The Silent Hill 2 remake has blown our expectations out of the water, emerging as a victory for Konami and Bloober Team and a proper modern revival of highly influential, cult classic horror game. With my colleague Kazuma’s review as my only real frame of reference for the full remake, I waltzed into Silent Hill, happy as a clam. That cheery calm didn’t last for very long at all. The atmosphere and spooks (especially those damned Mannequins) of Silent Hill 2 Remake really got to me, despite how easy it is for James to clear out the town’s supernatural denizens.
This is one of those “No, Stephanie, it’s just you” moments, but for the longest time, I was under the impression that the clunky controls in old horror games was a deliberate choice from the developers. That part of the fear comes from how difficult it is to maneuver yourself out of dangerous situations and fight off or escape from horrifying enemies. That was the idea I had after playing Resident Evil way back when on the PlayStation and giving up out of frustration because my six-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend the puzzles, the English, or the controls.
Well, it turns out that, no, Capcom didn’t make Resident Evil difficult to handle on purpose, nor was Resident Evil unique. Tank controls were just a normal part of life for games, and all the other PlayStation games I played just happened to not have them. Other horror games I played all added to this narrative I was forming in my head though. When I played the Fatal Frame games and felt like the girls were a bit clunky, I assumed that was to add to the tension. Same with the Siren games. Horror games feel bad to play because that accentuates the fear. That’s just the way it is, I thought. Nothing really challenged this worldview either, so I went through a good two decades or so thinking that.
Fast forward from 2001 to 2024. Bloober Team and Konami unveiled the ill-received combat trailer for the Silent Hill 2 remake featuring the over-the-shoulder camera for James. It’s not so bad in the beginning, but then we see him mow through crowds of iconic enemies with a variety of melee weapons and firearms. There’s very little of the oppressive and solemn atmosphere that made it such a beloved horror game to begin with.
When rewatching this, the music is probably the main offender as to why people reacted so poorly to it back then. It kind of sounds like something you’d hear in a trailer for something more generic and action-focused. James uses all of these weapons in the original game, so rifles and shotguns aren’t new. Combat being front-and-center is, though. From a marketing standpoint, I understand the decision to make a combat trailer to show the differences between the remake and the original. I also understand using exciting music for such sequences. But considering the emphasis on psychological horror, something more subdued might’ve gone over better.
I was in the camp who felt really apprehensive about the remake after seeing this trailer. Bloober Team saying that it didn’t really agree with how Konami was marketing it did help, but the track record wasn’t looking too great in general. I was still adamant that for maximum spookiness levels, a horror game shouldn’t feel too good or easy to control, and the Silent Hill 2 remake was starting to look way too polished for me. It reminded me a lot of The Last of Us and Resident Evil 2 Remake—both perfectly fine and great games, but very different from what Silent Hill 2 set off to do.
Fears among the community were quelled upon release, as Silent Hill 2 launched to raving reviews. The vast majority of people loved it. Bloober Team did it. It was an absolute home run. I eagerly installed my copy of the game and booted it up, with the opening hooking me in and making me forget all of my misgivings about the game. Fighting off the odd Lying Figure while exploring the foggy streets wasn’t too bad. Wood Side Apartments started getting a little scary thanks to the claustrophobic hallways and infuriating Mannequins, but it was fine. Bluecreek Apartments? Creepy, but still alright. I was patting myself on the back while apologizing to Bloober Team in my head as I wandered around and took in the titular town.
And then I arrived at Brookhaven Hospital. Oh my God, did I arrive at Brookhaven Hospital. For full disclosure, I got the game when it came out and it took me basically a month to beat it because I really had to psych myself up to get through it from this point. It didn’t matter that I had over a hundred bullets for my handgun and good third person shooter aim. Didn’t even matter that I was following guides while playing so as not to miss collectible items, meaning I knew exactly where enemies were and when they’d show up. Granted, the lack of confusion or trial-and-erroring, thus leading to frustration, was the likely reason as to why fear was at the forefront of my mind. It was hard to remain scared of, say, the Shibito in Siren when I was more irritated with them, after all.
The Otherworld in Silent Hill has always been a nasty place, what with all the bloodstained walls and rust and stuff. It’s grody, disgusting, macabre… Any synonym of those words or general sentiment is a great and apt way to describe it. I did not remember feeling so scared or nervous wandering around the aforementioned areas back in the day. Maybe it was because the original had a more distant camera angle, or maybe it’s because I round robin-ed it with friends (meaning I was only in control a fraction of the play time).
It’s really impressive that I remained scared in the Silent Hill 2 remake for basically the entire journey through. I know that I can destroy any enemy that comes my way on Standard. But that didn’t soothe my nerves at all. Chris “Genuine Gorilla” Redfield of Resident Evil 5 could’ve been the playable character, and I probably still would’ve had trouble getting through the majority of the game. The environment design is phenomenal. Almost all of the locales in the game are dark, cramped, and filthy. Yet each explorable room or hallway is short enough that it’s hard to really get used to it. There’s always a new place to explore, rife with the chance that the static will start up and a monster will jump you.
And that’s where I think the true horror of the game comes from: the sound design. It’s not enough that town through James’s eyes are the stuff of nightmares. It has to sound like a nightmare too. The music is deeply unsettling, even when nothing is happening. That the monsters don’t sound like living creature at all also lends in creating a . The radio noise really adds to that sense of unease. That Mannequins only set it off for a brief moment helps to heighten the paranoia as you look around every corner to try and get a jump on it before it leaps out at you.
Man, I was so sick of those Mannequins. As a naturally jumpy person in real life, I really did not do well with how the game can eat at you with basically every facet of its design, only to throw jump scares into the mix. Yeah, sure, I can take out the Mannequins and whatnot without much trouble. That doesn’t mean I won’t get scared at these unholy ambassadors from Hell’s shopping mall jumping out at me, though. I’ve read some comments online at how the prevalence of them and their jump scares can cheapen the experience. Honestly, I can see where they’re coming from, even if I disagree. The risk of having to hear their nasty scuttling or see their freakish thighs leaping out at me kept the fear from stagnating over hours of gameplay.
The Silent Hill 2 remake is the first horror game I’ve played in a very long time in which I experienced a true roller coaster of emotions all the way until the end. It really hammered home just how wrong I was about how the true horror is in bad control schemes and I’m not mad at all at the correction. Maybe one day I’ll be able to pick it up and zip through the story, terrifying sound design and horrible jump scares be damned. Unfortunately for me and fortunately for Bloober Team, that won’t be anytime soon.
Silent Hill 2 is readily available on the PS5 and Windows PC.
Published: Oct 30, 2024 06:00 pm