Play Novel: Silent Hill (GBA) Playthrough [English] - NintendoComplete
536A playthrough of Konami's 2001 horror-themed visual novel for the Game Boy Advance, Play Novel: Silent Hill.
This video shows a play through both major story arcs:
Harry Mason 0:35
Cybil Bennett 1:58:53
Since the game was only officially released in Japan, I am playing using a newly released patch for the original GBA game. If you're interested in trying it out for yourself, you can find the files here: https://github.com/07151129/shpn_tool A big thanks to the creators of the patch!
Play Novel: Silent Hill is a loose adaptation of the original PlayStation survival horror classic. Instead of trying to shoehorn the full console game onto the Game Boy Advance, Konami has reworked the entire game in another genre. While it's not the first time they had done such a thing (they also remade Snatcher as a JRPG for the MSX2 with SD Snatcher), the unusual approach did make for some interesting results.
You begin the game playing the story from Harry's viewpoint, and once you've finished his tale, you get the option to play the same story from Cybil's, and the decisions you make as Harry directly impact Cybil's storyline. There's not a lot of meaningful choice woven into the plot, but there is enough to warrant a couple of playthroughs if you enjoyed it the first time through.
Everything is presented in a style similar to late-gen SNES visual and sound novels. You're essentially reading a make-your-own-adventure book, but it's gussied up with prerendered CGI backgrounds (presumably created from assets used in the PS1 game), sometimes overlaid with little atmospheric animated flourishes like snow or flickering flames. There's no speech and not much music to speak of - the sound is generally ambient in design - but there is some fun (and impressive, especially in 2001!) use of FMV from the original game sprinkled throughout.
The limitations of the GBA and of the cartridge format are immediately apparent in the game's terrible audio, unfortunately. The overly compressed samples are sharp on the ears and prone to ringing, and their lacking quality negates any meaningful impact that the sound design might've had. Thankfully, the visuals fare much better. The backgrounds clearly have lost some color and resolution in the conversion, but they still manage to look clean and well-defined on the small GBA screen. The same goes for the video clips. They're very short, but they look great, animate smoothly, and are effective at setting a scene on the rare occasions that they're used.
Even if this had been released in America, I have my doubts that it would've sold particularly well. The visual novel genre was still a real rarity among localized games at the time, and while Play Novel: Silent Hill was an interesting proposition, it's not especially well written. The translation here is faithful to the original, and though it could do with a good revision, it does reflect the general quality of the writing in the Japanese version. It makes some big narrative leaps with little rhyme or reason, the characters are flatter than cardboard, and many of the decisions you're given are totally inconsequential to the plot.
Overall, the game feels like a bit of fan-service that assumes your prior experience with Silent Hill. It's a laid back and entertaining way to pass a few hours for sure. It's no replacement for the experience of the original game, but it works nicely as a supplement to it, and if you enjoyed the original PlayStation game, you'll probably enjoy this novelty too.
*Recorded using a Retroarch LCD shader to mimic the look of the original hardware.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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