Silent Hill F Review
“Definitely my forte” Written by: Hunter (@ReaperHunter23)
The revival of the Silent Hill series since its resurfacing in 2022 has been an interesting one. From the surprisingly well done remake of Silent Hill 2 to the fiasco that was Silent Hill: Ascension, it has had its ups and downs. Ever since the Silent Hill Transmission that detailed Konami’s plans for the series going forward, Silent Hill F was the project I had taken the most interest in. The first teaser was fairly ominous, detailing the historic Japanese setting and the Otherworld manifesting as a more organic entity rather than the industrial kind of vibe it has in say Silent Hill 1. Needless to say, it was enough to capture my interest. More details about the specifics of the game would be revealed over time until the game came out in late September of this year. Not gonna lie, that’s earlier than I was expecting it to be. All the same, the game is out now so let’s take a look to see if the first substantial brand new project in the Silent Hill revival is a worthy step forward.
Image Credit: Konami
Silent Hill F takes place during the 1960s in the town of Ebisugaoka. We play as Hinako Shimizu. The game begins with Hinako walking out on an argument with her parents and going to meet up with some of her friends. Shortly after finding her friends ,Shu and Rinko, a mysterious fog descends upon the town and monsters begin roaming the streets. After realizing that they are seemingly the only people left in town, Hinako and friends determine that it is probably best to try and leave town and make it to safety elsewhere. All the while, Hinako is sporadically passing out and being taken on a dangerous tour of this not at all sinister shrine by this guy in a fox mask.
The story of Silent Hill F is pretty solid. There are areas where I think it could have been a little better. The dual threads of the regular town sections and the Otherworld shrine don’t intersect until close to the end. And I don’t think that’s inherently bad, as there were a few times where I thought the shrine segments give us a decent bit of insight into how Hinako thinks and where she stands with the other characters in the story. The issue I have is that there are a few too many times where the story development of the shrine sections is: “Fox Mask shows up to be enigmatic and vaguely helpful.” Then Hinako wakes up, doesn't acknowledge any of that and it's back to the town part of the story. So because the way the story passes the baton back and forth between the two settings, if the Shrine has a nothing segment, it means that the pace of the town story was brought to a screeching halt for no reason.
Hinako is a great protagonist. As is tradition with the main characters of this series: She has a lot of issues. Thankfully, her issues are a change of pace from the typical sorts of trauma that we see in the other protagonists throughout the series. The story at its core is an examination of Hinako’s place in society as a girl in 1960’s Japan. Prior to the events of the game, Hinako had a number of things working against her. She comes from a traditionalist family with an alcoholic father and a mother who won’t stick up for herself. Hinako’s determination and general interests don’t really fit into the societal expectations of femininity at the time. Even when she does make friends she seems to somehow bungle or strain the friendships inadvertently. I really enjoyed watching the game present all of this and unpack it as the story went on.
The supporting cast of the game is pretty good. Shu works decently enough as Hinako’s most consistent friendship. Sakuko serves well as another friend of Hinako’s who has been let down by societal norms. And Rinko works as Hinako’s biggest foil in the game. Kind of symbolizing a toxic femininity angle that the story illustrates through Hinako’s struggles.
This game's story also really leans into integrating itself with the new game plus. After you beat the game the first time you can look at an Endings menu that will nudge you in the proper direction for the other ones. This also comes with details changing and more files to find that provide additional clarity to some plot points as you go through the story another time.
Image Credit: Konami
Silent Hill F is a pretty big departure from the rest of the series gameplay wise. The big thing here is that you only get access to melee weapons. This departure is further compounded by a stamina meter and a focus attack. Along with accessories that boost certain things you can do and ways to permanently upgrade your stats. It’s all fairly straightforward and it works well enough for the setting.
You get a light attack and a heavy attack. Enemies have certain attacks that leave them open to a big counter if you time your attack right. Every weapon comes with a durability meter. Otherwise you could stroll through this game ferally flailing at everything like I did when I got a decent melee option back in the first game. That being said, they do a good job of offering you enough weapons or repair kits that you should never feel kneecaped by the durability meter.
The faith system was an interesting element to the gameplay. As you picked up specific items you could trade them in at the save shrines for faith points. The eligible items were usually some kind of food or something specifically made to be offered at the shrine. Things like weapons and med kits can not be exchanged for faith. I enjoyed the give and take with the system. You could stash all your miscellaneous food items for that extra bit of healing if you need it, or you could give them up for a permanent upgrade. Same thing with items like the Comb. You could pick it up to trade it in at the shrine for 500 points, or you could pick up the more immediately helpful bandages if you needed to.
The Otherworld Shrine operates on slightly different rules than Ebisugaoka. In the Dark Shrine, your weapons have infinite durability. The trade off for this is that the enemies constantly respawn a short while after being defeated. This is probably for a couple of reasons. Such as the Shrine being more puzzle leaning than the town. The shrine is also where most of the boss fights happen and it was probably easier to give you an unbreakable weapon rather than balance out how many pipes to drop in a boss arena.
I think the level design in this game is pretty good. The Ebisugaoka sections do a great job at telling you where you want to go, but not really telling you how to get there. As you explore and run into unpassable obstacles, your map will update and your choices eventually narrow down to the correct path. It also does a good job at hiding the enemies and making most of the pathways narrow to force confrontation. The Dark Shrine effectively takes the place of what would be the dungeon type areas in the previous games. You are given a broader puzzle to solve in order to move forward and that puzzle will branch off into smaller puzzles that loop you back around to the core problem.
My biggest prevailing criticism of this game would be that it tips too far into the action aspect in its latter half. The combat works fine as a piece of connective tissue in service to the larger whole of the rest of the game. I would say that it starts to get repetitive during the last quarter of the game. It really likes to lock you in a room and not let you out until you’ve killed all of the enemies. This kind of compounds with a lot of the late game being a stroll through areas you’ve already been to, thus de-emphasizing the exploration. To be fair, they do try to mix up the combat in the later stages of the game, and while it was novel, it just wasn’t enough to remain engaging for the rest of the run time.
Image Credit: Konami
Silent Hill F has a really cool visual identity. The Otherworld corruption manifesting itself through more organic apparitions and red spider lilies does a great job to set it apart from the blood and rust visual theme that we usually see in this franchise. The more traditional Shinto Architecture of the Dark Shrine contrasts really well with Ebisugaoka’s cramped alleyways. Some of the creature designs in this game are tremendous. There was one that’s encountered about halfway through that was visually unpleasant in all of the best ways. Even the sound design on that thing was gross.
One detail I enjoyed was that Hinako is the only one with a face model that doesn’t look kind of silly. I think everyone else looking kind of off lends to the more fever dream-like quality of the game. This extends to the voice performances as well. Suizie Yueng does a great job at portraying Hinako’s determination as if she’s a force of nature. All the while capturing the almost catatonic state she’s in during the Dark Shrine segments really well. The rest of the characters come off as kind of awkward in their line deliveries a lot of the time. I think this is best embodied by Fox Mask, who acts like he walked right out of The Evil Within and into this game. But again this added to the fever dream nature of the game for me. And when the deliveries needed to hit, they hit.
The soundtrack in this game is top notch too. There’s a heavy traditional woodwind sound that is pervasive throughout the soundtrack. It often comes off like an otherworldly spirit howling at you. This pairs nicely with a discordant string part that is in most of the songs in the game.
Image Credit: Konami
Summary
Silent Hill F is a new and interesting direction for the series to take. I definitely recommend it if you like horror games or are a fan of Silent Hill that is open to it trying something new. It was really interesting to see one of the biggest horror franchises in video games lean all the way into a Japanese horror style project. I think Hinako is a great protagonist and really enjoyed watching her story unfold. Whether or not Silent Hill F becomes a new branch of the franchise or stays as a one off remains to be seen. Either way I think it is a worthy addition to the series and am interested to see what comes next for Silent Hill.