Reminder that fans initially hated Silent Hill 2 and that’s the reason for the direction Silent Hill 3 took

[Rogote]

SH2 is way better than SH3. SH3 was pretty good, no doubt, but it was a slight disappointment going straight from SH2 to SH3.
SH1 and SH3 are all very good horror games, but SH2 is the only one that haunts my sleep. It did something on a more deeper level that affected me a lot more than either of those other games. One of the best things about SH2 compared to the others is how it has nothing to do with the storyline of Alyssa or the cult. It discards the big picture implications of the town and it's mythos for more personal and intimate story and it works so much to it's favor that it became the darling title of the franchise.

I'm not completely surprised to hear that the critical response was what it was at the time of release though.

 

[Deleted member 21996]

I must've been living in a bubble because I don't remember any critical panning. Criticisms of length and the clunky combat, sure, but those arguments still persist today. Worth remembering also that Silent Hill 1 wasn't universally praised either. Both games were an acquired taste but adored by fans at the time.

 

[D.Lo]

Honestly, Silent Hill 2 is kind of an egnima as far as sequels go, because it doesn't feel like one. It instead feels like a 'second first installment' of the series, if that makes sense. Like, imagine a world where Silent Hill 1 did not exist, the franchise started on the PS2, and Keiichiro Toyama had no involvement with the game.

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Yeah something like that. Reality is it could have been an anthology series, the game could have been called 'Quiet Hill' or whatever, but I guess SH1 sold well enough the brand needed to be attached. What killed me were the outright contradictions and then cheap justification for the 'town being evil' in later games. Native burial grounds, boats sinking, fires... a bunch of cheesy junk.

In any case it was obvious the original creator was gone.

 

[Melchiah]

You're right, and it does deviate from the SH formula in some ways, but when you look at everything that came after SH4, it's hard not to closely associate it with 1-3. The style is still very much there.

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It's definitely similar in style, probably due to having some of the same developers in the team, but at the same time it feels off. Perhaps due to the differences, like limited inventory space, backtracking galore, absurdly comical enemies, and enemies that can't be killed. Plus, the apartment itself, which annoyingly was also reason for the inventory limit and having only one place to save the game, as they wanted you to visit there often.

I wonder how much the game was changed after Konami decided to release it as a Silent Hill game, and if it contributed to the infamous backtracking?

On a side note, I respect creators who continue to reinvent themselves, like they did with SH2, and like few musical artists do, instead of making the same release over and over again. All the fans may not like every entry, but at least there's bound to be something fresh and thought-provoking.

 

[Ceerious]

Thank god SH3 is another masterpiece.

 

[SteelBeast6Beets]

Honestly, Silent Hill 2 is kind of an egnima as far as sequels go, because it doesn't feel like one. It instead feels like a 'second first installment' of the series, if that makes sense. Like, imagine a world where Silent Hill 1 did not exist, the franchise started on the PS2, and Keiichiro Toyama had no involvement with the game. Silent Hill 2 feels like the game that was made in that scenario. I do like it for that though. I really do appreciate how different Silent Hill 1 and 2 are from each other. Same for Silent Hill 4.

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Silent Hill 2 is my introduction to the series so I obviously biased towards it but like you point out, it's understandable for the fans the original game to the mistified by a supposed sequel that actually felt like an almost unrelated spinoff with scarce references to the first title.

Actually, SH4 wasn't originally meant to be a part of the series, but a horror game of its own. Konami wanted to release it under the Silent Hill name to increase the sales. That's probably why it feels like it doesn't quite belong to the series.

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I believed this for the longest. Then I found that's not quite the case:

http://www.silenthillmemories.net/creators/interviews/2004.08.31_tsuboyama_yamaoka_boomtown_en.htm

Boomtown: Is it true that The Room was not originally going to be part of the Silent Hill series and that this was only changed part way through development.

In a sense this is true because the game began life as simply Room 302. However, it was always at least a spin-off of Silent Hill and the most important thing was simply that it be different to the previous games. Certainly if Silent Hill had not existed we would not have gotten the idea for The Room, so in that sense they have always been together.

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[Melchiah]

I honestly didn't have much trouble with the Maria/Pyramid Head chase (but then again I looked at a walkthrough video in advance so I knew I had to shoot him a few times to slow him down).
I couldn't figure out how to get the great knife to work right, so the Pyramid Head duo fight was tedious as hell for me. Run to the side of the room, quick-turn, fire the rifle, heal, run to the other side, rinse-and-repeat for 10 minutes or so.

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I had to memorize the turns in the chase sequence, as even a minor delay lead to the escort being hit and game over screen.

As for the fight, I positioned myself in the corner, and waited for them to approach me from both sides. Then I just swung the blade while standing there.


EDIT:

I believed this for the longest. Then I found that's not quite the case:

http://www.silenthillmemories.net/creators/interviews/2004.08.31_tsuboyama_yamaoka_boomtown_en.htm

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Well, color me surprised.

 

[Bomi-Chan]

i guess it is also interesting to add, that the fog in silent hill was not there to make the game spookier or more "horror" but of limitations of the graphics as well the cpu/gpu of psx back then.
it turned out, that the fog eventually become one of the trademark symbols in silent hill.

 

[Winston1]

Yeah something like that. Reality is it could have been an anthology series, the game could have been called 'Quiet Hill' or whatever, but I guess SH1 sold well enough the brand needed to be attached. What killed me were the outright contradictions and then cheap justification for the 'town being evil' in later games. Native burial grounds, boats sinking, fires... a bunch of cheesy junk.

In any case it was obvious the original creator was gone.

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Honestly, I think the biggest contradiction Silent Hill 2 (all games going forward) makes to SH1 is that there are still people living in the town. Remember these monsters:

These are clearly supposed to be real people. Playing Silent Hill 1 and seeing stuff like this, I strongly get the impression that everyone in the town was actually supposed to be dead or transformed into monsters. This is exactly what happens in Siren, the next game that Toyama did, and Siren is basically Silent Hill 1 but with a different setting.

 

[Mickagau]

commercially, SH3 was even less successful than 2 so I suppose the series as whole was not appealing to mass market.

 

[Deleted member 15395]

I don't dispute the creator's comments but SH2 reviewed very well when it came out. It had outliers like any other game.

 

[thepenguin55]

There's a difference between critical and commercial reception. I say that because maybe SH2 sold less than SH1 (I honestly don't know) but the game received the Greatest Hits label on PS2 and the Platinum Hits label on Xbox so it could not have sold all that poorly.

My point being, anecdotally, the people around me (friends, family, schoolmates) never discussed SH1,3,4 but there was a lot of hype and excitement around SH2 and the talk about that game was universally positive. This and the fact that the game seemingly did alright in sales makes me wonder if beyond critics and maybe super diehard SH1 fans who were overly attached to the narrative was SH2 ACTUALLY poorly received?

 

[harry the spy]

I don't dispute the creator's comments but SH2 reviewed very well when it came out. It had outliers like any other game.

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Yea, maybe it was the French reviews but all I can remember is glowing reviews

 

[Arion]

I played the first the three games for the first time just a few months ago. My impression is 1 and 3 are great horror games but 2 is an unquestionable masterpiece. It feels too good to even exist especially at the time it came out. It stands out not only from other games that came out at the time but also from games in it's own series. It deals with subject matter that are human and mature yet handles them with such subtlety and nuance. It was a game truly ahead of it's time.

 

[Deleted member 22002]

The only thing I found disappointing in 3 was the overall boring fanservice story, but the direction was a nice change after 2.

Gaming press being completely deaf to art games is nothing new though, but luckily nowadays for each inept review there is a great video essay on youtube to restore my faith in gaming media, Pathologic 2 was a great example of this.

 

[NovumVeritas]

I still remember, the first time I have played SH2 it was amazing. Even watched the Making of, which was shipped with the PAL version on PS2. I like SH 1-4, but SH2 is still my favorite and I think my most played title. I really miss those old school survival horror games, with great music, atmosphere and characters.

 

[Treasure Silvergun]

Well, SH1 has a little more going on in its story, but it's pretty hard to actually understand most of it because it's either very obtuse by design, something lost in translation, or out of some necessity to hit a certain age rating. I remember going through President Evil's story guide for SH1 at the time, lots of "ohhhhhs" to be had.

SH2's story feels smaller in scope but it's told a lot more straight (relatively), and for that reason it connects with more people.

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That's exactly my problem with SH2. The game is as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Legs-on-legs mannequins? Hmmmm, what may that be a metaphor for?

Oh, this mysterious woman looks just like your dead wife but she acts quite differently in a very specific way? Must be a coincidence. Also legs. And cleavage.

In SH1, when I finally found another VCR I was incredibly eager to see what was on that damn tape I held on to for the whole game.
In SH2, I'd already figured out what I'd see on the tape long, long before I found the VCR. That's how subtle SH2 is.

Yeah, the themes of the game are mature. The delivery isn't, though. The story of a father looking for his lost daughter in Monster Town resonated much more with 16-year-old me than the story of a husband who lost his wife did with 30+-year-old me. That's how much stronger SH1 was in comparison, IMO.

SH1's most obscure elements were the game's strength. The game was about the town, Harry being just in the wrong place at the wrong time. SH2 entirely revolves around James, which makes it much less interesting to me.

 

[SteelBeast6Beets]

Honestly, I think the biggest contradiction Silent Hill 2 (all games going forward) makes to SH1 is that there are still people living in the town. Remember these monsters:

These are clearly supposed to be real people. Playing Silent Hill 1 and seeing stuff like this, I strongly get the impression that everyone in the town was actually supposed to be dead or transformed into monsters. This is exactly what happens in Siren, the next game that Toyama did, and Siren is basically Silent Hill 1 but with a different setting.

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Pretty sure that one of those books that provide background info on the series explicitly stated that the puppet nurses and doctors are the actual staff of the Alchemilla Hospital infected by a slug-like parasite and not monsters created by Alessa's tortured mind with help of the town's power.

 

[Dreamboum]

Crazy how much of a step back SH3 was in comparison. They had the perfect formula and we got back to the boring cultist angle with a focus on gore horror. Not to say the horror wasn't pulled off well (the sound design in particular was exquisite) but damn the story was snooze-inducing.

There are always people who would be unable to see gold in front of them unless they are told so. This time, it influenced the trajectory of a series that had reached perfection and could only go up from there.

 

[D.Lo]

SH1's most obscure elements were the game's strength. The game was about the town, Harry being just in the wrong place at the wrong time. SH2 entirely revolves around James, which makes it much less interesting to me.

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Harry wasn't exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time, given Cheryl, but that was a reveal.

And of course the real ending being a groundhog day cycle thing with Cybil etc, can see it was set up as a self-contained standalone.

Pretty sure that one of those books that provide background info on the series explicitly stated that the puppet nurses and doctors are the actual staff of the Alchemilla Hospital infected by a slug-like parasite and not monsters created by Alessa's tortured mind with help of the town's power.

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A book from the time of the original game though? There are dozens of nasty cheap explanations for stuff that came after the original game was already contradicted by 2, both in and out of the games themselves.

 

[capitalCORN]

I will not take any SH3 slander. If you're looking of allegory, Heather's teen pregnancy scare is all there in it's dickgina glory.

 

[SteelBeast6Beets]

Crazy how much of a step back SH3 was in comparison. They had the perfect formula and we got back to the boring cultist angle with a focus on gore horror. Not to say the horror wasn't pulled off well (the sound design in particular was exquisite) but damn the story was snooze-inducing.

There are always people who would be unable to see gold in front of them unless they are told so. This time, it influenced the trajectory of a series that had reached perfection and could only go up from there.

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Hit the nail on the head with the bold. To me, SH3 felt more like a traditional horror game that relied on blood, gore and jumpscares as opposed to SH2's more psychological horror approach, best exemplified by the Otherworlds of the respective games: SH2's otherworld has a clear and yet subdued rotten, decayed motif to it with areas that appear to have been abandoned for decades, whereas SH3's version has a more visceral and hellish environment with bleeding meat walls and rusty metal structures.

I also agree about the Cult being one of the less appealing aspect of the lore of the series.

A book from the time of the original game though? There are dozens of nasty cheap explanations for stuff that came after the original game was already contradicted by 2, both in and out of the games themselves.

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Pretty sure it was the Lost Memories Chronicles book AKA Book of Lost Memories that came with the Silent Hill 3 perfect guide.

The book also had a bunch of random trivia; my favorite being the fact that you're able to get a handgun from a shopping cart in SH2 being a commentary on American gun-owning policies.

 

[sinny]

Feels like an appropriate time to bring this back up. When Silent Hill 2 was first released, it was not the beloved horror-defining game that everyone now considers it to be. Quite the opposite, actually. It was generally seen by many to be inferior to Silent Hill 1. People now look at Gamespot's review


or Game Informer's


and wonder how it the world these guys completely failed to understand the masterpiece they were playing. What people don't realize is that these reviews actually reflect what the majority of the Silent Hill fandom felt about SH2 at the time, and in fact were actually more positive than what some other fans thought about 2.

From what some long-time fans on the Silent Hill: Heaven and Silent Hill: Community forums have said, a lot of fans thought Silent Hill 2 was garbage for being boring and slow and easy ( stuff like the game giving you tons of ammo and health items even when playing on hard, all of the monsters being slow as molasses) and the fact that the plot had nothing to do with the first game.

Jeremy Blaustein, who worked as the voice director and translator on the game, has also mentioned this in the past, with how the fan reception towards 2 caused the change in direction for Silent Hill 3:

http://alchemillahospital.net/omg-silent-hill-is-dead-and-other-fallacies/


https://tokenflipguy.tumblr.com/post/116409990840/the-thing-is-when-sh2-came-out-i-will-never

And there's also what Masahiro Ito has said how disappointing sales of SH2 led to changes with SH3.


I still find this interesting to look back on.

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silent hill was a better game, still is. But people loved the story and characters of sh2 since day one. The thing I remember the most being criticized was that it was easy.

 

[Blade Wolf]

Wow I did not know that, what the hell? What's wrong with you GameInformer?

 

[NovumVeritas]

I really should replay SH2.

 

[K' Dash]

I love SH2, but like SH3 better.

 

[Dust]

The occult stuff was the boring storyline, SH2 should have been the base. I also cannot really recall much backlash, everyone I knew was raving about SH2.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

A great video about how gamedesigners worked during the PS2 days.

 

[NightShift]

Fans are fucking stupid. The cult is the worst aspect of Silent Hill, it's such an overplayed and basic concept that takes away the brilliance of the town of Silent Hill itself. SH3 and perhaps the fate of the series would have been better without it.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

All I remember is the good critical reviews. Very strange.

One of my favourite games of all time and I'm replaying it right now with my partner. It's blowing her mind.

Silent Hill 3 was a better game.

So it was fine they changed direction.

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Better literal gameplay, but a vastly inferior overall experience. Silent Hill 2 is sublimely greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Brass Body Dave]

You should never listen to a fan base. They're consumers, not creators (by and large) and have no understanding of the story you're telling. They just consume without giving back.

 

[CGriffiths86]

I remember Silent Hill 2 being the only game my Mom ever sat and watched me play. She didn't really know video games had gotten to the point of having interesting stories.

Is there no good way to get/play this on PC?

 

[Dust]

I remember good reception for both SH2/3, it was The Room when things started to grind.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

A great video about how gamedesigners worked during the PS2 days.

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That's also good games work today!

 

[Deleted member 41520]

I remember good reception for both SH2/3, it was The Room when things started to grind.

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I think critically it was all good - OP is mostly about the fan reaction which was always weird after 1

 

[TheDarkKnight]

I don't know why the OP framed it that there was some sort of critical backlash

The game reviewed well. I just looked it up and it's Metacritic average for the PS2 is 89. Of the games tracked on that site it has the highest score aggregate

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/silent-hill-2/critic-reviews

Also I was active in the forums back then and most people loved Silent Hill 2. It not selling well could boil down to a number of things. Not to discredit the developer's accounts but In my following of the game it's always been positive But not near the popular game as a Resident Evil

 

[Asbsand]

Always listen to your feedback but don't end up paying lip service to what fans and critics say.

 

[justiceiro]

Being honest, horror fans are the hardest crowd to please, I don't blame publishers not maintaining theirs horror franchises alive. That said, silent Hill 3 was rushed out of the door because Konami wanted a annual franchise, so there was not even enough time for the team to process the criticism correctly.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

That's also good games work today!

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I agree, but such constraints doesn't exists anymore what makes the game even more impressive.

 

[Athrum]

When the game came out, internet wasn't as widespread in my country as in other places (I still had a 56kb phone connection), so I really didn't have much info apart from what I got in some gaming magazines like PS mag or HobbyConsolas that I got from Spain.
I was so excited when I knew that the game was out, I had played the first one on a borrowed PS1, so I worked and saved money and I ended up buying a PS2 with MGS2, SH2, DMC and FFX. Man, what a fun summer holiday I had.

 

[Squarealex]

 

[HStallion]

I loved the first, was amped for the second and really surprised the initial reception was kind of lukewarm from a lot of places. I remember ign(?) and some other big sites giving it a 7 and lamenting how it didn't live up to the first one.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

SH1, 2 and 3 are all great games. Storywise 2 was probably the best written and disturbing, but 1 and 3 were the most entertaining due to the occult undertones and weirdness of it all.

 

[Space Hunter]

SH2 has the best story in the series for sure, but I'm really tired of people downplaying the story and characters of 3.
I mostly loathe cults in horror movies and games, because it's such a trite and overplayed plot device, but that doesn't mean it can't be executed well, as is the case with SH1&3.

In any case, hating on 3 for the cult and gore is fairly shallow and ignores the most important aspect of the game: horror as an exploration of female anxieties linked to unwanted pregnancy, abortion... The symbolism in 3 is just as elegant and effective as it was in 2, and Heather is a wonderful character, one of a kind in the early 2000s as a non-objectified female protagonist

As for the supporting characters, they aren't as fleshed out as they were in 2, but they're still pretty interesting and memorable. So yeah, I think some criticism of 3 is a bit unwarranted. Just wanted to give my two cents on the matter.

 

[Chackan]

Yes, yes, even then some people took pride in being wrong!

 

[astoria_sky]

I'm glad the only review I saw for SH2 then was the Extended Play review (X-Play, Adam Sessler). They gave it a 5/5! I played through a pirated copy of SH1 with my sisters and loved it so I was so hyped for a sequel. When SH2 was coming out and I saw the Extended Play review I was so happy and bought it right away and loved it. I remember they even did a small special on SH2 too.

 

[Garlador]

I love all four original Silent Hill games by Team Silent.

I still like SH1 and SH3 a bit more than SH2, though, but that doesn't mean I don't friggin'n love SH2.

The metaphor someone told me that has always stuck with me is that if video games are an art museum, Silent Hill 2 is its Mona Lisa.

 

[Starlatine]

silent hill was a better game, still is. But people loved the story and characters of sh2 since day one. The thing I remember the most being criticized was that it was easy.

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Guess they changed that for SH3 too with that damn shakespeare puzzle

 

[Dust]

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You forgot Silent Hill Pachinko fans.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

SH2 is my favorite game out of SH1-4 (I haven't played Homecoming). And I did love it when it came out, too.