Silent Hill Review (Death_Crystal)
(edited for formatting)
TO GET THE GAME RUNNING:
The PC port is pretty borked and needs unknownproject’s patch in order to run properly (it still crashes on alt-tab though)
For some reason I also had to copy (NOT CUT) GLOBAL.PAK from Engine > pak > PC into Engine > pak > extras
If you invert y-axis on aim, it un-inverts it on look. If you want to fix this, go to Engine > vars_pc.cfg and change
cameraInvertFirstVert=false
cameraInvertThirdHoriz=false
cameraInvertThirdVert=true
to
cameraInvertFirstVert=true
cameraInvertThirdHoriz=false
cameraInvertThirdVert=false
ONTO THE ACTUAL REVIEW (please note that my recorded playtime as of reviewing is incorrect because I played a lot of it offline):
The actual game is… fine, I guess, although it takes a bit of a dump all over the continuity. If you pretend it’s from a different franchise it’s an okay horror/action game.
The plot, without going into spoilers, is interesting enough, but is somewhat of a rehash of previous entries. The combat is kind of annoying with the way it makes you lock onto enemies, but not unbearable or anything. You can’t really avoid enemies because you just end up with a big line of guys chasing you down the street. Because of this, you’ll be using way more health drinks than you should be, which is annoying because the game is pretty stingy on them. Keep multiple saves so you don't softlock.
Save point placement is awful. When you first get into town, your first objective is to get to your house. There is no save point in your house. You are expected to go to the town hall whenever you want to save. This would be fine if it just told you to go to the goddamn town hall in the first place. There are a lot of points where there is no save point available after doing a particularly long level/"dungeon", or a puzzle, or basically any time where you’d expect there to be a save point. It literally feels like the developers stuck the level maps to a wall and threw darts to decide where to put the saves.
The inventory system is pretty badly designed, in the sense that it’s kind of awkward to use and it’s way too easy to accidentally use your consumables.
If you can get past all of that, it’s a decent enough game. I really wish steam had a middle option, because it isn’t a terrible game and I enjoyed what I played of it, it’s just that I can’t recommend it with the amount of flaws that it has. It feels like it needed another few months in development.
Good things in this game:
Fun boss fights
Decent monster design
Good ideas/plot outline, even if it isn't always executed well
Real-time otherworld transformation. *chef's kiss*
Great soundtrack as always
Decent atmosphere
I highly recommend reading the 3 diary entries on the Silent Hill wiki before you play because they establish the backstory and characters.
Also get it on sale because the full price is absolutely ridiculous for what it is lmao