Silent Hill 2(2024) Review

I'm going to put this out by saying that I'm not a fan of the original game, I don't think it's very good and it's my least favorite game in the original "trilogy" of Silent Hill games, I did replay the 2001 game a few months ago and it was after this remake released but if I did play it earlier, I would be skeptical but I would never be as apathetic towards Bloober Team remaking it as much as many others did before the positive previews by game journalists started to surface.

With that out of the way, I wasn't apathetic nor overly excited for the SH2 remake but in the end as a whole I'd say it won me over. I wouldn't say the story of the game is the epic masterpiece that many on the internet hype it up and it's primarily because of the gameplay as to why I really enjoy SH2R. I'd consider this to be one of the best game remakes ever made up there with stuff like Dead Space 2023, Resident Evil 2002 and Metroid Zero Mission.

I'll start with the story and like I said before, I don't consider it to be amazing but I do appreciate it more than I did when I played the original. The improved acting, dialogue and voice direction are big reasons as to why. I do like remake James' facial expressions and acting is a massive improvement over the original and all though like in the original game, how James character is in the story is dependant on how he acts in the gameplay particularly towards Maria, I do like he seems to show more emotion and seems more geniunely concerned for the people around him unlike the original where in that version he seemed so impartial towards everything he was around. I didn't mind this in SH1 and 3 but in original SH2, the vague nature of the story just got me that much towards James' indifference towards everything. I also think the additional scenes do a better job at getting me attached to the characters since they now have more screen time to get me more attached to them especially with Maria and Angela since they basically had less than 5 major scenes in the original game.

At the end of the day, the story is still esstentially something where you have to fill in the blanks for the author. For example, what was Angela's family connection to Silent Hill? Is Maria an illusion, a real person or an immortal monster who looks human? Why did Eddie come to the town? Is the town trying to kill James or is it putting him through trials and tribulations to help him overcome Mary? At least with the Cult storyline of the series, things are less ambigous and more concrete by comparison.

However the gameplay is the real star of the show here. All of my major issues regarding the gameplay of the 2001 title gets addressed.

I criticized the original game for the fact that enemies died in 3 bullets, pistol bullet clips are 10, the enemy count is never higher than 3, enemies have a hard time hitting you, the enemy variety is lacking and you are stockpiled with so much ammo when you reach Brokehaven that not even bosses are even a threat.

All of this gets addressed outside of enemy variety. When you pick up pistol bullets, you will never get more than 5 so while enemies died in 3 shots, you will probably stockpile 20-30 pistol bullets as opposed to hundreds. The enemies are far more aggressive, attack you far more often now and will often try rushing you. To counteract this, James now has the ability to dodge enemy attacks.

Bosses are far more creative and less a game of tanking hits and firing your gun, there will be different scripted sequences and attack patterns to avoid to beat them. They aren't challenging but they at least require some effort to beat.

Then there are just improvements that games like SH1 and 3 didn't even have like seemless transitioning between melee and firearms. The ability to quick select weapons and how healing is done in real time.

However the biggest improvement by far is the level design, where most doors and rooms can be opened as opposed to past SH games where probably only 3-4 doors you had the ability to open.

Level design in SH2R is finally up to the standard of an older Resident Evil game. You could argue that key items and story beats needing steps to unlock is "padding" but I argue it makes the individuals levels feel like a large interconnected puzzle much like an RE game where instead of one location it is multiple. The lack of explorable interiors annoyed me about the original SH2 and Bloober Team pretty much fixed it now.

Outside of that, my only big gameplay issue is that the camera in cramped spaces can be a little cumbersome to navigate and getting attacked by Mannequins that climb up walls can be very aggrevating since they can attack you off screen, then disappear when realigning the camera and then attack you off screen again.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with SH2R, it took a game I was always lukewarm on and turned into something that is a well made game. When it came to the gameplay, Bloober addressed most of the issues I had.