this could probably be a post in the "Games you expected to hate but didn't" thread, but I recall shaking my head at the first
image of Silent Hill I ever saw thinking "heh, Konami's trying to get in on that RE money."
I honestly expected another crappy "me too" game like Overblood.
Then everyone started raving about the opening CG cutscene that appeared at either E3 or TGS 1998, I think.
I still wasn't ready to be impressed. As it didn't have pre-rendered backgrounds, it automatically looked like a poor man's RE in the images and some fancy CG opening wouldn't be enough to fix that.
Fast-forward to Christmas break '98 and I remember getting the Jan '99 issue of The Official PlayStation Magazine. Those magazines were awesome because they always came with a playable demo disk of upcoming games.
Silent Hill was on the disk, so my cousins and I sat down to try it. I had a lot of fun laughing at the shittiness of Overblood, so I hoped this Silent Hill game would at least entertain me in a way that only a cheap RE-wannabe could.
Needless to say there wasn't much laughing (even though the voice acting was pretty funny) and I was instantly impressed with the premise, the creative camera work (particularly in the opening alleyway), and the overall atmosphere. Unlike RE it felt very dreamlike and ominous. It was more akin to a Stephen King narrative. "A father searching for his daughter in an empty town that's foggy & snowing in the summer? This is bizarre. I... like this."
I would end up renting it upon release (I was a broke college kid at the time), but I played it to completion and ultimately bought it that summer.
I now do a SH1 playthrough around Halloween every year.