This game is very old news by now but I just finished it.
What a missed opportunity. It had so much potential but the execution and clumsy controls killed it. I wont go into the visuals because they were just doing their job. For a game running on PS4 it is ugly. For a PS3 game it is simply mediocre.
It also suffers from the same inconsistency many games fall into. It builds the setting and the atmosphere and then its like the developers are either hasty to finish the job or are running out of ideas which adds fillers and content that seems disconnected from the first half or the first three quarters of the game.
Shinji Mikami apparently tried to fuse too many games into one instead of concentrating on a few elements and make them perfect.
It is like a tribute to Resident Evil games (including 4, 5 and 6) Silent Hill as well as a few others like Alan Wake, but this is why it has no character.
The info found in diaries and dialogues are also badly written. It starts with mystery and suspense and ends up being an action fest later on.
I am not sure what he was thinking. Probably he was intending a tribute to the horror movies and horror games. The controls are similar to Resi 4, just not as good and you cannot melee an enemy if he is stunt, but you can do a special kill which is harder to perform. Enemies will respond to bullets according to where they will be shot at, but not all shots will push them back. Enemy animations are very similar to Resident Evil 4 and onwards. Its like they were copy pasted.
Just like the Las Plagas some enemies have some kind of whipping tentacle jumping out of their head that could kill you instantly.
There is one enemy who will reappear many times who is extremely reminiscent of the Pyramid Head. The final encounter involves two of them just like one other game.
Many enemies will carry objects of which some can be thrown at you, but there are enemies with guns and crossbows two. Some wear masks like in Resident Evil 6
Enemies are a lot like Alan Wake too. Normal humans turn into dark versions of their selves.
Some sections even reminded me of The Last Of Us. I am talking about particular areas inside some buildings.
The world is infested with traps which can be disassembled into tools that can be used to make ammo. Again similar to The Last of Us
The ending leaves a lot for interpretation but it is not like the Silent Hill games (at least the first ones) that you really care to look up for what happened.
It did have some pretty good elements though. If only the execution was better. This could have given new life to the survival horror genre but now I know why it didnt.
Silent Hills was the only proper hope probably for a re imagination of horror games. Until Dawn? I havent played it yet.
