SILENT HILL 2 Reviews

The atmosphere is great and the mystery is intriguing. The gameplay loop of exploration, puzzles and the primitive combat system isn't fun enough to keep the game fun for the entire runtime. The game is simply too long and apparently the original was just about half the length of the remake. Performance of the game is atrocious and some visual elements look awful (hair shadows).

Big eh. I never grew up with Silent Hill, so the nostalgia doesn't hide the repetitive and unvaried gameplay and tedious combat encounters. It's tense, looks great, and very stable... but if psychological horror isn't your thing, it might overstay its welcome.

Masterpiece. Great atmosphere,fine puzzle, the plot is insane in all meanings. It starts like a normal RE style horror but the longer you play the weirder it gets, at the mid point I started to question what the hell is going on because it was too insane,a bit like RE7 but even more. I really liked. I would put it above RE2 R even

This could be my review of how beautiful and amazing this game... But I'll just share this edit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvXYeb9EKVE&ab_channel=Shotcuz

Oh boy a modern remake of what is probably my favorite game of all time. If you want the TL:DR before I get into spoilers and specifics my feelings on the game are this: It feels like a smoothed over version of the classic game with modern design and production philosophies. There are both positive and negatives to this and I'll get into specifics later in my review. For now I'll say that the best parts of this version of the game over the original is the additional story and character moments that weren't in the original and the improved combat system that feels like a mix between The Last of Us melee with RE2 Remake shooting. My biggest gripe is that the big story and character moments don't hit as hard as the original. This is going to be a lot of people's only exposure to SH2 and I'm glad that I can say that that is okay with me. It doesn't replace the original for me but it understands what SH2 is and that's good enough for me. [h1] SPOILER NIT-PICKY SECTION [/h1] [h2] Positives [/h2] The improved combat and boss encounters are the biggest direct upgrade from the original. It manages to be engaging enough while not making James feel like a powerhouse. I do wish there was a little be less of it/ the ability to avoid more encounters. Not to the same degree as the OG because once you knew where you were going there is very little need to engage in combat outside of required boss fights. Maybe if enemies were just slightly less aggressive/aware of James and felt a little more indifferent to him it would hit the sweet spot for me. I liked the additional enemy variants. The spider legs a particular highlight for me for being very different than every other enemy and being super creepy. I also like how the bug enemies were used especially in the early game compared to the OG. Turning them into basically radio bait meant that when James' radio would go off you aren't sure if its a real threat or just one of the bugs. The other big positive this version of the game has is the additional character scenes. The 2 biggest I can think of are the scene with Maria talking with James about the Statue that wasn't in the OG and an additional scene of James running into Angela before heading into the Historical society. Its nice to give a little more characterization to them before shit really starts to hit the fan for both of their respective characters. Also the additional scenes between James and Maria near the lake and Inn where you can decide whether or not to assist her in small ways was a nice touch. Some smaller positives I'd like to throw out there are the little collectible photos that, while I believe are not explicitly stated to be, seem to give a little bit of insight to James' and Mary's relationship. I also like the additions of small environmental details that add additional hints as to what the environments that James is going through represent to him. The biggest example in my mind is finding a wedding dress and groom's suit in the Woodside apartment. I like the additional puzzles for the most part. A particular highlight was the multi-step coin puzzle in the apartments that extended the puzzle itself and told more of a story than the original puzzle did. I should also mention that the game is very pretty on a technical level and that I'm glad I waited to play on my new PC to play it at top settings. [h2] Negatives [/h2] [spoiler] Like I said in the TL:DR section, some of the big emotional character moments don't hit as hard as they did in the original for me. The biggest three in my mind in chronological order are Maria's first death, Angela's staircase, and Mary's real letter to James. With Maria's first death, the chase to the elevator felt like it was going more for spectacle than the unnerving claustrophobic panic feeling the OG gives the chase. I feel like in the remake that scene's goal is to make Pyramid Head seem scarier and more terrifying. Whereas the OG is trying to make that scene more tragic. That James is unable to save Maria from her death, making him feel powerless and worthless. Mirroring his feelings about Mary's disease. The OG also lets the moment breath a lot more. The town exploration section after her death is much more quiet and minimal, it allows the player to reflect on the emotions of James losing Maria. The remake has this section be more nightmare-ified and doesn't give the player the same room to breath. I feel like the reason I don't like Angela's staircase scene in the remake as much as the OG would be the same reason someone would prefer the Remake's version of the scene over the OG. The remake actress' performance of the scene is more matter of fact and more "true" to what I would imagine the scene would be like in real life where the OG's is far more theatrical and over the top. But at that point in the story in the OG if you have already bought into the strange performances and direction of the dialogue Angela's back and forth between James hits like a truck. Especially when she starts mocking James, asking him if he thinks he can save her, love her, heal all her pain. Its just twisting the knife in James' heart about having yet another woman he can't save. All that dialogue is in the remake, but the performance is more matter of fact, less mocking, more like "we both know you can't do this so lets just get this show on the road." Which is a valid interpretation of the dialogue and scene, just for me it doesn't work as well as the OG. Now for the last scene I mentioned, Mary's real letter to James. I honestly have the least to say about this scene out of the three even though this one is the most disappointing. It just comes down to the fact that the remake Mary's performance isn't as good as the original. Its not a bad reading, it just lacks the absolute superman from the top of the Effiel Tower gut punch that is the OG's performance of the real letter. Again, its unfair. The OG's reading of the real letter like catching a lightning in a bottle inside another lightning in a bottle. But it is one of the most moving performances that gets me every time. You have to NAIL "You made me happy." and remake just didn't hit the mark. I do think that the overall direction of the performances being more natural was the correct call. Trying to capture the strange/other worldly performances of the original would have likely just ended in disaster. Its just in making the performances more natural, Bloober ends up sanding off edges of some of the most powerful moments of SH2, making them less effective. Other than those scenes the other kinda big complaint I had was that I felt like the art direction for some of the sections of the "nightmare" reality started to get a little too close to that of SH1 and 3. I like the art direction for both of those games but I feel like they should be very separate from the art direction of 2. The biggest offender in this aspect in my opinion is the "nightmare" version of the hospital. Don't get me wrong, it looks really cool. I like rusty metal and wire gates with sickly orange lighting as the next SH fan. But that was more of a SH3 thing than SH2 and I would like to keep their art directions distinct from one another. [/spoiler] [h2] Conclusion [/h2] While in terms of pure text length my Negative section is larger than my positive section, I came away with a positive feeling about this remake overall. There are so many small thing that Bloober Team got right that I have to give my props to. Even though this probably won't be my personal preferred way of experiencing SH2, I won't fault anyone who gets a signficant attachment to this version of James' story.

I think for many people the original Silent Hill was a big part of their childhood and while it wasn't for mine because I was too young to play them, I still find myself amazed knowing that this story was created more than 20 years ago. Even before playing this game I've watched many play through's of SH, but experiencing it for myself and really immersing myself in the game makes me realize why the fan-base for this game is so insanely big and why everyone is so enthusiastic about everything this game is and was. Words honestly can't explain what I felt during the initial play and all the way to the end of the game. At a first glance this game just feels like James grasping for hope, hoping for the chance to see his wife again but as the game goes on it becomes so much more. The story takes so many twists and turns that it feels hard to grasp at first but watching the ending [(obviously depending on the one you get)] really made me understand this game for what it is. I know many people are upset because the camera isn't in fixed positions like the original; I still think that even without many of the original aspects of the game it still expresses many emotions in the same way. While I also believe many things could have changed or stayed the same I still think that Blobber and everyone else who worked on this did an amazing job. I love this game and I look forward to more remakes from this series.

Masterpiece 🔥 Best Franchise Phsycological Horror so far 😭 Can't wait Silent Hill F (Sept 2025) & Silent Hill 1 (on production)

a mans journey through his own personal hell dictated by guilt, grief, lust and punishment. For a first time player I thought it was a great experience, confusing af but great none the less

I just cannot get this game out of my head, unforgettable experience Thank you for not ruining the charm of the original game and even enhance some parts of it, 9.5 (performance and could make some parts a bit shorter, but the good outweighs this much more)

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. This town, hidden within the fog, a walk through madness, pain and suffering, in search for answers. This game is a whole new experience, and eerie one for that matter, but can also be, sort of beautiful? Combat: You definitely need some patience during combats, each creature has their own patterns which you will notice while fighting them, so you know how to time your attacks and when to dodge. This will serve you well as healing items are scarce, this will also apply to boss fights. You'll have a melee wapon and different guns to protect yourself with. Flanking enemies with your melee is a good way to save as much ammo as possible, for more dangerous encounters. Characters: You will meet a set of unique characters throughout the game, perhaps some familiar faces. For someone like me who has only seen the movies (before I finally got my hands on this game) I was pleased to see some returning creatures. I'm so glad I played this, and I will gladly play through it all again, as it has several endings.