I have talked a lot about the Silent Hill series on this blog, I’ve probably talked about it more than any other series, and that’s because I love Silent Hill! But if you’ve read a lot of my other posts on Silent Hill you know I also kind of hate the series as well. This is namely because I, and many others, feel that after Team Silent made the original four games on the PS2 the series went downhill. There were a couple of standout titles, like Shattered Memories and Origins, but for the most part the series couldn’t stop pumping out disappointment after disappointment. The series’ lowest point being in 2012 when they released Silent Hill Downpour, Book of Memories, and the HD Collection. All pretty bad games. Yes, even the HD Collection! Which was just HD remasters of Silent Hill 2 and 3. Somehow they managed to mess that up! This combined with the cancellation of the Kojima developed Silent Hills a few years later, made me pretty confident in saying that Silent Hill should just remain dead.

Despite loving the series as much as I did, I was honestly very okay with Silent Hill remaining dead. I had zero faith that Konami could bring us a game that even came close to the glory of the PS2 classics. Especially with Konami’s focus shifting away from games in general for awhile there. However, after realizing they could make a lot of money on all the different beloved IP they have, Konami finally decided to get back into games. Kind of at least. I think it was mainly spurred on by the success of the Castlevania Netflix series, Castlevania being another dead IP Konami owns. After its success Konami started licensing out the Castlevania IP. And while we haven’t seen a true new Castlevania game yet, all of the different crossovers and what not did wonders for Konami and Castlevania!

This success seemed to make Konami realize that while they probably can’t make a game in house anymore, giving their IP to other developers could work great! And so the next IP of theirs to get a big push was of course Silent Hill. This came from a big announcement stream where they announced a bunch of new games! Namely Silent Hill Ascension, A Short Message, Townfall, a remake of Silent Hill 2, and lastly, Silent Hill f.

This push was met with quite a bit of caution from fans, and rightly so. We had been burned so many times that it was extremely hard to be optimistic. And to make this all the worse the first two of these games to be released, Ascension and A Short Message, weren’t well received. First it’s actually a stretch to call Ascension a game, it was more of a TV show where people would vote on what would happen. A fun concept but one completely killed by the show itself not being great and the fact that you could spend money to get more votes. A Short Message on the other hand was a free short game in the style of PT and was terrible! If you want to read about why, I did a full review of it actually. To make things worse, Townfall has been delayed with no release date after the developers all quit! But that has less to do with Konami and Silent Hill and more to do with the owners of the developer working on it. So we won’t cover that here!

That just leaves two games! The Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f. While most will point to the remake released last year as the big turning point to bring Silent Hill back, I can’t say I enjoyed the game all that much. To me, the remake was worse in just about every regard. While I do not think it’s a bad game by any means, it’s not what I wanted and I was left disappointed. Is this all Silent Hill was going to be now? Remakes of past games that don’t capture what made the originals so great? Even worse was the thought that Bloober Team, the developers of the remake, would be given free reign over a series I love so much! Granted, a lot of people like Bloober Team and their games, but I am not one of them.

I wanted to bring all this up to set the scene a little, to let you all know just how much was riding on Silent Hill f. This was, to me, the last chance a series I loved so much had to come back, to give me faith that I would enjoy anything from Silent Hill again. And having played and beaten the game multiple times now I can confidently say… Silent Hill f is one of the best Silent Hill games ever.

I had very high expectations for this game. Even before the disappointments of the other games announced during that stream, Silent Hill f was the only game that I was looking forward to. The reveal for the game was very brief, more of a teaser than a trailer, not much was even shown but we did know that it was going to be quite the change for the series. Rather than actually being set in the American town of Silent Hill, f would take place instead in Japan! Not only that 1960s Japan. This alone turned away some fans of the series, and while I too was skeptical at first, I understood why after the developers explained a little more about their reasoning. Looking over the series, the team behind f felt like Silent Hill had drifted too far from what made the original games great, that being that they were Japanese developed games set in America. While the games were still of course in an American setting, that Japanese influence was completely lost. To help make it easier for f‘s developers, NeoBards, they decided to instead have the game be set in Japan to help them achieve those horror vibes that had been lost! With that in mind, I was absolutely on board with this new direction. This might finally be the thing to get the series back on track with what made it so great to begin with. While I understand some fans are upset the new Silent Hill game doesn’t take place in Silent Hill, I hope most can look passed that because Silent Hill f is truly a Silent Hill game through and through!

With that in mind, I went from cautious to cautiously excited for f. Two other factors played into this excitement though that I should mention. The first being the game’s motto, “Finding the beauty in terror.” _{(Or something close to that, I keep finding different translations.)} Which is a super interesting concept! The idea of something being terrifying but also beautiful is both interesting and unsettling. And it’s something that Silent Hill has somewhat dabbled with before! Like making the series’ nurses uncomfortably attractive for some. Besides that motto, it was revealed that Silent Hill f would be written by famed Japanese horror writer, Ryukishi07. And while I was not, and still not sadly, familiar with his work the booming excitement that came from those that were familiar with his work gave me confidence that this was the right choice! Even with all of that though, I was still cautious about f. That should show you just how many times I had been burned by Konami and this series. It was just so impossible for me to imagine Silent Hill actually coming back, actually having a good new game. So just imagine my excitement when Silent Hill f blew me away.

Like I stated before, rather than being set in Silent Hill, the game is instead set in Japan during the 1960s in the small town of Ebisugaoka. You play as Hinako Shimizu, a young highschool girl with a troubled home life who’s town is about to be swallowed up in mysterious fog! Much like most of the games in their series, you are thrust into the horrors rather quickly and f is no different. From here it’s up to Hinako and her friends, but mostly Hinako, to figure out what is going on and how they are going to survive this twisted nightmare!

If there’s any game in the series Silent Hill f takes ques from, it’s Silent Hill 2. The game is a very personal and psychological one centered around Hinako. And also like how I usually do when I talk about Silent Hill 2, I’m going to try not to delve too deeply into the story of Silent Hill f to avoid spoilers! But I do still want to talk about it since the story is one of the best parts of f, as it should be.

While not the most important thing to all kinds of horror, story, premise, and characters are extremely important to psychological horror which is what the Silent Hill series is known for! This is actually why I feel most of the games after the PS2 era of the series failed. They just weren’t able to come up with compelling story and characters. One of the best parts about playing a Silent Hill game comes from looking into the meaning of things, just about everything has some kind of hidden mean below the surface in Silent Hill, even for the original game! Like I said before though, it’s clear f got most of its inspiration from Silent Hill 2 and I don’t just mean that from a psychological horror stand point. Silent Hill f delves into some heavy and uncomfortable themes, so much so the game actually has a content warning after you start it up.

That right there should let you know if the game is for you or not! However, I should state that f covers these subjects well and doesn’t use them simply for shock value like some other horror games. But these subjects are absolutely touched upon so just proceed with caution if any of that makes you too uncomfortable.

Like I said though, Silent Hill f tackles these subjects with the respect they deserve, much like how past games in the series have done with their touchy subjects. And despite the game taking place in the 1960s, I feel like a lot of what the game is saying applies to today. After all, this is the story of a young girl trying to figure out how she fits in to a society that wants to force her into certain roles. Even as an adult man living in the 2020s, I was able to relate to Hinako so much which made every terrifying moment that much more horrifying and uncomfortable. You’ve probably noticed I’ve been using that word a lot ‘uncomfortable’ and that’s because it’s not only a good way to describe so much in f, but it’s exactly what you should want from a game like this, from Silent Hill in general!

Psychological horror is Silent Hill‘s thing, to follow in the loose theme of this Spooky Month, I’d say that Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2 specifically, is the game that defined psychological horror. Psychological horror is horror that sits with you, it persists even after you’ve turned off the game. While it might not scare you as much in the moment, the dread of the situation will be with you far longer than any scary face. And while I don’t believe every psychological horror has to tackle topical and controversial subjects, being able to do that can do so much for the horror and honestly be a great outlet for meaningful discussion on those topics. Silent Hill 2 and 3 notably did this as well and that’s how the series became known for this kind of horror. And while games like Silent Hill Origins and Shattered Memories got close, they weren’t on the same level as 2 and 3. But Silent Hill f is.

This will sound weird to say, but I was so happy when I felt so uncomfortable playing f and it happened many times for many reasons! Again, I will be avoiding spoilers here but I have to at least talk about some of my experience here. I will try and keep it vague though!

While Ebisugaoka might not be Silent Hill the town is still extremely spooky! Based off real life rural towns in Japan, Ebisugaoka is meant to feel almost like a maze with how the buildings are laid out, making for narrow passage ways and similar looking locations. It almost feels like a missed opportunity to not have there be a maze like section to the game! The spooky and creepy vibes are so on point that it’s hard to even miss the original location of the series. A location that we’ve explored plenty of times at this point and one that unrealistically kept getting added to… That being said, while the game isn’t set in Silent Hill, is still carries the same vibes and spooks! Letting Ebisugaoka feel both familiar and fresh!

The writing and story of f truly is great. Ryukishi07 did beyond an outstanding job! So much so that I’ve even begun looking into their old work, because if it’s anything like Silent Hill f‘s story, I want more of it. I was honestly worried about f‘s story the most. Worried that Konami would only allow people to play it safe, but thankfully that was not the case here. Ryukishi07 delves into some dark and upsetting subjects mainly dealing with gender discrimination and how hard it can be to simply be yourself. Horror is such a perfect medium for exploring these touchy subjects as it lets you experience a lot of the hardships that come with them without it needing to feel forced or anything. Hinako’s struggle feels both real and terrifyingly relatable so many times despite the game being set in the 1960s. I am so happy f managed to stick with the series roots of discussing and handling heavy topics with respect.

One thing that f does differently than a lot of the other games in the series is that it gives us a lot more insight into what our main character, in this case Hinako, is thinking. While you could figure out plenty about what characters like Harry, James, and Heather were thinking from the context clues when searching around, Hinako is different as she has a journal that she’ll update throughout the game. Not only is this a great tool for keeping track of puzzles and what not, but it gives us so much information too! For instance, every enemy has their own entry in the journal, with the entries being written by Hinako herself.

Here she’ll describe the enemy and usually give some kind of hint about how they attack, but even more important than that I feel is how she’ll sometimes write about her opinion on them!

If you’ve played any of the classic Silent Hills before you’ll know that most enemies you encounter have many layers of hidden meaning behind them and f is no different! I suppose you could see these journal entries as being a little too hand holding when it comes to trying to figure out any hidden meanings, but I feel like they were more than appropriate! Not only that, it made it so that every time a new enemy showed up, I honestly got super excited to beat it and read the entry in the journal! Something I was not expecting when I started the game.

Beyond their meaning, Silent Hill f has some great monster designs! Shout out to the game’s artist, who just goes by kera, for giving f some terrifying and distinct monsters!

The monsters aren’t the only uncomfortable thing about the game either though, the visuals it provides also made me squirm on more than one occasion! Again, I am avoiding spoilers but I will say there were a few scenes that, despite not directly showing any of the gory details, nearly made me look away from the screen a couple times! Weirdly enough, I think it was because the game didn’t show me exactly what was happening that I felt so uncomfortable. Knowing what was happening and letting me fill in the blanks was more than enough to get my skin crawling!

With all that said, if you want a more in depth and spoiler filled discussion of f‘s themes and story, do check out the latest podcast episode ‘Dissecting the Insanity of Silent Hill f‘ where my friend D and I talk all about our experience playing the game.

Now after all that praise, I do sadly have to move on to a bit of criticism of Silent Hill f, as well as addressing some of the community and its backlash about the game…

If there’s one thing that is divisive about Silent Hill f, it’s the game’s combat. It’s quite a bit different from the rest of the series. Silent Hill has always had trouble nailing down combat. At best, combat is usually either forgettable or tolerable in the games. So whenever a new game in the series gets announced, it’s almost always brought up that combat will actually be good this time around. And it never is… That being said, f might have the biggest departure of the series by seemingly taking inspiration from Dark Souls of all things for its combat!

There’s dodging, stamina management, heavy and light attacks, and even parries! Silent Hill f probably has the most in depth combat of the series but that isn’t exactly a good thing. I’ve talked a before about how combat can be a struggle in horror games, trying to not only balance it game play wise but also have it be somewhat scary as well. If you make the combat too fun it’ll take away from the scares, but if it’s annoying and repetitive then it’s just going to be frustrating. Sadly, for f, the combat will probably be one or the other depending on the difficulty you select. Having played through the game on each of the combat difficulty settings, because thankfully the combat difficulty doesn’t affect the puzzle difficulty, I can see flaws in the combat for each of the settings.

There are three difficulty settings in Silent Hill f, Story, Hard, and Lost in the Fog. Lost in the Fog is only selectable after you’ve finished a play through and is obviously the hardest! The main differences between each is how much damage enemies do, how much health enemies have, how many healing items are around, and how quickly weapons break since weapon durability is a thing in this game too. The struggle between which difficulty you select basically comes down to this, do you want the combat to be actually challenging meaning you’ll need to engage with it more or be so easy that it feels like more of an annoyance than anything with how trivial it is? Normally I’d say go with the harder difficulty setting since at least you’ll have some tension when it comes to using your resources and all that, like every other survival horror, but that brings up another issue, and what I feel is the main issue with the combat of f. It’s just too plentiful.

This is one of the biggest issues I had with the Silent Hill 2 remake as well, but at least with f the combat is a bit more fun and engaging. Even with that in mind, I still feel like f has too much combat, especially at the end of the game! There are multiple sections where you need to fight waves of enemies in order to progress. Normally, you can actually run by most enemies, weaving around them to avoid combat and not lose more resources. In that sense, I think having combat be plentiful is fine! I just take issue when the game forces you to deal with it in this way. Even though it makes sense story wise to have these waves try and stop you, I can’t help but feel like the game was just trying to pad for time in the end which is not something you want the player feeling!

Thankfully, this feeling does not extend to the game’s boss fights. Another criticism I had for the Silent Hill 2 remake was the boss fights and how they didn’t feel fitting. For Silent Hill 2‘s story, it was weird having a multi phase boss fight with some of those characters. I can’t say the same for f though! Each of the boss fights not only felt fitting but also it made sense with the story of the game as well! For the first time ever, I was looking forward to the boss fights of a Silent Hill game!

So while most of the combat isn’t great, there is at least some good in the bad! And thankfully, I feel like the combat is truly the only sour point to f. If there’s one other thing that I’m kind of iffy on it would probably be the multiple play throughs. For the first three play throughs of Silent Hill f, things will change. New notes to read will appear, cut scenes will be altered slightly, and even some new puzzles! This is a bit of a double edged sword though. On one hand, this means that you have a lot more content to the game and it encourages playing more! On the other, you’re not exactly getting the full experience from a single play through, and the differences in the next couple play throughs might not be enough for some. While I personally have no problems with this as I’m planning to get all of the endings anyways, which means five play throughs at the very least, I do understand why some wouldn’t enjoy this all that much. Mainly due to the fact that what is added in the extra play throughs might not be enough to justify playing through the game again. That being said, I do feel like that first play through would be enough for most! So any additional play throughs are just for those that want that extra context and different endings. But still! This is totally down to player preference.

Those would be the main problems I have with Silent Hill f, and overall? They don’t come anywhere close to ruining the game! While I can understand why these issues might be a little much for some, especially the combat, they weren’t at all for me. Like most of the games in the series, I was able to tolerate the combat easily enough given how invested in the story I was! And the overall atmosphere the game masterfully makes. While Ebisugaoka isn’t technically Silent Hill, it has been ages since I have felt this close to that original foggy town! That’s why it honestly upsets me that so many people are trying to say that Silent Hill f isn’t a true Silent Hill game. This is the most Silent Hill Silent Hill has been since the PS2! I don’t care if it’s not physically set in the town, I don’t care if the combat is different, this is Silent Hill! And I feel like any “long time fan” who says otherwise is simply lying to themselves because they don’t like the game’s themes or another crazy reason…

With all that I have recommend this Spooky Month, Silent Hill f is the one I recommend the most! I want Konami to know that this is what we want from Silent Hill. Not remakes, not weird TV show hybrids. This! This is what the series needs! So please, go and pick up Silent Hill f. It’s on PS5, Xbox, and PC. And if you’re wanting a terrifying, uncomfortable, and haunting experience, you will not be disappointed…

And with that, another Spooky Month has come to an end. Thank you so much for joining in and reading along! I hope everyone had a very spooky and haunting month of fun, and I hope you will all come back and read more next year. See you then!