Out of all the Silent Hill games I could play without needing emulation or a used PS2. This and the original 1999 game were what I had access to due to Playstation 3 PSN. There was Shattered Memories but I never tried to play it at that point. With that said even back when I played it in the early 2010s as a teenager, it was still on the forgettable side. Playing Origins now, the constant question that was ringing in my head was, "why was this game even made?" The 1999 title never had unanswered lingering plot points that potentially needed exploring. It all just feels like a thinly veiled excuse for Konami to make a quick buck out of the then hot Playstation Portable. It did eventually came to the PS2 so it's novelty of playing SH on the go went away pretty fast.
Before I start describing why I'm so lukewarm on SH:O. When it comes to presentation and music, this is something the game excels in. You could criticize the former for being too derivative of what Team Silent did but as far as the effort put into imitating them is concerned, they did a solid job even if it just amounts to copying off a cheat sheet. The blurry filter, the grotesque imagery, the industrial rotting look for the Otherworld and even seeing SH1's assets reimagined with a more "advanced" graphics engine was fun to see. The only major differentiation are the character models which can seem a little clean compared to the more dirty and grimey look of Silent Hill 2 and 3.The music is also one of Akira Yamaoka's best post Team Silent scores. There's a number of good memorable tunes here both original and reused letmotifs. The Story Begins, Riverside Motel and Illusion in Me are very good stuff.
It's also a short game and can be finished very quickly so while in the moment, it can drag, the game seemigly takes around 5-6 hours to finish. More on that later.
Travis Grady also shows more personality in the opening cutscene with his banter with that one co worker than he does in the entire game.
Now I transition to story. Best way to describe it is that it's about as much of a dull filler arc as a dull filler arc can get. What do you learn about the cult and Alessa? Not much you don't already find out by playing the PS1 game. Dr. Kaufman, Dahlia Gallespie and Lisa Garland are just there, they have a few scenes that puts them above being cameos but nothing new or interesting that recontextulizes what you knew them as. Travis has a subplot about his abusive dysfunctional family but it's only there because he's so disconnected from all the overall story with the cult. Alessa just so happens to be burning to death and Travis saves her at the right moment and that jumps starts the entire filler arc. Almost everyone in the story is just confused on why Travis is in Silent Hill. Travis is just as dumbfounded. The whole thing feels like how the script writing process for this game went.
The gameplay much like the visuals is impressive even if it is just cheat sheet copying. Everything that was in the first 3 Team Silent games are here. The follow cam, the unlimited inventory, the auto aim, the puzzles, the titular town overworld that connects to individual levels, the doors that are glorified wall textures, the bottlenecking, it's mostly here.
There are some new editions like a quick select, energy drinks, QTEs, using fists, weapon degradation and otherworld not activating at key story points. All of this adds little to the game.
Quick select while nice on paper doesn't amount to much since the close quarters combat is awful. Enemies can be spongey and can often be the first one to land a blow on you once if not twice. So using guns and melee combat is better to be avoided, due to the long time Silent Hill tactic of turning off the flashlight and running past enemies is more useful than ever. If you fight every enemy levels will feel even longer. As a result, a lot of ammo can be stockpiled and bosses can be beaten easily especially how easy their attacks are telegraphed and healing items being stockpiled too.
QTEs are similar to God of War 2005 but enemies grab you instead of a kill animation, you get the prompts right to get them off. In GOW, they are used to give you red, green and blue orbs, in SH:O all they do is just waste your time since you can take damage if you get the prompts wrong but the animation needs to finish.
Otherworld exploration pads out levels since now you need to explore the same boring levels twice as much. Much and I mean much of this "exploration" is spent interacting with doors that can't open. The Team Silent games' having the quick pacing never made me notice how terrible the level design can by when everything is going at a snail's pace due to the fake door count being doubled. There's few secrets to find.
Otherworld in the Team Silent games added tension since it could come any dramatic story beat. Now it's padding.
Overall, SHO is a game that is just there to show off the PSP and that's it
No comments:
Post a Comment