Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Review

I review video games; partially because I’ve been playing games for so long that I’ve had 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 probably a hell of a lot easier than it is actually doing it. Don’t think too highly of yourself, Mollie; 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 doc for my own Silent Hill title. (Seriously, Konami—and I’ll work for cheap.) I once wrote a text file that was a virtual phone book to the shops and locations 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 mythos 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 of 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). Word 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 that we would be in store for, but 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 it 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 passion, their dedication, their drive to make an experience that they could be proud of. 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 which 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 tribulations, 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 while you play it, if you will; some ramifications of this you’ll understand, some you won’t, but it’s the idea of player choice without the player always understanding that s/he’s being given a choice. 

Brilliant.

If Shattered Memories was crafted 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 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 exactly 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 Silent Hill 4: 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 buildings and streets aren’t decaying and decrepit, they’re just unkept, and exploration through them is shallow at best 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, as anything that can be 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 ever harm you or give you any reason to hesitate before going through that 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 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 would be the direction the series should take, I’m left baffled by how, in my eyes, the entire essence of Silent Hill has either been completely ignored or simply wasn’t understood from the beginning (even beyond what I’ve mentioned here). I almost wasn’t sure if 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 had 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 itself 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.

C Average	Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a captivating, engrossing, daring, and mostly enjoyable attempt at survival horror, and on that level, I absolutely think it is worth your time and commitment. As a Silent Hill title, I cannot call it bad–because I cannot, as a reviewer, or as a fan, call it “Silent Hill”. Period.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was reviewed using review code, physical copies, or hardware provided by Konami. Scores are graded on a scale of E (Bad) to S (Special) in homage to Japanese video game grading scales, with the understanding that an S still does not denote a "perfect" score. Scores may have been adjusted from the original source to better fit my personal scale.