A lingering criticism of Bloober’sSilent Hill 2remake concerns its adaptation of the original game’s weapons and how players have even fewer options than the 2001 title.Pyramid Head’s Great Knife is dangled in front of players like a carrotonly for it to be a gimmick and lacking a swing animation, regardless of how futile or strained the action would have been. The remake then features a total of four weapons, which is pared down from the originalSilent Hill 2’s total of six weapons.
Plus, the remake’s wooden plank is irreversibly and involuntarily swapped to the metal pipe—there’s no explicit advantage to using the plank instead of the pipe in the original, but stripping players of that choice in the remake is odd when players can elect toequip the chainsaw in New Game Plusafter all.
It’s probably too early to say with any valid estimate whetherSilent Hill 2’s remake might be a key influence for futureSilent Hillgames, though its commercial success and positive reception might inspire the franchise’s upcoming titles to take note of it nonetheless. If so, its approach to weapons wouldn’t necessarily be the ideal blueprint. Instead, despite how unsavory and disdained it is in comparison,Silent Hill: Homecominghas an inspired weapon inventory system that competently blends combat with environmental interaction and progression.
Silent Hill: Homecoming’s Combat is by No Means Perfect
Silent Hill: Homecoming’s combat is divisiveand not without good reason. On the one hand, players can often exploit Alex Shepherd’s overpowered knife combos that stunlock most enemies and bosses to trivialize a lot of the encounters they’re bottlenecked into.
But, on the other hand,Silent Hill: Homecoming’s combat is janky as it leashes players into tight camera angles and they can just as easily become stunlocked whether they time their attacks well or not. Jarringly, aiming a gun doesn’t employ the same lock-on camera as readying a melee weapon stance and guns in general are horribly delayed when fired. In this sense, the combat inSilent Hill 2’s remake (and arguably the originalSilent Hill 2) is superior.
Similarities toThe Last of Us Part 2’s combat notwithstanding, what makes combat in theSilent Hill 2remake exhilarating is how crunchy and impactful each strike is; meanwhile,Homecoming’s attacks lack such weight and rely on flashy combos. Now, whereHomecominglikely has an edge onSilent Hill 2is how it makes use of weapons beyond combat.
Silent Hill: Homecoming’s Weapons Double as Clever Environmental Tools
Silent Hill: Homecoming’s various melee weapons all play vital roles as they’re required to pass through to new areas while simultaneously offering unique weapon animations and attack strings. The metal pipe or crowbar may not be as effective as either knife in combat, and yet each weapon type remains valuable regarding environmental interactions and is therefore never fully obsolete in players’ weapon inventory; the knife is needed to cut passageways open, the crowbar is needed to pry chain-link gates, and the axe is needed to chop boarded doors, for instance.
Likewise, the knife does hardly any damage toSilent Hill: Homecoming’s Scarletin phase one and makes the boss fight a slog whereas the axe swiftly lacerates her porcelain body, lending the game’s inventory to a slightly more strategic means regardless of all the dodges players spam anyway.
Thankfully, Bloober’sSilent Hill 2moves quite a distance away from this approach despite maintaining a heavy emphasis on action. So, while combat probably won’t look anything likeHomecoming’s infutureSilent Hillgames, there’s a case to be made for them to at least consider how multifaceted weapons can be in-game—action-oriented titles, at least, since first-person walking simulators likeSilent Hill: The Short Messagewouldn’t accommodate such gameplay.
WHERE TO PLAY
While recovering in a military hospital from an injury gained in service, Alex Shepherd is discharged following news that his brother’s missing. He returns home to the little lake side town of Shepherds Glen, but all’s not as he left it…
…his father’s gone, his mother’s catatonic, and the town is eerily quiet. His quest for the truth leads to the ominous Silent Hill and some dark secrets.
With a plethora of weapons available Alex must battle horrific monsters and deadly puzzles to find his father and unravel the mystery behind his brother’s disappearance.
