Silent Hill f is a haunting, tense, and beautiful game

Do you know what Silent Hill games I’ve played before? Homecoming and Downpour. Back then I didn’t know about the first three games and I played those that I did simply because I saw them on the shelf. By the way, I didn’t even finish them, even I with no knowledge of what came before could not enjoy those games. You may ask “Ok, but why didn’t you play Silent Hill 2 remake then?” The answer is that over the years I have since countless reviews and retrospectives regarding the first three games, especially the second one. So even though it was going to be a remake and include some new things, I just didn’t find it in me to play it. Perhaps that is why I was so excited about Silent Hill f, what seemed to be a new chapter and separate from the games that came before it, giving me the perfect entry point to the Silent Hill franchise. Also the initial teasers and posters that I saw peaked my interest even more; with the game to be set in Japan and centred around a middle school girl, the possibilities for horror, both psychological and physical, were endless.

I think there’s no better place to start than with that, the setting of Japan. It is important to point out just how well the developers have taken advantage of this. They have used this setting and have implemented it in every aspect of the game, often in the best way possible. Playing the game you will go through the streets of a rural Japanese town in the 1960s, explore the insides of the often claustrophobic buildings, go through maze-like shrines, and other diverse locations that you often associate with Japan. The story obviously has a strong influence from Japanese culture, especially in terms of traditional and religious beliefs common in the time period, but so do certain aspects of the gameplay such as items and their effects. Enemy designs resemble closely those that we have seen in Japanese horror films and that have become famous. While Japanese music and tone has become something familiar to gamers through other games such as Ghost of Tsushima, it is unique in Silent Hill f in that not only are the instruments used in harsh way to install fear into you and create scary tension, but certain vocalizations and chants make the ambient of the game even more terrifying. Japanese voice acting is so interesting, even though the language is completely foreign, there is something about the performance of the voice actors that deserves praise. Certain moments or line deliveries can be hard to imagine being delivered in any language other than Japanese with the same level of intensity and edge.

While the voice acting is superb, the facial animations do not reach the same heights. The faces in this game ARE expressive and DO relay emotions and feelings, but they do lack details and in that aspect it falls short compared to other games. It doesn’t bring down the experience but it is something that is worth bringing up. Something that is done far better than the facial animations are the body animations, specifically those of the enemies. As if the design of the enemies and the way they looked wasn’t haunting enough, their movements are done in a way to look very unnatural. An enemy getting close to you isn’t just scary because they can attack and kill you, but the way they approach you creeps you out and makes you uncomfortable. The threat of the enemies is further increased by the simple fact that you often are ill-requipped to fight these enemies.

In order to combat enemies you are often left with a rusty piece of pipe or small knife that makes you feel at a disadvantage. But you are never truly hopeless. Heavy or special attacks can stun your enemies, giving you an opening. . You can dodge enemy attacks and when you do so perfectly, you are rewarded with stamina. You have items at your disposal that allow to regain health, stamina, or the ability to carry out special attacks. However, there are twists to these mechanics. First, if you are hit while preparing for a special attack, you take extra damage to your focus, the resource used for these attacks. Second, once you start an attack, you are committed and cannot dodge if an enemy attack is incoming. Third, most of your items can be sold at shrines to gain Faith, a currency used for levelling up and increasing your survivability. These presents a choice to you, do you want to use the item during combat to survive in the moment, or do you want to save it for later to gain the upper hand long-term? A game design that I think is underutilized in games, shoutout to Metro 2033, which I think was one of the game first game to come up with this idea. There is yet another layer to how you approach combat. In certain sections of the game, the weapons that you can use have a durability. This means that even if you are confident in you skills to fight enemies without taking much damage, you will still be reducing the durability of your weapons. The tool that you can use to repair your weapons can only be found through exploration, and is not frequently available. This creates a thought process as to whether or not you should engage enemies, one which is made even more complex by the ability of some enemies to reanimate, to come back to life.

All the small decisions I have mentioned become crucial in the hard difficulty of the combat. In hard difficulty, this game truly becomes a survival horror experience. One wrong decision can cost you your life, or one of your decisions in the past can end up saving it. You are constantly battling for resources as even if you are in a situation where you think you are safe, one battle or chain of events is all it takes for you to end up with little to nothing left. From your resources the stamina becomes especially unforgiving as if you run out of stamina, you cannot move until you have regained some, leaving you open to attacks, which in hard difficulty do a lot of damage, so much so that it often takes just 3-4 hits to kill you. It does take you a bit off guard as this level of difficulty is one I’d associate with the third highest difficulty in a game, but considering that there are only two difficulties to the combat, maybe it is not surprising then. I do have one criticism regarding the hard difficulty. If at some point in the game you attempt to reduce the difficulty, you are given a warning stating that once changed, the difficulty will be set to story mode till the end of the game. I understand why they’ve made this decision; so that players cannot just decrease difficulty in challenging scenarios/sequences and then take it up again, but it doesn’t sit right with me. If I want to challenge myself and do the game in Hard difficulty, can’t I be allowed even a moment of relief and reduced difficulty? This is one of these topics that people will be either for or against, and I am sure each side will have their reasoning. For me personally, I am not too keen on it.

While the combat can be challenging and full of consequential decisions, it does have its flaws. As you attack an enemy, you must take into consideration the length of your weapon and your surroundings, because if you try to hit an enemy that is next to a wall with a weapon that requires a large swing, chances are your weapon will hit the wall and that can sort of stun you a little. While you can make the argument that it adds even more depth to the decision making and combat, I found it annoying more than anything else really. Plus, it does lack some consistency. I found a similar lack of consistency with focus and heavy attacks, as sometimes (though not often) they wouldn’t stun enemies for some reason. Same thing can be said for directional inputs for dogging, as sometimes my character would go in a direction that I didn’t intend, or Hinako attacking it another direction while I’m locked on an enemy. Outside of consistency or lack thereof, my biggest issue was the camera. The over the shoulder camera works fine, until you start fighting enemies in really tight spaces. In these situations the camera would close up but just on the back of your character’s head, so you end up not being able to see the enemy in front of you and react effectively. This is a big issue because there are quite a lot of claustrophobic areas where you will be traversing so it is something that you will have to deal with from time to time. There are certain additions to the combat further in the game that changes things up, but I cannot discuss them with spoiling parts of the story. Thing is, those additions can still suffer from the same problems, so the combat overall does have its issues.

I have talked quite a bit about the combat, it is time to talk specifically about the survival horror aspects of the game. The survival aspect is closely tied to the combat, so I have touched on it a little bit. Outside of combat, you need to explore as much as you can and gather as many items as possible. During your exploration, you will need to weigh the benefits against the drawbacks of engagements and other decisions. Other than finding items, you can also come across weapons that are either more durable or that do more damage than your average weapons, so you’ll want to hold on to your repair kits to keep these weapons as long as possible. However, there are certain weapons that do not have any durability and cannot break. You will have access to these weapons in specific areas and they essentially allow you to engage in combat more without worrying about the durability of your weapons. It doesn’t completely remove the survival element but it does offer an appreciated change of pace. But even with strong weapons, you will still always be keeping your guard up. In these games the survival elements is part of the horror. When the survival aspect is done just right, it will keep you on your toes constantly as you will also be worried about your resources. This means that every turn and corner can bring with it a threat that will rob you of your resources and reducing your chances of survival. This combined with the beforementioned design of the enemies can already create a tense and suspenseful environment, but your surroundings will add even more. While the environments look amazing in this game, there is always an unsettling aspect to them that will make you uncomfortable. I will not discuss in detail because there is a good variety in environments and each one has something to add to the game, not just in terms of atmosphere, but in terms of gameplay as well. Most of the areas of the game allow exploration to different extents to allow you to gather items and prepare, but there are sequences that are linear and that require you to do with what you have.

But horror doesn’t just come from the monsters and what could be lurking in the fog, it can come from within. The horror of Silent Hill is partly psychological because it is tied to the main character and their story, which involves dark themes and difficult topics. The story of Silent Hill f follow Hanako, a girl living in Ebisugaoka village at the base of one of Japan’s mountains. After an argument with her parents, Hanako leaves her house and heads into the village to meet up with her friends when a mysterious fog begins to envelope the whole town, forcing Hanako and her friends to flee for their lives. The rest of the game we follow Hanako as she and her friends try to escape the fog and find out what happened to the people. I knew that the story would not be straightforward and that it in some form it would take twists and turns that would surprise me. Based on what I knew about the story style of the previous games, I was expecting to be able to predict the game a little as it would try to subvert your expectations. Yet, I found myself constantly unsure as to where the story is going and always second-guessing my own theories as the game went on. The story is paced very well, in that there are revelations, small and big, throughout the game that keep you on your toes in terms of anticipation for what will follow. Any information that is presented to you may shed light on some past events or it may create even more questions, often related to the history between Hinako and her friends. This information comes naturally as you play the game, but you can also learn more through exploration and finding notes that together tell smaller stories, building the world, the characters, and adding lore. But you may not always like what you find, as some of the things you find point out the vile possibilities of human nature. Before the game starts, it warns you that certain sequences of the game may make you feel uncomfortable, and indeed there are such moments. The game takes advantage yet again of its setting and time period when it comes to demonstrating behaviours and beliefs that we deem unacceptable, but we know that even to this day still exist. These add to the horror of the game, the violent potential of humans that we witness throughout the game. While these made me invested in the story and what would become of Hanako, I did not really care about anyone else as most of the time I was wondering if they are even real or not.

While I am quite happy with the story, its pace, and its structure throughout the game, the ending does make me feel conflicted. There are several endings to the game, but I will discuss the one people will encounter in their first playthrough. I knew that there was going to be some big twist at the end but the story kept pulling me in different directions all the time and I couldn’t possible be sure anymore what the twist would be. There IS a big twist at the end and it was very unexpected, even though it was in front of my own eyes all along. I was impressed and I did like this twist, however, it was a little bit unsatisfying to me. As I played the game I always tried to explore and read every bit of information, try to make sense of things and connect the dots in whatever way I could. With the twist of the game, I felt that a lot of that information was irrelevant and didn’t really matter. The word that come to mind for the twist is “general”; it doesn’t clarify everything in the game. Now I know, that can be by design; certain things will be left to your imagination, to your interpretation. That is what some people look for as it encourages discussions and talking about the game. That is all good and understandable, but I guess I was expecting a little more. Outside of the story twist, the end section of the game is very jarring, in a good way I suppose. It is a little difficult to write down how I felt regarding the end section of the game, so maybe I will do a voice recoding for it.

Other than a story filled with trauma and unpredictable developments, people expect a Silent Hill game to include puzzles, REAL puzzles. I can say with confidence that the puzzles in this game deliver. There is a separate difficulty setting for the puzzles in this game. In hard difficulty, you genuinely need to think and use the clues give to you to solve a puzzle. While in story difficulty the puzzles are easier to solve, you can still appreciate the creativity and the fact that the solution is often not visible at first sight. The puzzles are well spread throughout the game and each is different compared to the other in more than one way. For example, while some puzzles give you space and a safe environment to solve it, others may be incorporated into an area that would require fighting enemies to get the clues you need. Some puzzles may require you to find specific pieces while others present you with clues and everything you need right off the bat. The game yet again takes advantage of its Japanese setting for the puzzles as they are either connected to specific aspects of the Japanese cultures or fit in naturally with the aesthetics. Furthermore, you can easily track puzzles in your journal and it is updated automatically as you find new clues or make progression in solving the puzzle. Perhaps my favourite part is how in some of the puzzles you are actually punished if you make an incorrect attempt at solving them. Not only does this put pressure on you to make as few mistakes as possible, but it incorporates the puzzles into the survival loop of the game as to deal with your punishment you will need to spend resources and items. The only thing that I thought is missing are time-based puzzles. I think their addition would’ve added a lot of tension and variety to the puzzles of the game, but I am very happy with the puzzles in this game.

I have talked about the main pillars of the game, now I want to draw some attention to something that may be underappreciated in this game: the journal. The journal not only contains every bit of information that you need, but is organizes everything very well and you can often find information that you may be looking for rather easily. In addition, your journal looks like an actual journal that includes pages and bookmarks. A lot of the pages include drawings that seem to be hand-sketched, with these drawing changing as you play the game. The same thing can be said for the map, it is a simple yet beautiful map that carries out its function perfectly. Important locations are pointed out with smaller drawing that look like what a girl would make to remember things. You are shown which pathways are closed, where the dead ends are, and even which doorways are two-way or one-way. It is immersive and functional at the same time, so I wanted to point it out because I do appreciate it.

As my first proper Silent Hill game, I am satisfied with this game. The combat flaws can be specially tilting in tense moments as they may cost you your life, and are an annoyance throughout the game. This makes the combat the weakest element in the game, even if it may have its cool moments. On the other hand, the environments and ambiance in this game are probably its biggest strengths, along with the music and sound design. While enemy design is very good, a bigger variety in enemies would’ve been appreciated. This is not an action game though and the number of enemy types that it has carry it decently well for the 10-12 hour campaign time. As there are different endings, you can play multiple times and get more time out of it. It is good that the conditions for the alternate endings are given to you after your first playthrough so you know how to get the other endings. The story is one that I would expect in a Silent Hill game and it delivers well, kind of, as the ending and its twists do give me mixed feelings. I do not know how this game lives up to the previous game in the franchise but putting aside that comparison, Silent Hill f stands tall on its own two feet.