ScOULaris said:
I guess what I meant by "we hardly knew ye" is that we never got a chance to see what Team Silent could have done with it on next-gen (or current-gen, whatever you wanna call it) hardware. Have you taken a look at SH3 lately? That PS2 game shames Homecoming stylistically and even technically at parts.
I think that Shattered Memories could be a decent game in its own right, but it does not seem to retain even a tenth of the atmosphere that SH1-4 had. I think that the developers should have just made a new IP with the same ideas in place. The Silent Hill series has been dragging its broken legs forward for long enough. I choose to remember it as it was in the PS2 entries of the series.
this, at least from a game design perspective, makes your comparison of 'dragging broken legs forwards' an apt one but not in the way you intended.
sure, it must have been nice playing essentially the same game with better graphics back when 2 and 3 were came out, but i'm kind of over the thrill of playing the latest entry with better graphics this far into the gen. beyond 'lets just add shiny new graphics but pretend survival horror games haven't changed in ten years' crap.
i first played Silent Hill just a few years ago. i had already played PS3 and 360 games at the time, and despite the graphics being far from cutting edge, it was easily my favourite of the series and it now stands as one of my favourite games.
two in many ways was a disapointment, three i liked more, but both felt like the same game with slightly better graphics. i know 2 is loved and understand why, but for me, i connected much more with a father searching for his lost child, than a guy trying to work out whether or not he killed his dead wife for a good reason or a bad reason. i cared a lot more about the stakes in the first and third game than in the second.
Shattered Memories is trying to screw with your head in new and ground breaking ways. it's cutting out the worst part of the games in dropping the combat and trying something new instead.
whether it is anointed with the mark of Team Silent or not, it is a the freshest game in the series since the original. amazing for something that could be called a remake.
Climax nailed the atmosphere and made a technically amazing game in Silent Hill: Origins... which is probably still my second favourite in the series.
so what if it isn't pushing the most powerful hardware, Shattered Memories IS pushing the hardware.
when have we ever had a Silent Hill game that pushed the most powerful hardware available?
from my perspective, playing them after the fact, the two games that are arguably the least impressive technically when divorced from the limitations of the hardware they ran on are the best... so i don't have the perspective that a Silent Hill game can't be any good salt if it isn't the most graphically impressive game going at the time.
and thank god for that.