Silent Hill: Homecoming
Originally published at Grappa Pixel Tea. Please leave any comments there.
It’s hard to really say anything that hasn’t already been said in other reviews about this game - and that is quite possibly the largest issue I have with the game, it’s so safe. Many of the idiosyncratic, old-fashioned game-design decisions that characterised the older games in the franchise had have been “fixed”, and in particular the story is somewhat… watery compared to some of the more labyrinthine and morally contorted Lynchian storylines of other Silent Hills. Both of these aspects of Silent Hill, particularly in Silent Hill 2, made it somewhat uncomfortable to play - not only was the story confusing and horrific, but the control you had over the game was too. Before playing Homecoming that would have been a snide joke, but I wonder now if it really is.
At any rate, I am probably exaggerating the magnitude of these changes; Homecoming is an immensely entertaining game to play - or even watch. The revamping of the combat system to include timed dodges, attacks, and combos actually makes controlling the game more enjoyable and less repetitive or tedious. There are also far fewer trinket-collecting quests and cha-chinking of the ever-present broken locks that seem to plague the small town with the same intensity as the abominations. To me, these aspects never really added anything to the previous games and made prolonged sessions with them irritating, so their removal is a welcome change. Homecoming also has really great graphics and sound, but I can’t help but feel that almost all of that rides on the already carefully established aesthetic of earlier iterations. It is worth nothing however that the new game dares to finally move away from many of the tired, same-y locales that we have seen repeated ad-nauseam in previous SH games (except, of course, the hospital).
The bottom line for this game I think is therefore quite easy to determine - it’s a watered-down version of most of the earlier Silent Hill games with a few modern updates. Perhaps due to this game being created by an U.S. game studio they saw fit to make it more accessible to a U.S. audience, who are accustomed to more formulaic, by-the-numbers horror films and stories. Maybe it was to broaden the scope of its prospective audience. Regardless, what’s left is easily a four-star game that is a lot of fun. I’m already playing through it for the second time! If only I could get the hang of taking down those damn Schisms. Grr.