A Rant about Silent Hill 4

[James]

So, I've been playing through the whole series in preparation for Homecoming (should it arrive) and I'm almost finished with Silent Hill 4. Now, this may come as a surprise to everyone but I never actually finished Silent Hill 4 - I have no reasons for why I didn't either, I guess it just didn't appeal to me. All I'd played before this was a demo that I received which, as far as I can remember, played up until the "first victims death". Now, to avoid crisis =P everything from now on will be spoilers!

I went into Silent Hill 4: The Room knowing only two things. The first was the factors that affected the endings - so that I would be able to go for the "Best" ending from the start. The second was that the chief antagonist was Walter Sullivan (although I was not aware it was the child too, I was under the impression it was just the man in the blue coat). That's about all I knew about Silent Hill 4: The Room before I played, besides of course, the fact that a lot of people did not like what it did with the series. So first, the things that I didn't like about the game: -

When I look at a Silent Hill game, I expect it to do three things well - a story, enemies & characters and seamlessly meshing them together. The original Silent Hill had a very compelling story with enemies being indicative of manifestations of Alessa's worst nightmates (Bandages, burnt / bloody scenery, wheelchairs and such). The enemies in this game took on the role of what made Alessa scared - school children, dogs, nurses designed to be horrifically ugly and so forth. These enemy designs tied in well with the series and that's what I loved about the original Silent Hill. Then, we have Silent Hill 2, which in my opinion is still the most well put together game in the series when we look at the elements I previously listed. Almost all the enemies are representative of James' sexual frustration including the now sexualised nurses as opposed to Alessa's original ones. The way they wove James' past and personality into almost all of the enemy designs really wowed me and naturally made me start to think this was one of my favourite series. Now, Silent Hill 3 did not do this as well as I had hoped previously, but it made sense in the context of the god within Heather bringing out macabre imagery in order to foster it's own growth. Sure the enemies weren't as cleverly designed, but they still were pretty horrific.

I guess what my point is - is that Silent Hill 4 did not do a good job in living up to the previous games in this regard. Sure, we had ghosts who were all Walter's victims at some point, as well as quite possibly the most disturbing enemy ever in the series - the Twin Faced creature that for me, drew allusions to the twins we were told that Walter murdered back when we found that scrap of paper in the Apartment block in Silent Hill 2. Outside of that, the enemy designs were similar to Silent Hill Origins in that they really bore no emotional reference or ties to the protagonist or his story.

Silent Hill games have all had their fair share of decent protagonist and utterly frightening antagonists. Silent Hill 1's Harry Mason was a typical character but had a very engaging personality and was always questioning what was going on - you didn't get the feeling Harry was stupid. Dahlia and her followers were mysterious and enigmatic, and when you finally find out what happened you truly do fear her and her dedication to her twisted religion. Silent Hill 2 lacked a proper "antagonist" in that respect, but James was one of the first times I questioned myself when playing a video game - I knew something was wrong with James and by the end of the game I hated him for who he was. Silent Hill 3 had, in my opinion, one of the best villains ever. Claudia Wolf was truly a frightening member of The Order - going as far to swallow a foetus to birth god. She disturbed me like no other. Heather was possibly one of my favourite protagonists in the series - she acted exactly how I expected someone of her age to act, Konami did a brilliant job personifying her.

Henry Townshend, however, was not endearing to me. Throughout the whole first half of the game he never spoke. I guess the only thing I liked about Henry Townshend was his design - I've seen guys who look like Henry before in real life and that's what I, in my opinion, like about him as a character. I just don't find the idea that Henry is a shy and introverted person to be believable considering his appearance. His lack of dialogue throughout the whole game really loses a lot of character development that I feel every Silent Hill game needs. Walter Sullivan, on the other hand, is a villain who I fear. More on him later, though.

I think that the biggest thing about Silent Hill 4: The Room though, is that it's probably the only Silent Hill game that has given me the creeps, regardless of what time of the day I play it at. Although Silent Hill 3 was previously my "creepiest", Silent Hill 4 has done a brilliant job of hitting the fear nerve in me. The game opens with the apartment, and throughout the game I gradually noticed that I recovered health in the apartment, making it feel like a safe place. During this same phase of the game, however, there were a lot of hints thrown at me to imply that someone or something was in that apartment with me - a scary thought considering that the area is so small yet we never make contact. That's where the fear comes from, for me. The first time I walked into my bathroom to find it blood stained REALLY made me feel uneasy and made me turn the game off to recouperate.

Then, I turn it back on, look through my peephole and hear footsteps. I naturally keep watching but still wince inside at the thought of what could be approaching. And then, I see him, Walter Sullivan, standing at my door. Looking straight at me through the peephole. It was there that I realise what Silent Hill 4 did that no other game did for me - it did nothing. The idea that someone was just standing there, looking straight at me, not doing a thing, made me feel the most scared I've ever felt in the series. Why was he doing it? Why isn't he doing anything else? What's with the creepy smile? That's quite possibly the most eerie thing.

Other highlights for me include the hospital - a giant Eileen face as well as the hanging man from the roof, with a cloth covering all but his feet. That for me was totally eerie.

I guess that Silent Hill 4 is a pretty good game, it's very obvious that it wasn't a Silent Hill game from it's original conception but it still does a very good job from tying the game into the franchise. Dahlia bringing up Walter Sullivan, playing as Joseph Schrieber during the prologue, as well as some insight into the Wish House orphanage and what they did to the children there (the Water Prison is quite possibly one of the most frightening environments in a Silent Hill game ever when you stop to think just WHAT happened there) makes the game a very important part of the series overall storyline, considering that it sheds a lot of light on The Order, a cult central to the occurences throughout the games.

All in all, I'd put Silent Hill 4 up there as being (to me) the scariest game in the series so far. Reasons why? Well, it just relies less on the shock factor and more on those little nuances that really creep you out. When a game makes you imagine the sound of footsteps even when there are none, you know it's done it's job right.

Rememeber though, fear is all relative. So I hope I don't stir up anything with what I've said.

[Mr_Zombie]

Well, in my opinion Henry wasn't really a protagonist of the game; the game was all about Walter and Henry was just another victim; he was there just for storytelling purposes, he was a "Receiver of Wisdom" and nothing else - through his eyes gamer can witness Walter's story and see a few of Walter's crimes.

[James]

You raise a very good point there - I never really looked at it like that. I see Henry as being insignifcant (despite being the best designed character in the series) and perhaps that's the reason why. There really is no other way to express Walter's story and keep it frightening at the same time.

That being said, I'm interested to see where the story takes me though - and why things still happen in Henry's apartment despite the fact that Walter is dead (or not?). I do know that Walter killed himself in order to create this "Otherworld" that Henry visits, so perhaps he's not dead after all.

He's annoying as fuck though when you meet him in the Forest the second time around.

And for what it's worth, I hate Eileen. =P

[randomwab]

I really want to put some thoughts of my own about Silent Hill 4 in here, but right now I’m finding it hard to write sentences (Headache of kings) so I’ll reply to some of your points for now.

Silent Hill 3 did not do this as well as I had hoped previously, but it made sense in the context of the god within Heather bringing out macabre imagery in order to foster it's own growth. Sure the enemies weren't as cleverly designed, but they still were pretty horrific.

Don't forget that the Otherworld of Silent Hill 3 came from Claudia, not Alessa/Heather. You could argue that Claudia's image of paradise was heavily influenced by Alessa and the religion, but it was all from her imagination. Vincent even mentions as such at the end of the game in a conversation with her in the Church, as well as the fact that the world doesn't shift into the true Otherworld until you meet her for the first time.

Outside of that, the enemy designs were similar to Silent Hill Origins in that they really bore no emotional reference or ties to the protagonist or his story.

I disagree to a point. Each ghost has a fleshed out back story, and all have there relations to Walter Sullivan, who as you mentioned, is arguably the protagonist.

I think the bigger problem in regards to the enemy designs is the fact that Konami didn't bring the back story over to US/Euro gamers with the game itself. They acted as something of an ARG with the Japanese release, a way to find out more information on the story outside of the game (Similar to something like Cloverfield), but none of these were brought over for any other region officially. They were, however, translated by the guys and gals over at Translated Memories. I definitely recommend you head over there and read the Sullivan Victim files, as well as the Crimson Tome.

Henry Townshend, however, was not endearing to me. Throughout the whole first half of the game he never spoke. I guess the only thing I liked about Henry Townshend was his design - I've seen guys who look like Henry before in real life and that's what I, in my opinion, like about him as a character. I just don't find the idea that Henry is a shy and introverted person to be believable considering his appearance. His lack of dialogue throughout the whole game really loses a lot of character development that I feel every Silent Hill game needs.

To be honest, I was much happier with Henry than I was with Harry, James and especially Heather. I understand that the dialogue was trying to convey the every man aspect of those characters, but many times I felt that it was taking away from my enjoyment of the game. Heather’s constant sarcasm really did start to irritate me after awhile, there were many times when things didn’t seem to bother her at all.

The way I see it, having Henry act as a silent protagonist at times let me connect with the game more. He has just enough personality that he’s not of the Gordon Freeman variety, but he’s not annoying me by insulting kids. No Mr. Sunderland, calling Laura a brat will not make her unlock that door.

The game opens with the apartment, and throughout the game I gradually noticed that I recovered health in the apartment, making it feel like a safe place. During this same phase of the game, however, there were a lot of hints thrown at me to imply that someone or something was in that apartment with me - a scary thought considering that the area is so small yet we never make contact. That's where the fear comes from, for me. The first time I walked into my bathroom to find it blood stained REALLY made me feel uneasy and made me turn the game off to recouperate.

Yeah, this was one of the most impressive things in The Room. Its ability to create a safe haven in the game, and then slowly invade it is fantastic. It gave the game some well needed breaks in gameplay, and I felt it acted fine as a hub for the world.

Other highlights for me include the hospital - a giant Eileen face as well as the hanging man from the roof, with a cloth covering all but his feet. That for me was totally eerie.

Ahaha, you love Sexy Eileen. Actually, I think this is part of what I believe is The Room’s strongest feature, which is environment design. There were a lot of locations in the game that were able to convey personality though the environment alone, and that is something I don’t see very often. Almost every room in the apartment block can tell you what kind of person lived there. Some of those rooms don’t even have any real use, they are just there to add to the sense of world.

The corridor in the second floor of the hospital is another location like this. There are twenty or so rooms there, and as I remember, almost none of them have any real use. But each of them are amazingly unique and full of character. And it’s these locations that, for me, make the series. The areas that have been designed for no other reason than to fuck with you.

Like the hospital room in the Nowhere location of the first Silent Hill, where you enter and explore an empty room, and as you walk toward the door to leave, a huge crash can be heard from within the room, and when you turn around, there’s nothing there. Or the prison courtyard area in Silent Hill 2 with the horse sounds. Or the hospital gardens in the Otherworld of the same game. It’s displayed as a huge area on the map, as you would imagine it would be, yet it appears to be a small square area.

[Carnivol]

Dunno if I'll be spoiling something here now:

One thing, I'd like to point out, when I started playing Silent Hill 4, I had NO CLUE what was going on.

I was a dude, I had a nice place to live, and I kept running into people... who'd then suddenly become victim of rather unfortunate events and *zap* back to my nice place... and then I'd sometimes run into these people again, but they'd be dead (as expected) and they seemed to totally hate me for it, as if I had something to do with their death. What the dicks!?

I was for quite some time expecting Henry to turn out to be a killer, either a copy cat or maybe even Walter himself. It was obvious my dude reeked of Walter, that's for sure, since everyone seemed to be having an issue with me being around.

Also, when I finally got to explore the various apartments later in the game, I think I probably was in what I would call one of the highlights of the series. You finally got to leave your little room, explore those areas around you that you already knew so much about but still didn't know shit about as you'd never actually been there. You could go dig into all sorts of personal drama going. The only sad thing about it was that it wasn't rewarding, at all. I was kinda hoping I'd be on the track for a special ending by doing so, in the most usual Silent Hill fashion. Just like I was hoping checking the toilet every time I dropped by the apartment would evt. lead to some absurd secret, or collecting a full set of Golf clubs.

I'm actually really curious about how much of the game was "Silent Hill" before it became a Silent Hill title. I wouldn't be surprised if the only thing that really changed was the name of the game. And that just in order to sell what may very well could be defined as an incomplete experience that was about to get the axe, but saved itself by cutting itself down and getting a slight name change, to then be pushed out the door.

Also, I must give a huge thumbs up to The Room for its execution of the whole ghost thing. Even though none of them are straight out "dangerous" (unless you make it a goal in your life to go piss them off or put them down), there's just something unsettling about their unnatural and somewhat unexpected behavior.

[Death Club]

I am one of those few people that actually enjoy Silent Hill 4.
Me and my friends used to have an ongoing debate about games and how some games can just catch you at the right time making it easier to understand their intentions or relate to them personally.
For example those of us who played final fantasy 8 before 7 might learn to appreciate it but a player who has played 7 and then 8 most likely wont.

For me Silent Hill 4 caught me at good moment but a rather bad time in my life where someone close to me had passed on.
I was depressed stuck in my room needing to not think about deep issues but helpless to run across them during my thoughts, The copy of Silent Hill 4 hadnt been opened yet and I had no enthusiasm to play a TYPICAL silent hill adventure.

But I put it in my xbox and began to hear the sadness within the soundtrack.
Something about the enclosed feeling, the repetative gameplay, the indestructable forces that were invading my life. The imprisonment of life if you will, it spoke to me unlike any Silent Hill game had before this was deep and truely terrifying.
I didn't care for Henry to impress me with any wit or kick ass moves, I used him as my eyes and ears throughout the varied areas.
The fact that he didn't talk or have any redeeming features allowed him to be more of a blank canvas like chrono in Chrono Trigger I guess.

By keeping your distance from humans I savoured every time I could get a pervy peek at Eileen. I checked the handprints against the wall constantly trying to use the pieces of evidence to figure out what was going on.

I felt as If I was descending into a hell but not one that was loud and aggressive but one that was lonely and endless.

I've always thought the room would have made a much better film or short series than a video game but overally I can't hate it because it gave me something no other Silent Hill game had. Does that mean I wanna play it again or speed run it... No for me it was worth the money just to play through it once and quietly become absorbed in the world of the room.

[WeskerSexyCheez]

4 was the first one I played and I enjoyed it, but I did have several major issues with it. Some serious, some... Not so much.

1. Backtracking, or rather, having to play through the areas twice. I know it made sense and all, but still it seemed like the designers just couldn't come up with enough ideas.

2. Henry the paedophile. (This is the not serious one) Just the way he said 'Hey, little boy...' to Walter freaked me out and from that point on, I couldn't stop calling him Henry the paedophile, and it was quite early in the game too.

3. The Ghosts. I like things to die and stay down. K thanx bai.

4. I don't like the way that how you treat Eileen defines the ending and they've not made much of an effort to get you to warm to her... Unless you count spying on her as effort.

I think those are the things I had the most trouble dealing with, but personally I really liked the game as a whole. However, I have absolutely no trouble seeing why some people wouldn't. I think Silent Hill 4 is a bit of an acquired taste somehow.