Being honest, when I pre-purchased this game, I was skeptical. The game doesn’t landed on us cheap, moreover, by the modern standard of an incoming blockbuster, there is no demo available before launch. No matter which way I saw it, it was unprofessional at it’s best. A short demo provided by the developers could either dispel doubts in players’ mind, making them purchase the game with confidence or letting them know the product is not what they’ve expected, then they walk away from it without any regret. It’s the simplest and the most effective method for saving both parties' time. But SH 2 provides none, to be fair, most of big publishers these days will certainly do it with kind.
If not because Bloober Team showed us a long walkthrough footage about this game which looked promising, I would have missed this title by my own as well.

About the game
1
The first impression I walked into Silent Hill 2 is the perfect optimization they’ve done. The game runs excellently on my rig. 4K, HDR, Maximum graphic settings, you name it, all are done, not a single issue rises. I can’t play a game if it consistently crashes, stutters, freezes, stops loading, no matter how wonderful the game itself supposed to be, can I? SH2 got rid of all kinds of these worries I had since I started descending into this foggy town.

2
Exploration is always a core existence in Silent Hill games. No matter where your character might be, in dark places crawling with monsters or a less dangerous environment, checking every door you see, breaking in every house you encounter, searching for supplies etc. It’s just the way SH was meant to be played. SH 2 inherits this feature dearly, by rewarding players generously who’ve spent their time carefully exploring the beautiful world of this small town. Besides finding supplies, there are tons of collectibles, curiosities, place of interests are waiting for James to discover.

3
The other part which related to exploration - this game did a fantastic job is puzzle solving. Puzzle solving in old SH games could be nightmares, because there were quite amount of puzzles, the logic inside to perish the riddles are hard to follow, which results the worst scenarios happens often in old SH games. I spent hours and hours solving a puzzle, but it didn’t work out in the end, then I had no choice but to peek a guide for help. I don’t know whether you felt it embarrassing or not, I didn’t like it had to resolve this way. However, in this game so far, I’ve encountered none of puzzles like the past. I’m able to solve them all by myself. Some riddles took time to figure out but not impossible to understand them. Not being stuck anywhere surely helps the gameplay to be smooth and pleasant.

4
I can barely recall how Maria behaved in original SH 2 because the last time I’ve played that game is 20 years ago. But I enjoyed this new Maria’s company, especially James is a dead serious man who cares about nothing but his precious wife - a man who’s no fun to be with. If I were Laura, I probably would rock him as well. Anyways Maria, in the other hand, is a far nicer companion, even at time she kindly reminded me, my ‘sightseeings’ were not where our main objective lay. Though I couldn’t tell her what we were doing is what keeps us alive. Nothing could change the fact that Maria is the rainbow in this foggy town, a real treasure that is hard to come by.

Now, I’m about to say something that may anger old Silent Hill fans, but bear with me, this is merely my own opinion, you guys take it easy.

5
One of the reasons that I never truly like old silent hill games is it’s clumsy fighting mechanism. In almost all SH games, common monsters will cause heavy damage to players, even in the lowest difficulty. It’s not difficult to see developers used this concept to inflict ‘fear’ to us who are ‘trapped’ in this world. However, since it’s inevitable to fight our way to survive, taking monsters head on is not an option sometimes. Here comes problem. In old SH games, it’s pretty hard to obverse enemies’ attack animations with precision. For example, if you get hit, sometimes it could kill you with ‘ a set of it’s combos’ that leave you zero space to stop it before dying, it’s a situation of either untouchable or die trying. Wanna an example? Miss Nurses. Moreover, Evasion was clumsy as well. Sometimes, it’s not rare to see your character hit by a boss, lying on the ground, then took another 3 hits before standing up, just because the ‘get up’ animation was painfully slow and there was nothing you could do about it. To me, it seems ‘timing things’ right became a random luck to perform in most of combat scenes in old SH games. This makes an ARPG master like myself often looked like a noob in SH walkthroughs. I think I had the thought at least twice that everything I’ve learned from other countless actions games were nothing but an illusion when I fell to this cursed town.

However, this game has changed it. It’s the awesomeness I’d like to praise it most. In this game, enemies have showed players clear about how they are going to attack. You have brief moment to plan your attack, strike at the right moment and dodge the incoming danger when the time presents. It looks more like a modern ARPG now, in terms of combat mechanism. You neither could beat monsters none-stop until they are gone, nor do you get hit unexpectedly with a question mark on your head and take even more none-stop damage after that ‘surprising’ attack. Despite monsties still inflict as much damage as their predecessors, taking damage is still a dark-soul experience(faceplam), it’s a SH tradition, more reasonable and fair this time. So I have nothing to complain.

6
Last, I want to write down something private to Konami.
Because this game is so well made, I don’t believe any fans of Silent Hill should miss it reluctantly. However there is. My love is a huge fan of silent hill universe. From games to movies, she misses none. She even designed her bed room of a special theme of SH 3, and furnished it all by herself. But, unfortunately, she lives in China, where Konami decided to region locked all its games, for god knows why. Konami, you didn’t even bother explaining us why, did you?
What’s worse? Despite I own the game in a different region where it opens for sale. However, even if I buy a gift copy for her, she won’t be able to run and play it after accepting it. It will lie in her library quietly nothing more than a community item, thanks to Steam changed its T&Cs in recent year: now, users won’t be able to activate or run a game which is region locked in their stores.

Konami, you promised to take us back to silent hill, but to her, you never did. She preys her special place, every day and night. Hoping one day it will open a path for her, though her wishes are in vain.

Despite this issue is not something small to ignore personally, I’m fully aware, it’s more a private mater outside of the game, I won’t rate SH 2 down because of it. All in all, the game itself deserves plenty of flowers and applause in every way. There is no doubt it’s a successful remake, whether it surpasses its predecessor or not, I will leave the answers to you.

It marks the beginning of a new era of Silent Hill franchise, the franchise may finally have a bright future tomorrow, after fans have waited for so long. In addition, it’s exactly the reason why none of gamers should miss this title forcefully. Silent Hill always welcomes visitors, did it not, Konami?

Steam Award 2024 Nominated