I wasn't expecting much. SHF looked more like Siren and Fatal Frame than Silent Hill. At the same time, considering Konami has already pushed the idea of characters going through horrific nightmares when entering a creepy foggy town this far, a game like this was inevitable. There was already Silent Hill 4: The Room prior to this. This is pretty much the weird part of Silent Hill F despite appearing to be unfamilar there are elements of what's already there along with new ideas to go along with it. It has ideas present in Silent Hill 1, 3 and 4 and there elements of the soulslike genre in there as well as the games mentioned at the start of the review. It borrows so much that it has a weirdly unique identity all it's own.
The story has some very bizarre presentation and as indirect as it can be, it's all very intriguing watching the way the story unfold. There is one aspect added to Silent Hill F that really adds to it is the journal. The biggest limitation of gaming as a storytelling medium is being to tell what a character is actually thinking during gameplay. It almost feels like gameplay is an alternate dimension. SHF's journal fixes this since at first it sounds like an excuse to feed lore but it also tells the player what Hinako thinks of certain characters, places or happening in key story events. This might be sounding like me making a big deal but it adds so much extra context when partnered with the story cutscenes.
Due to the journal, it's easier to piece together clues by especially by comparison to the older games. The cutscenes, voice acting, music and cinematrophy is enough to make the story engrossing in the moment and after a long section of gameplay. I can't stress enough that the journal makes the story easier to digest.
Despite the change in setting the themes of have some callbacks to Silent Hill 1 and 3, the latter obviously being the teenage girl protagonist but also abusive parental figures and drugs.
The only big issue I can give towards the story is that the facial expressions and lip syncing for characters could've been much better since the acting could be good but the animations can't keep up.
The gameplay is much in the same way, it's almost too uncanny. Ebisugaoka is pretty much designed like Silent Hill 1. It's the overworld of the game where you get you go to interiors that are standalone levels. There will be many many dead ends that will slowly edge you to your destination. There will be monsters everywhere ready to jump and ambush Hinako as she is making her way to the various destinations. There's a map to help guide you along that marks important places as you progress. Running away from the monsters is the superior option than fighting every one you encounter head on.
There's also aspects of SH3 where you can avoid enemies even when in the interior levels themselves and only needing to fight them when they are really in your way.
There's your SH tropes of broken locks that can't be open and puzzles to do and of course entering into this game's version of the "Otherworld".
It's pretty much the reoccuring theme that SHF does really well despite looking completely different in asethetics there's elements of the familar to the point where it isn't completely "Silent Hill in name only" that the game initially may come off as.
This now leads a big elephant in the room: the combat. I can't say the combat is well done but at the same time, most of the game was spent running away from enemies and killing enemies as a last resort. The combat doesn't feel amazing but the game never tries to push the one man army idea on to you where you need to kill every enemy to progress. If running away and evading enemies wasn't such a viable tactic for so much of the game, I would not be able to tolerate it as much.
The late game did start to shove in more and more enemy waves and by that point combat did start to feel more and more tedious. There's a wolf form late game that makes Hinako more effective at combat but it never feels like she is efficient at killing enemies due to how slow attacks. Late game has more and more sections where it needs mandatory combat to progress and combat isn't good enough to make these sections feel less of a slog.
Combat itself mainly consists of using heavy attacks a lot of the time since it stuns enemies the best, then shove in light attacks every once and a while and dodging while managing stamina. If heavy attack wasn't as effective as it was combined with most enemies can be skipped past or avoided, my opinion of the game would be much more lukewarm. Due to running away being the most effective option, it's easier stock on healing items and save them for bosses like true survival horror fashion.
Skills, charms and upgrades can be a red herring since no matter what build you have running away and fighting occasionally is the best option for most of the game.
The sanity guage is another one since it was more of an ability that was supposed to help you in combat but charged heavy attacks were so useful that it was never needed due to how well the latter does the aforementioned stun.
Overall, SHF was a surprise for a game I didn't pay too much attention to. The combat sounded like it was going to be a big issue but it wasn'té
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