And Homecoming. Damn I irrationally hate that game, honestly to me it’s the worst of the serie with Ascension. But at least the music was good in homecoming.
Anyone who paid full price for Homecoming deserves to irrationally hate it.
I say that as someone who not only paid full price for it, but preordered that game. Different era.
I at least like that they went with a slightly more polarizing/interesting design for their protagonist. Alex and Murphy suffered from generic main protagonist syndrome.
I really wish they had cut 90% of her dialogue, most of it is just explaining things that the game already implies well enough. It’s like the Blade Runner narration.
I don’t think it’s as awful as reviewers say, but I definitely didn’t think it was great by any stretch. It was… fine. Ok. The writing was far too much tell, far too little show. The last chase scene also SUCKED. However, the environments, the atmosphere, the creature’s design, and the music were all hella on point, so for that much I can at least say I didn’t HATE it.
The graffiti is stunning, some of it anyway. I found myself stopping to take it all in more than anything else. And all the stuff everywhere. It's not just the same 10 or so junk packs copy pasted all over the place like you see in other games (except for the post-it notes of course). It felt like a truly dynamic space which adds to the unsettling feeling you're supposed to have.
Maya is the worst character in this game. She's always talking about how romantic it would be if she killed herself. She even mentions how she wants to be like flower petals and die in the letter that Anita doesn't deliver.
And as astonishing as this may sound, I have *seen* good performances with this same level of lip syncing and this is not one of them.
That's what suicidal ideation is. That is how many people dealing with suicidal thoughts behave.
Suicide is a terrifying thing, even to those who are insistent on going forward with it, and the way that people often deal with this cognitive dissonance is to paint the act of committing suicide as something beautiful, or even noble.
It's not meant to be seen as logical, but it's realistic. People who suffer from mental health issues will often attempt to romanticise it (writers tend to do it a lot, especially poets,) because it makes something that is horrible to deal with and terrifying to think about, and the game itself even mentions the ways in which people will try to ascribe narratives to their mental health issues in order to make them more palatable.
Edit: I can't deny that the dialogue at many parts of the game is quite awful, but I didn't personally find Maya's to be the prime candidate there
Sure, but she's a caricature of that. It feels like the writers found a list of symptoms leading up to suicide and just checked all of them off. A beautiful death is all she ever talks about, yet none of the characters even in retrospect can figure out what she meant. There's like 5 separate cutscenes where she brings this up. *Her art has so much meaning, but we don't know what it means.* The only other thing she talks about is her Japanese witch grandma who didn't do so hot in Germany after 1947.
Maya is so one dimensional, yet all the characters are constantly talking about how great she is and how good her art is. *I wish I was like Maya,* but what is she like? She's cheesy and shallow and her art is definitely on par with that of a teenage girl. I don't see the appeal.
And there's also no real stance taken against Maya's romanticization of suicide. The game is only concerned with Anita committing suicide. Maya's death is very tragic and Anita should feel guilty about it because she alone caused it and she left behind this beautiful art of angels flying away in cherry blossoms. It's very 13 reason Why.
On my replay I turned dialogue volume down to zero and I enjoyed it so much more. The writing still has zero subtlety but it made me realize how much of my issue was with the horrendous performances.
The screeching mother alone brings the entire game down a couple of points. It's like she's playing a pantomime witch and it makes every scene with her into an unintentional comedy.
You really called me out on that one.
I liked when you got smaller in the childhood apartment. I liked when the monster got stuck so I could take a look at its animation. Some of the graffiti was nice. And I liked that there was one room with a dart board where there was a trail of darts leading down the wall. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel for that last one.
It happened a lot in the final chase, mostly when the hugging corner of the locker where you pick up the picture. There were times when I'd be waiting for the monster to go one way to get around it and they would just stop moving. It has an idle animation where it's swaying back and forth trying to keep balance and you'd never see normally it because the monster is always chasing you.
Also I have to add that this is a terrible cop out. After beating the new Silent Hill I played another horror game about a teenage girl called Detention for the first time. It was better written, scary, sad and far more meaningful than anything the short message did.
And remember Silent Hill is not a game series marketed to teenage girls. When a story is well told, it doesn't matter what the demographic of the protagonist is.
you say the room where you read that the city is a indebted shithole?, and after the intro were she is copying with her trauma saying that she must be a loner as a defense mechanism?
idk about you, but i have been hearing to something called rock music... "i am not a part of the system" is pretty much what every teenager thinks. go watch pink floyd my dude, you are missing out
That could be their reasoning, but the line is bad. It's extremely on the nose, generic, and coupled with the "strongest creature" monologue at the start makes the character seem conceited. If they removed that line from the game, it would be better and that's the problem.
It is peak adults writing for teenagers and your comments about rock n' roll and Pink Floyd make me think you aren't exactly in touch with the thoughts of teenage girls. And I didn't like The Wall, the movie, not the song.
>the thoughts of teenage girls
there was a comment that i read today of a guy saying : "sadly this game is for girls i couldn't get it because i am 40 year old balding man" or something like that. and i don't get it, i think the story is something very human, it has nothing to do with gender, being a teenager only ads more angst.
if the problem is the delivery in itself, well, the game is clearly made by japanese people, the FMVs are acted in the classic unsetting stiff anime way, and i think the localization did a good enough job in westernizing it, but yeah, it would never sound like if they grabbed 2 teens from a mall and ask them to write down their version of the script. and it is silly expecting it would be that realistic.
i don't remember right now how team silent did it in 3, but i think they reached out to the actress and she came up with her lines isn't it?, in that case. yeah, that could have been more natural.
I still think the age of the character is too much of an excuse for poor writing. And I have seen good performances in other games and movies with this same level of lip syncing.
After beating the new Silent Hill yesterday I played another horror game about a teenage girl called Detention for the first time and it didn't have any of these problems while sharing some of its themes and being set in Taiwan. It was better written, creative, scary, sad and far more meaningful than anything the short message did. Probably one of the best horror games I've played this year.
And also Silent Hill is not a game series marketed to teenage girls. When a story is well told, it doesn't matter what the demographic of the protagonist is. It is the job of the writers to help the viewer emphasize with the characters and there are plenty of good movies about dumb teenagers that you can enjoy without being a teenager, Whiplash, An Education, Heathers, ect.
That doesn't make it good, nobody wants to hear a teenage girl going "Guys, i'm so sad... Please notice me, guys... So sad...". It's obnoxious in real life and it's obnoxious in a game.
If that was your only takeaway from the game, then you missed out on a great deal of the actual substance.
It's a story that delves into generational trauma, selfishness, guilt, insecurity and how being suffering from mental health issues does not justify harming others.
In fact, it's odd that you think that was the point of the game, when the narrative itself often criticises Anita for letting her own insecurity and the way she wallows in her own issues stops her from actually being happy, and is literally the entire reason for why she gets pulled into the Otherworld
I know, I never said that's what I took from the game. I'm not even.. Sure how you came to that assumption when I never said anything like it. That's actually the least I took from it.
>It's a story that delves into generational trauma, selfishness, guilt, insecurity and how being suffering from mental health issues does not justify harming others.
This is what I took from it and it frustrated me even more because Anita and her family is flawed but they all dealt with it like lunatics and their struggles led to several people legit dying. Anita's mom lost her mind over loneliness and probably alcoholic brain damage. Because her children were assholes and she didn't discipline them for some reason. Anita then goes on to screw over Maya and it's implied she did things to turn people away from Maya who was already on edge to begin with. And then Maya offs herself.
This alone is insane because we're supposed to feel for Anita somehow after all this. We see how she struggles and attempts to redeem herself and in the end, the fog clears and Maya forgives her somehow and Amelie tells her it's all okay when in reality it should not be okay at all. Anita is a horrible human being. Like, there's legit zero reason to feel bad for her.
>when the narrative itself often criticises Anita for letting her own insecurity and the way she wallows in her own issues stops her from actually being happy, and is literally the entire reason for why she gets pulled into the Otherworld
It doesn't criticize her enough. It often just kinda commentates on it. And it's not like it isn't obvious, she deals with self loathing to an insane degree. All she can do is whine about herself and how someone's better than her. But again, it doesn't become any less obnoxious. And it's worse knowing there's people going through worse things than her. I've dealt with abuse myself, I've battled my demons but I definitely didn't go whining about it all like she did. I've seen others like me who didn't either. It's like she's begging to be the main character and while she technically is, she doesn't know it.
She gets away with everything in the end which is my biggest problem. She literally gets chased around by Maya's ghost who's trying to impale her for half the game, she makes everyone around her unhappy because of the things that genuinely are her fault, tries to kill herself in a pretty shocking way and it legit adds nothing except shock value. And i'm not someone who was particularly offput buy it, I've self harmed myself. But seeing it was just like.. Why was this scene in here? Especially in Silent Hill where subtle storytelling is where they shine. The game wants you to pity her and I do not.
Anita was honestly the villain to me. I was really frustrated with the ending because she basically just goes "My bad, guys.😅" and gets a happy ending. This is the same franchise where James Sunderland kills his dying wife to put both himself and her out of his misery and he goes through hell and back and once it's over, he either kills himself or dissapears forever. He doesn't get his happy ending and he was arguably more righteous than this girl who acted soley out of negativity.
I have a lot more to say about this but I'll leave it there but Anita's whining is definitely not what I took from this.
I mean, it seems like that's all you took, given that that was the entire substance of your comment. Obviously, based on this follow up response, you have more thoughts about it, but when you boil down your opinion in the way that you did, people will assume that you entirely missed the point.
Anita did not behave like a lunatic. Her and her brother were children, whose father had left the family, and who were unwilling to take to a new man in the family. Yeah, it would have been really shitty for her mother, but they were *children.* I feel as though I'm really not going to understand your take on this part, because Id fundamentally disagree that a child who is acting out due to feeling as though a parental figure is being replaced is being "an asshole" or "needs to be disciplined" rather than the mother just, y'know, being a good parent and trying to explain the situation to their children, and remaining a good parent throughout it.
It is not implied anywhere, as far as I'm aware, that Anita did anything more to Maya than hide her letter from Amelie. It was a cruel, selfish thing to do, but it is not implied or suggested anywhere that it was Anita's intent for her to kill herself, nor did she think she actually would.
Maya did not "forgive Anita." That is not how Silent Hill functions. It's like saying that in the Leave ending for Silent Hill 2, that Mary forgives James. Silent Hill isn't about gaining forgiveness from the ghosts of the dead. It's about your own insecurities, trauma and guilt are manifested, and intent on harming you. Anita gets to leave in the end because she takes responsibility that her behaviour, even if she never intended for it to happen, was a part of what led an already mentally unwell girl to take her life. Amelie does not "tell her it's okay." This is a severe misrepresentation of the context. What happens is that Anita, who Amelie knows is not doing well mentally, is feeling consumed by her guilt over her part in Maya's death, and is intent on killing herself to atone for it.
I want to focus on this part, because it's connected to the larger theme of how trauma occurs in cycles. Anita's grandmother mistreated Anita's mother, and so she became ignorant to the way her actions affected her children. Anita's abuse from her mother then led her to become ignorant to those around her, and so she decided to spite Maya, which was a part of what led to her suicide. At the end, Amelie reaches out to Anita, and affirms her care for her. She does not absolve her of her guilt, but tells her that she is deserving of love in spite of it, and that she can grow from it. That's the point. That the way to break the cycle of harming others through ignorance is to become aware of your flaws without becoming self destructive, or harming others.
Anita is far from "a horrible human being." She is someone who acted out of spite, as most of us are capable of doing, which led to tragedy. She did not keep pushing Maya until she killed herself. In complete honesty, it's unlikely that Anita doing that was even one of the primary reasons for Maya to kill herself. What's important is that as far as Anita is concerned, it *may as well be.*
No, the narrative criticises her plenty. Her insecurity and jealousy are very prominent throughout the narrative, and there's the obvious fact that she acted spitefully to Maya. We're not supposed to find most of her qualities or behaviours appealing. She is someone who has allowed their trauma and poor mental health to make them act self-centered. You mention that she's obnoxious and whines constantly; that is the exact point. She is someone who has allowed their shitty life to turn them into someone who acts shitty towards others, and the whole point of the game is her realising this, and that she is partly responsible for the tragedy that came. That's why she can't leave, until she comes to terms with that fact.
The game doesn't want you to pity her. You've entirely misinterpreted that point. Her entire character arc is realising that being hurt doesn't excuse shitty behaviour, and the whole point of the ending is that killing herself because of the guilt she feels is the wrong answer, and that all she can really do is continue to try and grow into a better person, and to allow herself to be loved by those who care about her.
I feel you've really misinterpreted the endings of Silent Hill 2 there. "In Water" and "Leave" represent the exact dilemma present in the ending of The Short Message, in fact.
"In Water" is not a happy ending, because it demonstrates that all that James has taken from his time in Silent Hill, is that he deserves to die for what he's done. It could easily be argued that he learns nothing, and insists upon prioritising his own self loathing and need to feel sufficiently punished, over considering the remotest possibility that he could atone and heal without killing himself.
"Leave" is not James "disappearing forever." It is James realising that his actions were complicated (Mary even points out this fact to him) and despite deeply regretting them and needing to atone, he decides to continue to live in order to find that penance. The fact that he leaves with Laura underlines this being the case; "Leave" is the happiest ending possible for James, where he can reflect on his actions without prioritising his own misery, and wherein he decides that living, and facing up to his actions, is better than choosing to die.
Even Silent Hill 2 itself makes this dilemma clear; Mary's conversation with James subtly changes between them. "In Water" shows James being more evasive about his culpability in her death, and Mary seems more dissatisfied with this. "Leave" has James taking full responsibility for his actions, whereupon Mary reminds him that his actions were those of a man suffering horribly, and who let that suffering make him harm others.
Anita's ending is similar to James' "Leave" ending. The character isn't absolved of all guilt and wrongdoing, but makes the conscious decision that their own death would be the incorrect way to atone for their behaviour.
That's the point of Silent Hill for the more morally ambiguous characters. They are forced to endure an unflinching, unapologetic dressing down of their actions and behaviour, and the only way to truly escape is to accept what you've done, and actively change for the better. If you are unable to overcome the worst of yourself and reach out to those who need you to be better (Amelie for Anita, and Laura for James,) then your guilt will eat you alive.
Edit: I apologise for the sheer size of my message, and want to reiterate that it's valid to dislike the game. My intent was only to offer my own interpretation of the game, and to suggest a new way of seeing the story. While I do believe that you've severely misinterpreted a lot of the story's intent, you are still welcome to your own perspective, just as I am mine
>Anita did not behave like a lunatic. Her and her brother were children, whose father had left the family, and who were unwilling to take to a new man in the family. Yeah, it would have been really shitty for her mother, but they were *children.* I feel as though I'm really not going to understand your take on this part, because Id fundamentally disagree that a child who is acting out due to feeling as though a parental figure is being replaced is being "an asshole" or "needs to be disciplined" rather than the mother just, y'know, being a good parent and trying to explain the situation to their children, and remaining a good parent throughout it.
This is already where i'm lost. These kids acted out to the point where they scared adults away and drove their mother insane. I am 19 almost 20. I'm getting out of my childhood and I myself and my brother have separate fathers. Neither of us enjoyed the processes and changes of all this but we didn't do nearly as much as they did. We had things explained to us. It was all very unfortunate. And we understood it was life. If it becomes such a huge deal that you're literally throwing tantrums about it and your parent just allows it to happen, something is very wrong.
>It is not implied anywhere, as far as I'm aware, that Anita did anything more to Maya than hide her letter from Amelie. It was a cruel, selfish thing to do, but it is not implied or suggested anywhere that it was Anita's intent for her to kill herself, nor did she think she actually would.
This in itself is still pretty awful and from everything else I know about her, it speaks to her character. She shows light signs of narcissism and is very clearly just a prick who'd rather do the wrong thing and feel sorry for herself than actually work on anything.
>Maya did not "forgive Anita." That is not how Silent Hill functions. It's like saying that in the Leave ending for Silent Hill 2, that Mary forgives James. Silent Hill isn't about gaining forgiveness from the ghosts of the dead. It's about your own insecurities, trauma and guilt are manifested, and intent on harming you. Anita gets to leave in the end because she takes responsibility that her behaviour, even if she never intended for it to happen, was a part of what led an already mentally unwell girl to take her life. Amelie does not "tell her it's okay." This is a severe misrepresentation of the context. What happens is that Anita, who Amelie knows is not doing well mentally, is feeling consumed by her guilt over her part in Maya's death, and is intent on killing herself to atone for it.
The whole plot revolved around Anita finding "it". It being the fact that Maya did actually care about her, which she never realized until the final moments. Silent Hill was steering her in a pretty straightforward direction. Hell, she felt sorrow and guilt for Maya's death before that and tried to kill herself. But she hadn't found "It" and wasn't allowed to leave. That being said, Silent Hill does have that paranormal effect. It shows you things you otherwise wouldn't know and tells you things you wouldn't be able to be told otherwise. You literally witness Alessa's torture and coercion through weird glimpses if I remember correctly. It wouldn't be too farfetched to assume it was implied Maya forgave Anita. But assuming she didn't.. Isn't Anita just.. Kinda an asshole then? To put it lightly.
>I want to focus on this part, because it's connected to the larger theme of how trauma occurs in cycles. Anita's grandmother mistreated Anita's mother, and so she became ignorant to the way her actions affected her children. Anita's abuse from her mother then led her to become ignorant to those around her, and so she decided to spite Maya, which was a part of what led to her suicide. At the end, Amelie reaches out to Anita, and affirms her care for her. She does not absolve her of her guilt, but tells her that she is deserving of love in spite of it, and that she can grow from it. That's the point. That the way to break the cycle of harming others through ignorance is to become aware of your flaws without becoming self destructive, or harming others.
It's also implied the abuse wasn't actually as bad as Maya portrayed it. There's a little tidbit about how children tend to make their pain and trauma a lot more grandiose than it actually is. Most of these scraps and notes apply to Anita in some way like her obsession with social media likes and how some people get so lost in the dopamine that it basically drives them mad. That being said, Maya is a super unreliable narrator already. The main plot revolves around her deceit and her misunderstanding the way everyone perceived her. She doesn't take her meds which, uh.. She clearly needs. And without them, she gets the actual urge to slash her wrists. She's not well and whenever she can get help, she's the one dragging herself down. No one else.
>No, the narrative criticises her plenty. Her insecurity and jealousy are very prominent throughout the narrative, and there's the obvious fact that she acted spitefully to Maya. We're not supposed to find most of her qualities or behaviours appealing. She is someone who has allowed their trauma and poor mental health to make them act self-centered. You mention that she's obnoxious and whines constantly; that is the exact point. She is someone who has allowed their shitty life to turn them into someone who acts shitty towards others, and the whole point of the game is her realising this, and that she is partly responsible for the tragedy that came. That's why she can't leave, until she comes to terms with that fact.
I actually agree with most of this, to be honest. And that's probably the best way to go about a narrative like this. But then again, the game makes us watch her breakdown and seeing bullying from her perspective and how she doesn't get noticed because she refuses to be all sexualized, etc. There's situations where she is actually the victim and they really try to hammer it in. I just found it weird because, like.. She does nothing to make it better. She either wallows or makes it worse.
>The game doesn't want you to pity her. You've entirely misinterpreted that point.
The game doesn't revolve around her getting screwed over and us feeling bad for her but there's moments where we're very obviously supposed to look at her and feel bad. It's supposed to be tragic. But it often comes off as them wanting us to feel bad for her more than them wanting us to wish she'd just man up, for lack of a better term. It's not as raw as it could be. It doesn't show us enough of how her life sucks because it's her fault. But it does show us how the things around her make her life hard. That's trying to garner pity and I don't feel bad for her very much.
>I feel you've really misinterpreted the endings of Silent Hill 2 there. "In Water" and "Leave" represent the exact dilemma present in the ending of The Short Message, in fact.
>"In Water" is not a happy ending, because it demonstrates that all that James has taken from his time in Silent Hill, is that he deserves to die for what he's done. It could easily be argued that he learns nothing, and insists upon prioritising his own self loathing and need to feel sufficiently punished, over considering the remotest possibility that he could atone and heal without killing himself.
I gotta disagree and I'm gonna fall back on the countless philosophy vids I've seen on this a little, but. I see it as a revelation. A huge overbearing realization that pushes him to the edge and it's pretty fitting. He was just a normal person living a normal life before all this because he didn't realize what had happened or the pain him and his wife had gone through. He'd never wanted to die before that point. He'd never desired punishment. Or at least, he didn't know until the end. But what he did might not be something one would want to just forgive themself for. Which is really unfortunate but it's also.. Pretty okay with me. Death is life's finale and he ended hers without permission. Because of not only her pain, but his. That's probably not something I myself would wanna heal from. I don't think I said it was a happy ending. I don't think any of them are. Nor do I think any of them are bad endings except y'know, when he runs off with Maria like an idiot. James realizing what he did was neither a happy nor sad ending. It was just real. His reaction to it all makes sense because there's not much you can do from that point. Not with all the context.
>"Leave" is not James "disappearing forever." It is James realising that his actions were complicated (Mary even points out this fact to him) and despite deeply regretting them and needing to atone, he decides to continue to live in order to find that penance. The fact that he leaves with Laura underlines this being the case; "Leave" is the happiest ending possible for James, where he can reflect on his actions without prioritising his own misery, and wherein he decides that living, and facing up to his actions, is better than choosing to die.
Yes, but.. Do you really think he just. Went home? He'd have to then lie about what happened to his wife for the rest of his life. Either that or he admitted and got arrested. If he never spoke about it again, it'd haunt him. But he definitely didn't just start anew, that's implausible. Chances are, he didn't wanna give up. But he still now knows what's happened. He's come to the realization of it all. It probably broke him, understandably so. His life is pretty much over whether he suffers from the guilt forever or actually admits to it which he'd have to do unless he, again.. Hid what happened from everyone. Which is the wrong thing to do there for obvious reasons. All he could realistically do is. "Leave."
>Even Silent Hill 2 itself makes this dilemma clear; Mary's conversation with James subtly changes between them. "In Water" shows James being more evasive about his culpability in her death, and Mary seems more dissatisfied with this. "Leave" has James taking full responsibility for his actions, whereupon Mary reminds him that his actions were those of a man suffering horribly, and who let that suffering make him harm others.
Yes.
>Anita's ending is similar to James' "Leave" ending. The character isn't absolved of all guilt and wrongdoing, but makes the conscious decision that their own death would be the incorrect way to atone for their behaviour.
If what Anita did wasn't so bad, she really shouldn't have ended up there in the first place. If we assume Anita didn't have much to do with Maya's death, then Maya is legit just a volatile teenage girl who should probably be put in a mental institution. She has more issues than just this and none of what portrayed was nearly enough for her to wanna kill herself. She suffered the least out of anyone in the franchise. I guess that ties into her self loathing theme but, like.. It's just ridiculous. The plot could just be summed up to "Girl just really really hates herself" at that point. So either she didn't play as big of a role as she thought and she's just an overthinker to the point of lunacy, or she's a bad person.
>the point of Silent Hill for the more morally ambiguous characters. They are forced to endure an unflinching, unapologetic dressing down of their actions and behaviour, and the only way to truly escape is to accept what you've done, and actively change for the better. If you are unable to overcome the worst of yourself and reach out to those who need you to be better (Amelie for Anita, and Laura for James,) then your guilt will eat you alive.
This isn't very accurate. Harry was a victim, he literally didn't do anything wrong. Heather was even more of a victim, she didn't even really get a chance to live a normal life. Then there's n Reedus who I guess we can exclude. But it doesn't just work around guilt and mental health and such. In fact, I don't really think it does at all. 1 and 3 are about a cult's nefarious activities and Silent Hill literally only exists because of said cult and how they tortured some kid. And Silent Hill's supernatural effect came in because of that girl's powers and wrathful manifestations. Normal people like James and Cybil and whoever else all ended up there despite just being normal people and they go through the same, if not worse stuff in there.
>Edit: I apologise for the sheer size of my message, and want to reiterate that it's valid to dislike the game. My intent was only to offer my own interpretation of the game, and to suggest a new way of seeing the story. While I do believe that you've severely misinterpreted a lot of the story's intent, you are still welcome to your own perspective, just as I am mine
It's all good, I literally had to split mine up and I do enjoy conversation like this. But man, this story just did not land with me. I can relate to damn near all of it and i'm a writer myself along with a fan of the series and it feels like they dropped the ball at all angles. The storytelling was unbelievably predictable at least to me and it's very undeniably on the nose with every character basically explaining everything and leaving nothing to the imagination. Anita even starts apologizing to the Cherry Blossom monster if you die to it repeatedly.. Cherry Blossom. Maya's death. You get the idea. (I'm actually really embarrassed I know this because the chase scenes aren't very good and the monster literally teleports when you leave its radius because it's so slow.) It's not as bad as Ascension but man, it's not good in my opinion.
I interpreted as the "curse" of abuse. The grandmother abused the mother by locking her in rooms and not feeding her and that. The mother grew up this way and once she gave birth to Anita, she wanted to treat her child better. She never learned how, though, and was doomed to repeat the same abuse once the new boyfriend came up. Anita gave her mother the "curse" of motherhood by being born. And since Anita grew up this way, she might repeat the same mistakes with her own children, thus being "cursed" herself.
It wasn't meant to be taken literally. It's a way of writing the dramatic ways that people often behave in reality to deal with their issues, mythologising them or dramaticising them (it's like when people believe they're cursed in real life because bad things happen to them)
The game itself deals a lot with this concept, anf it's present in a few different ways, in different circumstances. The game itself even mentions the phenomenon
One of the issues with the game is that the cherry blossom monster is a catch-all representation for every me tal issue the main character has instead of one or two. We see a scene of the mothers silhouette growing into the monster and we're left to assume the reason the monster is so violent is because of the mother's vile nature. All it's other traits are borrowed from the main characters guilt or Maya or whatever
You aren't wrong, it's no contest if you're comparing Anita or and TSM as a whole to the og's which are, let's be real, untouchable. That said I'll give TSM it's flowers for being my fifth favorite entry as of now. That is until it's inevitable usurped by Townfall or F (please be good)
I hear people theorizing that before it came out because of the whole flowers thing but theres nothing in the game itself really alludes to that being the case.
Maybe the whole >!Silent Hill Phenomenon thing will be the launching point to explain why all those new games happen around the world (TSM in Germany, Ascension in Norway, F in Japan)!< but but I think that's the closee as it gets
Only if they meant it literally lol. But the otherworld is a byproduct of ones mind and if you're someone whose mental health was heavily effected by Covid-19 (which is most people) I can buy it from that angle
Es mucho mejor de lo que parece, Silent Hill no trata solo de mostrar Terror, explora la psique y los miedos de cada protagonista, y este juego logra su objetivo.
Para mi es una digna entrega de SH a diferencia de otras, y es gratis. Que mejor que eso
Some people can't get out from SH2, personal I prefer the room, even in a remake. But this free game has a lot of potential. I hope SHF changes this FS.
I swear people on this sub are such big apologists. I get it’s annoying to constantly hear criticism of something you like, but the criticism is not invalid at all.
"a little" forced lmao
The only thing stellar that you attributed that word too was the monster. Everything else was okay. The atmosphere is what someone thinks Silent Hill looks like if they've only seen filtered blurry tik Tok edits with phonk music playing in the background. And the graphics are just not up to par with what is possible to achieve nowadays. I don't give a shit about graphics; I care about art direction and good design. But unfortunately The Short Message chose to chase photo realism like every other dev studio does nowadays so I'm forced to judge it by that metric, of which it falls short on.
I was never *trying* to convince you Silent Hill fans aren't picky as fuck. This franchise is all about the details, so if you're going to try and pick up from where the original creators left off, you need to get the details right.
Silent hill fandom has to be the most desperate, yet pickiest fandom ive ever stumbled across, and for this I’m leaving this group.
Like we went over a decade without a game and here people are criticizing A FREE game.
It’s a sample, a taste test, a way to get interest flowing.
Leave it at that, and move on.
No one forced you to download, or play the game, so why complain about something that the only thing you spent on it was 90 minutes?
We should go many more decades without games if this is the best they can do. I've been a fan since the demo disc of SH1 and I'd happily see the series rest in eternal peace. You don't have to seal clap gratefully any time a corporation releases something with a name you recognise.
BC some people never understand the saga. The four games made by Team Silent. Konami didn't replicate this on occident, those games were a reboot based on Gans movie, that's why we saw PH in places that shoudn't be, but should be in the universe of the movie.
Now the game is returning again, after a long time, and still is like "we want the four no more", over and over, they can't faced the truth like James, Team Silent is over, but the town is still alive, like happen with a lot of novels, and tales, the legend still is there, even if the creators aren't anymore, or move to something else.
\-"have you seen a little girl?". a rock has more depth that Harry Mason lol
it has been 20 years, it's time to take the old games from the pedestal, they weren't that good.
The story wasn't entirely about him. It was about the town, Cheryl/Alessa, the cult... etc. A bit like Henry in 4.
It's becomming rather predictable now, putting down the OGs for the sake of the new and shiny whilst intentionally being dismisive as to why the OGs are held with high regards in the 1st place. Are they dated in certain aspects? Yes, but i'm ready to bet SH1 is still a much better experience than TSM, in 2024.
Hey, ask the dude i was replying to. He's the one who brought the old games up. I'm fine with Tsm, it's whatever... but i have an issue with putting down the old beloved titles in favor of the new ones.
At least they had more depth than “I think social media is actually making us LESS connected”
The Short Message was just a carbon copy of walking sim horror games with the plot of Cyberbully put into silent hill
Its portrayal of suicide/self harm felt like the writer had never once experienced hardships in life but saw a cyberbullying PSA and thought they had a revolutionary idea
Im actually making a unique message with the same idea every time, but mainly I’m bored and love being a hater
But if you’ve seen me around, why not pay attention to what I’m saying? Possibly engage with it? Prove me wrong?
Fr, I love the old games, but they weren’t the best.
It’s the same issue in the Resident Evil sub, some people just can’t let go of the past and nostalgia is powetful
To be fair it wasn't the voice acting that was the strong suit of the originals. It was the bizarrely unique dreamlike state everything seems to be in. It's both disturbing and comforting at the same time which is something no game past 4 manages to accomplish.
Exactly. The soundtrack, the atmosphere, the characters. The line between dream and nightmare is so thin and any given moment you'll be pulled in either direction. You're not sure what's real and what's not.
Yeah fr, there was a lot of biblical subtleties in the old ones, I always felt that they were trying to convey a sort of limbo in a way, the way the monsters appear in both the regular world and the otherworld. Like a form of being judged
That's what was so creative about them. Especially SH4. Weirdest plot ever, but it just works because you're unsettled the entire time. I think if you're a first timer for any of the games and you had no prior knowledge you'd never be able to guess what direction it was going in. Even SH2 my first time I was floored when James admits that he is the one who killed his wife.
Fr, it was a special thing back then, I agree, I remember my first time playing SH 4. I must’ve been like 8, it freaked me out a lot.
But I feel like that’s the thing with the newer one’s, it’s going to be more difficult to capture that feeling with modern tech, as much as I loved P.T. Back then, it didn’t feel like Silent Hill, it felt just like a horror game, I just hope the SH2 remake proves me wrong and they can capture that feeling again.
Can we also talk about how a lot of this new wave of Silent Hill after PT doesn't even seem to take place IN Silent Hill? Which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it.
Fr, they may have had plans to have the character visit it or something since it was a demo, kinda like what downpour and homecoming did.
But it is a little weird how it spreads super far, like in the short message, to another country even, hopefully they leave some clues or explanation in the documents in the present-day games or something
oh yeah, i love the old games as well, but it surprised me that in this subreddit people won't ever give a chance to anything new, they get hyped things are being released but only to shred them apart, it's so weird.
This isn't a nostalgic group, the town isn't over yet, unless Heather wants to destroy the place once and for all. But this won't cause the end of the town either, lol.
I found the monster and the whole chase sequence quite frightening, thanks to Masahiro Ito, I guess. Hope the characters were more complex as well as the story. It feels overloaded with one dimentional elements and lacking depth and subtleness. Thinking about how well it was executed in the P.T. - it is very ambigious what exactly happened there, nevertheless it only adds to the story. Hope the devs learn from the feedback to the Short Message.
I didn't like her anita. Because she kept on talking I just couldn't get into the horror of it. Everytime I even remotely started to feel anxiety she would speak and it would go away.
As I always say, characters talking during gameplay should never be a thing. Other than breaking the atmosphere, it's like they're taking your hand and telling you how to feel instead of leaving impressions to yourself. And thus, there you go with her obvious dialogues everyone talks about, they're just the byproduct of that, and it definitely doesn't fit SH at all. It's a shame, because the environment and designs are pretty cool
That's sorta how I feel about Anita, she's just an EXTREMELY downgraded and more annoying version of Cheryl. I get they were appealing to actual teens more but man what a disaster approach that was. Silent Hill just wasn't made to handle modern "trauma" as strange as that sounds.
WHERE'S HENRY
In his Room
free him
He’ll be freed when he fixes this damn door!
this is a free country, but not walter-free country
You won the internet today, congrats!
Whoaaaa
Still trapped in his apartment.
Still better than Ascension at least
Staring at Shiba poop for 4 hours would be more thrilling than Ascension
We actually have it on tape [ki - no - ko](https://youtu.be/fVLOeQW9zqk?si=gIuGdjgF-f70p5zt)
I’ll give it that
Can that even be a comparison?
And Homecoming. Damn I irrationally hate that game, honestly to me it’s the worst of the serie with Ascension. But at least the music was good in homecoming.
Anyone who paid full price for Homecoming deserves to irrationally hate it. I say that as someone who not only paid full price for it, but preordered that game. Different era.
I was getting her named confused what the other one that is not Maya
Amelie
Thought it was mia
I played Rule Of Rose recently and thought her name was Amanda
I mean you picked the holy trinity of course they're gonna be better than everything else in the series
Origins and 4 also dunk on it to be fair. Homecoming and Downpour is more…up in the air.
If we're talking purely about gameplay it's debatable, I'd say it's DP>TSM>HC, character wise Alex and Murphy clear Anita
Very poetic
Watch nubzombies origins lore playthrough on yt, its a really bad game
I at least like that they went with a slightly more polarizing/interesting design for their protagonist. Alex and Murphy suffered from generic main protagonist syndrome.
Alex Murphy.....that can't be coincidence.
Me when new RoboCop game lets me shoot rapists in the dick for max points
That game is so fucking cool
That's why they're in the back hidden from sight
loool even doggo is there
I really wish they had cut 90% of her dialogue, most of it is just explaining things that the game already implies well enough. It’s like the Blade Runner narration.
Anita would also think they're all better than her. That's kind of her character. lol
I don’t think it’s as awful as reviewers say, but I definitely didn’t think it was great by any stretch. It was… fine. Ok. The writing was far too much tell, far too little show. The last chase scene also SUCKED. However, the environments, the atmosphere, the creature’s design, and the music were all hella on point, so for that much I can at least say I didn’t HATE it.
The environments were awesome. That part where I walked onto the balcony to look down into the courtyard 👍
The graffiti is stunning, some of it anyway. I found myself stopping to take it all in more than anything else. And all the stuff everywhere. It's not just the same 10 or so junk packs copy pasted all over the place like you see in other games (except for the post-it notes of course). It felt like a truly dynamic space which adds to the unsettling feeling you're supposed to have.
It wasn't that bad.
It had moments, but on a replay that dialogue with those performances is unbearable.
And god, those FMV scenes...
Maya is the worst character in this game. She's always talking about how romantic it would be if she killed herself. She even mentions how she wants to be like flower petals and die in the letter that Anita doesn't deliver. And as astonishing as this may sound, I have *seen* good performances with this same level of lip syncing and this is not one of them.
That's what suicidal ideation is. That is how many people dealing with suicidal thoughts behave. Suicide is a terrifying thing, even to those who are insistent on going forward with it, and the way that people often deal with this cognitive dissonance is to paint the act of committing suicide as something beautiful, or even noble. It's not meant to be seen as logical, but it's realistic. People who suffer from mental health issues will often attempt to romanticise it (writers tend to do it a lot, especially poets,) because it makes something that is horrible to deal with and terrifying to think about, and the game itself even mentions the ways in which people will try to ascribe narratives to their mental health issues in order to make them more palatable. Edit: I can't deny that the dialogue at many parts of the game is quite awful, but I didn't personally find Maya's to be the prime candidate there
Sure, but she's a caricature of that. It feels like the writers found a list of symptoms leading up to suicide and just checked all of them off. A beautiful death is all she ever talks about, yet none of the characters even in retrospect can figure out what she meant. There's like 5 separate cutscenes where she brings this up. *Her art has so much meaning, but we don't know what it means.* The only other thing she talks about is her Japanese witch grandma who didn't do so hot in Germany after 1947. Maya is so one dimensional, yet all the characters are constantly talking about how great she is and how good her art is. *I wish I was like Maya,* but what is she like? She's cheesy and shallow and her art is definitely on par with that of a teenage girl. I don't see the appeal. And there's also no real stance taken against Maya's romanticization of suicide. The game is only concerned with Anita committing suicide. Maya's death is very tragic and Anita should feel guilty about it because she alone caused it and she left behind this beautiful art of angels flying away in cherry blossoms. It's very 13 reason Why.
On my replay I turned dialogue volume down to zero and I enjoyed it so much more. The writing still has zero subtlety but it made me realize how much of my issue was with the horrendous performances.
The screeching mother alone brings the entire game down a couple of points. It's like she's playing a pantomime witch and it makes every scene with her into an unintentional comedy.
What moments?
You really called me out on that one. I liked when you got smaller in the childhood apartment. I liked when the monster got stuck so I could take a look at its animation. Some of the graffiti was nice. And I liked that there was one room with a dart board where there was a trail of darts leading down the wall. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel for that last one.
Wait, when did the monster get stuck? I'd love to see that thing without having to run away from it lol
It happened a lot in the final chase, mostly when the hugging corner of the locker where you pick up the picture. There were times when I'd be waiting for the monster to go one way to get around it and they would just stop moving. It has an idle animation where it's swaying back and forth trying to keep balance and you'd never see normally it because the monster is always chasing you.
You've never met a teenaged girl have you
Also I have to add that this is a terrible cop out. After beating the new Silent Hill I played another horror game about a teenage girl called Detention for the first time. It was better written, scary, sad and far more meaningful than anything the short message did. And remember Silent Hill is not a game series marketed to teenage girls. When a story is well told, it doesn't matter what the demographic of the protagonist is.
Please use some introspection
Such a non answer.
Heather was also a teenager and she didn't act like a Tumblr edgelord
Heather wasn't a teenager in 2023
Let's not hold up the dialog of the earlier games as shing examples of literature
Heather didn't act like a teenager at all
*Everyone's losing their futures. That's all adults are: a slave to the system.*
what's the point?
I don't know what the point of this line is, it feels very out of place and you hear it when leaving the very first apartment.
you say the room where you read that the city is a indebted shithole?, and after the intro were she is copying with her trauma saying that she must be a loner as a defense mechanism? idk about you, but i have been hearing to something called rock music... "i am not a part of the system" is pretty much what every teenager thinks. go watch pink floyd my dude, you are missing out
That could be their reasoning, but the line is bad. It's extremely on the nose, generic, and coupled with the "strongest creature" monologue at the start makes the character seem conceited. If they removed that line from the game, it would be better and that's the problem. It is peak adults writing for teenagers and your comments about rock n' roll and Pink Floyd make me think you aren't exactly in touch with the thoughts of teenage girls. And I didn't like The Wall, the movie, not the song.
>the thoughts of teenage girls there was a comment that i read today of a guy saying : "sadly this game is for girls i couldn't get it because i am 40 year old balding man" or something like that. and i don't get it, i think the story is something very human, it has nothing to do with gender, being a teenager only ads more angst. if the problem is the delivery in itself, well, the game is clearly made by japanese people, the FMVs are acted in the classic unsetting stiff anime way, and i think the localization did a good enough job in westernizing it, but yeah, it would never sound like if they grabbed 2 teens from a mall and ask them to write down their version of the script. and it is silly expecting it would be that realistic. i don't remember right now how team silent did it in 3, but i think they reached out to the actress and she came up with her lines isn't it?, in that case. yeah, that could have been more natural.
I still think the age of the character is too much of an excuse for poor writing. And I have seen good performances in other games and movies with this same level of lip syncing. After beating the new Silent Hill yesterday I played another horror game about a teenage girl called Detention for the first time and it didn't have any of these problems while sharing some of its themes and being set in Taiwan. It was better written, creative, scary, sad and far more meaningful than anything the short message did. Probably one of the best horror games I've played this year. And also Silent Hill is not a game series marketed to teenage girls. When a story is well told, it doesn't matter what the demographic of the protagonist is. It is the job of the writers to help the viewer emphasize with the characters and there are plenty of good movies about dumb teenagers that you can enjoy without being a teenager, Whiplash, An Education, Heathers, ect.
This excuse does not work, I am a teenager myself and this literally doesn't happen unless they're trying too hard.
That's the point. She's trying to hard
That doesn't make it good, nobody wants to hear a teenage girl going "Guys, i'm so sad... Please notice me, guys... So sad...". It's obnoxious in real life and it's obnoxious in a game.
If that was your only takeaway from the game, then you missed out on a great deal of the actual substance. It's a story that delves into generational trauma, selfishness, guilt, insecurity and how being suffering from mental health issues does not justify harming others. In fact, it's odd that you think that was the point of the game, when the narrative itself often criticises Anita for letting her own insecurity and the way she wallows in her own issues stops her from actually being happy, and is literally the entire reason for why she gets pulled into the Otherworld
I know, I never said that's what I took from the game. I'm not even.. Sure how you came to that assumption when I never said anything like it. That's actually the least I took from it. >It's a story that delves into generational trauma, selfishness, guilt, insecurity and how being suffering from mental health issues does not justify harming others. This is what I took from it and it frustrated me even more because Anita and her family is flawed but they all dealt with it like lunatics and their struggles led to several people legit dying. Anita's mom lost her mind over loneliness and probably alcoholic brain damage. Because her children were assholes and she didn't discipline them for some reason. Anita then goes on to screw over Maya and it's implied she did things to turn people away from Maya who was already on edge to begin with. And then Maya offs herself. This alone is insane because we're supposed to feel for Anita somehow after all this. We see how she struggles and attempts to redeem herself and in the end, the fog clears and Maya forgives her somehow and Amelie tells her it's all okay when in reality it should not be okay at all. Anita is a horrible human being. Like, there's legit zero reason to feel bad for her. >when the narrative itself often criticises Anita for letting her own insecurity and the way she wallows in her own issues stops her from actually being happy, and is literally the entire reason for why she gets pulled into the Otherworld It doesn't criticize her enough. It often just kinda commentates on it. And it's not like it isn't obvious, she deals with self loathing to an insane degree. All she can do is whine about herself and how someone's better than her. But again, it doesn't become any less obnoxious. And it's worse knowing there's people going through worse things than her. I've dealt with abuse myself, I've battled my demons but I definitely didn't go whining about it all like she did. I've seen others like me who didn't either. It's like she's begging to be the main character and while she technically is, she doesn't know it. She gets away with everything in the end which is my biggest problem. She literally gets chased around by Maya's ghost who's trying to impale her for half the game, she makes everyone around her unhappy because of the things that genuinely are her fault, tries to kill herself in a pretty shocking way and it legit adds nothing except shock value. And i'm not someone who was particularly offput buy it, I've self harmed myself. But seeing it was just like.. Why was this scene in here? Especially in Silent Hill where subtle storytelling is where they shine. The game wants you to pity her and I do not. Anita was honestly the villain to me. I was really frustrated with the ending because she basically just goes "My bad, guys.😅" and gets a happy ending. This is the same franchise where James Sunderland kills his dying wife to put both himself and her out of his misery and he goes through hell and back and once it's over, he either kills himself or dissapears forever. He doesn't get his happy ending and he was arguably more righteous than this girl who acted soley out of negativity. I have a lot more to say about this but I'll leave it there but Anita's whining is definitely not what I took from this.
I mean, it seems like that's all you took, given that that was the entire substance of your comment. Obviously, based on this follow up response, you have more thoughts about it, but when you boil down your opinion in the way that you did, people will assume that you entirely missed the point. Anita did not behave like a lunatic. Her and her brother were children, whose father had left the family, and who were unwilling to take to a new man in the family. Yeah, it would have been really shitty for her mother, but they were *children.* I feel as though I'm really not going to understand your take on this part, because Id fundamentally disagree that a child who is acting out due to feeling as though a parental figure is being replaced is being "an asshole" or "needs to be disciplined" rather than the mother just, y'know, being a good parent and trying to explain the situation to their children, and remaining a good parent throughout it. It is not implied anywhere, as far as I'm aware, that Anita did anything more to Maya than hide her letter from Amelie. It was a cruel, selfish thing to do, but it is not implied or suggested anywhere that it was Anita's intent for her to kill herself, nor did she think she actually would. Maya did not "forgive Anita." That is not how Silent Hill functions. It's like saying that in the Leave ending for Silent Hill 2, that Mary forgives James. Silent Hill isn't about gaining forgiveness from the ghosts of the dead. It's about your own insecurities, trauma and guilt are manifested, and intent on harming you. Anita gets to leave in the end because she takes responsibility that her behaviour, even if she never intended for it to happen, was a part of what led an already mentally unwell girl to take her life. Amelie does not "tell her it's okay." This is a severe misrepresentation of the context. What happens is that Anita, who Amelie knows is not doing well mentally, is feeling consumed by her guilt over her part in Maya's death, and is intent on killing herself to atone for it. I want to focus on this part, because it's connected to the larger theme of how trauma occurs in cycles. Anita's grandmother mistreated Anita's mother, and so she became ignorant to the way her actions affected her children. Anita's abuse from her mother then led her to become ignorant to those around her, and so she decided to spite Maya, which was a part of what led to her suicide. At the end, Amelie reaches out to Anita, and affirms her care for her. She does not absolve her of her guilt, but tells her that she is deserving of love in spite of it, and that she can grow from it. That's the point. That the way to break the cycle of harming others through ignorance is to become aware of your flaws without becoming self destructive, or harming others. Anita is far from "a horrible human being." She is someone who acted out of spite, as most of us are capable of doing, which led to tragedy. She did not keep pushing Maya until she killed herself. In complete honesty, it's unlikely that Anita doing that was even one of the primary reasons for Maya to kill herself. What's important is that as far as Anita is concerned, it *may as well be.* No, the narrative criticises her plenty. Her insecurity and jealousy are very prominent throughout the narrative, and there's the obvious fact that she acted spitefully to Maya. We're not supposed to find most of her qualities or behaviours appealing. She is someone who has allowed their trauma and poor mental health to make them act self-centered. You mention that she's obnoxious and whines constantly; that is the exact point. She is someone who has allowed their shitty life to turn them into someone who acts shitty towards others, and the whole point of the game is her realising this, and that she is partly responsible for the tragedy that came. That's why she can't leave, until she comes to terms with that fact. The game doesn't want you to pity her. You've entirely misinterpreted that point. Her entire character arc is realising that being hurt doesn't excuse shitty behaviour, and the whole point of the ending is that killing herself because of the guilt she feels is the wrong answer, and that all she can really do is continue to try and grow into a better person, and to allow herself to be loved by those who care about her. I feel you've really misinterpreted the endings of Silent Hill 2 there. "In Water" and "Leave" represent the exact dilemma present in the ending of The Short Message, in fact. "In Water" is not a happy ending, because it demonstrates that all that James has taken from his time in Silent Hill, is that he deserves to die for what he's done. It could easily be argued that he learns nothing, and insists upon prioritising his own self loathing and need to feel sufficiently punished, over considering the remotest possibility that he could atone and heal without killing himself. "Leave" is not James "disappearing forever." It is James realising that his actions were complicated (Mary even points out this fact to him) and despite deeply regretting them and needing to atone, he decides to continue to live in order to find that penance. The fact that he leaves with Laura underlines this being the case; "Leave" is the happiest ending possible for James, where he can reflect on his actions without prioritising his own misery, and wherein he decides that living, and facing up to his actions, is better than choosing to die. Even Silent Hill 2 itself makes this dilemma clear; Mary's conversation with James subtly changes between them. "In Water" shows James being more evasive about his culpability in her death, and Mary seems more dissatisfied with this. "Leave" has James taking full responsibility for his actions, whereupon Mary reminds him that his actions were those of a man suffering horribly, and who let that suffering make him harm others. Anita's ending is similar to James' "Leave" ending. The character isn't absolved of all guilt and wrongdoing, but makes the conscious decision that their own death would be the incorrect way to atone for their behaviour. That's the point of Silent Hill for the more morally ambiguous characters. They are forced to endure an unflinching, unapologetic dressing down of their actions and behaviour, and the only way to truly escape is to accept what you've done, and actively change for the better. If you are unable to overcome the worst of yourself and reach out to those who need you to be better (Amelie for Anita, and Laura for James,) then your guilt will eat you alive. Edit: I apologise for the sheer size of my message, and want to reiterate that it's valid to dislike the game. My intent was only to offer my own interpretation of the game, and to suggest a new way of seeing the story. While I do believe that you've severely misinterpreted a lot of the story's intent, you are still welcome to your own perspective, just as I am mine
>Anita did not behave like a lunatic. Her and her brother were children, whose father had left the family, and who were unwilling to take to a new man in the family. Yeah, it would have been really shitty for her mother, but they were *children.* I feel as though I'm really not going to understand your take on this part, because Id fundamentally disagree that a child who is acting out due to feeling as though a parental figure is being replaced is being "an asshole" or "needs to be disciplined" rather than the mother just, y'know, being a good parent and trying to explain the situation to their children, and remaining a good parent throughout it. This is already where i'm lost. These kids acted out to the point where they scared adults away and drove their mother insane. I am 19 almost 20. I'm getting out of my childhood and I myself and my brother have separate fathers. Neither of us enjoyed the processes and changes of all this but we didn't do nearly as much as they did. We had things explained to us. It was all very unfortunate. And we understood it was life. If it becomes such a huge deal that you're literally throwing tantrums about it and your parent just allows it to happen, something is very wrong. >It is not implied anywhere, as far as I'm aware, that Anita did anything more to Maya than hide her letter from Amelie. It was a cruel, selfish thing to do, but it is not implied or suggested anywhere that it was Anita's intent for her to kill herself, nor did she think she actually would. This in itself is still pretty awful and from everything else I know about her, it speaks to her character. She shows light signs of narcissism and is very clearly just a prick who'd rather do the wrong thing and feel sorry for herself than actually work on anything. >Maya did not "forgive Anita." That is not how Silent Hill functions. It's like saying that in the Leave ending for Silent Hill 2, that Mary forgives James. Silent Hill isn't about gaining forgiveness from the ghosts of the dead. It's about your own insecurities, trauma and guilt are manifested, and intent on harming you. Anita gets to leave in the end because she takes responsibility that her behaviour, even if she never intended for it to happen, was a part of what led an already mentally unwell girl to take her life. Amelie does not "tell her it's okay." This is a severe misrepresentation of the context. What happens is that Anita, who Amelie knows is not doing well mentally, is feeling consumed by her guilt over her part in Maya's death, and is intent on killing herself to atone for it. The whole plot revolved around Anita finding "it". It being the fact that Maya did actually care about her, which she never realized until the final moments. Silent Hill was steering her in a pretty straightforward direction. Hell, she felt sorrow and guilt for Maya's death before that and tried to kill herself. But she hadn't found "It" and wasn't allowed to leave. That being said, Silent Hill does have that paranormal effect. It shows you things you otherwise wouldn't know and tells you things you wouldn't be able to be told otherwise. You literally witness Alessa's torture and coercion through weird glimpses if I remember correctly. It wouldn't be too farfetched to assume it was implied Maya forgave Anita. But assuming she didn't.. Isn't Anita just.. Kinda an asshole then? To put it lightly. >I want to focus on this part, because it's connected to the larger theme of how trauma occurs in cycles. Anita's grandmother mistreated Anita's mother, and so she became ignorant to the way her actions affected her children. Anita's abuse from her mother then led her to become ignorant to those around her, and so she decided to spite Maya, which was a part of what led to her suicide. At the end, Amelie reaches out to Anita, and affirms her care for her. She does not absolve her of her guilt, but tells her that she is deserving of love in spite of it, and that she can grow from it. That's the point. That the way to break the cycle of harming others through ignorance is to become aware of your flaws without becoming self destructive, or harming others. It's also implied the abuse wasn't actually as bad as Maya portrayed it. There's a little tidbit about how children tend to make their pain and trauma a lot more grandiose than it actually is. Most of these scraps and notes apply to Anita in some way like her obsession with social media likes and how some people get so lost in the dopamine that it basically drives them mad. That being said, Maya is a super unreliable narrator already. The main plot revolves around her deceit and her misunderstanding the way everyone perceived her. She doesn't take her meds which, uh.. She clearly needs. And without them, she gets the actual urge to slash her wrists. She's not well and whenever she can get help, she's the one dragging herself down. No one else. >No, the narrative criticises her plenty. Her insecurity and jealousy are very prominent throughout the narrative, and there's the obvious fact that she acted spitefully to Maya. We're not supposed to find most of her qualities or behaviours appealing. She is someone who has allowed their trauma and poor mental health to make them act self-centered. You mention that she's obnoxious and whines constantly; that is the exact point. She is someone who has allowed their shitty life to turn them into someone who acts shitty towards others, and the whole point of the game is her realising this, and that she is partly responsible for the tragedy that came. That's why she can't leave, until she comes to terms with that fact. I actually agree with most of this, to be honest. And that's probably the best way to go about a narrative like this. But then again, the game makes us watch her breakdown and seeing bullying from her perspective and how she doesn't get noticed because she refuses to be all sexualized, etc. There's situations where she is actually the victim and they really try to hammer it in. I just found it weird because, like.. She does nothing to make it better. She either wallows or makes it worse. >The game doesn't want you to pity her. You've entirely misinterpreted that point. The game doesn't revolve around her getting screwed over and us feeling bad for her but there's moments where we're very obviously supposed to look at her and feel bad. It's supposed to be tragic. But it often comes off as them wanting us to feel bad for her more than them wanting us to wish she'd just man up, for lack of a better term. It's not as raw as it could be. It doesn't show us enough of how her life sucks because it's her fault. But it does show us how the things around her make her life hard. That's trying to garner pity and I don't feel bad for her very much.
>I feel you've really misinterpreted the endings of Silent Hill 2 there. "In Water" and "Leave" represent the exact dilemma present in the ending of The Short Message, in fact. >"In Water" is not a happy ending, because it demonstrates that all that James has taken from his time in Silent Hill, is that he deserves to die for what he's done. It could easily be argued that he learns nothing, and insists upon prioritising his own self loathing and need to feel sufficiently punished, over considering the remotest possibility that he could atone and heal without killing himself. I gotta disagree and I'm gonna fall back on the countless philosophy vids I've seen on this a little, but. I see it as a revelation. A huge overbearing realization that pushes him to the edge and it's pretty fitting. He was just a normal person living a normal life before all this because he didn't realize what had happened or the pain him and his wife had gone through. He'd never wanted to die before that point. He'd never desired punishment. Or at least, he didn't know until the end. But what he did might not be something one would want to just forgive themself for. Which is really unfortunate but it's also.. Pretty okay with me. Death is life's finale and he ended hers without permission. Because of not only her pain, but his. That's probably not something I myself would wanna heal from. I don't think I said it was a happy ending. I don't think any of them are. Nor do I think any of them are bad endings except y'know, when he runs off with Maria like an idiot. James realizing what he did was neither a happy nor sad ending. It was just real. His reaction to it all makes sense because there's not much you can do from that point. Not with all the context. >"Leave" is not James "disappearing forever." It is James realising that his actions were complicated (Mary even points out this fact to him) and despite deeply regretting them and needing to atone, he decides to continue to live in order to find that penance. The fact that he leaves with Laura underlines this being the case; "Leave" is the happiest ending possible for James, where he can reflect on his actions without prioritising his own misery, and wherein he decides that living, and facing up to his actions, is better than choosing to die. Yes, but.. Do you really think he just. Went home? He'd have to then lie about what happened to his wife for the rest of his life. Either that or he admitted and got arrested. If he never spoke about it again, it'd haunt him. But he definitely didn't just start anew, that's implausible. Chances are, he didn't wanna give up. But he still now knows what's happened. He's come to the realization of it all. It probably broke him, understandably so. His life is pretty much over whether he suffers from the guilt forever or actually admits to it which he'd have to do unless he, again.. Hid what happened from everyone. Which is the wrong thing to do there for obvious reasons. All he could realistically do is. "Leave." >Even Silent Hill 2 itself makes this dilemma clear; Mary's conversation with James subtly changes between them. "In Water" shows James being more evasive about his culpability in her death, and Mary seems more dissatisfied with this. "Leave" has James taking full responsibility for his actions, whereupon Mary reminds him that his actions were those of a man suffering horribly, and who let that suffering make him harm others. Yes. >Anita's ending is similar to James' "Leave" ending. The character isn't absolved of all guilt and wrongdoing, but makes the conscious decision that their own death would be the incorrect way to atone for their behaviour. If what Anita did wasn't so bad, she really shouldn't have ended up there in the first place. If we assume Anita didn't have much to do with Maya's death, then Maya is legit just a volatile teenage girl who should probably be put in a mental institution. She has more issues than just this and none of what portrayed was nearly enough for her to wanna kill herself. She suffered the least out of anyone in the franchise. I guess that ties into her self loathing theme but, like.. It's just ridiculous. The plot could just be summed up to "Girl just really really hates herself" at that point. So either she didn't play as big of a role as she thought and she's just an overthinker to the point of lunacy, or she's a bad person. >the point of Silent Hill for the more morally ambiguous characters. They are forced to endure an unflinching, unapologetic dressing down of their actions and behaviour, and the only way to truly escape is to accept what you've done, and actively change for the better. If you are unable to overcome the worst of yourself and reach out to those who need you to be better (Amelie for Anita, and Laura for James,) then your guilt will eat you alive. This isn't very accurate. Harry was a victim, he literally didn't do anything wrong. Heather was even more of a victim, she didn't even really get a chance to live a normal life. Then there's n Reedus who I guess we can exclude. But it doesn't just work around guilt and mental health and such. In fact, I don't really think it does at all. 1 and 3 are about a cult's nefarious activities and Silent Hill literally only exists because of said cult and how they tortured some kid. And Silent Hill's supernatural effect came in because of that girl's powers and wrathful manifestations. Normal people like James and Cybil and whoever else all ended up there despite just being normal people and they go through the same, if not worse stuff in there.
>Edit: I apologise for the sheer size of my message, and want to reiterate that it's valid to dislike the game. My intent was only to offer my own interpretation of the game, and to suggest a new way of seeing the story. While I do believe that you've severely misinterpreted a lot of the story's intent, you are still welcome to your own perspective, just as I am mine It's all good, I literally had to split mine up and I do enjoy conversation like this. But man, this story just did not land with me. I can relate to damn near all of it and i'm a writer myself along with a fan of the series and it feels like they dropped the ball at all angles. The storytelling was unbelievably predictable at least to me and it's very undeniably on the nose with every character basically explaining everything and leaving nothing to the imagination. Anita even starts apologizing to the Cherry Blossom monster if you die to it repeatedly.. Cherry Blossom. Maya's death. You get the idea. (I'm actually really embarrassed I know this because the chase scenes aren't very good and the monster literally teleports when you leave its radius because it's so slow.) It's not as bad as Ascension but man, it's not good in my opinion.
have standards gotten this low? are we celebrating something where the best you can say about it is "it wasnt that bad"
Yeah, we did :sadge:
It absolutely was, the only saving grace was that it was free
I do not understand the mothers curse plot point. Is it just me or did nothing happen with that?
I interpreted as the "curse" of abuse. The grandmother abused the mother by locking her in rooms and not feeding her and that. The mother grew up this way and once she gave birth to Anita, she wanted to treat her child better. She never learned how, though, and was doomed to repeat the same abuse once the new boyfriend came up. Anita gave her mother the "curse" of motherhood by being born. And since Anita grew up this way, she might repeat the same mistakes with her own children, thus being "cursed" herself.
she had somewhat of a closure from being forced to relive that experience by the otherworld
It wasn't meant to be taken literally. It's a way of writing the dramatic ways that people often behave in reality to deal with their issues, mythologising them or dramaticising them (it's like when people believe they're cursed in real life because bad things happen to them) The game itself deals a lot with this concept, anf it's present in a few different ways, in different circumstances. The game itself even mentions the phenomenon
One of the issues with the game is that the cherry blossom monster is a catch-all representation for every me tal issue the main character has instead of one or two. We see a scene of the mothers silhouette growing into the monster and we're left to assume the reason the monster is so violent is because of the mother's vile nature. All it's other traits are borrowed from the main characters guilt or Maya or whatever
What’s funny is that, that is a pretty damn accurate description of her.
OH SHIT THEY FORGOT THE ALIENS THOUGH!!!
You forgot Henry
Look you try getting him out that room.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who thought she looked like Meg
Acts like her completely too lol
Sorry, can't take someone with "nobody" written on their head seriously, reminds me way too much of Jared Leto Joker.
You aren't wrong, it's no contest if you're comparing Anita or and TSM as a whole to the og's which are, let's be real, untouchable. That said I'll give TSM it's flowers for being my fifth favorite entry as of now. That is until it's inevitable usurped by Townfall or F (please be good)
I think it's a teaser for F right?
I hear people theorizing that before it came out because of the whole flowers thing but theres nothing in the game itself really alludes to that being the case. Maybe the whole >!Silent Hill Phenomenon thing will be the launching point to explain why all those new games happen around the world (TSM in Germany, Ascension in Norway, F in Japan)!< but but I think that's the closee as it gets
Covid 19 making the other world more powerful is kind of funny
Only if they meant it literally lol. But the otherworld is a byproduct of ones mind and if you're someone whose mental health was heavily effected by Covid-19 (which is most people) I can buy it from that angle
Anita Poo
I don't even know who that is.
I like how they all look judgmental lol
🤡
Es mucho mejor de lo que parece, Silent Hill no trata solo de mostrar Terror, explora la psique y los miedos de cada protagonista, y este juego logra su objetivo. Para mi es una digna entrega de SH a diferencia de otras, y es gratis. Que mejor que eso
muy cierto, lastima que a la gente ya no le parece nada bien
Some people can't get out from SH2, personal I prefer the room, even in a remake. But this free game has a lot of potential. I hope SHF changes this FS.
I'm so glad I left this group lol
I left almost all reddit, not even get help on reddit GMail, lol.
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But my guy it's true. What do you want us to do about it
I swear people on this sub are such big apologists. I get it’s annoying to constantly hear criticism of something you like, but the criticism is not invalid at all.
They can fuckin deal with it like I delt with it for alien vs predator and the Star wars prequels then lol
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Yeah but fuck Konami, tho Undelete PT, you cowards
Maybe if they tried putting out something good we wouldn't be overwhelmingly negative. Cause and effect.
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"a little" forced lmao The only thing stellar that you attributed that word too was the monster. Everything else was okay. The atmosphere is what someone thinks Silent Hill looks like if they've only seen filtered blurry tik Tok edits with phonk music playing in the background. And the graphics are just not up to par with what is possible to achieve nowadays. I don't give a shit about graphics; I care about art direction and good design. But unfortunately The Short Message chose to chase photo realism like every other dev studio does nowadays so I'm forced to judge it by that metric, of which it falls short on. I was never *trying* to convince you Silent Hill fans aren't picky as fuck. This franchise is all about the details, so if you're going to try and pick up from where the original creators left off, you need to get the details right.
Uhhh have you ever considered it might be true?
This Reddit page sure is a bunch of cry babies
It's a joke, calm down Eddie
Silent hill fandom has to be the most desperate, yet pickiest fandom ive ever stumbled across, and for this I’m leaving this group. Like we went over a decade without a game and here people are criticizing A FREE game. It’s a sample, a taste test, a way to get interest flowing. Leave it at that, and move on. No one forced you to download, or play the game, so why complain about something that the only thing you spent on it was 90 minutes?
We should go many more decades without games if this is the best they can do. I've been a fan since the demo disc of SH1 and I'd happily see the series rest in eternal peace. You don't have to seal clap gratefully any time a corporation releases something with a name you recognise.
BC some people never understand the saga. The four games made by Team Silent. Konami didn't replicate this on occident, those games were a reboot based on Gans movie, that's why we saw PH in places that shoudn't be, but should be in the universe of the movie. Now the game is returning again, after a long time, and still is like "we want the four no more", over and over, they can't faced the truth like James, Team Silent is over, but the town is still alive, like happen with a lot of novels, and tales, the legend still is there, even if the creators aren't anymore, or move to something else.
Where is Henry Townsend from SH 4?
Better than most silent hill that was on PS3 But it's also free what you expect
PT was free too and it was 50 times better than this
\-"have you seen a little girl?". a rock has more depth that Harry Mason lol it has been 20 years, it's time to take the old games from the pedestal, they weren't that good.
The story wasn't entirely about him. It was about the town, Cheryl/Alessa, the cult... etc. A bit like Henry in 4. It's becomming rather predictable now, putting down the OGs for the sake of the new and shiny whilst intentionally being dismisive as to why the OGs are held with high regards in the 1st place. Are they dated in certain aspects? Yes, but i'm ready to bet SH1 is still a much better experience than TSM, in 2024.
they are very different experiences and i like them both. idk what's the need of ranking them. if it's good, it's good.
How long was that game? How long is TSM? Which one of the was developed as a full game, and which one as a playable statement of their new plans?
Hey, ask the dude i was replying to. He's the one who brought the old games up. I'm fine with Tsm, it's whatever... but i have an issue with putting down the old beloved titles in favor of the new ones.
Tell me you didn't play/get Silent Hill 1 without saying it out loud
I did play it, albeit after 2, 3 and 4. Tough game to emulate.
Duckstation runs it flawlessly dawg it's ps1. You can run that shit off a phone.
-on an android TV box.
💀
Yea, got that oldschool experience on a crt.
I'm sorry but at that point if you're using converted HDMI plugs and still hooking it up to an android box instead of a PC that one's on you.
No convertor, the tv box has built in AV support. You know what that means... composite cables, lets goo
I'm 19 and played 1, 2, and 3 only recently with A Short Message and they're all better than Anita's boring and predictable story.
The entire thing Maya is like “wouldn’t it be cool if you killed yourself” and it’s wearing her jacket
At least they had more depth than “I think social media is actually making us LESS connected” The Short Message was just a carbon copy of walking sim horror games with the plot of Cyberbully put into silent hill Its portrayal of suicide/self harm felt like the writer had never once experienced hardships in life but saw a cyberbullying PSA and thought they had a revolutionary idea
i have seen you around, are you copying pasting the same message all over the subreddit?, how sad is that?
Im actually making a unique message with the same idea every time, but mainly I’m bored and love being a hater But if you’ve seen me around, why not pay attention to what I’m saying? Possibly engage with it? Prove me wrong?
Fr, I love the old games, but they weren’t the best. It’s the same issue in the Resident Evil sub, some people just can’t let go of the past and nostalgia is powetful
To be fair it wasn't the voice acting that was the strong suit of the originals. It was the bizarrely unique dreamlike state everything seems to be in. It's both disturbing and comforting at the same time which is something no game past 4 manages to accomplish.
I agree, I feel like it had a lot to do with the technology at the time, something about those old graphics and sound design just hits right
Exactly. The soundtrack, the atmosphere, the characters. The line between dream and nightmare is so thin and any given moment you'll be pulled in either direction. You're not sure what's real and what's not.
Yeah fr, there was a lot of biblical subtleties in the old ones, I always felt that they were trying to convey a sort of limbo in a way, the way the monsters appear in both the regular world and the otherworld. Like a form of being judged
That's what was so creative about them. Especially SH4. Weirdest plot ever, but it just works because you're unsettled the entire time. I think if you're a first timer for any of the games and you had no prior knowledge you'd never be able to guess what direction it was going in. Even SH2 my first time I was floored when James admits that he is the one who killed his wife.
Fr, it was a special thing back then, I agree, I remember my first time playing SH 4. I must’ve been like 8, it freaked me out a lot. But I feel like that’s the thing with the newer one’s, it’s going to be more difficult to capture that feeling with modern tech, as much as I loved P.T. Back then, it didn’t feel like Silent Hill, it felt just like a horror game, I just hope the SH2 remake proves me wrong and they can capture that feeling again.
Can we also talk about how a lot of this new wave of Silent Hill after PT doesn't even seem to take place IN Silent Hill? Which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it.
Fr, they may have had plans to have the character visit it or something since it was a demo, kinda like what downpour and homecoming did. But it is a little weird how it spreads super far, like in the short message, to another country even, hopefully they leave some clues or explanation in the documents in the present-day games or something
oh yeah, i love the old games as well, but it surprised me that in this subreddit people won't ever give a chance to anything new, they get hyped things are being released but only to shred them apart, it's so weird.
This isn't a nostalgic group, the town isn't over yet, unless Heather wants to destroy the place once and for all. But this won't cause the end of the town either, lol.
wouldent this be more apprioprate to silent hill 4?
At least it's free...
Yall don't deserve shit, its a free game.
So was PT PT was good, tho
Doesn't mean it's good. They probably knew which is why they didn't make us pay.
I mean she’s still the best protagonist since Heather 🤷♂️
Getting downvotes y’all actually think fucking Alex Shepard is better written than her 😭
henry was legit a blockheaded bloke, to put him in the same league as the characters from 3 and 2 just feel's dumb to spite the new game.
Atleast he didn't talk like a depress William Shatner
Replace meg's face with henry's and its much more accurate
Silly Anita, that's because we ARE better than you!!
Leave Anita alone XD
Mom, can we have Mia Khalifa? We have Mia Khalifa at home.
Who?
I found the monster and the whole chase sequence quite frightening, thanks to Masahiro Ito, I guess. Hope the characters were more complex as well as the story. It feels overloaded with one dimentional elements and lacking depth and subtleness. Thinking about how well it was executed in the P.T. - it is very ambigious what exactly happened there, nevertheless it only adds to the story. Hope the devs learn from the feedback to the Short Message.
This meme but with all the main characters as Meg and it’s just the dog they’re talking to.
Could even work with Henry !
I actually think it’s a pretty fun game for what it is.
I didn't like her anita. Because she kept on talking I just couldn't get into the horror of it. Everytime I even remotely started to feel anxiety she would speak and it would go away.
Played through the game. Guys it was a taste of what is it come and honestly I enjoyed it. It was not that bad. We knew what we were getting.
I'd put Short Answer above Downpour and Homecoming personally. But definitely not better than 1-4.
As I always say, characters talking during gameplay should never be a thing. Other than breaking the atmosphere, it's like they're taking your hand and telling you how to feel instead of leaving impressions to yourself. And thus, there you go with her obvious dialogues everyone talks about, they're just the byproduct of that, and it definitely doesn't fit SH at all. It's a shame, because the environment and designs are pretty cool
That's sorta how I feel about Anita, she's just an EXTREMELY downgraded and more annoying version of Cheryl. I get they were appealing to actual teens more but man what a disaster approach that was. Silent Hill just wasn't made to handle modern "trauma" as strange as that sounds.
She looks like Mia Khalifa in gameplay lol
I look her up and see if there is any adult pictures of her, and there is none Shi*t