella BOWs.
Unfortunately, Book of Memories' presentation isn't up to par, and can't elevate an experience that is otherwise a bit hollow. The art direction seems to miss the appeal of Silent Hill entirely, and if it weren't for the copious amounts of blood, feels almost like a bowdlerized interpretation of the series made for younger players. The Otherworlds you run through aren't remotely creative, and not only do they feel demonstrably "not Silent Hill", but also wouldn't feel interesting on their own in an original title. The game may contain rivers of lava, stinging hot metal walls, lush forests, and musty temples, but I feel like I could grab any other dungeon crawler and find similar if not outright identical environments. The only one that stood out to me was the Water Otherworld, as its metal catwalks, pouring rain, and lived-in feel reminded me a lot of Downpour. While I may not consider that the "right Silent Hill" to take inspiration from, it certainly feels more at home than the game's otherwise substandard environments. Although the game lifts enemies from prior entries, a missed opportunity to design original creatures fitting the game's themes in my opinion, the game does present a few newly-created monsters. The biggest examples are the Guardians, the bosses at the end of each zone who symbolically represent the individuals whose memories the player is trying to rewrite, and their designs honestly confuse me. While not strictly bad designs, they feel like they come from a PS3-era God of War clone, and fail to stand out on their own or appropriately blend with the rest of the series. There are a few new mooks too, such as the Mothers and the Blood Babies, neither of which I care for. The former feels like yet another oversexualized Silent Hill monster without any real thematic reason to be so, and the latter feels like a Grey Child knockoff, which is even odder considering the children are added to the game in the DLC. Once again, they fail to stand out in any sense.
The game's tech isn't much of a looker either, and upon sharing screenshots with my friends, they remarked that it resembled an early 2010s iOS game in a negative sense. Textures are all absurdly low-resolution, which wouldn't normally be a huge problem considering the game's camera is set at a far distance, but ground textures often look stretched and resized poorly which removes any benefit this could have. Character models look outright uncanny, with most facial features conveyed through textures, making it resemble an early Dreamcast game. Environments all look samey with little variation, and what little detail exists usually doesn't add quite enough. The game tries to mask this by using at-the-time current gen graphical features such as specular mapping and normal maps, but it's simply putting a bow on an otherwise unsatisfying presentation. Performance is also quite bad, with the game seemingly targeting 30 FPS but rarely hitting it, and often chugs along like it's nobody's business. The patch seemed to iron out some of the performance issues, but later areas still struggled to maintain a consistent framerate in any sense of the word. I understand that Book of Memories probably didn't have a AAA budget, but considering there are much better-looking games on the Vita I find the poor performance to be inexcusable, and the game itself to look rather poorly put together.
The soundtrack was composed by Daniel Licht, who worked on Downpour the same year and is also known for working on the Dexter and Dishonored franchises respectively. While I wasn't necessarily a fan of Licht's work on Downpour, I'll admit that it was competent enough to suit most of what that game needed. Here, however, I struggle to describe the game's score. I'll simply call it "video game music" because it is that unmemorable. None of the tracks give the levels a defined atmosphere, instead, I naturally tune it out while playing, as they fail to immerse me in the game's world nor are they catchy enough to be memorable in their own right. The only one that stood out to me was Water World, as just like the level itself, it had an atmosphere that I thought was surprisingly competent in matching the atmosphere the area provided, which the other tracks do not do for me. I'll also say the game's credits theme, a rendition of Akira Yamaoka's Love Psalm, is genuinely fantastic, is one of my favorite Silent Hill vocal tracks, and is a perfect closer for the game.
Silent Hill: Book of Memories gets a lot of flack within the Silent Hill fanbase, but due to the Vita's low sales and the game's general lack of availability, I honestly doubt most of those people have played the game for themselves and are criticizing it on concept alone. I don't like doing that as I do want to give every game a fair shot, and unfortunately, I'm sad to report that I think Book of Memories, even when approached on its own terms, is a below-average and sometimes even bad dungeon crawler which fails to bring a fresh breath of air to the series or expand on the universe meaningfully. I don't think it's as awful as some claim, it's entirely functional for the most part, but it simply isn't fun. The mechanics feel half-baked and poorly thought out, the story is simplistic and difficult to get invested in, the game doesn't have much of its own identity, and the presentation is bland and uninspired. I don't have many positives to give the game, but I'll simply say that it wasn't painful enough to give anything less than a 4/10, there is a baseline competence here that I can't put aside. I can't recommend this game to anyone though, because I don't even think the game itself knows what audience it is targeting.