Monster mash
To say Silent Hill has a tumultuous history is putting it lightly. The franchise was one of THE staples for survival horror back in the PS1/2 days. Then it went a little rogue with portable versions and spin-offs, only to come full circle with the excellent remake of Silent Hill 2 last year from Bloober Team. Now we are getting a brand new entry in the series for the first time in a very long time. Silent Hill f is from developer NeoBards, and it bucks the trend of featuring the normal protagonist, or heck even the town from which the game gets its namesake. Still this is a fascinating title that bears the name, though I think it would have thrived more if it was its own thing.
Silent Hill f takes place in the 1960s in a fictional town in Japan called Ebisugaoka. Players assume the role of a high school student named Hinako Shimizu. Much like previous games, Hinako suffers from a deep trauma brought on by her abusive father and enabling mother. These manifest into terrors that only get worse as the town is infected with the creepiness that the Silent Hill series is known for.
MSRP: $69.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $59.99
Over the course of the game Hinako’s traumas are further explored and uncover some fairly uncomfortable things about her life and past. NeoBards handled this extremely well, and while I won’t spoil what happens, the game does a great job of tackling these situations and expanding on the character. By the end I had a lot of emotions, and that means the game did a good job of conveying what it set out to achieve.
Alright, time to dive into the gameplay itself. Silent Hill f ditches the firearms found in previous entries. Instead, it focuses entirely on melee weapons. This is fine as it makes sense thematically, but that doesn’t mean it comes without caveats. For starters all weapons have a meter and can break. There are toolkits that can be used to repair them, but this is an inventory issue. More on that in a bit. The melee combat is your standard light/heavy attacks mixed with some dodging and parrying. It is fine, just not that interesting. I found most encounters more of a chore than fun and ended up skipping fights whenever I could.
This is standard survival horror mechanics though. Another reason I barely bothered to fight enemies is that they don’t offer anything upon death. They don’t drop items or XP and instead seem to serve as obstacles rather than challenges. I do love the enemy variety though. It starts with the creep mannequi-esque creatures from past games but eventually ramps up to some truly gnarly monsters that are a visual delight. I still skipped fighting them when I could.
There is a stamina system, and it is brutal. Hinako runs out of steam super-fast, which makes combat even less entertaining. There is also a sanity meter that when depleted, will start draining her health. Again it feels like the main combat was designed to be miserable, thus causing me to skip it whenever I could, and then I hit the spirit realm and things changed.
Hinako enters into these realms throughout the game. They are separate from the main world and offer up much more interesting encounters. She gets a knife and spear that do not break and even overcharge attacks that grant invincibility. I wanted all combat to be like these after I did one, and sadly it is just a section of the game. Circling back to inventory, it is limited, which makes sense. This is a survival horror game after all, but in this realm things like toolkits are worthless, but without storage boxes, if I wanted to keep them after it was over, I had to keep them on my person.
There are checkpoints where Hinako can level up. These should have storage boxes to mitigate these issues. Here I could also upgrade abilities and extend health and stamina much like any other game. The shrine areas are also chock full of puzzles that are extremely fun. I feel like the game really excels in these moments and I wonder if that was the point. Make the outside world feel like a chore only to reward players with the Shrine Realm. It fits the motif of the game, and really is what carries it to the end. Speaking of endings, it wouldn’t be a Silent Hill game without multiple outcomes, and I can say that once again, players are in for a treat.
Performance is hit and miss. The game has a performance mode, but it rarely keeps things fluid. There are hitches from bad frame pacing and the quality of the image leaves something to be desired. The audio is typical Silent Hill fashion with some outstanding tracks from Akira Yamaoka and incredible sound effects. The Japanese voice track is good, the English one is kind of bad, but that is to be expected at this point.
Silent Hill f is a solid entry in the series even if it bucks all the reason to be a Silent Hill game. I still feel like this would have been a great original title. The combat is its biggest weakness and the chasm of fun between the real world and the Shrine Realm really drives that home. I am glad Silent Hill is back, but I do wish they had made the combat a bit more fun and interesting.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
