Silent Hill 2 remake review – a respectful, overextended reimagining | usagoldmines.com

It’s frustratingly tough to buy and play the unique Silent Hill 2 on PC. Bodily copies are few and much between, with costs ever rising, whereas the Silent Hill HD assortment by no means escaped consoles and got here with a bunch of contemporary points. It’s, nevertheless, among the many most iconic videogames, definitely inside the horror style, and stays a beloved, oft-discussed basic. In a time when it seems like we are able to’t transfer for reboots and remasters, then, Silent Hill 2 is outwardly the proper recreation to revive for contemporary audiences.

2001’s Silent Hill 2 is a masterclass in environment; a journey by way of a person’s grief and guilt bedded in horror. Its third-person melee and firearm fight, and motion typically, are cumbersome, creating a sense of helplessness. The look, soundtrack, sound design, tempo, and even the off-kilter supply of the horror game‘s vocal performances are calibrated to elicit worry and unease. Beginning in a grotty toilet, you instantly get a way of the city’s grime and grit. Then, outdoors, the haunting and ethereal soundtrack switches and sways, the fog units in, and a voiceover introduces you to the story. Bloober Workforce’s recreation of this scene is a devoted homage, with virtually each side replicated completely, simply with the constancy and element of a 2024 launch.

Sound design is arguably a very powerful side of the Silent Hill collection, and taking part in the Silent Hill 2 remake with headphones supplies a terrifying expertise proper from the off. Monstrous growls pierce the uneasy ambiance on method to the city, completely mirroring Workforce Silent’s basic. In truth, Akira Yamaoka – the unique’s sound designer and composer – returns right here. A mix of reworked and new tracks and sounds makes for the proper step up for a remake. I’d even go as far as to say the sport’s sound design is even higher this time round. Whispers, tone adjustments, and stings saved me on edge all through my 20-hour playthrough – double the size of the unique. However that protracted runtime is the place issues begin to get sophisticated.

There’s room for brand spanking new additions in a remake, however the stability to make this work is extremely delicate. The additional hours listed here are made up of extra cutscenes, prolonged puzzles, and bigger explorable areas. The clock puzzle within the flats, for instance, is cut up into three phases. Within the unique, you merely discover a key to unlock the clock, enabling you to show the fingers to reply a riddle. Within the remake, the three clock fingers are scattered all through the condominium constructing, forcing you to seek for them, with the primary unlocking the way in which to the second, and so forth. Components of the puzzle replicate the unique, together with the moth room, however the extension supplies a better problem.

Whereas I initially loved these bigger inventive liberties and deviations, by the point I’d completed the sport, I felt prefer it had been over-extended. Silent Hill 2 is cut up into distinct sections: there’s the Wooden Aspect Flats, Brookhaven Hospital, Lakeview Resort, and so on, and their Otherworld counterparts, by some means making a comforting but fear-inducing formulation. Whereas I’m glad Bloober hasn’t added fully new areas to the remake, merely making every one longer feels pointless and gratuitous.

The unique’s shorter size was an actual boon, particularly given its claustrophobic nature. Familiarity by way of repetition is the demise of horror, and the remake’s size made me really feel an analogous option to Alien Isolation – get too accustomed to an space and its threats and also you’ll stop to be scared. Except the more difficult puzzles, the remake struggles to justify its added bloat. Rooms and buildings are greater, so that you’re simply exploring extra of the identical surroundings, preventing off extra of the identical monsters.

New cutscenes don’t add something to the story both, and arguably take away from the pacing as they now come round too usually. Whereas the character designs are robust, the solid lacks the expressiveness I’d count on from a contemporary recreation. The remake boasts some visible aptitude in its glistening blood, unsettling enemy animations, and stage of environmental element. Nonetheless, one thing is misplaced within the modernized presentation, which struggles to seize the unique’s dirty, gritty aesthetic, particularly within the Otherworld sections. Fortunately, Bloober nailed the look of Silent Hill 2’s iconic enemies. The mannequins, nurses, and managers like Summary Daddy and Flesh Lip are rendered in horrifyingly graphic element.

Fight is neither higher nor worse within the remake. The transfer to a contemporary management scheme and over-the-shoulder perspective permits Bloober to throw extra enemies at you directly, turning group battles into an even bigger problem. That mentioned, the brand new dodge mechanic makes one-on-one fights far simpler, particularly when you develop overly accustomed to every enemy’s transfer set, which feeds again right into a lack of worry. Boss fights just like the preliminary Pyramid Head encounter now play out in bigger areas, making them a much less intimidating ordeal, even when they’re mechanically much like the unique. There are minimal well being bottles and syringes scattered round however ample ammo, so that you seldom really feel a way of true hazard.

That’s till you’re jump-scared by a hidden model. Even within the late recreation, rigorously positioned monsters will assault whenever you least count on it. Positive, some are pretty unsubtle, however I nonetheless approached each darkish, crowded room and doorway with trepidation. If the exploration sections had been tighter, in the event you had been much less uncovered to the identical enemies, and if useful resource administration was higher tuned to domesticate a way of desperation, the fight might have been a marked enchancment.

I’ve to shout out the remake’s settings and choices. I disliked the flashing, distracting well being indicator system that steadily reddens the borders of the display. Fortunately, you may flip that off and rely as an alternative on in-world visible indicators of James’ well being. I used to be additionally able to complain concerning the massive merchandise icons and the way they affected my immersion. The unique has no interplay icons, so it’s as much as you and your eager eyes to identify well being bottles and different objects. Nonetheless, alongside choices to alter the scale and coloration of your crosshairs, the remake allows you to cut back the scale of interplay icons and even take away them altogether. Given Bloober’s intention of pleasing each new and returning gamers, it’s an excellent compromise.

Ultimately, I worry Silent Hill 2 remake is unlikely to persuade newcomers of the unique’s excellence or significance. It’s all the things you’d count on from a big-budget reimagining of a horror basic, with extra content material, up-to-date visuals, and – sadly – much less of a singular imaginative and prescient. Capturing all the things that makes SH2 an all-timer was arguably an inconceivable job, although, so whereas the remake can’t match the groundbreaking achievement of Workforce Silent, I can nonetheless advocate it as a strong, fashionable horror expertise.