An upsetting start for Konami’s quantity-over-quality approach to their Silent Hill revival.
I won’t reiterate what’s already been said about the intrusive monetisation system, mind-numbing ‘puzzles’ and choppy animation. I will say the idea of a community based Telltale experience can work on other IP - The Walking Dead is kind-of all about group decisions leading to drastic consequences - but the true essence of Silent Hill is loneliness and isolation.
Granted, PT was, in some ways, community driven in its obtuse puzzles, but the experience was undoubtedly best played alone in the dark. Unlike PT, Ascension is simply not scary, at least in the way we want it to be! It is instead riddled with narrative cliches, dull characters and ineptly written dialogue. That said, even the best Silent Hill games overcome some of these aspects through animation alone. Take the limited expressions of James or Angela from SH2 for instance: so much of the emotion behind their scenes are conveyed through choice of character movement, camera angles and editing. Sure, Ascension has the daunting task of churning out 16 weeks (?!) worth of content and won’t have Kojima’s budget or tools for facial animation, but there are no excuses behind the consistently uninspired direction where most characters just stand and deliver clunky lines at a flat camera angle.
I could understand something like this going fine and maybe even unnoticed alongside the release of both the SH2 Remake and the movie, but starting the revival of a decade-dormant franchise with Silent Hill: Ascension casts a looming shadow of uncertainty over releases to come. We can only hope the worst is behind us.
I won’t reiterate what’s already been said about the intrusive monetisation system, mind-numbing ‘puzzles’ and choppy animation. I will say the idea of a community based Telltale experience can work on other IP - The Walking Dead is kind-of all about group decisions leading to drastic consequences - but the true essence of Silent Hill is loneliness and isolation.
Granted, PT was, in some ways, community driven in its obtuse puzzles, but the experience was undoubtedly best played alone in the dark. Unlike PT, Ascension is simply not scary, at least in the way we want it to be! It is instead riddled with narrative cliches, dull characters and ineptly written dialogue. That said, even the best Silent Hill games overcome some of these aspects through animation alone. Take the limited expressions of James or Angela from SH2 for instance: so much of the emotion behind their scenes are conveyed through choice of character movement, camera angles and editing. Sure, Ascension has the daunting task of churning out 16 weeks (?!) worth of content and won’t have Kojima’s budget or tools for facial animation, but there are no excuses behind the consistently uninspired direction where most characters just stand and deliver clunky lines at a flat camera angle.
I could understand something like this going fine and maybe even unnoticed alongside the release of both the SH2 Remake and the movie, but starting the revival of a decade-dormant franchise with Silent Hill: Ascension casts a looming shadow of uncertainty over releases to come. We can only hope the worst is behind us.