TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
Oh, Silent Hill. The thinking man's Resident Evil. It's the Jacob's Ladder to Biohazard's Return of the Living Dead. I love both of the big names in Survival Horror, but Silent Hill is the only game/franchise to ever make me take sanity breaks to go outside and touch grass.
I'd heard about the franchise growing up, I believe my first exposure was an ad in a gaming magazine for Silent Hill 3 before I was even a gamer that had a screenshot of Heather, pipe in hand, facing down an Insane Cancer (I think that's the name, I'm old)
I didn't actually play the games until much later though. I played Silent Hill, the original, on a PS1 emulator at my desktop on the day Obama took office. I was absolutely terrified. The game was sort of scary, too. AYYYYY LMAO. Nah, Silent Hill, from the very first notes of the intro, just fucking OOZED it's own character and personality. It's VERY rare to me in contemporary games for a title to have it's own distinguishable flavor and atmosphere. Everything feels like a derivative of everything else, but Silent Hill just FELT LIKE a Silent Hill game, before I even knew what a Silent Hill game was.
Yamaoka's contrast of light piano, trip-hop bangers and industrial music at different points just added to the feeling of the game being like a constant clenching and unclenching of a fist. Hellish soundscapes like crossing the bridge after exiting the church, or what sounded like someone banging on basement pipes in a rhythm that was barely syncopated enough to be recognizable as a song in the Otherworld Alchemilla Hospital.
Everything about that game (even the shitty subtitles, "The time is neigh!" -Dahlia the horse) was just amazing, distinct, and something that I remember nearly every detail of my first playthrough, all these years later.
And that's not even my favorite game in the franchise! May post more thoughts later. SH is godly
I'd heard about the franchise growing up, I believe my first exposure was an ad in a gaming magazine for Silent Hill 3 before I was even a gamer that had a screenshot of Heather, pipe in hand, facing down an Insane Cancer (I think that's the name, I'm old)
I didn't actually play the games until much later though. I played Silent Hill, the original, on a PS1 emulator at my desktop on the day Obama took office. I was absolutely terrified. The game was sort of scary, too. AYYYYY LMAO. Nah, Silent Hill, from the very first notes of the intro, just fucking OOZED it's own character and personality. It's VERY rare to me in contemporary games for a title to have it's own distinguishable flavor and atmosphere. Everything feels like a derivative of everything else, but Silent Hill just FELT LIKE a Silent Hill game, before I even knew what a Silent Hill game was.
Yamaoka's contrast of light piano, trip-hop bangers and industrial music at different points just added to the feeling of the game being like a constant clenching and unclenching of a fist. Hellish soundscapes like crossing the bridge after exiting the church, or what sounded like someone banging on basement pipes in a rhythm that was barely syncopated enough to be recognizable as a song in the Otherworld Alchemilla Hospital.
Everything about that game (even the shitty subtitles, "The time is neigh!" -Dahlia the horse) was just amazing, distinct, and something that I remember nearly every detail of my first playthrough, all these years later.
And that's not even my favorite game in the franchise! May post more thoughts later. SH is godly