Silent Hill f Spiel
Silent Hill franchise finally has a new installment in the franchise, and it’s called Silent Hill f and it’s set in 1960s, Japan. I know there were quite the concerns about the status of the IP under Konami and the future outlook of it; I believe The Short Message and Silent Hill 2 (2024) have shown it can be preserved. Whether or not a globalized “Silent Hill” would work as a proper standalone title, however, was somewhat dubious, partly because The Short Message was more or less a playable teaser to announce the revival of the franchise.
As many are aware by now, Silent Hill f takes place outside of America, but still in a foggy town. If I were to nitpick one of the big changes that have made to the world that is now dubbed “The Silent Hill Phenomenon” in-game, f makes small effort to keep the mystery a mystery. In fact, one of the defining features of the Silent Hill, as a player, is not just the fog, it’s the connection between the fog world and the otherworld. The iconic siren sounds before the otherworld takes over, and it worked as both the warning and the reminder that the two worlds are interconnected to the players and to the protagonist — and it was up to us to figure out how and why. In Silent Hill f, however, the game has already given up on cloaks and daggers.
Instead of mysteries in mysticism, the game decides to dedicate most of its time in the quality of narrative and how it unfolds. Previous installments in the franchise all had multiple endings, but I believe it is the first of its kind in the series to make all endings into one cohesive narrative — a popular practice by the fans to speculate canons, now in official capacity. Again, this limits the possibilities of interpretations, one which most psychological horror would thrive in. There is also the question of “fairness” as a mystery. Previous installments and any other mysteries would not make it impossible for players to find hints and answers, but for the purpose of making the narrative work, Silent Hill f has done just that. A player must finish the game multiple times to see all the narratives unfold, and again, unlike previous titles, different “endings” are still major hallmark of the overarching plot.
It is then bizarre the game has put such little effort to keep the combat refreshing. At first, the new take on the melee combat, lighthearted Souls-like, is enough to keep the show rolling: different weapons, different interactivities with the said weapons, and more enemies, and so. But soon as the player enters NG+, in all likelihood, one would have already tried most of the weapons in game and enemies of all manners. Few unlockable weapons are constricted to the fog world, and by no means it is meant to skip past the combat with it. It is simply odd that while more narratives are unfolding in NG+, there are no new enemies nor significant changes to the combat.
Conclusions: Return of Horror and Horror of Returning
As someone who has lived both in America and abroad: guns and sirens do exist outside of America. There is no reason to be fixated or associate guns only with American themed horror. If anything, they could have put a slingshot and widened the range of gameplay. All the works that have been put into the new style of narrative are overshadowed by the repetitive nature of micro Souls-like, where there are only handful weapons and handful enemies. As a return of the classic, Silent Hill f does make a solid statement, but had it not been a Silent Hill game, I do not believe many would have the will power to return to NG+ yet again.