I finished the game: My thoughts (pros and cons)

[W3stminst3r | YT]

I´ve always been a big fan of ‘Silent Hill 2’. I still remember the hours I spent with my brother in front of the console and all the sleepless nights.
Over all these years, I've been hoping for a remake, since the game has always been superior to its big rival ‘Resident Evil’ in terms of atmosphere and story.

Now, that the time has finally come, I just had to buy this title - and I´m glad I did.
It brought back so many good memories (even those I had forgotten)

Pros:
+ Improved combat system
+ Improved graphics
+ Slightly optimised soundtrack without violating the original
+ The fog has been kept
+ Chracters, monologues/dialogies, puzzles and monsters have been kept

Cons:
- Key-binding (mouse) does not work 100% (‘Exit’)
- Faces and graphics/textures could have been done a lot better as the game was done in UE5. The game looks good, no question, but it´s far away from looking breathtaking.
I mean: Look at "Alak WOke 2" f.e. Look at the faces/the mimics of the protagonists, look at the weather-effects...look at the rain.
- The repetitive animations (jumping into pits, James putting his arm into holes...)
- Where is Lisa, the nurse? Her body transforming was one of the key-scenes in "SH2"??
- In the original, the brilliant soundtrack was used much more to build atmosphere - there was hardly one scene without a melody or ambient sounds played in the background. I´m missing this...

Conclusion: "Silent hill 2" is all I was hoping for but it definitely has some potential for (graphic) improvements.

(Played on a RTX 2070 and 16 GB Ram without stuttering or lagging).

[I Like Juice]

Lisa wasn't in SH2 what are you saying?

[Starwight/ttv]

Why is Lisa mentioned in your cons? You do realize she is from Silent Hill 1 and not Silent Hill 2 right?

[W3stminst3r | YT]

@Juice
Right! My fault :D

[angstlicht]

Originally posted by Starwight/ttv:

Why is Lisa mentioned in your cons? You do realize she is from Silent Hill 1 and not Silent Hill 2 right?

Um, 2 is twice as many as 1. If anything there should've been 2 lisa transformations in this game. Fix your stuff, konami.

[Terron]

Glad you liked it overall. I liked it a lot. I have 3 main critiques but they differ from yours.
1. I personally hate handholding and I very much disliked the white cloth environmental guidance throughout (just an option to turn off would have been sweet)
2. Gets too action packed toward the last few hours. Combat is much better but got repetitive due to sheer amount of enemies over the last few sections.
3. Game felt too padded in parts like prison and labyrinth. Early game was expanded well but some of these later areas just had lots more empty rooms with a few enemies in them.

4. Nitpick..........wish james ran a bit faster when outdoors lol.

Everything else I loved really. Music, atmosphere, sound effects, voice acting, freedom of exploration, bosses and combat etc. They did a very good job overall.

[Starwight/ttv]

Originally posted by Terron:

Glad you liked it overall. I liked it a lot. I have 3 main critiques but they differ from yours.
1. I personally hate handholding and I very much disliked the white cloth environmental guidance throughout (just an option to turn off would have been sweet)
2. Gets too action packed toward the last few hours. Combat is much better but got repetitive due to sheer amount of enemies over the last few sections.
3. Game felt too padded in parts like prison and labyrinth. Early game was expanded well but some of these later areas just had lots more empty rooms with a few enemies in them.

4. Nitpick..........wish james ran a bit faster when outdoors lol.

Everything else I loved really. Music, atmosphere, sound effects, voice acting, freedom of exploration, bosses and combat etc. They did a very good job overall.

On the white cloth, I think it was done well. The white cloth looks like what you might find in a hospital bed or a bed in general, which fits with the lore perfectly.

2. I personally disagree with this but that is subjective. It wasn't too much for -me- at least.

3. I disagree, I love the new stuff that was added. I think it was well designed and more importantly true to the established lore. Nothing they did breaks lore, and I was happy to see new buildings in Silent hill; and the new puzzles as well.

But again, most of that is very subjective so.

[klimat13]

Originally posted by W3stminst3r | YT:

Cons:
- Key-binding (mouse) does not work 100% (‘Exit’)

If you are interested in what's causing it, you can read here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2124490/discussions/0/4849904828210516354/

[Terron]

Originally posted by Starwight/ttv:

Originally posted by Terron:

Glad you liked it overall. I liked it a lot. I have 3 main critiques but they differ from yours.
1. I personally hate handholding and I very much disliked the white cloth environmental guidance throughout (just an option to turn off would have been sweet)
2. Gets too action packed toward the last few hours. Combat is much better but got repetitive due to sheer amount of enemies over the last few sections.
3. Game felt too padded in parts like prison and labyrinth. Early game was expanded well but some of these later areas just had lots more empty rooms with a few enemies in them.

4. Nitpick..........wish james ran a bit faster when outdoors lol.

Everything else I loved really. Music, atmosphere, sound effects, voice acting, freedom of exploration, bosses and combat etc. They did a very good job overall.

On the white cloth, I think it was done well. The white cloth looks like what you might find in a hospital bed or a bed in general, which fits with the lore perfectly.

2. I personally disagree with this but that is subjective. It wasn't too much for -me- at least.

3. I disagree, I love the new stuff that was added. I think it was well designed and more importantly true to the established lore. Nothing they did breaks lore, and I was happy to see new buildings in Silent hill; and the new puzzles as well.

But again, most of that is very subjective so.

With the white cloth it may have blended well in that sense but it was obvious that it was guiding you and I hate guidance. Just an option to turn it off would have been nice. It reminded me of the yellow tape in resi 2 remake which I also hated and there was no way to turn it off. Many games these days seem terrified of letting players get lost.

[Starwight/ttv]

Originally posted by Terron:

Originally posted by Starwight/ttv:

On the white cloth, I think it was done well. The white cloth looks like what you might find in a hospital bed or a bed in general, which fits with the lore perfectly.

2. I personally disagree with this but that is subjective. It wasn't too much for -me- at least.

3. I disagree, I love the new stuff that was added. I think it was well designed and more importantly true to the established lore. Nothing they did breaks lore, and I was happy to see new buildings in Silent hill; and the new puzzles as well.

But again, most of that is very subjective so.

With the white cloth it may have blended well in that sense but it was obvious that it was guiding you and I hate guidance. Just an option to turn it off would have been nice. It reminded me of the yellow tape in resi 2 remake which I also hated and there was no way to turn it off. Many games these days seem terrified of letting players get lost.

In Silent Hill's case I can see why, with as tense as it is. I'd probably turn it off too, given the option, but I can see where there might be trepidation in doing so. You already see some people saying it's too difficult.

[Terron]

Originally posted by Starwight/ttv:

Originally posted by Terron:

With the white cloth it may have blended well in that sense but it was obvious that it was guiding you and I hate guidance. Just an option to turn it off would have been nice. It reminded me of the yellow tape in resi 2 remake which I also hated and there was no way to turn it off. Many games these days seem terrified of letting players get lost.

In Silent Hill's case I can see why, with as tense as it is. I'd probably turn it off too, given the option, but I can see where there might be trepidation in doing so. You already see some people saying it's too difficult.

yeah true. Again keeping it optional solves this I think. To be fair they did a great job mostly with the options with regard interact prompts, reticle styles UI and whatnot.

[W3stminst3r | YT]

Playing the game as "Game +" atm and have decided to pay more attention to graphic details now:

- When walking through mud, James leaves footprints (but not everywhere?)
- His shoes don´t get dirty/muddy (which would have been a nice effect)
- His hair/jacked remain unaffected by wind/storm
- Walking through puddles of rain has no visual effect

I think all this should be possible with UE5 as it was already implemented in other games.

White cloth: WellI, I think it's helpful as you can see the f.e wall-gaps a lot better in the darker areas. But in terms of realism, they seem pretty out of place.

[Rumi]

Overall I'd say I enjoyed the game, I've done 3 playthroughs now, but I do have some complaints.

- First time you meet Maria she touches James chest, in the original she grabs James hand and tries to make him touch hers. You could say it's not a big deal, but if it isn't then why change it? Just a minor gripe personally.
- Some of the line reads. The two major ones being Maria behind the bars in the labyrinth, I feel like the original VA was vastly better, and the second one of course being Mary's letter read at the end. To be fair that's a tough act to follow.
- You don't get to keep the Great Knife, even on NG+. Honestly functionally it was never very good even in the original, but I enjoyed being able to play around with it. Instead you just drag it around for a short scene (though that added scene was kinda nice).
- Dog Ending ruined. They dropped the credits reel, I'm guessing because of the sexy photos. I really don't want to be one of those guys that cry DEI and talk about ESG scores, but between the faces and this I'm guessing that's what happened here.
- Speaking of faces... yeah I don't want to delve into a topic talked about to death too much, but I feel like they could have tried to adhere closer to the source material. I don't care about characters being sexy, I just want it authentic. When you see changes like that and you know it's not done out of ineptitude but out of ulterior intent it pulls you out of the moment which is terrible for a game so heavily reliant on atmosphere. Luckily James was the main character, I don't even want to know what would have happened to poor Heather.
- I feel like the enemy encounter frequency may have been a little bit much. It's not that it was difficult in any way, just tedious to the point that I feel some areas really start to lose tension and horror because it feels more like an action combat game.

There were some nice changes though to be fair. The more elaborate boss battles, some new locations, etc. I don't like it more than the original but I really wouldn't say I like it much less either. It's a shame about the odd choices of censorship and strange changes. The game really could have surpassed the original with just a tiny bit more love and integrity. I (probably) would like to see Bloober try an SH1 remake all annoyances aside.

[Stevey The Ex-Eevee]

Originally posted by W3stminst3r | YT:

@Juice
Right! My fault :D

okay? then remove it from your post.

[W3stminst3r | YT]

Ahh, a perfectionist. ;)
Well, I decided not to remove it because:
a) I stand by my mistakes
b) the following posts by Juice and Star would lose their reference

@Rumi
The enemy encounter frequency...that´s true! Could be less! The ambient sounds (in most scenes) should be enough to create an oppressive feeling.

[Zebedee]

Some of the things you raise in the OP are perfectly fair, also I'd suggest a consequence of not having a best in class budget behind them. It's a very well done game in that sense - reminds me a bit of Ninja Theory's work pre-Microsoft buying them, settling for very good with what they have and carefully prioritising what gets that treatment and finding ways to reuse it without it being obvious they're recycling things. Alan Wake 2 is a really good comparison in a lot of ways for a game (and studio) pushing at a different level and what that brings (in every sense heh).

I'm just about to finish what will be final run I think. Maybe one more to see if I can get the last of the collectable achievements. Definitely in my top two games of the year for the genres and subgenres I play.