Silent Hill Retrospective Review
By: Nik S
There was an actual time period when Konami meant a seal of quality instead of pachinko notoriety. From the 80s up to the late 90s they pumped out beloved and classic games, like most of the arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games, Metal Gear series, Dance Dance Revolution, and many others. In the late 90s the newest trend seemed to be horror themed games like Capcom's Resident Evil. Konami wanting to get into the market as well, made a response to Resident Evil in the form of a psychological horror that dealt with various demons and the horrors of the mind. It was an ambitious game as they wanted to do something that made you fear the unknown, while taking the camera elements from Resident Evil but making it feel more like something you would see in a Hollywood movie. The lead creator on the team wasn't too familiar with horror movies or games, but liked UFO and occult stories, and David Lynch films.
The story follows your everyday man Harry Mason who is on vacation with his daughter Cheryl. While passing through Silent Hill, Harry swerves his car to avoid a figure on the road and loses consciousness. He wakes up to find his daughter is missing, and most explore the town to find his daughter. As he explores, he learns the dark mysteries of the town, the cult that dwells deep within, and how his daughter is in the middle of it all. Along the way he'll meet characters who'll point him in the right direction like the police officer Cybil Bennett, Dahlia Gillespie, and various others.
While the story has aged just fine, with plenty of twists and turns, the game play certainly hasn't. Players will take control of Harry Mason and go through the monster filled town of Silent Hill. Gameplay primarily consists of combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving. Everything is shown through a third-person perspective but will occasionally switch to various angles for dramatic effect, but this is in a few pre-scripted areas. Unlike more modern horror games, to check Harry's health players would have to go to a separate menu, unless one has a DualShock controller then they can feel his heartbeat with the vibration.
Harry can fight the horrors of the town with both melee weapons and firearms. Harry can't take too many blows from enemies, and has limited stamina while running as he'll gasp for breath if done for too long. Because he's not a fighter, he doesn't deal a lot of damage nor can he aim well as it's often unsteady to create more fear in the player. Because of this it's better to avoid battles than take them on head-first, and Harry has a radio that bursts with white-noise if a monster is getting close.
There are several locations Harry must drudge through in order to find what happened to his daughter, like abandoned schools and hospitals. In each area there are maps that he can collect that are similar to a tourist pamphlet. Visibility around time is very low with dim lighting, fog, and "snow", though these are more present in the "Otherworld" that Harry occasionally has to go through. Though Harry won't be truly in the dark, as early on players will find a small pocket-sized flashlight that fits in his jacket pocket that show a few feet in front of him. The one thing that can make navigating hard is the tank controls. The strafing isn't tight and it can make running from a monster when you're at low health very difficult.
Despite its few flaws, Silent Hill is still a classic and holds up well. The music is done beautifully well by the masterful sound director Akira Yamaoka who was influenced by Twin Peaks' composer Angelo Badalamenti to make an industrial sound. The monsters are slightly generic, with the exception of the bosses. They're not as popular as Silent Hill 2's baddies, but they're still enough to cause the players a hard time just at the wrong moment. If you can't find an old copy of the game, then you might want to get a hold of the new PS1 mini that's coming out here soon, as it will be one of the twenty games pre-installed on it.
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