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CJacobs posted:Way early on in this thread I think I was talking about how Silent Hill 3 is my favorite game in the series. I haven't played it for a very long time and with the conclusion of the LP it's obvious that Not just an immersive mindset, I wonder how much people praise the old SH games is dependent on the fact that they are so familiar with them. How much does a second playthrough help with enjoying the game? Every time someone praises SH they do so from a somewhat expert viewpoint and rarely from the perspective of a first time player. Maybe knowing the location of magical keys and the solutions to puzzles helps the player become engaged in the atmosphere. It seemed to me that most of K&K complaints came from not knowing where to go to proceed, and that seemed to reduce the sense of "Oh poo poo! Here there be horrors." Of course this does explore the question if old-school horror game mechanics were fitting for the time or tolerable since we didn't know any better. What is the balancing point between old-school mechanics being outdated and modern games being too linear?
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Jun 13, 2014 20:31
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Mr. Highway posted:Not just an immersive mindset, I wonder how much people praise the old SH games is dependent on the fact that they are so familiar with them. How much does a second playthrough help with enjoying the game? Every time someone praises SH they do so from a somewhat expert viewpoint and rarely from the perspective of a first time player. Maybe knowing the location of magical keys and the solutions to puzzles helps the player become engaged in the atmosphere. It seemed to me that most of K&K complaints came from not knowing where to go to proceed, and that seemed to reduce the sense of "Oh poo poo! Here there be horrors." A lot of the fun in these games is unraveling the dream logic. I don't mind not knowing what's going on in a game like this becuase the less I know, the more unsettling it is. And if/when I play through it again, I now have new information that suddenly applies to earlier bits and I can start piecing together more of the plot and story and setting and it's kinda like solving a mystery, y'know? Is fun.
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Jun 13, 2014 20:33
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Coconut Indian posted:That's Valtiel, who is never explained in the game. I think a later game mentions him briefly. Either way, he's meant to ensure that the god is born. When you see him drag Heather away during a game over, it's to revive her or some poo poo. He's also what was flopping around in the locker in the hospital. Valtiel also appears before some of the major otherworld shifts turning valves and poo poo, which is supposed to be representative of the shift between the foggy world and the otherworld. In the shopping mall he showed up after Heather gets in the elevator that takes her to the main rotunda. In the hospital he showed up twisting a valve behind the snake eater ladder while Heather was climbing by him. In the chapel he's just all over the fuckin' place. There's actually a clever one that you probably wouldn't notice. A little while into the game Heather turns the valve on a bathtub, which starts draining out blood and stuff instead of water, which is then followed by an otherworld shift.  Masahiro Ito stated (possibly speculated) that Valtiel was responsible for bringing Heather back to the real world with Douglas at the end of the game. In the bad ending, which you can only get by killing a shitload of monsters on NG+ or above (which represents Heather's inner bloodlust becoming a bit too much to contain, etc), it turns out that she was serious about her dumb practical joke at the end and she kills Douglas; the game reveals that Heather has been possessed by God, who is reborn inside her thus finally rendering the first game's retarded gyromancy prophecy true. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 20:36
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Oh, and also, the game over you guys got for shooting Claudia instead of using the pendant is considered an actual alternative ending. The game says it's a game over because Heather dies and God is birthed, but in the Book of Lost Memories the creators state that if you want you can consider that to be the game's 4th ending since it does wrap up the story (if only in a pretty unfulfilling way). 
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Jun 13, 2014 20:43
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Mr. Highway posted:Not just an immersive mindset, I wonder how much people praise the old SH games is dependent on the fact that they are so familiar with them. How much does a second playthrough help with enjoying the game? Every time someone praises SH they do so from a somewhat expert viewpoint and rarely from the perspective of a first time player. Maybe knowing the location of magical keys and the solutions to puzzles helps the player become engaged in the atmosphere. It seemed to me that most of K&K complaints came from not knowing where to go to proceed, and that seemed to reduce the sense of "Oh poo poo! Here there be horrors." I have only ever played this game once, and I did not get anywhere near as lost. This was also the most terrifying game for me until I played Fatal Frame. I remember it fondly. My perspective as a first time player was that it was that the game was an amazing piece of horror that I traded in 2 weeks after I bought it, because I was too scared to have it in my house. Kyle has stated that the frequent sub-par gameplay in his LP's comes from trying to play the game, hold a conversation, and make that conversation entertaining. It's not a stretch to see this as a reason for not paying as much attention and getting more frequently lost. Especially in the subway, where it's already fairly maze like to begin with. Isolation is only going to go so far with the horror, and if you messed that one clue for where to go it will just leave you frustrated because you have no direction as far as you can tell. Your only option is to stumble blindly until something happens since these games frequently don't repeat parts that you may have needed to know. I can't really say that they haven't aged well, control wise, as I haven't played much survival horror on the 360 or PS3. Amnesia had a mouse look and WASD style controls, which worked great for the first person perspective it had. The controls for these games were made as such due to the chosen camera angle. Up would always be walk forward even when the camera angle switched. RE4 changed it up a bit, but besides the different camera angle and contest sensitive actions it was still about the same control layout. Might have had a button for use healing item, I don't think so but I can't really remember. It might be more in the way you interact with the environment and enemies. RE4 had it matter where you shot the enemies at or what you shot them with. Silent Hill's strategy has thus far been don't let enemies get too close unless you want to get hit, otherwise just shoot them until they're dead. it makes you want to keep your distance more and makes the enemy see more intimidating. RE4 was not particularly scary since even a pistol made sure you were fine, and battles weren't tense unless you were fighting regenerators. Maybe that had something more to do with it, the stiff controls seemed like more of a problem and less like something to build tension with if you are not already scared by the environment.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:16
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I played RE4 like 2 times. died totally bewildered in the opening shitstorm and never played it again. played a million hours of the sequel though
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Jun 13, 2014 21:26
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Real hurthling! posted:I played RE4 like 2 times. died totally bewildered in the opening shitstorm and never played it again. Fascinating. But then, I must ask, what did you think of RE6?
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Jun 13, 2014 22:26
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I love the extremely Silent Hill lyrics to Hometown.
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Jun 13, 2014 22:32
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Fascinating. But then, I must ask, what did you think of RE6? sucked as much as 5 which i already played a lot of thanks for asking.
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Jun 13, 2014 23:35
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quakster posted:I love the extremely Silent Hill lyrics to Hometown. I love Cradel of Forest (from Silent Hill 4) and Joe Romersa's music video even more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWA4BVW1KRQ Joe sang both Hometown and this.
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Jun 13, 2014 23:56
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Real hurthling! posted:sucked as much as 5 which i already played a lot of thanks for asking. You should probably give RE4 another shot man, there is so much to love in that game and the introduction isn't a great representation of the rest of the game.
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Jun 14, 2014 00:07
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:You should probably give RE4 another shot man, there is so much to love in that game and the introduction isn't a great representation of the rest of the game. Yep i've watch 2 lets plays of it. my post was about what a dumb baby i am
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Jun 14, 2014 01:02
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Silent Hill has some crazy weird-good music, it's like the kind of music where you're like "I can't understand why I like this but I just do" for me personally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zi5InWwr_U The intro of The Reverse Will will always be that for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8A22ulogJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aalI-pmhgb4 These two were really good when they showed up in the SH2 let's play (Heaven's Night and the bowling alley are like 5 minutes away from each other) because Kyle and Keith both noticed how the game dared to get super musical in contrast to SH1 which had almost no music outside of the otherworld.
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Jun 14, 2014 01:06
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The singer over the end credits was trying way too hard to sound like David Bowie imo.
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Jun 14, 2014 02:07
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CJacobs posted:Way early on in this thread I think I was talking about how Silent Hill 3 is my favorite game in the series. I haven't played it for a very long time and with the conclusion of the LP it's obvious that Just wanted to chime in that SH3 is my favourite in the series as well! I completely agree with everything said here about mindset, and I would even go further to say that instead of lacking the correct mindset, K&K went in the complete opposite direction and had a mindset incredibly ill-suited for this game. I really like your LPs, K&K, but it was a bit painful to see you force yourself to play a game you didn't like, thus liking it less, continuing in a downward spiral. ..I still watched the whole thing though 
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Jun 14, 2014 02:32
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I think we can at least agree that Silent Hill 3 has some of the best visuals the series ever produced, and a lot of great grisly setpieces. Aesthetically this game is probably the pinnacle of the Silent Hill aesthetic.
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Jun 14, 2014 02:35
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I like Silent Hill 3 so much that I played the lovely HD version and got the platinum trophy. The music is great, the graphics are great, and the UFO ending is also great. 2D controls for life.
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Jun 14, 2014 03:17
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Pidmon posted:The singer over the end credits was trying way too hard to sound like David Bowie imo. He sang for like... 2 songs in the entire Silent Hill series and he made his own music video for one of them. It's just as amazing as it sounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWA4BVW1KRQ
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Jun 14, 2014 04:42
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 Wrap-Up Podcast [Youtube][MP3] We get on skype with Kamoc to talk all about Silent Hill, games and community. This will be the last update in this thread. Thanks for watching!
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Jun 15, 2014 05:15
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19LettersLong posted:
Subway chat was interesting. I was surprised that anyone might've thought that Japan had zero underground trains, though. Japan's cities have dozens, if not hundreds, of underground subway lines, so the SH3 designers have no real excuses. I will say that some of the underground stations can be really labyrinthine and confusingly laid out, so maybe that's where they drew some inspiration. Tokyo in particular (where I believe Konami/Team Silent was based) has one of the most massive subway systems in the world, a huge part of which is underground, along with purely overhead lines and lines that go from above ground to underground and vice versa. Edit: this LP was fun as always. Thanks guys, and I hope we don't have to wait long for SH4. SousaphoneColossus fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 17:25
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I like to imagine that Japan's subways are super simple and they wanted to make an American subway so they just made it as needlessly complicated as possible.
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Jun 15, 2014 17:50
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Surely we can't have a SH3 playthrough without at least some mention of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_eOpM7qQHo 
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Jun 15, 2014 23:26
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On the subject of SH3 opinions, I'd also have to say that it is my favorite. SH2, and even SH1, are much smarter and better designed games than 3 is. 3 has the misfortune of instant-kills, and the game has no real plot until half-way through. The pacing would have been much better if maybe there was one level of going home, and from that point onward, you go to Silent Hill. But the poor pacing is actually one of the reasons I like SH3. Not because it has poor pacing, but because without a plot or anything really disconnecting the dungeons, the game feels like a trip. Just this journey throughout a messed up and terrifying world without any idea of why you're there. Honestly, people might have like SH3 a little more if it dropped the plot altogether and was just a freaky trip. The other main reason I like SH3 is because it's the only SH game to actually scare me. I always felt like the odds were stacked against me, since there were enemies everywhere. Plus, with no disconnections between levels, it felt like you never had a break, and the danger was always there. And once I got to the Otherworld hospital, I just had this sensory overload or something from, well, everything. I feel like the mirror room helped with that.
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Jun 16, 2014 19:56
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Hirayuki posted:Spoiler that poo poo. It's right around the corner. "Hirayuki", Do we know each other? This is Jeremy Blaustein. I am fairly certain we MUST. Right?
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Jun 17, 2014 10:00
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Hirayuki posted:I think they found the morgue in an earlier video, before the birthday phonecall and the revelation that Corpse #7 was Stanley. It may have triggered then, but it wouldn't have meant anything, and K&K probably wouldn't have noticed/heard it anyway. Ah, I have it figured out who you are! You were and are a great translator! JBlaustein fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 10:15
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Holy poo poo, are you literally Jeremy Blaustein?
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Jun 17, 2014 12:05
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DiscoMouse posted:Holy poo poo, are you literally Jeremy Blaustein? I am but I want to take the opportunity to say what a fantastic job "Hirayuki" (why can't I say your real name?) did on the poems and puzzles and non-voice stuff on SH3!!! There was brilliance in here Shakespeare puzzle! Do any of you have ANY idea the work it takes to do that? Brilliant! And her poem to Heather, the really sick one? Again, sheer beauty. Her lyrics are wonderful as well. She is a great writer and translator that I will always hold in tremendous esteem. I did all of the spoken text and on SH2 all of the text in total. So I know what it takes.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:03
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JBlaustein posted:I am but I want to take the opportunity to say what a fantastic job "Hirayuki" (why can't I say your real name?) did on the poems and puzzles and non-voice stuff on SH3!!!
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Jun 17, 2014 15:38
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JBlaustein posted:Ah, I have it figured out who you are! You were and are a great translator! DiscoMouse posted:Holy poo poo, are you literally Jeremy Blaustein? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCi-fytEQO8
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Jun 17, 2014 16:21
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I'm glad that anyone who likes Silent Hill likes out LP, let alone people that helped work on it.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:04
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It's ironic because in the podcast you talk about how people who liked SH watched these LPs and were allowing themselves to become more aware of the flaws, while I came out of these LPs actually liking SH a lot more. I had played 1 when it was new and thought it was good but then kinda ignored them. Now I'm finding them pretty interesting. It's not unlike how Jeff Gerstmann talks about Giant Bomb reviews. If someone reads one of their negative reviews and ends up wanting to buy the game then the review still did its job of giving someone information they wanted about a game. That said the banter in the videos is always funny and the main reason I come back to them. During the podcast you guys brought up something about you thinking Pyramid Head and Valtiel were maybe the same monster and Kamoc seemed like he was going to elaborate on that but the thought kind of got lost in another tangent. Anyone know what he was going to say? Or maybe he said it and I missed it?
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Jun 17, 2014 21:20
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Adus posted:During the podcast you guys brought up something about you thinking Pyramid Head and Valtiel were maybe the same monster and Kamoc seemed like he was going to elaborate on that but the thought kind of got lost in another tangent. Anyone know what he was going to say? Or maybe he said it and I missed it? Judging by the entire point of The Grate Debate (remystifying the Silent Hill series) and what he said about Silent Hill remembering what other people bring with it, I think he would probably say something like "Well, the games say that they share a lot of characteristics, and they obviously looks similar, so while there's nothing absolutely confirming it it's entirely possible that Valtiel is just Silent Hill reusing Pyramid Head but without the weird sex stuff that James brought with him." Or something like that, I dunno.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:17
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Valtiel and Pyramid Head being the same being is theoretically possible, but would be a bit strange in the context of the game's plot. For one, Valtiel is a servant of the God of the Order, whomever that is--it's a being we only see in its infancy and kill twice, so, not much of a God, and certainly not the source of Silent Hill's powers. Alessa, too, is not the source of the town's strangeness, as James's story takes place long after her death (and rebirth) too and there's barely anything about her or the cult in his story. In fact, SH2 raises a lot of broader questions about the source of the town's power, anything from it being a holy ground for ancient tribes to the lake being full of ghosts. If one was to be boring, you'd basically have no choice but to assert that Silent Hill sits on a layline of some sort, which has the ability to affect the minds of people and bring them to life. There's no sentience at work, but a purpose to what it does--it seems to be attracted to people in states of great mental anguish. Alessa, James--these are tortured souls who manifest their minds and warp the town into something...strange. Pyramid Head is James's manifestation of his own desire to be punished. He knows he deserves to die, but refuses to remember why. My theory had always been that if you took off Pyramid Head's helmet, he'd look like James underneath. Valtiel, however, is a cosmological creature, as is the god he serves. It seems likely that both came about as a natural byproduct or in response to whatever the eldritch power that fuels Silent Hill is.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:35
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 quote:In Silent Hill 3 the connection to the first game is quite clear, but the point of contact with the second game isn't so obvious. I created Valtiel because I wanted to relate the works of the series through a creature. In the religion of Silent Hill, Valtiel exists as one who is close to the God, and Pyramid Head takes shape of Valtiel's reason for existence. That is to say, the Pyramid Head character was born from the townspeoples' idolatrous ideologies. In the first game, the ceremonial robes were in homage to Valtiel. Masahiro Ito all but confirmed that they're supposed to be at least a little representative of each other.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:40
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JBlaustein posted:I am That's awesome, great job on Snatcher, you're awesome  I hope you get to make your game.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:53
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(shows Pyramid Head raping enemies) "Note the stitching on the back of his garment..."
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Jun 18, 2014 02:56
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That was a long wrapup, but then this was a pretty long LP. Nice to see it in the can!
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Jun 18, 2014 05:09
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Raenir K. Artemi posted:Judging by the entire point of The Grate Debate (remystifying the Silent Hill series) and what he said about Silent Hill remembering what other people bring with it, I think he would probably say something like "Well, the games say that they share a lot of characteristics, and they obviously looks similar, so while there's nothing absolutely confirming it it's entirely possible that Valtiel is just Silent Hill reusing Pyramid Head but without the weird sex stuff that James brought with him." Yeah, that was going to be my point until the thought escaped me for the hundredth time during that podcast. I was going to draw a parallel between the Closers and Mandarins, then circle back on Pyramid Head and Valtiel.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:39
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I'm excited to see an SH4 LP. It's my favorite, even if I recognize it's not the best. On a vaguely related note and because I can't find a general SH thread on here, is there anything good about the Silent Hill HD Collection? I've played the original 2 and 3 but my girlfriend has only played the HD version so I'm not sure if she's missing out. I've only heard bad things about the HD version but that doesn't always tell you it's bad - just that there are a lot of vocal whiners and on the Internet that can mean anything.
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Jul 27, 2014 16:39
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NikkolasKing posted:I've only heard bad things about the HD version but that doesn't always tell you it's bad - just that there are a lot of vocal whiners and on the Internet that can mean anything. There are only bad things to say about it. It's not bad, it's terrible. I have never seen as slipshod and lazy of an HD version as the Silent Hill HD collection: The textures are poorly upsized, there are bugs and glitches goddamn everywhere, the button sensitive actions on SH2 do not work, and the new voice acting ranges from unbearably hammy (Troy Baker) to non-functional (James' dialogue does not trigger when you pick up the wood plank, etc.). You could nitpick the various parts of the game to pieces but it's better to just say "play the originals instead for god's sake" and leave it at that. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jul 27, 2014 |
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Jul 27, 2014 17:38
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