Downpour Spoiler Thread

[Smiley]

Here's an ending guide on what to do to achieve all six. So far I've done two.
http://www.justpushstart.com/2012/03...endings-guide/

And it should be said that the special ending is pretty hilarious if you're a Silent Hill fan. It's not like the traditional Dog/UFO endings.

[Inferno04]

Soooo...did anyone notice the

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tire swing in the Orphanage? I thought it was awesome and clever. I didn't notice it at first and was more confused than anything. "Wait...was there a dead body there last time I passed through?" *Turns around* "Wait, a tire again, wtffff"

Small touches like that are what make this game great.

[Mr. Spencer]

I'm surprised that IGN gave this a 4.5. By the sounds of things, it's far from deserving of such a low score. Not amazing, but not terrible either. A good game from what I can gather here.

[Canas Renvall]

Yeah, IGN is... silly. I've learned to never, ever trust their reviews, and this just helps prove why. I would personally say it is amazing.

[Inferno04]

I'm surprised that IGN gave this a 4.5. By the sounds of things, it's far from deserving of such a low score. Not amazing, but not terrible either. A good game from what I can gather here.

I actually would peg it at amazing, but that's just imo. IGN definately failed, and I laugh at any criticism of 'meh the batttle system is clunkyyyy." It's Silent Hill. It's always been clunky, it's practically a trademark. It even fits because you're always playing as a regular person, not some badass like Shepard.

Honestly Downpour feels like a sucessor to SH2, with the implication that the town itself has weird mojo, and avoiding anything with the stupid cult. I'm not kidding when I say this is probably my 2nd favorite Silent Hill game.

[rewak]

A 7 is about what i would give it. It almost had me, i was enjoying it, but it just had problems too big to overlook. Since this thread is labeled spoilers i won't hold back.

Here is my big list of problems!

• The story is bland and predictable when it comes down to it. Not really a SH worthy story with any deep meaning.
• Most of the scares are predictable too, only once was i surprised. It's almost like Alan Wake, you know what's ahead and it ruins it.
• Only 2 moral choices in the game, really? Why bother having the feature if you aren't going to use it more?
• Some characters are underdeveloped.
• The Void sucks, how unimaginative can you get!
• Only one of the enemies actually has a symbolic reference, the others are just there to look weird.
• When the save icon appears, it should SAVE, not just be there for decoration. Better yet just let the player decide when to save like every other game.
• Stop referencing the previous games, seriously, stop. Nostalgia is a poor attempt to get a reaction. Even for a joke, just stop it now.
• Suddenly taking all your items away is just poor design. It doesn't make the player feel fear, it makes them feel cheated.
• Seriously stop it with the references!
• Making you stop during a chase sequence is tedious, not scary.
• No UFO ending, even the arcade game had a UFO ending!

These problems are small compared to Homecomings, but they stop the game from being as good as other installments. The thing is i feel like if Vatra were given another shot they could fix these, but only if they actually acknowledge them. Towards the end the attitude towards fan opinion was basically "Shut the hell up and take what you get". This was more that Tomm Hulett guy, maybe they should can his ass or at least put him on some anger management course. I just hope they listen to the fans reaction, not the critics reaction, because i felt the combat was really good and that seems to be the thing most critics are criticizing.

[Smiley]

Not to initiate a back and forth argument but I feel like I have to give some proper response to your complaints. Not so much the opinionated stuff like you finding the story or a specific monster bland because that's just a difference of preference. I found the story to be one of the better ones and the chase sequences with the Void I found very tense because there's no rhyme or reason to a vortex that is ripping the layers off of you. Since I enjoyed Shattered Memories I dug the constant running from these encounters. Even so.

1. The moral choices are about three. Two in the beginning and one in the end. Homecoming and even the earlier Silent Hill games like SH3 give you either as much or less to choose from. And while these factor into your ending, it certainly relies on more than just one or two choices. How you interact with the monsters themselves plays a big role where other silent hill games hadn't.

2. Not all the monsters have to have a symbolic meaning in their design. And even then the game establishes a relation that you're dealing with types from other character's viewpoints in the otherworld.

3. Silent Hill references are inevitable. You either love them or hate them. The ones here do not impact or mess up the story in any way except for the joke ending which is simply just that. Heather mocked a toilet scene from SH2 which was one of my favorite references in the series to date. The idea of adding a UFO ending to SH2 was done late in the game for Xbox and the PS2 "restless dreams" release to connect to the first one since the original SH2 only had the joke 'dog' ending at the time. Some of the later games even had endings adding both the dog and UFO simultaneously. all to reference the original zany endings of the past. At least Downpour had a humorous one for the fans. SH4 lacked even that.

About the only thing I agree with you on is the save/load system. I'm even annoyed that Resident Evil: Revelations uses a checkpoint save system. At least here I can load previous saves up to a point. I prefer saving in a specific spot though like the classic games. People don't have the patience for typewriters and glowing red symbols anymore.

[rewak]

Rebuttal! Nah seriously, again not starting an argument, just responding to your comments That's what message boards are all about right? I totally agree it is all subjective, it's all my opinion, and i will say Downpour is the first proper SH game (i consider SM to be a spin off) that i've enjoyed in a long time.

I really enjoyed Shattered Memories too and i liked the chase sequences, i just thought the void was the laziest idea to make the character run. Then having you stop to wait for obstacles was weak too. And Murphys animation for knocking things over was just too slow, it ended up barely making a difference. Basically i think Vatra just figured they'd copy Climax's idea but they didn't do a good job of it, SM's were much better and kept a flow going. It just made no sense, it would have made more sense in Homecoming or Origins since they deal with repressed memories, but it just had no relevance to anything in this game. Like you said though you liked it because it had no reason, i don't because it doesn't, all preference.

There was 3 moral choices, you're right. That's my bad, but it's still not as much as i would have liked, there were a few places where i thought "That could have been an interesting moral choice spot". The biggest was the cutscene with Sewell and Murphy when he comes to Murphy asking if he's going to keep up his end of the deal, i wanted the option to tell Sewell no. I just figure it was something they could have used to add more replay value with not much effort on their part.

The enemies, yeah that is all subjective, i just would have liked it to hinge more on what was going on. For example rather than the bat enemies in the caves it would have made more sense to me to bring the gray children back or a variation of them. The only enemy i really liked was the doll, creepy stuff there.

I'm fine with a few subtle references, like the SH1 theme on the jukebox was fine, but that scene with DJ Ricks was way too far in the "winkwinknudgenudge" area of nostalgia, then the stupid joke ending was just all hinged on nostalgia. Those two moments are where it became a problem for me. It's not so much an issue with the stories crossing over, it just makes me roll my eyes every time it's done now. Sometimes it makes me wish i was playing the game they're referencing instead.

I agree about the multiple endings, i'm glad that's back and it's truly multiple instead of just good and bad, but the way they kept going on about being such fans of the series, not to do a UFO ending makes me wonder just how much since it's pretty much a staple of the series amongst fans. Yeah SH4 didn't have one but that game sucks

[Smiley]

The original SH2 didn't have one either. Only later was a UFO ending added in. Even without it, the original SH2 was not a bad game for not having such an ending. And the dog bit was just as silly.

But with or without a UFO I could still tell that the team designing the games were fans in their own right. I'll admit I enjoyed what references they had because to me a bad reference is one that interferes too much with the plot so that it's expected for you to know the series beforehand. The only exception to this would be UFO endings because they require more time and effort as a fan to obtain them. Except in Homecoming's case where the developers were lazy and had it so that you can unlock the UFO ending [B]on your first play through.[B] In this game newcomers wouldn't really pick up on the music spots, some of the locations, files or pictures you can uncover so I was fine with them and their nostalgia joke ending. My only wish for the ending was that they had more characters from the previous games. The HD Collection was being worked on so I can see why they just pulled the models from 2 and 3 and put them in this game with the other Downpour characters. But what about Harry, Travis, Henry or Alex?

Quick question: Is that supposed to be Cheryl and Harry running 10:35 into the vid?

[Inferno04]

I think it's Cheryl and Harry, orSpoiler:

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the little girl from the monastery and Anne

. The latter makes no sense but in looking closer, sadly I think the more adult figure is Spoiler:

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Anne

.

[Wrathborne]

Well watched the full game on Youtube and overall thought the game was hit and miss.

HITS:

1:Good story.Much better than Homecoming and Shattered Memories and it had a nice twist at the end.

2: The Atmosphere was pretty damn thick in this game,even watching it over youtube you can feel some of the old Silent Hill atmosphere in segments of the game.

3:The backgrounds for the game were pretty damn good, while I didnt quite care for the blade infested vortexing other world, it was pretty well constructed and had some pretty clever moments.

I liked the weather effects and use of water.

4:The games ending were all really well done and had good variety this time.

5: The use of a police radio and hearing police talking over it when a monster was near instead of regular static was pretty clever.

MISSES:

1:Lag, lots of it.

2: Auto save, Its nice to have an all, but it really makes you feel like you have less control over the game.

3:The combat system really hurt to watch. the ability to block is cool and all, but watching this through out the game really made attacking and guarding so damn awkward. I hate to say this, but they should just go back to the original games simplistic combat system, the blocking ability just kills it as does melee weapons stopping in mid attack next to a wall.

The limitation of only being able to hold 1 firearm and 1 melee weapon felt really...off.

4:A few characters pop up briefly and are never seen again, DJ ricks, the nun, the mailman pop up a little in the beginning and middle, but there's no resolution or development in them and it just leaves you with questions.

The Mailman had a little more to him than DJ Ricks did, but Ricks alluded to there being more stuff going on in town before he just disappears.

And the Nun? WTF?

5:The games monster designs and monsters themselves, were pretty bad. This is what, a 9-11 hr game? You face 7 monsters total over 11 hours. And to be honest most of the monster designs were flat, generic, and humanoid. I thought that this was the weakest part of the game and only the final boss really showed something unique.

If they mixed in variations of each monster (fat, skinny, different clothing) that would have added a little variety to what they had, but really it just got boring to watch the same 5 monsters pop up repeatedly. I really missed the weirdness of the older monsters in the series like the schism, worm head, murmur etc.

The Boogieman monster was pretty cool, and worked as a tormentor...but they introduced him too late and got rid of him too fast.

They really needed to have weird, distorted, and malformed monsters mixed in here. Would have made a real difference.

6: The graphics of the characters shifted from good, to bad. Hair effects and facial animation were inconsistent, especially towards the end of the game.

7just a personal gripe) I wanted to see the cult of Silent Hill return finally in some form dammit, they didnt...again.You see references of them throughout the game which is cool and all, but I really miss them as they were prominent in games 1 and 3.

8: Action buttons, fucking tired of them want them gone.

9:The music. Danial Licht does a pretty good job with his own stuff...but there isn't as much variety to his music as there was Akira Yamaoka's, and that really felt like a limitation.Also..I really, really fucking hated the depressing country music they used. While it did fit the game...It felt overused and was just annoying to listen too, but this is my opinion really.

10:The storys pacing felt really off, like in the middle of the game it never really picked up.

I'd say overall this was a 7.5/10.

Huge step in the right direction, but I think that part of the games levels needed to be shrunken down, a simplistic combat system would be easier to deal with, more monsters and varied monster designs and at the very least some music that matched the older SH games and this could have been a much stronger game.

[Smiley]

The nun from my point of view stands opposite the bogeyman as a manifestation of mercy and forgiveness. The nun's bio seemingly gives mention that Murphy was raised by sisters of an orphanage.

There's enough here to imply some of these characters are being punished or doomed to forever be a part of the town in some way which actually works into one of the endings regarding Murphy's fate. There's a lot explained, but just enough left open to connect to each ending. But not all of it ties directly to Murphy either.

Action buttons are optional for 95% of the game. You can turn them off and only apply them to specific scenes which progress the player but not beat them over the head.

The story's pacing depending on your youtube experience also depends on the player. Combat as well. I timed my blocks just right so they never looked or played awkwardly. You have limitations, and the combat is not as refined as Homecoming. This was to encourage more fight or flight encounters. Sure you have one melee weapon, but the environment can in itself be a weapons layout depending on what you use next. Or you can run which is the preferred option when dealing with a horror game like this. On my first ending I killed about 97 enemies and had full health. But now I'm going for less combat. Regarding pace, I looked for more side quests to do in the town and that requires more time and exploration away from the plot. But that being said I never finished all of them.

I'd suggest playing the game before watching youtube videos unless you were interested in story only. You might find more things about the game that your play through didn't fully explore.

EDIT: Yahtzee's review is up. Not a complete rant as one would expect. I actually agree with about 90% of it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5595-Silent-Hill-Downpour

[Canas Renvall]

While I do agree with that mostly, I still think they really nailed the horror design, even if it was brighter than other games.

Also, I really like how the endings affect what Murphy did as well. He can be whoever you want him to be.

[Smiley]

That's an aspect I liked as well. It's more than just the options. How you handle the monsters in the game plays heavily on his character. It makes sense for him to transcend into his fate knowing how you the player treats him with others.

I wouldn't have called the locations bright. To me bright is the setting of RE5 which Downpour is not. The environments are murky and wet and once it downpours the areas grow darker.

His opinion that James remains the same and the endings factor into his redemption. Well that's not entirely true because aside from just the endings who you fight in the final boss encounter if you come to that point depends on how you shape him. Whether it's Maria or Mary.

[Canas Renvall]

Which is why I said "brighter than the other games", which are more than half the time in complete darkness. It's certainly much darker than many other games in general, but here there's a good amount of darkness to deal with. Especially in the theater. (By far my favorite part of the game @_@)