[Score: Strong 6/10].
Okay. I’m going to replay this game on a higher action and puzzle difficulty sometime…but damn man, I’m so mixed on this game. I’m very happy I played it, don’t get me wrong. It was a very unique experience, and an incredible narrative was presented to me.
Narrative & Themes
I guess I’ll start with the positives. The themes and narrative of this game are single-handedly the best thing about it. Silent Hill 2. Angela’s guilt over being sexually abused by her father. Eddie’s guilt over murdering those who relentlessly bullied him. James’s guilt over smothering his wife with a pillow. This theme of…guilt is explored in the medium in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s truly incredible.
Angela specifically was really interesting to me. The knife representing her self-harm. The pulsing pistons within the room. The disgusting mouths. She never says she was sexually abused, but the game makes it VERY clear with her behaviours and the environments that surround her. In fact, a bad relationship with her father is first hinted at via a photo with her happy with her mother versus her father’s portion of the photo being ripped from it. At the end, she finds comfort when she…”confuses” James with her mother, but throughout the game, she shows an overt fear towards James. I interpret this as Angela’s fear towards men due to the abuse from her father, and her warm embrace towards women due to seeing them more as a support system.
Eddie’s introduction is shown via him throwing up in a toilet. You next see him eating a stack of pizzas. Before you kill Eddie he’s talking about people calling him fat and ugly, which recontextualises these 2 previous interactions. Eddie throwing up in the toilet is a symptom of bulimia, and eating those stacks of pizzas can be interpreted as him coping by eating his feelings away. A cycle of torturing himself due to how society perceives him.
James, the main character, is expanded upon the most. He fights Pyramid Head, a creature that is presumably a manifestation of his sexual frustration. He meets enemies purely made out of feminine legs, further emphasising that frustration. He meets enemies that spit acid out of their mouths, representing his wife’s sickness. The game’s buildings start off relatively normal, establishing a sense of normalcy, but as he survives inconceivable falls and dives into deep, swallowing holes, the world becomes more demented, representing his spiralling mental state and his journey of self-discovery. It’s great how the game communicates its narrative.
Presentation
Moving on from narrative, everything about this game’s presentation is amazing. Visually, sound-wise. Weirdly the soundtrack slaps too much. In the scene in which James uncovers the memory of him smothering Mary with a pillow, I was just bopping my head up and down hahaha. The performances are…weirdly amateurish but it works. Everyone in SH2 is NOT mentally well at all, and I think the amateur-sounding voice acting within these contexts works. It also adds to the mystique of SH2 as well. All of the above. Amazing. 10/10.
Gameplay — Level Design
Okay. Let’s talk about why this game has a Strong 6. The gameplay. I…don’t like the gameplay of SH2. At all. The level design is so…confusing and boring. These don’t feel like levels, these feel like actual places, and I get how that would serve the narrative, but it ultimately builds an experience of me checking my map every 5 seconds to make sure that I’m going the correct way. Every corridor looks the goddamn same man. Unlike RE1’s stylised mansion in which you always know where you’re going, Silent Hill 2’s environments are just…the same. IT’S JUST THE SAME. IT FEELS LIKE A REAL APARTMENT COMPLEX, IT FEELS LIKE A REAL HOSPITAL, A REAL HOTEL. I GET IT! I GET IT! BUT WHEN I’M PLAYING A GAME, I WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE HELL I’M GOING THANK YOU!
Gameplay — Enemies & Combat
Speaking of which. Let’s talk about the enemy design. LET’S DO IT. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! THE ENEMIES IN THIS GAME ARE NOT SCARY! WHY? BECAUSE THEY’RE SO EASY TO DEAL WITH! For me, in order for me to be scared of your enemies, they need to be FUNCTIONALLY hard to deal with. But they’re not. You deal with them the same way. I’m not even scared of wasting ammo or health, because guess what? THERE’S AMMO AND HEALTH EVERYWHERE! HUNDREDS OF BULLETS! SO MANY FIRST AID KITS. I ENDED THAT GAME WITH AROUND 20 HEALING ITEMS. I SWEAR! In this SURVIVAL HORROR GAME, there is no scarcity in resources. I just stay in a corner and SHOOTY-SHOOT. AND THAT IS IT! THAT IS IT! I’M NOT SCARED IN THIS GAME! I’m more fascinated by the horror art design and direction, but SCARED? SCARED? I THINK NOT! DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE DOO-DOO BOSS BATTLES. STAY IN A CORNER AND SHOOT! GODDAMMIT! I DO NOT LIKE THIS DESIGN!
Gameplay — Puzzles
A positive I can give on the gameplay is that the puzzles…are actually really good. Originally, I complained about putting canned tomatoes in the garbage chute to get a coin, because I thought a consumable would be a health item, but in retrospect, giving myself more time, I could’ve figured it out. Apart from the puzzles that require guesswork, I think every puzzle in this game is relatively interesting. Gives my brain time to think. You don’t need a guide to get through this game on normal, this can 100% be completed. The only puzzles I used a guide for was that keypad one with the bugs, and the stone cube puzzle, and those are honestly more guesswork. Wait I lied. There was one puzzle I searched a guide for, the noose one, less because I was stuck, but more because I was tired, I can’t lie.
Final Verdict
I really didn’t like playing through these levels man. If it weren’t for this narrative…man, this game would be a MASSIVE failure in survival horror. This game to me mechanically fails so much, BUT do I recommend it? Weird thing…yes? Its narrative and themes are simply some of the most well-done, unique things ever done…EVER. Those aspects are amazing. But in terms of my enjoyment of the overall experience? Nah man…I do feel the need to give this game a few more playthroughs. I haven’t even played the sub-scenario yet, so I’ll add to this review once I’ve played that. But yeah. That’s what I currently think of this game.
Playthrough Details: 15 Hours, Riddle and Action: Normal, Ending: Leave Ending
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