PS1 REVIEWS: Silent Hill
The Silent Hill franchise is often considered the second great Survival Horror franchise starting on the PS1 after Resident Evil, and that's largely accurate despite the two games being very different. While Resident Evil is defined by its campy horror influence and survival mechanics, Silent Hill leans far more on the horror angle.
It
is to Team Silent's immense credit that the first game still manages to
elicit fear and admiration for someone playing it today.
#23: Silent Hill:-
Year: 1999.
Genre: Survival Horror.
Publisher: Konami.
Developer: Team Silent (Konami).
"This is not a dream! What is happening to this place!!"
The
game's story starts like in many horror stories with a car accident.
Harry Mason and his daughter Cheryl were driving to Silent Hill resort
town for a brief vacation when the weather suddenly took a turn for the
worse and a suddenly appearing woman caused Harry to swerve the car and
crash. Awakening from his accident, Harry doesn't find Cheryl around the
car and proceeds to look for her in what appears to be an eerily
abandoned town. Almost immediately, Harry dies in what appears to be a
nightmare and is awakened by a lady cop who gives him a gun and warns
him that something is seriously weird about the town.
However,
Harry has one goal, to find and possibly rescue his daughter. To do
that, he braves the town despite the hideous monstrosities that attack
him and an ever-enveloping darkness that threatens to take away both his
life and sanity. Besides this simple set-up, the game is content at
only briefly drip-feeding the player with any more detail or background.
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| You don't say |
As
you meet some of the few humans still around in this nightmarish world,
you begin to piece together the lore of what is happening and how to
stop it, but you are rarely sure about anything. A seemingly crazy lady
tells you that a "Darkness" is threatening to envelop the world and that
only you can stop it, but that's not a mission that ever takes
precedence over finding your daughter.
Without ever explicitly
revealing much about the story, the player should be able to figure out
some of what happened in the town, the nature of the nightmare they have
been living, and even the mysteries connecting their visit to the town
itself. It never was the best video game story, but Silent Hill
trusted the player with both uncovering enough information and the
imagination to figure things out. When the mystery and the horror of the
game are central, then the player's imagination becomes a key to the
immersion.
"Nothing is to be gained from floundering about at random. You must follow the path"
As I noted above, Silent Hill
is more concerned about Horror than Survival between the Survival
Horror dichotomy, and that is reflected in the game's mechanics. Mainly,
the fact that there is little scarcity to worry about throughout the
game. There should be enough ammo and health drinks around to serve you
for the entire game, and there is no capacity limit to contend with.
When coupled with a decently fast running speed and some of the best
tank controls on the PS1, it means that Harry is a formidable hero.
Especially when you find the hammer and become a melee God.
Yet,
you never feel that way, and that's due to the other mechanics that are
designed to scare you. As a rule of thumb, you are more scared of what
you cannot see. With its use of fog, darkness, and sound, the game
constantly ratchets up the tension and possibility of threat, even when
you are almost always equal to facing that threat head-on.
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| The first non-sexy version of the nurse |
That's
not to say that you are rarely under threat. Harry cannot deal well
with multiple assailants and can easily succumb to an attack from
behind. Also, ammo may be plenty, but you sometimes risk going into
dangerous rooms to get it.
Combat is not the main mechanic of the game, which like Resident Evil
is an Adventure game at heart. You walk around a labyrinthine location
finding keys and figuring out puzzles to unlock the path forward. In the
middle of this, your senses are assaulted through visuals and sound
with a sense of dread and tension that may convince you the game is
harder than it really is.
"Finally. Someone else who is okay"
To
find Cheryl, Harry must look all through the foggy town of Silent Hill,
or that may be what it looks like to the player when you first get the
town map. As it turns out, there is a fairly linear path to the game
that doesn't involve much exploration but allows for a carefully curated
experience that takes full advantage of the creepy setting.
Typically,
the town of Silent Hill serves as the overworld as you go from one key
location to another, with each key location (a school or a hospital)
being a small labyrinth. However, the game only follows this formula for
the first half, since the second half consists of smaller "dungeons"
and then a more elaborate final maze.
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| Always with the sewers |
Exploring each location is
key to both advancing the key plot of the game as well as uncovering
some story details. Two key optional "quests" are needed to get the
game's best ending, and I would suggest consulting a guide to ensure you
get it.
I feel that there was space for one or two optional story lines in Silent Hill, which is a missed opportunity. I know I would
have appreciated the smallest location more than the game's boring
interpretation of bosses.
"By a world of someone's
nightmarish delusion come to life... Little by little, the invasion is
spreading. Trying to swallow everything in darkness"
To bring the nightmarish world of Silent Hill
to life, Konami heavily relied on its production skills to craft a
believable world with the latest in 3D technology, and it mostly
succeeded on that front with the addition of state-of-the-art CGI
scenes. Yet, it is with its sound department that the game's true horror
manifests, but more on that later.
First, we must appreciate the
work of the 3D artists in crafting some great environments for the PS1
era. Yet, despite that best effort, those assets haven't aged well. At
least, that would be apparent if not for the game's brilliant decision
to use darkness and fog so effectively. Especially when coupled with the
camera direction of the game which is fully controllable yet is often
manipulated by the game to create some truly claustrophobic moments.
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| What's at the end of the hall? |
Light,
or rather the lack of light, is a key mechanic of the game as you
traverse dark locations with nothing but your flashlight. Besides giving
the game a creepy veneer, it also manages to obfuscate the limited
graphical fidelity of the game's world and instead highlights the great
level of craft and detail in creating the game's world.
No such
shortcuts were needed with the game's sound department which is simply
brilliant. There is no way to say the game's soundtrack is good since I
would never want to listen to it again. Yet, for the game, it is simply
brilliant. The droning industrial music shifts and swings with your
tension level, suggesting a level of danger to the player as they go
through from room to room. Also key is a a central mechanic in the game
that exposes the presence of enemies through radio static and directs
you to objectives with siren sounds. As such, your ear is always attuned
to the game's music and sound effects that you cannot but get creeped
out by Akira Yamaoka's brilliant score.
In Conclusion:
There is no question that age, as a PS1 3D game, wasn't kind to Silent Hill.
Yet, since the game was a competently made pioneering effort in many
areas, it did things that stood the test of time and made it a rewarding
experience even today. Simply a seminal work in the psychological
horror sub-genre of Survival Horror games, it still is effective today
despite its graphics and cutting-edge CGI scenes aging a bit.
When
you hear that industrial sound groaning in the background and the
darkness creeping in, you will be transported back for a moment to the
time in 1999 when everyone was scared of these 3D polygons on their CRT
TVs without an ounce of irony. At least until you remember how to point
and shoot.
Final: 8/10 (Recommended)
Pros:
- Confident storytelling
- An intriguing horror mystery
- Tension and horror being the main enemy
- Very good puzzle and level construction
- Solid linear game design
Cons:
- Could have used more documents lying around
- Challenge is almost imaginary
- Boring bosses
- Missing side stories
- Music is an indicator of threat level at times. At other times, it's just messing with you.
- The presence of enemies in a room does add a noticeable static effect to the sound.
- Combine melee attacks with bullet shots to save some ammo.
- Search all rooms and inspect all suspicious-looking objects.
- You will need to get a plastic bottle and some red liquid from the hospital for something later in the game.
- After the first sewer section, there is a bar you should go to.
- Don't bother fighting against every enemy if you can run.
- Don't bother fighting flying creatures with melee weapons.
- The hammer weapon is EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE.
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| THE HORROR!!! |
Series:
For those reading one of my PS1 review blogs for the first time, here is the basic concept:
I
already reviewed both major Generation 4 consoles, and am now reviewing
Generation 5 consoles. I already finished reviewing the Sega Saturn, so
I am now reviewing the PS1. In these reviews, I take a top 100 games
list and review the games that interest me in that list.This time, my
review series is based on this list from Retro Sanctuary and other sources, since the PS1 can handle a list bigger than a top 100.
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| You know what will make this game look better... Removing the fog!!! |
Next Game:
As expected, a classic horror game like Silent Hill is both scary and brilliant, even if it shows its age in places.
Another game I feel would be the same is Square's cult hit, Vagrant Story, which sits at #21 in Retro Sanctuary's list. Some people consider this game to be a precursor to today's Souls games, and I will keep a lookout for that influence.
Stay tuned.
For Previous PS1 Game Reviews:
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