Silent Hill Shattered Memories: A Fan’s Fragile Heart, Frozen
words Eric L. Patterson

I review video game; partially because I’ve been playing games for so long that I have a lot of experience with them, thus hopefully giving me a decent level of knowledge on what makes a good or bad game, and partially because I’ve conned somebody into paying me for my opinions. What I am not is a game designer; I have never developed a game, I have no true understanding or appreciation for what goes into developing a game, and it is simple for me to sit behind a keyboard and write words tearing down the project that tens (or hundreds) of people spent months, even years, giving their all to. I understand and appreciate this fact, and while I may express thoughts in my reviews on how I think a title could have been a more enjoyable experience from my viewpoint, I try to always remember that talking about game development is a hell of a lot easier than it is actually doing it. Don’t think too highly of yourself, Eric; don’t assume that you could have done a better job making a game than its developers just because you have opinions.

A fine rule that I can (try to) live by in all cases except one: Silent Hill.

Silent Hill is not a game series to me; it is something far bigger, far more important, something far more personal and heartfelt. My favorite game of all time is a tie between the original Silent Hill and its sequel, Silent Hill 2. I’ve always said that Silent Hill was the game I would have made if I made games, and I was so frustrated with the overall direction of the series after I played Silent Hill: Homecoming a few months ago that I started putting together a design do for my own Silent Hill title. (Seriously, Konami–and I’ll work for cheap.) I once wrote a text file that was a vitual phone book to the shops and locaions in Silent Hill, and every message forum I’m on has my location as being from “Silent Hill.” My love for the franchise may be devotion or it may be obsession, but whatever it is, I care about how it and its mythose are treated probably more than most of the people who have ever had anything to do with it. There is nothing that I want more than for the series to find itself again, returning to the glory that it once had.

That, specifically, was the promise of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Or, if promise is too concrete a word, at least the hope and dream. Homecoming left many weary of too much combat (which, I gotta be honest, I came to quite enjoy), as well as eager to see more importance placed back on storyline, puzzles, and exploration (a fabulous idea). Work leaked on the internet of a “remake” of the original Silent Hill, something I had always prayed for but also realized could be a frightening thought. When the truth came out, it wasn’t a remake we were in store form be a “re-imagining,” a fresh look at the events of Harry’s search for his daughter Cheryl from a team that loved the series and wanted to do it right.

I don’t doubt that the people who worked on this project–from the producers to the programmers to the artists to whoever was in charge of making sure there was always a fresh pot of coffee made–went to work every day determined to create a game that would give Silent Hill fans something they had been lacking for a long time: hope. In so many ways, playing Shattered Memories, I understood that; I felt their passions, their dedications, their drive to make an experience that they could be proud od. And for that reason, I sincerely and honestly hate what I’m about to say.

As a Silent Hill game, Shattered Memories completely and utterly fails.

The foundation Shattered Memories was built upon is filled with fantastic concepts, apparent from the moment it loads. The opening video and its menu system? Genius. Your first moments in the game are then spent in a psychiatrist’s office, where a certain “Dr. K” will break in from time to time to talk to you–YOU you, as you look on from a first-person viewpoint–about your memories of Harry’s trials and tribuulations, and what the deeper, underlying meaning to what he encountered really is. It’s a fascinating story element, and goes hand-in-hand with the “psychological profile” aspect of the game, where what Harry does through your actions helps shape and change the world around you. A game that plays you wile you play it, it you will; some remidications of this you’ll understand, some you won’t, but it’s the idea of player choice without the player always understanding that he’s being given a choice.

Brilliant.

If Shattered Memories was craften as an original IP, say “White Hell” or “Dead of Winter” or even “Silent Snow,” I could look upon it as a compelling and daring new project that was a heck of a first effort in almost every regard save its “action” portions. To rectify complaints of previous Silent Hill titles getting too combat-heavy, Shattered Memories is basically split into two gameplay types: “snowy” Silent Hill with its emphasis on puzzles, exploration, and character interaction, and the icy “nightmare” Silent Hill, where Harry cannot fight back against the demons that show up to pursue him. The idea was the keeping Harry defenseless would create tension and fear as the player can do nothing but run until safety is found. The idea was that keeping Harry defenseless would create tension and fear as the player can do nothing but run until safety is found. The idea doesn’t work. At all. The nightmare scenes aren’t scary, they’re frustrating, and the demons are so skilled and speedy at ganging together to stop you that the segments turn into little more than obnoxious quick-time events. Make a bit of progress, die, repeat until you know excatly what to do in what precise order so that you can just get the thing over with.

The problem is, this is a Silent Hill game–a legitimate, built-to-be Silent Hill game, unlike SH4: The Room–and it’s almost as if it completely forgets that fact. The town of Silent Hill is to the series what the island is to Lost: not just a location, but also a character, and a major one at that, one which acts as the catalyst for what its visitors will face both externally and internally. The Silent Hill that Harry is let loose into here isn’t a town that has become lost to evil; it’s just, well, a town. It’s not empty because you’ve crossed into another world, it’s empty because of a snowstorm. There are a shocking number of people ready and waiting to cross paths with you, and at numerous times in the game Harry can use his iPhone-esque mobile to call up and chat with minor characters. Wait, what?

The building ans streets aren’t decaying and decrepit, they’re just unkempt, and exploration through them is shallow at bes as snowdrifts keep you from straying far from the path of plot progression. Even the fun of searching for tucked-away goodies has been simplified, at anything that can interacted with or opened sports a big, hard to miss arrow.

And what lies in wait for you there, hiding in the streets of Silent Hill? Nothing. When you’re outside of the nightmare world–which is a majority of the game–there’s nothing to scare you, nothing to threaten you, nothing at all that can even harm you or give you any reason to hesitate before going through the next door. Nothing. The few “atmospheric” elements you’ll encounter are all completely harmless, so even the screeching of your radio as it suddenly interrupts the silence becomes but a clue that there’s something close by to investigate.

Silent Hill isn’t Resident Evil; the series has never been only about monsters lurking in the shadows. But it has been about putting us humans in those situations that frighten and challenge us physically, mentally, or emotionally. I kept waiting for those elements to finally kick in…and then the end credits rolled. You could do a perfectly wonderful Silent Hill title without ever featuring one monster, but not when the emotional impact of all of its major elements are as weak as they are here.

I don’t want “just another Silent Hill” at this point, because there is so much that can be done with the series, so much promise and potential when placed in the hands of one who truly understands the mental and emotional consequences of the city and its power. So, the fact fact that Shattered Memories was crafted as a means to try to bring excitement and energy back to the series is an attempt that I respect from the bottom of my heart. But when I play it, when I’m told this is what a team of men and women thought should be the direction the series should take, I’m left baffled by how, in my eyes, the essence of Silent Hill has either been completely ignored or simply wasn’t understood from the beginning (even beyonf what I’ve mentioned here). I almost wasn’t sure it I should be the one to review it at first, because for a while I was absolutely certain that something was so wrong with me that I have simply lost the ability to comprehend what I was playing. The story doesn’t feel like Silent Hill, the characters don’t feel like Silent Hill, the mood, the atmosphere, the exploration, the themes, even Silent Hill doesn’t feel like Silent Hill.

Choosing to re-image the events of Konami’s groundbreaking series instead of simply remaking them I was ready for; completely tossing out most of its heart and soul I was not.

Magazine Review scans

source: SHSM: A Fan’s Fragile Heart, Frozen, PLAY, Volume 8 issue 12, December 2009 (pg. 72-73) | 12/01/2009

[UPDATE!] Eric was nice enough to expand on his review over on the Silent Hill Community
Thanks Eric!

So, hello. This is Eric.

As in, the guy from Play who did this review. As in, the guy some folks have called an “idiot,” a “moron,” “not fit to do reviews,” and the person at least one or two people have said should be fired due to my review. *laughs*

I’m cross posting this onto both Silent Hill Heaven and the Silent Hill Community, just to kill two birds with one stone. My goal really isn’t to convince any of you that I’m not an idiot, moron, that I’m indeed fit for doing reviews, or that I should not be fired (although I would indeed like to continue having a job). Instead, I’d just like to clear up a few things about my review and my feelings on the game.

First, let me be clear on the mentality that I came into Shattered Memories with. I have always wanted a remake of the original Silent Hill, because it was a game that had a lasting and profound effect on me both as a gamer and a person. The reason I wanted a remake was because, as much as I do love the game, I also must admit that it now feels awkward and clunky in a number of ways.

So when the rumors started going around on the internet about a “remake” of the original SH, I was both excited and hesitant. Sure, it was something that I had always wanted, but at the same time when you’re remaking something beloved by so many people it can be so, so easy to screw up. I then had the opportunity to check out the first 15 minutes or so of the game right before it was officially announced. In going down to Konami to see the game, I found out the truth behind what the project was; instead of a “remake”, it was a “re-imagining” of the story of Harry and his search for Cheryl.

That was absolutely, positively not the game that I was wanting, but the truth it, I was still excited for it anyhow – and that’s very important. What I had to come to terms with even before I ever saw one second of the game was that this was not going to be the original Silent Hill that I knew it loved. Not the same Harry, not the same Cheryl, not the same storyline, nothing. The reason that I say that this is important is because I knew right off the bat not to compare this directly to the PlayStation version of Silent Hill 1, or to any Silent Hill for that matter, and let me be clear in stating that in reviewing the game, I never did that in direct ways.

What I had been hoping and praying for was something to come along that would re-ignite the series. The “same old same old” was not at all what I wanted, and that’s why I was so excited by Shattered Memories after getting that first look at the game. Just re-make the same game over and over is absolutely not what I wanted from a new Silent Hill game, as some seem to have gathered from my review. At the same time, just destroying everything that had made the series what it was just for the sake of “freshness” is something I find to be a ridiculous idea. That kind of thinking was what I was seeing seep into the thoughts of Team Silent from interviews and where things were looking to go as the franchise went on. My argument has always been, and always will be, to push the series forward into new and enthralling territory built upon the foundation that had been laid by Silent Hill and, in some ways, Silent Hill 2, not in spite of it. For that reason, unlike some who claim that Westerners have killed the series, I was always of the opinion that the one to initial stab the knife into the body was Team Silent themselves.

So when I said in my review that Shattered Memories was forgetting that it was a Silent Hill game, it was never because it wasn’t exactly what the previous titles had been. That isn’t my argument. My argument is that the fundamentals of what this series is about, what it stands for and what it specifically speaks to, are missing here. Why does Silent Hill, the town, exist? Not as in origins, but as a catalyst for what then happens in the games? It exists as a means to explore the sides of the main characters that they are afraid to face, and, in turn, to explore those things that we as humans are afraid to face. Silent Hill understood how to be scary because it wasn’t like Resident Evil, with big monsters suddenly jumping out at us, but because it knew what situations to put us in that we didn’t want to be it. Not just in a physical sense, as in dark rusty hallways or pits leading to the unknown, but also in the mental and emotional sense.

Silent Hill 2 was as great a game as it was because of the very simple, yet utterly complex question it asked: what would a man do to be re-united with the love that he lost? Silent Hill offered James an answer to that question, but an answer that might lead him to a place where reclaiming what he longed for might be a worse fate than continuing to live without it. That is the entire essence of the game, that human drama that comes from the deal with the devil where you get what you want and then suffer the consequences.

That is part of what I referred to when I talked of the “heart and soul” of Silent Hill, but it wasn’t just that. It was also the sense of us finding ourselves lost in a place that we want, and need, to escape from, a place that is alive and aware and which is struggling to not let us go. I spoke in my review about Lost, because I think it had a connection to Silent Hill in a surprising amount of ways. The island on Lost is not a setting, or a backdrop, or a location, but a character that is almost as important as any other member of its cast. The Silent Hill series has, bit by bit, forgotten that the town of Silent Hill is a character as deserving of attention as Harry, or James, or Heather, or Henry, or Alex, or Travis, or whomever. In Shattered Memories, that town simply doesn’t exist. At all. Not just in more surface-level ways, as in look, or feel, or street layout, or design, or whatever else, but more importantly in concept and attitude and emotion. Does Shattered Memories contain a town called Silent Hill? Sure. But it is as much Silent Hill as the town you yourself are currently living in. It could have been called by any other named and served the exact same purpose.

The problem in fully explaining why I felt what I did, and thus gave the game the review that I did, is that it’s very hard for me to completely go into my full opinions without completely spoiling the game to hell and back. I didn’t touch once on the actual storyline to Shattered Memories in my review because there was no way to do so without giving away the major twists and turns. If that wasn’t a concern, then it would be easier for me to go into the complete score of my thoughts on the game. And, maybe I can’t even fully explain what that core feeling, that “heart and soul” of a Silent Hill title truly is, but I cannot help but think that all of us here, being Silent Hill fans, understand what that means. It’s that thing that made you understand that Silent Hill 4 started out as a completely separate project before being told that fact. It’s those things that made us fall in love with the series, to an insanely fanatical degree and extent. Those elements – those core elements that have made Silent Hill what it is, and was – they aren’t present in Shattered Memories, at least to me, and it has nothing to do with the game not being exactly like those that came before it or because of this or that complaint when taken on their own.

If there is one fact about Silent Hill fans, it is that they seem to almost never agree on anything. *laughs* I would love nothing more than for you to play Shattered Memories and love it, because that’s what I wish I could have done. I wanted so bad to love this game from the start, and went into it with no expectations other than the hope of a fresh new take on the Silent Hill mythos. When you play it, maybe you’ll suddenly come to the decision that I did actually know what the hell I was talking about. *heh* Or, maybe you’ll enjoy the game, think it’s an awesome Silent Hill chapter, and see it as proof that I’m a bigger buffoon than you originally expected. Whatever the outcome, I’m really curious to see how opinions sway once the game gets into more hands.