When Silent Hill f was first announced, I was a bit skeptical with the direction Konami was taking the game to. No longer set in the United States, the titular town is replaced by its Japanese equivalent, Ebisugaoka. The change in setting introduces a large set of new changes that the game has to adapt to the point that it might as well no longer be Silent Hill and adopt its own identity entirely.
My first impressions of Silent Hill f hasn’t really changed my initial opinion. It feels more like a spinoff or a different independent game entirely. Even how it approaches the story with its main characters. Unlike most protagonists who unwittingly enter the town of Silent Hill and are dragged through its purgatory-esque horror, Hinako and her friends live in Ebisugaoka and there was no indication of anything strange happening before the horror start happening.
In fact the story got started a bit too fast for my liking. Hinako, unlike other Silent Hill protagonists, is already a resident of Ebisugaoka which is the Japanese equivalent of the titular town. This means that unlike other protagonists who are essentially just tourists, not counting Alex Shepherd who is from Shepherd’s Glenn not Silent Hill itself, Hinako has her roots on the town itself.
There’s no slow buildup here. You’re already in the fog world as soon as the game starts. While I think that’s fine as the game uncovers more about Hinako’s past, I couldn’t find myself rooting for her or really liking any of her friends. Almost everyone here, except for maybe her best friend Shu is rather unlikable or just milquetoast. No one has left a lasting impression thus far.
When it comes to combat, Silent Hill f is more similar to Downpour than previous entries but with extra steps. Weapons break here because if you keep using the same weapon, it will eventually break down to nothing. From my early experiences of the game, weapons are very scarce and once all your weapons break you’ll be left unarmed with no way to defend yourself. Forcing an otherwise easy combat situation to a defenseless struggle as you run for your life. There is no way for Hinako to fight unarmed nor is there a small weapon always at her person that never breaks (except for that one area, which we’ll get to later). Once your weapon is gone, it’s gone.
I wasn’t initially a fan of this at first until it forced me to rethink the way I approach combat in the game. If every encounter leaves me with less weapon durability than before, I began to actively avoid fights and running when I could. Better to lose a small amount of health now than find myself defenseless against a strong enemy later.
You can repair your weapons with the right item, but that item is also scarce. You’ll want to save your repair tools for when you really need them most. I played the game on the recommended Story Mode, which is challenging enough as multiple enemies are punishingly difficult to fight against.
This is where Silent Hill f reminds me a bit of Downpour and a little bit of Homecoming. It’s a more actionized entry with multiple types of weapons to choose from, light and heavy attacks, and even a focus meter that allows you to unleash a powerful attack if you have enough Sanity. That’s right, instead of just having Health to watch out for, you have three meters to keep vigilant of. You have Stamina and Sanity.
Stamina will drain as you dodge and use attacks. However, it recovers quickly. Sanity will drain when using the focus meter and will drain further upon being attacked and in a hazard zone for too long. Once your Sanity is drained, your Health will take damage instead. And unlike Stamina, Sanity is slow to recover but can be recovered using items.
There are also perfect dodges and counters, further straying from a traditional horror experience. If you time it correctly, Hinako will dodge in slow motion, giving you an opening to strike an opponent. If you time your heavy attacks when your opponents give a hint when it’s about to strike, you’ll do a lot of damage and leave them open to additional attacks.
If that sounds like there’s a bit too much action for a Silent Hill title, that’s probably because it sort of is but there are some concessions to make the game still scary. For one, the game seems to lack ranged weapons and you’re limited to carrying only three at a time. If your weapons break, you’ll be reduced to a defenseless girl and you’ll have to run from your enemies.
This is actually where it becomes difficult. Because my weapons broke on a certain segment with enemies around, I couldn’t interact with a puzzle that was in front of me because enemies will still attack you even when you’re interacting with the world. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do in this scenario except to reload to an earlier save because it was impossible to continue without dying.
I feel like weapons break a bit too easy in Silent Hill f. They’re nowhere near as durable as they should be for a game that’s quite scarce with resources to fight back. While I’m only halfway through the game as this review is being written, Silent Hill f may be more generous with weapons as I progress.
Even with all the action, Silent Hill f is still scary. Especially when it becomes eerily quiet with nothing but the sound of your footsteps and bumps in the environment that immediately put you on your guard. Enemies are interestingly designed and doll-like, especially the mannequins who only move when you aren’t looking and will attack once they get too close.
Like in the classic trilogy, Silent Hill f has a separate difficulty for puzzles. The default recommendation is set to Hard, and the developers aren’t playing around with the puzzle designs. The clues you get to solve puzzles on this mode are cryptic and sometimes deliberately misleading. For example, there was one puzzle where the clue was about a scarecrow having a “polite smile” but the right object to interact with wasn’t even smiling at all.
I’m satisfied by most of the puzzle designs I came across. They take a mixture of intuition and exploring the area around you for environmental hints to solve. Unfortunately, if it does get too hard for you there’s no way to switch difficulties mid game so you’re stuck with what difficulty you have chosen once you’ve started playing.
So far I’ve been playing the game on its original Japanese voice acting. I haven’t tried the English version yet but I wanted to make it as authentic of an experience as possible so I decided to go with the default the game choose for me.
The Japanese voice acting feels like a callback to the original Silent Hill games. The way everyone talks is soft, blunt, or cryptic. Even when she’s angry or scared, I can’t help but feel that Hinako is still holding back just from her voice alone. The dialogue feels a bit uncanny which isn’t far from what prior Silent Hills have been.
Speaking of which, Akira Yamaoka has once again returned as the music composure for this Silent Hill entry. The music is still haunting and the opening song definitely sets the mood. However, I’m a bit disappointed at the typical horror sound effects and track that play when you’re fighting an enemy.
Maybe it’s due to the game’s lack of a radio. There’s no sound indication that an enemy is nearby in Silent Hill f. Since the previous games had the radio blasting in your ear as you fight enemies unless you turn it off, you couldn’t really focus on the soundtrack. In Silent Hill f, its absence makes the combat music more obvious.
Since this is just a first impressions, I’m still on the fence on whether I like Silent Hill f or not. As a horror game, it definitely hits the mark but as an entry to Silent Hill I’m divided. It feels more aesthetically like Fatal Frame without the camera and the story so far hasn’t sucked me in. I will still keep playing to see if the tale of Hinako starts to pick up more.
