WHAT'S LEFT TO SAY ABOUT SILENT HILL?
371Everyone has talked about Silent Hill in one way or another. So many analysis and theory breakdown vids. So much talk about lore. Video essays picking apart this entire franchise. Since making "The Vibes of Silent Hill 4" I've had people ask me So I decided to revisit the 1999 PS1 classic SILENT HILL to see if there was anything to find that hasn't been in the popular discussion for years. I got interesting results to say the least, and they got a bit too introspective. From gameplay to presentation, to even a bit on story, I give you my thoughts on SILENT HILL. And the concept of "originality". Enjoy :)
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ALGO STUFF:
It’s hard to talk about Silent Hill, the game, as an isolated incident when you’re deeply invested in Silent Hill, the series. A bit of what I call the Konami Franchise Tax, which has a bit too much baggage to unpack in a video like this. Silent Hill 1 wasn’t my first survival horror game, nor is it my favorite, but it was the game that made me Get It. By stripping back some of the complexities of the genre to put all of its eggs in the “otherworldly psychological horror basket”, it’s no surprise that this game popped off out of nowhere. I think this game is fascinating, and wanted to look at it as a unique title stuck in a unique period of time. Inspired in part by the games that developed Survival Horror into its own genre, which then inspired countless games that followed in the next 25 years; Silent Hill is a technical and artistic achievement of a video game—especially impressive since team silent were underdogs of konami, but you don’t need another silent hill history lesson.
Harry Mason is driving his adopted daughter Cheryl to the town of Silent Hill for a vacation. Narrowly avoiding hitting a girl on the road, he wakes up alone in the titular town. As he sets off to make sense of where Cheryl could have gone, the game wastes no time getting you in the right headspace to prepare you for what's to come. As Harry follows what appears to be his daughter down a snowy, fog filled street, you can tell something’s off. The snow seems sudden and out of place, given the previous CG intro scene. The town is completely abandoned.. Eventually, you find yourself down a dark alleyway, the tension slowly rising as the world around you shifts. The alley changes, twisting and distorting more and more with every new camera angle. As you try to escape Humbert finds his way back blocked off, monsters swarming you until-
He wakes up in a panic, safely in a little local diner.
#silenthill #konami #horrorgames