Silent Hill

Since it is October and horror games are featured, I figured I would go back to the source of the genre on where I started and how especially after the recent reboot attempt at the series, it's time for me to recount and recall just why I love this so much. Silent Hill is a little personal for me more so because I had initially played while being completely oblivious to how scary it is. There were many games that could be argued to be more immersive than this but to me, it is the sort of make believe journey that I love to engross myself in. I still remember my brother buying this when I was 9 years old. He was scared to the point where he called his friends over to stay and beat the game whereas I was completely blinded by my ignorance as to these faceless children that just wanted to be friends with the main character until they suddenly start stabbing the main character and eventually beating the game by myself to which my brother's friends commented: "Your brother needs to get his head checked". Okay, admittedly, that was still disturbing to experience as a kid but as I grew I replayed the game and the series and the more I played the more I appreciated it. I also learned from playing this at a young age to disconnect myself to it being a piece of fiction that I would enjoy myself along the ride simply because I didn't take it seriously. I also learned that what Silent Hill does best is utilizing the fear of the unknown because most of the time you are in the dark as much as the character.

Created by Team Silent and regarded to me as a masterpiece of a series, Silent Hill is a survival horror game that is really hard for me to hate despite the many flaws in it because the excellence in what it offers outweigh the somewhat ridiculous dialogue and irregular as well as awkward animations at times. Silent Hill debuted on the Playstation with our main character Harry Mason looking for his daughter Cheryl in Silent Hill. The story starts with him driving to the town and eventually crashing on the road after seeing a shadow that eerily resembled a woman's. 

That is why you shouldn't drink and drive

Shortly after waking up after being unconscious, Harry realizes that his surroundings are empty and dreary. Walking on an empty street, the city seems as good as dead with no one in sight. He eventually finds a silhouette of a child running away. He calls out to it and as he chases after it, the screen darkens and his surroundings slowly change to this dreary, gloomy, rusty and bloody environment toppled with wheelchairs hospital beds with bodies over them and my only reaction was what in the hell is going on? Eventually, the character is overwhelmed by child like figures that are faceless and holding knives that would kill the player. Experiencing this scene was enough guarantee for me to stick to the game because at the time it was original, narratively speaking to lose so early on and feeling helpless and hopeless with no weapons at your disposal. From that scene alone I could tell so many things were done right and that is the mystery aspect as well as the environment that are engaging. 

From this bleak environment to...

Simply this...

Eventually after meeting with an officer after waking up from a nightmare, Harry is left with only a pistol to save him if he were to encounter anything else. Looking back at it, it was a game that was good for its time and the horror genre has way too many competitions nowadays in terms of engagement, but Silent Hill still did it right aesthetically speaking. The player encounters other characters that are as lost as him in Silent Hill where eventually they are tied to a story that intertwines with a cult worshiping relics and summoning demons. It is less superficial than what it sounds like because there are many subtleties behind it. What I love about Silent Hill as well is that a lot is said through character and monster design that is not mentioned in typical dialogue. 

For its time, Silent Hill had good cutscenes

Moving on to the gameplay in Silent Hill and not spoiling much on the story (If you hadn't played it till this day) Silent Hill was set apart from what Resident Evil did in terms of controls because the tank controls for your character was merely an option (Still surprised it was an option in the first place, don't know who would enjoy controlling a tank) and the player can move around freely without feeling the weight on them. The tiring thing in terms of exploration was the town itself where most players agree that traversing through the town was more exhausting than the indoor levels of the game. There are various reasons and I do get the intention was to set the atmosphere for a bleak world but it does get tiring when a puzzle involving three keys to a lock that leads to Cheryl's school would be scattered in three corners of the whole map. Let's not forget how isolated the map truly is with "roadblocks" that basically have nothing after them which gave the player the illusion of exploration until said areas were off the list to explore.

You have reached the end of the world. Please turn back

Players have a map at their disposal. All the crosses are roadblocks

OKAY, I GET IT. SCARY AND EMPTY. WHERE IS MY NEXT OBJECTIVE?

I have to be honest, Silent Hill was more interesting in its indoor levels since I wasn't drawn out by frustration on where to go and focused on which key works on what door or where do I need to go next. I guess you could say the achievement of an objective took less time and I was more engaged by the surroundings and even found myself fighting enemies indoors as opposed to just plainly avoiding them outdoors simply because I felt easily overwhelmed in tight spaces and less safe. Harry gradually has a load of weapons to protect him from enemies. Both melee and firearms offer different uses such as flying enemies that are hard to reach or short faceless monsters that can just die from a steel pipe. Harry also has a radio that produces static whenever there is an enemy nearby (Don't ask why, it is just one of the rules of the game) and that alone is enough to freak me out while going through a hallway only to find a shadow stalking me with the radio static playing. 

Have you seen a girl? Short, black hair, 7 years old? No? Die.

Another main mechanic of Silent Hill is the puzzle mechanic where the answer is usually so elaborate it is always out of my reach. I still remember back when we had dial up Internet and the only means for a guide was a magazine in game stores (They were actually in Arabic. I was impressed at the time). The most notorious puzzle that left me wondering and wandering the school hallways was the piano puzzle where I was supposed to press the keys to a piano in a specific order according to a note found outside the room where I eventually gave up and read the solution for it in a magazine. The mentality of Silent Hill's puzzles are so elaborate that I was amused by the comparison where a friend told me it is like combining a horseshoe with glue to come up with a lockpick for a key that opens a sewer door to the underground boiler room on the other side of the town. But it does make sense in its own logic. 

This puzzle haunted me for years

I think the weakest mechanic for Silent Hill is its combat. Most of the time it feels clunky and all you have to do is stand at a distance and shoot and wait for monsters to die. There is no engagement in terms of what they do. The only scary thing is their design and through that it brings fear where in reality they might as well replace them all with flies since I barely died in Silent Hill aside from the one boss fight where he kills you with one hit in the school. Even the final boss was barely threatening in terms of design and the only thing that scared me was the revelation and the weight of the story after reaching that point.

Please just stand there and let me kill you. I'm not sure who the real monster here is.

On the opposite spectrum, Silent Hill's soundtrack is complexly beautiful. Every track on its own, despite them not being musical or melodic in the sense one would enjoy, would send terrifying shivers down my spine every time I listen to them. Sounds of industrial tools at work. The sound of rusty metal in friction with other objects the way I perceived and it sparked my curiosity as to how such sounds were manipulated in the first place. The soundtrack is composed by Akira Yamaoka and further research has led to my surprise of how the final boss theme was basically a dentist's drill that was in slow motion when initially I almost crapped my pants when I listened to it and thought it was a barrage of babies crying. It is the kind of soundtrack that doesn't work very well on its own except if you are playing the game. However, Akira has proven himself to provide emotional tracks like Lisa's theme or the epilogue track.

Still a haunting sight despite it being ages ago

Without spoiling further, Silent Hill is not what I would typically call a linear game. There are many things to do in the town and despite the indoor levels being fairly linear, there are certain tasks to follow to see the true ending since there are at least three endings form what I can recall. How you go about finding them is up to you since there are no hints pointing towards them. In fact, there is a completely optional area that is the main key to discovering the true ending and even sheds more light on a character that we briefly know about.

The UFO ending started as a joke and ended up being a trait in the series that only a few fans got to experience it due to its high demands

Silent Hill was a wonderful experience for me and really set a new standard in terms of Horror games for me. It inspired many indie titles nowadays varying in different playstyles and the aesthetics were original at the time that I find it hard to experience something as close as this series ever reached. Hopefully in the near future I can continue my experiences with the rest of the other Silent Hill games. The first game though made me a loyal fan with all its quirky easter eggs and hidden endings. If you haven't played Silent Hill, check it out on Playstation Network.