Cool thread, but question, why is Silent Hill Shattered Memories list as a 'side story'?
It's every bit as much valid in the main line as Downpour and Homecoming.
Yeah, that's right and they also did a song for Book of Memories too.Yep, she did several songs for the Shadows of the Damned soundtrack (which Yamaoka composed).
Wow, those forums. I never registered but I lurked constantly. Good times.Man, I spent years on the Silent Hill Forum.uk and Silent Hill Heaven sites. I've still never cared as much about a game series as I did this one.
Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 are my favorite games of all time. Both wonderful experiences in drastically different ways.
Did you ever try Shattered Memories? It's my favorite post-Team Silent game in the series because it succeeded at being something entirely different while still staying true to the spirit of the franchise.I still love Silent Hill, but I've officially been half-checked out of the series for a decade now. I guess what was good about these games wasn't really the trappings of the world (zombie nurses, rust, static, punishment, urban decay), but rather the bizarre creation of one particular team.
Not to say that another team couldn't grab the reigns and make something interesting with the concept but... I just can't count on it.
I still love Silent Hill, but I've officially been half-checked out of the series for a decade now. I guess what was good about these games wasn't really the trappings of the world (zombie nurses, rust, static, punishment, urban decay), but rather the bizarre creation of one particular team.
Not to say that another team couldn't grab the reigns and make something interesting with the concept but... I just can't count on it.
Did you ever try Shattered Memories? It's my favorite post-Team Silent game in the series because it succeeded at being something entirely different while still staying true to the spirit of the franchise.
I think the biggest problem with other teams is that they're imitating what Team Silent did. Each SH from that team had a completely different flavor. SH2 in terms of tone was very different compared to SH1. SH3 was a much more straight forward approach to storytelling than any other game in the series, and then you have the oddball in SH4. They all stand on their own. But every time you hear another team talking about making it they're always talking about how they're pulling from this game or that game. They really aren't doing anything to make it their own.
It's never going to go anywhere good until someone has the balls to come in and do what they want with the series and stop worrying about fans. That doesn't mean that someone needs to do to it what RE4 did to that franchise, but someone has to at least want to put their own stamp on it. They're never going to outdo what Team Silent did no matter how many times they try.
Did you ever try Shattered Memories? It's my favorite post-Team Silent game in the series because it succeeded at being something entirely different while still staying true to the spirit of the franchise.
Absolutely agree. What made this series was the original ways the team would guide us through the uncanny and unknown.
All successors can do is copy the window dressing.
That's why I say SH is NOT about nurses, rust, etc etc. They should be going back and asking themselves "what is scary/weird/unsettling" and starting completely from scratch.
Some people really hate Shattered Memories (like the above poster, for instance!) and I can't fathom why. It's certainly not the best game in the franchise, but it's a damn good game and certainly nowhere near the worst.
While it's up there with my favorites, I can kind of see why someone wouldn't like it. It sort of depends on what you're looking for in the series. SM ditched all the macabre elements that are synonymous with SH going so far to remove combat in lieu of creating an entirely narrative and atmosphere driven experience.Some people really hate Shattered Memories (like the above poster, for instance!) and I can't fathom why. It's certainly not the best game in the franchise, but it's a damn good game and certainly nowhere near the worst.
While it's up there with my favorites, I can kind of see why someone wouldn't like it. It sort of depends on what you're looking for in the series. SM ditched all the macabre elements that are synonymous with SH going so far to remove combat in lieu of creating an entirely narrative and atmosphere driven experience.
Also, the puzzles weren't very great. Still love it to death though! I've easily beaten it more times than any other SH game. Very replayable, and one of my favorite story's in a game.
Just got through Downpour. I got 2 of the endings, and I completed all of the side quests. I'll have to go through another time to collect all of the memorabilia for Murphy's Journal. All in all, not too bad. Had some good art, and direction. Only part that rubs me wrong is thatSo why is he even there then?Murphy's crime changes depending on the ending. If you play it good, he never actually kills anyone.
It's mostly because it's a different spin on the story of Silent Hill 1. It's not really a justle like the others are.
He actually did. Regardless of what ending you got.Or so I remember.He killed the child molester that killed his son at the beginning of the game. That's why he's in Silent Hill. The only thing that changes between the endings is whether or not he ended up killing the guard.
Drawing Block: Silent Hill 3 Program is modeled after Cheryl's sketch book from Silent Hill 1, and contains the concept art that can be seen in in the Art of Silent Hill video, along with monster arts and interviews with the staff.
Did Team Silent do Silent Hill 4? I can't remember.
It feels like such a weak connection to condemn him to Silent Hill. I've just chalked it up to him feeling guilty.Nope. Whatshisface Guard says that he had to finish the job for him, Murphy didn't have it in him to actually kill Napier or Coleridge. Although in 1 ending he does kill Coleridge.
I played SH1 all the way back when you could rent a PS1 at Blockbuster. I was around 10 at the time though and got shit scared at the very first sight of a creature and shut it down, forget about that, I'm going back to Tekken.
You went in completely blind, or did you play other survival horrors prior to it?
I first played Silent Hill from the demo that was included inside Metal Gear Solid, and instantly fell in love with it (i was 11 or 12 already, though).
Bought it D1 and been a huge fan since.
Silent Hill 2 was actually the first game i pre-ordered in my life, and the only one in the whole 6th generation of consoles.
Before i played Silent Hill, i had already played Resident Evil 1, 2 and maybe even Dino Crisis (got that on D1, don't remember if it was before or after SH1's release, but it was '99), so i guess i was kind of used to the genre, but Silent Hill still blew my mind, with its mind fuckery.
"Oh shit, a phone rings, but it isn't connected!" "Oh shit, a door leads to a geographically incoherent place!" "Oh shit, random sounds even though there's no one in the stall" "Oh shit, i went through the clock tower and now i'm in hell-mirrored school!".
I think it's because once you find out, that. It kills any sort of danger you think your in. It still has great atmosphere, but that can really make you feel safe during the game. Which isn't a great feeling to have when playing a horror game.the monsters only come out when the world is ice
I think the problem, like what Nuts and Bolts faced, is that folks aren't taking the game for what it is. A psychological story-driven adventure game with horror elements.
Which is understandable considering what we've come to expect from the series, but I think gamers are doing themselves a disservice and missing out on a fantastic experience.
I had played RE1 before this. Not quite sure what did it, but SH1 was just scarier and I couldn't handle it. Although I also was scared to death at RE1 sometimes.
You went in completely blind, or did you play other survival horrors prior to it?
I first played Silent Hill from the demo that was included inside Metal Gear Solid, and instantly fell in love with it (i was 11 or 12 already, though).
Bought it D1 and been a huge fan since.
Silent Hill 2 was actually the first game i pre-ordered in my life, and the only one in the whole 6th generation of consoles.
Before i played Silent Hill, i had already played Resident Evil 1, 2 and maybe even Dino Crisis (got that on D1, don't remember if it was before or after SH1's release, but it was '99), so i guess i was kind of used to the genre, but Silent Hill still blew my mind, with its mind fuckery.
"Oh shit, a phone rings, but it isn't connected!" "Oh shit, a door leads to a geographically incoherent place!" "Oh shit, random sounds even though there's no one in the stall" "Oh shit, i went through the clock tower and now i'm in hell-mirrored school!".
A question many of us wish we knew.
The easy answer is: Konami wanted to take a franchise that had a now-familiar name, a loyal fanbase, and turn out more games with cheaper developments... thus outsourcing to low-experience Western devs.
As far as the original masterminds who, as a collective of talent, fans lovingly refer to as 'Team Silent'?
Let's list a few major members of the Silent Hill team from SH1-4 and what they have done since:
Keiichiro Toyama (Director/Writer)- SH1
Projects Post-SH1: Creative Lead @ SCE Studio Japan; Created the SIREN series and Gravity Rush. Rumored to be making a new PS4 horror game.
Akihiro Imamura (Producer) - SH2, SH4
Projects Post-SH4: Unknown
Masashi Tsuboyama (Director)- SH2; (Art Director) SH4
Projects Post-SH4: Unknown
Hiroyuki Owaku (Writer/Scenario Designer)- SH1, SH2, SH3
Projects Post-SH3: Assisted in end-of-production work on SH4. Worked on Silent Hill: Cage of Cradle, a Japanese digital manga.
Kazuhide Nakazawa (Director)- SH3
Projects Post-SH3: Joined Kojima Productions. Assisted (unspecified) in MGS4, MGSW, MGSV (?)
Suguru Murakoshi (Drama Director/Scenario Designer)- SH2, SH4
Projects Post-SH4: Joined Kojima Productions. Assisted (unspecified) in MGS4, MGSW, MGSV (?)
Takayoshi Sato (CG Creation/Direction)- SH1, SH2
Projects Post-SH2: Briefly worked with EA on Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. Currently works for a small dev called Virtual Heroes, Inc.
Masahiro Ito (Art Direction/Creature Design)- SH1, SH2, SH3
Projects Post-SH3: Worked on promotional art for Origins, Homecoming, Downpour, Book of Memories, and some of the comics/digital novels. Current projects unknown.
Of course you also have Akira Yamaoka, but he's still very active in the industry and hasn't disappeared like pretty much every other former Silent Hill Team member not named Keiichiro Toyama.
It's just baffling to me.
Besides the major names listed above, you also had some amazing technicians within the teams that made absolute magic with those games (especially SH3).
Many are believed to have been shifted to Kojima Productions with the heavy development of MGS4 and it's assumed many are still there, but I don't have the time or patience to go through the lengthy list of credits for SH1-4 and try mixing and matching with the lengthy credits of MGS4 or even Ground Zeroes.
Major players, like Imamura, Owaku, and Tsuboyama being MIA in this industry is just a fucking tragedy, in my opinion.
This is a quesiton that only Konami could really answer. But a clue may be in what happened to Castlevania. We know for a fact that Iga was a working on a new 3D Castlevania (which was apparently SotN 2) as there was a trailer shown at TGS 2008. It was never seen or heard of after that. Lords of Shadow would later be announced. Which obviously meant that Iga's CV was quietly canned in favor of Mercurysteam's game.
Which brings me to Silent Hill. Tsuboyama did several interviews before Homecoming was announced. In them he talked about how the team had been thinking of concepts of how to make Silent Hill work during sunlight. He also made it relatively clear that they were working on the PS3 at the time (this was back in 2007). One interview ended with him hinting that their Silent Hill could be announced at E3 that year. Homecoming is what would end up being announced. After that we never heard from Tsuboyama or really any of the original Team Silent members aside from Yamaoka who'd go on to be the producer for the series.
So, it seems like they were hoping or banking on western devs to revive the popularity of the series. It sorta worked for Castlevania while doing a lot of harm to Silent Hill.
MGS1 came with a Silent Hill demo? Mine didn't.
The story was great save for the fact they wrote whatever reboot they had in mind straight into a corner. The problem was the chase sequences which were probably one on the most miserable experiences I've ever had in a game. If you can somehow tolerate those, I think it works pretty well as a really interesting one-off.
The story was great save for the fact they wrote whatever reboot they had in mind straight into a corner. The problem was the chase sequences which were probably one on the most miserable experiences I've ever had in a game. If you can somehow tolerate those, I think it works pretty well as a really interesting one-off.
I may be in the minority here but I absolutely do NOT want Kojima anywhere near my Silent Hill. If I wanted to watch a movie I'd go do that, keep him out of my games please.
I'm so sick of cinematics, they just don't work for horror for me. It kills any atmosphere leading up to that moment and takes you out of the game.
Hmmm interesting. Good read! Thanks!
Did the series really need to be revived though? As far as I understand, SH3 and SH4 were hits!
For what it's worth, Masahiro Ito has had a very active Twitter presence for years, and is very kind and takes the time to respond to people. He even got in on a bit of the HD Collection community bloodletting experience.
I miss him and the rest of the team. They need to come back together. They need a kickstarter. Seriously. Nothing stopped guys like Inafune from returning to their favorite concepts. I would back it, even if it was called something like "Quiet Mountain" or "Creepy Mound". Change just enough to not get sued, then pick up the slack and continue to evolve the main concept's flexibility, maturity and art style.
I feel the game has one of the best trailers for a horror game ever, I should mention.
So in my quest to play every horror game ever, I recently finally got around to going through all of Silent Hill 4: The Room. This was my fifth time restarting the game, though the furthest I had gotten before was up to finishing Building World the first time. For whatever reason I also own all the versions of this game, on PC, Xbox, and PS2, and for those curious the PS2 version is the best (it has special effects that the other two versions don't have, and the other two versions have weird graphical glitches).
There's actually a lot I want to say on this game.
Silent Hill 4 has the weird position in the franchise of being both loved and hated. Some people view it as the point of which the series began to decline, and others view it as the last true great game in the series. However, what I can say is that it's definitely the weirdest game in the series, and that's saying a lot for a series as weird as Silent Hill.
Now part of this may be that the game was originally supposed to be a new game away from Silent Hill, titled "Room 302", but pretty early on Konami told them to make it a Silent Hill game. And it does feel like a Silent Hill game in many ways, but it also feels different. and sort of seems like the team were doing a balancing act of original ideas and making it a Silent Hill game that could follow the previous titles acclaim and formulas at least somewhat. Some of it is done very well in my opinion with the circumstance in mind, but what I always find funny is how much they shoe-horn Silent Hill into Henry's apartment. He has a variety of pictures scattered around from the town of Silent Hill, and oh will he remind you that they are of Silent Hill.
And in some way it controls about how you'd expect a Silent Hill game to control. Well, a correction, for some reason I feel the controls in this game are a bit worse than the older SH's.He actually feels harder to control than to previous games, at least at first before you adjust. And the weird part is I can't completely pinpoint on why that is. Maybe something about the weird camera angles in this game? I dunno. But of notable difference, in his room he takes on a first person view and observes and interacts with things. Which is an interesting and different change of pace for the series.
Which also leads to one of the most notable things of Silent Hill 4. Its story.
The story of Silent Hill 4 is both similar but also completely different than any other entry in the series. It features around a character named Henry, but unlike other Silent Hill games, Henry, while the main character, is not what the game is actually about. Sure, he has a role in the story, and eventually its his actions that change things, but he's actually hardly developed and doesn't really have much of a personality, outside of saying, "What the hell?" every once in a while. Arguably this is to help put the player in the position of Henry, who is trapped in his apartment and can't leave until one day a strange hole begins growing in his bathroom wall.
The story is more about a man named Walter Sullivan, who is the antagonist of the game. Walter was actually mentioned in a file in Silent Hill 2, and is a murderer who killed 10 people, and then was caught and committed suicide in his cell. However, he was trying to complete something known as the "21 Sacraments" to purify and cleanse his mother of this world and be able to be with her once again. But of course, the game isn't going to end off there, and spoilers,There's more than, but honestly the story goes beyond far-stretched. It is both somewhat ridiculous, but yet absolutely fascinating, and actually very well-executed. I found myself drawn-in by the story, and if handled differently it would of come out more comedic probably than interesting or creepy, but they did a good job at making the far-fetched seem plausible, and connect it all together in an interesting way.we soon find out that he actually views the apartment he was born in, Room 302, as his mother. But the ritual he is doing will bring the Devil to be born, and he must be stopped before he can kill 21 victims.
I also want to mention that the story felt more David Lynch to me than any other Silent Hill game. David Lynch has always been an inspiration to the series, but this definitely felt like the game most inspired by his works to me. Several scenes in the game, and just the characters, scream David Lynch to me. All the characters are oddly quirky, and odd things that seem irrelevant at first grow to be far more important than one may have first thought. Scenes transition to one another, lighting and colors play a big role, and repeating themes and imagery occur through the course of the game.
I don't think it has the same level of personal journey that Silent Hill 2 has, or the enjoyable characters that Silent Hill 3 has, but its a story that takes on its own form and somehow avoids going off the rails despite how far-fetched some of its ideas are, and layers what is the most surreal Silent Hill game out there.
I've played a lot of dream games, from Yume Nikki to LSD: Dream Emulator, but none of them are actually like dreams I personally have. But Silent Hill 4 is probably the closest game I've played that feels like an actual dream I would have.The world is close to what might be plausibly real, but it's off and details you may have noticed about some environment in real life becomes greatly exaggerated. Imagination fills the holes of what you've forgotten, and what is left is a place that is close to feeling like a place but also off, and strange. The world in Silent Hill 4 works off of a dream logic, and has its own sort of warped logic to figure out and solve in each world. The game even toys with the idea of this all being like a dream, but it keeps things consistently strange and surreal, more so in my opinion than any other entry in the series.
I think the strangeness peaks for me half-way through the game and at the end. The hospital level about half-way through is almost like the developers just went crazy making rooms with odd mechanics and sights to experience. There's rooms that are all sticky and you move slow in, there's crazy wheelchairs zooming around all on their own, there is a sudden spiked ceiling that teases you with crushing, a padded room with hooks stretching out human flesh, and even rooms with giant heads and bizarre eyes. You meet enemies that make burping sounds when hit. You walk around in a room that's raining for no reason. It all feels weird and like the developers were having fun just making it weird. And the same goes for the final world, which takes thematic rooms to the next level.
It honestly to me feels like Silent Hill 4 was a big chance for the team to toy around with ideas for the fun of it and do things because they want you. I feel it's not accident this is the Silent Hill game with the fewest locked doors in the whole series. The developers had a lot of quirky ideas, and the game is just filled with oddness because of it, aided by its odd story and surreal atmosphere.
And this is all backed-up by the strange room mechanic, which starts off as a means of bringing everything together and just to uncover plot and easter eggs, but develops into its own fight as you fight off strange hauntings and otherworldly things trying to break into your apartment with spiritual items like candles. The ritualistic themes in the game are quite strong, and it featuring over other elements of the other SH games, which features stuff like cults and character journeys, is interesting. Cults and character journeys are definitely still in the story, but the rituals are actually at the forefront here, as well as a bigger emphasis on spiritual power and what place it has in out world.
So did I like it? Yes I did, actually more than I expected to after its mixed opinions. I think a level of learning is required here though. As weird as it may sound, I feel like this game is the 'Majora's Mask' of the Silent Hill series. It's very different, weird, but arguably a lot darker, and with mechanics that are maybe hard to understand at first but develop with time. I don't think I like it quite as much as I like Silent Hill 2 or 3, but it comes damn close, and in some ways there's elements about it I prefer to other entries in the series.
I also feel that Akira absolutely nailed the music in this game. Akira being good with atmospheric music is nothing new I know, but I feel with this game there could of been no better soundtrack to it other than the tunes he composed for the game. Room of Angel is an obvious choice, but honestly, all of the soundtrack is amazing, its hard to pick favorites here. It feels a lot more ethereal than other entries, and more dream-like than the other games soundtracks.
I kind of really want to talk about Silent Hill 4, so what did you all think of it? Any moments stick out in memory? Still need to play it? What say you, GAF, on this fairly mixed-reception title in the franchise?
As far as I know the series never reached the height that it did with SH@ being nearly a launch title for PS2.
Chart is from this guy, and would be more useful with a data label along the right there:
http://www.dreamdawn.com/sh/