Silent Hill f
Developer: NeoBards Entertainment
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5 (Reviewed)
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $69.99 USD – Available Here $129.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
Silent Hill is a franchise that has long struggled with trying to find its new identity, or at least one that would resonate with fans. When Konami struck gold with Silent Hill 2 it drew the survival horror franchise into the spotlight and, at least for a bit, the developers managed to find a groove with Silent Hill 3, The Room, and even Origins being successes to lesser degrees. Unfortunately that rhythm went completely off-beat after the odd decisions made that saw Downpour and Book of Memories nearly kill the franchise entirely, putting it on ice for over twelve years that even a highly anticipated continuation couldn’t thaw out. Then just last year Konami came back with a vengeance, taking a big risk with not only putting out a full blown remake of their golden game, Silent Hill 2, but also establishing a brand new game that would put a whole new spin on the franchise’s formula. Carrying with it the writing of the talented Ryukishi07 and setting it an entirely new location to make its mark, Silent Hill f feels like the start of what could easily be a resurgence in the making for this beloved survival horror franchise.
Story
In the small fictional town of Ebisugaoka in rural Japan a teenage girl named Shimizu Hinako is struggling to find her way forward in life in the 1960s. At home her father is an angry drunk that berates her mother relentlessly and threatens Hinako for the slightest challenge in the pinnacle example of patriarchal fatherhood and her only dearest family member, her older sister, left the home once she was married. Hinako has never been one to let life choose her path or follow what is “expected” of a girl, often wanting to play with the other boys and fantasize about fighting space aliens as a child rather than playing with dolls and this has left her with only a close friend Shu and two girls Rinko and Sakuko amongst the small town’s residents. Upon leaving her home after a particularly nasty fight with her father, Hinako heads into town only to find no one until she gathers up with the rest of her friends.
Despite finally being among some friendly faces, things quickly take a turn for the worse when a strange fog rolls into town and starts sprouting red spider lilies from everything, including the flesh of Sakuko who is caught in the initial wave. Separated by the fog and fleeing the monsters within, Hinako soon finds herself battling nightmarish creatures of twisted limbs and smiling faces wielding knives, spewing acid, and worse as the town becomes increasingly involved in the ever-growing fleshy growths and deadly flowers, all while trying to reconnect with her surviving friends and find a way to escape this strange fog, even if it means taking and trekking through numerous back-routes, solving numerous puzzles, and dealing with an incredibly mysterious other realm to do so.
Silent Hill f handles its storyline shockingly well given the way that it is designed. Almost everything is left very vague and confusing as Hinako continues her journey, with players finding various documents and hints throughout the game that show some extra tidbits of lore about the region, local folk remedies, divine beasts, and more. Even Hinako’s own journal is updated as players progress with the character making her own notes and thoughts on characters changing as the story advances. Players will slowly watch Hinako encounter and deal with mysterious horrors all while falling deeper into some of the most gruesome scenes that have come out of the Silent Hill franchise. This veil of mystery is one that is slowly thinned around some aspects throughout the player’s time with the game but is thickened even further when it comes to others, and there is a good reason for that.
You see, everything about Hinako is how she wants to be her own person, have her own thoughts and dreams, but ironically that cannot happen at least not at first in an unique but very fitting design choice that always locks players into one ending their first time through Silent Hill f. This ending is a bit on the abrupt side and leaves so many questions left unanswered, but again there is good reason as the title quite literally provides a list of other endings right there on the main menu and some clues on how to obtain them. As such when players begin their New Game+ they will also instantly notice that things have changed and while we won’t spoil them here, it is explicitly clear how much effort was put to make sure that any second or even third, since one ending does require three playthroughs to access, as not only cutscenes have been altered, new clues and bits of context are dropped into the world, but even new puzzles and other elements have been modified to better expand upon Hinako’s reality, especially depending on the variety of endings that players can attempt to go for with some stark contrasts between them.
Gameplay
Considering the setting is 1960s Japan and Hinako herself is meant to be a teenager, it is worth noting that Silent Hill f has taken a rather drastic step away from most of the usual combat expectations that fans have known in the past. There are no firearms of any kind, ironically not even a bow and arrow which would at least fit the theme, instead Hinako will be exploring her fog filled town with only melee weapons as her means of self-defense. The title uses a standard over-the-shoulder camera angle for exploration with players able to pick up items, notes, and interact with the environment with one simple action button. While the title may appear open, players are generally funneled in one path towards their goal but there are some side-paths and ways to backtrack here and there that can have rewards tucked away at the end. Initially Hinako only has so many inventory spaces, though more can be acquired by picking up collectables tucked away off the beaten path, so players will need to be careful of what they are actually carrying around as any “discarded” items are lost forever and while some inventory items such as snacks, drinks, and bandages stack, health kits and more powerful drinks don’t.
Nearly every item, as long as it is something edible, can be exchanged at save points called “Hokora” that are little shrines. These items, as well as those directly meant as offerings, are sacrificed in exchange for “Faith” points that have a number of key uses. Fath can be used to restore Hinako’s health and sanity if players are playing on a harder combat difficulty, used to obtain omamori charms that can be equipped to provide various bonuses such as increased health, stamina, etc., or with the use of an Ema plaque as well, used to increase Hinako’s Health, Sanity, or Stamina meter. This means players who want to try and make the most out of their points will want to save items available for offerings where they can and use bandages and first aid kits instead to manage their health.
Now back to combat. As mentioned before, all fights in Silent Hill f are done through melee weapons and while it is possible to simply run away from a lot of encounters, many enemies are quite quick and are either blocking something useful or players will be blocked in until all foes are defeated. Hinako will come across a variety of melee weapons in the town including hand scythes, lead pipes, axes, crowbars, and more and each of these has a unique but unshown damage and durability value. Almost every weapon has a durability limit and, unless repaired with a toolkit, will shatter when depleted in a fight and since Hinako can only carry so many at a time, they are a valuable resource.
Hinako has three different bars that players will need to keep an eye on while dealing with enemies. The health bar of course, a stamina meter that quickly recharges unless depleted completely, and a sanity meter depicted by flowers. The sanity gauge is expended whenever players use the “focus” mechanic that allows for players to either charge up a powerful attack or trigger a counter attack against an enemy that is about to hit them with a wide-swing. Unfortunately, going for a focus attack or being hit while in focus mode will deplete Hinako’s maximum sanity meter until she either uses an item or returns to a Hokora and if she has no sanity at all, she will directly take health damage instead. It is also worth noting that some enemy attacks and environmental objects can dish out sanity damage as well, so players will always need to keep an eye out for what the opponent is doing and either dodge accordingly or back-up and gain room for a counter-blow.
Dodging is handled simply enough, with Hinako able to perform two dodges in succession before halting and every enemy attack can be dodged, including “perfect dodges” that automatically refill Hinako’s stamina meter to give her either more opportunities to go back on the attack or straight up run away from a fight. Now it is interesting to note that while Hinako does fight like this most of the time, when she is in the mysterious other realm best called the “Dark Shrine” the game forgoes weapon durability entirely. Here Hinako will gain weaponry that has no durability limit and also, later in the game, a slew of new abilities as well that turn her into something of a powerhouse. In fact, the combat in these late game sections nearly turned the game’s combat system around entirely, making it easy to slay anything in her way.
Something that is a bit of an issue is unfortunately the enemy variation. While we will go over the bosses in a moment, the standard enemies that players will encounter are shockingly limited, both in the standard world as well as the other realm. There are some slight cosmetic differences but many even feature the same style of attack, so players will generally quickly get into the rhythm of fighting these enemies or, most likely, know how to duck around them easily in situations that allow it due to their repetitive nature. Thankfully the boss fights are a far cry different and while there aren’t a whole ton of boss fights throughout Silent Hill f, they all have their own unique mechanics and elements players will need to adapt for and, depending on the ending players are targeting, will find even different final bosses that help make things even more unique.
On the flip side of combat we have the classic puzzles and Silent Hill f has more than enough to please any fan of the franchise. There are three difficulty levels for puzzles as well as the aforementioned combat, though the third “Lost in the Fog” is locked until the players beat the game once. While combat differences are straightforward, puzzle difficulty is a bit more interesting as each setting adds another layer of complexity to the puzzles. “Story” will highlight clues blatantly in Hinako’s notebook and often only require one or two items to solve a puzzle, “Hard” is the standard difficulty and keep players guessing and needing to figure out clues properly, while “Lost in the Fog” gets even more complex. These puzzles range everywhere from having to track down very specific plaques, deciphering “girltalk”, maneuvering through a maze, matching pictures to clues, and more. And that’s nothing compared to the one puzzle we won’t spoil that is available in New Game+. This level of complexity is extremely welcome and rarely does it feel unfair, making it feel like a perfect fit for the franchise.
Audio & Visuals
Silent Hill f looks outstanding and takes the aesthetics of a rural Japanese village in the 1960s to their limits. Players may do a bit of backtracking here and there but exploring the world and seeing various elements of the life that used to thrive there and has since vanished is outstanding. The designs of the Dark Shrine half of the gameplay are also similarly well-designed with a creepy atmosphere that fits the otherworldly nataure perfectly. There are some particularly gruesome and violent looking cutscenes scattered throughout the game as well as plenty of gore, even for a Silent Hill game, so those that may be squeamish should beware. It is worth noting that the enemy designs are handled fairly well with some decent variation, but as mentioned earlier the amount of actual enemy types and fighting styles quickly grows tedious, with boss lights and some creepy puzzles being the best standouts in these moments. It is a bit unfortunate that some elements of classic Silent Hill don’t make much of a return here visually or audibly. There is no radio to warn of nearby threats or even a flashlight and the fog itself often feels more like something the developer team needed to include to call the game a Silent Hill game. Nor is there really that sense of being closed off from the rest of the world through bottomless chasms beyond the sequences in the Dark Shrine.
As for the voice work, Konami has brought something of a mixed bag here. The English voice actors do a decent job handling their characters here but when compared to the Japanese dub it is quite clear that most of the effort went into recruiting a proper fitting Japanese voice cast as the characters sound far better with the Japanese dub. Thankfully the voice track can be altered at any time so players can test it out a bit if they want to see what works for them. The soundtrack is decidedly designed around the setting and theme of the game, utilizing classic period-appropriate Japanese background music that does an excellent job throughout the entire game.
Overall
Silent Hill f takes the franchise and forgoes its Western influences and instead steeps itself back in the Japanese folklore and mythology that has gone long untapped. Thanks to the level of unique mythology and horrors that are on display here as well as the unique take on Hinako’s storyline, including the fact that things change noticeably past an initial playthrough make this an exciting and chilling new entry in a franchise begging for reinvention and now that it has been given some revised if slightly awkward and repetitive combat and plenty of fitting puzzles, those looking for a great survival horror game, especially one that has all the makings of being a great fresh step for the Silent Hill franchise, albeit one that feels a little shoehorned at places, will find Silent Hill f a great leap in the right direction.
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