Maybe not a perfect 5/5 but given, you know, EVERYTHING that's going on here both technically and structurally (whether for it's time or not) it just feels wrong not to give it that. This is like everything I could ask for in a narrative video game. Further proof that nothing matches the original PlayStation's aesthetics. I always kind of push survival horror to the side despite the fact I'm always playing near perfect games from that genre. Haven't played something that's crawled under my skin this well in a long while, if ever. Hope to get the good ending (the one time I don't fully explore an area in this game upon immediately entering it and it SCREWS me) and try out those sequels (legally, but also I'm not paying like $100+ each for them) someday in the future.

Reviewed on Dec 19, 2022


4 Comments


1 year ago

I wasn’t a big fan of the narrative in sh1, to me it was more a of a cultist lore commentary rather than a character focused intimate experience which the game does hint at sometimes but never really gets through with it, but I have to agree with everything else. The aesthetic is unmatched and it really made me feel hopeless, truly a nightmare.
Can definitely agree with that but the skeleton of it all is enough to work for me. Nonetheless, I think I should've used the word "structurally" instead of "narratively" because there I was mainly referring to how the game builds up/creates the psychological terror/hellish nightmare atmosphere throughout. Just wonderful stuff.

1 year ago

Yeah, Silent Hill 1 is a game with some of the best narrative structure I've seen; essentially walking through this young, victimised girl's fragmented life, but I do feel like the game struggles to give you much of a reason to care, as there isn't much humanism or compelling motive beyond the 'dad looking for his daughter' trope, which isn't really explored all that well

1 year ago

^^yeah I can agree with that 👍