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2-d-rogue · 27 days ago

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So, I'll just say it upfront. I never did love SH2 as much as the fanbase does. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad game. Far from it, in fact. It's just that simply put, I only ever saw it as a good game of the franchise, and that's about it.

It handles a number of heavy topics well and tastefully, I agree, and I also relate to all three of its major characters (James, Angela, and Eddie) on various matters. But even so, I never latched onto it so tightly as many others have. I also do not view it as a masterpiece. An excellent game, yes, but not a masterpiece. For me, that's the first game, with the fourth game coming close if not for its development flaws.

But I'm not here to discuss my own personal views on the game. I'm here to talk about the quality of the Remake.

Like many, I was not expecting much. Bloober has a fairly poor reputation with how they handle the topics this game does in prior works, and I just didn't care to see SH2 get remade. However, as more trailers came later, my interest began to pique, going from indifferent "I'll just play it out of obligation as a Silent Hill fan" to "I can't wait to have this!!"

Crazy, huh?

And to add to even more of the incredulity, they actually somehow, against all odds, pulled it off!

This is as close to a faithful Remake adaptation to SH2 as one's ever going to get, I feel. The visuals are phenomenal, with the town shown in so much detail unlike ever before. In the past, the fog was used to hide the loading textures, but now that tricks like that are no longer necessary, being able to see the buildings in the distance, obscured by the gorgeous fog filters, creates a beautifully eerie atmosphere.

It seems they borrowed a lot from Downpour's aesthetic, too, using the dilapidated and water damaged appearance of the buildings, as well as heavy rain to convey James' mental state, miserable bastard that he is. It only rained twice in the OG, and you see it so briefly that one may easily forget it ever rained in that game. It works really well for that ever present melancholy feeling that this game carries.

There's also the characters. They behave mostly the same, but there is a difference. They are a lot more fleshed out this time around. Especially James Sunderland himself.

I'll be blunt, and I know this may upset people, but I never liked James. Not even in the original. I understood a lot of his hardships, but I could never relate to a man who murdered his wife for the reasons that he did. On a psychological level, he fascinates me, but as a person, I simply don't love him.

However, Luke Roberts came very close to making me change my mind. In the OG, James was distant and wooden, and that worked for what kind of person he is. But Roberts' version sells the idea that maybe, just maybe, there is a man who could be considered kind or warm-hearted, at least until you find out the truth about him. His interpretation of James was very refreshing, and if I didn't already know the truth going in, I would have probably been mislead by his false persona.

In the end, I don't think I could ever bring myself to like James, and I believe perhaps that's the point. Even so, the complexity is there and not exactly black and white, and Roberts wins my praise for his excellent portrayal.

Salóme Gunnarsdóttir's Maria also deserves praise. In the OG, I didn't like Maria, either. It's clear she was here to do James wrong, so naturally, I saw her as an enemy. Born From a Wish adds some complexity to her, but it always seemed weird that none of that complexity played into the main game. There was also a lack of chemistry or interaction between her and James, that it's hard to believe how anyone would have thought James could be vaguely tempted to choose her over his wife. I get that the point is that by choosing Maria, he's choosing not to face up to what he's done, but it never felt like Maria was making that much of an effort to tempt him. Sure, there are scenes of her seducing him, but I feel like she needed to offer more than that.

This Maria does just that. Not only does she try to seduce James, she tries to manipulate him further by offering emotional support, kindness, and even encouragement in finding Mary before she starts trying to lure him away from her. Being a sexy women AND a rock would be far more effective in tricking a broken man like James I feel, and this is exactly the improvement the character needed in my humble opinion.

But by far, the star in all of this is Gianna Kiehl's Angela.

Angela Orosco is unarguably the most innocent character in this whole mess (aside from Laura for obvious reasons). A girl whose trauma is so devastatingly painful that all you want is for her to somehow get a happy ending that unfortunately never happens. She is the most excellently written character, with a very real portrayal of an abused girl exposed to so much horrific traumas that no one should have ever gone through.

She is the character I always felt the most sympathy for in the OG, but in this Remake, after the Abstract Daddy fight, I was literally close to crying watching her break down. The OG's version was sad, but the Remake's version is so goddamn heartbreaking that you just want to torture the fuck out of Mr. Orosco, his hellspawn son, and anyone else who reduced this poor girl to this state.

With all due respect to Donna Burke, Kiehl simply knocked it out of the park, making me love Angela's character even more than I did prior.

The weakest for me were Eddie and Laura. They weren't terrible, but I feel the OG voices and performances were a lot better in the OG. Especially Eddie's, as I always felt his OG voice actor was the best out of the whole cast.

It kinda doesn't help that, unlike the others, the Remake doesn't really change or add a whole lot for them to flesh them out as characters. That said, Eddie's breakdown scene before you fight him was well-done enough, I feel. Whereas Laura snapping at James fell a little flat for me. Slightly ruined the impact of that scene, sadly.

And now, the levels. They're all here, but unlike the original, they actually made the town a small little level this time. In the OG, if you've played the game enough, you'd know all you have to do is run north to Martin Street, grab the Apartments key off the corpse, go and unlock the door and bam, you start the first level. This time, you have to go all around the map, plus a new section, "Saul Street Apartments", before you start Woodside, something that I'm really happy about.

One thing that I personally found disappointing about SH2 is how little exploration you need to do around town. I loved doing that in the first game and in Downpour as well. The Remake having it that you must explore around the town before starting the first levels was a great touch, and the little bit of lore added really amplifies the bizarre mysteries of not just this game, but the town itself.

As for the major levels, none have been cut, but they've all been changed, and I think that's a good thing. If you're familiar with the OG, then being able to do the same things again with your eyes closed won't make for a very fun experience. In fact, because I've played the games so much that this game used my own knowledge against me made it all the more exciting. My good buddy was so delighted at seeing me, who knew these games like the back of my hand, get stumped and thrown for a loop when I thought I knew what I was doing only for the game to throw an unexpected twist in how things are now done with something I'm typically so familiar with. It was really clever of them.

For me, the best level was Woodside/Blue Creek, but the worst one was Toluca Prison. I'm not really fond of how they changed and added to this one. It feels so plain compared to the OG, and kinda dragged out for far too long. I enjoyed the memos giving background to the disturbing things happening here, particularly how the Warden had gotten so paranoid over the illness spreading that despite multiple assurances from the medical staff, he started abusing and quarantining the prisoners, torturing them with highly invasive tests, and then locking himself up in his office (Sicksick si ck!) That was really interesting.

Even so, I'm simply not fond of how the level itself plays out, and I'm not a fan of how they combined the "gallows puzzle" with the "innocent prisoner" puzzle. It just had far less impact than using the Gluttonous Pig/Seductress/Oppressor tablets, and it kinda takes away from how it plays into the themes of all the three major characters.

But the area that received a huge improvement was Labyrinth. In the OG, it was simply a long and time-consuming maze-like area with not a whole lot going for it. But in the Remake, they turned it into three sections (Rotting Area, Desolate Area, and Ruined Area), that each represent the gradual degradation of James and Mary's home. Rotting, being when Mary was sick, desolate when James was no doubt home alone in misery, and ruined when James did what he did (given that you have to kill all monsters here to advance)…

That was a clever stroke of genius, and made an otherwise unimpressive area from the OG a lot more impactful, and I give my hat off to Bloober Team here.

There's just simply a lot to like about this fantastic game. However, there are some issues I have with it.

The monsters, particularly the mannequins. They are far, FAR too OP. I thought the addition of having them crawl on the walls like spiders was a neat idea, but the problem is that they are simply far too abundant and how much they use the same tricks of surprising you from somewhere. It's like they were so proud of what they did, they couldn't resist spamming them as much as possible, to the point, they lost their fear factor and became more of an annoyance.

There's also the overuse of the same monsters as well. The OG didn't have a lot of enemy variety, and that was fine because it was a short, linear game, and they would temporarily put some of them aside for some locations. (Ie, the nurses were done once you reach the Historical Society, or that the Mannequins would only be used sparingly at the hotel.) Here, they show up practically everywhere, and because they've expanded the areas so much, they tend to overstay their welcome, borderlining on becoming boring seeing the same enemies again and again. I kinda wish Ito-san had drawn up at least one new monster or two. I know why he didn't, but I think it might've been interesting to have something new and surprising, and break up the monotony if they were going to use the monsters much more this time.

This being said, I am glad that the Mandarins are more threatening this time, as they were fairly forgettable in the OG. I'm also glad that the Abstract Daddy no longer becomes a random enemy in this game. After what they did with it in this Remake, it would have cheapened the whole scene.

The bosses themselves have become much more challenging as well. I wouldn't say they're anything too difficult, but they can certainly run laps around you if you're not careful. It was a nice surprise that they weren't done the same as they were in the OG.

Thankfully, the combat is massively improved, too, but not in a way that detracts from the fact the Silent Hill series stars average people. I said in my recent review that another flaw of SH2 was it's janky controls that somehow played worse than its predecessor. The Remake addresses it wonderfully, making James easier to control without making him suddenly Chris Redfield.

While I've mostly praised the level-design, the puzzles—which are mandatory to a Silent Hill game—are frankly hit or miss. I've completed three full playthroughs, playing them on every riddle difficulty. In games 2, 3, and Downpour, the puzzles will change depending on what difficulty you select, and the solutions will, for the most part, always be different. Here, I was disappointed to learn that a lot of the puzzles' solutions were exactly the same throughout every difficulty (the innocent prisoner puzzle, the lock-box puzzle), save a few of them (the coin puzzle, and the music box puzzle). I suppose it's not a big deal, but it is a little unfortunate.

Speaking of the puzzles, every level has what I call a "hub puzzle", ie, you find a puzzle that requires multiple locks/solutions at the hub of every major location and you must explore all around to locate all the relevant items/keys/codes to unlock them. While I didn't technically have a problem with it, I can see how some might get annoyed or bored with the concept.

(But one thing I will certainly give credit for is that Bloober showed tremendous restraint in keeping James or Maria from spelling out the solution for any of them. An annoying thing I hate about modern games is their tendency to constantly hand-hold the player. For that, you have my sincerest gratitude, Bloober. And also on that matter, thank you for not having James make stupid one-liners on everything or swear all the time, too.)

I did have other little nitpicks, such as the chainsaw animations preventing you from moving and leaving you open to be attacked unless you evade, or the Radio Show Host's voice being far too bland compared to the out of place gusto of the original's, but those are largely insignificant to my enjoyment of this great game. I'll only mention one last criticism, that might not be a real one if I'm being honest.

The thing about Silent Hill is they all require multiple playthroughs. One, two, and even three might not be enough to piece all of the story together, as it uses a lot of background and vague wording to be pieced together to tell its story, and even then, it may leave a lot open. At the time of writing this review, I can only go off of what I've discovered and put together myself.

So, my last criticism is this: in the OG, the Brookhaven level discusses three patients (Jack Davis, Joseph Barkin, and Joshua Lewis), all suffering from various mental conditions that correlate to James, Eddie, and Angela. (There's also theories that they may be facets of James, but that's for another discussion.) As you work your way through the level, you learn more about them and how they tie into the strange story of SH2.

It seems the Remake has done away with the 3Js, and instead uses three unnamed patients. While it was interesting to read about them, I'm not certain it was wise to remove the 3Js, especially with how they recontextualized the lock-box puzzle which belonged to Joseph Barkin and contained hair pieces that presumably belonged to his dead daughter in the OG.

Again, I'll point out, this might have been done on purpose, and may even indicate to a larger thing happening here that has yet to be discovered (I already have a theory that the case mentioned a few years back of a patient who seemed to be recovering but suddenly did something to himself may have been Jack Davis, who was thought to have written the suicide diary left on the roof), but I'm going off my current knowledge after three playthroughs, and should something come to light that explains this in a convincing way, perhaps it's not a criticism I can keep.

But in spite of these little flaws and nitpicks I have, the game is a fantastic experience, and I'm so pleased that Bloober, against all odds, managed to churn out this amazing remake of Silent Hill 2.

It keeps to its themes, it doesn't change any of the characters to make them more "trendy" or easily digestible, but instead fleshes them out more, it maintains its cold/depressing atmosphere, it surpasses the OG in a lot of good ways even if it falls short in others, and its just all around great to play a new Silent Hill game teeming with excellent quality.

Even if Silent Hill 2 isn't my favorite as it is for others, I'm glad it happened. My hope going forward is that Bloober can take what they did for this game and improve upon it should they decide to remake my personal favorites Silent Hill 1 or Silent Hill 4, or maybe even the other games.

They started rough, but they really are onto something, and I would love it if they gave the same love and attention to rest of the series. I'd happily play them.

With that, I award this game a solid 7.8/10!

Good job, Bloober!!

Got the platinum trophy for Silent Hill 2 Remake! Had such a great time with this game. (Review can be found in reblog.)