Hello everyone!
What a rich year it's been for sequels to beloved game series after a long drought. Silent Hill hasn't been forgotten - the last game came out in 2012, according to sources. I'm not counting the remake of the second part, which was released last year. A remake isn't the same as a new installment.
This time around, we're in traditional Japan of the 60s. And finally, in 2022, Konami, the rights holders, announce a new part. I have to say that I don't have any special feelings towards this franchise. It just so happens that I've missed out on all the previous parts. I've only watched a couple of the movies, that's all. But thanks to Konami and the efforts of the Blоober Team last year, I came across the mentioned remake of the second part. And I didn't regret playing it at all. As for what was in the original part, I have no idea, but the remake really won me over - I ended up playing it multiple times and even unlocked all the achievements. Although I understood that the upcoming part wouldn't be about James Sunderland, I still had a small interest in the game. What if the new game would give me just as many amazing experiences? But I tried not to build up too many expectations.
I also stayed out of the general outrage: not everyone was pleased with the developers' decision to move the story from the familiar American nowhere to Japan. How can it be Silent Hill then? Not canon! But there were also those who supported this idea. For me, personally, nothing was bothering me - the Silent Hill series just isn't something I'm that attached to, so I wasn't too upset by any deviations from the norm.
The game was released in September of this year. Players worldwide have been joking about the curse that's been plaguing Silent Hill - almost all parts of the series were made by different studios. And now, Konami has entrusted the new part to the Hong Kong-based company Neobards Entertainment. The PC game's price isn't the most pleasant - around 3-4 thousand rubles. This is the standard edition. Players who paid a couple of thousand more had the opportunity to launch the new Silent Hill two days earlier than the official release date. Unfortunately, this practice is now the norm.
I got this game through my family's Steam library. We've got a friend who buys all the new releases, but he never actually plays them. To be honest, I wouldn't even consider buying this game, even at a discount. It's not something I need in my library, and I don't think I'd want to play it again. I tried to get into it - the story, the gameplay, the characters - but I just couldn't shake the feeling that I wanted to tell the game to quit. I played it twice, and the second time was a waste of time. I couldn't figure out the conditions needed to see the new ending on my own.
Peaceful start System requirements (taken from the Steam product page): Minimum:
64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 11 x64 Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600 RAM: 16 GB RAM Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 DirectX: version 12 Free space: 50 GB Sound card: Windows Compatible Audio Device. Additional: Playing on minimum requirements should enable playing at Performance quality settings in 30 FPS at 720p. SSD is recommended. Recommended:
64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 11 x64 Processor: Intel Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 5 5500 RAM: 16 GB RAM Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800XT DirectX: version 12 Free space: 50 GB Sound card: Windows Compatible Audio Device. Additional: Playing on recommended requirements should enable playing at Performance settings in 60 FPS or Quality settings in 30 FPS at FullHD (or 4k using DLSS or similar technology). SSD required. The PC version works pretty smoothly. At least, I don't see many complaints about the game's technical state in the reviews. My experience was stable - no crashes, no freezes, and no bugs. We've come a long way if we're praising games for their decent technical state at launch.
You'll notice some Russian text localization, and it's got some errors - one of which you'll spot right from the main menu, every time you launch it with 'Press any button', you can't help but raise an eyebrow. Like many other players, I figured the game would be best experienced with Japanese voice acting. I mean, what's English dialogue when the story's set in the land of the rising sun? I liked it. By the way, the Mechanics VoiceOver team have announced a crowdfunding campaign to create a full Russian voiceover in their Patreon.
There aren't too many dialogue scenes in the game 🔶STORY The story takes place in a Japanese, small town called Ébissugaoka in the early 1960s. You'll be playing as Shimizu Hinako, a high school student who's got a lot on her plate. Her relationships with her parents aren't great, and she feels like an outcast among her peers. The only good thing in her life is her older sister, but she's married and moved out of the family home. The day that turned her world upside down was just another ordinary day. After another argument with her parents, Hinako wanted to hang out with her friends. But then the town started changing - it got shrouded in a strange mist, and as soon as it reached her friends' group, one of the girls fell dead, covered in some... red sparks. The others, including Hinako, managed to escape.
As the hours passed, the town's changes got scarier and scarier: the streets were covered in this disgusting biomass mixed with red plants. People had vanished from their homes, but there were these weird, aggressive creatures roaming the mist and the biomass.
And the only way out was to flee the town, dodging these deadly monsters, the blooming biomass, and straight into the mist. That's basically the start of the story. I'm not gonna lie: the beginning's got a lot of hooks that grab your attention. From the very start, there are plenty of questions. Like, why does the opening cinematic refuse to show the face of Hinako's older sister? Why are the pictures of the main character and her sister both faceless? Who actually helped Hinako by dropping the ladder? Why does one of Hinako's friends call her a traitor, even with a smile on her face - which Hinako finds pretty confusing? And that's just a few of the mysteries the script throws at you in the early stages. I remembered all these hooks and kept going to the end, hoping to get some answers.
The biggest problem with this game's story is that you have to play it at least three times to get a grasp on it. With four possible endings, plus one weird ending about an alien, it's like a remake of the second part. In the first playthrough, all players get only one ending, no options. Then you have to start a new game in the '+New Game' mode, where all your progress will transfer. In this mode, players will see new dialogue, new notes, new cutscenes, and get the chance to reach different endings. Unfortunately, when I went into '+New Game' mode, I got a bit too confident and didn't look up guides beforehand to help me get new endings. I thought the whole issue with reaching new endings was all about solving puzzles. Turns out, it's not. And when I realized on my second playthrough that I'd see the same first ending again, all my enthusiasm for exploring the game's hidden meanings went out the window. Silent Hill F got deleted from my computer, and I ended up watching the endings on YouTube instead.
I didn't really connect with the few characters in the game. At the beginning and the end, they just don't seem interesting or well-developed. Hina lives in a patriarchal family where the man is in charge, and women are just accessories. Her dad is not just a tyrant, but a tyrant who lost a fortune to the wrong person in the past. He's always drunk and mistreating the women in the house. Hina's mom just goes along with it, and Hina can't just sit back and do nothing. The game's writer also added some spice to Hina's friendships. Hina has a childhood friend named Sui, and they used to spend a lot of time together. They still address each other as 'partner' now. There's also Rinco, who has a crush on Sui and is secretly jealous of Hina.
I was really disappointed that some important points were barely explained. Like, there's this thing with the older sister's face that's supposed to be super important, but it's just a face. And some things weren't explained at all - they were just hinted at, and then the explanation was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. I have to admit, the story seemed pretty straightforward at first, but then I got bogged down in all the little hooks that required me to do some serious guessing. The Japanese culture and a seemingly insignificant note that only appears in "New Game+" had me feeling like a total newbie who couldn't appreciate the depth and genius of the storyline. When I found out that the game's writer was the same person who penned the anime "When They Cry", I was flooded with nostalgia. I watched that show over a decade ago, and I was really disappointed with the ending when they started going back in time and redoing things.
The notes in the game are pretty sparse, to be honest. Usually, it's just a letter to some character, a page from a diary, a flyer, or a journal entry. And as you progress through the story, Hinako also starts writing notes in her diary - there are tabs for characters, locations, and even monsters, so don't ignore those. Oh, and the game also explores the theme of women's roles in society. I've heard that Japan is a pretty patriarchal country, and if "f" in the title really means feminism, then I was disappointed all over again because even this theme is handled in a really uninteresting way.
Honestly, my story ended with the first ending. That's it. I regretted not trying the other endings just for the sake of the final boss fights, but not for the actual storyline. Because with the new endings, the story just gets more and more like some low-budget anime with tons of interpretations. The game's pretty short, too - you can beat it in around 10-15 hours, depending on how long you get stuck on local puzzles and enemies. My first playthrough took about five days, and I was playing it in moderation.
CONTROLS I played the game with a keyboard, and at first, everything seemed pretty standard: WSAD for movement, left Shift for speed, left mouse button for a quick attack, and right mouse button for a stronger attack. The space bar is for dodging, just like in the remake of the second part, and F is for interacting with the environment. Consumables get stored in separate slots and are applied by pressing the corresponding number key from one to eight.
What really gets my goat is the responsiveness of the control system. It's weird that the character's reaction only kicks in after 2-3 button presses. And, as if fate had it, these moments always pop up in the most tense situations where your life is on the line. You need to dodge, but Hinako just stands there! You need to slap a bandage on quickly, but Hinako does nothing. I thought it was just the keyboard and mouse, but even people playing with a controller complained about Hinako's inexplicable inaction.
Before starting a new game, you need to choose the difficulty level, which is split into two categories: combat difficulty and puzzle difficulty. When you first launch the game, you're only given two combat difficulty levels - story and hard. Only later do you unlock another difficulty level, 'Lost in the Fog.' Puzzles, on the other hand, immediately offer themselves up to be solved at this difficulty level. I decided to play on the hard mode. You can only change the difficulty by lowering it and only in case of consecutive losses at the same stage. But if you want to make the game harder at any point, you won't find a 'Difficulty' tab in the settings.
🔶PROGRESSION The game offers a completely linear progression from point to point. If there are any deviations from the main route, they're small and only serve to replenish resources or read some important narrative object. Tasks are displayed in the game menu, and, just like in the remake of the second part, it's a good idea to open the map in any unclear situation. The map shows the location of the main goal, points of interest, dead ends, the location of saving shrines, and so on. Of course, the map is gradually populated. But it saves you very often.
Just like in the remake of the second part, here the journeys around the city will be interspersed with journeys to the afterlife, where Hinako will repeatedly meet a certain masked gentleman.
One of the things that really stood out to me was how limited the locations are in the game. And don't even get me started on the number of interesting levels - it's a real letdown. By the end, you'll be running back and forth through the same old areas over and over again. The levels in the local school and Hina's house, with its confusing rooms and portals to other realities, were the most memorable for me.
Another fun part of the game is the 'Scarecrow' section, where you have to choose the right scarecrow to proceed. If you pick the right one, it'll point you in the right direction. If you pick the wrong one, it'll attack you.
In general, the puzzles are pretty straightforward - you just have to find the right items by following the clues. Sometimes, you'll have to find three specific items to unlock a door. Other times, you'll have to find a key that's been dropped by a character.
I have to say, the combat in this game is a real pain to use. It's nothing like the combat in Dark Souls, which is apparently what the devs were going for when they designed it. I mean, they've admitted to drawing inspiration from that series, but it shows. The combat here is clunky and unresponsive. You've got your basic melee attacks, but they're not very satisfying. You've also got a few different types of strikes you can use, but they're all pretty much the same. There's the standard strike, which deals moderate damage but is fast. Then there's the heavy strike, which requires a bit more effort to land but deals more damage. And then there's the heavy strike with concentration, which takes even longer to set up but guarantees a stun. The problem is, the combat feels really unresponsive. If you try to cancel a heavy strike, you can't. And forget about dodging attacks - it's almost impossible to time it right. Most enemy attacks are faster than the protagonist's, and the game's controls are super finicky. I found myself getting frustrated with the combat more often than not.
It's not all bad, though. The game does have some moments where the combat works well, and it's satisfying to take down an enemy with a well-timed heavy strike. But overall, the combat is a major letdown. The game's devs need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make the combat feel more responsive and intuitive. Until then, I'd recommend avoiding this game if you're a fan of good combat mechanics.
Target lock, which is a staple of the Dark Souls series, doesn't quite work the same way here. It's a marker that's placed on enemies, and it's meant to lock the camera on them. But in this game, it doesn't really do much. You can still swing wildly and hit the ground next to the enemy, even if they're standing right in front of you. And don't even get me started on the times when you think you've got a clear shot, but your sword just whiffs the enemy and hits the wall instead. It's super frustrating, especially when you're trying to time your attacks just right. And the camera doesn't help either. When I'm stuck in a corner with an enemy closing in, the camera gets all jumbled up and it's hard to see what's going on.
But the biggest problem with this game is the stamina system. It's a real pain in the neck. I mean, I've played Dark Souls and Elden Ring, and those games let you move around and attack without worrying too much about stamina. But here, it's a whole different story. Even a single dodge or roll can cost you a bunch of stamina, and if you're not careful, you'll be stuck waiting for it to recharge. And don't even get me started on the frames of invincibility. I have no idea how they work, but it seems like sometimes I get hit even when I'm not supposed to. And when I do get hit, I'm stuck standing there for a few seconds, unable to move or attack.
I've got to say, the enemy level with the creepy dolls scared me the most. And don't even get me started on the weapon durability. It's easy to keep track of, thanks to the crescent moon icon next to the health bar. And it's not like it's going to last forever - once it's depleted, the weapon will be gone. Another mechanic that adds a layer of stress to the game. Although I managed to make it through two playthroughs without losing all my gear, I'm curious to see how other players will handle it. Will they restart their save or start a new game?
Grab attacks are a whole different level of pain. These mechanics wouldn't be so bad if the enemies were one-on-one. Even the toughest enemies can be taken down on the first try. But things get hairy when there are multiple enemies on the screen. And trust me, it only gets worse towards the end of the game.
I've gotta say, the first half of the game is screaming at you to conserve resources and time on enemies. Yeah, old-school strategy is to just run away from them. Even the in-game tip on starting the game says you can avoid fights if your opponent loses sight of you. But, even there, I found something to complain about. Running away from enemies is a great idea, but you often run into them in super tight corridors where you can't even move around them properly. So, you either engage in combat or try to squeeze past them while taking damage, all while trying not to get hit in the back. And don't even get me started on the special type of monsters that can move faster than Hinako can run.
Of course, not everything in this game is a total disaster. You've got a couple of mechanics that make combat a bit easier. First off, there's the perfect dodge – if you time it just right and dodge an attack by a fraction of a second, your stamina bar will fully recover. Then there's the counterattack – when an enemy is most vulnerable, the model will glow slightly, and if you hit them with a strong attack at that moment, they'll be stunned. Concentration mode seems to help you see those moments of vulnerability more often, but playing in that mode isn't very comfortable.
The game has three types of weapons – bludgeoning, piercing, and heavy. You can only carry three items in your inventory, and as you progress, you'll find different types of weapons – metal pipes, baseball bats, sickles, kitchen knives, hammers, axes, and wrenches. Each one has its own unique attack animation. Knives deal fast, but little damage, while hammers or axes deal slower, but more damage and consume stamina faster. You can also use a hammer or axe to block an enemy's attack, which will also consume stamina. In the afterlife, Hinako gets access to a kaiKEN and naginata. And, in the afterlife, the weapons don't have any durability. That's a relief. Towards the end of the game, Hinako will get access to a special type of weapon that allows her to instantly kill enemies. This special weapon also has an ultimate ability that charges up as you attack with it and kill enemies.
The game does have character progression. And suddenly. As you progress through the game, you'll encounter shrines where you can save and level up your character. You can upgrade your health, mental health, stamina, and even add more slots for talismans. I highly recommend prioritizing stamina first - it's where you should be spending most of your resources. I didn't see any real benefit to upgrading my mental health, though. There is a mental health bar that depletes from some enemy attacks (when it's empty, Hinako takes actual damage) and also from concentration. However, mental health regenerates over time, so I didn't bother with it at all.
Shrine And, of course, I recommend leveling up your talisman slots. If you're diligent and keep an eye out for them, you've got a good chance of finding Omamori - talismans that give you passive bonuses. You'll only start with one slot, so it's crucial to level up more. Omamori can also be purchased at the shrine, but it's more like a lottery - you're essentially paying for a chance to get something.
Omamori gives nice bonuses To level up, you'll need two things - special boards (which can be found in the game's farthest corners) and faith points (which can be obtained by selling items at the shrine).