1. The story was fantastic. The characters were great and i LOVED the psychiatrist parts.
2. The exploration was very well done on the wii. Amazing controls all around. Shame you played the ports. I heard they were bad.
3. I loved looking for the mementos and listening to the messages, and trying to figure out their meaning. You say they didnt add much to the game? hmmm
4. The feeling of being followed is something that bothers me. The chase sequences were actually very tense and unsettling and because i wasnt glued to the internet, i never knew when the ice world would suddenly kick in. I never had any problems with these.
5. Soundtrack was fantastic
To me Silent Hill is about having an experience, and not about following a strict check list that demands rusty demon worlds, piramid heads and fog. Supposedly its about the protagonists personal hell, and everything in SM actually feels like it belongs there. Nothing feels shoehorned in there as a wink wink to the fans.
So yeah, I cared about the characters, I cared about the story and the world intrigued me. Just walking around can be a wonderfull thing if you actually give a shit about everything surrounding you.
The story was good, definitely, but personally I didn't think it was
fantastic by any means. Silent Hill 3 already touched upon the relationship between father and daughter, and I actually cared much more about Heather and Harry in SH3 than I ever did in SM. As for the ports, the graphics were obviously terrible compared to the Wii version (but at least there were no motion controls), but my problems with the game wouldn't be solved even if I played the Wii version, since my problems stem from how empty, barren and boring the game ultimately is.
The messages and such are OK, but still somewhat pointless since they don't really play much into the main story of the game, but the mementos I don't get at all. They don't really serve any function, as they don't give you any memories, messages or anything like that. You just pick them up, store them, and then never see them again until the ending when Heather puts them away in a cardboard box. They're just pointless trinkets that Climax put in the game for no real reason.
Personally I've never liked chase sequences or games where I have no means of defense, so the Otherworld segments were nothing but an annoying nuisance to me. Also, the visual look of the Otherworld just wasn't very interesting compared to the hellish, morbid otherworld explored in SH1 and 3 (SH2 and 4 had somewhat more toned-down Otherworlds).
And the soundtrack was, overall, completely forgettable to me. I liked the main theme, the one that plays at the beginning of the game and during the credits, but the rest was the same phoned in shit Yamaoka delivered for 0rigins and Homecoming. I loved Yamaoka's work in SH 1-3, and 4 was OK, but after that he really didn't seem like he cared anymore.
Silent Hill is definitely more about the experience than about shit gets rusty and doors are locked (SH2 and 4 are examples here), as Homecoming felt like Double Helix were just checking off items on their list, but Shattered Memories had nothing of what I expect from a main series SH game; tension and an oppressive atmosphere. There were no scares, no sense of dread, no oppressive atmosphere, no real point in exploring what little area the game let you walk around in. It's so completely different from the other games I don't know if it should really be considered a Silent Hill game in anything but name. I just didn't care about the world, the characters or the gameplay. The one thing that saves it from being bottom of the barrel shit like Homecoming is the story.
And it's a shame because SM, if done right, could be a really good adventure game.
