Summary

Silent Hill 3 is a survival horror video game, the third in the Silent Hill series (shocking). It was developed by Team Silent and published by Konami in 2003 for the PS2. In it we play as Heather Mason, Harry Mason's new and improved (?) daughter. But of course as with a Silent Hill protagonist comes the titular Silent Hill town. And the many monsters and cultists therein.

Loved the previous Silent Hills and I have heard this one is also good and worth playing. We are getting scarily close to that point where I see the descent in front of me and I will certainly pull my ripcord before we get there. But I think we are still in safe hands for now. Know that I, Dear Leader, am closely monitoring the situation and will act swiftly and with great responsibility and care.

Review

Not bad, not as good as the previous one. Not a big surprise. I knew I wasn't gonna like it as much as SH2, I mean that was basically written in the stars. But I do feel that, moving to this one, there's some fundamental things missing from the formula. To me, it wasn't a "we're right there but just a bit off". With the first three Silent Hills under my belt, I would put 3 closer to 1 in terms of overall quality.

My biggest problem with this one, other than the relative lack of the psychological focus compared to the previous one, would be the general story. There were multiple times I said aloud while playing "So what are we doing?" I get a definite sense of there being dev troubles with this one that I did not get at all from the previous one. Or even really the first one. The big word I would use when describing the second Silent Hill would be "intentional". Everything felt extremely intentional. Everything served a purpose. If there were any dev issues that happened during SH2, I did not get a sense of it. The parents did the appropriate thing and hid their fighting from the children. They presented a united front. Whereas here, things feel a bit unfocused. We are traveling home, then Dad's dead, and then we go to Silent Hill because reasons. Which is generally fairly direct, but there were several areas where I couldn't help but ask "Why am I here?" Brookhaven is a big one. Firstly, why are we not going to Alchemilla? Heather's got no connection to this place. If we gotta go to a hospital for some reason, I would think Alchemilla is the obvious choice. We can call back to Harry's journey and also her own experiences during the Alessa times. It just seems like an odd decision. These are two different hospitals. Also the Hilltop Center. Why were we there? And how did it further inform us on Heather's character?

Another thing that I found disappointing was the enemies. There's some good designs here, do not get me wrong. But they felt a lot less intentional. The enemies from 2 giving you a bunch of information on James' psychology and past events is done masterfully. Here, there's several enemies that I just didn't really get anything from. The dogs, I guess Heather is still afraid of dogs? Are we still doing childhood fears like from SH1? The naughty nurses. Why are they naughty? That doesn't relate to Heather at all. What were the inside-out donkeys about? Again, things feel less intentional in this game. I feel like if I look deeper, I will not get more information.

To finish off my negatives, I will also say that I'm pretty uninterested in the Alessa stuff and the cult stuff. I think we've pretty well covered it. I'm still generally interested in the series, but I think any entries that focus on either of those two aspects are pretty meh to me. It just feels like they lack a depth that a more personal psychological story has. The Cult's got a God and they wanna make Paradise. For reasons. Sure. It's fine, it's not like terrible or anything. I'm just not interested in seeing more of it. We have totally covered that story and any further entries that put focus on it are misguided, in my opinion.

Some things that I did like about the game. Because I will say, it's a perfectly good game. We're just measuring up against a titan and that inevitably has us falling short. The spooks are still here. I didn't like the monsters on the whole as much, but they're still perfectly creepy and are deployed situationally well. In addition, I think we still have a good loop of go to area, travel through mostly safe interconnecting bit, then go through new area. It still feels quite good from a basic game design standpoint, we've not lost that at all. Music is also still banging. I felt there wasn't quite so many standout tracks, but I could see that being a symptom of not fucking with the story as much. Fewer moments when a good song could shine through to connect the events to the emotions of the scene. Heather's also good. She's not as interesting as a James, but she does project a clear personality through her vocal performance, her actions, and her inner narrations of various objects.

Another thing I appreciate about Silent Hill are the games' lengths. We get in, we have a good time, then we get out. Praise shorter games that don't overstay their welcome. I like that we've stuck with that thus far. I will eventually get to the Silent Hill 2 remake, but it's something that's given me pause. That one did not need to be any longer. Neither did 1 or really 3. I could see an argument for wanting 3 to be longer to make room for more story. I don't think I agree, though. I could feel that it was shorter than previous entries, but I still think we had plenty of time to cover whatever it is we want to cover. The biggest sin against this game was simply a lack of focus.

I do think this one could use a revisit, more than 1 or 2 really need. I think going back to the drawing board here and figuring out what the story is that we want to tell and how we can effectively tell it could make for a much better game. 2 was great as is. I don't think it necessarily needed a remake. And for 1, while I could see a remake being interesting, I'm also not sure what all to even do. The enemies are pretty universally no good, not all that scary. I guess just putting a bigger focus on the exploring towns bit could be good for the game. Deleting half the enemies would really raise my opinion of that one.

Might end up playing 4 in the future, I'm unsure. It just seems like a dark road, trying to get blood from an increasingly solid rock. There's a part of me that is screaming, cut your losses and get out while everything is still good. So we'll see.

Links

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0ib93m4UM&list=PLXbBIoFOxaQsezv7IAd2qxeREoiW1rDfg