After initialling hearing about this remake, I was skeptical, cautious and really in bewilderment as to why Konami would want to remake Silent Hill 2. I played the original game a few years back and thought it was perfect in what it tried to achieve. Footage came out of this remake, and I was just left in disappointment on how it looked. It just looked bland, characters looked odd and thought this would be a seriously bad disaster.

Boy was I wrong.. really, really wrong.

Silent Hill 2 Remake delivers a brand new experience and pays a superb homage to the classic 2001 survival horror game. The worlds were designed beautifully, while retaining the decayed horror look to them. I really enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny, desperately scavenging for ammo, health drinks and syringes. The music choices fitted with each scenario, and sound effects gave shivers down my spine. They really immersed you into this cruel and dark world. The puzzles were also extended, and because they were a lot longer than the previous game, you were desperately fighting for your life grabbing items, and figuring out what goes where. The sound effects while trying to solve a puzzle were great too! Everything was just so perfect in this regard, now let me explain why I haven't given it a 5/5. Some of these points will go into spoiler teratory, but I'll warn as necessary.

First things first, they really shifted how the combat works. In the original game it was a lot more simple. Hit enemy a couple of times on head. Boom. It wasn't really that difficult in my honest opinion. In this remake, they have made it a requirement to dodge and time attacks carefully or you'll get gunked on or kicked in the face. Coming from someone who has never played that sort of style of game before, it was a very hard adjustment for me. You could probably call it a skill issue really, but I was playing on the standard difficulty, standard puzzles and I was really having a difficult time. They also made health drinks very scarce? I'm quite foggy (haha) on how the original handled placements of health drinks on standard difficulty, but it was a true challenge trying to survive. The worst part for me was the beginning really. I died multiple times during the apartments section because of the combat and barely any items. It's definitely something I can improve on, but it was such a drastic change, I feel like they could have been more forgiving with health. Now, time for spoiler positive and negatives!

SPOILERS BELOW!!


In all seriousness, the changes Bloober included with all the characters were greatly welcomed for me. Maria is a lot more flirty to James, desperately trying to get him to give into that temptation. Laura is just as bitchy as before, giving so much mystery on her connection with Mary, and when you get to the hotel and read her letter, you just cannot help but feel sympathy for her. Her fustration to James killing her beloved friend Mary who treated her like a daughter is telling, the facial expressions really captured that rage and anger she felt. Eddie is just a psychotic as before, and I believe the actor who played him did a really great job of making Eddie this pathetic character who doesn't care about his actions. They also really improved the boss fight to me. You didn't have to awkwardly stand there just wacking Eddie with a plank of wood or stand super far away and just keep shooting him constantly. You really had to move around, judge where his gunfire was coming from the flash of yellow, and beat him to a pulp.

Oh Angela.. Eventhough I had previous knowledge about her character, just to replay her tradedy made me so sad. The Abstract Daddy boss fight to me was pure perfection. Smashing the TVs to end the cruel hearted voice of Angela's father, and traversing her hell. As Angela once again climbed the stairs of fire, I could feel myself tearing up as I knew what her fate was. Oh and how could I forget the dorky little James Sunderland!? At first, I was skeptical about a new person playing James as I really think Guy Cihi did a perfect job of capturing James in the original, but Luke Roberts did just as a magnificent job as Guy did. He captured James's struggle through Silent Hill, and just seriously made him super pathetic. His anger raged through as you stomped or wacked an enemy and when James sees Maria behind bars again, I really believe that his performance on making James confused as to why Maria was still alive made it feel real. Every single voice actor and mocap specialist put their heart and soul in the characters, it brings me joy.

I also absolutely loved the slight flashbacks that the remake gave to the previous puzzles, just slight little parts of respect that only the original fans would know. It was a lovely touch. Every classical touch was welcomed, like scenarions such as James putting his hand down a filthy toilet, jumping down numerous holes and adding some new holes and gruseome holes to let his hand suffer in. Don't get me started on the jumpscare in the bathroom and Laura's loud piano noise... Also, I want to thank the people who put that Silent Hill 3 reference in. I spotted it straight away and it gave me a massive smile! I empathize that really kept a lot of the original parts of the game, and there were no new worlds added. All they did is just slap a ton more exploration, puzzles and eerie vibes to each place. I feel like the creepiest place for me was the otherworld's. They looked rusted, decayed and were accompanied with spine-chilling noises, enemies and superb puzzles. The attention to detail with the map aswell was amazing. There were markings in the original game, but it was actually super helpful for James to mark key places such as 'wires' or 'X-Ray' so I didn't have to rush into every room to find the important part of the puzzle.

Another positive I would love to mention is that as the game progresses, James actually gets more and more tired, exhausted and dirty. If you pick up notes later on in the game, you'll notice he has dirt in his fingernails, and the purple on his eyes are super noticeable when James finishes watching the tape. He truly looks like he has lost his strengh and to me, looks like he's just given up on his life.

Now I sadly talk about my super tiny negatives which I would've loved to have been retained in this remake. I didn't really like was that if there was a door James couldn't open, he just slams onto it and just huffs out of fustration. In the original, he usually commented on it saying the lock was broken, couldn't open the door.. etc.. It's so minor I don't even know if this could be real critisism, but it would've been a nice addition for him to say lines of dialogue when he interacted. There were some interactions, but not as much as the original.

Honestly another thing that kinda bothers me, but I sure wouldn't really bother majority of the people who play the remake first is that the majority of the game really threw it in your face the themes that kept the main game ambiguous. In the previous game, the tape was indeed censored, and the images were pretty blurry so you really couldn't make out what was going on, just a tiny bit I guess. I do remember at the time when I was playing the original I had to actually ask my friend what had happened because I was actually seriously confused. I had to rewatch the tape multiple times to finally see James smothering Mary with that pillow. In the remake, they make it extremely clear as James walks in the room with the pillow and it quite clearly shows James shove the pillow on Mary's face. It's not that bad.. but I really just enjoyed the subtlety of the tape more than it just being quite clearly shown to you. Another example would be Angela's backstory. In the originals, the pistons were moving in and out to represent.. well.. you know what which were in the remake, but in the original, Angela doesn't really spell out that she was sexually abused, it really was kept under wraps. In the remake she says "Force me like he always did".. Again, it's such a super minor critisism and if you just played the remake before the original it wouldn't really matter that much to you, but I rather enjoyed figuring things out in the lore rather than just being told straight up. It just takes the charm out of it for me.

My final critisism is the way health is shown to you. If you take damage and you're in that amber/red state, the entire border of the screen is this ugly red colour. Obviously I know that it's a massive signifier that you pretty much need to heal up, but I just think it's not a great aesthetic choice. I much prefered the original where it had the pulsating cross. I know the cross is in the remake, so they definitely could've replicated the same health management system.


SPOILERS END

Phew, that was a lot, right? Well, it was definitely a lot to take in and I was blown away with what this remake had to offer. If someone were to ask me "Would you play the original first or the remake?", I'd probably to ask a couple of questions?

Do you really enjoy in-depth puzzle solving? Remake.
Do you enjoy simple combat withot any worry? Original. (I'm talking about normal combat difficulty here. For hard I cannot comment because I haven't played hard on either game.)
Are you just in this purely for the lore and nothing else? Remake.

Of course remake is definitely the preference for me here, but I can really see the combat drawing people away really. I still stand by the fact this could be tough for a beginner.

Anyway thanks for reading! If you don't care about long paragraphs, here's my TLDR:


Pros:
- Amazing exploration
- Superb sound design
- Eerie and well done worlds
- VAs & mocap actors blew it out of the water
- Easier map navigation
- Better puzzles than original
- Paid a lot of respect to the original

Cons:
- Wasn't a fan of combat
- Less resources made it harder than original
- Could have added more voice lines to small parts like the original
- Not as subtle with story telling as the original
- Graphics when you're in a damaged state look bland