What a strange mix of things this game is.
As many people have pointed out, the second half of this game very much breaks all the magic that had previously been set in place in the first 3 hours. I couldn't be bothered to do endless backtracking to finish it and watched everything from that point on on Youtube.
This is such a bummer since Silent Hill 4 has such a strong unique personality ! Enemies are genuinely terrifying, the sets and atmosphere are second to none in horror games, and the whole schtick of going back to your room through a whole (and all that's done with said room) was a brilliant idea of a design for the structure of the game.
It's really a shame that they dropped the ball so hard game design-wise in the second half... You can see glimmers of brilliance in what they were trying to accomplish, but it didn't end up being a successful whole when everything was put together.
I still think it has one of the most interesting stories of anything Silent Hill I've played, and maybe my favorite art direction, hands-down. If only for the huge hospital corridor, this game deserves to be talked about to this day.
A very flawed if thoroughly original and noteworthy horror game.
As many people have pointed out, the second half of this game very much breaks all the magic that had previously been set in place in the first 3 hours. I couldn't be bothered to do endless backtracking to finish it and watched everything from that point on on Youtube.
This is such a bummer since Silent Hill 4 has such a strong unique personality ! Enemies are genuinely terrifying, the sets and atmosphere are second to none in horror games, and the whole schtick of going back to your room through a whole (and all that's done with said room) was a brilliant idea of a design for the structure of the game.
It's really a shame that they dropped the ball so hard game design-wise in the second half... You can see glimmers of brilliance in what they were trying to accomplish, but it didn't end up being a successful whole when everything was put together.
I still think it has one of the most interesting stories of anything Silent Hill I've played, and maybe my favorite art direction, hands-down. If only for the huge hospital corridor, this game deserves to be talked about to this day.
A very flawed if thoroughly original and noteworthy horror game.