I have a soft spot for Sh2, but there's a reason it didn't click with gamers right away and took years to build a following, and it's mostly the early game:

>intro, walk through park, first enemy tutorial
>first weapon: the pank is extremely underwhelming and not fun to use
>have little direction for the city section and easy to get lost
>get to the apartments and it seems like more aimless wandering
>have to go to specific rooms in the right order to get the gun and flashlight (essential to start really "playing' the game)
>very easy to get lost in the apartments or miss one item or not understand some obtuse puzzle
>city scape again part 2
>meet some goofballs

I think the game doesn't really start to roll until you meet maria, and get into the Brookhaven hospital which is more interesting than the apartments.

It just takes too long and is too much effort for the game to actually get going. The Hospital, historical society, prison, abyss, motel, are all really solid. So whether someone likes the game is likely: did they get past the apartments?

Pacing better might have made more sense to follow 1's format: dream fantasy segment, meet the heroine, she gives you a gun and you find a knife, and a flashlight, so you start playing immediately. In SH1, you get all the essential items within 5 minutes, but it's 15-30 for SH2.

Sh3 went in the opposite direction: nothing BUT action.

>>11861828 (OP)
>took years to build a following via shilling campaigns by posers and pseuds on the internet
fixed
the game fucking sucks
>Sh3
>nothing but action
pic related

>>11861986
/thread

It took years to build a following because every series takes years to build a following with rare exception.
Mario took years to build a following

It was popular in 2001, I don't understand where this myth of it being a "hidden jem" came from. I could've sworn that I've even seen greatest hits copies of it back in the day. Silent Hill was always mainstream until the 4th game was released and divided the fanbase.

>>11861828 (OP)
>"I'm.....kino...."
What did Konami mean by this?

>>11861828 (OP)
It was a popular and successful game on release and received positive reviews at the time. Arguably not as liked or big as the first at that time but it clicked with everyone immediately.
>>11862270
It even got a greatest hits release with new content

>>11862272
>>11862270
>>11862294
All indications is that it undersold expectations compared to the first one (you expect sequels to sell more and build an audience), leading to Konami losing faith in the franchise, and having SH3 and SH4 developed at the same time, before the low sales of those games made them decide to outsource everything.

And a lot of the decline of the series goes to SH2, and it's poor pacing and opening. The game grows on you, but you need the complete experience to really get it.

5 minutes into Silent Hill 1, you are in a dark hallway, things are getting weird, you get attacked by white children with knives, and you wake up in a diner. 5 minutes into 2, and you've heard a letter, walked down and talked to some random in a cemetery. It doesn't "click" and you have to stick with the game for a few hours (mostly to the hospital) for it to make sense.

Remember, you need to make an impression right away. Someone renting this might play it for an hour or two, put it down and declare it sucks and never think of it again. That's why I think they should have followed the pacing of SH1 more and moved some events and locations around. It's just so driftless and directionless at the start of the game.

Only after you play the whole thing, and get all the story beats, does it really make sense and make an impression on you.

Retarded thread

>>11862735
Completely spot on thread. The story of SH2 was written mostly by the SH2 fans, which distorted things, and hides that it didn't make that much of a splash upon release, and it's sales were subpar, leading to the decline of the series. And the lack of urgency, action, and slow start, leading to poor word of mouth, are a major aspect. The introduction of the game should have been shuffled around so it doesn't front load so many long boring talking and running scenes, and then two large confusing areas to explore. It just doesn't make a good impression.

>>11862746
The game's rep grew with time, and this vid might be the turning point for popular consciousness.

Sh2 is an amazing game

>>11861828 (OP)
i thought the hospital was a bit boring too. i thought the game was better when that part was over and the overall enjoyment just kept going up until the end for the most part.

2 also seems to get a pass for having a lot of cinematic walking sections and a poor escort mission for some reason.

it also could've used some better enemies for the outdoor areas like 1 had.

i thought the hospital was a bit boring too. i thought the game was better when that part was over and the overall enjoyment just kept going up until the end for the most part.

2 also seems to get a pass for having a lot of cinematic walking sections and a poor escort mission for some reason.

it also could've used some better enemies for the outdoor areas like 1 had.

i know a bunch of people got stuck on the apartment with the cans of juice and not realizing it was an item to use to progress rather than a consumable so that probably lowered enjoyment of things too.

>it's a zoomers pontificating about things they never experienced
Silent Hill was always a niche franchise, but 2 was (relatively) popular and Pyramid Head became a huge fad among gamers long before any YouTube shit, which is why the 2006 movie featured him despite having fuckall to do with the plot.

>>11862270
Silent Hill as a series was popular, but 2 wasn't really the standout game until the late 2000s.

>>11862748
This. "Games are Art" was also getting big around that time, and all the indies and game journalists would use SH2 and SOTC as their poster childs for it. This was back when indies were almost exclusively hipsters in SF with rich parents that all knew each other, because Steam was gatekept very heavily before Valve broke the dam with greenlight

>>11861828 (OP)
I played it as an adult. The game really didn't click when I played it. It didn't click until years after when I talked about it with other people. Everything is really symbolic, which makes the gravity of the situation really hard to sink in. It's going to be even worse now that they censored a lot of stuff.

>It just takes too long and is too much effort for the game to actually get going. The Hospital, historical society, prison, abyss, motel, are all really solid. So whether someone likes the game is likely: did they get past the apartments?
This game came out when you were stuck with whatever game you bought and you didn't have instant access to a million of games. Even the most braindead retard would get through it eventually. Strategy Guides were also huge back then.

>>11862892
>Silent Hill was always a niche franchise
no it was not. sh1 was not niche. one of the biggest releases of 1999 is not niche. my normie brothers who played videogames a handful of times per year did not play niche games on release.

The extended wandering around is good. It lets the world breathe, gives you time to soak in the graphics and sound design, and acclimates the player into the kind of game this will be, which is a slow and cerebral one. The whole thing is what, like 20 minutes long? If you can't handle that then this sort of thing really isn't for you.

The actual rooms in the apartments are good and so are the puzzles and setpieces, but it's too fucking big for how many locked doors there are, something which is a problem with SH in general.

>>11862934
Yes, SH1 was a big hit game and they followed it up with SH2, which sold less but had some impact. SH3 and SH4 were when most people tuned out.

In my opinion, the early segment of SH2 more or less killed the momentum of the series.

>>11861828 (OP)
SH2 was immediately a big hit in my friend group. We were scared shitless by it. I like SH3 better though.

>>11864518
why didn't the early part of sh2 hit like 1? arguably the most memorable well liked section in 1 is the opening town bit where you wonder around finding the keys.

>>11864934
SH1:
>intro FMV automatically plays and gives you the premise
>starts with you right inside the town
>see an apparition of your daughter and you chase it
>ends dark until you are cornered and
>you awaken in the cafe, with the secondary protagonist, and you get a melee weapon, map, gun, radio, flashlight.

You are now 10 minutes into the game, you got a great scripted horror segment, and you have all your tools to start playing.

SH2:
>FMV can't be viewed for like 5 minutes on the title screen (most likely never saw it)
>start outside the town in a bathroom
>long letter reading
>whoops don't forget your map
>walk to the cemetary
>some crazy lady who seems irrelevant
>walk to town
>scripted segment cornering you with monster: radio and plank
>run around a big town with an unclear goal
>run into apartment for some reason
>get gun and flashlight in separate rooms, but you must get them in the right order

SH1 gives you all the tools you need to play the game, while SH2 gives you them piecemeal over the course of 30 minutes with a lot of running and random convos. The entire intro should have been moved around. The FMV video should have played automatically like in 1, and rather than showing the Maria scene, it should have instead covered the premise of James getting the letter.

Maria is a KEY character but you don't meet her until 25% through, while you meet Cybil like 10 minutes in.

You don't really get actual horror segments until a few rooms in the apartments with Pyramid Head. SH1 gave you horror right away.

In 1 it's clear you need to go to the school. In 2 you need to go to the park or something? Now you're wandering in an apartment? Unclear for the player.

Summary:
>Sh front loads, while SH2 doles it out slowly.
>SH1 is super snappy about telling you exactly where to go, and what your goals are.
>James kinda wanders around.
>SH1 gives you all the narrative elements right away, SH2 takes 20% of the game to introduce them

>>11864965
I think James' amnesiac meandering fits perfectly with his role and reason he's in Shit Hill in the first place.

>>11865379
Which is all fine and dandy, but do you think some kid in 2001 who rented it from blockbuster and bought a pizza with mountain dew is going to get that? They are only going to see something boring and pointless. These people were drawn into Silent Hill 1, even if they didn't beat it, while they didn't take to Silent Hill 2. Decreased sales, decrease interest for the series. SH2 was the point where SH went from mainstream to declining niche series.

I think for pacing they got too caught up with the audio-visual spectacle, and the artistic elements, forgetting how this is a game and will be perceived as such by a gamer.

In SH1, you get the flashlight alongside all your other items immediately. In 2, you have to hunt around quite a bit until you find it, because they wanted it to be a neat scene showing off the lighting system. What's more important for the player? You can actually spend quite a few minutes running around the apartments going to the rooms in the wrong order, not being able to pick up anything, until you stumble upon the flashlight room.

>>11863076
>The actual rooms in the apartments are good and so are the puzzles and setpieces, but it's too fucking big for how many locked doors there are, something which is a problem with SH in general.

Deliberate design choice. SH prided itself on realistic building layouts. The Midwidch school looks about as big as a mid-sized elementary school, with as many rooms as there should be. As a result, they need to constrain the amount of rooms you can enter, and the "broken lock" is just an excuse.

>>11863076
Yeah why didn't they make the buildings unrealistically tiny instead? Great idea
>well no, uuuuh, the proper solution would obviously be to open the locked doors and let you inside!
With how lost most people get in survival horror games, and how they overlook key items in rooms they will then need to revisit, no, opening the rooms would completely destroy the games. People would absolutely shit their diapers with 70 IQ confusion

Keeping the realism and having locked/jammed doors is the correct design choice. End of story. Let's never air this retarded grievance ever again.

>>11865893
>You can actually spend quite a few minutes running around the apartments going to the rooms in the wrong order, not being able to pick up anything, until you stumble upon the flashlight room.
Many people had the classic experience of going to the top floor first and seeing the handgun, which is still clearly visible without the flashlight, but being unable to pick it up because James "can't" see it yet. The result is often minutes of frustration trying to pick it up thinking the game is broken, or concluding it's just a set-piece item and never bothering to try again even after getting the flashlight.

>>11865993
>Many people had the classic experience of going to the top floor first and seeing the handgun, which is still clearly visible without the flashlight, but being unable to pick it up because James "can't" see it yet. The result is often minutes of frustration trying to pick it up thinking the game is broken, or concluding it's just a set-piece item and never bothering to try again even after getting the flashlight.

Correct. They were really big on these visual set pieces, but then failed to really think how this would impact the playing experience. Another one si the pipe in the gas station. Since there's so much fog it's incredibly easy to just run down the other side of the street and never see it, thus missing an important melee weapon.

>>11866038
Compare this to SH1: They give you a knife as a backup, then direct you to the alley way and bam you get the pipe.

>>11866038
Brookhaven, pete's Bowl o'rama, and Heaven's Night are all on one side of the street, and Texxon Gas is on the other, making it very likely players will just zip down one side of the street and miss it.

>>11862748
2013 is way too late. I think zoomers live in a youtuber world that causes you to retroactively assume nothing else can possibly direct or indicate appreciation.

SH2 had an immediate reputation as a smart, artsy horror game, which continued the reputation of SH1. If anything the shift was that about 5% of the entire console playerbase cared about that in 2001 while in five or so years a lot of people that had played it as a teenager were now young adults and they realized it was one of the few games they'd played that was still speaking to them.

>>11862748
I remember plenty of appreciation for Silent Hill 2 before that.

>>11866049
>SH2 had an immediate reputation as a smart, artsy horror game, which continued the reputation of SH1.

Among silent Hill fans. There was a lot of forum buzz on Silent Hill fansites about how deep and great Sh1-3 were. They were the ones who wrote the latter story of the game. It got okay to good reviews but wasn't seen as a masterpiece by reviewers. The sales were lower than the first game. A lot of people tuned out.

>Silent Hill 2 is a much prettier, somewhat smarter but less-compelling game than the original. Those who had hopes that the sequel would improve upon every aspect of Silent Hill will be disappointed, because it doesn't. But high expectations aside, you're still left with a sturdy game.
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/silent-hill-2-restless-dreams-review/1900-2829782/

>When GI reviewed the first Silent Hill, we took a lot of abuse from some of our readers for the substandard score we gave it. I wasn't around for that era, but the Miss Cleo in me says history will repeat itself. While there are many cool things about Silent Hill 2, the wide array of annoyances will prevent most gamers, including myself, from really enjoying it.
http://www.gameinformer.com/Games/Review/200110/R03.0805.1112.20861.htm

>Any fan of Silent Hill or the Survival Horror games will certainly enjoy this sequel (despite it being slightly disappointing), but if you're not partial to the genre, rent it first.
PSM

>>11866064
>It got okay to good reviews
7/10 in your pic but still 89/100 (basically 9/10) overall according to metacritic which is amazing for a survival horror game, I don't think any game in the genre has got better reviews actually, aside from... aside from Code Veronica lmao

>>11866064
Reviewers mattered even less in 2001 than they do now. Treating the game magazines as legitimate influencers on popular opinions is another zoomerism - no one sat waiting around on launch day to see what all the content mills had triangulated or checked metacritic to make sure they were allowed to like something like they do now. All the lasting impressions of the 1990s and early-mid 2000s are based on what was then word of mouth and message board talk generated by personal experiences.

>>11866074
>Reviewers mattered even less in 2001 than they do now.
The cope is unreal. If SH2 got 10/10 reviews it would sell more than 2 million across ps2/xbox/pc. Dynasty Warriors titles sold better than SH2 did.

>>11866076
Video game sales are a weird thing. Croc outsold SH1

>>11866076
jesus you little pud

>>11866038
I found the pipe easily myself but missed the rifle in SH1.

>>11866049
>2013 is way too late.
Are you regarding the video's date? The video was published on the Escapist around 2009, not like it'll help or change any points or minds by much.

>>11866220
Yeah I was. But 2009 is also too late.

>>11866090
Replayed the game for the first time in years not too long ago and also missed it

>>11866237
>But 2009 is also too late.
I wouldn't say solely responsible, but either helped or showed the impression shared by a lot of people including this Silent Hill producer.

>>11866074
Reviewers mattered a LOT in 2001 since you couldn't get gameplay footage outside of a Demo disc. You had to rely upon print reviews or sites. I remember printing off a copy of the IGN DMC review at the library before deciding to buy it or not.

Many reviews were pretty good, but many were also lower while saying it was disapointing. Other games that were forgotten about later on, reviewed better and sold better.

>>11866064
It's easy to nag on that review for not getting it, but the plot is a little obtuse like a puzzle, and there's only one scene in the entire game where James tries to explain things to an audience. Without multiple playthroughs, fan wikis, youtube essays, it's easy to not understand what the hell was going on.

>>11866339
rentals

OPM with some insight into what the designers were thinking. My thesis is that they were havily focsued on the audio-visuals, while neglecting seeing things from a gameplay standpoint.

>>11866368

>>11866371

>>11866374
>"presentation is everything"

>>11866380

>>11866381

>>11866384

It's a godo game. Just not a godo silent hill game.

>>11866071
>metacritic which is amazing for a survival horror game, I don't think any game in the genre has got better reviews actually, aside from... aside from Code Veronica lmao
RE4 and SS2 did among others but it's mostly still just Resident Evil games:
https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/all/survival/

>>11868292
Meta-critic doesn't have a lot of offline magazine reviews, mostly online ones. Some of the print magazines were more nuetered in response to the game.

>>11868309
Which ones are you specifically referring to?

>>11862724
Yeah SH1 sold itself on that alley sequence alone. That's what everyone who played it talked about and I remember seeing the knife kids and crucified corpse in every single magazine review. Even the print ads had shots of Harry exploring the dark alley with his lighter. It's one of the most iconic horror game setpieces and I can't really fault the devs of the other games for failing to live up to it because that's a hard act to follow.

>>11868482
Yeah, it's tight and gives you a nice little run down, and then gives you all the tools, then directs you first to your first objective, which then tells you your next one. Sh2 does not do any of this right away, and spreads things out over like an hour or two (Depending how long it takes until you get past the apartments).

It might have started stronger had they opened with a similar nightmare being chased by PH, then Maria wakes you up, and you get all your needed items, then you both try to figure out how to get to the Park. That would make things way zippier, and make things more clear to the player.

I remember on first playthrough going through the apartments, but not even knowing WHY, just because it was a level, the only place I could go.

>>11862724
>All indications is that it undersold expectations compared to the first one (you expect sequels to sell more and build an audience)
>>11866064
>The sales were lower than the first game.
We don't actually know that. All we know is that the sales in Japan were slower than of the first game per Ito himself and that it sold 1 million copies on PS2 alone in just the first month which is not accounting for the sales on PC or Xbox, the latter of which sold well enough to become a Platinum Hits re-release 2 years later.

Also keep in mind that Konami never published sales for SH1 either, those numbers came from Sato's online resume. We know that SH3 and SH4 sold less than 400K on both PS2 and Xbox because they never got Greatest Hits or Platinum Hits re-releases on either platform and SH3 was never ported to Xbox to begin with.

According to Konami's own website, the Silent Hill series has sold a combined total of 11.5 million since the first game. From the official and unofficial published sales numbers for individual titles that gives us only 5.3 million. That's a lot of unaccounted for sales still missing and most of them can probably safely be assumed to belong primarily to the first two titles.

https://www.konami.com/corporate/en/business/digitalentertainment.html

>>11862748
>The game's rep grew with time, and this vid might be the turning point for popular consciousness.
>>11866049
>A lot of people tuned out.
Also false: https://www.silenthillmemories.net/creators/interviews/2005.04.23_imamura_yamaoka_gameworld_en.htm
>GW: So the series is getting larger, gaining more momentum, and was coming out on a yearly basis, right?
>Imamura: Well, keep in mind SH4 was not originally suppose to be a Silent Hill.
>Yamaoka: We did see a significant increase in popularity after the first game and even more so after the second. Originally the intention was not to make SH3 a direct sequel to the first game. In fact, the scenario was completely different, but fans seemed to want to tie up some loose ends, so we tried that, even though some on the staff did not agree with the decission.
There was no YouTube in 2005 as it was still in its infancy back then. There was no videos or ecelebs "tricking" people into liking SH2. Aren't you also forgetting that Tomm Hulett started working at Konami in the mid-2000s just because of how much he liked SH2?

>>11868505
>There was no videos or ecelebs "tricking" people into liking SH2.
It's always weird seeing people do that shit, like "No, it's not possible for people to just like this thing that I don't like, there must be a conspiracy and they are brainwashed by heckin evil e-celebs!"

>>11865974
I'm well aware the locked door thing stems from wanting a realistic number of rooms you dumbass. But does it make for fun gameplay? Fuck no. There's a middle ground in there somewhere and they never achieved it.

>>11868549
I would have a lot more respect for SH1 fans if they weren't so dishonest all the time. I like SH1 it's my second favorite in the series after SH2, but it also has a lot of problems on its own that I never see any of its fans bring up, some of which SH2 actively improved upon even. Meanwhile SH2 fans have no problems admitting their favorite game isn't perfect including Tomm Hulett while still maintaining it's a masterpiece in spite of its flaws. It's by far the most critiqued game in the fandom because of the vocal minority of fans who prefer SH1 and/or SH3 and can't stand the fact that SH2 overshadows their preferred title and perceive it as some great injustice so they intentionally spread misinformation about the sales and organic popularity of SH2 in the early 2000s that they attribute solely to YouTube in the 2010s. These are primarily found in online communities like this one or the one on Reddit that keeps bringing up SH2's flaws in every single discussion out of jealousy because they can't seem to do the same to their preferred games so they have to pretend they're flawless by comparison instead.

>>11864965
SH was meant to breed a sense of isolation in the player. Loneliness and melancholy. It's a dark, brooding game meant to instill hopelessness and helplessness. They don't give you the tools because the adversary is the town itself, the enemies are the distraction. You just don't get it.

I'm so glad I found this game blindly way back when and could actually explore and enjoy it without having to scour the internet for approval ratings and peoples playthroughs so they can pick it apart and tell you its shit. You fucks could play it yourself without people in your fucking ear but you won't. Just move on and play the slop the media pushes as you can't make up your own damn mind on something you might enjoy.

>>11870059
It was extremely common for a long time for SH2 fans to try and say everything was intentional and symbolic especially in response to any discussion of perceived flaws, and for them to shit on all the other games especially for the cult stuff. In recent years the pendulum might've swung in the other direction, but I've never seen SH1 get the level of irrational defense that SH2 got. It may not have been every single SH2 fan acting this way but there was a not insignificant part of the community doing this.

It's not that uncommon to see people talk about how it kind of sucks that you can miss the side content later in the game if you run too far in one direction and then you're unable to return. Or that you can miss getting the aglaophotis in the hospital.

I love both games for different reasons. 1 is my favorite but I often felt frustrated with blind fanboyism of 2 fans, and I do feel annoyed with people trying to say 2 is a garbage game as well. What do you think the flaws of 1 are and what 2 improved on? I thought 2 had better voice acting sometimes and overall was better at making you feel broken by the scenario, but that it was a step down in most other areas of game design which made it a little harder for me to enjoy which is probably partially why I liked 1 a bit more.

>>11866237
Nah. People kinda forgot about SH2. It got overshadowed by 1. I heard more people talking about 4 than 2.

>>11870131
>People kinda forgot about SH2. It got overshadowed by 1.
>Every single SH post-4 was a SH2 clone.
>Even the unsanctioned "prequel" of SH1 went this route.

>>11870059
>Meanwhile SH2 fans have no problems admitting their favorite game isn't perfect
>>11870107
>You just don't get it.
Reading this two back to back is hilarious.

>>11866079
It's interesting to think about just how huge 3D platformers were back in the day but now nobody really gives a shit unless it's got Mario's name slapped on it. Survival horror relative to its niche has managed to cling to relevancy with millions of sales throughout every console generation but publishers like EA can't accept anything less than Resident Evil numbers when it comes to sales so there's no real competition in the AAA space anymore aside from Silent Hill but who knows how long that will last for. Even classic style survival horror has managed a comeback something that would've been unthinkable 20 years ago.

>>11870580
>SH post 4 were clones of 2
Yeah I fucking wish lmfao

>>11871073
Downpour and Homecoming were modeled on SH2's story.

The cult of Sh2 being this artistic misunderstood underappreciated game started on Silent Hill forums. I know because i was part of them. We picked apart everything since SH2 was so weird and cryptic, but there seemed to be a logic to it rather than just being random noise. So we talked more about 2 than 3 or 1. It's actually the perfect game for the internet forum age, and later social media age.

Most of the things we picked up on turned out to be correct (image taken from a JP guidebook).

The cult of Sh2 grew and grew, with the 2009 Escapism video being it's creshendo and reaching the broader audience.

Fucking Croc sold more than SH2 to put things into perspective.

>>11871164
The stuff with the foreskins came like a decade later because they picked apart everything and moved to fandom and they attracted even more schizo people.

We did translate the segment from the Sh3 guidebook that explains everything, but for some reason we never thought about just scanning the SH1-3 books ourselves. The end-segments are replite with explanations that line up with the standard explanations we came up with like 5 years later.

>>11864965
If SH2 started like SH1:

>FMV explains why James is in the town
>game starts right inside Silent Hill
>James follows down a road towards a path following what he thinks is Mary
>things get rusty and spooky
>he's cornered and trappd with Pyramid head who kills him
>wakes up in some diner or cafe or something
>oh hey Maria.
>you get the flashlight, knife, map, radio
>travel back to the same alleyway to get the steel pipe
>a direct hint: go to the park
>James sees the way is blocked off and he has to go through some buildings
>passage through the apartments is quick and fast to get to the other side
>get to the park
>direction to go to the brookhaven hospital

Notice how this would streamline things and make things go faster? Maria, all your tools, and PH, all within like 10 minutes?

The game doesn't feel like it starts or has direction utnil you meet Maria in the park.

>>11871187
As much as I like the SH1 intro, copying it beat for beat for SH2 would just be lame. The apartments I'm honestly not the biggest fan of, but I actually like SH2's slow start and how it doesn't give you any directions once you actually arrive in the town.

>>11871235
Yeah, I'm not saying they should have copied them beat for beat like that, just giving an idea how it would look in SH2's scenario. The idea is to get things going, sell them on the horror and scenario, guide the player, and equip the player with all their tools before letting them loose. Sh2 starts too slow, divies up your tools that can make the player get stuck, and isn't very clear with objectives.

The only thing that might tangle you up is finding the "levin Street" note or not.

This is likely due to the loss of Keiichiro Toyama, who left to make the Siren games. i think Team Silent needed that one guy to keep the game flowing rather than getting lost in other things.

The town segments are really nice, and I like how much detail they put into the businesses and houses. You were obviously not supposed to look that close at some of them, since they just have flat textures for windows and they are supposed to be showing details.

>>11870602
>You just don't get it.
Can you seriously not infer from that part that it's just a shitpost?

>>11866038
>Since there's so much fog it's incredibly easy to just run down the other side of the street and never see it, thus missing an important melee weapon.
It's missable but this anon is right that the rifle which is arguably much more important is easily missable in SH1 since it was placed in the boss arena where your focus is on it >>11866090 and although not as easily you can also miss the hammer

The loud humming noise from the motor is the big clue for the pipe and it's literally on your way to where you need to go immediately upon exiting Rosewater Park unless you're running completely on the other side of the road where there's no points of interest on your map anyway https://youtu.be/wh6LhkA3698?t=3725

I just played SH2 OG for the first time and thought it was somewhat overrated
the atmosphere and presentation was incredible even now, and I can't even imagine how this would have gone over if you played it in 2001
The gameplay is outright boring and the city itself almost feels like an afterthought. I didn't really notice the music the way I noticed Not Tomorrow or the famous SH1 dentist drill music. I also thought the story was unimpressive but I am willing to excuse that the game is probably ruined if you've already had the ending spoiled for you ten years in advance.
I think SH2 is a worse version of SH1, that game blew me away.

>>11873308
>I think SH2 is a worse version of SH1, that game blew me away.
I think they're very different from each other.
SH1 has a larger scope in storytelling and a broader focus that lay the foundations and hits the execution with an outstanding perfection that no other horror game managed to do IMO.
SH2 on the other hand is really small in scope and tightly focused, it's 100% personal, this isn't to say that SH1 isn't personal in any way, Harry's Quest to save his daughter is personal, but the circumstances and interaction with Silent Hill are external to him.
Where in the case of James the circumstances of his interaction with Silent Hill are strictly internal.
>the story was unimpressive but I am willing to excuse that the game is probably ruined if you've already had the ending spoiled for you ten years in advance.
Yeah, I guess a big part of the true SH2 experience hinges on this. But, I wouldn't say that the story is unimpressive, it's willingness to tread on very specific themes regarding the rift between James and Mary due to her illness, it's one of those things that you can't really appreciate as a teenager, it's an adult reality that I haven't really seen any other piece of media that manages to capture the dread and consuming nature of a situation like that. This is what I mean that SH2 takes the personal part to the absolute.
And If you cannot truly relate those types of situations, the interpretation of those aspects breed the most low brow conclusions like "James is a woman hating asshole" and as a consequence the franchise attracted the stupidest people as a fandom. "SH3 is about Heather and her abortion rights!". It's not suprising how the post-SH4 games went all in with the "You go to Silent Hill to pay for your sins" and scratch away SH1 thinking it was a slasher about a cult like >>11848663

>>11861828 (OP)
>Sh3 went in the opposite direction: nothing BUT action.
Don't forget about how linear it is or how it reuses levels from Sh2

>>11862258
>Mario took years to build a following
No it didn't anon, SMB came with the NES and the NES was very popular immediately

>>11875276
Dumb retard

>>11870124
>What do you think the flaws of 1 are and what 2 improved on?
I'm going to talk strictly about the gameplay here, but I can't condense my points anymore than I already have so I hope you like reading a little.

For starters, having multiple different levels of puzzle difficulties is a big improvement and compensates, among others such as with the more elaborate ending requirements that isn't just about checking off a list of tasks, for the lack of amount of bonus weapons that 1 had for replayability's sake.

Secondly is the controls. That's right, the controls are improved in SH2 because SH1 has movement inertia baked in on every difficulty. The only way to mitigate this is by pressing and holding the forward D-pad/movement stick while letting go of the run button, but this is not something you need to do in any other tank control game that I'm aware of and it's especially awkward when you want to backstep or strafe which require coming to a full stop unlike SH2.

You can also run into walls with enough momentum (2 seconds of continuous running) something both of its immediate sequels only included for their hard modes, but in SH1 it's present even on easy mode. This can make some levels frustrating to navigate and this is another point in the favor of SH2 in that it has better overall level design that serves the narrative and themes of the game without sacrificing the gameplay to do so unlike SH1 with the sewers and some of the outdoors Otherworld sections like around the mall and amusement park or to and from the boat with the gratings everywhere leading to dead ends in the pitch black darkness.

However, you can also argue that SH2 sacrifices the combat part of the gameplay for the narrative and you would be right, but if there's one thing you do more than fight in any of these games it's walking and running and navigation is simply better in SH2. The camera controls are also more free to use starting from SH2.

>>11870124
And you also can't immediately change direction once you start strafing as Harry always has to take a minimum amount of two steps before stopping even if you just push the strafe button once unlike SH2 where you can immediately change direction and can even break out into a strafe whilst you're running and doing instantaneous quick turns while running and strafing. The secret mini-map unlockable in SH2 is also pretty handy when navigating.

One of the other most glaring flaws is the recycling of the Handgun animations for the Shotgun which actively hurts the combat variety, but more than that, there's no feedback at all to using the shotgun. Enemies are only slowed down if you shoot them with the pistol or the shotgun whereas in SH2 the Shotgun actually feels like a Shotgun and will knock down enemies in a single shot provided you're close enough making it effective for crowd control. The lack of a proper Shotgun in SH1 is felt the most when you get swarmed by 2 or 3 Grey Children and especially Hanged Scratchers in the sewers. So while the Shotgun might be slower and a bit more cumbersome to use in 2, at least it's not just a buffed Handgun and it's not like most enemies in SH2 aren't slow to begin with.

The Steel Pipe and the Emergency Hammer also both share the exact same attacks. SH2 remains the only TS game that doesn't recycle animations and has unique attacks for each of its weapons something it's own remake couldn't even manage to do a quarter of a century later. SH3 recycles most of its animations from both previous games and re-uses attacks for the Steel Pipe and Katana of which only the second strike in the light attack combo differs slightly. The Beam Katana is just the Katana but this is comparable to the Hyper Blaster and is thus acceptable.

>>11870124
Other flaws include reskinning a few of their enemies like Grey Children/Mumblers, Puppet Nurses/Doctors who are really just bigger, more retarded versions of Grey Children to begin, that behave mostly the same but will actively stop up and start making weird noises while shaking their heads as soon as you hit them with your OP Emergency Hammer so they never get a hit in and I can't think of a single area where they're more than two at once without the third one being so far away you won't aggro them even on hard and they're far easier to avoid by simply running past them on top of it, which brings me to the last most glaring flaw that I can think of off the top of my head: the weird difficulty curve.

In SH2, you're only really going to struggle with the bosses and they get tougher and tougher as you progress but in SH1, depending on if you use stealth or not, you're going to struggle a lot in Midwich but Alchemilla becomes a complete cakewalk by comparison even if you don't use stealth you steamroll every monster you meet.

Then the sewers become more challenging as long as you don't figure out that you can just start shooting the Hanged Scratchers off the ceiling one by one with your automatic aiming that works really well at long distances even without the Hyper Blaster. This is unfortunately necessary because of how shitty the Shotgun is and Hanged Scratchers aren't going to lunge at you or conveniently stop up or grab you they just slash at you with their claws relentlessly.

>>11870124
Then there's the final boss which is the very definition of artificial difficulty and it's simply impossible to avoid the lightning sometimes as it's entirely luck based because the strikes will track you no matter which way you go even if you manage to dodge in the last second and other times it will bend in the direction you're going in instead of landing straight down so you won't be able to get out of the way at all and even the amount of damage the attack does varies randomly so you can die even from full health.

The best way to beat them (they're the same, one just floats in the same spot and the other has a force field and stands in the same spot on the ground) is by wasting all of your ammo beforehand and running around in a tight circle which makes it easier to avoid and hope you get lucky enough not to be hit still or just stand still and unload everything while tanking the strikes and healing yourself for every second strike so you don't risk randomly dying to the third even from full health. Since Incubus doesn't have a force field you can strafe directly underneath him in a tight circle but you won't be able to see when he's about to attack and luck will still factor in to whether or not you get hit regardless. None of this makes for an engaging fight though.

Duo PH on hard by comparison is a fight that's manageable if you do the Great Knife strategy which is only possible to do on hard too because of the ricocheting.

>>11870124
All of this to say is that SH2 provides the more consistently enjoyable experience for me over any of the others, because they ALL have their issues and your favorite game isn't the exception, along with the strength of all the non-gameplay related reasons such as its story, characters, OST and psychological horror aspect that I consider to be the best of the bunch. SH3 doesn't have anything that it does exceptionally well that compensates for its many shortcomings unlike the first two. It's barely a decent game just like 4.

My only real issues with SH2 is that the boss fights are pretty terrible and the enemies shouldn't have been as passive maybe and I guess including Eddie's dog monster in the roster would've been a big plus too. The awkwardness with the timing of using your weapons is something you get used to and after having played the AITD DOS trilogy and Rule of Rose I know what my levels of tolerance are when it comes to awkward combat but I will acknowledge this isn't an objective measurement either. But to be completely fair, I think the ability to easily avoid combat in most instances is a strength in its favor for those who aren't as tolerant of that stuff as I am.

The over-abundance of items is something I will defend though knowing what I know about how bullet spongy the bosses can be, how monsters will regenerate to full health if they get back up again before you finish them off or respawn sometimes or if you shoot them while they're down which will cause them to prematurely regenerate to full health and the requirements for two of the endings that depend on James' health, and health items is not something that you can adjust the amount you get of unlike bullets. Other than that though I consider the game to be near flawless in its execution. Yes, this also includes the voice acting.

I'm done now btw.

>>11875425
>and the enemies shouldn't have been as passive maybe
Yeah. I read all of your posts but this is something that made a big difference for me. Like you said the indoor enemies in 1 weren't extremely threatening, but they felt like some needed action between puzzles and dealing with them was learning more how to navigate around them properly to not get swarmed. The harder combat was kept for the outdoor areas which 2 completely lacked. Exploring outdoors in 2 also generally felt like a waste of time. And I thought some of the puzzles were worse. It made it harder for me to enjoy actually playing 2 sometimes, although I think it gets better as you get closer to the end.

>>11876589
Also I haven't played the games in a while. I'll probably marathon them again eventually and try to pay attention to some of the improvements you mentioned.

https://github.com/elishacloud/Silent-Hill-2-Enhancements

>>11875415
>>11875420
I know what they were going for. The movement in Sh is actually very realistic, as people are not ninjas who can turn on a dime. SH2-3 is less realistic, and even includes the sorta goofy 2D moveset but when playing a video game sacrificing some realism for gameplay is okay.

Funny enough, RE4 remake adds a lot of inertia and momentum lag into the animations, which brings it more in line with SH 1. Gaming has actually flipped around where the SH1 style inertia is seen as a good thing.

>>11861828 (OP)
>step into this thread
>literal zoomers repeating that Silent Hill 2 was le under-the-radar gem that went kind of unnoticed in its time
What the FUCK are you guys even talking about?! Do you even care if your bullshit relates to reality even remotely? This is not just inaccurate: the opposite is true. It was one of the biggest if not *the* biggest horror game release of its year, in a time when horror games were much more popular than today and actual flagships that drove people to choose a console over another. It was reviewed and previewed *every fucking where* and was on the cover of almost every magazine back in the day at some point, either on release or even before. It was fucking HUGE in E3 in 2001. It was presented alongside fucking Metal Gear Solid 2 as two of the biggest releases in Sony's conference. Everything will get re-written just to have a stupid fringe fucking super-special opinion of it, I see it over and over in this board. So stupid. So dumb.

>>11876678
>people can't turn on a dime
Out of curiosity, how much do you weigh?
Or do you mean they usually don't pivot on zero space? That's more of a tendency thing, people can absolutely turn instantly.

>>11873308
I like 1 and 3 more. 2 is okay but undeniably overrated.

>>11876710
This board is full of people obsessed with rewriting history instead of discussing video games.

>>11876710
>>11876771
Sh2 sold less than the original and underperforming Konami's expectations, leading to the decline of the series.

Here's Sato's resume: Notice he doesn't list Sh2's sales but the sales of 1?
https://web.archive.org/web/20171225004925/http://satoworks.com/Takayoshi_Sato_resume.html

>>11876771
>This board is full of people obsessed with rewriting history instead of discussing video games.

Irony: it's the SH fans who re-wrote history. SH1 was a surprise hit, SH2-4 underperformed, so Konami disbanded Team Silent and outsourced teh games. The SH fans re-wrote events that the extremely popular successful high quality game series was killed by mean old Konami for seemingly no reason other than malice.

For 2001? Yeah it was one of the bigger horror games that year. But it was quickly overshadowed and forgotten. On SH and gaming forums, they built the myth of SH2 being one of the best games ever during the early 00s. A flawless masterpiece. I was on these forums so I shared this viewpoint, but with time I can be a bit more objective.

"Okay, if I didn't like this game already, wouldn't I see this entire opening section as a huge chore and a drag?"

>>11876780
>he doesn't list Sh2's sales
Your source is the absence of numbers? Why wouldn't you use the actual sales numbers if you were comparing sales numbers?

>>11876780
>>11876784
Konami hasn't release game by game sales sadly, so we have to do some math.

SH2 remake sold 2 million. Sh1 is said to sell over 2 million. Subtract that from the 11.5 million: 7.5 million.

SH2, SH3, Sh4, SH Origins, SH Shattered Memories, SH Downpour, SH Homecoming, SH Play Novel, SH HD, etc = 7.5 million sales.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Silent_Hill_media

>>11876710
>It was reviewed and previewed *every fucking where* and was on the cover of almost every magazine back in the day at some point, either on release or even before. It was fucking HUGE in E3 in 2001. It was presented alongside fucking Metal Gear Solid 2 as two of the biggest releases in Sony's conference.

Yeah, Konami gave it a huge push and had high expectations for it. And it didn't sell.

>It was one of the biggest if not *the* biggest horror game release of its year,

Luigi's Mansion sold 3.3 million copies. History is written by the victors so to speak, and Sh fans have had an enduring obsessive fanbase.

>>11876780
Silent Hill 1 was a smash hit, you moron. Silent Hill 2 selling fewer copies on a system that was just released very recently is a long fucking way from it being le understated gem for connoiseurs that "didn't click with games right away". You don't want to talk about videogames: you just want to trade idiotic factoids you've read somewhere with other zoomers and debate who has the better quality factoids from a time when you were 3 years old or maybe not even born. That in itself is a stupid enough way to spend your time, but to try to draw conclusions from your """knowledge""" and present them as fact to people who actually lived through it...damn.
>it was quickly overshadowed and forgotten.
pic related

>>11876915
>Luigi's Mansion
>horror game
>1.3 million copies sold
>le understated gem that flew under the radar
Just be honest and tell me what year you were born in please, just say it. I promise I won't laugh

>>11876919
>>11876937
>{{{incoherent screeching}}}

MGS2 was also released in 2001, and it sold 7 million on the PS2 alone. MGS2 and SH2 were the make or break games for their series, and MGS2 passed, and SH2 failed.

My conclusions are:
1. SH2-3-4 failed to sell well.
2. SH fans mostly told the story of the series, one of flawless masterpieces getting better and cut short by Konami, rather than a declining series of lesser sales and lesser budgets. If fans didn't "get it" it's because they were stupid, unlike the smart SH fanbase.
3. A large chunk of this can be attributed to how Sh2 is designed, especially the opening segments, which fail to draw in the player like SH1 did. It's a slog and a bore for new players.
4. The outsourced Sh games were made by SH2 fans, who copied that format (a game that didn't sell well), thus dooming the games further rather than picking up on the best selling game (the first one) and how it drew people in.

>>11876974
Sh2 is thus a poisoned chalice for the series and its fanbase. The westerners especially loved it and it became the dominant part of the online SH fanbase. It's why Downpour and Homecoming were modeled after it, why even Shattered Memories draws on psychological aspects, and why they remade Sh2 first instead of 1 which is way more logical.

Sh1 = fun action-adventure fighting waves of dangerous aggressive animals and raising the stakes and mixing gameplay up with new weapons, enemies, locations. Taps into primal fear of being prey chased by predators. Gameplay and set pieces first.

Sh2 = slow plodding moody game with unthreatening enemies. Story and atmosphere first.

Sh3 = dev team panicking, and overcompensating, with tons of action, enemies, weapons, trying to recapture the SH1 fans, but it was too little too late.

>>11861828 (OP)
I think what a lot of people ignore is the industry moving on from the formula established by teamsilent, the blueprint they were going to stick with and what they were capable of was old hat by 2003 if not 2001. that isn't to let sh2 off the hook, certainly the turn towards a story focused game didn't help, but slow(yes sh1 was slow even if you ran from dogs from time to time) tank control horror game with auto aim and fixed camera angles was never going to be what it was in 99 on a 5th gen console again. re4 didn't hit it big in the 6th gen until it reinvinted itself with a strong action mechanic. sh3 and sh4 being hits wasn't in the cards.

>>11877067
Of course, teams don't know what games are supposed to look like, and it's possible that SH2-3 didn't innovate as much as they should have. We can compare to some other games of the era:

>Extermination (2001)

This has semi-lock on semi-free aim system with a laser pointer. You can control where you aim loosely, and if close it locks on. It's a bit awkward, and the camera is pretty awkward. Sh2 actually has a much better less frustrating camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0BQxb_tOBI

>MGS2: The Sons of Liberty

This has two aiming modes: third person with top down camera that has auto-aim, and a manual first person mode. I wonder: should this have been the system SH2-3 used?

Manual aiming systems are just more rewarding for the player.

>>11876678
>Gaming has actually flipped around where the SH1 style inertia is seen as a good thing.
gonna drop my hot take and say that removed from the inherent limitations of tank controls(slow, fixed turning speed) inertia is a necessary evil, at least in the context of a horror game that doesn't have balls to the wall attack patterns. if you want any kind of chase mechanic, anything where your character's movement is meaningful choice you need to limit their ability to instantly turn on a dime.

Can we talk about the cover? What is this? Most people don't even know it's supposed to be Angela. The cover does a very piss poor job of conveying what the hell it's supposed to be about and most likely led to decreased sales.

Artistically you can say it's a neat cover, but as a cover to increase sales? bad bad bad. That's the problem with SH2 in general.

>>11877302
Remake is floating head bullshit for retards but it actually conveys the premise a lot better and clearer.

>>11877305
And if I had to pick one to go with: at least Maria is thematically more relevant, and pretty chick on the cover makes more sense. Japanese xbox cover is my fave of the originals.

>>11876710
Even more bizarre are the people who think Resident fucking Evil was an underappreciated niche series until RE4 introduced it to a wider audience. It's genuinely baffling how someone could be that retarded but I see it all the time.

>>11877447
>>11876710
SH1 made a big splash, SH2 had a lot of promotion by Konami, but it was a dud. The western fans spent years hyping up the game on internet forums as this underappreciated gem. The types of people who sit around forums in 2004, or make video essays in 2009 or 2024 are NOT the typical gamer, but the obsessive nerd, and their tastes are not representative but they get to write the story of what or was not popular games.

The myth of Sh2 being this juggernaut game has been around for like 20 years to the point where no one questions it. It probably sold 1-2 million.

Games that sold way more:
>Luigi's Mansion
>Driver 3
>Dynasty Warriors 4
>The Getaway
>Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
>True Crime: Streets of LA

>>11877472
Perfect example of SH fellation on how perfect they are. If they were so damn perfect then why did SH2 under-perform and kill the momentum of the series?

The social pressures of online forums and online discourse is no one wants to bad mouth these games, since it outs you as a pleb who "didn't get it", so everyone agrees they're high art.

>>11877472
>It probably sold 1-2 million.
That's a pretty safe assumption. You can dig through archives of Konami's JP website and it'll say things like "The series that terrified audiences and sold more than 5.3 million copies" when they were promoting the first movie. That would just be the first 4 games at that time.

>>11876589
>Exploring outdoors in 2 also generally felt like a waste of time.
There weren't as many optional indoor areas as SH1 but the focus of SH2 is mainly on its indoor environments which are better designed here as a result. SH1 succeeds in making you feel lost in a big desolate town and SH2 succeeds in its elaborate surrealist design indoors such as the Woodside Apartments leading to Bluecreek Apartments through its fire escape door that doesn't lead to an actual fire escape but the apartment building directly beside it through the window of a private residence that is clearly not supposed to be how it would be designed in the real world and the iron bars that separate you from your first encounter with PH.

The hospital rooftop leading to the padded cell after PH shows up out of nowhere, the entirety of Historical Society and the prison, the Otherworld and Fog World hotel that aren't as straight forward as they appear at first glance because it breaks every previously established convention and makes you question what is actually real. The boss arenas that all start out in tiny rooms culminating with Eddie's two phase fight that transitions from a small room to a bigger arena and the final two bosses are also fought in bigger arenas. I think this is a conscious choice but as mentioned it sacrifices gameplay for narrative in order to do so.

>And I thought some of the puzzles were worse.
I thought the opposite. I liked the piano puzzle and the rooftop drainage puzzle but I didn't enjoy the turnstile or astrology ones. What are some examples of worse puzzles in SH2 and how were they better in SH1?

>>11876974
>umm I won't read your post ur wrong
>{{{incoherent cherrypicked factoids that don't add up to the sum of their parts}}}
>reddit spacing
>My conclusions are:
You see, I don't have to "draw conclusions" from "data" (Wikipedia screenshots LOL). Because I was there :^) You forgot again to include your year of birth in your post by the way! SH2 was huge at the time, son. Had a tremendous impact, especially among enthusiasts. I wish you would've been there to see it. You would've loved it.

>>11876974
>My conclusions are:
>1. SH2 failed to sell well.
You're basing those conclusions on nothing but baseless conjecture while ignoring all of the evidence that you've been shown repeatedly throughout the thread when it doesn't fit the narrative you've created. Comparing the sales of MGS2 to the sales of SH2 is especially laughable. Not even Resident Evil could compare to Metal Gear back in the day. And fucking Luigi's Mansion? A Nintendo exclusive carrying the Mario branding and is kid's horror aimed at a much younger demographic. You might as well compare the sales of the Resident Evil games on the same platform to it instead: 1.8 million was the highest number of sales an RE game could reach on GameCube.

All the evidence points to that SH2 sold well in the places that actually mattered which is not Japan. That was the fatal mistake that Konami made and by the time they pivoted the series to focus entirely on the West instead it was already too late.
>which fail to draw in the player like SH1 did. It's a slog and a bore for new players.
What is your source on this? 4chan threads doesn't count.
>>11877014

the game is good
the discourse/fans are around it are unbearable

discussion over

>>11877812
>>11877014
Also, there were other factors as to why SH3 underperformed which is also the reason why Origins underperformed: by the mid-2000s people were sick of the classic survival horror formula that SH3 did nothing to shake up. I also think making a female protagonist only game was a mistake which is one that Resident Evil has never made. Contrary to what the internet would have you believe most people want to play as their own gender and gaming was dominated by male gamers even back then. Tomb Raider was generally an outlier and wasn't a horror game either.

>>11875425
>psychological horror aspect
NTA, As unsettling the visuals are SH2 was more of a thriller than horror to me.

>>11875424
>Since Incubus doesn't have a force field you can strafe directly underneath him in a tight circle but you won't be able to see when he's about to attack and luck will still factor in to whether or not you get hit regardless.

I think sound cues are much more important than the visual aspect. If you played Doom 2, fighting a Mancubus is the same. I think the Incubus fight is engaging and the most fun in the game.

>>11875415
>this is another point in the favor of SH2 in that it has better overall level design that serves the narrative and themes of the game without sacrificing the gameplay to do so unlike SH1 with the sewers and some of the outdoors Otherworld sections like around the mall and amusement park or to and from the boat with the gratings everywhere leading to dead ends in the pitch black darkness.

This is more of a taste thing, SH1 level design is superb and I wouldn't change any of it, the dark dead ends play in it's favor, your mind fills it. The Sewers are transition points and never overstay their welcome, they don't even have a puzzle. The last outdoors sections like the path towards the boat, the lighthouse and amusement park the game pressures you both in gameplay with the increasing monster spawn and in narrative with Dhalia's instructions implying to not stop and explore. This is was a great choice because it's serves to the endings, which I think you are underselling them by categorizing them as mere task from a checklist.
>>11877815
bp

>>11877758
I don't remember finding too much interesting about the apartments and hospital. But I did really enjoy the prison and hotel. What bothered me most is that there's one long road you can run down in 2, and after a while it's just a dead end and the game makes you go back. That just killed me and made me wonder why they let you do that. I don't know if there was some kind of intention behind it like punishing James for neglecting what he's supposed to be doing but it made playing the game feel pretty bad especially after you already had a similar long run at the start.

>turnstile
I didn't dislike this one but it still makes me lol that I had more trouble with it than the piano puzzle for some reason. I didn't really have any issue solving the astrology puzzle either, I quite liked all the puzzles in 1. I never felt stuck because something seemed nonsensical or not worth figuring out.

I got stuck in the apartments for a bit with the cans of juice thinking it was a consumable like the other health drink. Apparently some others thought the same thing or just didn't realize it was used to progress the game. The rotating head thing I didn't really find enjoyable either and just used it randomly until I progressed.

Not really sure about the game show section in the hospital either. It's not really a puzzle exactly but I almost never see anyone talk about it. I know it can be seen as weird and surreal but I'm not sure if it added anything or if it took something away from the atmosphere there.

Most of the other stuff was okay. Overall I thought 1 had better puzzles but more of the criticism I have is just with the enemies and level design of 2 which I thought was the bigger downgrade.

>>11879026
>What bothered me most is that there's one long road you can run down in 2, and after a while it's just a dead end and the game makes you go back. That just killed me and made me wonder why they let you do that. I don't know if there was some kind of intention behind it like punishing James for neglecting what he's supposed to be doing but it made playing the game feel pretty bad especially after you already had a similar long run at the start.

Nathan Ave? The bridge is out which is why he has to go to the Historical society which has a boat launch out back.

James doesn't relay a lot of his intentions to the player, who can often think he's just doing random bullshit one after another.

>I need to go the park, so I have to go through these apartments
>I need to go to the motel, but the bridge is out, so I have to go through the historical society to the back entrance

What the player sees:
>I'm going to go into these apartments since its' the only way forward but I have no idea why I'm here
>I'm going to go to the historical society since the madman mentions it in the note but I have no clue why.

>>11861828 (OP)
"That's the point" is the counter-argument to all of your "points".

>>11879053
The game leaves maps around that brazenly just tell the player where to go. One at the end of Nathan Ave, and the other in Neely's Bar.

>>11861828 (OP)
zoomer hands typed this

>>11879060
>"That's the point" is the counter-argument to all of your "points".

Then they made an artsy game that has narrow appeal and the sales reflected that. I strongly doubt they had those intentions when they started out. I think they got lost in the new technology and didn't see the forest for the trees.

>>11879065
I'm 41. I like the game, but it was really a dud on release and failed to impress most people. I remember in the 00s taking my ps2 up north to a friend's cabin, and I awoke seeing them playing Sh2, and just running around the streets saying how terrible the game is. They then concluded it was one of the worst games ever.

I go back to lay SH2 periodically, because it's max comfy and I like to see how the PC version plays out. But you can't deny that if you look at it without any nostalgia goggles or preconceived notions of its greatness, that the average person is gonna find it bland and meandering.

>horrible cover
>terrible early section
>meandering and lack of clear direction early game

>>11879067
I don't think the dev team was thinking
>Man, I'd love to make a game that sold less than the last one and completely killed the series, and also led to our team being disbanded in a few years!

Of course not. When Sh fans tell the story of the first three SH games, they compeltely neglect to mention sales numbers and only tell the story from THEIR viewpoint.

>>11879053
>Nathan Ave? The bridge is out which is why he has to go to the Historical society which has a boat launch out back.
Yeah I think that was it. It's fine for it to be that way but why let the player run all the way down there only to tell them to go back? There could've been a blockade earlier down the road. It just wasted a lot of time and made me hate playing it.

Silent Hill was a one-trick pony.
>You explore normal looking areas, but sometimes they flip to an evil version and you have to explore the same areas, except now they're all rusty or dilapidated looking
That's it. That's the whole hook. It was cool the first time it happens in the alley and then the school, but was already wearing thin by the end of the first game. It took until 4 for them to realize that's a really lame gimmick to build a whole series on, but it was far too late by then.

>>11879443
(You)

>>11879443
It did get a bit formulaic and predictable, and especially SH2 set the "formula" for the game and enemy design moving forward. If you go back to SH1, it's a lot more fresh, with more chances, and interesting enemy designs.

>>11875420


>>11875420
>nemies are only slowed down if you shoot them with the pistol or the shotgun whereas in SH2 the Shotgun actually feels like a Shotgun

In SH1 it's actually a sawed off shotty, and in SH2-3 it's a proper shotgun (Remington 870 short barrel), but James holds it like an idiot. He doesn't press the stock up against his shoulder. Really crazy spread too.

Sh3 also had some major improvements:

>massive reduction in 2D FMVs for in-engine graphics

I bet the devs for 2 wasted so many hours doing them, when it's so much better to do them in-engine. I don't think they mastered in-engine animation yet though.

>enemy variety

Still not as good or aggressive as 1, but finally there's more than 1. There's a flying enemy, and others.

Is this a thread of AI talking to each other?

Gamers in 2001 didn't find this game that compelling.

>>11878079
>NTA, As unsettling the visuals are SH2 was more of a thriller than horror to me.
That's not how it works. Horror doesn't turn into thriller just because you don't think it's "scary". Some people really have such a hard time understanding this for some reason.
>I think sound cues are much more important than the visual aspect.
Sound cues isn't going to change that you still have to just hope for the best and still contend with the inertia that will always delay your counter attack by a full second or two.
>This is more of a taste thing
You can say that about most anything, but you can't just handwave legitimate criticism as merely a matter of taste every time either. I don't dismiss it when people dislike SH2 because they don't find it challenging enough even though my personal tastes makes me able to still find it tense and horrifying regardless. So some of it is subjective, but there's always some objectivity to be found. SH2 objectively does some things really well and others not so much. Same with SH1.

Even if you like the sewers, the fact is that they repeat it three times and it's not like the apartments in 2 where they're functionally still part of the same level. You get out of the sewers then run around outdoors on your way to the boat and amusement park except SIKE you actually have to go through the sewers just one more time with the same tiny walkways and dead ends everywhere that just don't mesh that well with the game's controls. I can tolerate it and it doesn't make the game unplayable, but objectively the sewers are the weaker parts of the game's level design.

>>11878079
>the game pressures you both in gameplay with the increasing monster spawn
Like I said, this is comparable to how SH2 sacrifices the combat for its narrative. SH1 shouldn't be completely exempt from criticism for prioritizing narrative over gameplay for the same reason that SH2 isn't.

If I had to compare this to a non-Silent Hill game it would be Kingdom Hearts 2 where the devs have said they intentionally made the Roxas part of the game boring for narrative purposes and I remember some of my friends dropped it back in the day before it really got started but I stuck with it and I hadn't even played KH1 or CoM before. I guess I've just never really minded slow burns that much no matter the genre even though I'm a lot more patient now as a grown adult.

In the Making of SH2 video the devs said that the long trek into the town from the observation deck was also intentional to make you not feel like turning back and also realize how isolated the town was but they knew it was risky from a gameplay perspective. I can totally respect that even if it doesn't always work out for the best and I don't think that's something that the devs of today would do either.
>which I think you are underselling them
I'm not: https://www.silenthillmemories.net/sh1/endings_en.htm
Compared to half of SH2's endings which is not just a simple checklist: https://www.silenthillmemories.net/sh2/endings_en.htm

Also, another thing I totally forgot to mention is those damn Rompers. I can't be the only one who finds them more annoying than anything else. They don't even give you the time to turn around and shoot them once they start chasing you and they're almost as fast as Harry so they're really hard to shake off.

>>11879026
>>11879169
>What bothered me most is that there's one long road you can run down in 2, and after a while it's just a dead end and the game makes you go back.
You're talking about the trek to Historical Society? I guess if you expect there to be optional indoor areas like in SH1 I can see why you would be disappointed but the game never hints that you should go there before you reach that part of the story. IIRC there's like a health kit and some ammo which is the same type of stuff you could also find in the gas station or police station in 1 anyway. You are able to find a stone next to the houses where you find the key to the box burried in the dirt at Rosewater Park that hints at some of the backstory of the town and there's that one area at a dead end where you find James' corpses littered around with notes that hints at the possibility you could be stuck in a time loop. Neely's Bar and the RV are also technically optional so it's not like there's nothing to gain from exploring outdoors even if it isn't going to lead to finding a rock drill or some gasoline to power it.
>the cans of juice thinking it was a consumable like the other health drink.
Idk, somehow using the juice cans to unstuck the garbage chute just came to me intuitively because SH2 played by the same rules as SH1 and only offered 3 different items to heal you and selecting to use an item from the inventory will tell you if you can use it or not so I also tried that first.

The turning head I had a bit of trouble with at first but I figured it out after a bit of guessing, but I really hate the kind of puzzle that the turnstile is where it becomes harder if you guess one or two directions wrong. It's like trying to untangle your old pair of earbuds that you kept in your pocket back when they weren't wireless. I actually feel the same about the sliding puzzle in RE4, I'm just not very good at those kinds.

>>11879495
>In SH1 it's actually a sawed off shotty
I don't know much about weapons admittedly but sawed off shotguns should still have spread and stopping power and that's a problem with SH1. Weapon variety is as important as enemy variety and you only have 3 firearms total yet 2 of them are functionally the exact same weapon. It's not a turn-based RPG so this is inexcusable even if it's easy to use with minimal friction.
>James holds it like an idiot.
Yes, they sacrificed gameplay for narrative just like SH1 did with the inertia and some levels.
>SH3
Prioritized gameplay over narrative by smoothing out the weapon animations it recycles from the previous games except the part about being able to fall into holes and enemies being able to really easily knock you down particularly if they hit you with your back turned to them or as you're trying to run past them so it's once again a trade-off for the things that it improved upon from its predecessors. The worst thing about the hole mechanic is that only easy mode disables it completely it would've been a lot more acceptable if it was exclusive to hard action just like the part about being able to run into walls is in SH2 and SH3 since it would just be part of the challenge, such as how being able to bounce melee weapons off of walls in SH2 only exists for hard as well.
>Still not as good or aggressive as 1
Disagree, dogs are a bigger threat and are now able to grab you, Scrapers are also very aggressive IIRC. I'm not sure if Slurpers will actively target you upon sight but they will certainly knock you on your ass constantly and they're really hard to avoid. It's impossible to try to sneak past them with your flashlight turned off.
>but finally there's more than 1.
Yes, but don't forget that SH3 is also guilty of repurposing a boss as a fodder enemy something that SH2 gets criticized for with Abstract Daddy. I consider it a worse offense here though since Missionary is the one that killed a very important character.

>>11880817
Somewhat tolerate it*

ITT AI bots talk to one another

>>11880838
I think the sawed off in 1 works by shooting a cone of damage to an enemy with 6 shots (somehow).

In SH2-3, James and Heather are not trained professionals and hold the weapon like idiots so they feel more recoil than if they held it normally. This is a good thing, because it weakens them a bit. The shotties are still really solid weapons though.

I did a Sh2 playthrough recently where in my ps2 games I obsessively collected Rifle and shotgun ammo, but enver used them, and in this playthrough i was using them on crowds and any nurse that i saw.

>>11879463
I think the Playstation hardware helped SH1 out a lot too. The monsters are just abstracted enough to let your imagination fill in the blanks. The actual design sketches have that same overdone, grimy look the monsters in the rest of the games have.

>>11861828 (OP)
Haven't played the games since their PC release dates way back then, watched a streamer play through 2 and 3 recently, and what surprised me the most is how awful the acting is. Pretty much none of the scenes feel natural, it's like people are literally reading their lines out loud from a piece of paper. Basically only Heather's VA was any good at all. The iconic "they look like monsters to you?" line fell completely flat. I know the die-hard fans hate hearing this, but Konami is definitely in the right for remaking these games from scratch.

>>11882316
The SH2 remake has WORSE voice acting than the original. Why don't (You) show me any scene from the remake that has the emotional resonance of Mary's letter at the end of the original game, you baiting lying cuck.

>>11862724
This may seem crazy... But maybe it has to do with every game doing almost the same thing in almost the same locations over and over in the same tedious way without refining the gameplay to actually be as deep or diverse as the Resident Evil games which did it on their first try, and even then changed the formula drastically over time to stay fresh.
While they were making The Room, while the idea of the room was actually really cool, it wasn't enough to make up for the gameplay somehow getting worse, exploration being a pain, and repeated locations yet again, the guys behind Resident Evil had been cooking up RE4 as well as a shitton of other new, innovative games that focused on the gameplay rather than 'the lore' which is almost all the current SH fanbase talks about. I like the games, but playing them again in order really exposes the actual 'game' part of them

>>11882387
I don't think so. There was some interest in Sh2 but it was jsut a dud. The consensus of my school mates is that it was terrible.

RE 1-3 were set in and around Racoon City anyways.

>>11882316
Konami only remade the games because
a) They lost the source codes for all their PS1/PS2 games a long time ago and probably don't want to pay for getting them reverse engineered like they did with Bluepoint's MGS HD Collection and I think most of us here are also aware of how lazy their Master Collection port was even though Metal Gear is their second biggest series. Instead they provided an inexperienced studio with incomplete source codes for SH2 and SH3 so they had to spend most of their limited time ironing out bugs that the original team had already fixed
b) Jeremy Blaustein fucked up by not drawing up contracts for the voice actors back in the day so Guy Cihi, David Schaufele, Monica Taylor Horgan and Donna Burke all had to sign their rights away in order for the HD Collection to be able to provide their voices but they couldn't get in touch with the elevator radio show host. SH3 didn't have that luxury at all and only Donna Burke performs in both games.
and c) Christophe Gans is actually the only reason the series got a revival. After RE2R's success Gans convinced Konami they should let him make a new movie by adapting SH2 this time and also make new games themselves

There is a small slimmer of hope that they *might* be considering potentially porting the games to modern platforms though but I wouldn't hold my breath because the team they reached out to wanted to do remakes instead: https://www.relyonhorror.com/in-depth/silent-hill-in-depth/konami-may-be-porting-the-silent-hill-series-to-modern-consoles/

>>11882387
>>11882408
Actually, I do remember a lot of people at the time saying Sh2 was too similar to the original (guy journeys there to look for a lost family member) and a lot of people sort of conflating them and saying they were very samey.

I do wonder if they missed their chance, since RE games were mostly set around a single city but had very varried environments.

I think they missed a good chance with the mental hospital, as it could be a nice change of pace.

>Up in the hills away from the main city
>a large facility with many buildings
>a lot of forest paths
>story about a patient who has to escape to journey back into city to finish something
>doesn't know if he's sane, insane, or still just in the facility hallucinating
>flashes back to the hospital like nothing happend making him question the reality of the situation
>is on some quest and has some dark past
>journeys to the town proper, for the last third, and goes to some special place, story climax

>>11882535
>>11882535
Doing something like what NightDive does, which is use an engine as a middle ground for the console/controls and port the PC versions would be the better option. People right now are playing System Shock 2 on the Switch and PS4/5.

2001-2003 era PC games are not some impossible to port games. It's a better idea to port the complete PC versions than to try to build off of incomplete source code.

The main reason is because:
1. Blobber is cheap.
2. they can modernize it with modern graphics/gameplay

They see these games as outdated graphically and mechanically and not worth preserving. That's really the reason. They don't think modern gamers will play them.

>>11882553
>They see these games as outdated graphically and mechanically and not worth preserving.
I don't think so considering it was Konami who first approached HexaDrive about porting the old games and they didn't have to port the old Bluepoint MGS HD Collection to modern platforms either. Isn't the Master Collection also the first time that MGS1 has ever been made available on a platform besides PS1 at all?

>>11882670
>also the first time that MGS1 has ever been made available on a platform besides PS1 at all?

There was a PC port. I believe Master Collection is just basic bitch PS1 emulation, that's also low res and blurry. Yuck.

No one bothers to port PS1 games with any kind of effort anymore. No one cares. It used to b ejust the PS1 games that got skipped, but now it's deemed that pS2 games are now too ugly too so they get skipped.

Certainly no one after its initial release would do a serious Silent Hill 1 PC port and would instead just be lazy emulation that looks like some kid running epsxe in 2005.

>>11883746
Oh yeah totally forgot about the old PC port and it's allegedly a pretty good port too besides the audio. FF7 and FF8's modern releases are also just emulation ports even though they're the only classic Final Fantasys that ever got PC ports back in the day. I wonder why the Japanese always do this?

>>11883863
>Oh yeah totally forgot about the old PC port and it's allegedly a pretty good port too besides the audio.

It's missing some effects, and the music was apparently just ripped wholesale from a fan site (which in that time period would have had low quality for low file sizes). Both are easier to fix than reporting the whole damn thing.

>FF7 and FF8's modern releases are also just emulation ports even though they're the only classic Final Fantasys that ever got PC ports back in the day.

oh those are based on the old original PC Ports and include BUGS STILL PRESENT IN THE ORIGINAL PC PORTS.

I'm looking at you FF7's battle shading and shadows. I think the shading was aiming for a specific graphic card setup, and thus everything else has flat shading.

And they lost the background assets, so everything is horrendous blurry upscaling. Yuck.

Funny enough, making games fully 3D with mostly in-engine cutscenes massively helps "future proof" games, so MGS and SH are actually easier to enjoy in HD than the 2D-3D games which requires specific resolutions and setups to enjoy organically.

>>11861828 (OP)
You are absolutely wrong on the apartments. That is probably the very best part of SH2 and really set the mood for the kind of horror SH2 was going for. You really think that whole setup scare for the first Pyramid Head encounter sucked? Or even the mannequin scare when you get the flashlight? Or that heavy breathing on the third floor? Or the arm in the toilet and hole? The apartments were great. Yeah the game does start off slow but this series was a direct contrast to Resident Evil in its approach to horror.

>>11883885
>And they lost the background assets
But why can't they just reverse engineer? I don't think I've ever heard of a Jap company that does that it seems to be a Western thing but I could be wrong

>>11885050
Do you have 10 million? They are just still images of 3D models, but to re-creates those backgrounds manually would take years and millions.

>>11885050
It's not like they're hiding 4k resolution png files on the discs. What good would reverse engineering do? Only way to properly clear up the pre-rendered backgrounds is to still have the original native renders somewhere which with how notoriously shit Japan is at storing data for video games it's likely lost to time.

>>11881679
SH2 and SH3 allows you to move the camera in select areas by using Search View (L2) as far as the direction that the characters' heads can turn in but in a few areas like some of the apartments where the camera is positioned in front of James you will be able to peek around corners. In SH1 you're only able to move the camera with L2 by moving your entire character but there are still places where you won't be able to or in the case of walking that plank to getting one of the eclipse keys from a mail box it will be more limited like a fixed camera angle but not completely static like in an RE game. This is probably because of how every PS1 game had to be designed with the original controller in mind that didn't have analog sticks but the camera controls could be better in pretty much all the games. You will never be able to have full control over the camera in any of the games and it's one area that they didn't improve at all in SH3 either.

>>11885579
>>11885713
>What good would reverse engineering do?
Doesn't the source code itself contain the original image files? I seem to remember that the only reason why RE0HD looks as good as it does is because unlike REHD Capcom actually kept the source code for that one.

>>11861828 (OP)
>apartments
>aimless wandering
stfu
that was the best level in the franchise

>>11885764
>Doesn't the source code itself contain the original image files?
That's assuming they have the original source code. Japanese studios are infamous for tossing them in the trash after development especially during the 90s and early 2000s. RE0 is the rare exception.

>>11885893
>>11885764
Nah, source code will just say "load image23.jpg" but without the image. Asset and source code are separate.

>>11885893
>>11885949
Well hey at least nowadays they could just use AI to make it almost as good as if they still had the original assets. FF7, FF8, FF9 and REHD all have good looking AI upscaled mods for the pre-rendered backgrounds made by fans