Silent Hill Review: Nightmare simulator 1999 (PlayStation 1)

Halloween is just about a week away, and you’re probably wondering if there’s anything nice and spooky to play in the scariest month of the year. There’s definitely plenty of indie horror games that you can sink your teeth in, like Faith or No one lives under the lighthouse. But what if you’re in the mood for something….retro? Have you ever heard of a little old game on the original PlayStation called Silent Hill?

Silent Hill is one of those games that really sticks with you, like a weird dish that you weren’t too sure about but is actually better than it seems. It was a game that was made to be the challenger to Capcom’s horror opus at the time, Resident Evil. Team Silent, the group behind it, and the other major entries in the series were comprised of misfit developers at Konami. They all had low expectations put on them as they were expected to provide a product that was just going to be comparable to Capcom’s but wouldn’t be anything radically different… or it seemed.

Since Team Silent had the lowest expectations possible placed on them, they were able to get away with creating an experience that wasn’t as action-packed as Resident Evil but was instead a hauntingly disturbing odyssey through the titular town. Silent Hill is an experience that isn’t just terrifying, but the beginning of a new wave of horror games that would evolve over time. It was able to stick around because it went far out of its way to differentiate itself from the young and famous zombie series. Silent Hill only survived because it scared the living shit out of people when it finally hit store shelves.

The wave of psychological horror was here and was ready to steal the limelight. Silent Hill was finally here.

A heart of rust and blood

Silent Hill Nurse enemy
Credit: Konami

Silent Hill is an old game to be sure, but don’t write it off just because it hasn’t aged as gracefully as its contemporaries; it might not look as good as Resident Evil 2 or even its cousin, Metal Gear Solid, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing on offer here when it comes to visuals. The textures might be warped and cruddy-looking, but they only add to the uncanny nature of the town you were exploring. You get to explore horror staples like a creepy school and hospital, but in between these sections are trips through the town of Silent Hill, and let me tell you, it’s one hell of a town.

The fog that is present in the town is not only a thematic device that shrouds everything in mystery but is also a clever technical trick that Team Silent used to alleviate some of the rendering burdens off of the PS1. As a result, your trips through the town feel tense, shrouded in an unyielding fog that only entices you to keep exploring and keep moving, as you’re not safe from anything in this game. The town is an ever-evolving hellscape that is always antagonizing you with some places that are incredibly disorienting and twisted beyond recognition, as even mundane places like malls and elementary schools are some of the most anxiety-ridden places you’ll explore.

Places that in real life are innocuous and uninteresting become warped, perverted versions of their selves, where reality and fiction seem to blur together unevenly. It’s astounding how creepy the environments still are even decades later, as you’ll really feel the dread whenever you explore a new area. They may be fairly dated, but the graphics are without a doubt only elevated by their age, as the uncanniness is only enunciated by the janky textures and character models.

Enemies are grotesque monstrosities that serve more to frighten you than challenge your skill as a player and honestly, they do a good job serving that purpose. They’re each creepy manifestations of the town’s malevolence and vary from humanoids like grey child creatures or possessed nurses, to twisted interpretations of animals that roam the streets of the town. Every creature, while a bit dated because of their graphical age, are all distinct and intimidating in their own way, with incredibly unnerving sound design to compliment them.

Let me just take a moment to gush about the sound in this game because holy cow is the game such an incredible showcase of sound design in the late ’90s. Every sound is impeccably well designed and implemented well; ambient sounds and background noise like water dripping in the sewers only add to the discomfort and psychological stress that have already been creeping into your experience up until now. Coupled with all this is a soundtrack composed by the now legendary composer, Akira Yamaoka, who’s gone on to not only make music for many of the other games in the series but for other major games as well.

Mr, Yamaoka’s work here is incredible, as every single piece of music is either somber, contemplative, or raw and disconcerting. When traipsing through the nightmare versions of the various locations, you’ll get some of the most terrifying musical tracks you’ll ever experience. They definitely make Silent Hill feel the way it does, as removing the music entirely would definitely leave the game feeling incomplete when looking at it as a whole.

READ MORE: Resident Evil 25th Anniversary website launched

It’s all gone to hell, so what are you gonna do?

Silent Hill graffiti room
Credit: Konami

The game may look great for its age, but how does it play? It’s like a prototype of a third-person Resident Evil, but your aim is terrible and you can’t run without being completely winded. The gameplay is pretty familiar to survival horror veterans, but there’s a level of jank to the gameplay that has to be accounted for whenever making any sort of move. Unlike the badass survivors of Capcom’s zombie romp, your protagonist, Harry Mason, is just a normal guy who isn’t trained to fight like his survival horror contemporaries. Harry can run pretty quickly, but stop long enough and he’ll have to catch his breath. He can carry tons of items, but he’s a pretty fragile guy, and can’t take too many hits.

If you have to fight against any enemies, Harry might have some trouble taking on more than one, as his firearms training is understandably limited and can lead to some misses when firing. If you get surrounded by enemies, get ready to get stunlocked until you’re able to get away fast enough to properly manage the groups of enemies you sometimes run into. You thankfully have a plethora of weapons to use, but just keep in mind that Harry’s lack of experience with these weapons makes certain encounters harder than they should be.

It’s definitely no surprise that you’re encouraged to avoid combat whenever possible, as enemies just barrel towards you in droves if there’s more than one in the immediate area. It isn’t too bad if you just pay attention, but it’s definitely frustrating if you happen to find that particular room that has that one group of enemies that are just annoying to run past. Thematically, it’s great because you’re supposed to be struggling against the machinations of the town alone and against ever-mounting odds. However, it can be frustrating when all you wanna do is go from A to B but there are just droves of enemies everywhere.

This is more of a problem when you’re moving between major areas of the game, as the interior levels aren’t as populated as the town itself is. When you aren’t fighting through legions of twisted enemies, you’re solving brain-teasing puzzles that ask you to be observant and clever. The puzzles are probably the best aspect of the game, as they aren’t incredibly hard and require some effort to solve sometimes; my personal favorite puzzle is the one in the hospital, where you have to read a poem to discern what keys to use in what order to open a specific door.

It does a good job of making you feel clever for figuring out the solution on your own and only heightens dread when you’re in a hostile area. You just want to get out of the spooky area but then here’s this puzzle that needs to solve before moving forward, which only adds to the discomfort one might feel when navigating the stranger areas of the game. If there was anything in this game that made it quintessentially “Silent Hill,” it would definitely be the puzzles.

Hell, in future games, they even add a puzzle difficulty which makes the games’ puzzles much more difficult if need be. They definitely knew that the puzzles were where the game shone brightest.

The depths of insanity

Silent Hill first nightmare scene
Credit: Konami

So a renowned classic of the PSX era should definitely have a good story to match its eerie gameplay and setting right? Well, sort of.

For the first in the series, Silent Hill‘s story isn’t very ambitious, as it’s pretty straightforward if you just pay attention to what’s going on. The aforementioned protagonist, Harry Mason, is a single father that is taking his adopted daughter, Cheryl Mason to the town of Silent Hill for a vacation. Well, that’s a hell of a vacation to take, because as soon as they arrive in the town, Harry crashes the car, and Cheryl goes missing right away. From then on, Harry is pulled into a crazy scheme involving cults, a local drug trade, and an apocalyptic conspiracy that can rend the world asunder.

It sounds a lot crazier than it actually is, as when you actually get down to the dank details of the story, it’s the most straightforward game of the entire series. What you see is what you get, as there is not much in the way of any kind of deep, contemplative story about existential terrors from beyond our veil of reality; you’re just a normal guy trying to save his daughter from a spooky town that is being used by a cult to fulfill their ambitions. Their background and the secrets of the town are fun to look into even if they come off as cliche at the end of the day.

Every character is distinct, but unfortunately, the voice acting budget Kojima got for Metal Gear Solid was not afforded to Team Silent. The voice acting varies from ok to straight-up hammy, as you’ll sometimes get an actor underacting and another one overacting in big scenes. I’d have written this off as just being part of the era this game existed in, but when you have something like Metal Gear Solid blow everything else out of the water when it comes to the quality of the voice acting.

It’s not a dealbreaker, but it is something to keep in mind if you aren’t used to that level of quality; you’re in for a good ride if you can accept the weird voices and their even weirder lines. If there’s any character whose voice might grate on you a little, it’d be Harry’s as his lines can sometimes be delivered in an underwhelming manner. Everyone else is serviceable for the period they existed in, but they wouldn’t be winning any awards for their acting.

You can never call this game’s story boring, that’s for sure, but it definitely isn’t very unique or clever with some of its twists. Really, the best thing the game has going for it is the charm of the voice acting and some of the scenes that elicit a sense of terror in the player. This game does have some moments in its story that are creepy and disturbing (one in particular happening towards the end). With four main endings and one joke ending to unlock, you have many ways to punctuate your journey through Silent Hill when you feel up for another round of psychological horror. Each one is distinct from one another, and they could all easily be the canon ending to the game if you feel like the ending you got the first time wasn’t a satisfying one.

READ MORE: Silent Hill: The Medium Devs Working On New Game

A foggy legacy

Silent Hill Scene with Harry and Cybil
Credit: Konami

For what was intended as just a Resident Evil clone, it’s surprising to go back and revisit this game after so many years. While it has definitely aged considerably since its release in 1999, you can’t help but admire how much of its spooky atmosphere has remained intact. The only unfortunate thing about Silent Hill is that the only way you can reliably play this game is by owning a PlayStation 3 and buying it as a PlayStation Classic in the store. If you’re a purist (or just insane) you could try and grab an original copy on eBay, but be prepared to shell out a pretty penny.

Both of these options aren’t entirely viable, as many wouldn’t want to go out of their way to spend a ton of money to play just one game. But if you’re able to play the game through any means (hint hint), then I’d strongly recommend you do so; Silent Hill is still a unique experience that has only gotten spookier as the years pass. Konami may have mistreated the series as of late, only relegating it to pachinko machines and possible projects created by questionable developers, but there’s still a strong love for this series.

The dream would be for there to be some sort of remake for the original Silent Hill, much like what Resident Evil got on the GameCube long ago. But maybe it’s for the best that Silent Hill has been lain to rest, as it’d be best to not see another Book of Memories arise from the grave of such a beloved franchise. It’s better to occasionally mourn such a series than it is to force it to continue after the development team has been long gone. It may hurt to see it go, but the series is better off six feet under than continually receiving terrible entry after terrible entry. It would’ve been nice if Kojima got to make Silent Hills, but sometimes, the beautiful must die young.

If you’re ever in the mood for something different, give it a try and join the rest of us in reminiscing about the time when Silent Hill existed and was actually good. It’s not as sad as it sounds, I promise.

Silent Hill (PSX)

8.2

Graphics

7.5/10

Sound

9.5/10

Story

7.0/10

Gameplay

8.0/10

Fun Factor

9.0/10

Pros

  • A nice, creepy atmosphere that is enhanced by its age
  • Excellent sound design
  • Clever and fun puzzles
  • Memorable music
  • Great replayability

Cons

  • Combat is nothing special
  • Enemies can be annoying to deal with sometimes
  • The voice acting might not be everyone's cup of tea

Similar Posts