I’ll start this review by saying one thing, this is only the 2nd ever Silent Hill I have played. For someone who loves survival horror, that shocks me to, but I’ve always been a Resident Evil fan boy. I played the original Silent Hill not too long ago and was interested, but found it a bit of an odd game to really get in to, considering the more action heavy likes of Resident Evil. However when the remake was released, I NEEDED to play it and I’m so glad I did.
Now I knew some basis of the story here and there but I didn’t know everything. Everyone knows of the infamous dog ending, but the story hit so much harder as I went through. Hitting notes in ways I would never have expected and the tones of loss and it’s effects were realised amazingly. Once I reached the ending I received I wasn’t expecting it! Now there are 3 endings (I believe) that can be achieved on your first playthrough so it’ll be different depending on how you play the game but for how it ended for me, I left feeling the sadness and despair that main character James Sunderland felt at the time.
I also expected the monstrous Pyramid Head to show up a lot more than he did, however he was used the perfect amount. Not to little that his iconic status was under deserved, but enough that when he was around you knew you were in for a challenge. The one enemy that always caught me off guard (and genuinely made me squeel at times with my Husband getting a good few laughs at my expense) with how they moved and hid in the least expected places before jumping out at you.
With limited combat options really ramping up the tension as well, with most of your combat ability based around the most basic of melee weapons, a pipe. You do gain other weapons along the way, but to save on spoilers I won’t reveal too much, but it doesn’t get much better than that unfortunately truly making you feel the survival horror aspect of the game.
The lack of distance rendering really works well, giving an eerie, really otherworldly essence to Silent Hill. Now I know originally this was done due to system constraints, but within the remake that was probably not an issue, but it’s such a part of the series it wouldn’t have felt right without it. This is where the previous mention of jump scares come in as well, when you see an enemy scuttle across the distance and out of sight before quickly jumping out from under a car as you mindlessly walk past.
One thing I found brilliant (which I’ve not seen in many games) was the difficulty settings avaliable straight from the start. This was split between two settings, Combat and Puzzles. Being a complete newcomer to these games (and just the way I like to play a game first go through), I set both of these to “Easy”. By no means, however, was it a walk in the (Rosewater) park; it was still a survival horror experience. Giving my experience of survival-horror, I did end up with a lot more ammo than expected, ending the game with rarely using my guns. I was quite thankful for the melee weapons it granted you, however, I’ve since learned some additional bits about the melee weapons that on a 2nd playthrough would definitely change my tactics.
When it came to the combat side in terms of controls, it did feel slightly clunky. I feel this may have been intentional, giving it a more “desperation feel” to the fighting when it was necessary, but when you’re in a boss fight, this could become cumbersome and lead to you taking damage due to the unfortunate timings of attack animation. Outside of combat though, the controls were fluid and easy to use with most actions requiring singular buttons to perform.
Ultimately, playing this really made me want to dive deeper in to the world of Silent Hill, and at the time of writing, I’m (very) slowly making my way through the latest offering, Silent Hill F. I’ll pick up Silent Hill 3 for a go as well (I’m super intrigued by Robbie Rabbit, such a 00s emo vibe) so expect to see more from Silent Hill on here in the no to distant future!
Time Spent In Game: 35 Hours
Platform: PS5
| Criteria | Scores | Our Score |
| Artistic Achievement | 1 – 5 | 5 |
| Gameplay | 1 – 5 | 5 |
| Value/Cost | 1 – 5 | 5 |
| Controls | 1 – 5 | 4 |
| Length | 1 – 5 | 5 |
Written By: Aaron Bird
Favourite Game – Resident Evil 2 || Favourite Film – Hercules
About: Aaron is the creator of Pending Plays, and when not running things in the background, he’s busy playing games. When not reviewing, he’s busy pestering his dog Kuro.
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