Retronauts - 669: Silent Hill 2 Remake

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Radio? Check. Pocket flashlight? Check. Ultra high-res graphics? Check! Diamond Feit, Jess O'Brien and Josh Stinson tick all the boxes as they break down the 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

This week in Retronauts, I got a PS5 game. The name on the spine said Silent Hill, too. My fave's name. It's ridiculous. Couldn't possibly be true. That's what I keep telling myself. Silent Hill died of that damn disease 12 years ago. A dead franchise can't make a game that's good.

So then how am I playing? Dang it. Our special place. What could that mean? This whole series was our special place. Could Silent Hill 2 really be on the PS5? Is it really alive? Waiting for me.

Bair-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-a-we-we-we-we-we-we-we. Hello. Welcome back to Retronauts. I'm so happy you sat through that. Please enjoy, enjoy my little joke there. And by the way, I think you're welcome for my restraint. I actually had a longer version, which I was going to have. One guest do the female part and then me do the male part, but I spared you. I did the short version. But yes, if you can't tell from our introduction, today we're talking about Silent Hill 2, but not that Silent Hill 2, the new Silent Hill 2, the Silent Hill 2 remake. Because you know what? We already did it at Richard Hott's episode all about Silent Hill 2.

I didn't look up the number. You look it up. It's fine. We did it already. Oh, ancient, though. I think I was on it, and it was over a decade ago. Way over a decade ago. Yes, but we're here because a horror classic has been remade and by all accounts, sales numbers,

and I think by our collective opinion today, pretty good. So we're here to talk about what it takes and what happens when you take a game that's very famous and very beloved and update it for the modern era and get almost everything right. I think that's worth a podcast. It's podcast material, in my opinion. Absolutely. Oh, of course. Introductions. I'm Diamond Fight, one hot by, and joining us from Finland. Let's start with the returning guest who everyone should know by now. Hello, I'm Jess O'Brien, aka Voidberger. I'm a big Silent Hill dork. I used to be on Giant Bomb, and now I make a podcast called Skull Tenders. Check it out. I sound design it, and I'm one of the characters in it. It's a good time. Thank you very much, Jess. And for the record, Jess, you did an episode about Silent Hill 2,

And Silent Hill 3. Oh, there you go. That tracks. I also hosted an episode or two. I think I did Tune Struck. Yes, yes. No, you hosted absolutely. You are a sometime host.

Yeah. But joining you today is your husband. So please introduce to you, sir. Hi, I'm Josh, also known as Chip Cheesham of Chip and Ironicus fame, doing let's play since 2008 and still going, even though I'm in my mid-30s. and it's very weird to go to my channel and see videos from when I'm 19. They're still up. But aside from that, I am also a senior video artist at Remedy.

Thank you for joining us, Josh. I can't believe it's taking me this long to actually be on Retronauts. You've never been on Retronauts. No, I've never been on Retronauts. What? You've been on a bunch, and it was just like, for some reason, I never went, like, I should be on retro. Huh, that's a little weird of an oversight. In their past, Jess, I think you were on with Bob Vids and,

And what's a slow beef, Michael, Michael, slow beef, but not Josh. Michael Slow Beef, yes. I don't know what's the last name. I'm sorry. Sawyer, sorry, it's Sawyer. Okay. It sounds like slow beef. It's fine.

There's enough letters in common there for me to make the mistake. But yeah, Silent Hill 2. The original Silent Hill 2 came out in 2001. And the question I'm asking both of you is, how many times have you played Silent Hill 2, 2001? And yes, we want a number. Give us the number. Ha ha. Um, ooh, it was my first Silent Hill game. Uh-huh.

And I did not play it when it came out. I wasn't aware of it at the time because I was only 13, I think, when it came out. And I think I played it when I was 15, 16. I think 15. Okay. But, uh, I want to say upwards of, upwards of 20, I think, is a safe guess. Maybe I've played this game about 20 times, 15, 20. All right. Something like that.

you. I have played it to completion twice. There are a couple times I played it shortly after it came out. Like I think I rented it and I was never able to beat it in that time. And I always wanted to. I just never got around to it until we started dating. You were like, I need you to, I really need you to play Sound Hill too. So I did. This is important to me. You need to play this to know me. Yeah. So I played the OG like, I don't know, 10 years ago or something all the way through. And then I, in preparation for the remake earlier this year, I played through the enhanced edition mod on PC, which is very, very good. Fan made, very, very good. If you want a one-to-one just kind of up-res style remake and not like a remake modernization, that's the best way to go because this game is surprisingly unavailable, which we'll get into later.

It is a fan-made mod that is so good. It basically takes a crusty 2000s PC port and turns it into like a modern day, like, HD remaster, essentially. It's that good. Yes, I've heard nothing but good things about the enhanced edition, and I've probably downloaded it. I don't know. I download some of the things, but it's probably on my PC somewhere. As for me, I actually have not played Silent Hill 2 before this. In fact, this was my first Silent Hill game played all the way through.

Wow, congratulations, Diamond. Yes, it was very exciting for me. It was a kind of thing that, you know, this had a lot of press, and we'll get into why it had a lot of press going into it. But the fact is, you know, it came out. Lots of people started streaming it. I know you streamed it. SGF streamed it.

And both times I would tune in, I'd start watching it. And, you know, after maybe like 15, 20 minutes, I'm like, I don't want to watch someone else play this. I want to play it. And so eventually, like, okay, well, I'm going to buy it then. And I went to the store and I bought it. and then I played the whole thing, and in fact, I streamed it, and I also, you know, all my playthroughs on YouTube now, if you want to go to my YouTube channel, and I should also say

if anyone wants to go out there, your playthrough of it was exceptionally good because you really broke it down beat by beat, and you were analyzing, like, individual moments and textures and really impressive how well you dove into that game. This game was, like, made in a lab to make me happy, which is very... unsettling in a way, not something I would ever expect, especially from Bluber Team, which will also probably get into, I imagine. But yeah, thorough is something I pride myself in. I've done let's plays of Silent Hill 1, 2, 3, and Origins. If anyone cares about Silent Hill origins, you shouldn't. But very thorough play-throughs of those things on my let's play channel, which is

Voidberger Gaming, by the way. Yes, I'm sure I'll put a link to this. somewhere when this when this comes up. Well, let's take a back step and let's talk about Silent Hill in a big picture sense because how did we get here is a real question. How did we get this, how did this series, which, you know, has some well-acclaimed games, has a lot of fans. And yet here we are for the first time in a long time with an actual new game. And like, not a lot of series go through these sort of long idle periods, like Silent Hill has gone through a long idle period. Mm-hmm. Leave it to Konami, sit on their IPAs forever. Yeah, Konami is obviously, you know, I don't say Konami is the bad guy here, but Konami is certainly the company that owns Silent Hill, and if they don't want to make Silent Hill, then they don't make Silent Hill, then they don't make Silent Hill, and no one makes a Silent Hill. But yeah, Silent Hills and Franchise went through a lot. You know, Silent Hill 2 was 2001, and there were a lot of games after that. Some of them had numbers, some of them didn't have numbers, some of them were made in Japan, some of them were made in America, I think a couple were made in Europe, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

There was like a Russian or Czech made one, I believe, Downpour. And then 2012. Some things happened to 2012. First of all, the last new game, Downpour is released. And an HD collection, but it's two games. It's two games in the collection. I also, if I'm not mistaken, 2012, this all happened in the same month, if I'm not terribly misremembering. It's March Madness, 2012.

Downpour came out. the HD collection came out and I believe Book of Memories the Vita game that nobody wanted came out also And I think some fourth thing happened I don't know like the movie came out or something I don't remember

It made a bit of the second movie maybe Yeah Not the first one was like 2006 I think Yeah crazy ass month To just dump four Silent Hill things on everybody Even even back then I do not know how anybody doing marketing for a game publisher goes, hey, we have a lot of things made in the same

franchise. What should we do? Let's put them all out at nearly the same time. Not in October, which would make sense. It's a horror franchise. Let's oversaturate one of our biggest franchise all at once, so absolutely nobody will have the energy to buy all of them. Brilliant. Let's not spread this across like two years. Well, my first guess is If it's released in March At the end of the fiscal year And a lot of Japanese companies

Love to release stuff in March So, you know, I'm still assuming That's that, you know, we're recording this in late 2024. I'm still assuming that whatever Nintendo's next console is is coming out in March Because that will be the end of fiscal year And boom, they make more money. Congratulations.

But what do I know? So, yeah, 2012, a lot happens. No one's really happy with any of that stuff. No, the HD collection. also had a huge like scandal about it regarding the voice acting and residuals and royalties and rights. And it was kind of like a big nothing burger that was made into a big something burger because Konami is really legally scared of stuff. So it sounded legally maybe actionable. So they kind of like freaked out a bit. And as a result, the HD collection came out without the

voice, without the original voices of Silent Hole 3. But even though it was an actor from Silent Hill 2 that started all of this. Very strange, very confusing. If you want more like information on that, you should watch a video I helped make on the Great Debate channel, spelled G-R-A-T-E debate about the HD Collection fiasco. It's the tragedy of Tom Hewlett, part two. But a lot of weird garbage happened with that. Really interesting, weird garbage. Anyway, continue. Yeah, when you look at this as a whole, you might argue that the franchise itself is cursed, or it's living in, it's, the franchise of self is occupying a town somewhere where it's nightmares have come real.

Because what happens to 2014? 2014, the Konami surprise drops a game called PT. It's announced at Gamescom, it goes live at Gamescom for PS4. Everyone's like, what the hell is this? It turns out to be a really intense horror game. And when people solve the puzzle and complete the game, which is not easy, they discover it's actually a playable teaser. for something called Silent Hills, plural.

With Norman Redis. Yeah. With Norman Redis and Hideo Kojima and Guillermo the Toro and everyone. This is a huge media push. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Perfect storm of like all the shit we want, by the way.

And then a few months later, because Kojima is slowly leaving Konami, they cancel the project. They de-list the game. You cannot download it. You cannot port it to your PS5. I think unless you have a PS4 and you already downloaded it, you cannot re-download it. It's like, so I've got treasure in my, in my bedroom right now, I guess. Yep, same. I'm like never selling this unit because PT is on it.

I can't. If I remember correctly, the PS4 that we have PT on is the original PS4, but then we got a pro eventually. So I think we have two PS4s maybe just keeping one simply because it's the one that has PT on it. It's, this is game preservation, honey. We can't throw this away. Yeah. If we ever sold this, we would, like, sell it for a lot of money because PTs on it, right? Yeah.

Big deal. I wonder how much those actually go for. I've never checked. But due to the state of affairs, Silent Hill is a franchise is surprisingly scarce if you look at the modern landscape. According to my research, and I must admit, some of the stuff might be a little bit off because I am in Japan, and believe me, almost none of this stuff is available in Japan, especially when comes to PC ports. They do not want any PC ports in Japan for some reason. but on the Xbox there are two there are two Silent Hill Xbox games at this point that you can buy

which is the HD collection and homecoming Yahoo! There's one on Steam there's one on Steam which is homecoming Yahoo and they finally put it on sale like for the first time I've ever seen during this fall sale and it was a correct amount of money $7. It's been $60 or $40 this whole damn time. It's been $60 for like over a decade.

Over a decade. What are they doing over there? Yeah, and I've also heard that port is not very good. I know when SGF blighted it, it crashed multiple times, so yeah. It's broken, yeah. Konami is not known for good PC ports. Pretty much all the Silent Hill PC ports have been very, very bad. G.OG, Golo Games has won.

They have the room. Yes, also a little broken, by the way. I'm sure. But it has been getting patched. Fan patched or fans? There was like some official patches, but also some fan patches. But via one of those, you can fix all of the broken hauntings the apartment now, which is

like one of the major reasons. That's so sad. This is such slim pickings. Yeah. God. And none on PlayStation Network. There are literally no Silent Hill games that you could buy on the PlayStation Network for your PS5 up until a few months ago. I thought there

was, I thought SoundHill 1 was on there at some point? No. Am I full shit? At best, at best, I think Sound Hill 1 was a PlayStation classic you could buy on the PlayStation 3. Oh, okay. So I have it on my Vita. I have it on my Vita. And go play PS3 and go play Silent Hill on.

But then everything changes in 2022. Suddenly, in 2022, Konami goes Silent Hill manic and announces four games, quote unquote, and the movie, a movie called Return to Silent Hill, which is actually based on the plot of Silent Hill 2. As it's recording, it does not have a release date, but we know they've been filming it. We've seen photos of the sets. So, they're making it or it is made. It's coming in 2025-ish, we think. And it kind of looks really cheap from what I've seen. It kind of looks like a made-for-TV, sort of sci-fi original sort of budget to me. It looks quite cheap, but also when I look at it, it's like, oh, they're really going to go

hard on, like, post, like, color grading and a bunch of CG shit on top of all this to make it not. I don't know how you're going to make Maria's wig not look cheap. It looks really bad, girl. It's bad wig. Is that a placeholder wig? They're going to do all her hair with CG for some insane. We're going to fix your hair in post completely. But in 2022, they announced Silent Hill F, the letter F, which. Or forte?

I don't know. Maybe it could be a fancy musical F. Very exciting project for me because it's being written by Dukishi 07, which is the creator behind the Higurashi When They Cry franchise, really at the whole franchise of stuff. This is the one that I'm the most excited about because. of that. I have not read that franchise. It's a visual novel, so I'm just saying red. But, uh, because it's, I've heard it's more words than the Bible combined. So that's a lot. It's big, but it's a great story. Yeah. I love it. I heard it's awesome. That's the one I'm most, like, actually anticipating, I think has the most promise to, like, be like a legit good Silent Hill game, which makes me wonder if it's the most likely to get quietly canceled in the background. So we'll find out.

We'll see. There's also Silent Hill Townfall by no code. again, no information. I know at TGS, I think two years ago. They had a big teaser on their giant, you know, LED screen inside TGS. But like that teaser was no imagery of anything, just like some water, like nothing. Just very frustrating for me. It's like, what is it? Just tell me what it is.

Can I have something? Not nothing. Silent Hill Ascension, which is not a game. Don't worry about that. Not a game. We're not talking about that. Let's not bother. No, no, no.

And Silent Hill 2. the remake by a little studio called Blober Team. Which nobody can get right online, which I think is really funny. They all call it blooper team, and like, I just think it's very funny that they, like, branding-wise, they're like doomed to always be misconstrued as blooper team. I've also sometimes occasionally seen blopper. Blopper! Aw.

The big blopper. You know, you know, But yeah, Let's talk with this. So who? Who is Bluebird team? Well, they're Polish.

It's a Polish studio, founded in 2008. If you look at their studio output, you know, there's a bunch of, you know, it ships a bunch of small projects that I'm sure made somebody money. But the Internet as a whole kind of took notice in 2016 when they released the game called Layers of Fear. Now, layers of fear, I think we can all agree, borrows a lot from PT in that you walk down a lot of hallways. The hallway might change.

little thing, things might jump out at you, things shift around, you open a door, it closes again, that sort of stuff. PT really changed, like, the brain chemistry of horror devs, and everybody went, ooh, we should do this. It was everywhere. It's still everywhere. It felt like a similar change in, like, the trendy type of horror games, the same way when the first amnesia came out. And everyone went, wait a minute, our horror games don't need combat. You just need to hide a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not saying amnesia isn't a good game, though. Amnesia is a good game.

But definitely changed, like, the zeitgeist of horror games. So post layers of fear, but pre their next game at some point, in 2019, according to Anna Jasinska, the chief marketing officer, they said, in 2019, Konami asked us to prepare a concept for a remake of the original game's second installment in exchange for the opportunity of bringing the concept to life. Of course, we weren't the only contenders. So right away, Konami took notice of blooper team. Pretty much right away after layers of fear. There's a rumor, by the way, that one of the contenders was, oh, supermassive, the folks that make the anthology series.

I'm blanking on the name. Oh, man. Until dawn and the dark pictures. Dark pictures. And that ended up being little hope, what they actually, like what they pitching. at Konami, they, like, repurposed to be Dark Pictures, Little Hope, which was not great, but you can tell it definitely used to be a Silent Hill game in the DNA of it. So that's interesting.

Intriguing. Well, speaking of Silent Hill DNA, Bluebird team in 2021 releases a game called The Medium, which very much wants to be Silent Hill. Oh, yeah. The entire game is structured around a dual word system. And, of course, at the time, they were hyping with Xbox. Oh, because of Xbox, we can do all the stuff at the same time, and you can flip back and forth. They were very excited about this.

They were so excited. They even hired Akira Yamoka, famed composer from Silent Hill series, to make the music for the medium. And I guess that game must have made someone money. It succeeded on some level. I don't know what levels, but someone liked it. Someone did. They must have. Succeeded at, you know, cribbing a lot of imagery from a lot of Silent Hill, too, but also a lot of Jislau.

Bekshinsky, who I definitely did not pronounce right right now, but I gave it my best. You know, very famous Polish artist. It's just like Bekshinsky, the game, aesthetically. Gameplay-wise, not very fun, that game. So I didn't like it very much, but

I got other complaints, but I'm not going to slog the bogged down the podcast with them. But that brings us to here to Silent Hill 2, 2024 edition, and the leads, the credit leads of this game. So first of all, and I will stay up this front. I have a lot of polls in my family, but I do not speak Polish. I'm doing my best here. We've got Matus Lenart, the creative director and lead game designer, who was previously

the creative director of the medium. We have Machi Guomp, the lead producer, who was previously the QA lead of the medium. We have the real superstar Arcadius Rakowski, who's the audio director of Silent 2. He had composed a lot of previous Blupper Game. Blueber Games games games. Bluebird Games games. And Kirioma was hired to compose and basically, I would say, remix his own soundtrack from Silent Hill 2. So he's here as a credited composer. And similarly, Masa Hiroito, who designed the creatures from Silent Hill 2, you know, 20 plus years ago, he's also credited as creature design on the 2024 edition.

And he did a lot of tweeting and blue-skying about his work and things they changed and things they redesigned. So it's a combination of their guys were the heads, but they also worked with people from the original game, you know, one-on-one. So this was very much a collaborative project, and I think that's nice to see. I think it's very nice to see. It wasn't just like, oh, we know, we've got this. We know what we know we want to do here. So we want to work with these people and authenticate and bring their expertise along for the ride. I thought that was a very strong gesture, and I think it worked out very well.

Yeah, totally. I also think that, like, Blueber team, one of their big strengths, first of all, their big strength is their art department and their sound design department. They've always been like absolute, these are all very good sounding and good looking games to begin with, super strong in those categories. But I feel like the studio's strengths have always kind of lied in adapting other people's works because you can see this in like layers of fear, one, but a lot of two. they like steal is a strong word but they take a lot of heavy inspiration from a lot of different sources and recreate them very very faithfully layers of fear too is a lot of cinema references that look really really fucking good and also randomly rubber johnny right rubber johnny was in there that's just him from rubber johnny from apex twin he's in that game i don't know if that was

cleared with aifex twin or what uh but like they're very very very good at emulating other people's stuff. Observer was also like very, very one-to-one blade runner. And it was also like very, very gorgeous, looks exactly like it. So I think, like, if anything, they've definitely proven that they're able, they're more than capable of doing a very good job adapting other people's stuff. They also did the Blair Witch game, which is one of their stronger games I've been told. I've not played that one.

But they love to reference stuff. So I think they've been Jones-in to do this for a very, very long time. So it's like, okay, you got it. Good luck, guys. I was like, whoa, I wouldn't wish this remake on anybody. So it's a total miracle. They did very well with it. I'm super impressed.

So, if you look at the math here, they say they got the call in 2019. Something else happened in 2019. Could Capcom release the Resident Evil 2 remake that took their game from 1998 and turned it into an over-the-shoulder, third-person shooter action game. A lot of intense moments, very graphically impressive. So clearly, Konami got on the phone right away. They said, oh, we won't. that. We want that. Who's got it for us? Who's got, who's going to make our Silent Hill into that? Because we want that kind of money. History repeats itself because Silent Hill 1 is rumored to have been made because they saw Resident Evil 1 and went, oh shit, we need a horror game franchise right fucking now. Which, you know, to be fair, a lot of games in the late 90s were made because Resident Evil 2 was big success. I just, I would say Konami's Silent Hill is probably one of the stronger ones in that it had its own identity. It didn't just turn out to be, you know, a different set of cops shooting a different kinds of zombies, you know.

Yeah, they went Stephen King instead. Yeah. So, with that in mind, the new silent L2 is an over-the-shoulder game. There's no fixed cameras anymore. The camera's right behind. You can spin the stick all you want. You can spin the camera around all you want. Although I noticed James usually looks away from the camera, I feel like in most situations, if he can, right?

I know I got a good look at his face in the boat, which I thought was funny because he had a big grumpy face while he was in the boat. Oh, he was so sad in the ball. He hated the bone. He hated, I do appreciate that part just for like, okay, he should probably grimace when he's actually rowing instead of just having a completely rigid, like, unemotional thing. So this also means that the town of Sondwin Hill is now essentially a large interconnected area because, you know, the old games were very much, you know, like your classic survival horror games, you go up to the door, you push a button, it loads something, and then you're in. in a new space and, you know, whatever was in the old space is forgotten, whatever's the new space is now your problem or your treasure if you want it. But no, this new Silent Hill

2, everything is just open. So if you open a door and a monster is chasing you, that monster might just come right through the door and chase you. You know, that might happen, you know, or in some cases you activate something and that's when a monster decides to come through a door. You know, that happens too. So you really have a much less, you have a lotless control, the less feeling of safety. You never really know when something might encroach

upon you in this game because it's all one giant level. So anything goes, really. Yeah. I was super surprised at just how well this translated to all the things they modernized were done very,

very artfully super well. And yeah, part of that is it doesn't feel as sectioned off and compartmentalized by load screens anymore. So that was, It was like the flow of this game is really, really nice in general with that.

Yeah, I was especially impressed whenever, whenever you have a part where you are inside, indoors and in the dark, which is a lot of this game, and you open a door and you're outside and just that effect of the light sort of beaming in and almost your eyes adjust to sort of change. And maybe, I think James even maybe grimaces, it's just like, wow, okay, that's such a cool effect to have that sort of feeling imparted to me from a video game. This game, like, even like the original, too, really, like, plays with the contrast of claustrophobia and agoraphobia. It'll put you in these tiny, awful little fucking holes and stuff like that that are super, super claustrophobic. And then they'll contrast it with, like, a huge open space where you also do not feel safe. And you don't know, like, where's that sound coming from? Oh, my God. And this was only done even, like, better and more literally now that we don't have to worry.

much about like load screens and the boundaries with which enemies can get you at and stuff like that. It was just very nicely done. I did find it funny, though, that basically because there's no longer push the button to open the door, unless it's like a cutscene thing, what happens is James basically walks into every door head first. If he can't open it, he puts his hand up, but otherwise he just sort of bumps into it and then like grunts to himself like, like. Very. Yeah. I really love the multiple different.

like grunts they recorded for, this door is locked, which sometimes it's just like, hmm, or something. But he has a really disappointed sound anyone, just like, hmm. I really thought this one would open. I feel you, James. But yes, this doesn't mean that RIP, the lock is broken. No locks are broken in this game. Either the door opens or doesn't, but no one says the lock is broken.

Tragic. But I think we can all agree. This game just looks fantastic. I don't know how many times we could say this. audit, it's an audio medium podcast, but believe us, listeners, if you haven't seen this game, look at some footage of this game, look at me play it, look at just play it. It's, it's gorgeous. Good Lord. Good Lord, this game's gorgeous. Fuck. They did all new, like, weather conditions that has never been in, in this series before, and they're gorgeous. There's, like, sunshowers

sometimes, and you're like, that doesn't belong in Silent Hill, but it's like, it works, damn it. How did they make this work? It's really funny that this is the, first game in the entire franchise that's just like, hey, what if Sound Hill was windy? I know. And like when that happens for the first time, you're like, oh, this is so fucking weird. And like, cool, it's windy. Whoa. But that, that I think it really works, the new, like, weather that they implemented in certain areas.

They used it very, like, cinematically, like, when they do, like, every time they did that was, like, very purposeful. like to light a fire under your ass or to give you a sense of, like, calm after something else. Like, the way they incorporated the weather conditions was like a surprising change. I didn't expect them. Like, good vision to do that. Good idea. Yeah, the wind especially, even when they're, because I mean, generally when it gets really windy, there's a ton of enemies around. But even when they aren't around you, just the wind alone really makes it feel like, oh, God, I got to be anywhere else than here.

I got to go. Yeah, not strictly weather-related. loved in the hospital, like when you first get to the hospital and you're walking around the first floor, and there's just tons of light coming in from the, from outside. And then as you advance, you know, the hospital by doing stuff, it gets dark so that that light is gone. And then eventually it starts raining. And then, of course, when you're completely finished with the hospital, there's a great moment where you can see outside and you can see, I think, Laura running away outside. So it direct to your attention outside. Like, oh, I got to get out of this hospital.

Look, there she is. So little things like that that that literally would not. have been possible the PlayStation 2 because, you know, all those levels were just, you know, little boxes that had to be sealed off. You could, there's no window, you know. Forget the windows. Very discreet areas. And when we talk about the graphics, I guess we talk about the characters, because every character here is just rendered in, I would say, uncanny detail, if you will.

I mean, one of the opening shots, we see, we see James's pores. It's kind of, it's kind of intense. Wow. He's got, like, a little bit of stubble, like, like, like, like, like. Like individual hairs on his face? He's a little handsome. They made him a little handsome. You pointed it out in like, you know, the very first like five minutes or whatever when we started streaming it.

But when he leaves the rest room and he's like leaning up against that wall just outside and you're seeing him like three quarters view from behind, he looks extremely like David Dukovny at that angle. Yes, he looks so much. Like molder. I was like, oh, he's handsome. There's very specific angles. That dude just looks like molder. Although, I think with his extra floppy hair now, I also feel like there's a little bit of Leon there. Yeah.

I know moderators have already put Leon into Silent Hill, too, and I'm sure someone's probably put James into Resident Evil 2 at this point, or four, maybe both. I don't know. But I think those guys look even more alike now. They've got, you know, that the physics have updated their hair so they can flop around a little bit. Yeah, and they remodeled his face from the initial teaser trailers because there was a poor reaction to. He did look kind of weird. He looked a little weird. He also just looked a good 10, 15 years older. And it's, you know, that first trailer was shown.

He's supposed to be like 27. Yeah. So he looked like, like 20s early 30s. He looked pretty old in the trailer. And it's, yeah, he like that, that first reveal trailer was also shown pretty early on. That was like, what, two years before it came out, three years even? I'm thinking he's 32. Wait a minute.

I'm going to get my manual out. But it's like, you know, it's not super uncommon if a game is shown very early on for the faces to be noticeably different. Like if it, the reveal trailer for the very, the, for Yakuza 7, for like a dragon, when they first show Ichibon, he's like 48 and he's ugly as hell. And then they eventually went, no, you know what, he's going to be a little more Kiri like. We're going to make him a little more handsome than this guy who looks like he's. had his face beat in like 18 times. Like people also like, I mean, the fandom is crazy for Silent Hill. They had reactions to every single look of every single character.

Like, oh, Angel is too fat. Oh, God. She's ugly. It's like, okay, whoa, stow it. And like, people are bizarre. I thought everyone looked fucking phenomenal. Like, especially like when you're playing the game itself, you're seeing them in context and acting and moving around and emoting. Like, everyone looks and performs ridiculously.

I'm a little low-key pissed off that they didn't win any game awards for performances or sound design or anything like that. That's, like, bonkers to me. Someone was sleeping up game awards, man. Was it? Who was it? It wasn't Yamaoka. Was it Ito that was tweeting just like, oh, man, we didn't win any awards. Just like the original Soundhill, too.

Yeah, Ito was despairing on blue sky. They were Game of the Year for IG in Japan, so he was happy about that. Yeah, poor guy. But yeah, the cast, as you mentioned, Jess, I think it's very important to remember that, you know, in 2001, no one did performance capture for video games. No one was doing that. You know, they had voice actors, but the, you know, the models were the models. That's what they did. They did performance capture, but they were working with some non-professionals, like James Sunderland, who's played by Guy Sehee in the 2001 version.

He was not an actor. He actually came in to audition for his daughter to be Laura. He was living in Japan. And Laura, his daughter did not get the part of Laura, but Jeremy Blaustein, who's also the voice cap, and the voice in mocap director for Metal Gear Solid, one, maybe two? I don't remember.

Just one. Just one, right? He didn't do two. But he was also same position for Silent Hill, too. He saw, like, that's a sad dad. I think he's the protagonist. and decided that this random sad dad was, like, great to be the protagonist of Silent Hill, too. And he was not a professional actor, so he was hard to, like, get a performance out of.

But then you've got these other, like, folks that are actors. You've got Donna, Donna Burke. Yeah, she's Angela and Monica Taylor Hogan. And so you got more professional actors over there, but, like, not everybody was, like, they've, they had, this is the age of, like, putting tennis balls on people. Like, it wasn't like, like, really high-deaf cameras that can face-scan people and all that stuff. So everybody was, like, working with, like, video cameras to get the people, like, people's facial expressions and stuff like that. So it was definitely a different era. So it's really intense and cool to see all of these scenes redone with such high fidelity, but also, like, acting fidelity.

Yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of scenes in this game where not just the lines are telling you things, but the, the, The actors just faces, like, where they look, where they don't look, you know, it says a lot as, as you're playing the game, and it's really, it's just really impressive. I should also point out it's kind of unusual in that, you know, Silent 2, obviously Silent Hill is supposed to be in America, but they hired an all European cast to voice this time around. Most of them are from the UK, but we should also shout out that the Salomee Gunner's daughter, who plays Maria, Maria, Mary, Maria. She's from Iceland, as you can tell by her last name. But still, as Europeans go, I think they all did a great job, you know, with the American accents. I think, you know.

Can't tell. Yeah. Fabulous. Was Laura, the child actor, but she also European? I believe so. And she's also apparently playing Laura in the new movie. So, you work for her. Yeah.

Really? I did not. Good for her. That's cool. Work, little girl. All day after. Get that bag. But if she was crazy talented, like child acting is hard, right?

I mean, how many good child actors, especially like for games? I feel like that's a little bit rare. It's getting less rare. And, man, I would have never known that she's suppressing any sort of European accent. That's nuts to imagine as a child doing that. God, talented kid. You know, if it happens to the UK, you know, it's like figure skaters start when they're like four or five years old. Like, in the UK, you know, if your parents decide you're going to be an actor, like,

And in Neurstexual, it's like, okay, now here's your O sound, here's your A sound. Work on your accents. But I did like the fact that if you beat this game and you watch the closing credits, they actually credit not just the original developer team, but they credit all the actors from the 2001 version. Because let's face it, even though there's no audio from them in this new game, their performances 20 plus years ago completely informed these performances today, even though it's not a one-to-one ratio, but... Absolutely, that dude, guy, guy, see he, it's see he?

See he, yes. Strange last name. Yeah, that guy who's not really an actor, the lines that he read, you know, in 2000, 2001, absolutely had an effect on professional handsome man who's playing James today. Like that just, you know, there's an influence. Yeah, yeah. You can't deny it. For sure. I'm also, like, curious if, you know, one of the reasons the credits are so thorough, which I think, you know, good, they should be.

Why not? Credit where all the credits do. But I wonder if part of that is motivated by the aforementioned HD collection fiasco because Gaisi he was the one that was being overly litigious about residuals, royalties, et cetera. Meanwhile, being a very anti-union magachud. So I don't really know what, you know, where's that motivation coming from, buddy? I think it's just money. So interesting stuff. Konami doesn't want to mess with things legally.

So I can see that big part of the reason why they. credited everybody they could. But yeah, from a casting standpoint, I think, I feel like the casting was really spot on this time, which, you know, again, in the HG collection when they revoiced everybody, they got a, they went out and, they got a bunch of, you know, talented actors who work in all sorts of other games. But I do feel like they were almost too polished when they showed up for talented, too. They were miscast, talented people. Yeah. Troy Baker is an incredibly talented actor does not work for James, though. No.

Like, when James talks and you're getting Joel's voice out of it, no. No. Like, James should not have that kind of, like, confidence and baritone strength. That voice does not sound, like, pathetic or pitiable or anything. Vulnerable and sad, yeah, yeah. Like, this is a pathetic wretch of a dude. Like, you should not sound like Troy fucking Baker, man. Look, that was a mistake.

Thank you. So let's talk about the town because, obviously, Silent Hill, a big part of Silent Hill is Silent Hill. And if you look at a glance at the whole town of Silent Hill, obviously some things need to be kept in place because they want to have a similar structure where you're, you know, you're running down the pathway and you're running, walking down the one street from the cemetery into the town. but they didn't just do a slavish one-to-one, here is this street, here's this street, here's this corner you expect, you know, they tweak a lot of things. They tweak a lot of it. They shuffled some things around. Some locations that you expect to visit, you either don't go there at all, or you might walk past

there later and it's not really a big deal, you know, the bowling alley comes to mind. You can completely miss the bowling alley this time around. It's purely optional. And like they added so much that makes a lot of it. a lot of sense. Like something I came away from this with, and I still feel very, very strongly and I'm impressed by, is that this now feels like a tourist town that people might actually want to visit. It has attractions to visit. It has a nice old, classy movie theater. It has a lot of different beautiful little parks. And Rosewater Park is like gorgeous to be in now.

It's not just kind of like an overpaved, like, runway to the lake. Like, and the hotel feels like a, like, boutique, the destination hotel to stay at for a beautiful lake visit. It has, like, big patios and patio chairs and, like, an ice cream vendor outside. It's like, this feels like a tourist town now. People would want to visit here. Before it was just, come check out Toluca Lake. And it's like, why? What's there? We got a lake. We got a lake. Great.

Well, okay. And a tiny museum. Oh, they made the historical society feel like you might actually, you could see this on Yelp. People saying, you should go here. This is interesting. It's still small, but it feels a little more believable as, yeah, people would want to go there. There's actually things to do in Silent Hill now as a non-haunted by your past person who might go to Silent Hill. And in creating these many little businesses and restaurants, they went the extra mile and you could actually go inside a lot of these places now, which really wasn't a thing before, which I think for, you know, you're applauding, Jess. I think maybe you could maybe touch on what's, you know, how exciting it's been to say, oh, I can finally go to the bookstore and see what the books are like. Oddly, oddly satisfying, oddly exciting. I'm not normal in the brain. And I know this.

myself. But it's like, you know, when you're this much of a silent hillhead, you've been like starved for this game for decades now, starved to go back to these places. You imagine what's that restaurant like? What's that diner like on the inside? You've been disappointed you can't go inside the Happy Burger. That'd be nice and cool to go in there. I don't know. And I don't know. I was super, super stoked that you could go into all these little mundane places. It feels like a town people lived and worked in and did business in and not just like a weird, I don't know, like a movie set or something with facades on it. And I understand the, and I understand the complaint of like, oh, the game, it's a little too padded now. There's too much to explore. I feel like I'm not like I'm getting distracted or there's padding here because there's so many places you can hop into. Like I understand that, but not emotional. I was just really excited to go into every little nook and cranny of this goddamn place. I feel for me it is a very similar reaction to when Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth came out where some people, me included, were ecstatic that everything was there in lavish detail.

But there's a big complaint from a lot of people with that game, which is this is too much video game. It's bloated. Yeah. In their opinion. Yeah. But I'm like, this is world building for me. I want to know it's in that bookstore. I want to know it's in that pharmacy.

see the world is a character to me yeah because i care about it this much you know so i think it's i think it's a really great opening to the game because because that's sort of like like most this game is not that open worldy you know what i mean like most of the game is like okay you're in this area when you can put this area you move to the next area that's it but the open in the game when you first walk into town that's like as open as it gets and the i think that is a really good introduction like here is silent hill go nuts run around you know open all these open all these doors smash all these windows that's a very that's a new mechanic yes you can you can break windows which in some cases lets you go into places

you couldn't go in uh in the case of cars all the cars in the street you can break open the windows and you might find items inside in which case i was smashing every single car window even if i found something i kept smashing the other windows because you never know it felt nice too it just It's so good to smash those windows. Yeah, I'm very glad that, you know, this game at the end keeps the stat tracking screen that the original had, though, it doesn't rate you on a star system anymore, which I kind of wish it was still there, but minor thing. But they do track how many windows you smash throughout the game as well as how many times you try to open a door that cannot be opened. Sorry, I was exploring. Sorry.

He's playing your game. Sorry. Judging me. But even beyond Windows, there are even certain walls. certain walls that are very clearly marked that you're allowed to break down, which, just as you pointed out, was actually very wise because of something in the original game that is carried over. Yeah, like, in the original Silent Hill, too, and in this one also, there is a part, like, right before you get into the prison, where you fall down your first hole, baby's first hole, and you're rewarded with nothing. James is in a hole, and you're like, uh-oh, I fucked up. It's dark in the hole. There's nothing down. there and a lot of people, including me, when I first played it, I reset the game thinking I

softlocked myself. I must have needed a key or something or there was some other place to go because there's nothing down here. You have to examine every single little polygonal wall in that well to see James remark that, oh, this one's different. And then you hit it with a pipe and it breaks. This is the only time you do this in Silent Hill 2, the original. It never happens before or hence that point. And when I got there in this version, I went, oh my God, they were training me to do this naturally. That was tutorial shit. They made this part of the game. It's not new breaking down walls. They only just did it once in the original. It wasn't considered a mechanic. This was there all.

already. Holy shit. Good idea. I also think it's funny that when you and Maria are hanging out together, she will absolutely notice and comment on your vandalism. Yeah. Sometimes a little too much, you know, but at least at least the first few times I'm like, oh, yes, yes, I am breaking these windows. Don't worry about it. Is that your car, Maria? Somebody here is a video game protagonist, okay? I'd appreciate a little less judgment from the escort quest, okay? I also I also thought it was interesting, you know, I also thought was interesting, you know, I know, Jess, you've, talked about, and you made a whole video about, you know, the yellow paint problem in modern

video games, and in this version of Silent Hill 2, there are certain things you can break, there are certain things you can climb under or climb over, like, high vents or small gaps under things that can scoge through, and to mark them, instead of yellow, they just have these white sort of wrappings or bandages or medical, we don't really know what it's supposed to be exactly, but like, the game shows you early on, oh, look for this, look for these, you know, flapping little white things. And that's your, that's your cue to go scurry under this or, you know, hammer this wall here. That's, I don't know why this tape on the wall, but go ahead. Just hit it. They did. That was a really, you know, artfully done. It's a thing

we kind of need in modern games. And yeah, I talked about this in the video I made for Giant Bomb. It's called Horizon is Ugly and Here's Why. Ha, ha. Sorry for the Clickbait. title. But I do explain it. I do think that game is kind of ugly. And it's because, like, as graphical fidelity has gone up, you know, naturally as it will, technology advances. We want things to look goddamn prettier as possible. It's harder to draw the player's eye naturally to stuff they do need to do to progress in the game. So that's just, that means that it has to be way more stupidly obvious what you're supposed to be doing. And that has led to the hand-holding, like, characters constantly talking and narrating

what they're doing, what they should do next, and the camera arresting your view. And like, look at that. That's the thing you're supposed to be doing. And also the yellow commonly, please climb me paint that happens all over the place. And it's like, okay, you're telling me that like 10,000 years in the future, these ladders are still painted yellow and I can see it. That's interesting. Very sturdy paint.

Good for the people that made that. But Silent Hill 2 did a really clever thing here, which is, you know, you're looking for contrast, basically. And a lot of games accomplish this with color contrast. And what Bloomer team did was like filth versus clean contrast. This world is dirty and dingy and dark. So like what would your eye be drawn to as something that is a huge contrast, a huge difference, something notable and noticeable, something white and clean? all of a sudden out of nowhere. And like, what a very clever way to do this without it just being, duh, it's yellow, go here.

Like, great job, Boobarty. And I- Related something that I really liked about this game is, so this game has a very large amount of accessibility options. I think the only game I've seen that has more is The Last of Us 2. But something I really liked about this game that I wish more games would do is on top of being able to customize every nitty, gritty little thing, they have like a pre-made, like, UI option that's basically supposed to mimic how the original Silent Hill 2 felt, which is when you come up to a interactable object, there's no giant X button hovering over the thing. You know, there's just not really many indicators for anything. Your ammo indicator, gone. And those, like, the white cloth is so good at letting you know what you need to interact with.

I just straight up turned all of the modern UI. The modern U.S. Yeah, like, when you pick up a note, there's like a huge thing. It's like, you picked up this note and it went into your inventory. You can turn that shit off. And that's awesome. So many games have all these little pop-ups. And things that just feel...

Minimap, your ammo counter, health bar, you know. I think having more accessibility options is really good for games, especially for people who are new to them. A lot of people don't understand that even just moving with the left stick and moving the camera with the right stick at the same time is very difficult for new players. So those options need to be there. But at the same time, I also wish more games had a, I've been here for a while now mode. where it's like, it doesn't need to be harder per se. You just don't need to...

Condescend to me with the UI so much. Like, I know. I know to press X. This game basically gives me that option. Yeah. And it's great. Loved it. Yeah, when I played it again on New Game Plus, I actually went back on the options and I turned everything like on.

Because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any collectibles because I was aiming to get everything, which I did. And I thought it was funny that also in doing that, I also turned on load screens. screen hits. Because normally, you know, there's not a lot of loading screens this game. Usually it only loads when, like, you're starting a new game or continuing. But you die. Right. And so by default, there's nothing there.

Just you see some footsteps and it says, you know, press a button to play. But if you turn it back on and all of a sudden you're doing that and it's like, make sure to look for items. Pyramidhead is the bad guy. You should flee from him. Yeah. Being able to turn off loading screen hints is an option. I don't think I've seen much if ever. And I would love.

Love it. Especially with stuff on the PS5 Loading so quickly It's like There are a bunch of games I play in the PS5 now It's like there is a A tool tip on the loading screen And I can't read more than three words

Because it loads too fast Like get rid of them I also hear though About characters talking to themselves I feel like that is That would absolutely break this game If James would start yapping about Oh God

I guess I got to find a fuel pump Yeah like Maria was like a little bit a little over chatty for me but it wasn't enough to be a detriment to the experience I also feel like it behooves the narrative to have her be a little more conversational with James so that you you know get a sense of her personality maybe actually give a shit about her I feel like they did a great job fleshing out these characters in different ways like not just through the acting but with three like additional writing and small moments between the characters.

Like there's like a whole new cutscene in Heaven's Night that was really, really great between Maria and James that like super informs like both their characters. And it's like this is not disruptive at all. This is great. This is not fan fiction to me. This feels good as hell. Well done. Damn.

I did like the one moment where I believe you're leaving the motel and you have to unlock a gate. And when you unlock the gate, Maria just like. Yay! Oh, yeah. Yay. Like this noncommittal, like, yay, here we go. Yeah. Or this bullshit.

Yay. It just reminded me of something like from Crow County earlier this year where, you know, you solve a puzzle and literally you walk up to a guy and you're like, I solved your stupid puzzle. Yes, yes. That game's great as well. But it's like, you liked it, didn't you? And you like, yes, I did. Yes. It was nice.

So in celebrating all the things that they've done to sort of make Silent Hill bigger, like the town bigger and more interesting and more things to see and do, I think as you touched upon it, it also means that the game itself is much larger. You know, this is a game that, you know, as is the case with a lot of survival horror games, the idea was you play it many times, you do different things, you get different endings. So that's still an objective here, and we'll talk about that in a second, but playing through Silent Hill 2 new version takes a lot longer. Even if you know where things are, it's still going to take you a lot longer because there's just there's just so many steps. Everything has so many steps. You know, certain aspects can be ignored. There are certain puzzles where it's like if you know the combination, you don't need to go find the combination. Like you could skip that part. But, you know, in the opening when you got a, you know, you got to get a two halves of a record player, a record and then glue them together. Like, you always have to do those things, you know. You always get to find the jukebox button. You always have to find the button inside the hospital to open a

up the safe thing and the three bracelet. There are certain things that you must do every time no matter what. Even if you know what the combination is, you can't just jump ahead. There are a bunch that you can skip, though, right? Because they don't change the combinations. The things that are just combo locks, they don't change the combos of those locks. They never change. Like on the different puzzle difficulties, it's just the puzzle itself is a little harder

to figure out, but the answer is still the same. I think there might be a couple where the answer is different on hard on hard puzzle I forget but it's mostly the same and like yeah one of the biggest skips I remember because I also played through this game a second time already for one of the other endings but the other world hospital yeah that lockbox two out of the three locks are just codes so you can skip a very large chunk of the other world hospital like yeah at least half yeah yeah even Even for me, it took six hours for my second playthrough. Yeah. And, you know, that is a normal playthrough, Silent Hill 2 or slightly less. The original one, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the fastest I ever beat the original was two or two and a half hours.

Mm-hmm. It's like, if you know what you're doing, yeah, it can beeline places. Yeah, if we're talking about numbers, we should just put the numbers out there. So a speed runner, you know, an expert, if you will, can beat Silent Hill 2, the original Silent Hill 2 in like 40 minutes, you know, less even. But as it's recording, if you go on Speed Run and look up, like, speed runs of the new Silent Hill 2, like, it's just barely under two hours. So, like, there's a lot more here to do and see. And fight.

We show some, you know, we're going to get into combat here, but like, there are a lot of monsters in this game. And I really was almost surprised by how many monsters were in this game, you know. the end of my first play-through, it said I killed over 400 monsters. When I did New Game Plus, and I was running past a lot of them because it didn't matter, I still killed over 200, which is a lot of kills. A lot of bugs. Yeah, bugs, a lot of bugs. Decent amount of bugs.

Well, they're in your way. You're in these very small confined spaces and stuff like that. You've got to get them dealt with. Yeah. My two biggest, like, not big criticisms for me, but the two things that do stand out me the most in this is it's it is hard to get the other ending simply because it takes much longer to play through this and I wish there is some like there is one feature they add that does help speed it up which is just on new game plus you can pick up the chainsaw and it one hit

kills everything but bosses and that was in the original yeah yeah which that especially when there's this much combat that really does speed a lot of sections up when you do still have to fight but on top of that I do wish there was slightly less enemies. And I'm a person who enjoys the combat in the remake. Yeah. I, like, if there is any enemy, if I only had one enemy that I could turn down the amount, it's the mannequins. There's quite a lot of mannequins.

I would turn down the lying figures just a little bit. I was always very thrilled to see my best friends of the mannequins. I was not, again, my brain's not normal. Every time I saw a mannequin, I was just like, ooh, and like clapping. I just love them. And the fact that they become little spider mannequins in the prison was like, the way I reacted to these mannequins is the way the normal people react to seeing like kittens playing or something. I was just like over the moon like, oh my God, look at you. Oh, you're sneaky.

Oh, you're so sneaky because they hide. They're adorable. They hide in little spots. I can't. I love them so much. Well, since we brought it up, let's let's get into the enemies and the combat because I think it's significant what happens here. because of the perspective change, combat is now, you know, precision matters.

You know, you can, even though it's like, melee combat is still basically like you push the button and you swing the item, like, that's basically doesn't really change. But if you get behind an enemy, like, stealth kind of matters. If you hit them in the back of the head, like they just, they go down. You can turn the flashlight off. That will make it harder for the enemies to spot you. But, of course, it makes it harder for you to see anything at all.

So, you know, your mileage may vary there. when it comes to guns, you can shoot enemies, like, in the knee, and then they'll go down, and then you can wail on them. Like, that's a really great way to save ammo, you know, especially later in the game where you have, you know, a lot more monsters, just like, aim low, you know, kneecapping, and that'll put them down for a few seconds, and that'll give you, like, breathing room, you know? Yeah, you can even just run past them if you don't want to keep running. The combat is really, like, far more engaging than any of the combat in the original game. Like, it's actually interesting and fun to do, and it, like, disincentivizes you from just, like, mashing a button. Like, it wants you to pay attention to the tells of the critters. They change some of the behavior of the monsters about halfway through to be a little more complicated and different and nuanced.

They behave differently when they're cornered than if they're out in the open. They do different stuff. It's like, that's, like, some enemy AI that I did not anticipate being in this kind of game and, like, working for me. but it's surprisingly, like I said, really engaging and thrilling to do. Yeah, there isn't, like, they did a smart thing, which is they didn't make any completely brand new enemies because the enemies are tied heavily into the symbolism of what's going on to the story with James. And so adding new guys is asking for trouble. They made new variations of the original game's enemies, which I think is smart. Yeah.

Like, yeah, you get to the other world and suddenly the lying figures aren't just normal guys. they're covered in like metal and barbed wire, and when they die, they explode into acid that lingers on the floor for a while. First time that happened, they was like, whoa, really shocking. That's new. Same with the mannequins where eventually they are little spider guys crawling all over in the dark and you can barely see them. What a glow up.

The audio design is extremely impressive with them, just a little spider skittering sounds like going from left to right speaker. I'm so proud of them for learning to skitter. Yeah. Good for them. But, yeah, even on top of that is just they try to differentiate the enemies more by giving them more noticeably different behaviors. The mannequins are dodgy. You have to get into a completely different rhythm with them to actually land hits on them.

The lying figures are there a little bit more hit and run sometimes. If they fall on the ground, they'll sometimes just skitter away and completely leave. And I really liked, oh, the nurses being extremely agro. They're, whoa, don't fuck with those ladies. Especially the ones with the knives. Oh, if there's two of them, get tactical. Don't take that lightly. And it's, I don't know, I've seen some people say they think the combat feels really, like, limp.

But I don't know where they're coming from with that, because, like, sure, maybe James' run animation is kind of stiff in this game. But when you hit guys with a pipe in this game, and this game. it feels really solid. The mocap on these critters falling down is really, like, convincing, too. They fall like a sack of potatoes, man. It feels really good. Like, also the mandarin's had such a glow up. You see them, you see them, I think, twice in the original game.

They're these fucked up guys underneath some grates with big old honking, weird hands. Punching bag hands. And, like, you just don't see them and they can't really get you very good. Like stand completely still and let them hit you. Let them hit you in Silent Hill 2, the original. And now they're like a real deal threat. They show up way more often. They're actually like utilized really well. They're a big problem. There's a really shocking, surprising boss fight with one that just Kool-Aid man's through a wall. And it's like, oh, I thought these guys were always going to be underneath like floor gratings where you can barely see them. I know. This one's just out in the open. I was, I couldn't believe my eyes. I was like, no way, no way, what that was happening. And it made total sense because every other level has a mid-level boss except for that level where the Mandarin is, you know, I almost said that with shoehorn.

It's not shoehorned. It makes sense for this guy to show up here. I'm happy for him to be here. He's in here now. And I'm like, oh, of course, there should be a mid-level boss here. And it should be a Mandarin. And there shouldn't be abstract daddies in the hotel that should stay. Angel's monster. They can only fight one time. You're so fucking right. That whole sequence with the abstract daddy was like so intense and so well done. I could do a whole podcast talking about just that part. I'm not going to go on about it. But holy shit. It's really good. Yeah, I definitely liked how the mannequins were basically repurposed in the hotel area. And yeah, all the stuff where you would, where you would have seen sort of the junior daddies in 2001 are now the mandarin's, including, you know, yeah, at first, there are under the

greats, but they can also cling to ceilings and they can patrol around. So in that one part of the game where you have to give up all your stuff and you don't have any weapons or any, even the flashlight, there's a big Mandarin. Just walk around the hallway. I think there's two of them, actually. And it's like, oh, geez, I don't, I literally cannot fight that thing. And it's huge. I don't, like, it's, that part was really intense the first time I was down there. I was like, I hate this. They did a great job, like, keeping the tension going there, especially because it's like, well, I'm really familiar with this game. I'm not feeling any tension in this game, because it's like I'm coming home, because I'm a freak.

But, like, they actually, like, by making that into more of a traditional stealth section, that felt like such a good, like a no-brainer, like so many of the improvements they made felt, like, in retrospect, like, that's a no-brainer. You're right. This shouldn't have been this way. The original game shouldn't have made me do this dumb thing all the way over here on the ass end of the map for one little item or something like that. But, like, the way they, like, redesigned all the levels to, like, loop back into

central points and stuff like that. It's almost like a Zelda dungeon? Yeah, like Zelda dungeon style, like shortcuts all the way back to the convenient spots. It's like, oh, man, modern game design is pretty good. This is nice. Yeah, so many times when you're in a level somewhere and you just, you do some big thing or you find some item you really need to find. And it's right next to a door that you unlock.

And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, now I can get back to where I was. It does. Perfect. Yeah. Like, how much of the... It's so many times. How much of the original game is, like, spent, you know, effectively backtracking to some other thing, you know? It's also really a while to see James get invincibility frames. I frame James.

You can dodge through attacks, which really helps the combat feel a lot better that you can actually, like, most of the time, cancel halfway through a swing of a weapon to try and dodge out of the way. And it's not a huge, like, combat role. It's just a quick step to, you know, the side or backwards. But it's really responsive and it feels pretty fair. And this is Bluber's first game with any combat. Yeah. This is a miracle. They, they, they...

How the fuck? Like, when they were working on this game. But before it was known, they were making this game. It was just they had job openings. I was just like, we're looking for people who have worked on combat, especially melee combat. Yeah. Damn, they did a crazy good job for being first timers. Their first foray into combat for real at all.

That's a miracle. If there's anything in this game that's also inspired by something other than Silent Hill, it's a dead space with the way you can stomp on guys and scream. Oh, yes. So many stumps. They definitely count how many enemies you stomp on. That was fantastic. It counts as a melee kill.

If you stomp on a lot of guys, it swings your ending one way. the other? Melee kills. Like, it's only a kill with a weapon if it is, like, you don't do the stomp, but I'm so used to doing the Silent Hill Stomp to make sure something's dead, that it's just like my melee kills were like grossly weighted to that side. Right, because sometimes James will just swing the weapon down, but sometimes he'll stomp. You can't really control, like, it's a weird sort of control thing.

And certainly in New Game Plus, when you have the chainsaw, you don't stop the chainsaw. You just chainsaw on the ground. I think that still counts as a melee kill, though, because it's melee versus firearms kills. Yes, I think. Right, but there's a special stomp counter is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. That's unique beyond just melee or not. Because, yeah, there's also a trophy for beating the game without any shooting.

So, how do you do that with the bosses? Like, real question? How the fuck? Oh, I can tell you. The answer is you have to be a little patient because some of them are like clicking to the ceiling. You just have to wait for them to sort of come closer to you. But everyone, everyone comes close to you enough so you can just chainsaw them. They do eventually.

Okay. Well, tricky. I did it. Yay, congrats. Gamer. But yeah, speaking of bosses, I think we should also emphasize that basically every boss battle is now sort of spectacized, if you will. Like, it's almost, yeah, every single one of them has like a multi-phase thing or like a halfway. waypoint somehow, like, either a change in tactics or just, like, the wall falls down.

Like, it's like, it ratches up the emotion. You know, the abstract daddy thing is especially, you know, it's long. You got to use a lot of ammo, but it's also really intense. Obviously, the final boss, that's the whole thing to itself, you know, the pyramid head stuff. Like, but all, all these battles have, have a lot more weight to them, I would say. It's not just, you know, okay, get your rifle. out and just shoot the rifle as fast you can and just like plunk away at these guys from half my cross the room right? The very first boss fight is flesh lips, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes.

In the hospital. And even before you get any, you know, twists. No, well, pyramid head is. But if you count that. Oh, yeah. You technically don't have to shoot him at all. So I don't know. Yeah. I would still say that counts. Yeah. Especially because you don't know that. Yeah. When you are playing that. But yeah, like the the flesh lips fight in the original is just, there's two of them and you kind of just pull out your shotgun, run to a corner, shoot them, run around them to the other corner, shoot them. And you're in like an, I want to say like an eight by eight room. Like it's a very small, crappy little room.

So you're just kind of like, just scrambling from one corner and the other and shotguning. That's the same thing for the abstract daddy too. There's no tactic to it. Yeah, abstract daddy is also in a very similarly sized small room. And it's the same tactic. You just run away, shoot, run away, shoot, et cetera, until it stops moving. and yeah like they the glow-ups with these boss fights are phenomenal just improvements all around I couldn't believe how well uh I was super curious like how are they going to do the flesh

lips fight because that fight is so boring and wow the answer is just like don't do that like do anything but that and it's still the same like you know creature they like totally jazzed up the creature gave it so many more like the movesets are different and super surprising and cool and there isn't two of them because one of them is perfectly enough to handle that would be a nightmare

and someone shows up to grab you at the end of the fight. Yeah. So they're still referencing that there's two of them. There's so many nods in this game where it's just like, we know that you know

that we change this thing and we see you. And I'm like, thank you. Thank you for acknowledging that I know that you change this thing. I feel less crazy. Thank you. But it's like, yeah,

that flesh lips fight is surprising even before you suddenly realize oh, boss fights can have more than one phase in this remake where you do enough damage to it and every couple of hits you land on it, like one corner of its like cage. The frame it's in. The frame like snaps into a different angle. Then you suddenly realize, oh, those are spider legs. Those are claws. It's running around like getting in your face and like swinging at you with arms, like those middle arms.

Which they also like, you know, they kind of took that from Silent Hole Homecoming. final boss and made that way better at not dog shit too. So it's like, I'm seeing improvements from all sorts of different left fields here. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the sort of, quote-unquote, dungeons in general, just in general. Obviously, the game's overall structure hasn't changed. It's still basically, you know, apartments, hospital, prison, hotel.

But are there any areas here that you just wanted to talk about or gush over or even gripe about as far as, like, the flow of the game or things that surprised you pleasantly, unpleasantly, just in the general sort of the flow chart, if you will? I could gush for days. They just did a really good job with all this shit. I'm just staggered by, like, generally speaking, like overall with this game, I would say that the improvement to, downgrade ratio is very, very, very good, way better than I could have imagined in my wildest dream, honestly. This is nuts to me. But like the amount of lateral moves, I would say there was maybe like a dozen or so lateral moves where they changed something. And I was like, oh, okay, that's fine. I don't hate it. I don't love it. That's not great. And I would say

there's probably less than a dozen changes that they made where I was like, oh, that's straight up worse. That's not how I would want that to be like, you know, there was like certain things like Pyramid Head's introduction, where it's the cutscene introduction, where you walk into a room. And the original, you walk into a room and there's no load screen for this door. It just works like, you know, pretty much a normal door where it just cuts to black and cuts back in immediately and there's no footstep load screen. But there's just an immediate cutscene where you're seeing something really fucked up looking happening between Pyraman Head and some mannequins. It looks like a sexual assault.

It's disturbing. It's immediately like, oh my God, oh my God, what the fuck. And like James hides and, you know, this cutscene plays out that's very bizarre and you're trying to assess the threat level the entire time. And like how much does this pyramid-headed freak know I'm here? How much does this thing think? Like, is this aggressive? What is it doing? Why didn't it attack me?

It knows I'm here, right? Why did it leave? what the fuck was that about you're left for like a lot of lot of questions and the remake they made a whole bunch of changes they made the scene way more well lit which I'm like oh don't do that

oh come on leave something to the imagination here they made it look a lot less like a sexual assault which I'm also like well I know why you would want to change it I'm sad that you changed it because it's part of the visceral nature of like you're walking in on someone

fucking whoa okay Like, there's like a flight or fight response you get just from the nature of doing that. And, like, they just kind of changed how Pierman have behaves a little bit in that scene. It's a little more macho aggressive in a weird way and less, like, mysterious, like, I cannot suss out what you are doing or how you're behaving sort of thing. So, like, that was the first, and I think for me, the biggest whiff of the game was, like, how they changed the direction of that particular scene because I think that's, like, such a crucial and super, super mysterious and interesting. part of the original game. But like, if that's my worst complaint about this thing, pretty good. There's one other change to the pyramid head thing that I'm just also like, oh, man, I totally get why it is the way it is.

So the first time you ever fight pyramid head in the original game, you just get into a very small featureless concrete room that has a staircase going down. You take a couple steps in and all of a sudden pyramid head just walks in from stage right. he's just in there already also doing something disturbing and sexual looking to a different Oh that's right That's right

But he's just suddenly there With no cut scene And you're just like Oh god And there's this tiny really room Trying to fight this guy With a you know With a buster sword basically

That room still exists In the remake And you go in there Through the opposite way And you go Oh shit If you know what that room is And he's not there

It's like Oh well that's weird It's like Maybe it is doing a You know A Resident Evil Remake thing. The dogs aren't coming out of the window right now, but they do later. Ah. But no, the boss fight with Pyramid Head is like in a centralized location on the first floor of the apartment complex now. It's more arena like. And it's a much more like this is a boss arena and you open the door and he's like at the other end of the room with his back towards you and he turns around like, stomp, stomp, I'm a boss fight. Not a big, I'm not like upset with him. Just like, oh, it's not like. surprising and like, oh, shit anymore.

But, like, I understand why you don't fight in that room because it's tiny. It's tiny. And it would be very difficult to, yeah. And also, like, they had to, because, like, we got eye frames James now. James can, like, move and juke and dodge and stuff like that. You also have to kind of upgrade pyramid head's ability to actually hit you. He's very, very, very slow in the original, but it's to give you a chance because you're very, very, very non-maneuverable in the original.

So it's like, you know, it's a shame. but I also don't have a better solution in mind, sort of. So it's like, it's a criticism that isn't constructive. But like, I do wish there, I imagine some world where there was like a better solution than making him like actually kind of fast. Yeah. Because his like not in a hurryness was part of why he was so cool. It's like, you know, how Jason from Friday the 13th never runs. Yeah.

You know, he's always taking his time and walking towards people. And that's really like threatening. They should have made the Great Knife even bigger. When he swings it, it shoots blade beams at you. Solutions! Now we're talking solutions. Yeah, I think one pattern which references both what you've mentioned already in other parts of the game, there are a lot of occasions where, like, they just use a cutscene, whereas I think in the original game it wasn't a cutscene, something just happens, right?

Like, like Pyramidhead just shows up. You know, I'm thinking of like, like on the hospital roof. Like Pyramid just shows up, right? You're in there. Like, oh, Pyramid is here, and he knocks you off the roof. It's similar, but yeah, so it's got a little bit of a different jazz to it now. It feels a little more like a capital S scripted event than like something's happening in the environment. What the fuck? I wasn't ready for a cut scene to happen at me.

Yeah. Or the chase sequence when you're trying to leave the hospital. That's obviously very much like you're in there. Like, you know something's going to happen, of course. But in the original, he just appears. Whereas in the new version, you get a cutscene and all of a sudden, Maria is ahead of you. And, yeah, it's just. Yeah, you know, it's, it's way more foreshadow.

It's also, like, that was another sequence where I was like, oh, that's a downgrade, but also I don't know how to fix it in the modern era. Because, like, we, that whole chase sequence was so cool and powerful in the original because you have these fixed camera angles that are looking behind you, like Indiana Jones with the big, Indiana Jones with a big ball behind you. Like, you know where pyramid head. is. And he's surprisingly always behind you. Every time he turn a corner, he like technically teleports. And it's like, he shouldn't be that fast. How did he get here? He's walking so slowly.

But now you kind of can't do that because you don't have those fixed camera angles. So it has to be the cameras behind you. You're running. You just have a sense that pyramid head is close behind you. But you're not seeing it. And Maria can't be trailing behind you during this because obviously playtesters would then try to fight pyramid head and keep her safe and then get killed over and over again, and you're not supposed to fight him during that part. So, like, I could just see, like, there was probably some sort of iterative process here where they were trying to get this closer to the format of the original. And, like, because of the modernizations, playtesters just couldn't deal with the way that

this is supposed to play out dramatically. So they had to do, like, this huge change, make the hallways a lot wider, make it more of, like, a traditional, so something's just chasing you sequence. And it's just like, oh, it just doesn't, it doesn't hit right with Maria ahead of you. And then suddenly in the cutscene, she's way, way behind you. Like, it felt like more of an in-game choice to leave her behind a bit, like a selfish choice. Because you can see her behind you and you're just like, oh, girl, run faster, please, oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah.

You know, there's also, like, little parts that are cut scenes now instead of actions you do. And one of the big ones that I found disappointing, it was the only part that I found disappointing about this section, which was the Angela's staircase on fire scene was when that cut scene ends in the original, you are still in the room that's on fire and you can choose to try to go up the stairs and the fire hurts you and you can see Angela like slowly

walking away and disappearing into the flames and it's so sad and fucked up and they don't do that in this one because I think that modern gamers will be there being like, I can help I can fix it and then they're just going to die over and over again in that room. Yeah, James just leaves at the end.

Yeah. And I was like, oh, but But that moment's gone now. That's sad. Yeah. Yeah, that actually confused me when I first saw it because, like, you go in a door and it's a stairway. You know it's going to be a stairway, but you have this whole, you know, the cutscene stairway. And then James goes back out the door he came in, but then it cuts to you in the same stairway again. But now the fire is gone.

Like, wait, where did I go? Like, where did that door? Like, did I go out the door and, like, you know, like, that was a little confusing for me as a first-time player. That was, that happens exactly that same way in the original, except it's not a cutscene. You choose to leave through that door. And then it's like, you're still in that room. Yeah. You made like a 180 somehow, temporally and spatially to that same place.

But it's a different reality and it's not on fire. And it's part of like the really unusual like reality space that Silent Hill is. But it just kind of hit weirder and harder when it's like your choice to leave and admit that you can't help her. Mm-hmm. Like, this is the hallway on fire. I can't do shit. Yeah. Oh, they did so good with that scene.

That was like the last... The actual cussing, though, is very good. That was the last part of the game where I was like, okay, here's the last part they could really fuck up for me. They've done really good so far. It would suck if they fumbled the ball here because they've been really nailing it. Okay, let's hold my breath. And they did really, really, really good with that scene. I was super stoked about it.

And then I had just like a little relief cry. I was like, wow, they pulled it off. They made a Silent Hill rebate. Wow. Great. So let's talk secrets. So let's talk secrets. Let's talk new secrets. Things they added to this remake that weren't there before. One such addition are the strange photos. That's what the game calls them, strange photos.

As you walk through the game, if you're astute, because some of them are out there, there are just little Polaroids, you pick them up, they have a weird phrase on them, there's a number on the back, of course you find them out of order, and there are actually 26 different photos in the game. I think my first time I only found, like, 12 or 13 of them. So some of them are well hidden, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I was pretty thorough, and I did not find all of them.

Now, I don't want to get into what they mean, but, yeah, if you look online, people have solved them, because if you find all the photos and put them in order and look at the photos and look at the words on each photo, you can decipher a message, which is an interesting message, I think, given sort of the context of the game being a remake. Yeah. It's cute. It's a cute little secret message. I think that's generally pretty good. a little more confusing for someone like me were the glimpses of the past and a lot of these are obvious

I mean, the first one is pretty obvious in that you're coming towards the town you walk towards this bridge and in the original game this is where you go under the bridge and you meet the first monster and you get your first weapon but now when you walk up to that

there's a little button prompt and you push the button and all of a sudden the game sort of stops and plays a little like musical sting and you know for me I was like what does this mean? Yeah. And really throughout the game there are these little moments where it's like this is something

that was in the previous game, but it's not in our game, but we want you to notice that we didn't do this anymore. Yeah. Like as an old head, I immediately knew what they were doing. And it was they were specifically going out of their way to acknowledge that I know better. I know that this is different. And like, I felt really seen. And I was like, oh, that's.

It's like surprisingly kind to do for me, somebody who's been so hurt by this series for so long and has way too much of a hyper interest in it. Yeah, it's really, it is really interesting because at first it just feels like, oh, this is a cute collectible for people who really know their shit. But then you keep thinking about it. It's like, this is a collectible to calm people who know their shit down. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, this is a collectible to tell people, don't worry, yes. Don't worry. To pat me on the head and say, it's okay, Jessica, calm down.

It's like an emotional support collectible. Yes. And hell, it worked. The game played me as much as I played it. Yeah. But yeah, it was, it was definitely something that got me confused a little bit. Because, I mean, I have, I've seen people play Silent Hill, too. So I know the broad strokes of Silent Hill, too.

So, like, that first one I got, It's like, oh, yeah, this is where you first meet the first monster. But later ones are just like, oh, there's a broken puzzle piece here. So that's like, I guess we're not doing this puzzle. Yeah. And I just, to me, it brought back memories of me, like, you know, we've done a podcast on Retronauts about Resident Evil 96 versus Resident Evil 2002. And Resident Evil 2002 has a few things in it that are nods to changes they made.

But they're very subtle, you know, like Josh mentioned, you mentioned the dog thing. Like, the first time you walked in that hallway, instead of a dog, like, a pebble hits the window and just, like, a crack. You're like, oh, okay. But if you go back through that hallway the other way, which you don't have to, but if you do, that's when the dogs come through. And that's actually scary. Whereas in this game, just kind of like, you know, eventually I just collected them all because I collected everything in the game. That's what I did. But certain things were just a little weird.

Like, you know, the wax, when you melt the wax and you put a horseshoe to open a game or something like that. That's just like, you know, boom, do, do. It's like a Microsoft, you know, startup sound. It's like, I don't know, okay. That I have thought about a lot of people who play this game, I bet, are completely new to Sound Hill, or at least two. And, yeah, those collectibles must be very confusing for a lot of people. Again, I wish there was, like, an accessibility option for, like, I've been here before.

I'm really familiar with this because, like, toggle that for me, and I'm happy to clam. What I was going to say is, yeah, I wish there was a way to toggle that on and off in a way, like when you first start up Metal Gear Solid 3, where you can say, I like Metal Gear Solid 2, or I like MGS 3, this is the first time I played Metal Gear and certain things are or are not in the game because of that. Like, if you say, I like MGS 2, you start with the Ryden mask on for the cut scene to fuck with you. Or if you just say, I've never played it, that's not there at all to not confuse you with a reference that would make zero sense. That's smart. Yeah. Yeah, those were very assuaging to me, even like very early on.

I was like, yeah, just being acknowledged in that way was something I did not expect that I found to be incredibly kind of blooper team to do for me. And yet no can of bulbs. No can of bulbs. No can of bulbs. Roundabout way of doing that where you dip a light bulb in the can of paint. You know, I was sad, but I get it. That's a weird fucking thing in the game that even as like hyper fans, a lot of the hyper fans, right? We've been here since for 20 years, basically.

Got them old. But a lot of fans have reverse engineered symbolism to make sense. Yeah. And the can of bulbs, I feel like nobody even got a handle on that really. Like, you know, all these other weird things that don't make sense. It's like, well, it's a clue into like James's twisted mind. Like, that's why it doesn't make sense. That's why it's so uncanny.

like, oh, James uses a mental patient's hair and a bent piece of metal to hook a little key out of a gross drain. That's not normal, but it's a clue for how mentally well he is. What kind of normal guy would put his hand in a toilet like that? Nobody would do that. He's fucked up in the head. But it's like, you see the can of bulbs. It's just like, I got nothing for this can of bulbs, man. Yeah.

How's that mean? I really do like the can of bulbs. But sometimes things in Silent Hill, too, or the other Sound Hills are weird simply because they wanted to put in something that was strange or evocative. Yeah. Speaking of strange and evocative, let's talk endings because there's new endings. Yeah, actually. They took all the original endings, which they had six. And they added two new ones, so now the total of eight endings.

One of them is called Stillness, which I would describe as in-water take two. It's really similar to Inwater, except a little twist. Inwater with a twist, if you will. And Bliss, which is basically James getting everything you wanted. Both is a new game plus, by the way. You can't get any of those in the first. The first game through, it's only the classic of Inwater, Leave, or Maria. But on your second point three, you can get a whole lot more.

I got to say, I love the new UFO ending. I think it's even funnier. It's great. I think it's even funny. It's really good. Yeah, it's really good. What? They made some tweaks to it, and it's like, you know what? Yeah. Yeah, this is a good choice. You should change this a little bit. They also, like, had an original, like, they changed it because I guess fans complained about it or something, but they had a slightly different version of the dog ending that I also think is funnier, and I think they shouldn't have changed that. I think that was great. The ending was patched with the day one patch, so essentially not meant to be seen.

Was it like an internal only? I mean, I don't think so. I think they just shipped with that new version of the dog ending. And then after shipping it and still doing the day one patch, went, we should make it more like the original. And then update it because like if you play the game, it's going to get updated. Yeah.

Unless you're not connect to the internet, which is not super common anymore on consoles. So essentially, yeah, they did not want people to see that one. And I like the two new endings a lot, actually. I was like worried that like whatever new endings they added would not make sense or be exploitative. Because Bloomberg does not have like the best track record with mental health scenarios and depressing situations and stuff like that. So I was like, oh, I don't know. But I thought, you know, even for in water take two, which is a riff on the most depressing ending that exists, I thought they did it pretty. good job. I wasn't...

I was not insulted by any part of this game. No. That's coming from like one of the biggest, like, you know, allegedly, naysayers for the biggest Silent Hill fans that's a hater of the franchise, even though I don't... I think I've calmed down a lot in recent years,

but this especially, I think, proves that it's like, I'm not unreasonable. This is great. Hell yeah. I also thought it was very cute that now in the dog ending, you know, in the classic game, the American actor walks in and suddenly speaks Japanese. Yes, it's a very bad phonetically remember Japanese.

Right. But this time around, because, you know, this game's made in Poland, they had the guy speak Polish. I thought that was cute. I called it, too. Really good. I fucking called it. I was like, I wonder if they make him speak Polish. That would be really cute, actually.

Very, very cute. And I was like, yeah, man, great idea, great choice. I love the new version of the dramatic turn of the dog. dog the very slow mechanical like yeah like they changed the direction of that scene to be a little more dramatic and it's it's definitely so much funnier like you can tell that the original UFO ending was made pretty quick like turnaround wise like there is not budget for this it was cheap even like the dog key like it looks crappier than every

other key in the game because clearly this was like made kind of last minute joke ending style So, like, there's so much more polished to this version, and more Polish to this version as well. It's good. Well, I think we can wrap this up after, you know, we've been talking for about 90 minutes now. So let's talk about our overall thoughts here. I think I can infer from everyone's facial expressions and the words that came out of your mouths that we all enjoyed, Silent Hill 2 remake. So my question to you is, number one, would you recommend this remake to Silent Hill 2 fans such as yourselves? Yes.

Yeah. I think if you are a normal, reasonable human being, and if you really, really, really like SH2 and any change to it is, you know, sacrilege, I think you can still come away from this game enjoying it and enjoying seeing the differences. Even if you don't like it as much as the original. Yeah. And I feel like my more militant opinions of the past have softened with perhaps age, perhaps experience. But a lot of it was because, like, I talked to the developers and interviewed the, like, producers and stuff like that, like Tom Hewlett, who was much maligned as, like, the producer of the Western Silent Hills. And Jerry Blowstein, as aforementioned before, and also Guy Sehee, I interviewed. And it's like, you know, learning more about how games are made and how intentional a game can be is something that has been important in my

personal character development of not being a crazy bitch about this anymore. Because games are miracles. It's a miracle. Any of them come out, honestly. They're collaborative efforts between many, many different people of different visions

and if they all coalesce in a way that makes sense, you get something really magical. And Sinhal 2 is one of those things. And like not every single thing in there is perfectly 100% intentional. There's certainly things that hit the cutting room floor that we don't even know about and we never will. There's intentions that probably are lost that we'll never know about. Because that's the nature of this beast. No art is perfect. And especially something that's made with multiple hands in it. And especially something that's made for commercial purposes.

Like, you know, all of this is a goddamn miracle to begin with. So I think, like, I'm glad I know better now about how much of a miracle it is that games are even made, and any of them are good, that any of them come out at all, how difficult it truly is to make these things. Because I think there is a odd veneration of team silent, the original people that made this, putting them in a godlike position where they had this extreme artistic control. over every single little aspect of this game and learning how much of it was happy accidents unlocked my ability to be less of a psycho about this shit

and it rules to like stuff again is all I'm saying so very happy about this very very happy I would recommend it for SH2 fans and even new people somebody asked me on Blue Sky

like I've never played a Silent Hill game is it okay to start with this one I was like you know what fuck it yeah more than okay especially because all the other ones, you cannot get them. Konami, stop it. Yeah, if there's, like, my only issue with the remake is simply that the original is not easily available outside of, you know, piracy. That I feel like the original should be there alongside the remake to buy at a reasonable price, just like how

it is extremely easy to still buy the original Final Fantasy 7. I believe it's still pretty easy to, you know, get the original Resident Evil or RE2, especially since I think at least RE1, the original is on GOG, you know. RE4 was released for every goddamn console on Earth. Yeah. Like, you too. Like, you know, doesn't have an exclusivity thing or anything like that. So, yeah, like, there's a game's preservation issue still, like, at the heart of this

question that is unfortunate. Yeah. And unfortunately, cannot be helped unless three ghosts visit Konami CEOs in the night and change their mind on game preservation, which, you know, fingers crossed, somebody hoped for that because it is a huge, huge crime and a shame that we cannot easily get these things. And given the fact that this is the reality we are living in where you cannot get these things easily, if you've not played Silent Hill 2, this is a perfectly cramulate way to play Silent Hill 2.

Yeah. I mean, that's how I felt coming away from it. You know, I have only experienced Silent Hill 2 sort of secondhand watching playthrus, you know, I've watched you play it, I've watched SGF play it, I've watched a lot of people on YouTube play it. I really enjoy watching these games. So for me, it was excited to actually finally get my hands on it. And I got to say, personally, I was kind of taken aback by how different it is to do it yourself, you know? Like, it's all fun in games to watch someone on Twitch or YouTube, you know, go through there and push the buttons and, you know,

and cry about their wife or whatever. But then like, when you're playing the game and you've been, you're playing this game for, you know, six, seven, eight, nine hour. I mean, my final play, my first playthrough took well over 10 hours, I forget how many, but like, when you've been in the game for that long and you finally get to the end, and then you see an ending, you're like, oh, geez, that was, it took something out of me, you know, it really did. Yeah. I do, I really appreciate that, you know, having played, having actually played it for myself.

So I am hoping that, you know, maybe it takes piracy or maybe Konami decides to sell me something in the future. But yeah, I really do hope that Konami follows, you know, I would say follow Capcom lead, Because Capcom, as you mentioned, not when they first launched. Like, you know, five, four years ago, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3 were basically locked on, you know, your PlayStation 3s or Vitas. Yeah. But now, yeah, now Gog.com has the first three Resident Evil's just available for sale on PC, which are pretty close to how they were. You know, the PC version is a little different, but it's pretty close to how the PlayStation games were, you know?

Yeah. And that is, that should be the default. That should be the norm for all these games that are remakes. now. You know, like, the next big thing from Konambi is going to be the Metal Gear Solid Delta, which I play to teach yes. Mm-hmm. Really impressive, but also, I already have Middle Gear Solid 3, you know, a version of

it on my Vita, on my Switch, I can buy it for PS4 and PS5. I can buy it on Steam. Like, it is so easy to buy the classic, those classic games, but not most of Silent Hill, which is messed up. Yeah, I don't know why Silent Hill is like the red-headed stepchild of Konami. they just have been letting it waste away as an IP. And it's like, I hope that, you know, the runaway success of the remake clues them in that there is demand here. It's not as niche as it was in 2001 where it was like a little hard, I think a little harder to sell horror game, especially like a bummer's feelings horror game that was not common at the time to have games with feelings in that kind of way, a little bit rare.

and, you know, not a traditionally, quote, unquote, fun game to play, you know, because it's just a little bit of an emotional slog, but it's a really good, like, it's good for your soul to do that sometimes, right? But, like, I hope they notice that they're just leaving money on the table here, not being able to sell the old ones. There's definitely demand to check out the old ones. And, you know, I do see the next question coming up here on the dock, which is, like, should Konami fund more remakes and, like, chat? I really hope that they do Silent Hill 1. I could see that happening. The one that needs the most remake done to it is Silent Hole 4 because that poor thing's a mess. Yeah.

That's a game full of great ideas that it cannot fully execute on. That poor thing. Yeah, I certainly hope they keep going with this. I understand why they did two first because of the reputation it has and the fact that story-wise, it's not really tied to any other game. Stay-alone. Yeah. From here, I would assume they would do one, three, four, because three, obviously, is very closely tied to one. It's a sequel, yeah. Yeah, four is kind of, yeah, four is kind of a weird situation where it's like, it's sort of tied to the other games, but also like, you could maybe, maybe if you remake it and you just give up.

Because, I mean, they mentioned Walter Sullivan in this one. So, like, if you, if they do the room as a sequel to Silent Hill 2, this Silent Hill 2, then, oh, yeah, Walter Sullivan. And we know about all of something from that new scriptal clip we found, and he killed those kids, you know. It was the very, very, very slight connection to two as well of James's dad being the warden. He's the superintendent, not warden. Of your apartment. It's Frank Sunderland, James's dad. Ridiculous connection.

But, yeah, I could talk forever about Silent Hall 4 and how much that poor thing wanted to be a game and just couldn't be a game. And I think that there is so much, so much to play with in that that I really think, like, a creative developer that has, you know, their heart in the right place could do some really interesting shit with it. The protagonist of that game was such a nothing blank slate that you, they basically get a free check to just make their own new protagonist if they really wanted to. Basically, yeah. It's a guy from the Tetsuo sequel. Yeah. Which is a really weird trivia piece is that the only other thing that guy was in was in the same. equal to Tetsuo the Iron Man.

I just sincerely hope that more, both Hollywood and video games in general, learn to accept the idea of remakes. Obviously, they want to remake the hits because they look at, they look for dollar signs or yen signs of Konami's case. But things that don't quite work could certainly use remakes as well, you know?

As we're recording this, I just recently watched all four of the original Jaws movies, and I got to tell you, like, some of them are good, some of them are bad, but I feel like all of them have ideas, and I think if you remade, if you remade the Jaws, like, four movies consciously, you might, like, have some real God in your hands, you know? By the end, this is the psychic, the shark is psychic, for some reason.

Okay, I'm here. I got, I never watched more than the first one, and this is a real big blind spot in my cultural, uh, education. I learned a lot this week, Jess, and I think you should learn a lot, too. Yeah, I should look into Jaws, the sequel. Hmm. All right. Right. On that note, let's wrap things this up today. Thank you very much for listening to Retronauts. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate having you here. Welcome to 2025. This is not the first episode of 2025. But you know what? It's probably my first episode, 2025. So welcome.

It's probably Groundhogs today. Jess, why don't you tell people where they can find you on the Internet if they so choose to? Absolutely. Thank you. I'm Jess O'Brien Voidberger on everything. that is currently relevant which means not Twitter anymore because that place fucking sucks follow me on Blue Sky that place is nice yeah I'm on Twitch

I stream sporadically I am on YouTube as Voidberger and as Voidberger gaming the other one is more for video essays which I also sporadically make but yeah and please check out my podcast it's called Skull Tenders

it is another one of those D&D podcasts. Come on, don't we have enough of those? Well, this one, get this, is good. This one's funny and it has sound design and it's got Casey Green of This Is Fine fame on it. So you know it's funny. Check it out. Pretty please. I love you. Goodbye. And who are you, Josh? Yeah, again, I am known everywhere online as Chip Chisholm, been doing Let's Play's for a very, very, very long time to the point that I got so good at them that it got me my job in the games industry. Yay.

So, yeah, I do a very in-depth, like, informative slash, like, funny, I guess. People say they're funny. Funny, I guess. Wow. Sell yourself. I know. I hate talking about myself in this way, man. He's so humble.

He's so modest. Yeah. Look, I live in Finland now. That's what you got to do, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, super in-depth. and like informative slash comedic let's plays

I used to be the Metal Gear guy did all the Metal Gear Solid games I feel like you're still the Metal Gear guy I mean there just isn't anymore except for the card games I guess but currently we're going on a big stint through Kingdom Hearts we're going to get back to Final Fantasy 7

Rebirth soon since we did remake a few years ago if there's anything of mine that you should check out it's the Melguer South 5 let's play that's the one that almost killed me It's three complete play-throughs of that game, edited, like, a damn game trailer the whole time. Yeah. I still love that one. And also, aside from that, do a podcast called a Bazaar podcast.

Originally, it was for recaps of the Jojo's Bazaar's Venture anime. And now currently, we're going through Farscape and finding out that Farscape is really great. Farscape rules, actually. Farscape rules. Wow. Okay. Pro listen, and I know I'm biased, but pro listen, pro watch on Farscape. These are rude Muppets on this show.

There's a rude-ass Muppets in space. They fart. They piss. Yeah, you can find me on YouTube. Just chip cheese, mail piece. I'm done now. Retronauts. Thank you, again, listeners for returots.

If you're listening to this episode and you didn't pass any money, thank you so much for listening to the episode. However, if you go to patreon.com slash retronauts, nuts, let me tell you about the treasure drove that I wait to you. First of all, three dollars a month, you get all the episodes, one week early, higher bit rate, just good news for you. Five dollars a month, my goodness, you get two exclusive episodes every month, three of those are a lot of Fridays, you get weekly columns from me, and I read you the columns. You get monthly community episodes, usually from me. You get Discord access

where, look, I'm in there, but a lot of people are in there. Jeremy's in there. Jess is in there. Stewart's in there. Lots of people are in our Discord. It's a lively place our Discord. So, Patreon.com, social notts, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for much supporting us. As for me, Diamond Fight, look for me in the internet at Fight Club. F-E-I-T, that's my last name. C-L-U-B. That's what James rips off the wall like the goddamn juggernaut in Silent Hill, too. I was really amused by that moment. All right, that's it. Um, good night. Goodbye. Goodbye. Mary. Thank you.

Mary? Mary. Mary.