Alright, let's talk about Silent Hill f. I've completed 2 of the game's 5 endings (the 1 ending you have to get on your first playthrough + the UFO ending), and...I find this game incredibly frustrating, and in the end I think it's a game I respect for its boldness more than I actually like. In fact, I kind of hate the game as an overall package.
Let's start with a familiar issue to anyone who played the Silent Hill 2 remake from last year: the combat is incredibly annoying and way too prevalent for how kind of bad it is, especially as the game nears its end. Even on the game's lowest difficulty, enemies hit like a truck and take way too many hits to down considering how fond the late game is of siccing 2-4 of them on you at once. The combat system, like those of the Souls games, is very much designed for one-on-one encounters with an emphasis on watching for enemy tells and countering. Unfortunately, enemies move extremely erratically and each type only has one move you can actually parry (and the parry indicator only appears if you are actively not doing anything), which to me made waiting for the parry an extremely unreliable strategy. Enjoy getting stun-locked and losing half your health when you misjudge an attack. I ended up just sticking to charging up a heavy swing on the axe and bashing enemies from a distance, but even that stopped being effective halfway through. There is a Witch Time-esque "perfect dodge" mechanic, but because enemies move so randomly I usually found myself activating it more by accident than by intention.
And all your weapons are breakable, so you're heavily encouraged to not even engage in combat until the game forces you to, as it pretty much does the entire second half of the game. And the game's 2nd half introduces an (I kid you not) honest to god Devil Trigger/Rage of the Gods mechanic that feels REALLY out of place in a horror game like this.
The game's atmosphere and exploration are truly exceptional (and the puzzles can be downright evil), but hampered by your character having an absolutely pathetically low inventory limit, which you can expand over the course of 2 playthroughs but still feels way too low even at max carrying capacity (especially since Med Kits take up an entire slot and you WANT those). What this leads to are many, MANY runs back to the nearest save shrine to sacrifice what you can spare to free up space and up your Faith currency.
By far the most frustrating thing about the game, though, is its story. Without getting into details, this game was written by an author that loves time loop stories, and accordingly you are only allowed to hear part of the story on a first playthrough. You HAVE to play the game AT LEAST 3 full times before the game will allow you to actually experience the full story with all the context left in. Other games like Nier have done this, but in Nier's case the gameplay didn't require nearly as much sheer commitment as this game, and even Nier only made you replay the 2nd half of the game multiple times (you literally skip the first half on NG+ runs).
To be frank, the way this story is setup and executed made me feel absolutely no emotional connection to the characters, especially with the story events set in this game's take on the traditional Silent Hill "Otherworld". As a first time player, you'll watch your character do some really bizarre, stupid **** in these Otherworld segments in a really cold, detached way. Yes, as someone who's beaten the game and knows what the game is doing, I get the message they're delivering. I still think those segments are cold and incredibly boring, and I don't give a damn about the player character.
Many people have and will complain about the overall message delivered in the first playthrough as a prohibitive strike against the game. Between the story beats and the monster designs, this may be one of the least subtle games in the series. I personally find the message of the game incredibly offensive, but if I found the story engaging and the characters compelling, I would be willing to meet the game on its own terms. But with the way the game plays keep away with its plot for the sheer purpose of padding out the lifespan of the game via multiple playthroughs, I just can't recommend it. Game developers are asking a lot these days for players to even finish one playthrough of their game. Not just expecting but demanding 3-4 playthroughs of a long game like this is just pure arrogance, especially when the player has exactly zero agency in that first playthrough.
That said, I kind of have to respect the commitment to the bit, and that first ending ends in a really unexpected way.
I'll pick away at the game just so I can see the full story, but I'm finding this game extremely unsatisfying to experience and frustrating to play. I also have severe doubts that this game was originally conceived as a Silent Hill game. The links to past games are tenuous at best.
Topic: Shocktober VI: Curse of NWR (Read 8211 times)
