(set: $points to 0)
Oh boy look at this! A new choose your own adventure review! Joab sure hates his own time! Do you think this time he'll actually construct something that follows the format properly or will it be more meta horseshit?
[[He'll do it properly for sure.]]
(link: "Meta Horseshit") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Meta Horseshit")]
When you're right you're right! But look! Something new! A score! You've got points! That's exciting, right?
(print: $points)
(link: "What are the points for?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "What are the points for?")]
Crikey cobber the meta horseshit had already begun in the last bloody passage.
Why don't you go back to the [[Beginning]] and try again.
Meta horseshit, of course.
Anyway, do you want to start this bloody review or what?
(link: "Yes please!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]
(print: $points)(if:$points is >= 10) [Hey you've got heaps of points! You have earned access to New Game +! Go have a look at Your Usual Horseshit Plus!
(link: "Your usual horseshit plus!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Your usual horseshit please")]] (else:) [It's your Choose Your Own Adventure, but I'm going to recommend you start here. (link: "Your usual horseshit please") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Your usual horseshit please")]]
And then head on down to these guys at your leisure.
(link: "Just give me the score.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Just give me the score.")]
(link: "Letterboxd Review please") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Letterboxd Review please")]
(link: "What happened to the Story and Gameplay Only reviews?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "What happened to the Story and Gameplay Only reviews?")]
(link: "Hey I've played this before and I want to skip ahead to having enough points can I do that please?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Hey I've played this before and I want to skip ahead to having enough points can I do that please?")]
(print: $points)I don't want to.
(print: $points)
(link: "What? Where's my score!?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "What? Where's my score!?")]# ''Silent Hill ƒ'' 2025
More like Silent Hill ƒed up.
⭐⭐⭐½
(print: $points)
(link: "Hey you did a half thing!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Hey you did a half thing!")]
Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie to you?
(print: $points)
(link: "Why would I want anything other than the truth?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Why would I want anything other than the truth?")]
(link: "I've actually done some self-examination and come to the conclusion that I cannot, in fact, handle the truth. So, lie please.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "I've actually done some self-examination and come to the conclusion that I cannot, in fact, handle the truth. So, lie please.")]Lots of reasons. Anyway, the truth is I am trying something different with the main review this time and it's pretty complicated (by my standards because I am not very good at this) and as a result I have pared back the amount of variables. So Gameplay only and Story only had to go.
(print: $points)
(link: "Sounds like a cop-out to be honest.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Sounds like a cop-out to be honest.")]
Me neither most of the time. I'm so glad you were honest with me. Wait. Am I? Can I not handle the truth either?
I can't answer that. If I say I can't handle the truth and it's true, then I can't handle that truth. If I say I can't handle the truth and it's a lie, then I can handle the truth. But what does that gain me? I still think I can't handle the truth.
Anyway to answer your question, the Story Only and Gameplay Only reviews were killed by a grue. The same grue that is coming for-
Nah we're not doing that this time. This is a peaceful CYOA review for peaceful people.
(link: "Head back to the top at your leisure.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]
(print: $points)
Yeah dawg it is a cop-out. I just flat-out told you I was doing less because of increased difficulty. That's a cop-out.
(print: $points)
(link: "Couldn't you just be better?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Couldn't you just be better?")]
You asked for the truth, so here it is. No. I mean, maybe, with enough time, I could be better. But I don't have time. I am crazy out of time. So no, I can't be better. This is as good as I get.
(print: $points)
(link: "Oh, fair cop. So what now? Do you kill me?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Oh, fair cop. So what now? Do you kill me?")]Nope, this time I just send you back to the start. Do you want to return to the start?
(print: $points)
(link: "Yes please!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]I don't want to do a score this time. I hate scores. Didn't I make that really obvious last time? And the time before that? I haven't done a score on a review in years. I hate the idea that all my beautiful words might be reduced to a single integer. Fuck scores.
(print: $points)
(link: "Ok but you can't not do Gameplay Only and Story Only and then also not do Scores.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Ok but you can't not do Gameplay Only and Story Only and then also not do Scores.")]Why not? I'm the one in charge here.
(print: $points)
(link: "But what about your haters?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "But what about your haters?")]
My haters? What of them?
(print: $points)
(link: "Your many real and imagined haters will use the absence of effort in this review as evidence of how you've dropped off.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Your many real and imagined haters will use the absence of effort in this review as evidence of how you've dropped off.")]
They will!? But I haven't dropped off! This review took a lot of work! There's behind the scenes shit going on! I've upskilled!
(print: $points)
(link: "They don't care do they? They're haters. It's not rational, it's a vibe thing.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "They don't care do they? They're haters. It's not rational, it's a vibe thing.")]Wow... I guess... I guess I better do scores then.
Ok, let's start again.
(print: $points)
(link: "Give me the score.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Give me the score.")]
7/10
(print: $points)
(link: "You have to be fucking kidding bro.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "You have to be fucking kidding bro.")]
What? You wanted the score, that's the score.
(print: $points)
(link: "You gave the last game a 7! You keep giving games 7!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "You gave the last game a 7! You keep giving games 7!")]
I don't know what to tell you big fella, that's just how it works. There's 10 numbers. It's above average, so that leaves 5 numbers. I have serious problems with it, so that leaves 4 numbers. Probably 3 numbers. I liked it, I didn't love it, I don't want to replay it despite significant incentives but I'm also glad I finished it.
There just aren't that many numbers. I didn't make the system. I didn't even want to participate in the system. The only reason I derived a number at all is because you invoked my haters.
Which reminds me. How do you know so much about my haters?
(print: $points)
(link: "Ahhh, Joaby. You got there eventually.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Ahhh, Joaby. You got there eventually.")]
You're one of my haters?
(print: $points)
(link: "You really don't get it yet?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "IYou really don't get it yet?")]
I...I guess not? I feel like I do on some level, but...explain it to me.
(print: $points)
(link: "This is an internal monologue. I'm not one of your haters. I'm your biggest hater. I'm you, Joaby.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "This is an internal monologue. I'm not one of your haters. I'm your biggest hater. I'm you, Joaby.")]
Oh. That's a bit of a bummer. I thought you were a fictional reader that I could use to bounce ideas off.
(print: $points)
(link: "Oh, I'm a fictional reader alright. Because all your readers are fictional.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Oh, I'm a fictional reader alright. Because all your readers are fictional.")]Ok, a bit mean. Let's calm down.
(print: $points)
(link: "Because they're made up you see. Because nobody reads your shit.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Because they're made up you see. Because nobody reads your shit.")]
No I got it, that's why I said calm down.
(print: $points)
(link: "Oh fair enough. I take a rather dim view of you is the thing.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Oh fair enough. I take a rather dim view of you is the thing.")]
Yeah that makes sense. Anyway, this bit has gone on a little and I don't have anywhere for it to go.
Do you want to go back to the start?
(print: $points)
(link: "Yes please!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]Yeah it's not half a star but I'm getting closer!
Anyway, do you want to go back to the start?
(print: $points)
(link: "Yes please!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]
(print: $points)
(if:$points is >= 10) [Prepare for NEW GAME + MODE! The review has changed!
I still remember the first time I played Silent Hill. I was sitting in my lounge room and my mate Arnold had brought over a disc wallet full of pirated games. Arnie is Filipino, and every now and then he'd head back to The Philippines. When he returned he'd come bearing more games than any person could ever reasonably play, all printed on white labeled (no longer) blank CDs. (text-colour:orange)[The title of each game was printed on the disc, but if you can determine what kind of game you're in for by reading "Klonoa" written in sharpie on a white background, you've got me beat.]
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf007.jpg"/>
Sometimes we'd have sleepovers where we'd play games, get drunk and be rowdy little shits. Naturally this mostly took place when the host's parents were away, (text-colour:orange)[although if we were going to my mum's she didn't give a shit].
Anyway, in this particular instance we were at my Dad's, and I was cracking through the CD wallet checking out all the games within. (text-colour:orange)[Years later, I obsessively play new games constantly, and I rarely find satisfaction in one game for very long. Are these concepts linked? Nobody knows.]
After mentally noting "Azure Dreams" as a game to come back to, I popped a game called Silent Hill into the PlayStation,(text-colour:orange)[ I drank deep from my large plastic cup filled with Jim and Coke], and I fell all the way in.
My initial reactions were not positive. I couldn't see shit. I didn't know where I was going, or really what I was supposed to be doing. (text-colour:orange)[I may have been a little drunk.] But it seemed to me like I was playing a Resident Evil rip-off, except with Superman 64's fog effect. (text-colour:orange)[There was even a "Beware of Dog" sign, so they were clearly already aware of the memes.]
Then I got attacked by some goo-gahs in an abandoned warehouse and I knew I was playing something else. Something more. Resident Evil was a pure sort of horror—undead humanoid monstrosities formed from man's hubris, dogs that suck, that kind of thing. But with its foggy environment and bizarre creatures, Silent Hill dragged us into nightmare territory—surreal explorations of fear through the lens of a dream. (text-colour:orange)[And yeah, some jump scares along the way.]
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf006.jpg"/>
As a result, Silent Hill f was one of my most anticipated games for the year. I'm a huge fan of the series, and everything they showed of the game piqued my interest more. A Japanese setting, the schoolgirl trope—we were getting away from an American pastiche for the first time, and I was deeply intrigued.
Silent Hill f opens brilliantly. A pedestrian cutscene sets the stage and delivers a bit of characterisation and a mission—leave your house and meet your friends. (text-colour:orange)[Hinako seemed like an odd duck, but that's Silent Hill, baby! You don't wind up in the fog if you're normal.]
And when the manifestation of the fog chases Hinako through the streets of Ebisugaoka, I was right back there in Silent Hill for the first time, my heart pounding as some goo-gah chased me.
Except this was so much scarier. It wasn't just the way the fog chased Hinako—the ground before me bloomed with blood red plant matter, and when I took a wrong turn down unfamiliar streets, the way Hinako died was properly upsetting. Trypophobic stimuli break out across her skin as the flowers overwhelm and sprout from within her.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf001.jpg"/>
The story reminded me a lot of an anime I'd really enjoyed, "Shiki". A small rural town, a mysterious illness looking thing, schoolkids teaming up—I was digging the vibes. (text-colour:orange)[But I haven't watched a lot of anime. Shiki is kinda one of the only ones outside of the mainstream hits, and even most of those have passed me by. So if Shiki seems like a deep cut, just know it's because it's one of the few of my weeb-ass brother's recommendations that I actually watched. I guess I could also compare it to Na Hong-jin's The Wailing from 2016, but it's just as esoteric a reference (and also a recommendation from my weeb-ass brother).]
The relationships between the characters Hinako, Shu, Rinko and Sakuko had me spinning up theories about what was 'happening' constantly—and just as often I was shutting them down again. It's high school drama, but that doesn't make it bad. Drama is drama, right? It's conflict. The trick to making a high school drama that lands with someone who is at this point far, far removed from those days is to cement it in familiar ideas and concepts. Jealousy, abandonment, whatever the fuck Shu's deal was—these are common feelings, and Silent Hill f deftly uses them as touchpoints when reminding us of Hinako's more… grounded life problems.
Then there's the fox dude, and your mum and your dad, and… it's hard to talk about their roles in the game without spoiling things, but they provide us with the core reason for Hinako to shift to a fog town, in the Silent Hill sense. They're the primary source of conflict at the heart of the game, but I'll only tell you my read on the events in the game and their role in it if (link: "you really, really want.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "you really, really want.")]
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf003.jpg"/>
And so we come to the combat. Silent Hill is a series about regular people fighting nightmarish creatures, and SHf nails that. (text-colour:orange)[It might go a little too hard on that, to be honest. ]Enemies take many hits to destroy, and they hit hard. Comparisons to Dark Souls sort-of fit—you have stamina to manage, a dodge button (and a perfect dodge mechanic), plus you can parry easily once you recognise an enemy's attack patterns.
After a while it begins to grate. You're supposed to run past enemies, but there are tons of situations where you simply can't. Especially towards the end, when I'd used up all my fucks like they were toolkits and my patience was suffering the same degradation as my weapons. (text-colour:orange)[Waiting to move on past a literal invisible wall because the pile-of-bodies-with-a-head exclusively moves in hopscotch turns genuinely knocked points off this game's score for me.]
The problem is the combat never gets interesting. I understand why you're fragile—it's a horror game, after all. And I am ok with your relative power level remaining low the entire game. But you've seen basically all the enemies by the halfway point. (text-colour:orange)[Any seasoned Souls player will have worked out the movesets two-thirds of the way into the game. You're so fucking fragile that you'll probably have to run a few gauntlets more than once, which means the jump scare grabs lose their edge too.]
I've never really agreed with this aspect of the Silent Hill franchise, but at least in Silent Hill 2 (text-colour:orange)[(last year's excellent remake being my most recent reference point)] you'd occasionally get to shotgun blast some enemies for a cathartic release. Using the (text-colour:orange)[unsettlingly hairy] Fox Arm to swipe enemies and watching as it still takes too many hits to kill things just doesn't cut the mustard to me.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf002.jpg"/>
And adding complexity to the combat makes sense early on, but because the weapon selection and enemy variety is so poor it quickly becomes 'button-mashing' with extra steps. At least in the old games you'd either hammer the attack button as fast as humanly possible or run. In Silent Hill f, combat you can't viably run from involves attacking once, waiting for the enemy to strike, parrying it if it's parryable and dodging if it's not and then repeating the process. (text-colour:orange)[Wash, rinse, repeat, except in Silent Hill f it's actually the gameplay and not some scam from the shampoo companies trying to get you to buy more bottles.]
The combat, now that I've finished the game once, is the biggest reason I won't playthrough the game again any time soon. It's so tedious, so mind-numbing, that it actually made Silent Hill f easier to finish. I played the first half of the game in 30 minute chunks before bailing to play some Deep Rock Galactic Survivor so I could calm down a bit. (text-colour:orange)[The game was fucking scary.]
I finished the second half of the game in one sitting. I understood the enemies. (text-colour:orange)[I knew what I was in for. In fog town, I'd have to wallop shit over and over. In the Dark Shrine, I'd have to wallop shit over and over again but with a different weapon. ]It's an unforced error of staggering proportions.
And the thought of going and doing it all again has ruined one of the most interesting things Silent Hill f has going for it. The last 5% of the game does an amazing job of cementing the context of what has happened in Hinaka's world to cause her to go into the fog—but the first cutscene of New Game + is so different that it almost felt like it was from a different game.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf005.jpg"/>
I guess it should be obvious, but I haven't played it. Imagine getting so bored by Nier Automata that you simply cannot bear to see it through past the first ending. (text-colour:orange)[Better still—imagine beating Godfrey in Elden Ring and deciding you don't care to see any more of the game because you know the combat has very little to offer.]
I'm conflicted, because—what if I'm wrong? What if New Game + actually dramatically changes up the combat? I played through Silent Hill f on "Story" difficulty and regretted it deeply—the sanity mechanics played very little part in my runthrough because they were all but turned off on Story difficulty.
So upon New Game +, I jacked the difficulty up. I didn't much care to, but I had to know. I bumped the puzzle difficulty up to Lost in the Fog too, because I'd finished the game on Hard in the first place.
But while cutscenes were different, and there was a new house to explore early on, my combat experience was largely the same once it began. (text-colour:orange)[I say largely the same because, well, now the enemies took even more hits to kill. So, you know, even more tedious.]
But then again, it's not like Silent Hill's combat has always been great. It was a lie, a trick the game told you, a ruse to make you think you had some power, a little carrot to hide the giant stick. By attempting to evolve and build on the combat, Silent Hill f reaches a little higher. Attempts to be something grander. And Hinako, powerless schoolgirl that we are told she is, has terrible violence within her. We just… never really get to see it in action.
I suppose I should talk to the puzzles, seeing how I mentioned the difficulty settings. They're good, but they too wear thin. It's not the puzzling out that eventually wears down on the player though, it's the game forcing you to navigate a labyrinth teeming with tedious battles. Early on, you take in a puzzle and you try to work your way through it. There's a faint amusement at the cultural elements at play—Silent Hill f is a very Japanese game, and it's not ashamed of it at all. (text-colour:orange)[Trying to work out which flowers I need to showcase on the box puzzle in the school was frustrating but enriching.]
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf11.jpg"/>
But as the game continues, puzzles turn into fetch quests. There's no real critical thinking in finding the objects you need—simply search every room until it shows up. And searching is not exactly a brain-wrinkling experience either. (text-colour:orange)[Walk into every wall until a prompt shows to 'search', and eventually you'll find what you're looking for. It's the 3D equivalent of a pixel hunt, a mind-numbing exercise in pedantry, where there is no pleasure to be derived from success, just a dull weariness found in 'failure'.]
With your object found, you can then head back to your starting location. In the good puzzles, you then get to participate in some actual thinking. In more than a few cases, however, successfully completing the labyrinth is enough.
And again, it's not like this is unique to Silent Hill f. The other games were occasionally guilty of this—there was always an "Adventure Game but 3D and terrifying" vibe to the series. (text-colour:orange)[But there was something particularly demoralising about realising another Dark Shrine puzzle was about to be solved by walking around a maze for a bit in Silent Hill f.]
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf009.jpg"/>
I think back to my first encounter with Silent Hill. A blank disc, some black ink. No hype, no expectations. A terrible first impression and the slow realisation of the brilliance. Would I have persisted with Silent Hill f under the same circumstances? My first impression was certainly better.(text-colour:orange)[ I don't think knowing absolutely nothing about Silent Hill f would have turned it into a flawless game, but I do think a large part of the disappointment I felt in it lays squarely at my feet. That doesn't excuse what Silent Hill f is bad at—but like Hinako, I find myself a small cog in an enormous machine far beyond my control, and unlike Hinako I haven't the strength to break free.]
(link: "Ah right I get it now.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Ah right I get it now.")]](else:) [Just starting out hey? Well, here's the review!
I still remember the first time I played Silent Hill. I was sitting in my lounge room and my mate Arnold had brought over a disc wallet full of pirated games. Arnie is Filipino, and every now and then he'd head back to The Philippines. When he returned he'd come bearing more games than any person could ever reasonably play, all printed on white labeled (no longer) blank CDs.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf007.jpg"/>
Sometimes we'd have sleepovers where we'd play games, get drunk and be rowdy little shits. Naturally this mostly took place when the host's parents were away.
Anyway, in this particular instance we were at my Dad's, and I was cracking through the CD wallet checking out all the games within.
After mentally noting "Azure Dreams" as a game to come back to, I popped a game called Silent Hill into the PlayStation, and I fell all the way in.
My initial reactions were not positive. I couldn't see shit. I didn't know where I was going, or really what I was supposed to be doing. I may have been a little drunk. But it seemed to me like I was playing a Resident Evil rip-off, except with Superman 64's fog effect.
Then I got attacked by some goo-gahs in an abandoned warehouse and I knew I was playing something else. Something more. Resident Evil was a pure sort of horror—undead humanoid monstrosities formed from man's hubris, dogs that suck, that kind of thing. But with its foggy environment and bizarre creatures, Silent Hill dragged us into nightmare territory—surreal explorations of fear through the lens of a dream.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf006.jpg"/>
As a result, Silent Hill f was one of my most anticipated games for the year. I'm a huge fan of the series, and everything they showed of the game piqued my interest more. A Japanese setting, the schoolgirl trope—we were getting away from an American pastiche for the first time, and I was deeply intrigued.
Silent Hill f opens brilliantly. A pedestrian cutscene sets the stage and delivers a bit of characterisation and a mission—leave your house and meet your friends.
And when the manifestation of the fog chases Hinako through the streets of Ebisugaoka, I was right back there in Silent Hill for the first time, my heart pounding as some goo-gah chased me.
Except this was so much scarier. It wasn't just the way the fog chased Hinako—the ground before me bloomed with blood red plant matter, and when I took a wrong turn down unfamiliar streets, the way Hinako died was properly upsetting. Trypophobic stimuli break out across her skin as the flowers overwhelm and sprout from within her.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf001.jpg"/>
The story reminded me a lot of an anime I'd really enjoyed, "Shiki". A small rural town, a mysterious illness looking thing, schoolkids teaming up—I was digging the vibes.
The relationships between the characters Hinako, Shu, Rinko and Sakuko had me spinning up theories about what was 'happening' constantly—and just as often I was shutting them down again. It's high school drama, but that doesn't make it bad. Drama is drama, right? It's conflict. The trick to making a high school drama that lands with someone who is at this point far, far removed from those days is to cement it in familiar ideas and concepts. Jealousy, abandonment, whatever the fuck Shu's deal was—these are common feelings, and Silent Hill f deftly uses them as touchpoints when reminding us of Hinako's more… grounded life problems.
Then there's the fox dude, and your mum and your dad, and… it's hard to talk about their roles in the game without spoiling things, but they provide us with the core reason for Hinako to shift to a fog town, in the Silent Hill sense. They're the primary source of conflict at the heart of the game, but I'll only tell you my read on the events in the game and their role in it if (link: "you really, really want.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "you really, really want.")]
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf003.jpg"/>
And so we come to the combat. Silent Hill is a series about regular people fighting nightmarish creatures, and SHf nails that. Enemies take many hits to destroy, and they hit hard. Comparisons to Dark Souls sort-of fit—you have stamina to manage, a dodge button (and a perfect dodge mechanic), plus you can parry easily once you recognise an enemy's attack patterns.
After a while it begins to grate. You're supposed to run past enemies, but there are tons of situations where you simply can't. Especially towards the end, when I'd used up all my fucks like they were toolkits and my patience was suffering the same degradation as my weapons.
The problem is the combat never gets interesting. I understand why you're fragile—it's a horror game, after all. And I am ok with your relative power level remaining low the entire game. But you've seen basically all the enemies by the halfway point.
I've never really agreed with this aspect of the Silent Hill franchise, but at least in Silent Hill 2 you'd occasionally get to shotgun blast some enemies for a cathartic release. Using the Fox Arm to swipe enemies and watching as it still takes too many hits to kill things just doesn't cut the mustard to me.
And adding complexity to the combat makes sense early on, but because the weapon selection and enemy variety is so poor it quickly becomes 'button-mashing' with extra steps. At least in the old games you'd either hammer the attack button as fast as humanly possible or run. In Silent Hill f, combat you can't viably run from involves attacking once, waiting for the enemy to strike, parrying it if it's parryable and dodging if it's not and then repeating the process.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf002.jpg"/>
The combat, now that I've finished the game once, is the biggest reason I won't playthrough the game again any time soon. It's so tedious, so mind-numbing, that it actually made Silent Hill f easier to finish. I played the first half of the game in 30 minute chunks before bailing to play some Deep Rock Galactic Survivor so I could calm down a bit.
I finished the second half of the game in one sitting. I understood the enemies. I knew what I was in for. It's an unforced error of staggering proportions.
And the thought of going and doing it all again has ruined one of the most interesting things Silent Hill f has going for it. The last 5% of the game does an amazing job of cementing the context of what has happened in Hinaka's world to cause her to go into the fog—but the first cutscene of New Game + is so different that it almost felt like it was from a different game.
I guess it should be obvious, but I haven't played it. Imagine getting so bored by Nier Automata that you simply cannot bear to see it through past the first ending.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf003.jpg"/>
I'm conflicted, because—what if I'm wrong? What if New Game + actually dramatically changes up the combat? I played through Silent Hill f on "Story" difficulty and regretted it deeply—the sanity mechanics played very little part in my runthrough because they were all but turned off on Story difficulty.
So upon New Game +, I jacked the difficulty up. I didn't much care to, but I had to know. I bumped the puzzle difficulty up to Lost in the Fog too, because I'd finished the game on Hard in the first place.
But while cutscenes were different, and there was a new house to explore early on, my combat experience was largely the same once it began.
But then again, it's not like Silent Hill's combat has always been great. It was a lie, a trick the game told you, a ruse to make you think you had some power, a little carrot to hide the giant stick. By attempting to evolve and build on the combat, Silent Hill f reaches a little higher. Attempts to be something grander. And Hinako, powerless schoolgirl that we are told she is, has terrible violence within her. We just… never really get to see it in action.
I suppose I should talk to the puzzles, seeing how I mentioned the difficulty settings. They're good, but they too wear thin. It's not the puzzling out that eventually wears down on the player though, it's the game forcing you to navigate a labyrinth teeming with tedious battles. Early on, you take in a puzzle and you try to work your way through it. There's a faint amusement at the cultural elements at play—Silent Hill f is a very Japanese game, and it's not ashamed of it at all.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf11.jpg"/>
But as the game continues, puzzles turn into fetch quests. There's no real critical thinking in finding the objects you need—simply search every room until it shows up. And searching is not exactly a brain-wrinkling experience either. Walk into every wall until a prompt shows to 'search', and eventually you'll find what you're looking for.
With your object found, you can then head back to your starting location. In the good puzzles, you then get to participate in some actual thinking. In more than a few cases, however, successfully completing the labyrinth is enough.
And again, it's not like this is unique to Silent Hill f. The other games were occasionally guilty of this—there was always an "Adventure Game but 3D and terrifying" vibe to the series.
<img src="https://thegapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/shf009.jpg"/>
I think back to my first encounter with Silent Hill. A blank disc, some black ink. No hype, no expectations. A terrible first impression and the slow realisation of the brilliance. Would I have persisted with Silent Hill f under the same circumstances? My first impression was certainly better.
(link: "That seemed a little stilted?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "That seemed a little stilted?")]
]Fox guy is Hinako's husband-to-be, a marriage constructed by her parents to allay some of her father's debt.
He may or may not be the 700 year old heir to a kitsune worshipping dynasty—I find it so odd that the internet has decided, flat out, that this is a real thing happening in Hinako's world. It feels exceedingly obvious to me that Fox dude represents Hinako's loss of autonomy, that her parents are betrayers, and that by taking the red capsules she slowly succumbed to paranoia before going on a murdering spree at her own wedding.
But some people are like 'no, he's actually a fox dude'. I dunno. (link: "Do you want to go back to the review?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Your usual horseshit please")]I'm trying something here. Why don't you go check out the rest of the review options and come back later? Maybe the points will be used for something! Would you like me to send you back to the top?
(print: $points)
(link: "Yes please!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]
Pretty good right? I added more context after a single playthrough so that you had to read it twice to get the full story!
(print: $points)
(link: "Yeah I said I get it now.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yeah I said I get it now.")]
Rightio then. Do you want to head back to the start?
(print: $points)
(link: "Hang on, why not just do the good review in the first place? Why make me go through all this tedious shit just to get the full picture?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Hang on, why not just do the good review in the first place? Why make me go through all this tedious shit just to get the full picture?")]
That's Silent Hill f baby!
(print: $points)
(link: "How droll.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "How droll.")]
That's how I do it baby! Want to go back to the start to see if there's anything else you missed?
(print: $points)
(link: "Is there anything? Are there any other clever tricks?") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Is there anything? Are there any other clever tricks?")]
Nah just this one. I have a lot of work I need to get done before I go to Japan next week (not related to Silent Hill f) so yeah, sadly you only get about 4000 words in this review instead of the usual 6k or so.
(print: $points)
(link: "You must be an armchair because you are LAY-ZEE-BOYYYYY") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "You must be an armchair because you are LAY-ZEE-BOYYYYY")]Alright chuckles, you going back then?
(print: $points)
(link: "Yes please!") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]If you're sure you want to just sorta skip the whole point gaining mechanic, then (link: "click here.") [(set: $points to it +10)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]
If you just clicked here out of curiousity and you want to engage with the point thing in the normal manner, (link: "just head back now.") [(set: $points to it +1)
(go-to: "Yes please!")]