SILENT HILL f

 It's good to be back.

I played this on my PS5.

Less than a year after last year's stellar Silent Hill 2 remake, there's now a new, "proper" Silent Hill game. Yes, I know we got The Short Message a year and a half ago (and I mostly enjoyed that, don't get me wrong) but this is a new survival-horror game with all of the trappings you'd expect from this series so its release feels a bit more substantial and significant. Silent Hill is back, baby, and this is a good one.

Mechanically, this game is a bit different to previous entries. There are no guns to speak of so combat instead centers around vaguely Souls-adjacent combat. It's not a Soulslike, it's a pretty linear game all things considered, but the Fromsoft inspiration is clearly visible. Heck, one of the bosses felt like something straight out of Elden Ring.

Hinako's got some moves.

Outside of that, you've got weapon durability to concern yourself with along with a fairly limited inventory. There's an upgrade system that relies on a currency that you earn by donating items at shrines (which also serve as save points), so I found myself frequently rushing back to those to hock chocolate bars and dead birds and whatnot for religion bucks. I found this inventory management fairly annoying, to be honest, as the running back and forth to min-max my experience gained got pretty tedious. I get that I could just ignore items when I don't have space, but this is a genre that incentivizes you to make the most of what you have and I didn't want to leave money on the table, so to speak.

Also, I did my second playthrough on the "Lost in the Fog" difficulty and that only exacerbates the game's issues. It just doesn't play as well as a Souls game, frankly, and that difficulty specifically isn't something I'd recommend anyone try (unless you, like me, feel like you Need the achievement for some reason). Essentially, the gameplay is fine and it's largely serviceable even if the encounter design can get fairly frustrating, especially on higher difficulties. I may sound pretty down on this game so far, but gameplay is only one part of the Silent Hill formula and, to be honest, this still plays better than most of the rest of the series.

This game is scary. Despite not looking like other Silent Hill games, it was just as effective at getting me to jump out of my seat or curse at the screen when something would pop out and grab me, or just something upsetting would be happening. And believe me, a lot of upsetting things happen in this game. There's a warning before the game starts about some of the disturbing content you'll be seeing and, yep, this game is not for the faint of heart.

You don't know the half of it.

One thing I grew to appreciate is that this game is pretty colorful. Granted, that color is red, but still. A lot of the Silent Hill sequels had a fairly muted color palette and I liked that this game felt fairly vibrant and saturated. It still has the gray haze you'd expect from a Silent Hill game, but the environments are generally more visually appealing than a lot of this series' fare.

This game's Otherworld equivalent feels distinct, which was nice.

As for the narrative, this is a Ryukishi07 story, man. I'm still kind of blown away by that fact. If you aren't aware, he's the writer responsible for the When They Cry series of visual novels (and some other stuff I haven't read yet). I know visual novels aren't for everyone, but Umineko When They Cry is my favorite story in a video game, full-stop, and maybe one of my favorite narratives I've come across in any media. Needless to say, I was excited when I saw his name in this game's reveal trailer.

So while I went into this game knowing he was involved, I was still taken aback by just how much it genuinely felt like another When They Cry game. Sure, it's far more a horror than even Higurashi was, but there are themes and ideas running through those games that are very much apparent here. Despite all that, however, it's also still recognizably Silent Hill.

I won't go into the specifics of how the narrative plays out because figuring things out was a big part of the fun of this story, but despite taking place in a new setting without any of the aesthetics I'd come to expect from these games, this still felt like part of the series. There are mechanical similarities, yes, but also elements of the lore and even specific moments that are clearly meant to evoke things from those earlier games. 

What's on the other side of this door genuinely made me gasp.

In this next bit I'll talk vaguely about the story and its structure, so avoid this if you want to go in completely fresh (though I think I'll have some good advice on how to approach this game if you're willing to read it).

Otherwise, skip ahead to the picture of some names.

I mentioned it before, but this sure is a Ryukishi game. The When They Cry series is one that relies heavily on repetition and multiple routes, and that is very much also the case here. There are elements of the story that may feel... unresolved at the end, but please trust that that is deliberate and that revisiting the game with at least a second playthrough is sort of necessary to fully appreciate what's going on. Silent Hill games are known for having multiple endings, but the way it's doled out here is... different. The different endings, taken together as a whole, paint a fairly complete picture of the story they want to tell.

I played through the game five times, to see all available endings, though truly I think you could get away with doing it three times (and just watching the other two on YouTube or something). Luckily, subsequent playthroughs can be much faster than your initial one as puzzle solutions should stay the same (provided you're on the same difficulty) so while my first playthrough took me about 13 hours, my last only took me about half that (and I was sort of still taking my time). Yes, I understand asking you to play a game like this multiple times is a big commitment, but it's worth it as the story here is one that I think will stick with me for some time. 

This is going to sound strange, but during my time with this game I got genuinely emotional at one point and started tearing up. I got weepy in a Silent Hill game! Playing a game with Ryukishi's sensibilities and this kind of budget was a treat. I feel like my adoration for this man might sound strange if you haven't seen any of his work, but I came away from this game very glad that they let him do his thing. 

He's even got dai doing an ending credits song.

You can resume reading. 

I mentioned I did multiple playthroughs and with that I was able to try some of the language options. I played most of the game in Japanese with English subtitles, as that was what the game defaulted to, though I did my second playthrough in the English dub. It seemed fine, though the lipflaps are synced to the Japanese audio so it doesn't quite match, but either option seems like a good way to play this game.

So, what about the title, then? Do I know what the "f" stands for? Honestly, no. I have, like, 8 or 9 ideas about what it might stand for based on some of the events in the game but the game never has, like, a Proper Noun with an "f" in it or anything like that. Maybe this lack of a single meaning is the point, I don't know. Ultimately a title isn't that important, and it's pretty distinct I'll admit, but that doesn't change the fact it's a bit cryptic.

There's sadly no stats screen in this, so I don't have any nitty-gritty details to share with you, but I at least have my clear times visible so I'll show those (and proof that I got the Platinum, since I went through the effort of getting that).

I adored this game. It might just be recency bias so I'll hold off on saying anything definitive, but I think this might be the best Silent Hill game since Team Silent was running the show, and it may even rate among those. Obviously last year's remake was wonderful, but I feel there's more weight to the fact that the team here managed to create something wholly new with its own identity that still feels like it's part of the same series. That sort of thing should be commended. This game is, to put it simply, a fantastic addition to the series.