When I first played Silent Hill Downpour, it was one of those Playstation 3 games I bought that I wanted to just play and get to the end of. I got put off by it a few times and when I did beat it, I didn't think much of it. After going through most of the Silent Hill games this past year. I have a new appreciation for Downpour. It does have it's issues mainly with aspects of it's story. In terms of gameplay, Vatara really did seem to be aware of the series' long time gameplay shortcomings. It's only held back by grating technical issues.
Downpour's story is on the decent side. The interesting aspects of the story is how bleak of a story it is for a game in the series and to some extent mainstream games in general. The closest thing the game has to a "good" ending is having Murphy faking his death with no poetic justice. Arguably the real "villain" George Sewell pretty much won the moment you boot up the game.Murphy and his journey of self forgiveness is interesting. He's esstentially going through self loathing, it gets quelled then more self loathing insues. Silent Hill basically manifests all that guilt since that is one way the town is often intrepreted as.
He's also one of the better acted characters in the series. He does a good job at being reserved and hiding his pain but he can also get annoyed and short tempered when characters aren't being straight with him. Him being knowledge about vehicles was decently foreshadowed at the start of the game when he enters Silent Hill.
With that said, the side characters can be on the underdeveloped side. DJ Ricks was kind of fun and charming but he gets killed off in his introduction scene.
Anne Cunningham is just an awful character. Her entire character is to shout a lot and hold up Murphy at gun point in every scene she is in. She pretty much could've shot him at the start of the game but can't bring herself to do it. Might lead to some character development or having some more layers? NOPE. She does the samething at least 2-3 more times. She only shows any different side to her character at the end but by that point the game is almost over.
All in all, Downpour's story is mostly hits rather than misses and is one of the franchise's more interesting tales.
Gameplay is where it gets fascinating. Throughout my entire playthrough of Downpour, I was asking myself, "was Vatara listening to all my gameplay criticisms of SH a decade before I would even raise them?"
The combat was widely criticised at the time but one major aspect that was overlooked then and even now is that, you are not supposed to be a one man army monster killing machine. Contrary to popular belief Silent Hill 1 and especially 2 you were basically that. In Downpour, the enemy count never goes higher than 3 and even then Murphy is only really effective at one on one fights. One lower tier fodder enemy can get you down to critical health fast and there is no reliable lock on sytem or any elegant combat maneuvers Murphy can do. It's often better just to run away and only kill when you really have to. There is only 2 or 3 moments where killing enemies are needed to progress through the game.
You get one trophy for escaping enemies 20 times and another for not killing a single enemy so this encourages the idea even more that you aren't a one man army.
To add to this, you have a two weapon limit and can't hold all firearms as well as ammo being the most limited it has ever been in the series. Despite having updated over the shoulder aiming, using guns also isn't going to make you an effective monster killer.
The level design is also mostly streamlined and for the better. No more doors that are just wall textures in disguise. Everything is more on the scripted side. It's mostly being directed one way with you finding a weapon to get past obstacles, solving inventory puzzles or the series' trademark riddles. Otherworld is even more scripted where you get chased by a nameless void, solving some puzzles and even dodging traps. The last one caught me by surprise since I never thought an SH game would that. You might even do all 3 at the same time.
The final boss isn't even a fight you win by riddling it with bullets but a puzzle boss instead. Bosses are not that prevalent compared to past games.
In a sense, Downpour is a variation of what Shattered Memories but less overt due to not completely removing combat. The developers are aware of the issues the series always had and did their best to address them.
There are major issues that hold the gameplay back. The lengthy load times can be infuriating when dying during the Otherworld sections especially when you don't know how many times getting close to the void will cause a game over.
Game can't maintain a stable framerate and goes into single digits at times.
The left stick waggling and trigger mashing QTEs are obnoxious 7th gen game design tropes that detract than enhance.
Overall, Downpour held up better than I ever expected
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