[GAME] Silent Hill 2 (2024)
Silent Hill 2 is a game that is very important to me - it basically set the ground for my love of horror, and to a certain extent I am still searching for a work in the genre that matches it in terms of crushing atmosphere and emotional depth. Before playing the remake, I was extremely skeptical. The original game's story, on its own, is relatively standard by horror standards (although unheard of in video games at the time). What made the game so special was just how well that story was executed, including all the little imperfections and tech limitations that I thought would have been impossible to recreate in a full, big budget Unreal Engine remake.
Now, having finished the remake several times and having acquired most of the endings, I can say that my feelings towards this game are the same as my feelings towards last year's Resident Evil 4 remake, and to an extent the wonderful Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Instead of trying to make a 1:1 recreation of the original, the remake reinterprets the tone and atmosphere in a way that is more palatable to modern game design sensibilities. It's like a translation of a work from one language to another - a significant amount of craft goes into both versions. While there are some design decisions that I don't fully agree with in the remake, by and large it gets things very right, and it acts both as a wonderful companion piece to the original work, and also as a good way of experiencing the story fresh for a people that might not be able to stomach early PS2 graphics.
The main divergence from the original, in my opinion, is the direction of the cut-scenes. Characters in the original spoke in a bizarre, spaced-out way, which gave the dialogue a kind of uncanny valley feel, similar to a David Lynch film. I also thought none of the characters were particularly likeable, even James, which added to the hateful atmosphere. In the remake, all the voice actors, and acting (?) of the character models somehow manage to sell this bizarre dialogue as something that an actual human might say. All characters, with some exceptions, now act and talk like real people, and are quite likeable (I chuckled a few times at some of Maria's lines). While this is a decision that I personally don't fully agree with, as the weird tone is something that I loved about the original, I can't help but admit that this is a very skilled take on a classic story. I think it would work even better with a hypothetical Silent Hill 3 remake, which has my favourite, and most relatable characters in the franchise.
It probably doesn't need to be said that the game looks amazing. This is probably the best looking version of Silent Hill we've seen both from a technical and an art direction perspective, with the exception of maybe Silent Hill 3's Otherworld. The game is a masterclass in mood and atmosphere, and the way lighting is used is just sublime. I was also extremely impressed with the puzzles and exploration, which to my mind is also the best it has ever been in the franchise, and possibly on par if not better than the puzzles found in Resident Evil, which is an area where that series has always excelled over Silent Hill in my opinion. You constantly feel like a genius for little discoveries that you make and puzzles that you solve, although in reality you are just being led along by Bloober's masterful map layout and light / sound cues.
What does not work so well is the combat, although this has always been a low point of the series. For some reason James now has a circle-strafe dodge, which feels extremely out of place, and yet combat still revolves around mashing attack until the monster is dead. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if there wasn't so much of it. One late-game area has way too many combat encounters and it starts becoming more annoying than frightening. Even worse, there is even a section of the game where you are locked in a room and must kill all enemies to proceed. Call me a purist, but I think survival horror should always allow you to run away from combat, with the exception of story encounters like bosses.
One specific personal gripe - which might be a positive to others - is that the game is just a smidgen too big. Survival horror games have historically all been pretty short, roughly 5-6 hours. I finished Silent Hill 2 at approximately 12 hours. Again, this is may be a personal thing, but I feel like when a game is this long the horror starts to erode a little after a while, and it just becomes exhausting to play through. I understand what Bloober were trying to do here, because the areas that were expanded on the original were ones that were arguably too short in the original or not that great (the final boss fight for example, which I never liked, has been reworked very well). But a lot of the time, I wish that some of the sections were trimmed a little, at least in terms of combat.
The game also plays very well with your expectations if you're a long time fan. Even though the story is largely identical, it is again very similar to the Resident Evil 4 remake where it kind of expects that you've played the original, and subverts your expectations in tiny, sly ways that might be imperceptible to someone that is completely new to this series.
The last thing I'll mention briefly is the endings. While largely similar they look absolutely amazing with updated graphics. There are two new remake-specific endings, but are both so brief and inconsequential at contributing any further depth to the original story that I probably wouldn't recommend getting them unless you are a die-hard. The UFO and Dog endings have been updated slightly and are as funny as ever. I particularly enjoyed the remake of Dog, as it largely maintains the same joke, but also pays a lovely homage to the developers of the remake.
Despite being extremely apprehensive, I am very happy with how the remake of Silent Hill 2 turned out. I still slightly prefer the original, but to any newcomers (or fans of the original wanting to see an alternate take on a classic), this is a totally valid way of experiencing this wonderful story.