Silent Hill 2 (PlayStation 5) Review

Silent Hill as a series has always been quite interesting. No game in it seems to follow the same methodology as the previous one, or at least that is true of the first four games by the original Team Silent. Silent Hill 2 in particular seems to run on the theory of Silent Hill, yes the town, calling people in to present them with their own or someone else's personal hell. Join James Sunderland as he is called to Silent Hill when he receives a letter from his late wife, Mary. James is an interesting character, clearly troubled, as anyone who loses a spouse would be, yet he seems to strive to be nice and help the others in town in his own confused way.

Two other characters, Eddie and Angela, are also both in town having been drawn there in a similar fashion. Angela is the first person James encounters, a young woman who seems to be looking for her "Mama", her story is dark and depressing. Eddie is encountered later in the game, and almost always appears alongside a dead body. He is a victim of intense bullying and definitely seems to be off the rails, yet James still tries to be understanding and helpful.

There are a further two other characters directly related to James's nightmare, Laura and Maria. Laura is an innocent, if rude, little girl who seems to know Mary and who seems to have a different perspective to Mary's life than James. Finally there is Maria, she is a seemingly perfect almost idealistic version of Mary, she taunts James multiple times, seemingly confusing him and depending on how the player makes hidden choices, entices him.

With all that laid out, James's story is a twisty one and well established in the original. The remake doesn't change the main story but it does present them with minor changes. The biggest changes in terms of story though are new endings but all of the original endings are available and use the same criteria as they did before.

The voice acting here is fantastic a lot of the time. It recaptures a lot of the character of the original dialogue but with different emphases and emotional weight. It is not better than the original but it's not worse either. In fact some of the subtler points of the dialogue are now better presented but when it tries to directly capitalise on some points of the original voicework it can stumble in minor ways. Maria's "Anyway" tirade midgame is still good but the original got that angry emotion to come across a little better and there are examples where the new game does it better. It even has the wherewithal to communicate emotion through inaction and facial expression, something the original games does amazingly in-game and in cutscenes but the Remake has superior facial detail to work with.

The largest changes come from the new gameplay design. The camera now hovers around James's right shoulder, as is customary in horror titles since Resident Evil 4, allowing for a much more intensely personal view of Silent Hill but losing the cool sweeping camera design of the original. Bloober Team have managed to keep this interesting with the overall game design with changes such as the direction they've taken with combat, keeping it faithfully clunky but made everything a little faster and redesigned the enemy behaviours. All of the original enemies made the cut but now they can do actions differently, the best change is the four legged mannequins that hide and sneak around. They can even hide themselves from the radio detection as well resulting in many a jump scare!

In fact the combat was generally quite exciting, which is good as the Silent Hill 2 Remake leans on it heavily at times especially when the game needs a traversal break away from puzzles. Puzzles are also heavily reworked with many of the originals returning but not necessarily exactly as they were, even the dreaded puzzle-box room. There is also a hilarious trend where the main puzzles are all draped in cloth that James dramatically removes to reveal them in a very short cutscene. These can be pretty complex, especially if using the higher difficulties on the separate puzzle difficulty slider! Many of the older puzzles that have been changed also have easter eggs at their old positions which is fun to hunt for.

Most of the levels have their entire original layout but quite often events have been rejigged and happen just slightly differently to improve the flow of the story. It's a very carefully crafted set of adjustments that only occasionally don't pay off. The best parts follow the original designs but are enhanced by the new additions, such as the many more interiors to explore like stores. It gives the town a much more grounded feeling but the way this happens on the way into town is almost too long for how little happens in the first half hour. These additions also make the game significantly longer clocking in at around 14 hours for the first playthrough.

Visually everything is fantastic, Bloober's work with Unreal Engine 5 is clearly paying off. The atmosphere is thick and foggy in the outdoor areas and shockingly intense in the later game where the darkness is almost sticky. All of the characters look fantastic with vastly improved detail in their new designs including nice, imperfect, normal teeth. The new facial capture brings all the story cutscenes to life and genuinely helps players connect with them. One detail in particular that was impressive is the variety in James's facial expressions, his face over the adventure becomes tired and his features reacts to the in-game situation too with elements such as watery eyes. Natural environment elements like trees and foliage also look fantastic and help fill out scenes that were somewhat barren in the original. This is true of the clutter elements as well which are stacked so high and blend into the scenes so well it really helps bring them to life. The fact that Masahiro Ito came back to retouch the enemies and characters makes this really special as it allowed him to iterate his designs and consider them in a new light from their 2001 versions.

There are two graphics modes to pick from a "60fps" performance mode and a 30fps quality mode. The quality mode offers slightly better effects and a more stable experience where the 60fps mode cuts some corners to raise the frame rate, though it is not a particularly stable feeling. Both modes stutter when moving through the open world in a way that is hard to ignore, this may be improved via patches but it's a shame it's not more stable by default.

Musically players can enjoy new sounds direct from Akira Yamoka himself! Returning iconic themes will help returning fans feel at ease with the new elements while reframing and remixing some of the more iconic musical stings. Tunes like Promise and Theme of Laura sound crisp and amazing, in fact all of the soundtrack is incredibly well mixed with really nice quality recordings. Even the updated environmental drones, creature splutters and combat screams offer something exciting, or disgusting, to listen to.

When it comes to extras a lot of the reward comes in the form of trophies rather than material in-game rewards however there are some of those too. There are a variety of cosmetics to unlock with hats for James and screen filters to change up the look of the game. It also has a fully featured New Game + mode that has extra unlockables and other optional endings to find.