‘Silent Hill F’ Review

Developer: Neobards | Platform: PS5 |

Playtime: 11:50 | Platinum: 33:00

Konami’s revival of the Silent Hill franchise has started off a little rocky with a misfire in the form of Ascension and a nothing title in the form of The Short Message. Things rocketed back into place with the phenomenal Silent Hill 2 remake and Konami had to keep the momentum going. A Silent Hill game set in 1960’s rural Japan was a big swing but has proven to be a big hit.

This review contains mild story spoilers and moderate gameplay spoilers. Reader Discretion is advised.

Set in the small town of Ebisugaoka (Yes, not Silent Hill), the game follows young school girl Shimizu Hinako who comes from an abusive household and finds herself a bit of an outsider from her peers due to her rejection of strict societal norms. The setting of 1960’s Japan really lets the psychological horror of Silent Hill run wild with the game having incredibly strong themes of Feminism (or lack there of), Womanhood, Marriage and the like. These themes are all masterfully explored throughout the story and in the supporting material like notes and leaflets found throughout the game. The Otherword also plays differently here and I’d be curious to see what fans think.

In terms of gameplay, we once again have separate difficulty sliders for Puzzle and Combat which can be set to Story, Hard and Lost in the Fog - the hardest option. These all do feel distinct and I think the perfect level to play on is Puzzle Hard and Combat story although if you’re going for 100% you’ll need to try a lot of them (Puzzle difficulty achievements don’t stack but Combat does).

A controversial feature is the additions of new content in further New Game+ cycles, with only the games first ending being available in the original playthrough with the options of a Bad, Good, True and Joke ending in future runs. Personally I didn’t mind it as the subtle differences were interesting but I think some people will take issue with how subtle things are with the only real changes coming right at the 11th hour of the game. I don’t know how to compare it to something like Silent Hill 2 Remakes different endings, despite there being ‘More’ changes comparatively, F’s multiple runs felt less satisfying.

Thanks to it’s 1960’s Japan setting, Guns aren’t your primary source of damage dealing here, in fact there’s none here at all. Silent Hill F is a purely melee focused game without even a bow or rock to throw. Hinako can use light and strong attacks with weapons like steel pipes and gardening sickles. Hinako can carry 3 weapons at a time but all of them have durability which can be repaired with special toolkits. The 3 weapon categories have different swing speeds, strength and stamina usage so each has their pros and cons. Combat certainly works but is easily the weakest part of the game. Mercifully a lot of the combat encounters can be run past if needs be, a blessing on harder difficulty. For comparison. Lost in the Fog is slightly less suicide inducing than Resident Evil Village’s Village of Shadow difficulty. I could do without enemies turning near 180 degrees and warping space time to land some of their attacks.

A pair of mechanics that I never really engaged with and don’t really think worked as well as intended are Focus and Sanity. Sanity is an extra layer of health in essence, enemy grabs would drain it and I think losing all of it meant you took more damage? Sanity was also used for Focus in which you could charge an attack to do extra damage but mistiming it meant taking damage. I think? Over three and a half playthroughs I never really figured out nor did I really need to figure out what the mechanic was.

Everything is wrapped up in the games very strong visual and audio style. Enemies sound sufficiently creepy and the iconic red flowers that take over everything make the rural town look like a beautifully surreal nightmare. Voice acting (of which I had set to Japanese) was also very well done, especially given the cast were predominantly teenagers.

Silent Hill is in a new era and I’m glad an experimental title like F got made and actually proved to be good. Townfall is also looking to be experimental and the Silent Hill remake is after that but maybe F’s success means the series’ future is less in Silent Hill the place, but rather Silent Hill the vibe. If not, F is a great one off experience that works best when combat takes a back seat.