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Hakkesshu posted:I remember being so psyched about Homecoming 'cause there was so much cool stuff they could do with a war veteran in that setting outside of Jacob's Ladder, but of course they just aped the movie and SH2 a bunch and called it a day. The main problem with Silent Hill post-4 is just creative bankruptcy. It went as far as to have an interaction going "There was a picture here. It's gone now." which is so fan-pandering it hurts. Edit: 
The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 09:58
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I like my Silent Hill, but honestly the worst thing to happen to the series in the long run is the early games themselves. 3 and 4 did their own junk pretty well, but past that it's just been "HEY, REMEMBER THIS AND THAT FROM SH1-2?!" forever.
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Nov 17, 2014 12:05
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I think Japanese devs may be the only ones who get silent hill.
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Nov 17, 2014 12:23
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They certainly got it enough to know when to stop.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:45
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Silent Hill was very much the baby of Team Silent. Even though the games they made weren't necessarily technical masterpieces (although when SH2 first came out I remember being blown the gently caress away, of course, that was almost 15 years ago) they had a cohesive direction where all of the elements of the game really came together. After 4, there was no continuity between the teams that made the games and the team that would make the next game, and so even though homecoming had the best graphics in the series to date, the story, art direction, characterization, and monster design just wasn't there. Team Silent has made other games though, the Siren series comes to mind. Like Silent Hill, Siren is far from perfect, but it's definitely something unique. If you are going to give it a shot, the PSN-exclusive blood curse is a great deal easier and more forgiving than the PS2 game.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:57
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I remember trying to play Siren and utterly failing due to a combination of awful controls, terrible cameras, and general difficulty.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:38
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Silent Hill was very much the baby of Team Silent. Even though the games they made weren't necessarily technical masterpieces (although when SH2 first came out I remember being blown the gently caress away, of course, that was almost 15 years ago) they had a cohesive direction where all of the elements of the game really came together. After 4, there was no continuity between the teams that made the games and the team that would make the next game, and so even though homecoming had the best graphics in the series to date, the story, art direction, characterization, and monster design just wasn't there. Blood Curse is indeed great, but I remember hitting a brick wall with the tunnel full of shibito crawlers with creepy japanese dude and never getting to finish it.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:41
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Silent Hill was very much the baby of Team Silent. Even though the games they made weren't necessarily technical masterpieces (although when SH2 first came out I remember being blown the gently caress away, of course, that was almost 15 years ago) they had a cohesive direction where all of the elements of the game really came together. After 4, there was no continuity between the teams that made the games and the team that would make the next game, and so even though homecoming had the best graphics in the series to date, the story, art direction, characterization, and monster design just wasn't there. Pretty sure the Siren games just have a few creative heads from team silent rather than them being team silent by another name. Could be wrong though. It's pretty clear why the series is being mishandled, it's being controlled by suits at konami that don't care about the series artistically and being farmed out to cheap western developers that can spit out something garbage quickly. It's a name used to market products and there's nobody really carrying the torch.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:43
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cat doter posted:Pretty sure the Siren games just have a few creative heads from team silent rather than them being team silent by another name. Could be wrong though. Let's hope Kojima changes that.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:46
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cat doter posted:It's a name used to market products and there's nobody really carrying the torch.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:50
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Yodzilla posted:I remember trying to play Siren and utterly failing due to a combination of awful controls, terrible cameras, and general difficulty. I could deal with all that really, but jesus god almighty the english voices in the original.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:05
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A. Beaverhausen posted:Let's hope Kojima changes that. I care more about it being a kojima game than a silent hill game to be honest. Cardiovorax posted:As far as Team Silent is concerned, there never will be, either. They made it pretty clear that they consider the plot of the series over as of the ending of Silent Hill 3, so any further games are by design attempts to cash in on a dead series against the will of the creative team behind it. I don't think that really matters that much, there's definitely room to re-interpret or make something in the spirit of silent hill. All it will take is for someone who cares enough to do the series justice. A reboot in the spirit is obviously the right move and any attempt to continue the story would be extremely misguided so at least we agree on that.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:05
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Yardbomb posted:I could deal with all that really, but jesus god almighty the english voices in the original. Oh now that I think about it I was talking about Blood Curse, the PS3 release. I never played the very original.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:12
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Yes, after beating blood curse I was super excited for the release of the PS2 classic release on the PSN, only to find out that this game is a madman's fever dream made into an executable file. The shibito, in sharp contrast to the naturally occurring fauna of Silent Hill, are collectively harder than coffin nails. Not being able to permanently disable them does make them really scary, but I feel like Blood Curse's decision to allow the player more melee attacks and better melee strength keeps the pace of the game up better. The episodic nature of Blood Curse also helps. It also has one of my favorite moments in a horror game - the hospital section as the little girl. Compared to the greater physical prowess of the cast in general this level robs you of all options except sight jacking. The digitized faces on 3d model effect in the original is kind of neat, though - I sort of wish more people had used it. It kind of reminds me of the models from vagrant story. The only thing I didn't care for about Blood Curse was the decision to make the cast western. I don't know how expensive it is, but given that it's PSN exclusive the answer is probably 'too much'.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:15
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cat doter posted:I don't think that really matters that much, there's definitely room to re-interpret or make something in the spirit of silent hill. All it will take is for someone who cares enough to do the series justice. A reboot in the spirit is obviously the right move and any attempt to continue the story would be extremely misguided so at least we agree on that. Personally, I think the best Silent Hill game in recent history is Deadly Premonition.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:18
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cat doter posted:It's pretty clear why the series is being mishandled, it's being controlled by suits at konami that don't care about the series artistically and being farmed out to cheap western developers that can spit out something garbage quickly. It's a name used to market products and there's nobody really carrying the torch. Silent Hill is kind of a weird one in that regard. After 4, Konami Japan was ready to shelve the series until they had something else to do with it, perhaps indefinitely. But there were people at Konami US that wanted the series to continue for a couple reasons. Some of them just wanted to see the series continued because they loved it, some wanted to capitalize on the huge cult (  ) following it had in the west, and some wanted a big-name series under US control. Like a lot of international companies, Konami operates each of their regions like independent subsidiaries. Japanese HQ sets revenue goals and gets final approval rights on everything, but aside from that they all operate autonomously. With Silent Hill on the shelf, this was the US branch's chance to helm a major brand since Japan had strangleholds on all the others like MGS, Winning Eleven, and Castlevania.It's definitely not that there was no one to carry the torch (actually there probably isn't now), but rather that the US branch was completely unequipped to continue the line. For one thing, they just don't have the funds that HQ does. For 0rigins there were talks with some pretty high-profile western studios to make new Silent Hills, but they couldn't get approval for that kind of funding. 0rigins also set a bad precedent because the original was scrapped late into production and then dumped on Climax, who churned out a finished product in like 6 months on what was left of the budget. It still sold because it was a new Silent Hill, and Japan saw this and went "Oh, they don't even need money to make these." That left Konami US scraping the bottom of the barrel for development instead of getting a AAA studio on it. Of course, the other problem is that anyone you take Silent Hill to now is a fan of the originals and "wants to take it back to its roots", which is whatever bits they really liked when they played it back in college. The odds of another Silent Hill ever coming out that at all resembles the originals is so low as to be insignificant. cat doter posted:I care more about it being a kojima game than a silent hill game to be honest. This is the safest way to approach it. The more involvement Kojima has with its development, the more uniquely Kojima it will be. He's not really the type to imitate, he's more looking to make his own vision of Silent Hill, whatever the hell that is.
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Nov 17, 2014 17:51
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I just hope it's called The Silent Hills. Just 'Silent Hills' sounds awkward. But maybe that's just because I'm used to the singular, I suppose if the series had been called that from the start, it wouldn't sound strange to me.
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Nov 17, 2014 17:59
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Siren's setting was fantastically creepy and awesome, and the basic mechanic of having to track enemies using their own sight while avoiding them was high tension personified. The lack of a centralized, continuous narrative/play through and the reliance on replaying the same episodes over and over again really hurt it, though. It wasn't in this thread, but whoever said that Siren was SH's true successor was spot on.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:05
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Cardiovorax posted:Not saying it matters, just that there's no point in hoping for them to come back or even for someone to follow up on the series like they would have done, because they won't and never wanted to do anything further with it. You can re-interprete or reboot all you want, of course, but there's only so much leeway before you end up with something too different to satisfy the people who wanted something closer to the feel of Silent Hill than what they got. See Shattered Memories. Shattered Memories was mediocre overall, but the whole ice motif was amazing and I hope some piece of horror media uses a similar effect in the future. vvvv I'll see if I can hunt it down, thanks! Big Mad Drongo fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 18:18
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Big Mad Drongo posted:Shattered Memories was mediocre overall, but the whole ice motif was amazing and I hope some piece of horror media uses a similar effect in the future. Get Cryostasis if you haven't yet. It might be one of the worst-optimized PC games in history but I haven't seen a title that handled cold and ice any better than that.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:23
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Oxxidation posted:Get Cryostasis if you haven't yet. It might be one of the worst-optimized PC games in history but I haven't seen a title that handled cold and ice any better than that.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:25
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Like a lot of Konami games at the time it developed a huge following in Europe too (to the point where SH3 launched there first) so I can understand why the western offices in general would want to keep milking it. The "best" Konami mishandling ever though will always be Castlevania Legends. See this bland as hell GB game that has Alucard as a major side character in it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKo5_9fQl2E This was the follow up to Symphony of the Night.  This is why despite them being mega-dogshit of the highest order Judgement and Lords of Shadow 2 didn't surprise me at all.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:27
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Siren is great and I like the anachronistic level order but I don't think the time loop mechanic does it any favors especially when, iirc, half the game only the second loop matters and the other half only the first loop matters. One of the coolest things is watching how the setting changed physically during the three days. It was also probably one of the legit hardest games I've ever played.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:29
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I really did like how much stuff changed from day to day. That was the only missed opportunity with the Fatal Frame games.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:47
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Oxxidation posted:Get Cryostasis if you haven't yet. It might be one of the worst-optimized PC games in history but I haven't seen a title that handled cold and ice any better than that.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:50
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Because I only recently started playing the Silent Hill games its interesting to see all the breathless fan chatter about the series best and worst moments, and I totally understand why people love the second game, because holy poo poo was that easily the best of the original trilogy (and I played it after playing SH3), but the thing I've noticed is that the strengths of the games isn't the voice acting (HA!) or even the stories (SH2 being the exception) it's the atmosphere and the constant creeping dread that something is just beyond the next corner or off in the fog that's going to murder the poo poo out of you. SH4 nails some of those elements so perfectly, and then at other times just completely fucks it up. The score is great, the first person stuff is good, the jumping between worlds is actually pretty interesting, but then you've got a burping monster, a wheelchair and ghosts that look like they couldn't give less of poo poo. Now, having said that, I played P.T before I played SH4, and they took a lot of the best ideas from SH4 and put them into PT and proved that with a little focus those elements are really, really effective. Also, avoid the fan theories about PT because most of them are baffling in how dumb they are.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:08
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Silent Hill is kind of like Sonic at this point. Those first three games were incredible, but ever since then everyone has just been constantly stumbling over their own feet trying to recapture that magic, but no one has any loving idea how to do so, and fans are equally divided over what even made those original games so good in the first place.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:20
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Thats not true sonic was never good.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:21
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Well yeah, but let's pretend they are generally well-liked.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:24
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Clever Spambot posted:Thats not true sonic was never good. Everyone always forgets that the vast vast majority of Sonic games are very bad. Silent Hill has never had anything even close to as bad as Sonic 2006, Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic Boom.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:30
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Improbable Lobster posted:Everyone always forgets that the vast vast majority of Sonic games are very bad. No, no I don't think so. But then I'd argue the vast majority of Silent Hill games are very bad. Book of Memories or the dumb arcade game are pretty apt equivalents to Shadow.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:32
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I actually think sonic generations is a legit good game (i also irony like adventure 2), but i hated the 2d ones even as a kid. Something about how fast you move and how little ahead of yourself you can see. I'll take bad tank controls over poo poo like that any day.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:35
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I love the voice acting from the original Siren. It has that Resident Evil quality where it's so bad that it loops right over to awesome. "Professah? What's going awn? I don't *get it*! Why is this *happening*?" "I told you to wait in the car."
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Nov 17, 2014 21:35
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I really miss bad voice acting in horror games.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:39
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That's a terrible analogy because even the series at its worst, Homecoming, is still totally playable and is more mediocre and uninspiried than awful. The only terrible entry in the mainline series is the HD Collection.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:40
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Accordion Man posted:That's a terrible analogy because even the series at its worst, Homecoming, is still totally playable and is more mediocre and uninspiried than awful. The only terrible entry in the mainline series is the HD Collection. The only bad "mainline" sonic game is Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I (did part II even come out?). 
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Nov 17, 2014 21:52
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Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations are actually horror games because you will look at them and be horrified when you realize that there will never be another fun and decently polished Sonic game ever again
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Nov 17, 2014 22:00
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Worth a mention is bunch of silent hill games on the vita. The PSX games, SH Origins, Shattered Memories. And a bunch of other PSX games too like the Resident Evils, Parasite Eve, Galerians (I think). I can't get enough.
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Nov 17, 2014 22:03
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Accordion Man posted:P.T.'s puzzles were intentionally obtuse because it being a Silent Hill game was supposed to be a surprise and they didn't want people finding out immediately (Of course the game press hosed that up for them) so I wouldn't expect Silent Hills to be like that. Did they ever codify what the requirements for getting the baby laughs were in the demo?
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Nov 17, 2014 23:28
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The Colonel posted:Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations are actually horror games because you will look at them and be horrified when you realize that there will never be another fun and decently polished Sonic game ever again Seriously, how did the franchise turn itself around before immediately going to poo poo again with the follow-up? Sonic Boom looks like it's basically the "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" of the Sonic franchise. But whatever, that franchise will never die. Silent Hill? Maybe.
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Nov 17, 2014 23:53
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