**This review may contain some SPOILERS**
Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
Taking the franchise in a new direction, “Silent Hill f” succeeds by infusing Eastern lore to give the series a fresh look, while also keeping players grasping for clues to what’s truly going on. However, the game falters by forcing the player to deal with often repetitive combat as they make their way to an unsatisfying conclusion.
The latest “Silent Hill” games takes a drastic detour away from the typical setting as it moves from small town USA to a sleepy village in 1960’s Japan. That means no town of Silent Hill or its devious cult. Instead, the game introduces new lore with its Fox god worshipers and mentions of ancient warrior clans. Overall, this works to give the game series a fresh take and some interesting new mythologies, but it feels so far removed from what’s come before that it feels a lot like an entirely different franchise. And even though the Japanese aesthetic is a nice change of pace, there’s no other visual connections to series staples like the rotting flesh and rust covered Otherworld.
The plot lacks any great narrative push. There’s no dramatic hook like trying to find a lost child or the mystery of a letter from a dead spouse like some of the classic “Silent Hill” games. This game does have a solid mystery running alongside its main quest, but it often feels like the stuff happening in the “real” world and what’s happening in the Dark Shrine are two totally different stories. And then they both devolve into a confusing narrative that leaves you mostly guessing what any of it all really meant.
As far as gameplay, most of what you would expect from the franchise is here. Combat can be a bit tricky to learn early on, and it becomes clear that you’re mean to master dodging and counter-striking to win fights. But even then, the fact that all weapons in the game eventually break forces you to sometimes flee instead of fight, and that may cause you to miss useful items because you don’t have a chance to catch your breath and explore. And while there are some special areas where your weapons never break, the enemies respawn after a short amount of time leaving you feeling like you still need to rush along and miss stuff. There are also moments, especially late in the game, where you must fight wave after wave of monsters to advance to the next section and it starts to get frustrating managing your health and your weapons health while being attacked from all sides only to have to tediously do it all again shorty after. The few main bosses in the game aren’t too particularly challenging, but the high amount HP some of them have can make the fights go on way too long. Most of the game’s puzzle are uninspiring and feature trying to figure out what goes where. There’s at least one section later in the game that has puzzles that are much more interesting and feel more like you would expect from the franchise.
The game looks good for the most part, with the beautiful Asian village contrasting well with the horrific monster designs. However, there’s essentially only a handful of monsters in the game, and then they’re basically recycled with slightly different looks and a few different move-sets. The music is well done and brings the right flavor to the games, especially in the tense battles.
Overall, “Silent Hill f” has a fresh new setting for the franchise and introduces some interesting new lore. But it sometimes takes things so far into a different direction it feels disconnected to the rest of the series. The puzzles are fine but kind of uninteresting, while the combat can be fun once you master the basics, but breaking weapons and some repetitive fights required to move forward suck the life out of it. And the convoluted ending that asks you to try a second playthrough to get answers to some of the many questions makes a New Game+ more enticing at the expense of the first playthrough.
**1/2 out of *****
New Game+ follow up: The New Game+ does offer a fair amount of new content, ranging from new documents and journal entries to drastically different game endings that combine to give a fuller picture of what’s really going on in the game’s narrative. Unfortunately, these new endings are somewhat vague and confusing and only make sense by reading the various documents found throughout multiple playthroughs. (And while they tease more connections to the main franchise games, they never follow through.) Being able to carry over character upgrades and key items allows you to fine-tune your character into a fairly devastating fighter. However, the final stretch of the game continues to be a chore as you face the various gauntlets and the overuse of certain annoying enemies. Playing a second New Game+ doesn’t add nearly as much replay value, as there’s only a handful of new changes, but the early access to some powerful weapons and the “true” game ending make it worthwhile.