Silent Hill | PS1 | Review
Developer/Publisher: Konami
Platform: Playstation 1
It's generally agreed upon that Silent Hill 2 is the definitive fan favourite of the Silent Hill series. Whilst I am still undecided on which game is my favourite, after replaying the original game there were many little details about it which I felt were worth covering in a Retro Perspective review.
The opening moments in Silent Hill are in my opinion, some of the most iconic in video game history. Not only that, it serves as an organic tutorial allowing you to discover the game's mechanics without being in immediate danger. The false game over teaches the player how much damage they can take and how cautious they will have to be in tight spaces. The subtle tutorial doesn't end there however. In the cafe there is an encounter with a lone enemy the player must defeat to make sure they have a grasp on how weapons work but this encounter also introduces the player to the radio which makes noise when enemies are nearby. These clever 'show don't tell' game design techniques have been utilised in every Silent Hill game after and are pretty much a staple of good game design.
The fixed camera angle is utilised perfectly In this game whilst still giving you the option to face it forwards at any time if an enemy is out of view. This system may seem frustrating to some but it’s actually a clever way to prop up the importance of the radio and create many of the games scares because usually when you enter a room you know that something is in there with you but you often don’t know what or where exactly until the last moment. Lighting also plays a large part in the atmosphere, with many areas of the game lit only by your torch. Surprisingly though, lighting never plays a role in the gameplay and despite being able to turn the light off at any time, there’s never really any reason to.
Silent Hill's difficulty dips and spikes are a little hard to praise. Regardless of your chosen difficulty, the school (the first major area of the game) throws a lot of small & hard to avoid enemies at the player. At this point in the game there is little to fend off these buggers without wearing out the sparse supply of healing items. The very next area is the hospital and by comparison is a complete breeze to get through. Here, the player acquires the most powerful and far reaching melee weapon in the game, the hammer. Not only does this weapon do serious damage, its reach means that enemies must be extremely lucky to get anywhere near the player.
Later on, the amount of enemies ramps up tremendously and this is where you’re pretty much better off running instead of wasting ammo. Not that it isn’t fun to use the game’s tight tank controls to weave away from charging enemies but if the intention is to play the game on hard, memorising the entire layout of the game, plus the many hidden stashes of ammo and more importantly healing items is unfortunately more of a necessity than skill. Our main character Harry is no soldier, that much is clear, so the handling of firearms is often met with mixed results. I find this a positive thing which adds to the tension of facing off against enemies which don’t seem to have any obvious weak spots, especially during the game’s boss fights which can easily mess up the playthrough of a careless player.
There is one area of the game where the difficulty seemed to perfectly align with the pacing and horror of the game and that is the sewers. Stalking through these sewers are powerful and fast enemies that can even attack from above if the player is not careful. Caution is doubly advisable as the radio will be of no help down in the sewers, so this is one way in which the game introduces higher difficulty more naturally. As I edged forwards through the sewer I became increasingly aware of the clever level design which had grates through the middle of these long tunnels. So when the game finishes off the section by dropping a batch of enemies right on top of you which seem to pursue you right to the exit, it made it all the more tense to still watch my footing and make sure I wasn’t getting lost amidst the darkness and chaos.
The story of Silent Hill 1 never truly explains any of its deep lore outright to the player. Nevertheless, in hindsight it lays down all the important narrative groundwork needed for the rest of the series. Dahlia Gelespie alludes to her daughter Alessa being the source of the evil but other than subtle clues found all over the game, it is nice that the game leaves the player to form their own picture of the final details that were pretty much spelled out in full in the first Silent Hill movie.
The music and sound by Akira Yamaoka is innovative and more importantly terrifying. It's always hard to tell which parts of the soundtrack are diegetic and which are non-diegetic, for all we know the player-character could actually be hearing this...
...and undoubtedly crapping his pants!
This was a time when voice acting was not exactly a priority for video game developers but, as usual Konami delivered something well above the competition here. The dialogue itself and the way it’s delivered is perfectly surreal. None of the characters seem to fully comprehend the craziness around them and they talk as if they are handling the situation where in reality, we the player know that they are not really in control of anything anymore.
Possibly the most surprising aspect of re-visiting Silent Hill is that its puzzles, though few and far between, took me straight back to a time without hand holding, button prompts or (press triangle to skip.) Reaching for pen and paper to follow the logic of surrealist poems to play piano keys in a specific order, those kinds of experiences live in the 90s. Overcoming these kinds of challenges is what makes Silent Hill so satisfying compared to a lot of modern games, it might not always feel fair or balanced but it is a unique gem of a PS1 game which laid the groundwork for video gaming’s best horror series.
Pros:
Video game horror at it's finest on the PS1.
Puzzles that will make you miss the 90s.
Sound design that puts most modern games to shame.
Cons:
Unbalanced difficulty throughout.
Enemy designs are still finding their proper place in the broader context of Silent Hill lore.
One puzzle in particular makes no logical sense.
