Silver Pines Review (PS5)

Silver Pines may be one of the most stylish indies you’ll play this year.

Inspired by the likes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and the Silent Hill series, this metroidvania is dripping with atmosphere, filled with tantalising secrets, and offers a solid challenge for survival horror fans.

You are a private investigator who’s on the hunt for an elusive musician called Eddie Velvet. That’s brought you to the misty streets of Silver Pines, a town stuffed with its fair share of oddities. Making it even stranger, an encroaching storm has cleared its streets. Well, almost cleared them out.

In the dark corners of dilapidated motels and clammy sewer systems lurk nightmarish creatures: gloopy, silhouetted monsters that have infested the town. Combatting these creatures will require every bit of stamina, every measly bullet, and the knowledge of when it’s best to run.

Silver Pines is a Metroidvania through and through. That means you’ll be met with many locked doors and blocked passageways in your travels. The game brilliantly manages to point you in the direction of a currently unattainable location, like a bar in the background lit up with its neon light, or an old theatre consumed by darkness.

It means that as soon as you do find a key to the gate that’s blocking your way, or a torch needed to light up that theatre, you know exactly where to go and what to do with those tools. It speaks to the fantastic design of its 2.5D map.

Anyone who loves a chin-scratcher will also be glad to hear that the puzzles featured are fairly hands-off. Usually you're trying to figure out some kind of combination, whether that be for a keypad or a safe, but the game gives you just the right amount of information so you can get to work.

It pays to be attentive when exploring Silver Pines, and a handy camera feature allows you to take note of eye-catching items around the map – which is especially useful when you can’t reach them at that stage.

One puzzle required a combination made up of several paintings found dotted around. Without even knowing at the time, I had taken pictures of them, so I was then able to piece together the code. The game never tells you where to go or what to do when it comes to these puzzles, but everything is signposted clearly enough that I never felt lost and always felt like an amateur detective piecing together the case.

However, my favourite aspect of exploration, and something that gives the game a little oomph, is how it furthers the central mystery. Quite often in Metroidvanias, you’re driven purely by the perspective of expanding that map. But here, it’s all about finding out what the hell happened to Eddie.

It struck me when I was combing through a police station, trying to figure out the key code to an interrogation room. Locked within was a rather unnerving officer. Obviously, I suspected some kind of item would aid progression, but more than anything, I just cared about the interview tapes inside that would shed some more light on our man.

Exploration benefits story and story benefits exploration. It's a stellar cycle cooked up by Wych Elm that left me deeply engrossed in the Silver Pines experience.

The most divisive aspect of the game, however, is its combat. As mentioned up top, Silver Pines is a survival horror, so you’re going to be agonising over any missed shots or desperately searching for the materials to repair your knife or crowbar.

It’s unforgiving in a good way, where each enemy feels dangerous. I swear I spent half my playthrough limping around trying to scrounge up enough coins to buy healing items.

Weapons also feel impactful, whether you are taking potshots with the revolver or blasting heads off with the hunting rifle. Getting into skirmishes is often really intense, as you need to reload each shell or bullet manually with a mini quick-time event, and aiming is deliberately clunky.

The whole system means it's imperative for you to choose when an enemy is worth your resources, or if you can get away with sneaking past. However, that too has come to bite me in the ass, as I’m then swarmed from both sides if noticed.

The big issue, though, is the bosses. Silver Pines has a number of bosses across its campaign, ranging from powerful enemies with dog companions to giant sledgehammer-wielding foes.

This was the one element of the game I just didn’t like, mainly because... well, they just aren't that fun. These bosses are often overpowered; they don’t have health bars, their attack animations are tediously repetitive, and the arenas you’re forced to fight them in feel awkwardly sized.

They aren’t even that hard; they just take some time to beat as you quickly run out of the little ammunition you had and are left hopelessly swinging your melee weapon, dealing tepid amounts of damage.

What’s worse is that you often come out the other end with no ammo, no healing items, and very little health. That in itself isn’t an issue. I’d say it’s a pillar of the genre, as it amplifies that feeling of surviving by the skin of your teeth. But mixed with their dull design and rather awkward boss arenas, I was always a bit deflated when I realised I had another boss to trudge through.

However, while it’s a pretty big flaw for me, it is small when sized up against the rest of the experience, especially the visuals. Silver Pines features this phenomenal aesthetic that mixes rotoscoped animation with accented, almost cartoon-like design, and fits it into a stylised and moody world.

It works perfectly for this 2D-style of game, where each area is visually unique, and I even had to stop and appreciate the visuals from time to time, especially when a torch was involved. It looks great, and it's incredibly atmospheric.