No one does dread and tragedy as expertly as Silent Hill. Team Silent’s debut title in the series showcased a mood and atmosphere so singular, dreamlike and visceral that even more than 20 years removed from its release it still managed to haunt me in ways I didn’t expect and made me appreciate the horror genre in games even more when reined by creative minds and ideas in generating fear and oppression. Silent Hill 1 is a classic game no doubt but the sequel game is the one that generally attracts the most attention and in many ways is patient zero to what contemporary horror games would borrow from in creating their own art. Silent Hill 2 dominates much of the popular consciousness of Silent Hill that many people start with it or haven’t even played the original ps1 game, which isn’t a complete loss given how independent 2 is from 1 rather than being a continuation from its story. Pyramid Head is a pop culture icon removed from the context and space of own title and even the big VHS sized secret of SH2 is one of the worst kept secrets in video games next to Persona 3’s own ending. I haven’t played Silent Hill 2 myself until this past month and even going in with the expectations of the first game and some of what I knew to expect with this game, I still managed to be surprised and disturbed almost like I was going in blind not knowing what this game has in store.
Sound design was an impressive feat of the first Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 wastes no time flexing this strength while also creating its own signature that stands out from what came before. The starting long trek in the forest with plumes of fog obfuscates the area with gut wrenching sounds of something being beyond the fog and watching James’ every step, even before the monsters are finally introduced. Silent Hill itself is as eerie as it was previously but the second game landed more consistently for me across the first playthrough where just running around outside left me feeling tense and weary of what will start chasing me in the darkness with the horrifying wails of the enemies. The central areas are claustrophobic and nasty with the soundscape of distorted bumps, disembodied groans and even bits of whispering littering the space to unsettle and unease any sort of progression through them. The apartments and hospital have standout moments of this jumping me but the prison felt near indomitable all throughout, especially in one pitch black, open area with a Gallows puzzle where it sounds like something or someone is galloping towards you at high speed. Everything sounds even more demonic and depraved in Silent Hill 2 even in the more tiny details with the industrial ambience crossing frequently between reality and unreality.
The cinematography and scene direction was another expert feat of Silent Hill 1 in establishing its off kilter tone and SH2 maintains this same high mark of quality in much more subtle ways. Similar to the characters, the direction is subdued and cerebral with slow, measured shots and panning focusing on the characters stewing on their struggle or interacting with one another. It is all sol well directed and engrossing to follow: the apartment scene with Angela staring at the knife with a nice use of the room’s mirror as a reflection, the iconic prison cell scene with Maria, the starting sequence of James in the bathroom staring into the mirror before it moves out to him overlooking Toluca Lake, the first appearance of Pyramid Head, the scene of James and the VHS tape, and the final interaction with Angela before she ascends the stairwell. Even in game the fixed and dynamic camera angles have many moments of levity such as the boat ride to the Lakeview Hotel and the long stairway descent from the Historical Society to the prison. The cinematic language hammers down what makes Silent Hill 2 so enthralling to engage with and learn more about the town and figures that loom the space.
Silent Hill 1’s cast was small and less prominent outside of Lisa and Cybil, and 2 keeps the small size but doubles down on the subdued, disjointed and especially tragic feel of their personalities the more their tales are revealed. Each of them offer much to chew on regarding Silent Hill 2’s narrative and themes, but any scenes and interactions with Angela and Maria felt especially pivotal and emotional to me in understanding who James was and how these characters and even James became drawn to Silent Hill. Everyone and everything is distinctively off kilter, dreamlike and on the verge of a violent breakdown with many clear nods to several inspirations including David Lynch’s work with Lost Highway and of course Twin Peaks, especially thematically. Even in the weakest link of the bunch (Eddie), there is still much to engage with and dig further into that unravels the tragedy and grief these characters are experiencing and trying to hold themselves together, not too dissimilar to James himself and his mission to look for Mary.
I was already a fan of Silent Hill 1’s puzzles, even the few esoteric ones I respected in how clever they were, and Silent Hill 2 ups the ante. The starting few in the apartments provide intriguing riddles to solve and this quality keeps up and maintains surprise such as one leaning on basic trial and error while bugs litter the small space sapping away health. I really appreciate the breadth of puzzles that vary across the difficulty levels and even making them on the standard normal difficulty have cool brain teasers that aren’t piss easy or bland to solve. The loss in cryptic presentation is made up with how intricate and in detail each of the puzzles are even in later runs and on different difficulty levels. Combat wise, Silent Hill 2 maintains the general arcade-y template that the first game and other horror titles executed at the time. Boss battles are more memorable and distinctive from the puzzle-focused approach in the first, even if many here do lean on simply putting distance between James and the bosses to do damage and rinse and repeat this process in cramped spaces with an occasionally awkward camera. While still being pretty run of the mill otherwise, combat never felt too important or distracting in the experience so I don’t really have much negative to say on it outside of those small nitpicks.
Like Silent Hill 1, multiple endings are available to cap off the experience but Silent Hill 2 makes them even more impactful and weird with its interplay of gameplay choices and the various conclusions. Depending on how you play and what you do, you influence what ending you get such as protecting or neglecting Maria, examining specific items, maintaining James’ health, and other decisions. For 2001 and even today it is wildly impressive in how much it tracks with the multiple endings, including the secret ones, making Silent Hill 2 immensely replayable and interesting to pick apart. Even after learning the huge revelation that Silent Hill 2 built up to since the start of the game, there is still much to learn and pick up on in later playthroughs that didn’t stand out particularly at first without context and these additional endings offer a lot in interpreting and deconstructing what Silent Hill 2 is all about.
While these ratings are pretty arbitrary and don’t hold any strong impact to me and how I evaluate the work of games outside of just organizing them on here, I initially didn’t rank this higher than the first game based on how viscerally that grabbed and horrified me, while Silent Hill 2’s revelations didn’t impact me as strongly at first. It wasn’t until I rewatched some footage of the upcoming remake from the transmission weeks ago that all of my experience in SH2 hit me at once. The sights, sounds, emotions, characters, words, enemies, settings, and various other elements, efforts, and details that Silent Hill 2 has and commits to are so unique and masterfully done that still meaningfully separates it from future attempts and inspirations that try to replicate its special sauce that’s captivating to this day. Yeah it’s unflinchingly scary but it’s also immensely empathetic and compassionate in dividends towards tragedy, harm and loss and trying to move on to better days on the horizon. No one does it like Silent Hill 2 does, even if it doesn’t have a radioactive, pre-order bonus Pyramid Head pizza box mask to wear while playing the game.
Sound design was an impressive feat of the first Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 wastes no time flexing this strength while also creating its own signature that stands out from what came before. The starting long trek in the forest with plumes of fog obfuscates the area with gut wrenching sounds of something being beyond the fog and watching James’ every step, even before the monsters are finally introduced. Silent Hill itself is as eerie as it was previously but the second game landed more consistently for me across the first playthrough where just running around outside left me feeling tense and weary of what will start chasing me in the darkness with the horrifying wails of the enemies. The central areas are claustrophobic and nasty with the soundscape of distorted bumps, disembodied groans and even bits of whispering littering the space to unsettle and unease any sort of progression through them. The apartments and hospital have standout moments of this jumping me but the prison felt near indomitable all throughout, especially in one pitch black, open area with a Gallows puzzle where it sounds like something or someone is galloping towards you at high speed. Everything sounds even more demonic and depraved in Silent Hill 2 even in the more tiny details with the industrial ambience crossing frequently between reality and unreality.
The cinematography and scene direction was another expert feat of Silent Hill 1 in establishing its off kilter tone and SH2 maintains this same high mark of quality in much more subtle ways. Similar to the characters, the direction is subdued and cerebral with slow, measured shots and panning focusing on the characters stewing on their struggle or interacting with one another. It is all sol well directed and engrossing to follow: the apartment scene with Angela staring at the knife with a nice use of the room’s mirror as a reflection, the iconic prison cell scene with Maria, the starting sequence of James in the bathroom staring into the mirror before it moves out to him overlooking Toluca Lake, the first appearance of Pyramid Head, the scene of James and the VHS tape, and the final interaction with Angela before she ascends the stairwell. Even in game the fixed and dynamic camera angles have many moments of levity such as the boat ride to the Lakeview Hotel and the long stairway descent from the Historical Society to the prison. The cinematic language hammers down what makes Silent Hill 2 so enthralling to engage with and learn more about the town and figures that loom the space.
Silent Hill 1’s cast was small and less prominent outside of Lisa and Cybil, and 2 keeps the small size but doubles down on the subdued, disjointed and especially tragic feel of their personalities the more their tales are revealed. Each of them offer much to chew on regarding Silent Hill 2’s narrative and themes, but any scenes and interactions with Angela and Maria felt especially pivotal and emotional to me in understanding who James was and how these characters and even James became drawn to Silent Hill. Everyone and everything is distinctively off kilter, dreamlike and on the verge of a violent breakdown with many clear nods to several inspirations including David Lynch’s work with Lost Highway and of course Twin Peaks, especially thematically. Even in the weakest link of the bunch (Eddie), there is still much to engage with and dig further into that unravels the tragedy and grief these characters are experiencing and trying to hold themselves together, not too dissimilar to James himself and his mission to look for Mary.
I was already a fan of Silent Hill 1’s puzzles, even the few esoteric ones I respected in how clever they were, and Silent Hill 2 ups the ante. The starting few in the apartments provide intriguing riddles to solve and this quality keeps up and maintains surprise such as one leaning on basic trial and error while bugs litter the small space sapping away health. I really appreciate the breadth of puzzles that vary across the difficulty levels and even making them on the standard normal difficulty have cool brain teasers that aren’t piss easy or bland to solve. The loss in cryptic presentation is made up with how intricate and in detail each of the puzzles are even in later runs and on different difficulty levels. Combat wise, Silent Hill 2 maintains the general arcade-y template that the first game and other horror titles executed at the time. Boss battles are more memorable and distinctive from the puzzle-focused approach in the first, even if many here do lean on simply putting distance between James and the bosses to do damage and rinse and repeat this process in cramped spaces with an occasionally awkward camera. While still being pretty run of the mill otherwise, combat never felt too important or distracting in the experience so I don’t really have much negative to say on it outside of those small nitpicks.
Like Silent Hill 1, multiple endings are available to cap off the experience but Silent Hill 2 makes them even more impactful and weird with its interplay of gameplay choices and the various conclusions. Depending on how you play and what you do, you influence what ending you get such as protecting or neglecting Maria, examining specific items, maintaining James’ health, and other decisions. For 2001 and even today it is wildly impressive in how much it tracks with the multiple endings, including the secret ones, making Silent Hill 2 immensely replayable and interesting to pick apart. Even after learning the huge revelation that Silent Hill 2 built up to since the start of the game, there is still much to learn and pick up on in later playthroughs that didn’t stand out particularly at first without context and these additional endings offer a lot in interpreting and deconstructing what Silent Hill 2 is all about.
While these ratings are pretty arbitrary and don’t hold any strong impact to me and how I evaluate the work of games outside of just organizing them on here, I initially didn’t rank this higher than the first game based on how viscerally that grabbed and horrified me, while Silent Hill 2’s revelations didn’t impact me as strongly at first. It wasn’t until I rewatched some footage of the upcoming remake from the transmission weeks ago that all of my experience in SH2 hit me at once. The sights, sounds, emotions, characters, words, enemies, settings, and various other elements, efforts, and details that Silent Hill 2 has and commits to are so unique and masterfully done that still meaningfully separates it from future attempts and inspirations that try to replicate its special sauce that’s captivating to this day. Yeah it’s unflinchingly scary but it’s also immensely empathetic and compassionate in dividends towards tragedy, harm and loss and trying to move on to better days on the horizon. No one does it like Silent Hill 2 does, even if it doesn’t have a radioactive, pre-order bonus Pyramid Head pizza box mask to wear while playing the game.