Silent Hill 2 Remake Review- I Screamed, I Cried, I Was Diagnosed With ADHD

Survival horror can be an odd genre. These games are not ones where I usually jump in expecting a great story. I play survival horror games for the intensity. I like having minimal bullets when I fight monsters so that I truly have to think about every shot. I like exploring every corner of every room to scavenge for resources. I like not knowing what is around any corner, and I like the general atmosphere of these games.

And yet, every survival horror game is also inherently about the main character facing their mortality. These games are generally ones where you play as a relatively normal person who must deal with being on the verge of death at all times. These situations can, at times, almost accidentally create interesting themes that can make for great stories.

But once in a while, a game in this genre will utilize these settings to craft something even better. This often happens when a game pivots from the obvious themes and boldly goes in a new direction.

Silent Hill 2 Remake manages to have one of the best stories in a survival horror game that I have ever played (I never played the original). While you are often fighting for your life as James Sunderland, the game isn’t about that. It’s about grief. It’s about guilt. It’s about what happens to our strongest relationships when they are tested in the most difficult ways. It tackles some of the deepest themes I’ve seen any game in this genre address. Several moments here will stick with me for a long time to come.

Silent Hill 2 doesn’t always excel on a gameplay front. It has a few issues there. But this is still one of the most interesting and breathtaking experiences this year.

I’m Scared… Of Having A Bad Time

I wasn’t always as excited about my experience with Silent Hill 2, though. Early on, I felt like my worst fears about the game were being confirmed. These weren’t the good kinds of fears that survival horror can bring. The introduction feels awkward. The story doesn’t really get off to an interesting start in any way, and the game makes you spend the first 90 minutes or so with only a melee weapon. Beating down the same enemies with the pretty repetitive melee combat gets old fast. Luckily, things slowly get a little bit better. You eventually get guns, and then the classic survival horror gameplay loop takes effect.

The core combat in Silent Hill 2 is competent enough once the game really gets going. It is very basic but handles itself well enough. You end up with three different guns, and you have the aforementioned melee weapon. The sound design and animations are just good enough to give the game the intensity it needs. While I didn’t like the melee combat when it was the only thing I could use, I actually ended up really enjoying it once I was able to mix it in with guns. James has a wooden plank, and then later, a pipe that he can use to whack enemies into oblivion, and it is absolutely visceral. The sound design and camera angle choices make each melee strike feel real. Using melee has the benefit of saving your gun ammo, which is relatively scarce. But it also puts you more in harm’s way and is especially risky when you are fighting multiple enemies. So there’s an interesting risk reward that comes with every encounter.

There is also a dodge mechanic that is essential to use when getting close to enemies. Learning enemy attack patterns is important, as once you get those down, you can land a few attacks and pretty much always know when to dodge. This mechanic also feels pretty good overall. There is an intensity that comes from dodging an attack while low on health in particular. However, it does get a little too predictable because there are not all that many enemies in the game. With only a few attack patterns, melee fights in one on one settings are generally pretty easy, minus a few enemies that are clearly designed to mess you up if you fight them with melee.

The most challenging combat encounters come from the boss fights. The boss designs are genuinely weird and scary in good ways. Unfortunately, they aren’t all that much fun to fight. The feedback when you hit enemies always had me questioning whether I was actually hurting the enemy that I was fighting. As an example, the most famous boss in Silent Hill 2 is Pyramid Head. I had no idea if shooting his giant ass pyramid head was a good idea or if it would hurt him at all. There was nothing about the feedback indicating whether he was shrugging these shots off or hurt by them. There are a lot of instances like this in almost every boss fight. While I understand the lack of enemy health bars in order to keep a clean user interface, I also think the game could have done a much better job of showing me if a boss was feeling some of these shots that I was throwing at it. There are one or two that are at least OK at this, but most are not.

Did Silent Hill 2 Just Diagnose Me With ADHD?

While you do fight a lot in Silent Hill 2, I would also say that those encounters aren’t the main reason why the game is scary. Silent Hill 2 thrives on psychological horror much more than big jump scares (though there are a few of those, too). The game has a radio that tells you when enemies are nearby, which eliminates a little bit of the stress that can come from going around every corner. I actually really liked this mechanic, as I was able to relax a bit and explore at times rather than constantly being on edge. When the radio was going off, though, I was usually at the edge of my seat. The strong soundtrack and visuals also add to these feelings.

The radio mechanic also makes sense because the biggest focus in the game is actually exploration and navigation in some very tricky environments. While you spend a bit of time in the city of Silent Hill, which is somewhat open, you spend a lot more time exploring big buildings like an apartment, a hotel, and a prison. These buildings have multiple stories and tons of locked doors and blocked obstructions that you have to find your way around. These areas end up being maze-like, as they will have you going back and forth between different floors to get through them. You have a map that you can pull up, and you will spend a lot of time doing so. The in-game stats told me that I checked the map over 1000 times during my 22ish hour journey. If I didn’t do so, I would have been lost a whole lot.

There are some positives to this type of level design. Because it is so difficult to go pretty much anywhere, it feels amazing when you unlock a shortcut in the game. Every time I busted through a cracked wall or unlocked a door, I felt great about myself. There are also tons of secrets tucked everywhere in the game. Because health and ammo can be so desperately needed, it is super rewarding when you find some goodies hidden in a drawer in an optional room.

But obviously, it can also be pretty annoying at times, too. I thought I might have been a bit over the top by checking the map over 1000 times during my playthrough, but a quick google search showed me that I wasn’t even close to alone there. It is incredibly easy to get lost in this game. You spend a lot of time in generic buildings, so there aren’t exactly tons of landmarks to help you remember where you are.

The worst part is that there are several instances in the game where after essentially completing a level, you end up going to an “otherworld” version of the same map that ends up being much more horror focused. While I enjoyed these from a horror perspective, as they get very scary and intense, they also get incredibly annoying. After making my way through an area that felt like a bit of a slog, my biggest nightmare of all ended up being when I had to do that same area all over again. This happens a few too many times for my liking.

When you aren’t exploring or fighting, Silent Hill 2 also features a fair amount of puzzles. I was surprised by the variety of puzzles here. There is a mix of puzzles that involve thinking outside of the box and observational skills. I thought these were pretty hit or miss. A few are genuinely clever, a few felt very stupid, and most were just fine. I felt like overall, they were a mostly inoffensive addition to the game that at least mixed things up a bit.

The Good Kind Of “What The Fuck?!”

The thing is, though, even when I was having a good time with the gameplay, I was always waiting for the next cutscene. That isn’t even a shot at the gameplay. It just showcases how good this story is.

Early on, I was mostly bored with it, though. The game starts with James Sunderland arriving at Silent Hill in order to find his dead wife, Mary. He received a letter from her saying that she was waiting for him in this town where they had vacationed together in the past. James quickly meets a few people who seem a bit off and starts encountering odd spooky monsters throughout the town. So, pretty standard stuff early on.

Not too far into the game, James meets Maria. It is noted that she looks a lot like his wife, though she is clearly a bit more flirtatious, especially considering that she is dealing with a man that she just met. I knew from the start that this was leading somewhere. It seems like right around then, everything else about the story starts to click into place. I won’t go into major details, as I certainly don’t want to spoil it, but once I was hooked on the story, it really never stopped being interesting. Almost every cutscene in the game had me saying “what the fuck?”, but in the very best ways.

This carries on to the last 10% of the game, where it finally starts doling out some real answers, and it is all very well executed. This culminates in an ending that I found to be one of the most satisfying that I had experienced in a while. While there are multiple endings, the one that is the most common is truly excellent and had me close to tearing up. Silent Hill 2 tackles surprising themes that I didn’t expect. I think if you have a partner that you love, the game presents you with situations that really make you reflect. I love everything about how this game closes out its story, as it’s so hard to do this well.

Am I A Silent Hill Guy Now?

That ending confirmed what I had already felt to that point. I am so happy that I experienced this game and the Silent Hill franchise for the first time. While Silent Hill 2 has a lot of the standard trappings of a survival horror game, I also thought it was one of the more unique experiences I’ve ever had in this genre. The heavier focus on exploration and puzzle solving, as well as the deeper story themes, are all far and above most of its competitors.

While I don’t think this game comes close to reaching the gameplay highs that last year’s Resident Evil 4 remake did, this game may have done something even more impressive. It made me feel something. That is not always easy. I now understand why this is one of the most beloved franchises in all of gaming, and I’m very interested in experiencing more of it.

Score: 8.5/10