O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Continuing on with the classic Silent Hill titles, it’s time to talk about the highly revered sequel. Silent Hill 2 was quite a shocker when it was originally released, it took many people by surprise. And it is also the game that established the idea that Silent Hill games are first and foremost story-driven games simply because of how strong the story was and how many other games and also later “western-made” titles in the franchise attempted to copy it. For how much respect and admiration I have for this game… I also don’t particularly love playing it. It was the case when I first experienced it on PC in 2003 and even today, in its arguably best form with the Enhanced Edition mod I will also talk about, I still didn’t really love the act of playing this game. But is it still worth experiencing? Absolutely.
In many ways, Silent Hill 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel that the first game established. In fact, it starts off deceptively following a lot of the basic concepts from the first game to the point where if you liked the original, and as the target audience of a sequel you most likely did, you would be lulled into thinking that this is “more of the same” but with a new plot. Despite the game being so old by now and you most likely knowing everything about it and also experiencing so many projects that attempted to copy its premise, I will avoid talking about the story much. I will only say that it still holds up, the voice acting, while occasionally awkward, is fantastically delivered and some moments of the game will make you feel uncomfortable, as they should, without ever feeling exploitative. While the perfect experience of SH2 would be if you were in 2001, playing it as a sequel to SH with no knowledge of what this game is, no decades of accumulated weight of discussions around it and hundreds of games copying (usually extremely poorly) what Silent Hill 2 did first in terms of psychological horror story and gameplay, experiencing the game today is still worth it. And playing it immediately after original Silent Hill while trying to clear your mind of any knowledge that this is a “series” is still beneficial.
If not for the story, though, what else has changed? This is the game where Silent Hill, as a franchise, was trying to go further from it’s original idea of copying the Resident Evil concepts and focus more on what made it more unique. Since inventory was still unlimited, for example, all of the item pickups happened as is without a prompt. And in fact, which was unexpected for the time, all of the in-game text no longer paused gameplay. So even if you were reading a note in the middle of a street or seeing the “door unlocked” message, the enemies could still get you. On top of that, a hidden aspect of stamina for running was introduced. In the original game, Harry did breathe heavily after an extended run, but his speed was not affected by it. Starting with SH2, main characters would slow down significantly after an extended run, although they would never stop because of stamina running out and will still run faster than walking speed.
This was also the first game to establish the “camera-relative” controls or 2D controls as the game called it. It was still an early implementation that felt a bit hacky as the game was clearly designed around tank controls, so during some cinematic camera cuts you could have issues with controlling your character and despite analogue stick being a thing, the run button was still a separate toggle. Nonetheless, it was a thing and for the first time ever, I’ve replayed the game using it and… actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It doesn’t work as well with the melee combat but… Well… While Silent Hill 1 had a big focus on melee as a proper option (and it worked really well) and SH2 seemingly made an even bigger effort with it, discarding completely useless things (like knife in SH1) and giving a few really weird and unexpected melee weapons as well, along with giving you an actual block attacks button, the melee in this game feels bad. Real bad. And while the selection of ranged weapons is exactly the same as in the original game as well (apart from a new game plus unlockable), the strongest gun is now so almost entirely unreliable that it feels like a joke addition.
Which brings me to the reason why I don’t like playing the game usually – for how strong the story in Silent Hill 2 is, the gameplay in this title feels like a gigantic step back in most (but not all) aspects. Combat is really bad in this one, both with weapons and with enemies. Exploration is often extremely boring, with most locations being very bland and drab looking. And while many locations in the city are empty of interesting things to look at, while some streets just randomly have a bunch of items lying on them, except with this game it’s harder to notice them than it was with the first game. Game also makes having the flashlight (or any light) into a more of a requirement that leads to a couple of really odd “puzzles” to solve that make little sense. Puzzles are given an even bigger focus and while it’s fantastic that the game allows you to separately select the action difficulty and puzzle difficulty, some puzzles are still quite poor. One, for example, relies on outside of game knowledge which, I’m sure, have stumped some people. While some others can be extremely easy on Easy and confusing even on Normal (and quite absurd on Hard and hidden Extra difficulties).
The game looks great and sounds amazing. Though, this time the sound and music design are going in a very different direction in comparison with the original game, going for something quieter, subdued, beautiful and sad instead of the crazy noisy sound of the original game that constantly kept you on the edge. The mood of the game in general is more about a feeling of loneliness and melancholy, which is done wonderfully… Even perhaps a bit too well since, as mentioned, it can get so lonely and mundane that it’s not that fun to explore. But… Then again that’s kind of the point and why experiencing Silent Hill 2 is great, just not in the same way one would want to experience a more typical survival horror game. This game has unlockables, many endings, most of which are incredibly nuanced in how you get them, lots of things you cannot see on the first playthrough. But replaying this game often may not feel great.
What makes Silent Hill 2 even weirder is that so far this is the only game in the series to have a story-driven expansion released after the initial release of the game. Being a PS2 title, this wasn’t an expansion pack or a DLC (which didn’t exist as a concept yet), but rather an addition of the later PS2, all Xbox and PC versions of the game – a side-story that is also a bit of a prequel called Born from a Wish. You do not want play this story until you complete the main game, despite it technically being a prequel, however. And while it’s very short and simple, it’s a very curious experience for… well, reasons I don’t want to spoil. If you are playing the main game, definitely go through this as well.
Now about the PC version – while for the time the PC port was great, a lot of PC ports of console games at the time were absolute garbage, from the “intended experience” perspective it had many flaws. And with time it also became harder to run properly. Thankfully, with the Enhanced Edition mod you can finally experience the game in a way that is, in many ways, not just not worse than the Greatest Hits/Director’s Cut PS2 release, but is simply better. It runs well, looks great, fixes lost of the countless sound and visual issues that first appeared with the Xbox port, adds new improvements (like proper widescreen support) that perfectly fit the style and original intent of the game and make the experience of playing Silent Hill 2 today better than ever before. Just know that the option to save/load anywhere and switch weapons without menus is a thing unique for the PC version so if you wish to stick to the more pure experience, avoid using that.
I’m glad I’ve replayed Silent Hill 2. It’s been a long long while since I’ve done it last time. It’s still a great story-driven experience. It’s still not the most enjoyable gameplay experience. Enhanced Edition is a must if you don’t plan to play the PS2 version of the game, it’s just a shame that the original game is still not available anywhere digitally – hopefully we will get a GOG release, maybe with EE mod pre-installed as an option too. If you have heard a lot of praise about this game but haven’t played it before – go as blind as you can, stick to Normal difficulty for action and Easy or Normal for puzzle and enjoy the experience. And if you’ve played it before and enjoyed it – Enhanced Edition with its latest updates is a perfect reason to revisit the game again. It’s still a classic for a reason.