It’s old news by this point that Silent Hill f is treading new ground. That horse bolted a few weeks back and managed to spook every OG Silent Hill fan and lover of convoluted controls in the vicinity.
Word on the street was that Silent Hill f would be sacrificing its story-focused psychological horror for something with a bit more action. Players took this to mean that the game would opt for a soulslike approach with much harder fights and big boss battles. Series producer Motoi Okamoto has since shot this down, but there are still some changes in the form of a new location and a few more fights.
But I’m here to tell you that it’s nowhere near as bad as some people may have led themselves to believe. Silent Hill series producer Motoi Okamoto and NeoBards game director Al Yang both explained how f isn’t actually a massive departure and how its story mode is designed to appease classic Silent Hill fans.
So in the spirit of continuity, I decided to play through the first three and a half hours of Silent Hill f in story mode, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, it felt almost identical to what I’ve come to expect from Silent Hill games, from the environment, vibes, and how the characters are written.
But the feeling that I was playing a Silent Hill game wasn’t enough for me at the beginning. I probably spent the first 45 minutes walking around the eerie town of Ebisugaoka, analysing and comparing every single thing I came across to my memories of playing Silent Hill 1 and 2.
In doing so, I managed to drain every single morsel of fun and enjoyment out of the game; there wasn’t any tension as I was playing Silent Hill f like it was some kind of exercise in critical analysis. Luckily, I managed to catch myself doing this pretty early on, and after some reflection and the sudden realisation that I should just try to enjoy the game in front of me, I decided to put James Sunderland to one side and live in the Silent Hill f moment.
Watch On
This is when I started to really appreciate everything that Silent Hill f manages to achieve without having to ride the coattails of a classic Silent Hill game. First off, the setting is amazing. It’s a rare joy to have a location in a horror game that is both terrifying to explore yet so intricate and beautiful that you just can’t help but look around every corner.
Ebisugaoka is the perfect setting for this psychological horror game; it’s isolated, somewhat decaying, and seems stubbornly stuck in the past. A fact that seems to plague the protagonist, Hinako Shimizu, as she’s forced to reckon with her past trauma with her abusive father and now-absent older sister.
Hinako is just trying to do her best with whatever lead pipe or ceremonial Naginata she comes across.
It seems like there’s a lot to Hinako’s story, more than I was able to see during my preview. Her beloved older sister was married away sometime ago, but despite never actually seeing her face, she’s clearly very important to Hinako’s story and the events of Silent Hill f.
Hinako is more multifaceted than simply being a Silent Hill protagonist who’s scared of what dastardly deeds they’ve committed in the past. Sure, the game picks on past traumas that she’s experienced, but the real fear that Silent Hill f seems to be feeding off of is what is to come.
Amidst all the creepy, rotten mannequins known as Kashimashi and the Ayakakashi scarecrow children, Hinako is just trying to do her best with whatever lead pipe or ceremonial Naginata she comes across. She may not be the best fighter around, but taking on monsters is still doable every now and then.
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It’s not like the creatures that you find in Silent Hill f are particularly hard, you just need to know when you should stay and fight and when you should turn tail and run. This is a skill in and of its own when it comes to horror games, but especially here, as weapons can break if you don’t repair them with toolkits, and Hinako’s dodging and health can only go so far when in times of trouble.
I didn’t get stumped on any of the fights, even one of the so-called boss fights against Priestess Sakuko was easy to overcome; there really isn’t anything to worry about if you’re on story mode. Funnily enough, it was the puzzles that presented more of an issue to me. But looking back on it, that’s probably more attributed to the fact that I got four hours of sleep the night before, as opposed to the puzzles being ridiculously difficult.
I’m not the biggest fan of change, but from what I played of Silent Hill f at Gamescom, I’m not just happy with the changes of location and characters that have been made, but I’m incredibly excited to see where all of this leads to. The thought of hiding out in the Konami booth and playing Silent Hill f for as long as possible at Gamescom definitely crossed my mind. But alas, I’m not that good at hiding. Luckily, this is a horror game that I’ll happily wait any amount of time to play, as my excitement isn’t going anywhere.
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