Silent Hill f – We Played it for 5 Hours

As idiosyncratic who loved Bloober Team’s 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2, I’m blessed to study that portion being made by an wholly antithetic developer, Silent Hill f boasts that aforesaid level of prime and polish. From communicative to worldbuilding, from graphics to combat and exploration, Taiwan-based developer Neobards has crafted an acquisition that meets the precocious barroom acceptable by the Polish developer, albeit successful a drastically antithetic setting.

As I started walking the dense yet deserted streets of Ebisugaoka, it was instantly evident conscionable however elaborate and well-realized this fictional distant municipality successful the mountains of agrarian Japan successful the Sixties is. With an immersive over-the-shoulder presumption and nary UI connected surface during exploration, Silent Hill f is simply a crippled that tells a convincing communicative done its visuals.

Admittedly, I was initially skeptical of Konami’s determination to entrust a non-Japanese developer to make a crippled acceptable successful Japan, but 5 hours of really playing Silent Hill f shattered specified prejudices. Ebisugaoka is undoubtedly 1 of the astir awesome modern Japanese townscapes I person ever seen successful a video game, and that comes from idiosyncratic who has lived successful Japan for the bulk of his beingness and loves games similar Shenmue, Persona, and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

Exploring a Japanese upland village

One of the fewer insignificant issues I had with the Silent Hill 2 remake was that the bulk of its playtime is spent wrong buildings and facilities. While these functioned arsenic well-designed dungeons packed with horrifying enemies to combat and intricate puzzles to solve, the summation successful measurement compared to the 2001 archetypal made it consciousness similar exploration of the existent municipality of Silent Hill was limited.

Therefore, I was pleasantly amazed that the immense bulk of my playtime with Silent Hill f was spent exploring Ebisugaoka. Old woody houses with tin roofs enactment the constrictive alleys, scattered with bicycles, angiosperm pots, and mailboxes. Small streams and footpaths betwixt atom fields mildly pb the mode to the village. Fences on the stream and factual stairways pursuing the slopes make a townscape that oozes with atmosphere. Files and different documents scattered passim the municipality adhd discourse to Ebisugaoka, which flourished arsenic a mining municipality during its heyday. Now, it has go a mostly forgotten colony and its radical are stuck successful aged ways, specified arsenic favoring accepted healthcare methods implicit modern aesculapian subject and being overly devout to the Shinto deity Inari. The discourse of Ebisugaoka and its radical instantly consciousness similar they are an integral portion of Silent Hill f’s cohesive story, which made maine anxious to spell disconnected the beaten way and get each hidden file.

The communicative starts aft protagonist Hinako – a pistillate precocious schoolhouse pupil – runs distant from location aft being scolded by her drunk father. Walking the bare streets of Ebisugaoka and heading to the section candy store to conscionable up with Hinako’s chap precocious schoolhouse friends feels similar an authored walking simulator reminiscent of games similar Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Of course, it doesn’t instrumentality agelong until Hinako and her friends observe thing is incorrect successful town, and earlier you cognize it Hinako is holding an robust tube successful her hands, an iconic limb of the series. Ebisugaoka past gradually proves to not conscionable beryllium suited for a captivating walking simulator experience, but besides the cleanable mounting for a fearfulness game, arsenic its constrictive alleys and staircases are perfect to fell enemies down corners portion besides functioning arsenic a maze for the subordinate to get mislaid in.

In immoderate instances, doors near ajar and unfastened windows invitation Hinako wrong accepted tatami-floored houses, wherever she volition person to lick immoderate elemental puzzles successful bid to marque her mode done to the adjacent area. These puzzles play retired successful an unconventional way. One puzzle, for example, had maine get keys to a locked door, but determination was thing noteworthy inside. Then, arsenic I went backmost to the corridor different doorway abruptly swung open, which gave maine the chills.

Something feels off

Silent Hill f’s script writer Ryukishi07 sees Japanese fearfulness arsenic a sub-genre that doesn’t truthful overmuch trust connected threats to the protagonist's life, but alternatively makes you consciousness uncomfortable by creating situations that consciousness off.

When you deliberation astir it, Silent Hill is simply a bid known for conscionable that. While determination isn’t a deficiency of life-threatening encounters, immoderate of the series’ astir uncomfortable moments are successful conversations with its outright weird characters.

In Silent Hill f, Hinako and her friends are trying to find a mode to flight the haunted municipality of Ebisugaoka. Interactions with these friends look mean astatine first, but past abruptly they accidental oregon bash thing that catches you disconnected guard.

Also, successful emblematic Silent Hill fashion, puzzles often uncover thing astir Hinako oregon the satellite she inhabits. A puzzle connected a misty atom tract has you analyse scarecrows successful bid to larn the absorption you should beryllium heading, which is connected to a puerility trauma of Hinako getting mislaid and being acrophobic of the scarecrows.

During my playthrough, puzzles ne'er felt excessively difficult. Hints provided by files you get ne'er marque the solution excessively obvious, portion inactive giving the subordinate an thought of what they person to do. On a related note, Silent Hill f has trouble settings for some its combat and puzzles, and portion Konami advised maine to play connected Story mode for both, I stubbornly chose Normal mode arsenic I wanted to instrumentality connected a challenge. While the trouble of the puzzles ne'er overwhelmed me, combat proved to beryllium a spot much demanding.

Weapon durability astatine its best

Silent Hill f’s combat relies wholly connected melee attacks. Hinako tin get each sorts of weapons ranging from robust pipes to room knives and shot bats, but nary guns travel into play. With immoderate exceptions, these weapons are not obtained done communicative beats, but are scattered passim Silent Hill f’s satellite similar different resources, and Hinako tin transportation up to 3 weapons astatine a time.

As you wield robust pipes and stab astatine enemies with knives, you volition announcement that the crippled has limb durability. It is simply a bully interaction that weapons that are astir to interruption really alteration successful appearance, truthful expect to beryllium holding a bent tube oregon a breached bat. This besides functions arsenic a hint to the player, which Hinako volition admit by mentioning that she should hole it. Weapons tin beryllium fixed by utilizing a repair kit, but these are truthful scarce that connected galore occasions you volition person to accidental goodbye to your caller favourite weapon.

While limb durability is often regarded arsenic a load successful games, it works present arsenic uncovering a caller limb and repair kits rapidly becomes an integral portion of the assets absorption that the endurance fearfulness genre is known for, particularly since you won’t beryllium having to look for ammo this clip around.

A clever strategy allows you to crook successful your resources for an in-game currency astatine prevention points, which tin beryllium utilized to summation your stats oregon get caller amulets that tin beryllium equipped to springiness you definite buffs. That means that if you are cautious and don’t discarded your resources, leftovers tin beryllium turned into thing useful, which feels similar a large reward to a well-planned expedition. Hinako tin lone transportation a constricted magnitude of items, which besides seems to stimulate progressive usage of this caller trading system.

In the Silent Hill 2 remake, resources were truthful abundant that skilled players didn’t truly person to interest astir assets management, to the grade that they would person a ample banal of unused ammo and items by the extremity of the game. Silent Hill f solves this occupation by making resources tradable.

Silent Souls?

Combat itself has a akin consciousness to Silent Hill 2’s close-range combat. You tin dodge force attacks with the DualSense’s ellipse button, portion you tin activate a airy and dense onslaught with R1 and R2, respectively. Your constricted scope and lengthy onslaught motions springiness a realistic, weighty consciousness to combat. Heavy attacks particularly are dilatory and request to beryllium timed well, contributing to the feeling that Hinako is conscionable a teen with constricted strength.

Meanwhile, each limb benignant has a wholly unsocial acceptable of motions and reach. Swinging a recently obtained shot bat astatine an force oregon charging astatine them with a weapon you recovered successful the room of a section residence ever creates caller and breathtaking situations.

What sets Silent Hill f’s combat isolated from Silent Hill 2’s much constricted melee combat is the implementation of timed dodges and counterattacks. The second successful peculiar deals tons of harm and is cardinal successful battle. Enemies concisely amusement a motion erstwhile a counterattack tin beryllium utilized, but unless you person trained your reflex skills by playing games similar of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, you volition apt person a hard clip reacting. That’s wherever the Focus mode comes in, which tin beryllium triggered by holding L2. When successful Focus mode, force signs for counterattacks look for longer, portion besides charging up a powerfulness onslaught that staggers an enemy. That means you mightiness caput into Focus Mode with the volition of going for a counterattack, but find yourself switching to a powerfulness onslaught erstwhile it charges earlier the force shows an opening.

Focus Mode is tied to Hinako’s intelligence vigor gauge, which exists separately from her stamina and wellness bar. Interestingly, the precocious bounds of her intelligence vigor decreases erstwhile enemies bash thing that scares her oregon erstwhile she is frightened by a definite event, connecting the gameplay to the communicative and Hinako’s intelligence state.

Luckily, determination are items that tin retrieve the precocious bounds of your intelligence vigor gauge, but Hinako’s stamina is constricted too. When she runs retired of stamina and intelligence energy, she tin go truthful frightened and bushed that she won’t adjacent beryllium capable to determination for a while. Managing her vigor resources, therefore, is cardinal to survival.

Fighting 1 regular force is reasonably manageable, but erstwhile confronted by aggregate enemies, moving distant often felt similar the champion option, particularly since enemies don’t springiness acquisition points oregon driblet resources. Combat was amusive capable that I recovered myself actively engaging successful fights adjacent if determination wasn’t a existent payment to it beyond being capable to research the situation much freely.

While keeping combat engaging and complex, Silent Hill f does a large occupation successful making the subordinate consciousness weak. The plan cleverly incorporates this by having what seems to beryllium a brag conflict astatine archetypal really play retired arsenic a series successful which the subordinate has to find an flight route.

Another iconic constituent to the bid is the beingness of an alternate world, which is contiguous successful Silent Hill f arsenic well. Hinako is occasionally transported to a antithetic magnitude that shows a much accepted Japan, wherever a mysterious masked fig guides her done the grounds of assorted shrines. Here, Hinako obtains accepted Japanese weapons specified arsenic the Naginata, a rod limb with a curved leaf connected the end, akin to a glaive oregon halberd that is known to beryllium mostly utilized by women. Weapons that Hinako finds successful this alternate satellite don’t break, but Hinako won’t beryllium capable to transportation them implicit to Ebisugaoka.

It was successful this realm that I encountered the main brag of my playtime, which proved overmuch much hard than I had anticipated. Even with my afloat knowing of the combat mechanics and systems, its agelong reach, hard-to-predict onslaught patterns, and aggregate stages required important proceedings and error. The brag took maine astir an hr to beat, but gradually learning however to instrumentality connected the brag was a invited situation that ne'er felt unfair. For reference, my workfellow was playing connected Story Mode and defeated the brag connected his 2nd try, but an acquaintance from different media outlet who was besides playing connected Story Mode didn’t negociate to decision the brag and ran retired of time.

While helium didn’t specifically notation the Soulslike genre, bid shaper Motoi Okamoto says that Silent Hill f’s combat was inspired by the existent popularity of much hard enactment games. With aggregate trouble settings, Silent Hill f is by nary means a Soulslike, but its brag plan shares a akin learning curve that yet results successful a large feeling of restitution erstwhile you yet bushed it. Silent Hill f is simply a story-driven acquisition supra thing else, but it conscionable happens to person truly coagulated combat mechanics and systems astatine the aforesaid time.

One unsocial constituent of Silent Hill f’s storytelling is the notebook Hinako carries. Here you tin work astir characters, locations, and events that look successful the story, each written from Hinako’s perspective. At first, it seems to beryllium a beauteous straightforward archive, but events successful the communicative tin trigger further substance for antecedently unlocked entries. Instead of simply repeating what events successful the communicative already told you, these further texts spell overmuch deeper into the lore and background. Sometimes, they tin somewhat contradict oregon alteration your presumption connected characters and events, indicating that things are ne'er what they look to beryllium connected the surface. It is not hard to ideate that for a deeper knowing of Silent Hill f’s communicative and characters, examining these texts volition beryllium essential.

Back to school

The past portion of my demo took spot wrong a school, which was fundamentally a dungeon akin to Silent Hill 2’s aforementioned flat buildings, hospitals, museums and hotels. Upon entering the school, Hinako obtains a representation of the gathering which the subordinate volition person to usage to navigate their mode through. Luckily, Hinako is conscionable arsenic diligent a note-taking enthusiast arsenic Silent Hill 2’s James, truthful whenever you larn that a doorway is locked oregon that determination is simply a transition somewhere, it volition beryllium noted connected the map. Inside the school, I had to lick a multitude of puzzles successful bid to find keys to scope antithetic classrooms and floors portion warring and moving distant from enemies on the way. Just similar the municipality itself, the aged woody schoolhouse gathering oozes with ambiance and feels lively adjacent though nary of its students oregon teachers are there, and Hinako's remark to herself, “I haven't been present since graduation,” subtly added to the atmosphere.

While successful caller video games, the abundance of self-talk by the protagonist tin sometimes consciousness a spot excessively much, Hinako’s occasional monologue succeeds successful subtly contributing to the concern without ever coming implicit arsenic an exposition dump.

According to Okamoto, the mean playtime for Silent Hill f volition beryllium astir 12 oregon 13 hours, which should bespeak that I person played done astir 1 3rd of the game. While I don’t cognize however things volition spell from here, truthful acold the game’s equilibrium betwixt municipality exploration and interior facilities feels similar an betterment implicit the Silent Hill 2 remake.

Also, portion the archetypal 5 hours of the crippled felt similar they were structured linearly, Silent Hill f has aggregate endings similar galore different games successful the series, including the celebrated UFO ending.

My clip with Silent Hill f was promising to accidental the least. Its worldbuilding and communicative had maine truthful intrigued that I inactive deliberation backmost connected my little sojourn to Ebisugaoka astir a week later. The heavy fog that envelops the municipality someway feels much earthy than successful the municipality of Silent Hill, possibly owed to the information that Ebisugaoka is simply a upland village. Ebisugaoka conscionable feels similar the cleanable acceptable for a intelligence fearfulness narrative, and each of Silent Hill f’s systems and mechanics complement the setting. Series composer Akira Yamaoka’s soundtrack besides does a stellar occupation successful making the subordinate consciousness uncomfortable throughout.

So far, Silent Hill f seems to beryllium a fearfulness crippled that gets everything right. If, similar me, the Silent Hill 2 remake was 1 of your favourite games of 2024, Silent Hill f has the imaginable to go a superior crippled of the twelvemonth contender erstwhile it releases for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC connected September 25.

Silent Hill 2 f ©Konami Digital Entertainment

*In-development footage and screenshots are shown.