Was Silent Hill ever actually good? Don't be biased here

now play 4, don't let its "ewwww it's annoying! muh ghosts!" reputation turn you off it, they just got filtered. it's kino.

I like all the games but origins and book of memories. I respect Climax because fitting origins on a PSP sure seemed like a bitch of a work to do especially because it seemed like all the budget Konami had for development went toward MGS4.

I liked Downpour even if it was more similar to Condemned Criminal Origins than SH. It took me year to appreciate SH4, the presentation was odd but the story in question is thrilling, Walter gets way with everything.

Shattered Memories holds its own as an original ip. Would had loved to see more games like it.

But why? I see this series get praise far above most games as if it told the most legendary story ever. What made it good that other games lack?

Played SH2 earlier this year and it was fantastic.

Why don't you play them and form your own opinions you faggot?

>The game sucks mostly by today's standards.
What standards? Most survival horror series from the last decade are either wanna-be action games (Dead Space, Evil Within, Alan Wake, REmake 2, RE7), or shitty walking sims with some horror elements and awful "puzzles" (Amnesia, Outlast, Blair Witch, Layers of Fear, Soma). The genre has barely changed at all since the days of Silent Hill 2, which released 21 years ago.

Yeah it was pretty cool and ahead of its time when it released but was really held back by the PS1 hardware. Too bad the original director left and the sequels never tried to expand on the neat stuff like the non-linear exploration and semi-open world structure it had going on when they had more powerful hardware available.

The horror genre in general is shit. Just put spooky shit in games with actual mechanics instead.

Few of these games ever truly do that to how you expect from reading up or hearing about the genre. Item management exists in some year like RE but for most RE games it isn't like you will ever be struggling to maintain your resources unless you are an absolute garbage player worse than the filthiest of casuals.

I dont get wtf the appeal is. you run past hordes of stupid ai enemies which are easy to outmaneuver, even with tank controls. the voice acting is ass. the dude has no sense of urgency at the start of the game that I don't even care about advancing the story. I got to some random house and just quit

>muh sense of urgency!
filtered zoomer

He's probably talking about general vidya standards, like basic gameplay mechanics such as movement or object interaction. Voice acting and animations are also "off" compared to what is common practice today.

> I see this series get praise far above most games as if it told the most legendary story ever. What made it good that other games lack?
An actual serious portrayal of a batshit insane cult propped up against an ordinary town being corrupted by the occultic forces they summoned. The 2nd game being just a David Lynch story set in the backdrop of said setting. Also the monster and environment designs played a huge part in it.

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1 is the only good one.

Silent Hill 1 is the best in the series. immaculate and mysterious. Toyama Keiichiro created a timeless masterpiece that is a pioneer for the genre by emphasizing psychological-horror & elaborate puzzles. SH1 is innovative in that it expresses not the action-oriented "physical fear" of being attacked by zombies like Mikami Shinji's Resident Evil (which is a pioneer of the survival-horror genre), but the "psychological fear" of being confronted with one's own "inner darkness" from which one cannot escape while wandering through a world where something unidentifiable moves around in the fog. The creatures that appear in the game symbolize the memories and traumas of the character, which is terrifying to experience as you roam around the town searching for your daughter.
This game is a testament of how genius Toyama is and I highly recommend his other games.

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Yes, played through it 4 times. Didn't care for 2 or 3 though.

>you need to watch this scary movie where the guy is just oblivious, doesn't care, and isn't scared
fuck off

>Silent Hill 1 is the best in the series
That's not SH4 though

there's still no games that match 2-3 in their combination of terrifying situation and psychological depth
Most modern attempts are shitty walking simulators with plots obvious in the first 2 minutes
that being said, there's going to be a lot of contrarians here claiming SH was always shit simply because there's a bunch of SH praising Youtubers posting lots of vids in the last months

I think the problem is that to truly make the games horrific in how you need to manage your resources to survive would probably just filter and frustrate 90% of actual players.

2 is the masterpiece of the series and better

>as if it told the most legendary story ever
For the time, they were. And their presentation (the important part) still shines over most schlock made today.

At the time, the big appeal was exploring a whole town more or less freely. That was practically unheard of, especially in horror games that were mostly set in confined areas. It's not nearly as novel 20+ years later.

>Silent Hill 2 felt was overrated. It just didn't wow me the way I expected it to from the reputation it has. Silent Hill 3 is just really solid, I enjoyed it more than 2.

I'm going to guess it might be one of two things here. First guess is that you just enjoyed the cult plot/story more than what SH2 has to offer. This is understandable. Another thing though few seem to ever make mention is that SH2 is quite lacking I would say in unique monster designs, monster encounters, truly scary moments, etc. Its scariness and horror mostly comes out of teasing you that spooky is coming if you go down that hall or room. This very rarely ever actually happens in the game.

As a psychological horror or horror tease game it does this very well. The thing is though this won't be most people's cup of tea. Poppy playtime is scaring the kiddies way more than SH2 ever spooked people which says a lot.

If we're talking about Toyama, I gotta say that Siren > Silent Hill

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correct
incorrect, the monsters in SH1 were just monsters, the whole "symbol for trauma/inner demons" concept only started with SH2
Also SH3 is objectively the best, fixed all problems with SH2 while still being a full effort project

>I see this series get praise far above most games as if it told the most legendary story ever. What made it good that other games lack?
A perfect combination of atmosphere, writing, and presentation. Also the subject matter of the games was "dark", features taboo subjects like rape, molestation, discrimination against things other than Race, etc. The games weren't afraid to do things that might draw ire and disgust, and displayed a world of violence and misery.