Silent Hill f Review

Player(s): 1
Extra Features: N/A

Ever since Team Silent stepped away from the Silent Hill series, the franchise has been basically mediocre with the installments after Silent Hill 4. It’s like the majority of the games after SH4 were trying so very hard to imitate SH2 and often failed in their attempt. Neobards Entertainment (developer) and Konami have gone back to the drawing board and given us something totally new and fresh with the release of Silent Hill f (SHf). Silent Hill f contains the core metaphorical imagery and overall atmosphere that the series is known for and takes a new spin on everything. It’s such a great step forward that the series needed badly.

Silent Hill f takes place in the 1960s in the Japanese town of Ebisugaoka. The story follows high school student Shimizu Hinako as she fights for survival in her town while it is consumed by fog. She must fight monsters and solve puzzles in order to survive. Hinako eventually meets up with her friends and they all must fight to survive the nightmare. I’m purposely brief in the story introduction here since the less you know about this game, the better it is. The story is easily just as twisted as the Silent Hill games by Team Silent. It has a lot of metaphorical meaning all over the place.

Nearly everything about Silent Hill f is different. The game has familiar themes, the fog, a pipe weapon, some very grotesque enemies, but that is about all it shares from the previous SH games. One of the best parts about SHf is that it is so very fresh. It has some familiarity to past SH games, but so much of it is new. The atmosphere can be felt from the very beginning of the game and stays so very solid throughout the entire journey. The developers know that SH fans enjoy their fog and now there are new environmental effects.

The game looks absolutely beautiful. The environmental graphics and character models are very solid. The game takes place in the real world and a type of dark realm (sort of like an Otherworld). Most of the real world areas take place in the outside town, but there are some inside areas as well. The dark realm usually has Hinako exploring a twisted real world, shrines or areas outside of them. For environmental effects, beside the fog, the creatures in the game bring along a type of bloody flowery vegetation that connects with vines and lumps and flesh. The vegetation basically is their nest. This game honestly makes red flowers look disturbing.

The imagery in this game gets just as disturbing as the Team Silent games. It goes a different route though. Instead of rust, decay, padded rooms, etc, we get a flowery growth mixed with blood and lumps of flesh that slowly consumes everything. It’s amazing the types of imagery the game gets into during its later sequences. This game is definitely not for the squeamish. The sound design is absolutely fantastic. The flowery environments have a sort of gurgle to them while passing through. The soundtrack is really good as well. The entire credit roll has some really great music lined up and it is all so fitting with its Japanese setting. The game also feature both English and Japanese dialogue.

SHf also has its share of puzzles. If you like the puzzles in the Team Silent games, these are overall similar. Usually, these is some sort of riddle that you have to solve in order to line up objects. There is also the usual key item finding, such as keys to unlock doors. The game has separate difficulties for the gameplay and puzzles. There are altogether three difficulties for each – Story, Hard and Lost in Fog. Lost in Fog for the gameplay setting doesn’t unlock until the game is finished. It’s highly noticeable that the game starts out as “Story” difficulty by default for the gameplay. It claims that “Story” is the “Silent Hill” difficulty.

The combat in SHf is very Dark Souls with a faster take on it making it feel like Bloodborne combat. The game has advanced techniques such as perfect dodging and countering enemies. During a battle, you can lock-on to an enemy and attack the enemy with a light or heavy attack. Heavy attacks give you a satisfying stun as you clobber the enemy over the head with an intense strike. You can also stun an enemy by interrupting the enemy’s attack when it flashes. You have a health, sanity and stamina meter. The stamina meter is much like the one from Dark Souls. Each attack or dodge takes stamina to perform. It will recharge, but if you allow it to run out, you can’t dodge or attack until it starts to recharge.

The Sanity meter slows down time and allows you to more perfectly counter attack an enemy. The sanity meter also allows you to perform a more powerful (charged) light attack. I honestly didn’t use the sanity meter much during my playthrough. I found it kind of useless since learning the combat system basically makes it feel unneeded. Just like past SH games, you’ll gain access to a variety of weapons. All weapons have a certain amount of durability and can break. You gain repair kits that can be used to replenish the durability of a weapon. With how fast weapons break, you’ll be constantly switching between them and repairing them. Hinako can hold a total of three weapons. Her inventory is limited as well. She can only hold a certain amount of items.

Save points allow you to sell items that you don’t need, but you can’t sell all items. Your main health items cannot be sold – they can only be dropped or used if you don’t have the inventory space for them. You’ll also gain currency that will allow you to upgrade your character. Health, Sanity and Stamina can all be upgraded. There are also items that can be equipped to your character for bonus attributes and you can gain extra slots to equip more by upgrading your character. You can have bonuses such as extra health after defeating an enemy or making your attacks take less stamina. All the upgrades are pretty minimal per level.

While I did enjoy the combat in SHf, it was also frustrating at times. The constant need to counter enemies and dodge their attacks did get repetitive as the game went on. Later in the game, the enemy encounters increase greatly and so does the stress from this combat system against all the familiar enemies. The combat style of SHf, along with the constant need for inventory management and weapon durability all start to feel too excessive for a survival horror. The worst part about the inventory management is having to constantly return to save points to sell unneeded items. It’s either sell the item or just drop it for nothing. The game has such a huge variety of items and some of them can only be held in one slot per pickup. On the plus side of the combat though, the combat really shines during boss fights. SHf boss fights are a lot of fun with the combat system, mainly because you’re going up against a unique enemy with many different attacks rather than just the same normal enemy over and over.

Silent Hill f is beautifully grotesque and fresh. The game is a change that the series needed. It doesn’t have the same rules as the Team Silent games, but it has familiar elements that those game had such as metaphorical meaning. I’m very pleased with the overall progression that Silent Hill f has to offer for the franchise. Just like Team Silent games, you start out not really knowing what is going on and then start to pick up on things as the story progresses. If you’re a fan of the Team Silent games, be sure to give Silent Hill f a try. The game is a big change for the series, but it still has the Silent Hill elements at its core.

The Good:
+ Such an overall fresh experience for Silent Hill
+ A very twisted story
+ The atmosphere is fantastic at all times
+ A lot of replay value (three difficulties and a new game+ with extras)
+ The combat system really shines for boss fights

The Bad:
- The combat, the inventory management, and the weapon durability all feel too excessive for a Silent Hill