Topic: Silent Hill 2 Remake

I’ve spent some more time with this game over the last couple days and really enjoying it. I’m not even a horror fan but there’s a real satisfaction to going through a creepy mystery and puzzle solving to progress.

I find the linearity refreshing as well, and how there’s a real sense of exploration and yet you’re never really lost, at least so far. I’m only about 5 hours along (making my way through Blue Creek Apartments). The in-game map is very well done and easily has pointed me in the right direction to this point, clearly marking doors that are closed and not intended to be explored, and doors that are locked and have a key or way in.

The environments are extremely well realized, with the characteristic dark and foggy lighting, the old and rusty dilapidation, the brown and black color scheme, and the use of claustrophobic environments with lots of places for things to be hidden around a corner. I’ve been playing with the radio off and so it’s made me be more aware of my surroundings always on the lookout for an enemy ambush or jump scare.

Graphically is really nice looking. If I had a complaint there it would be the weird lustrous nature of James's hair. It’s almost glowing and reflective in some scenes. Then in some places it looks like a normal color. It likely has to do with the HDR I suppose, but I am too lazy to try to adjust for it.

The PS1 era of story-telling is also funny by today’s standards but you have to just roll with it. The dialogue is a bit unnatural and the fact that James is just traipsing through such a traumatic and horrific experience without showing any fear or emotion so far is quite curious when you think about it. 😅

One final note— I’m splitting my time playing it on console and on the Portal. I might actually prefer it on Portal, weirdly enough. I think the smaller screen helps to control the scariness for me, since I’m pretty much a wimp when it comes to these things.

@Th3solution “…a real sense of exploration and yet you’re never really lost…”

The game is designed so well in that regard. It’d be a hard balance to find, especially in horror, where pacing is everything. It helps too that the excellent puzzles add to the atmosphere. Darkness is used extremely well, particularly later on, and adds significantly to that palpable claustrophobia.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying it! Bloober did such a great job remaking this, and if you’re already enjoying it this early, it’s safe to say you’re in for quite the ride 😄 I look forward to reading about your journey.

I also decided to start up this game and man, I'm already addicted! I played for 2.5 hours straight today and it's been an absolute blast. This is my first time playing SH2 or any SH game for that matter. I just got to Wood Side Apartments and it feels like I've made a lot of progress. I've been going after every enemy I come across just to get better at the combat and learning the patterns of the enemies. I struggled at first but now I'm pretty good at continuously defeating them without taking any damage. I already have 10+ health drinks in my inventory, so I feel like I'm doing pretty well. Otherwise it is a better idea to avoid enemies in horror games in order to conserve ammo, but considering you have an unbreakable melee weapon, there's no reason to not fight every enemy in order to get better at the combat.

This was definitely the perfect game to start up for the weekend!

6.5 hours into the game now and I just finished the Blue Creek Apartments. I'm seriously loving this game! It's very similar to Resident Evil but it's different due to the psychological horror aspect of it and I vastly prefer this over RE. The enemies, the areas, the puzzles, they're all designed so well and creatively. I also can't believe how much content there is in this game. I believe I'm only 1/3 of the way through the story but it feels like I've done so much already. This game is just phenomenal!

@LtSarge Glad to hear you’re enjoying it! It really is phenomenal (the original is one of my favourite games but I think the remake is even better). I look forward to reading your progress!

@Metonymy I'm actually glad that I haven't played the original as going into the remake blind makes the experience so much better as everything is new to me. I tend to prefer playing the original games first before playing the remakes just to appreciate all the improvements, but I just don't have time for that anymore.

@LtSarge Fair enough, I’d argue the remake is the definitive version anyway. Enjoy the ride!

@LtSarge Never played a Silent Hill game before ?

@LtSarge I’m right behind you in progress, as I was able to clear Blue Creek yesterday, and am around 7 hours along. Definitely agree with what you’ve said, the game is really terrific so far. I don’t think I would have felt this way either, but I’m starting to wonder if I’ll end up liking it more than Resident Evil. The pinnacle of survival horror in my experience is still RE2 Remake, but man, I wonder if this is going to top it.

I’m playing the game on normal puzzle settings and easy combat. I prefer these games to not be too frustrating combat-wise and so far it’s helped my enjoyment to not be too up tight with the combat. I’ve died only a couple times. The normal level of puzzles so far seems to be a sweet-spot also, as I’ve had to scratch my head a few times (that moth puzzle had me going for a while, until I was like… ‘duh!’) but so far haven’t had to look anything up.

@oliverp I've only played a little bit of Silent Hill 1, but that's it.

@Th3solution I also really enjoyed RE2 Remake. My favourite RE though is RE7 just because it's the only RE game that truly made me terrified while playing. Otherwise the RE games aren't that scary in general.

The puzzles are fantastic in this game! There's only been one so far that I felt was a bit unfair, but it's optional. You'll realise which one I'm talking about.

So I'm roughly 14 hours into the game and unfortunately, I'm enjoying it less now. There's just way too much padding. The hospital area took way too long to get through. The regular version was fine, but it's the otherworld version that dragged on for too long. At least with the otherworld version of the apartments, it felt different enough that it felt like its own level. But the otherworld version of the hospital is just the same level but with a different layout. And after that, you go through the same area of the town but during nighttime. It's just way too much and the gameplay is getting very repetitive. I heard that the remake was twice as long as the original, which made me excited as I love spending more time in games like this. But the actual new content is not great. It's NG+ level of content.

And apparently, I'm roughly 50 percent through the game. Yikes.. I might have to take a break from it and come back later just so that my experience doesn't get ruined.

@LtSarge Yeah I guess it can make sense to take break sometimes.

I decided to keep playing. Even though it got very repetitive yesterday, the gameplay loop is still very addicting. The game really rewards you for exploration considering you find so much loot once the levels open up. I have now 150 handgun bullets, 40 shotgun shells, 30 health bottles and 20 syringes, and I'm playing on standard difficulty. It's really generous with the loot, which is something I remember from the brief time I played Silent Hill 1.

Due to how much content there is in the game, I've gotten really good with enemy encounters. The hardest one for me is the one that hides in the environment, but now I've grasped when to dodge and attack it. That's actually one aspect I like with SH compared to RE, i.e. there is both a good melee and a ranged weapon system in place. You can use the knife in RE, but the series is more designed for ranged weapons and when the zombies are down, you use the knife. In SH, you can pretty much get through the entire game with nothing but melee, even the bosses. I really like this, as it can get frustrating in the older RE titles whenever you run out of ammo and there's no good melee option. I'm rather excited now to play Silent Hill f knowing that that game only has a melee system and melee is actually pretty fun in these games!

Anyway, I just arrived to the prison and I'm just happy to be exploring a new place now.

@LtSarge Yeah, I’m working through the hospital now and it seems bigger than the apartments. I’m still thoroughly enjoying it but I can see what you mean. The domino-effect puzzles are definitely next level here! Every door is locked and has multiple steps to get through it. “I need a key to get through there. I need to solve this puzzle to get that key. I need these two items to solve the puzzle. I need two keys to get into other rooms to get the two items. I need a combination to the lock to get into a lock box to get one of those keys. I need to solve this puzzle to get into the room that has the combination. To solve the puzzle I need a completely different key to get in a room with the item for the puzzle… ugh…. How many keys and locks does this hospital have?!…” 😅

My save file says I’m a little over 10 hours and I figure I’m about halfway through the hospital. The enemies here have ramped up in difficulty also. And I’m not sure how I feel about Maria. She’s clearly trying to seduce James and initially she gave me the creeps. But now she’s sick and so I’m starting to feel some empathy for her. And the poor thing is stuck running through the zombie apocalypse in a leather miniskirt! 😂 I’m curious about her story.

Hopefully I can play some more today and progress through to the next area soon.

@Th3solution I definitely agree that it can become a lot of tedious running around just trying to get to where you want to go. It's the "Metroidvania" aspect of these horror games, just like in RE. But in that series, progression feels more natural. Here it can feel a bit cumbersome.

Regarding Maria, I'm just so glad the developer didn't pull an RE4 and had you running around an entire level with her (á la Ashley). As soon as she said she was feeling unwell and needed to rest, I was so happy! I would've prepared the bed for her and tucked her in if that was required of me, just so she could leave me alone.

Joking aside, the characters in this game are interesting and a bit enigmatic. What's their backstory, why are they behaving like they do and what brought them all, including James, to Silent Hill? It's going to be interesting to find that out.

Also, I'm interested to hear your thoughts about the hospital after you're done with it, just to compare with what I thought. Do keep me updated!

I've Just finished the hospital section and went back outside. 10 hours my save file says. Reading your thoughts @LtSarge @Th3solution is quite interesting and opposite of mine, I thought the hospital section was done brilliantly, although I will admit it got a little tedious running around the same halls for so long having to retrace steps constantly but I thought in terms of the game and the situation that I believe is happening then it suited the game very well.

I'm playing the game on normal difficulty with normal puzzles and haven't found combat taxing at all yet. Like you said Sarge you get so much loot and unbreakable weapons make it worth fighting everything, plus there's no real punishment for dying as it has a lot of save spots about. I'm enjoying the puzzles, they are very early Resident Evil style and I like them. Haven't come across anything to complicated yet so I think there the right level.

Having never played a SH game before I'm really enjoying it. The horror is good, feels more weighted that RE because your not some special forces or super hero rookie cop 😂 the environment is done really well and the whole eerie feeling around the town and mysterious method in which all the characters act adds to a very good psychological vibe.

I think I have a grasp of whats going on, I feel like I've read enough of the items found and got a good sense of the direction the story is going, which is why I think the hospital section worked well. But I'll have to see if I'm right, being a Japanese game they tend to go crazy with there endings and it's nothing what you thought, I'm looking at you Bloodborne!

My game also say 50% after the hospital so I'm guessing another 10 hours to get to the end. 20 in total if it keeps this pace

I’m really enjoying reading all of these impressions. Hope everyone’s play through’s are going swimmingly.

Huge congrats to SH2R for selling 5M copies! Can't wait for the remake of the first one, I have 100% faith that Bloober will kill it again, also very inrested in Townfall (just need to see more of it)

@Hapless I've just made it to the labyrinth, so thanks for the heads up in how delightful it will be 😂

12 and a half-hours playtime on my save file. Still really enjoying it, I do seem to have accumulated a heck of a lot of supplies, I even started to use my pistol and my shotgun as my main weapons of choice to get through some ammo and at the labyrinth entrance I still have 97 pistol ammo and 47 shotgun shells, seems very generous for a survival horror, although I'm not complaining, I'd be feeling a lot more vulnerable if I was just running around with my pipe 😂

I just finished the game and it took me about 23 hours in total. I got the In Water ending, which I'm fine with. I didn't know there were multiple endings to this game and that there were so many specific things you had to do in order to get them.

It definitely is a special horror game, despite how lengthy it is. The areas and the boss designs are so cool, the story is very engrossing, and there were a lot of trippy moments towards the end, which I adore in horror games.

But as I mentioned, the game shouldn't be this long considering the type of content it has. Having to go through the same level over again is just plain tedious, but luckily there wasn't more like that after the nighttime Silent Hill part. However, the prison and labyrinth didn't add anything to the overall plot. I mean, throughout the game, there were reasons for why you visited every area. I don't really understand what the point of these two areas was, especially the prison. Don't get me wrong, these areas were cool but again, it just felt like padding. Not to mention that you're basically throwing away too many ideas for areas that could've been used in future games.

Moreover, the gameplay just gets way too repetitive and there isn't a lot of enemy variety to hold you over. Like others have mentioned, the game is too generous with ammo and health items that you don't get scared anymore by fighting enemies.

If they had cut out the second version of the hospital, the nighttime Silent Hill, the prison level and maybe even the labyrinth, then I would've been happy with the length of the game. I mean, after I was done with the labyrinth, I thought I was close to the end of the game but nope there's another area after that. This game just wouldn't end lol.

Long games are fine as long as they continuously give you goals, introduce new things and/or have progressions systems that make you wanna keep playing. In this case it was just more of the same with very little new stuff.

Despite all these things, I still loved this game. I kept coming back to it and it was very fun to play. But just like everything else, it's not perfect. Having finished it now, I can definitely say that this has become my new favourite horror game. It's just so good.

@Hapless Oh no you didn't spoil anything for me mate, apologies if I made you feel so. I just meant in a sarcastic way thanks for the heads up in the labyrinth being "something not to look forward too" 😂

I made it through the labyrinth last night actually, 16 hours and 84% through it says on my home screen so I'm guessing I'm in the home stretch now.

@LtSarge I've got to agree with you that as much as I'm enjoying the game, like I'm really enjoying the horror aspect of it, that narratively some of the sections don't do anything for the game at all other than prolong the game, which in a linear driven horror game just doesn't seem to fit. The prison section is the biggest part so far, I thought the hospital section worked well and even the labyrinth to most extent tried to tie in the narrative.

The sweet spot for these games is around 10-12 hours in my opinion, think Dead Space, alien isolation, Resident Evil so to get to nearly 20 hours out of this seems abit excessive.

That said I'm absolutely enjoying the game, it's definitely become one of my favourite horror games and I can see why it's so highly regarded. Hopefully will finish this weekend and have a final thought but it's safe to say I am now a fan and will look forward to playing more of the series