This is a very strange game that somewhat confounds me. On one hand, SH4 very much fits in comfortably with the original trilogy as a familiar Silent Hill experience in atmosphere and writing, but on the other hand the developers seemed to forget to include "gameplay" and "level design" as a part of their list of priorities when making this game.
While I'm certainly not playing a Silent Hill game for excellent combat mechanics, SH4 is such a massive step down from the previous two games that in terms of gameplay that's it felt like something went drastically wrong. The PC port could certainly be part of the issue, as the controller optimization felt like a mess, making an already frustrating game to control all the more worse, but the core gameplay I am certain would have been unpleasant regardless of where it was experienced. The game's enemies are a joke and only ever a frustrating obstacle. There is absolutely nothing fun about dealing with any of the combat in the game and it is pretty much always better to just run past something, harkening back to Silent Hill 1.
I could get into minute specifics about a number of awkward and terribly implemented gameplay mechanics if I wanted but it's better to summarize it I think, and say that it is almost unbelievable how much worse everything feels to do in this game compared to SH2 and SH3.
Not only is this game a chore to control but the level design is abysmal; there are a number of 'rooms' you walk through in the various worlds through the hole outside Room 302 that are void of almost anything. A good portion of this game feels like just running through empty nothingness, which could be intentional and is even somewhat appreciated at times considering how generally obnoxious it is to really have to do anything in this game, but if anything it just felt... strange to me, as if there was something missing. This only becomes more apparent when you are forced to run through these worlds a second time, which is when I was really ready for the game to be over.
Despite all this, SH4 still managed to keep me somewhat engaged, as the storytelling of this game is just as strong, really, as it is in the previous entries of the series. The unsettling, disturbing atmosphere, deeply unnerving sound design and well-paced placements of cutscenes kept me wanting to keep playing, and this part of the game is entirely up to par with what I have come to expect from this franchise.
I'm not here to analyze the game's story or anything, I did quite like it and liked how it was told through notes and such. The entire concept of "The Room" was very interesting and implemented pretty well, especially near the end of the game, when everything comes together. While I think this is the worst of the original 4 Silent Hills, this game absolutely has merit and I would certainly recommend that anyone who has played the others try this out as well.
6.5/10
While I'm certainly not playing a Silent Hill game for excellent combat mechanics, SH4 is such a massive step down from the previous two games that in terms of gameplay that's it felt like something went drastically wrong. The PC port could certainly be part of the issue, as the controller optimization felt like a mess, making an already frustrating game to control all the more worse, but the core gameplay I am certain would have been unpleasant regardless of where it was experienced. The game's enemies are a joke and only ever a frustrating obstacle. There is absolutely nothing fun about dealing with any of the combat in the game and it is pretty much always better to just run past something, harkening back to Silent Hill 1.
I could get into minute specifics about a number of awkward and terribly implemented gameplay mechanics if I wanted but it's better to summarize it I think, and say that it is almost unbelievable how much worse everything feels to do in this game compared to SH2 and SH3.
Not only is this game a chore to control but the level design is abysmal; there are a number of 'rooms' you walk through in the various worlds through the hole outside Room 302 that are void of almost anything. A good portion of this game feels like just running through empty nothingness, which could be intentional and is even somewhat appreciated at times considering how generally obnoxious it is to really have to do anything in this game, but if anything it just felt... strange to me, as if there was something missing. This only becomes more apparent when you are forced to run through these worlds a second time, which is when I was really ready for the game to be over.
Despite all this, SH4 still managed to keep me somewhat engaged, as the storytelling of this game is just as strong, really, as it is in the previous entries of the series. The unsettling, disturbing atmosphere, deeply unnerving sound design and well-paced placements of cutscenes kept me wanting to keep playing, and this part of the game is entirely up to par with what I have come to expect from this franchise.
I'm not here to analyze the game's story or anything, I did quite like it and liked how it was told through notes and such. The entire concept of "The Room" was very interesting and implemented pretty well, especially near the end of the game, when everything comes together. While I think this is the worst of the original 4 Silent Hills, this game absolutely has merit and I would certainly recommend that anyone who has played the others try this out as well.
6.5/10