It's hard for me to articulate why this game is as formidable as it is. To describe the complete effect is to delve into my own personal regrets and the machinations of my traumas and go on for pages about the inherent weaknesses in our primal behavior and instinctive response to harmful external stimuli. This is at once a distortion of patriarchal establishments and institutions and also a wretchedly grim portrayal of psychological trauma. The world here is an artificially manifested microcosm of these ideas falling into gradual deterioration and acts as an encompassing amalgamation of the developer's influences. Through the presence of homage, this comes out as something dazzlingly singular for the medium. A game that progressively self-destructs alongside its broken protagonists, its mechanics deliberately clunky and devoted to inducing sheer panic and anxiety in the player. Less so consistently terrifying (though it definitely can be lol) than it is utterly consuming; its murky visual design, voice acting, and Yamaoka's crepuscular soundtrack infecting every facet of my life and coercing me to reflect on my own personal shortcomings as a person.

In one way or another I spent every waking moment in the week I played this game in 'Silent Hill'. It stands as a cruel embodiment of our fears and the insecurities that come with how we view our self-image but it is also a call for judgment for the sins we commit against each other. Very rarely does a game engage so forcibly on the lonely nature of depression or the assaulting impact that guilt and abuse can have and how these states of mind are seeded by traumatic memories. The result is a punishing and overwhelming experience that left me awake at night thinking over its thematic implications, its stilted gameplay haunting my every move during the day, and in my dreams in awe of its intricacies and how brilliantly it grounds its images and sounds into the player's conscious. Everything here is faithful to the overarching atmosphere and it's something that's made me question the credibility of a "perfect grade" for a game. For an object of beauty so outwardly flawed by design it's as luminescent as something like this can get.