Is there something left that Silent Hill can offer us? Last year I felt that the answer to this question was noisy. A tiny game in the series, a tiny trailer of the horror, landed far, far from my preferences, and last year’s Silent Hill 2 was a modification of the game, which needed one maybe less than any other. This year, however, is different because it has real, full -size and, most importantly fresh Entrance to restore this question to the foreground. And Silent Hill F is a game that irritably put me in its place.
The original series in the game, Japan from the 1960s, seems to be quite well prepared to deal with several huge topics except for the usual sense of guilt and regret – in particular gender inequalities. When entering it, it probably upset me the most. After playing it, this restless feeling died down, because I think that what he has to say is partly worth saying, but also worth committing – even if I have some reservations. An intriguing return of events for Silent Hill Revival Skeptics like me.
Silent Hill F begins us with the hero of teenagers, Shimiz Hinako, who paid for an argument with her alcoholic, an offensive father to see her friends, including Shu, her man (this is crucial) best friend. This classic fog begins to build up shortly after her arrival, another friend turns into flowers, and the monster chases, sending the remaining part into a surreal, twisted version of the place they call home. The same shit, different country.
I immediately felt surprised how it felt “Silent Hill game”. First of all, Hinako is presented with a valuable tiny context for her life and history: she just fell into a mess of all this and forced to deal with the trauma, which she kept bottled. This is a similar trick to One Silent Hill 2 early, suspending the details of why James came to the city, and Silent Hill F certainly is successful in turning the intrigue, who Hinako is and why he is in this position.
Ed James equipment, for example, was not the biggest fan when he played in Gamescom last month. I don’t know if no corrections have been made since then to tighten the rinse, but I had no problems with it myself. The lack of a merchutical generally seemed that my fault, the influence of steel pipes and axes always landed a satisfying thunk and nothing – whether it was my arsenal or fog monsters – I felt unbalanced in the horror of action.
It’s just … it is quite Actions. You have a strength meter that is exhausted with the lend a hand of weapons and avoidance shifts, although excellent tilting unique will restore this strength when slowing down time. In combination with Parry, which stops enemies in their tracks, so that you can shoot in a counterattack, the fights are rarely bad, but it never seems very peaceful hilly (shiny?).
This is also not Resident Evil 4fication of Silent Hill, clear. Hinako does not make any opposite patients and never even evaporates chain chains. I would even say that I liked the fight more often than not. But I’m still not sure if he feels at home in a world like Silent Hill’s, especially considering that Hinako is a teenage girl without evident combat training. This is something that I finally justified in my own head: Hinako is a rather furious teenager, just as many are and should be – the world is not known that she is polite for this particular demographic group – so why shouldn’t she exert part of this anger?
It just so happens that Hinako’s reasoning is something that Silent Hill F manages to examine both zero subtlety and a surprising number Why Her dad is so offensive drunk. Ultimately, Silent Hill F is not about evading Yokai: it’s about gender expectations.
You see, there are two other things to know about Hinako. First of all, she has an older sister, Junko, whose youthful kindness and fun disappeared after the wedding – not that she hurt her position of their parents’ favorite daughter. Secondly, Hinako is perceived by friends and family as quite masculine. She is a bit rugged and fell; She doesn’t care about dolls, but she does Like plays in cosmic wars with his Platonic “partner” of Shu.
Now I am not saying that in 2025 we are completely free to express ideas around the sex and how we like it, but it certainly was damn worse in the sixties, and Silent Hill F does not shun it. Immediately you can see that Hinako has an expectation that she must fit in society and, like her sister, finally find a man with whom he settled – concepts he completely rejections. Shu is only her partnerPeople.
Despite this, these are concepts that he cannot escape, even when he repeatedly breaks out of the “real” world to another, more mystical, because it is a kingdom in which tradition reigns the highest. There are torii gates. There are elderly lanterns. There are Zen gardens and Sinto temples. On my most cynical, it is there that the presentation of Silent Hill F fresh setting seems to irritate on the edge Thing, Japan A little too uncertain. However, this is not aimless. Tests that Hinako will survive here certainly feel synonymous with forcing to adapt to society, and I think that it can even contribute to the chord with people incompatible with gender.
I do not want to spoil too much of what is happening in text, because Silent Hill has always been the best when you interpret his motives for yourself. Similarly, it is tough to explore the effects of the characteristic approach of the writer Ryukishi07 to the structure without giving away too much, even if it is made wonderfully. But for me it is a game about determining who you are when people close to you (and the whole society) have such narrow expectations for you. In Mother Hinako there is even eyebrows that can be lifted, a parental figure that one could think or hope would be more protective than it turns out in such a world. Nuance! All this is a powerful thing to feel and experience in the game, and fresh for Silent Hill.
I still have complicated feelings on Silent Hill F. There is a huge part of me who wanted to resist it, simply because of the current excessive release of the industry in the field of detection (and recycling) of the existing series. And yet here, I still think about what it says, dealing with how I confronted with messy emotions and annoying realizations. In fact, this is fascinating, and the games fascinating are more crucial to me than how they fall on a elementary, good/bad scale.
So yes, Silent Hill does He still has something to offer, and now I can’t stop thinking about the game that provides it. Or talk about it! I am excited about my partner, another Silent Hill lover to play, so I can delve into his topics. And then take my friend who has just dealt with the series and do the same with them.
There is nothing more in life than a work of art that causes the desire to discuss, and in the face of my own assumptions Silent Hill F did it for me. His fight, fresh setting, and even an object, may not do it for you, but the most crucial thing is that even after so many years Silent Hill can still include an electrifying conversation.
