Unarguably the pinnacle of survival horror, the Silent Hill series has been continuously scaring and captivating gamers since the release of the original Silent Hill in 1999. With the fifth installment in the series, Silent Hill 5: Homecoming all set to release, The ANGRY Pixel decided to take a look back at the franchise before we set out to brave the twisted little foggy town all over again.
TNS: “With the recent release of the incredible Silent Hill 2 remake, we reflect on the most underrated game in the series, Silent Hill: Homecoming.”
I didn’t hate it, in fact, I think the hate is unwarranted. It doesn’t have anywhere near the same feel of a Team Silent game, but if this were PTSD fake army man in spooky town: The Game, I think people would have really liked it more.
Now all I want to play is PTSD Fake Army Man in Spooky Town: The Game.... that sounds like a helluva game, lol
Conceptually, Homecoming works. On its surface the narrative is interesting and adds a lot of depth to the lore of the town. The misfire was in its execution i.e aping way too much of its visual cues from the feature film and themes from Silent Hill 2. The developers treated the game as a series of bullet points and checklists of what a Silent Hill game is supposed to be: Cult? Check. Otherworld? Check. Pyramid Head? Check. Trauma? Check. Sexy Nurses? Check. It felt forced instead of genuine and organic. It's a real shame because at its core there was a lot of great material to work with: a fraction of cult members branching off to do their own thing, Alex being a supposed military man, blood pacts and child sacrifice. This is all great stuff. It's just a shame that it never really came together.
Short story: it was mediocre with fun combat.
No memorable characters, no memorable atmospheric set pieces or visuals, lots of in-your-face gore, fucking around with lore by putting PH where he doesn't belong ...
And the ending where Alex also becomes PH and makes a roar was funnier(i remember laughing from disbelief) than the UFO ending in this instalment.
It wasn't terrible. It's one of those "if it didn't have this title" sort of games. It's actually pretty solid, but doesn't live up to the rest of the mainline franchise.
Downpour, however, and I'll die on this hill, is a highly underrated game.
I didn't hate Homecoming. It wasn't as good as 1-4, but it definitely wasn't bad. Downpour I think was just bad. But Homecoming was fine, and the music was really good. It was the game that came out after the movie, so they Americanized it. Pyramid Head was misused and was based on the movie design, not the classic Silent Hill 2 design. The town as well was not consistent with the other games, but rather the movie. The green Welcome to Silent Hill sign from the movie was even in Homecoming.
The sirens are sounding again, beckoning you back to the foggy ghost town as we rank all the Silent Hill games, from the chilling classics to the misguided missteps.
I mostly disagree with Downpour's position. Yeah, the game is not amazing by any stretch of the imagination but is much better than the HD Collection and Homecoming. The main issue is the performance, but that was mitigated by the patches, especially on the PS3. Personally, I put it a little behind Origins and The Room.
Having Restless Dreams as a different entry from Silent Hill 2 is also a choice.
Normally, we would not consider it a different game (Restless Dreams), but since it had a very different critical reception and had new content, it was allowed. As for Downpour, I would agree, but since that one is subjective, we let him make his case for the placement.
silent hill 2 is definitely the best one out of those.
for me personally, the whole ritual/cult stuff was always so weird to me in all the other games.
No disrespect but I put SH2 over 1. 1 is fantastic, but 2 took it all up a level.
Twinfinite: "They said it couldn't be done, be we've tried our best to rank all the monsters in Silent Hill according to their fear factor. Let's go!"
Pyramid Head is my #1 too, despite the fact you don't actually fight him much - and the few times you do are actually super easy. It's all in the presentation & close encounters.
I never thought the monsters themselves were very scary. It was the tension and the unknown, the silent moments that got under your skin that were the most scary to me.
Silent Hill has always been about the psychological horror more than it's gore.
So much so that I'm gonna go get SH2 right now.