Silent Hill 2: Survival Horror Bliss Marred by One Irredeemable Flaw — Game Review
(I must preface with a disclaimer, that being I played the infamous HD collection. What I gathered from reading a few Reddit comment sections is that even though it’s probably the worst way one could experience Silent Hill 2, it’s still Silent Hill 2. I have no attachment to the original PlayStation 2 version, so that bias was absent. I did, however, choose the original voices over the new ones.)
As an ardent dissenter of narrative’s presence in video games, Silent Hill 2 is a reminder that video games are still art, and, by extension, so are the stories they tell. Playing SH2 right up against a game like Hogwarts Legacy only amplifies the latter’s derivative and flat-out bland narrative.
Silent Hill 2 opens on the protagonist, James Sunderland, in a public bathroom located outside the town of Silent Hill, whose arrival was incited by a letter received from his late wife of three years, Mary, who wrote that she’s waiting for him in their “special place.” James ventures into the fog-consumed town to quickly discover that it is abandoned, inhabited only by deformed humanoid zombie creatures. Their existence is left unexplained, heightening their creepy nature.
Silent Hill 2 is best described as an occasionally campy survival horror melodrama. Whether the camp was intentional or not — either due to age or translation — is hard to tell, but it’s irrefutable, indicated by the dialogue and voice performances, which are overtly melodramatic. After all, this is a game that prompts you to find numerous codes and keys to unlock a chest containing a strand of hair. This is also a game with a game show interlude that occurs during an unending elevator trip. This is a also game where countless humanoid monsters roam the streets but one of the characters, Maria, refuses to enter a bowling alley at one point because she “hates bowling.” (Anyone familiar with the “Dog” ending will assuredly agree there is an undeniable degree of silliness present in SH2.)
But that tonal disjunction is exactly why Silent Hill 2 works on an aesthetic level. It is off-kilter in both gameplay and narrative, likely making one more tolerant of the bizarre at face value. Cutscenes, which I usually dislike, are underscored via cinematic techniques like dutch camera angles, accompanied by Akira Yamaoka’s absolutely killer soundtrack, who unites a tracklist of epic rock tunes, dark ambience, and somber piano ballads infused with hip-hop beats. (In fact, the soundtrack is the highest rated video game soundtrack on RateYourMusic.com.)
Silent Hill 2 is nothing short of a visual and aural marvel. The former quality’s all-consuming fog and pitch-blackness leave you jumpy at every turn. The latter quality’s combination of sound design and ambient droning are nerve-shredding. Together, they create a tormenting atmosphere. Every time James’ radio goes haywire, or anytime music cues, panic sets in.
The atmosphere at the forefront is enough distraction from the game’s arguably lackluster gameplay, which sees the player navigate through the streets of Silent Hill, punctuated by several major locations (the Apartment Complex, the Hospital, the Labyrinth, the Hotel), solving ambiguous riddles, collecting items, gathering weapons, and slaying monsters along the way — one could mount the argument that none of which are actually “fun,” but Team Silent assures accessibility, always telegraphing where the player should head next and what they should put their focus on, whether that’s visually distinguishing locked versus inaccessible doors on the map or through plain logic. Every item, every room has a purpose.
There’s only one major “logical” misstep, that being a jammed trash bag inside a trash chute is apparently supposed to be unjammed with “canned juice” as opposed to literally anything else. You also have to ignore certain logical possibilities, e.g. using your nail bat weapon through prison bars to reach a key on the ground. TL;DR if the game doesn’t let you do something, you’re not meant to.
At first, the dull-colored graphics seemed too muddled to distinguish small collectibles, until I noticed a brilliant detail: James’ head will lock on to nearby objects, which made searching for items a lot easier and shows that Team Silent were clever in their workarounds of system limitations.
Perhaps the game’s finest moment appears in the final area, the Hotel, wherein James encounters an elevator which only allows the weight of “one person,” forcing the player to store every single belonging in a locker, including your flashlight, weapons, and health items.
No doubt that you, the dear reader, have read the title (I imagine with sharpened pitchforks and lit torches in hand) and have been wondering what the “one irredeemable flaw” I’m referring to is. It’s the combat.
First off, I refuse to subscribe to the potential argument that the shoddy combat is “the challenge” or “intentional.” It’s far too punishing to deserve that honor. Chances are if you’re not outside, you’re fighting monsters in an extremely tight space, exacerbated in this case by lethargic attack animations that not only interfere with subsequent attempted attacks but also entering the inventory to heal. (The Eddie battle was personally the worst experience of the whole game because of this.) Enemy animations also apply but to the opposite effect, in that they cannot be harmed while recovering, for instance.
Animations aren’t the only offender; there’s also an invisible target lock that’s virtually impossible to control, revealing its ineptitude particularly when facing multiple enemies. The auto-camera tends to screw you over, but that’s an intrinsic issue to this type of survival horror game, even ill-considering the combat. The brief stretches with Maria as your shadow are annoying but at least forgivable because she can’t die (as far as I’m aware).
Silent Hill 2 simply isn’t the crème de la crème of combat mechanics, most blatantly in its boss battles. Even watching battles from an outside perspective just looks plain silly and redundant, a litany of shoot, reload, and heal until the enemy is dead. At the very least, the game provides several different monster types to fight against, the most startling and unique being Flesh Lips: three dangling masses of flesh that choke you with their feet.
My only other gripe, besides a few minor hitbox detection issues and logical flaws, is that the Labyrinth is the only enervating location, simply because the map is far too confusing to decipher and that tedious backtracking is required if you missed something because it’s so linear, but it’s still a navigable area regardless.
My overall experience with Silent Hill 2 was one of growth. It was initially quite overwhelming and I didn’t find it all that fun, but I eventually started flowing along its wavelength. Its suffocating atmosphere of terror mixed with its dreamlike campiness creates a one-of-a-kind essence that you don’t see in video games often. This game had me genuinely anticipating what horrors it would throw next at me during every turn.
8/10
