From the creator of Silent Hill comes a brand new horror game exclusively on PS2. Let's see if it holds a candle to Silent Hill. Facebook: / nitroradofficial Twitter: / nitrorad
They remind me of those weird thumb short films like thumb wars, the thumb witch project, and the good, the bad, and the thumb... the last one was made up.
Marcus Mührmann-Lund That level in the school was terrifying. And another scary level was in siren bloodcurse where Melissa and Bella have to escape the hospital and their friend who is a Shibito in that world is chasing them inside. I completed the game last year and my nerves are still shot from it all lol I still love these games though xD
@@muhammadnajmimurindo9289 "primitive" means "early stages" so they're pretty much the same thing. The only technicality I can think of is that "early attempt" implies it didn't succeed, but Siren DID make it work. So it counts as an early innovation.
The Sight-jack mechanic is very interesting. It takes that trope in movies where the camera switches to the monster's POV and effectively turns it into an integral part of the game/experience.
To be fair the sequel does expand on sight jacking by giving other characters different abilities with it such as mind control, being able to tune into multiple enemies at once etc.
A Fisherman It's definitely more streamlined and I think that helps the games verity giving you more options to progress rather than relying on cryptic trial and error puzzles. Although the hints are presented on the levels themselves thankfully.
Always hated that whiney tone of that stupid girl...(bitchslap time!) *whines about something* *"Shaaadap!"* *whines about something else* *"Ah sed SHAAADAP!!!"* The only other annoying character is that spoiled tv star. Ugh! Kudos for them creating fairly believable characters overall, and yes I recognize that the voice acting's sometimes kinda weak. Am a bit surprised that Sony didn't see fit to hire better voice talents, but perhaps they have a reason I know not about.
I played this game 10 years ago, and I didn't have internet back then. Somehow I managed to beat without any guide. It's doable, I just had a lot of free time on my hands back then.
@@crim1188 nah man.. there are people playing some insanely tough game at the highest difficulty setting, where one hit kills you or there's no checkpoint etc. If those exists, I'm sure these guys exist too.
I actually beat this game was I was little and love it more then silent hill. Probably cause of the asian vibe and I'm asian. Also I dont even know the internet exist back then not to mentioned something called "walktru".
I am Japanese and a big Silent Hill/ Siren Fan. Siren is one of the best and most underrated games ever. Yes it is super beginner unfriendly and difficult to beat, which is different from any other games out there. Sight jacking is totally unique and creepy which is the highlight of this game. The story is very complicated and convoluted, in fact, there are still discussions on bulletin boards to this date discussing the depth of this story. I was surprised that the characters had British accent in the western version... which I guess is better than American accent. I really wish they had the Japanese voice and English subtitle at least as an option. Great review video!!
Japanese game having british voices is somehow a thing. For example Dragon Quest 8. And sometimes a japanese game has only british voices even in a japanese version, for example every game in Souls series
Yeah, it frustrated me when I saw there was no subtitle option. At least for the cutscenes. And I do love the non-linear storytelling as well. Back in the day when I played it, it reminded me a lot of Catch-22 in structure, another very non-linear story.
Totally agree with you It looked really interesting I a lot of Japanese horror are the scariest to me I wish they had the Japanese with English subtitles though The English is wired and doesn’t match to me A Japanese horror to me sounds better with Japanese audio I’m so interested in playing bought it today off the psn Wish me luck
Also worth noting that "Siren" and "Silent" sound similar if you write them in Romaji since it has no way to say "L" properly So in a way it might have been a sneaky method to continue legacy of Silent Hill.
The metagamey-ness kinda makes me think of the whole clairvoyance thing. YOU, the player, are the collective mind of all the characters. You Are the clairvoyance powers. So, when you're playing a different character, that character, through You and clairvoyance, are thinking of other characters the whole time. Clairvoyance is about seeing different paths and realities, right? So, you keep "replaying" the missions until the clairvoyance mind clicks all the pieces together
You have no idea how long I've been searching for a lengthy, professional review of this gem. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I do mean that :D
I know this is a pretty old video, but for anyone who doesn't know, the game actually does tell you if there's a requirement for a stage's secondary mission that needs to be met in a different stage. I had the same complaints at first, but then I was looking through the help page for the Link Navigator, and it talks about how if you press L1, you'll enter "Hold" mode. While in Hold mode it'll tell you if the link between two stages is locked until a requirement is met in another stage, as well as which stage has that requirement and even a little arrow pointing you in the key stage's direction. It's pretty helpful, even if you have to select a bunch of stages with Hold mode to figure out if there's something your missing or not. It beats guessing or Googling, though!
I was looking for this, the game seemed too well put together for it to not have hints or something to guide you….changes context of his review. It was his only complaint really. Thanks!
I was about to comment this - recently played the game and eventually figured out the link navigator - you even get hints to unlock other stages whenever you replay the “key” stages - thanks for your comment!
the game’s manual gave cryptic clues as well. the game was made when the internet and forums were getting big and they wanted people to learn about these things and put them on forums to discuss and help others.
I really liked the shibito designs. They're monstrous enough to be unsettling and disturbing, but human enough to be relatable. Plus the sight of a twisted human body crawling across the ceiling is just pants-shittingly terrifying.
To be fair the game does have a remake called Siren: Blood Curse which does fix in a few of the plot holes and especially the hints within the game. I remember playing the demo for this when it came out and it did make an impression.
Lulink Oh absolutely. Blood Curse introduces a lot of the improved mechanics from Forbidden Siren 2 (Better hints, keeping items when you die and a warning system for when enemies are really close by and unique sight jack abilities depending on the character). Unfortunately Siren 2 was only released in japan and europe but I'd love to see it on the PSN someday. Blood Curse is like it's predecessor it's uncommon but online it can be found for a fair price.
Dark Lord Gig Clever lad. :) I used to own the sequel Forbidden Siren 2 but I lent it to a friend and never got it back... but I'm sure it'll return to me one day... in the form of a creepypasta :P
Adam The Gamer The sequel wasn't released here in Canada, So I can only play it through 'other' means. But yeah, my brother was the one who gave the original PS2 version of Forbidden Siren. He called it a housewarming gift.
When you talk about certain missions having obtuse requirements, you're mostly right, but the game does provide hints on how to unlock them. When you select a level, a red arrow will point to the stage where you haven't done something required to progress. From there you're supposed to look at some hints included in the game manual. The hints are cryptic and obtuse, but it's something.
@@DuelaDent52 In the time when the game was made, it was the assumption that you bought it and thus had the manual though, right? Can't really fault a game because it didn't anticipate emulation or illegitimate copies.
@@blackbot7113 emulation of the game to this date have the manual and a zoom in mechanics, even the interactive forums. I am surprised that he didnt talk about the ARG like websites and siren promotions. Those were terrifying.
Europe is obviously a lie the Russians made to distract the US. You know this because I live in Spain, Europe and I’m not writing this comment. This is a bot.
maybe if youre charitable and look at a map where the americas are on the west side and the uk is on the east.......... EDIT: ok yeah couple comments down he explained, he always thought "the west" meant "west of the atlantic" lmao EDIT 2: i mixed up west and east. i am booboo the fool
I have a really memorable experience playing this game. I was around 9 or 10 years old when I got this game. After being too scared to play survival horror games for years and instead just watch my older siblings play Resident Evil 2, RE: Code Veronica X, Clock Tower 2, and Fatal Frame, I found the courage to buy Siren and play the game by myself. I was doing okay for the first handful of missions, but as soon as I played Kei Makino's first level where you're unarmed and there are about 6-7 armed shibito sprawled out all over the map, I was too scared to even proceed past the first set of stairs. I stopped playing the game for months and months until my overwhelming desire to know more of the story and other characters drove me to once again boot up the game. This time around, I decided to just wing it; I muted the TV, took a deep breath, and just ran past all of the shibito and didn't stop until I reached the exit. From then on, I started to become less afraid and more focused on actually learning how to navigate the game and complete all the missions. When I reached the end, I looked up the guide to get all of the Archive items and then was able to piece together the entire lore of the game. Siren was the first survival horror game that I had a personal experience with, and from there the rest of my love for survival horror grew.
It really is a shame it didn't take off. That game look amazing, and the mechanics for the puzzles was really cool. Nitro, you really deserve more views, unlike most people who review game, you really do look for odd games that everyone seems to have forgotten. I really appreciate that every video you post, you put something that I can really learn about and haven't seen before. Keep it up man!
The whole "do meta gamey things with other characters to unlock other things" reminds me of some parts of the Zero Escape series. That series does it better IMO since it's almost always clear what you have to do (also the timelines in the last two are much clearer).
If anyone wants to experience the story and gameplay as best they can without emulating or buying the game, check out supergreatfriend's LP. It's a classic. Sorry to plug someone else on your vid, Nitro, your content is still top-quality and a damn fine watch at night, with the lights off and the covers over my head!
He can't get too upset, it's not like you're recommending another RUclips review, giving a recommendation for a let's play seems fine to me because they are two separate formats. It's actually fun to watch a let's play of a game and then check out a review for the same game so you can have a better understanding of the reviewers opinions. Now if you were recommending another youtubers review of the game he might have a right to get upset, although even then it's not that bad. I usually like to watch multiple different reviews for the same game to compare and contrast and to see if a certain aspect of the game gets praise or hate from multiple different reviews. If one reviewer points out a flaw and they are the only reviewer to point it out, it might just be something they personally don't like, but if multiple different people point out the same flaw then you can be certain that it is actually a problem in the game. Anyway that is just my opinion, I personally think getting multiple opinions of a game give you a much better idea of if the game is good or bad.
21:08 there was an interview with the games director a few years ago and he explains his reasonings behind designing the game this way. He was basically trying to do what Kojima did with P.T. years before P.T. even existed. He wanted players to have to work together to solve the mysteries of the game. Work together in online forums, have discussions with one another to get past puzzles etc. I don’t know a single person who beat this game without a guide and always wondered how the hell the people who wrote the guides managed to beat it🤔 Also 26:04 oh my.....should I tell him?
ugh PT, people overrate that game and it gets so much undue credit imo. Everybody be suckin Kojima's nuts too hard over his over glorified AAA, haunted house jump scare simulator, when true classics that pioneered the survival horror genre like Siren, Resident Evil Outbreak and Sweet Home get grossly overlooked. I actually beat Siren about 8 years ago, and got the true ending without using any guide whatsoever. I only used the in-game hints that flash at the beginning of certain levels, and the hints referenced in the games instruction manual (31 tips the second time around, lol) it required a fucking heap ton of patience and a whole lotta trial and error. It helped that I was incidentally in the military at the time and stationed on a little island with nothing to do, and I had a huge love for survival horror games, lol. But yeah, ultimately I'd say playing it that way without referencing a guide really wasn't worth it imo. Toyama intending for the game to be played in such a fashion makes a whole lotta sense, especially with the viral marketing campaign that he used to promote the game. Reminds me alot of Resident Evil Outbreak which came out the same year and was designed to be played together with multiple people, although that didn't stop me from trying to play it solo as well, lol. I just played through the game again recently, this time collecting all the archives in order to unlock the secret cutscene and final archive. But to do so I had to resort to looking up a walkthrough in order to find a few of the archives cuz they were just too hard and cryptic to find, with the worst offender being the archive 064 reward poster in Tomoko's final level, which is on the truck and you need to examine the top of the cargo bed, at a very specific spot, with no physical indicator whatsoever, lol.
@@gangweedstudios he ain’t said pt was new and bad, he gave an actual reasoning for why he’s mad that people be sucking on kojimas nuts for what’s basically a glorified teaser trailer, it was cool, but it’s just a spooky corridor with jump scares, they give pt to much credit, specially since projects that started as blatant pt ripoffs to ride the wave of its popularity have become through development much better games than pt itself ever was. But yes dilute every opinion of someone who points at older games as examples of something done better as boomers.
@@I_Am_The_Social_Reject Well part of it was the director wanting to bring players together in forums to work together, but there are better ways to do something like that
Siren , like based off of the mythological spirit that is usually a woman who lures in men then murders them... Is what I'd guess over a loud noisy warning
They should've released the Special Edition back in 2004 or better yet in the PS4 store, but it was canceled. The Special Edition has easy mode and hints to complete the game and even extras like behind-the-scenes and character profiles.
I was fascinated to finally see a video from someone covering Siren in a rather in-depth manner. I played this game a lot as a kid, but I could never beat it. The reason is extremely apparent. I couldn't really find any walkthroughs, and definitely no videos, so it was a real love/hate relationship with this game. As you were, I was also conflicted. It's a fascinating, unique and creepy game. But the game design is quite frustratingly obtuse, which is a real shame.
I've already commented on this video long ago and you'll probably never see this but after playing through this again to 100% recently I wanted to let you know a few things that you seemed to have completely missed that would've solved 99% of the problems you had with this game. It's not nearly as cryptic as you make it out to be. I guess because I read the manual I was way better off, but you also get this info from hitting the help icon on the navigation screen. The issues you had with not knowing if a secondary mission is "locked" and needs an item from a previous level are absolutely addressed in-game and if you hit the L1 button on the link navigator screen not only does it tell you if you're able to complete the secondary mission with what you have, but will tell you exactly which levels you need to revisit for the "key items' for that mission if you don't have them. Take the face towel puzzle for instance. If you would've checked the link navigator it would've told you you needed to go back to Kei's level, and you would've had a pretty generous hint that would've directed you in the right way. I played through the entire game without a walkthrough this way, the only information I had was what i remembered from watching this particular review years ago, and even then I had no idea exactly where the items were and which levels they were in. You most definitely start to get into a groove with what the game expects from you anyway. The second you find out from a hint that you can find certain items by hiding your escort, you start to do that everywhere that's of interest. Same with sightjacking to solve puzzles and examining everything of potential interest. I guess I may have had an easier time because I've played almost every old-school point and click adventure you can name and 90% of them blind without looking at a walkthrough. If you want to see real cryptic. go back and play some old text adventures from the 80's. It definitely takes a lot of influence from those old titles and expects you to try everything but I in no way see it as completely un-solvable with what's given to you. And I feel you would've felt the same way and probably wouldn't have really needed a walkthrough if you knew how the link navigator worked. I know this is long as hell but I really do urge anyone wanting ton play this game to go in blind and just make sure you're aware of how the navigation screen works. I'd also advise checking the hints in the manual because they are helpful. It really is a severely underrated masterpiece and I've sadly only seen a couple positive reviews of it.
I know it's a year long comment but I want to respond with my own experiences with this game. The issues isn't whether this information is presented to you or not. (Yes, it is presented to you) but it's extremely poorly done and it's "outside the narrative", from what I can remember. What I mean by "outside the narrative" is that the characters themselves have no way of knowing these things and there is never an in-universe reason or explanation for why they are doing these things to progress the plot. If we take the example Nitro Rad gives, why does a different character (who has minimal, if no interaction with that other character), decide to randomly soak a towel and then freeze it? It serves absolutely no purpose for him whatsoever and just adds to the danger he is in, without any actual benefits or rewards (since it benefits a different character at a different time). In fact, how did he know how to do that at all? Maybe there is some explanation for these characters behaviors but I don't remember seeing any justification for it. The secondary objectives are almost all completely non-sensical, without any context or justification (in-universe) and the only hints given are literally in a menu with a specific button press (like you mentioned). That's just bad game design. At least in Silent Hill 1 (where it's clear that Keiichiro Toyama was experimenting with this kind of game design (the Kaufmann side quest)), at least it was a logical progression of events (find a key to a motel room, open motel room, find something that requires an item, search for item etc.) but in Siren it's just totally random and nonsensical. By the way, I don't want to sound like a hater. I genuinely think that Siren 1 and 2 are (heavily) flawed masterpieces but I would never argue that it has good puzzles or presents them well.
@@NonniR I totally agree with everything you're saying here. All very true. I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes from in general and it definitely detracts from the overall experience. I think it takes a certain type of patience to get through. For sure not for everyone, even in 2004.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS COMMENT!!! I watched this review a while back and it out me off the game because I was worried about it being too cryptic for me but seeing this makes me want to play it immediately!! Also no Shame to Nitro Rad he didn't know but I want to thank you so much for this ❤️
This is a fun game to play when you have a buddy being your "seeing eye dog" and is explaining to you what to do by consulting a walk-through. It feels like the only way to play it.
The thing about sightjack mechanic is that it never gets explained in the game at all, even though it's the main game mechanic in Siren. I believe nobody ever talks about it, nor do any of the lore pieces mention it an any way. Weird stuff.
Harumi is handwaved as having ESP, everyone else is connected to the Shibito hive mind by virtue of having red water in their bloodstream. There are at least a few lore items that explain it.
sometimes you just watch Nitro Rads videos so many times throughout the years over and over again, you just gotta support the guy by liking and. commenting
the whole loop and secondary objective stuff is also great, fitting the plot and adding to the eeriness to the whole situation once you realize what is happening (also, all the secondary objectives and their requirements are hinted in the manual)
How are they hinted in the manual? I watched a review of the game where the reviewer mentioned there’s no any hints about the secondary missions in the manual.
@@zipnex5529 then the reviewer is an idiot Becase the manual has an entire page dedicated to hints for secondary mission unlocking and stuff Look up the SGF lets play, he dives into tue manual multiple times Including going to the hints page for the secondary objective stuff.
I don't know what it is, but I love the way the character models look. They're unlike anything I've seen from a PS2 era game. It boarders upon realism, but doesn't quite get there - albeit in very interesting ways. Most of the time we shy away from the uncanny valley, but I actually think it would be cool to see more developers use the (perhaps antiquated) techniques that the devs did for this game. I do like the interconnected nature of the levels and characters in the game, but I agree, it seems like it wasn't executed very well at all. It's too obtuse for players to figure out without a guide. That kind of takes away from the really fascinating interconnected levels in my opinion.
I go back to this video at least once a year. I really like looking back at games like this. Never played it, but there's so much interesting ideas and game design choices they went for at the time. For better or worse, it's a game that differentiates itself.
Just a reminder that this game came out when companies were really pushing the official strategy guides. Games were sometimes designed to be obtuse or have a ton of collectables to drive up guide purchases.
I got this game from my mom, when I was 15 (I wanted Project Zero instead but my mom confused them with each other xD') and I really got into it but I never was able to finish it. I guess back then the Internet wasn't THAT big of a thing, so I gave up, eventually D: Also: I just stumbled upon your channel and I am really enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
So there's actually a reason why the levels keep looping over and over again, and it's actually Plot Relevant, however it's never explicitly stated in this game, but it is confirmed in the second, basically everyone is stuck in a Time Loop
When you have a mission 2 objective, press L1 on that mission and check the navigator for arrows. It will show stages that have key items or things you need to do.
Imagine if when you sight-jacked one of them they would maybe know where you were or get a hint in what direction you are in for the time you were doing it.
I had heard of this game before but had never seen it in action and knew very little about it, but that whole sight jack mechanic is actually pretty fucking clever and definitely a unique idea for a game. Being able to see through the enemies eyes in a survival horror game is a really scary thought but it's also a really awesome idea. Also Nitro Rad brought up a pretty interesting point; that the guys from team Silent went on to create a company named Siren. It had to have been planned out by the team, there's no way going from a company named Silent to a company named Siren, which is one of the loudest sounds and the total opposite of Silence. Pretty clever, lol. I just discovered Nitro Rad's channel a couple of days ago because I was looking for a good video for Silent Hill 4: The Room, and after watching the Nitro Rad video for it I enjoyed it so much that I proceeded to binge watch all of his Silent Hill videos. Now that I'm finished watching his entire Silent Hill series I have moved on and have began watching his videos for other franchises and I really enjoy his videos. I wish I would have discovered this channel earlier, but that's the beautiful thing about RUclips; you are able to discover "new" (new for you) channels every day and RUclips is so massive and has soooooo many channels focused on soooooo many different topics and ideas that you can find new awesome channels every single day and never run out of awesome channels to discover. Anyways I really enjoy the videos on this channel and look forward to watching all the reviews for all the awesome games, and I am definitely a fan and a new subscriber to the channel.
Wow, they actually used the similar facial technology to LA Noire. It looks antiquated and doesn't really stand the test of time considering the tech of the PS2 and the facial capturing was more effective in LA Noire but at least I commend their effort.
From what I’ve been told, they intended the strange puzzles to function like an early ARG, where the fanbase would get together and solve them by trying obscure things. This idea pops up a surprising amount in video games (playground talks about where to find rare pokemon, friends telling you the name of KK Slider songs in Animal Crossing, etc), it’s just especially complicated here
Hey, man your production values are crazy good. Feels like I'm watching an old gaming tv review show. And you explain all the gameplay mechanics really well. Great job, subscribed.
I really liked the game tbh, then again I didn't have AS much of a problem progressing since I'm a completionist so I'm usually very thorough with exploration, but a walktrough is definitely recommended. I'm glad to see you making a video on the sequel, will you also make one for the remake (for the PS3)? Looking forward to it!
26:10 not sure where you're getting implications that anyone gets out. SPOILER WARNING i'm pretty sure everyone goes to hell except the girl (if you drank the water you stay there forever, the landslide is reported to have killed everyone except the little girl).
Bloodynoush Yoriko (the girl with Tamon) can't leave because when she is shot and both she and Kyoya are saved by Shiro Miyata, he makes a blood transfusion from Kyoya to Yoriko, so indirectly she has red water inside her
Plus she was drinking the water before she got shot. The Shibito curse is based on the quantity of red water in your bloodstream. During the cutscene with Akira and Yoriko at the cliff overlooking the Mana River, when they see droves of people walking out in the endless expanse of red water? All those people instantly become Shibito when they immerse themselves in it.
Yoriko Anno ( the girl with Tamon) drank the water in the second mission where Tamon has to find the shibito brain. Then later on she gets shot by Akira in Janokubi valley, Shiro then finds her and Kyoya and then takes them to the miyata clinic giving blood transfusions. Because Miyako gave Kyoya some blood through the hand which then made him immortal to turning into a shibito, Yoriko also had the same power since Kyoya passed it onto her. So although she doesn't make it from the bad side she remains immortal to the shibito unless they kill her physically.
They need to release Forbidden Siren 2 on PS4, it was far superior and had no British accents - it even has the option to have full Japanese audio with English subtitles 😁
That bizarre facial capture technology is honestly amazing, especially the way they used it in siren 2. How the hell didn't that catch on? I think it's aged spectacularly, in the context of making horrific, unnatural looking faces, and honestly some times those cutscenes don't look bad either. It's extremely jarring to see such photo realistic faces on a game so old, it's a weird amount of clarity that you wouldn't expect
When you were describing the mechanics and story I was beginning to be confused about why I had never heard anyone talk about this game before. And then the confusing quest paths came...
Maybe I’m just sick, but I’d cut these monsters up so that when they reanimate they are just a leg less and armless torsos. I would be a great horror video game character, obviously.
I think ur logic has a huge goalpost gap. Some time this monster will attack u with wolverine healing power. The Evil Within shows how to deal with a monster, when u chop them up n stunned yhrm. I have to burn this corpse, this vame shows why u have to do that. Whennu start to burn this enemies some of them rise up. But its too late because u just kabab there ass. The evil within 2 shows why u don't need to make everything a open world games. The first game was incredible when its linear n stage was incredible. Open world for 2ns part destroyed this game
Shibito regenerate from lost limbs, as well. Really the only way to permanently get rid of shibito is to put them in situations where they're unable to be a threat. Knocking one down into a water well, pinning one to the ground with an iron stake, and burying them in a cave-in using an explosive are explored in the game itself.
The game relies heavily on the player using the hints given in the manual that comes with the game in order to figure out what to do in the secondary objectives. What bothers me the most though is how meta those objectives are. They don't really seem to make sense for the characters to do at all unless we assume they are somehow aware of the other characters actions, which does seem plausible but unfortunately that doesn't actually seem to be the case.
Oh man, Siren! Personally, I think the spider Shibito and exorcist pose Shibito are pretty full of N O P E. 19:15 Ouch, I have to agree with you there, I have no clue why the previous character would even do that in real life, so that makes no sense. 0-0 25:06 Okay, just imagining some person playing a mission from one person to that is pretty funny.
This was a damn good review that explained the pros and cons of the game perfectly. I loved all your Silent Hill reviews so I can't wait to see all your other SIREN reviews during October.
You know how some people say that The Evil Within was Resident Evil dressing up like Silent Hill for Halloween? Well this comes across like Silent Hill dressing up like Resident Evil for Halloween.
Got this game when it came out when I was in the military, spent an hour or so every other day after my shift was done, lasted me for a couple weeks, even unlocked everything without any guides or walkthrus. Ah.. the good ol days
Death standing was a flop. Kojima hiding those sales figures. Sony wasnt pleased at all with its sales. Kojima's only excuse: westerners only like shooters It did find success on PC though.
Me and 2 of my friends played through this in a full day... and even between the three of us, some of the puzzles and connections were too obtuse to understand. I can honestly say we were able to figure out at least 75% of the stuff on our own. But some things were so poorly related that I honestly don’t see how the first person to ever figure some these puzzles out. But se still loved it... unfortunately because FS2 was PAL region locked, and none of us had a PAL console, and this was in 2005... so we didn’t get to play the sequel.
My drinking buddy (who played Howard in Blood Curse) always told me that the original reason why Siren on PS2 was so difficult was to actually spur cooperation on online message boards to build a sense of community among players. The ambiguity of the missions was supposed to force people to fill in the gaps by trial and error and eventually allow them to share with fellow gamers. Made sense, since at the time the internet was still in it's infancy and message boards like gamefaqs dominated the landscape.
@@cookiechomp He's probably talking about the guy whose likeness was used as reference for Howard's in-game model, as well as having his photo taken for Howard's profile pic in the pause menu and the various blog posts used in the viral marketing to promote the game. The actor's name is Stephan Fisher apparently.
The photorealistic faces in this game are amazing, they’re SO CREEPY, I totally agree that it really freaks me out. The badly done British accents really mess with me too, hearing games dubbed in British English always throws me off in general as I’m used to only hearing British accents in real life, but it’s so badly done that it really weirds me out even more. I wish more games went for photorealistic face textures, it works really well in horror games but I find it can work great in other games too, in Perfect Dark the pixelated 2D faces printed onto low poly models just feels really charming and I wish more low-poly style games would do that.
Siren is one of my favorite horror games ever. For me it's right up there with Silent Hill 2. I'm pretty sure this review is the video that convinced me to try it in the first place so thank you so much! I do think you were a little hard on the puzzles though. Each level is small and there are only so many locations to interact with so as long as you explore and experiment with the items you collect the puzzles aren't THAT bad. Some puzzles are more convoluted than others, like the piggy bank puzzle, but I've seen worse.
Finally a good review of this game! I've had this game on my shelf for like 3 years and I always wanted to know how good the game actually is and if its worth playing.
I love the photo realistic face textures. They are a perfect middle ground between creepy and hilarious.
They remind me of those weird thumb short films like thumb wars, the thumb witch project, and the good, the bad, and the thumb...
the last one was made up.
Visually this game is stunning.
It's so surreal and out of place with what I was expecting at the time. I love it so much.
I think the do wonders for a ps2 game.
Creeplarious
TBH I think those face models look damn impressive for the time.
It remembers me of the very first Max Paine game with the awkward face textures too haha
Andrew Portella and Max Payne’s graphics were praised extensively for being “photo realistic” on release.
Ikr, i mean, it's kinda weird and creepy when you look to the faces for too long. But it's also very impressive and original
Yeah, too bad photorealism as a stylistic choice doesn't tend to age that well in games. There's still some edgy sort of uniqueness to these looks imo
Those primitive motion-capture faces really do look disturbing, especially the principal's.
he is has happy because he found his waifu.
Marcus Mührmann-Lund That level in the school was terrifying. And another scary level was in siren bloodcurse where Melissa and Bella have to escape the hospital and their friend who is a Shibito in that world is chasing them inside. I completed the game last year and my nerves are still shot from it all lol I still love these games though xD
@@kisslordorochimaru BeellLlLlAaaAaaA? BEEELLLLLAAAAAA
I still hear his voice fack
more like "Early Attempt" back then the PS2 era not a lot of games uses Motion Captures so that's a good attempt there ...
@@muhammadnajmimurindo9289 "primitive" means "early stages" so they're pretty much the same thing. The only technicality I can think of is that "early attempt" implies it didn't succeed, but Siren DID make it work. So it counts as an early innovation.
The Sight-jack mechanic is very interesting. It takes that trope in movies where the camera switches to the monster's POV and effectively turns it into an integral part of the game/experience.
To be fair the sequel does expand on sight jacking by giving other characters different abilities with it such as mind control, being able to tune into multiple enemies at once etc.
Adam The Gamer That's seems to be even better
A Fisherman It's definitely more streamlined and I think that helps the games verity giving you more options to progress rather than relying on cryptic trial and error puzzles. Although the hints are presented on the levels themselves thankfully.
Adam The Gamer I agree completely.
9:48
"Professor we need to find the villagers!"
*"Please shut up."*
(That shouldn't have made me laugh)
that always gets me 😂
With that hair and voice, he looks a bit like Paul McGann.
The accent made me think Hermione and Snape having an arguement
There's a damn good reason Tamon's the only character besides Kyoya and Shiro to have more than two missions.
Always hated that whiney tone of that stupid girl...(bitchslap time!)
*whines about something*
*"Shaaadap!"*
*whines about something else*
*"Ah sed SHAAADAP!!!"*
The only other annoying character is that spoiled tv star. Ugh!
Kudos for them creating fairly believable characters overall, and yes I recognize that the voice acting's sometimes kinda weak. Am a bit surprised that Sony didn't see fit to hire better voice talents, but perhaps they have a reason I know not about.
I played this game 10 years ago, and I didn't have internet back then. Somehow I managed to beat without any guide. It's doable, I just had a lot of free time on my hands back then.
Some poor souls had to beat it by themselves without any assistance, I mean, who do you think wrote all these Walkthroughs?
developers...? I doubt even greatest masochists would enjoy something like this
@@crim1188 nah man.. there are people playing some insanely tough game at the highest difficulty setting, where one hit kills you or there's no checkpoint etc.
If those exists, I'm sure these guys exist too.
I actually beat this game was I was little and love it more then silent hill. Probably cause of the asian vibe and I'm asian. Also I dont even know the internet exist back then not to mentioned something called "walktru".
The instruction booklet has hints for every secondary objective in it.
I am Japanese and a big Silent Hill/ Siren Fan.
Siren is one of the best and most underrated games ever.
Yes it is super beginner unfriendly and difficult to beat, which is different from any other games out there.
Sight jacking is totally unique and creepy which is the highlight of this game.
The story is very complicated and convoluted, in fact, there are still discussions on bulletin boards to this date discussing the depth of this story.
I was surprised that the characters had British accent in the western version... which I guess is better than American accent. I really wish they had the Japanese voice and English subtitle at least as an option.
Great review video!!
Japanese game having british voices is somehow a thing. For example Dragon Quest 8. And sometimes a japanese game has only british voices even in a japanese version, for example every game in Souls series
@@HaohmaruHL At least those games you mentioned have western type medieval theme so it makes sense.
Yeah, it frustrated me when I saw there was no subtitle option. At least for the cutscenes. And I do love the non-linear storytelling as well. Back in the day when I played it, it reminded me a lot of Catch-22 in structure, another very non-linear story.
Makoto Yasuda holy shit great comment! I barely know the game but you’ve TOTALLY sold it for me!
Totally agree with you
It looked really interesting
I a lot of Japanese horror are the scariest to me
I wish they had the Japanese with English subtitles though
The English is wired and doesn’t match to me
A Japanese horror to me sounds better with Japanese audio
I’m so interested in playing bought it today off the psn
Wish me luck
Also worth noting that "Siren" and "Silent" sound similar if you write them in Romaji since it has no way to say "L" properly
So in a way it might have been a sneaky method to continue legacy of Silent Hill.
That's actually smart.
Watched the full review and so far this is the only reason of why this game is called Siren
There's also the fact that a siren is usually what warns of the otherworld transition.
The metagamey-ness kinda makes me think of the whole clairvoyance thing. YOU, the player, are the collective mind of all the characters. You Are the clairvoyance powers. So, when you're playing a different character, that character, through You and clairvoyance, are thinking of other characters the whole time. Clairvoyance is about seeing different paths and realities, right? So, you keep "replaying" the missions until the clairvoyance mind clicks all the pieces together
That's deep.
You have no idea how long I've been searching for a lengthy, professional review of this gem. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I do mean that :D
Bloodynoush gachiman? Are you gachiman?
I know this is a pretty old video, but for anyone who doesn't know, the game actually does tell you if there's a requirement for a stage's secondary mission that needs to be met in a different stage. I had the same complaints at first, but then I was looking through the help page for the Link Navigator, and it talks about how if you press L1, you'll enter "Hold" mode. While in Hold mode it'll tell you if the link between two stages is locked until a requirement is met in another stage, as well as which stage has that requirement and even a little arrow pointing you in the key stage's direction. It's pretty helpful, even if you have to select a bunch of stages with Hold mode to figure out if there's something your missing or not. It beats guessing or Googling, though!
I was looking for this, the game seemed too well put together for it to not have hints or something to guide you….changes context of his review. It was his only complaint really. Thanks!
@@TheDrigodamusyeah like, Silent hill could be vague or just cryptic on all sorts of things, but this wouldve just been insane
I was about to comment this - recently played the game and eventually figured out the link navigator - you even get hints to unlock other stages whenever you replay the “key” stages - thanks for your comment!
the game’s manual gave cryptic clues as well. the game was made when the internet and forums were getting big and they wanted people to learn about these things and put them on forums to discuss and help others.
I really liked the shibito designs. They're monstrous enough to be unsettling and disturbing, but human enough to be relatable. Plus the sight of a twisted human body crawling across the ceiling is just pants-shittingly terrifying.
One of the most underrated reviewers on RUclips. Keep putting out horror content, this 30 minutes felt like 10.
To be fair the game does have a remake called Siren: Blood Curse which does fix in a few of the plot holes and especially the hints within the game. I remember playing the demo for this when it came out and it did make an impression.
Sounds great.
Lulink Oh absolutely. Blood Curse introduces a lot of the improved mechanics from Forbidden Siren 2 (Better hints, keeping items when you die and a warning system for when enemies are really close by and unique sight jack abilities depending on the character). Unfortunately Siren 2 was only released in japan and europe but I'd love to see it on the PSN someday.
Blood Curse is like it's predecessor it's uncommon but online it can be found for a fair price.
I have both the original and the remake :)
Dark Lord Gig Clever lad. :) I used to own the sequel Forbidden Siren 2 but I lent it to a friend and never got it back... but I'm sure it'll return to me one day... in the form of a creepypasta :P
Adam The Gamer The sequel wasn't released here in Canada, So I can only play it through 'other' means. But yeah, my brother was the one who gave the original PS2 version of Forbidden Siren. He called it a housewarming gift.
9:48
Hermione: "Professor, we need to find the villagers!"
Snape: *"Please shut up"*
You forgot afterwards “10 points to Slytherin “
lol@@BoredGhostInk
When you talk about certain missions having obtuse requirements, you're mostly right, but the game does provide hints on how to unlock them. When you select a level, a red arrow will point to the stage where you haven't done something required to progress. From there you're supposed to look at some hints included in the game manual. The hints are cryptic and obtuse, but it's something.
Not everyone’s going to have access to the manual, though.
@@DuelaDent52 it’s online, if you can get your hands on Siren then you can also get your hands on the manual, easier even.
@@DuelaDent52 In the time when the game was made, it was the assumption that you bought it and thus had the manual though, right?
Can't really fault a game because it didn't anticipate emulation or illegitimate copies.
@@blackbot7113 emulation of the game to this date have the manual and a zoom in mechanics, even the interactive forums. I am surprised that he didnt talk about the ARG like websites and siren promotions. Those were terrifying.
Everything was fine until the Japanese people had British accents.
Jwils The M.C are they like Jonathan joestar? Lol
COR BLOIMEY, ONEE-SAMA, it’s a SHIBITERR
because they use real actor to motion capture their acting and also their performance commonly used sony's subsidiary developers
As opposed to American accents.
@@rongusta11 that doesn't work seeing as Jojo is a brit
That ending is a preview to the sequel SIREN May Cry
That's was very good hahahahah
lol i see what you mean i beat both siren game
"It came out in Europe a whole month earlier than it did in the West"
buddy...
No, even WESTER
Europe is obviously a lie the Russians made to distract the US. You know this because I live in Spain, Europe and I’m not writing this comment. This is a bot.
maybe if youre charitable and look at a map where the americas are on the west side and the uk is on the east..........
EDIT: ok yeah couple comments down he explained, he always thought "the west" meant "west of the atlantic" lmao
EDIT 2: i mixed up west and east. i am booboo the fool
@@lunardogs2416 Nothing makes me harder and feel more superior than seeing someone digging his own grave and acknowledging it.
Why is that damn principal's face so disturbing...
Nowhere It’s probably the bulging eyes, like one of those dolls you squeeze where their eyes pop out, they’re unnatural and disturbing.
I have a really memorable experience playing this game. I was around 9 or 10 years old when I got this game. After being too scared to play survival horror games for years and instead just watch my older siblings play Resident Evil 2, RE: Code Veronica X, Clock Tower 2, and Fatal Frame, I found the courage to buy Siren and play the game by myself. I was doing okay for the first handful of missions, but as soon as I played Kei Makino's first level where you're unarmed and there are about 6-7 armed shibito sprawled out all over the map, I was too scared to even proceed past the first set of stairs. I stopped playing the game for months and months until my overwhelming desire to know more of the story and other characters drove me to once again boot up the game.
This time around, I decided to just wing it; I muted the TV, took a deep breath, and just ran past all of the shibito and didn't stop until I reached the exit. From then on, I started to become less afraid and more focused on actually learning how to navigate the game and complete all the missions. When I reached the end, I looked up the guide to get all of the Archive items and then was able to piece together the entire lore of the game. Siren was the first survival horror game that I had a personal experience with, and from there the rest of my love for survival horror grew.
It really is a shame it didn't take off. That game look amazing, and the mechanics for the puzzles was really cool. Nitro, you really deserve more views, unlike most people who review game, you really do look for odd games that everyone seems to have forgotten. I really appreciate that every video you post, you put something that I can really learn about and haven't seen before. Keep it up man!
The whole "do meta gamey things with other characters to unlock other things" reminds me of some parts of the Zero Escape series. That series does it better IMO since it's almost always clear what you have to do (also the timelines in the last two are much clearer).
its funny he puts a PS2 Disc into a PS2 console, but plays with a Dualshock 4 contoller hahahaha
Cucas Nerdy Corner To be fair, Siren is in the PS4.
wait it is?
is this game on ps4 does anyone know
brandon mccann yes.
Cucas Nerdy Corner Lol I know right. It's that RUclips editing magic, son.
"I'd rather she just be able to keep up with me anyway."
I expect she'd prefer that too, if she could actually see...
Game...... Not real life
@@I_Am_The_Social_Reject what?
@@I_Am_The_Social_Reject use your suspension of disbelief for once, you chump
If anyone wants to experience the story and gameplay as best they can without emulating or buying the game, check out supergreatfriend's LP. It's a classic.
Sorry to plug someone else on your vid, Nitro, your content is still top-quality and a damn fine watch at night, with the lights off and the covers over my head!
He can't get too upset, it's not like you're recommending another RUclips review, giving a recommendation for a let's play seems fine to me because they are two separate formats. It's actually fun to watch a let's play of a game and then check out a review for the same game so you can have a better understanding of the reviewers opinions. Now if you were recommending another youtubers review of the game he might have a right to get upset, although even then it's not that bad. I usually like to watch multiple different reviews for the same game to compare and contrast and to see if a certain aspect of the game gets praise or hate from multiple different reviews. If one reviewer points out a flaw and they are the only reviewer to point it out, it might just be something they personally don't like, but if multiple different people point out the same flaw then you can be certain that it is actually a problem in the game. Anyway that is just my opinion, I personally think getting multiple opinions of a game give you a much better idea of if the game is good or bad.
I started to watch it and then I thought the game was too slow and left it. But now that I see your comment I think I'd give it another try!
I love SGF!
Halloween special in July?
...
OH SHIT IT"S OCTOBER ALREADY???
Siren 屍人
It means "corpse people" in Japanese
@Shaman Xeed and how exactly do you know that? Oh, and also apparently if you aren't Japanese you can never know the slightest bit of Japanese
@@ryanrigley2558 from what i know, that guy you were talking to is a dumb troll, so it's no use talking back to him.
@Shaman X Ur.
@@Yew_chube WILSON!! FOUND YOU
@Shin Shaman you’re
21:08 there was an interview with the games director a few years ago and he explains his reasonings behind designing the game this way. He was basically trying to do what Kojima did with P.T. years before P.T. even existed. He wanted players to have to work together to solve the mysteries of the game. Work together in online forums, have discussions with one another to get past puzzles etc. I don’t know a single person who beat this game without a guide and always wondered how the hell the people who wrote the guides managed to beat it🤔
Also
26:04 oh my.....should I tell him?
ugh PT, people overrate that game and it gets so much undue credit imo. Everybody be suckin Kojima's nuts too hard over his over glorified AAA, haunted house jump scare simulator, when true classics that pioneered the survival horror genre like Siren, Resident Evil Outbreak and Sweet Home get grossly overlooked.
I actually beat Siren about 8 years ago, and got the true ending without using any guide whatsoever. I only used the in-game hints that flash at the beginning of certain levels, and the hints referenced in the games instruction manual (31 tips the second time around, lol) it required a fucking heap ton of patience and a whole lotta trial and error. It helped that I was incidentally in the military at the time and stationed on a little island with nothing to do, and I had a huge love for survival horror games, lol. But yeah, ultimately I'd say playing it that way without referencing a guide really wasn't worth it imo. Toyama intending for the game to be played in such a fashion makes a whole lotta sense, especially with the viral marketing campaign that he used to promote the game. Reminds me alot of Resident Evil Outbreak which came out the same year and was designed to be played together with multiple people, although that didn't stop me from trying to play it solo as well, lol.
I just played through the game again recently, this time collecting all the archives in order to unlock the secret cutscene and final archive. But to do so I had to resort to looking up a walkthrough in order to find a few of the archives cuz they were just too hard and cryptic to find, with the worst offender being the archive 064 reward poster in Tomoko's final level, which is on the truck and you need to examine the top of the cargo bed, at a very specific spot, with no physical indicator whatsoever, lol.
ok boomer
@@gangweedstudios tired joke/insult.
but he sounds like a boomer tho. like “pt new and bad, the real classics are much better, especially the nes game.”
@@gangweedstudios he ain’t said pt was new and bad, he gave an actual reasoning for why he’s mad that people be sucking on kojimas nuts for what’s basically a glorified teaser trailer, it was cool, but it’s just a spooky corridor with jump scares, they give pt to much credit, specially since projects that started as blatant pt ripoffs to ride the wave of its popularity have become through development much better games than pt itself ever was. But yes dilute every opinion of someone who points at older games as examples of something done better as boomers.
This game was too frustrating and confusing for me to finish, but damn it had some great atmosphere and concepts.
I wish I could finish without walk through. No point in puzzles where you look up the answer. No thanks
@@I_Am_The_Social_Reject Well part of it was the director wanting to bring players together in forums to work together, but there are better ways to do something like that
Siren , like based off of the mythological spirit that is usually a woman who lures in men then murders them... Is what I'd guess over a loud noisy warning
There's a literal siren in the game and the sound of it lures the former townsfolk into the red water surrounding the place.
They should've released the Special Edition back in 2004 or better yet in the PS4 store, but it was canceled. The Special Edition has easy mode and hints to complete the game and even extras like behind-the-scenes and character profiles.
I was fascinated to finally see a video from someone covering Siren in a rather in-depth manner. I played this game a lot as a kid, but I could never beat it. The reason is extremely apparent. I couldn't really find any walkthroughs, and definitely no videos, so it was a real love/hate relationship with this game. As you were, I was also conflicted. It's a fascinating, unique and creepy game. But the game design is quite frustratingly obtuse, which is a real shame.
I've already commented on this video long ago and you'll probably never see this but after playing through this again to 100% recently I wanted to let you know a few things that you seemed to have completely missed that would've solved 99% of the problems you had with this game.
It's not nearly as cryptic as you make it out to be. I guess because I read the manual I was way better off, but you also get this info from hitting the help icon on the navigation screen. The issues you had with not knowing if a secondary mission is "locked" and needs an item from a previous level are absolutely addressed in-game and if you hit the L1 button on the link navigator screen not only does it tell you if you're able to complete the secondary mission with what you have, but will tell you exactly which levels you need to revisit for the "key items' for that mission if you don't have them. Take the face towel puzzle for instance. If you would've checked the link navigator it would've told you you needed to go back to Kei's level, and you would've had a pretty generous hint that would've directed you in the right way.
I played through the entire game without a walkthrough this way, the only information I had was what i remembered from watching this particular review years ago, and even then I had no idea exactly where the items were and which levels they were in.
You most definitely start to get into a groove with what the game expects from you anyway. The second you find out from a hint that you can find certain items by hiding your escort, you start to do that everywhere that's of interest. Same with sightjacking to solve puzzles and examining everything of potential interest.
I guess I may have had an easier time because I've played almost every old-school point and click adventure you can name and 90% of them blind without looking at a walkthrough. If you want to see real cryptic. go back and play some old text adventures from the 80's.
It definitely takes a lot of influence from those old titles and expects you to try everything but I in no way see it as completely un-solvable with what's given to you. And I feel you would've felt the same way and probably wouldn't have really needed a walkthrough if you knew how the link navigator worked.
I know this is long as hell but I really do urge anyone wanting ton play this game to go in blind and just make sure you're aware of how the navigation screen works. I'd also advise checking the hints in the manual because they are helpful. It really is a severely underrated masterpiece and I've sadly only seen a couple positive reviews of it.
I know it's a year long comment but I want to respond with my own experiences with this game.
The issues isn't whether this information is presented to you or not. (Yes, it is presented to you) but it's extremely poorly done and it's "outside the narrative", from what I can remember. What I mean by "outside the narrative" is that the characters themselves have no way of knowing these things and there is never an in-universe reason or explanation for why they are doing these things to progress the plot. If we take the example Nitro Rad gives, why does a different character (who has minimal, if no interaction with that other character), decide to randomly soak a towel and then freeze it? It serves absolutely no purpose for him whatsoever and just adds to the danger he is in, without any actual benefits or rewards (since it benefits a different character at a different time). In fact, how did he know how to do that at all?
Maybe there is some explanation for these characters behaviors but I don't remember seeing any justification for it.
The secondary objectives are almost all completely non-sensical, without any context or justification (in-universe) and the only hints given are literally in a menu with a specific button press (like you mentioned). That's just bad game design.
At least in Silent Hill 1 (where it's clear that Keiichiro Toyama was experimenting with this kind of game design (the Kaufmann side quest)), at least it was a logical progression of events (find a key to a motel room, open motel room, find something that requires an item, search for item etc.) but in Siren it's just totally random and nonsensical.
By the way, I don't want to sound like a hater. I genuinely think that Siren 1 and 2 are (heavily) flawed masterpieces but I would never argue that it has good puzzles or presents them well.
@@NonniR I totally agree with everything you're saying here. All very true.
I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes from in general and it definitely detracts from the overall experience.
I think it takes a certain type of patience to get through. For sure not for everyone, even in 2004.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS COMMENT!!! I watched this review a while back and it out me off the game because I was worried about it being too cryptic for me but seeing this makes me want to play it immediately!!
Also no Shame to Nitro Rad he didn't know but I want to thank you so much for this ❤️
@@freckledrogue8161 Sure thing!
Have fun!
I LOVED how uncanny the facial animations were, it really was the highlight of the game for me, made it that much creepier.
you deserve way more suscribers. great production value!
Community Watch Kinda like Jontron. And AVGN.
Only he started out with good production value.
This is a fun game to play when you have a buddy being your "seeing eye dog" and is explaining to you what to do by consulting a walk-through. It feels like the only way to play it.
I'm really, really impressed at those face textures
The thing about sightjack mechanic is that it never gets explained in the game at all, even though it's the main game mechanic in Siren. I believe nobody ever talks about it, nor do any of the lore pieces mention it an any way. Weird stuff.
Harumi is handwaved as having ESP, everyone else is connected to the Shibito hive mind by virtue of having red water in their bloodstream. There are at least a few lore items that explain it.
Happy 6 years anniversary to this video. My favorite Nitro Rad episode to date.
sometimes you just watch Nitro Rads videos so many times throughout the years over and over again, you just gotta support the guy by liking and. commenting
Guilty ;-; the guy shines brightest reviewing horror I swear.
the whole loop and secondary objective stuff is also great, fitting the plot and adding to the eeriness to the whole situation once you realize what is happening (also, all the secondary objectives and their requirements are hinted in the manual)
Maioly damn wish i had bought the game with a manual... its just insanely difficult to find the second objectives
How are they hinted in the manual? I watched a review of the game where the reviewer mentioned there’s no any hints about the secondary missions in the manual.
@@zipnex5529 then the reviewer is an idiot
Becase the manual has an entire page dedicated to hints for secondary mission unlocking and stuff
Look up the SGF lets play, he dives into tue manual multiple times
Including going to the hints page for the secondary objective stuff.
Wait... You're looking through your potential killer's eyes?
*gasp* It's the first game to incorporate a second-person view!
The intro to this video honestly makes me feel nostalgic. In 2016, so many of our problems were so far away.
I think it would be cool if Siren got a VR remake, port or new game in VR.
Cause I think it'd be even freaking to see yourself in sight jack.
Anyone get any UZUMAKI vibes?
Seriously, I'm getting Junji Ito vibes.
I could seriously see him turning this into a manga!
@@yugotokusatsu289 There are two.
I don't know what it is, but I love the way the character models look. They're unlike anything I've seen from a PS2 era game. It boarders upon realism, but doesn't quite get there - albeit in very interesting ways. Most of the time we shy away from the uncanny valley, but I actually think it would be cool to see more developers use the (perhaps antiquated) techniques that the devs did for this game.
I do like the interconnected nature of the levels and characters in the game, but I agree, it seems like it wasn't executed very well at all. It's too obtuse for players to figure out without a guide. That kind of takes away from the really fascinating interconnected levels in my opinion.
I go back to this video at least once a year. I really like looking back at games like this. Never played it, but there's so much interesting ideas and game design choices they went for at the time. For better or worse, it's a game that differentiates itself.
this is one of the most terrifying experiences in gaming ever
I like when a game doesn't hold my hand. It makes it more challenging and rewarding. Thanks for the awesome review.
Me either. But then there is this where you thrown in the middle of a minefield and told good luck
Just a reminder that this game came out when companies were really pushing the official strategy guides. Games were sometimes designed to be obtuse or have a ton of collectables to drive up guide purchases.
Well this was also designed to get players to talk about it to work together in forums online according to the director
I got this game from my mom, when I was 15 (I wanted Project Zero instead but my mom confused them with each other xD') and I really got into it but I never was able to finish it. I guess back then the Internet wasn't THAT big of a thing, so I gave up, eventually D:
Also: I just stumbled upon your channel and I am really enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
Chad nigga ballin
So there's actually a reason why the levels keep looping over and over again, and it's actually Plot Relevant, however it's never explicitly stated in this game, but it is confirmed in the second, basically everyone is stuck in a Time Loop
When you have a mission 2 objective, press L1 on that mission and check the navigator for arrows. It will show stages that have key items or things you need to do.
Lil B thought this game was alright, so I had to check it out.
check out terminator, FUCKING CLASSIC, haven’t played it yet tho
Imagine if when you sight-jacked one of them they would maybe know where you were or get a hint in what direction you are in for the time you were doing it.
I had heard of this game before but had never seen it in action and knew very little about it, but that whole sight jack mechanic is actually pretty fucking clever and definitely a unique idea for a game. Being able to see through the enemies eyes in a survival horror game is a really scary thought but it's also a really awesome idea. Also Nitro Rad brought up a pretty interesting point; that the guys from team Silent went on to create a company named Siren. It had to have been planned out by the team, there's no way going from a company named Silent to a company named Siren, which is one of the loudest sounds and the total opposite of Silence. Pretty clever, lol. I just discovered Nitro Rad's channel a couple of days ago because I was looking for a good video for Silent Hill 4: The Room, and after watching the Nitro Rad video for it I enjoyed it so much that I proceeded to binge watch all of his Silent Hill videos. Now that I'm finished watching his entire Silent Hill series I have moved on and have began watching his videos for other franchises and I really enjoy his videos. I wish I would have discovered this channel earlier, but that's the beautiful thing about RUclips; you are able to discover "new" (new for you) channels every day and RUclips is so massive and has soooooo many channels focused on soooooo many different topics and ideas that you can find new awesome channels every single day and never run out of awesome channels to discover. Anyways I really enjoy the videos on this channel and look forward to watching all the reviews for all the awesome games, and I am definitely a fan and a new subscriber to the channel.
The actor played as Kyoya also played a character from a Kamen Rider series
Wow, they actually used the similar facial technology to LA Noire. It looks antiquated and doesn't really stand the test of time considering the tech of the PS2 and the facial capturing was more effective in LA Noire but at least I commend their effort.
From what I’ve been told, they intended the strange puzzles to function like an early ARG, where the fanbase would get together and solve them by trying obscure things. This idea pops up a surprising amount in video games (playground talks about where to find rare pokemon, friends telling you the name of KK Slider songs in Animal Crossing, etc), it’s just especially complicated here
Hey, man your production values are crazy good. Feels like I'm watching an old gaming tv review show. And you explain all the gameplay mechanics really well. Great job, subscribed.
I really liked the game tbh, then again I didn't have AS much of a problem progressing since I'm a completionist so I'm usually very thorough with exploration, but a walktrough is definitely recommended.
I'm glad to see you making a video on the sequel, will you also make one for the remake (for the PS3)? Looking forward to it!
26:10 not sure where you're getting implications that anyone gets out.
SPOILER WARNING
i'm pretty sure everyone goes to hell except the girl (if you drank the water you stay there forever, the landslide is reported to have killed everyone except the little girl).
As I recall, Harumi and the girl that's always with Tamon Takeuchi do make it out.
Bloodynoush Yoriko (the girl with Tamon) can't leave because when she is shot and both she and Kyoya are saved by Shiro Miyata, he makes a blood transfusion from Kyoya to Yoriko, so indirectly she has red water inside her
Plus she was drinking the water before she got shot. The Shibito curse is based on the quantity of red water in your bloodstream. During the cutscene with Akira and Yoriko at the cliff overlooking the Mana River, when they see droves of people walking out in the endless expanse of red water? All those people instantly become Shibito when they immerse themselves in it.
Yoriko Anno ( the girl with Tamon) drank the water in the second mission where Tamon has to find the shibito brain. Then later on she gets shot by Akira in Janokubi valley, Shiro then finds her and Kyoya and then takes them to the miyata clinic giving blood transfusions. Because Miyako gave Kyoya some blood through the hand which then made him immortal to turning into a shibito, Yoriko also had the same power since Kyoya passed it onto her. So although she doesn't make it from the bad side she remains immortal to the shibito unless they kill her physically.
Yea. I was confused when he said the characters make it out alive. Unfortunately they all die except the little girl and the college student.
Downloading this on PS5 ASAP. I've known about this series for years,but never gave it a chance.
They need to release Forbidden Siren 2 on PS4, it was far superior and had no British accents - it even has the option to have full Japanese audio with English subtitles 😁
Those facial animations look great to me.
i know this is years old but i get the design of the second objectives. its playing into clairvoyance.
That bizarre facial capture technology is honestly amazing, especially the way they used it in siren 2. How the hell didn't that catch on? I think it's aged spectacularly, in the context of making horrific, unnatural looking faces, and honestly some times those cutscenes don't look bad either. It's extremely jarring to see such photo realistic faces on a game so old, it's a weird amount of clarity that you wouldn't expect
When you were describing the mechanics and story I was beginning to be confused about why I had never heard anyone talk about this game before. And then the confusing quest paths came...
Ah, it brings back memories. I love the Siren series, especially the second one. Thanks for reviewing it again. It was a good nostalgia trip.
The only Siren game I remember seeing was Blood Curse. I never knew this existed and this looks better then that honestly-
Maybe I’m just sick, but I’d cut these monsters up so that when they reanimate they are just a leg less and armless torsos. I would be a great horror video game character, obviously.
You carry a lot of logic in your words, mister.
I mean, good idea and all, if they didn't regenerate of course.
I think ur logic has a huge goalpost gap. Some time this monster will attack u with wolverine healing power.
The Evil Within shows how to deal with a monster, when u chop them up n stunned yhrm. I have to burn this corpse, this vame shows why u have to do that. Whennu start to burn this enemies some of them rise up. But its too late because u just kabab there ass.
The evil within 2 shows why u don't need to make everything a open world games. The first game was incredible when its linear n stage was incredible. Open world for 2ns part destroyed this game
So basically Dead Space?
Shibito regenerate from lost limbs, as well. Really the only way to permanently get rid of shibito is to put them in situations where they're unable to be a threat. Knocking one down into a water well, pinning one to the ground with an iron stake, and burying them in a cave-in using an explosive are explored in the game itself.
The game relies heavily on the player using the hints given in the manual that comes with the game in order to figure out what to do in the secondary objectives. What bothers me the most though is how meta those objectives are. They don't really seem to make sense for the characters to do at all unless we assume they are somehow aware of the other characters actions, which does seem plausible but unfortunately that doesn't actually seem to be the case.
"professor, we need to find the villagers"
"Please shut up"
The best lines in the game.
Can you please do an episode on white day 2001?
So... a horror/stealth game with a Zero-Escape style time jumping system? Sweet!
Always gotta enjoy when Nitro puts his cinematography skills to work on the intro to a vid.
Oh man, Siren! Personally, I think the spider Shibito and exorcist pose Shibito are pretty full of N O P E.
19:15 Ouch, I have to agree with you there, I have no clue why the previous character would even do that in real life, so that makes no sense. 0-0
25:06 Okay, just imagining some person playing a mission from one person to that is pretty funny.
This was a damn good review that explained the pros and cons of the game perfectly. I loved all your Silent Hill reviews so I can't wait to see all your other SIREN reviews during October.
There is a difference between this and Xenoblade... the Voice acting is good in Xenoblade
I love when you do your film like segments, they are always so well done.
You know how some people say that The Evil Within was Resident Evil dressing up like Silent Hill for Halloween? Well this comes across like Silent Hill dressing up like Resident Evil for Halloween.
Aza Smith That was way too accurate lmao.
That's so confusing...
This comment is so good lmao
Uhh...No? How is this anything like Resident Evil?
People wandering into a settlement riddled with zombies. Sure they aren't your typical Romero zombies, but still.
I've watched this video so many times and every time the intro has me dying of laughter
This is the first time I’ve witnessed RUclips unsubbing me from someone,,
Probably one of my favorite games ever
Well that's one way to start October...
Got this game when it came out when I was in the military, spent an hour or so every other day after my shift was done, lasted me for a couple weeks, even unlocked everything without any guides or walkthrus.
Ah.. the good ol days
“Picking up talented developers after they left Konami”
That hasn’t aged well.
Death standing was a flop. Kojima hiding those sales figures. Sony wasnt pleased at all with its sales.
Kojima's only excuse: westerners only like shooters
It did find success on PC though.
9:48 this was always the first thing I thought of when booting up the game back in the day lol
Always killed me how he treated her 😅
Me and 2 of my friends played through this in a full day... and even between the three of us, some of the puzzles and connections were too obtuse to understand.
I can honestly say we were able to figure out at least 75% of the stuff on our own. But some things were so poorly related that I honestly don’t see how the first person to ever figure some these puzzles out.
But se still loved it... unfortunately because FS2 was PAL region locked, and none of us had a PAL console, and this was in 2005... so we didn’t get to play the sequel.
I was very impressed with the graphics back then. I plan to buy another ps2 to get this game and a few other ps2 exclusives I miss playing.
9:55 I hope that you're saying: "the US", (It sounds like you're saying "the west")
Because Europe is part of the western world.
I always thought "the west" meant "west of the atlantic" but it turns out I've always been wrong, whoops.
@@NitroRad to be honest I really didn't know either
In the UK we say the west when referring to the Americas so it made sense to me
Got Siren on a demo disc when I was pretty young. Game fecked me up pretty good
1:05 I recognize those static sounds from the intro for -Nightmare Expo- Nexpo.
My drinking buddy (who played Howard in Blood Curse) always told me that the original reason why Siren on PS2 was so difficult was to actually spur cooperation on online message boards to build a sense of community among players. The ambiguity of the missions was supposed to force people to fill in the gaps by trial and error and eventually allow them to share with fellow gamers.
Made sense, since at the time the internet was still in it's infancy and message boards like gamefaqs dominated the landscape.
your drinking buddy was yuri lowenthal??
@@cookiechomp He's probably talking about the guy whose likeness was used as reference for Howard's in-game model, as well as having his photo taken for Howard's profile pic in the pause menu and the various blog posts used in the viral marketing to promote the game. The actor's name is Stephan Fisher apparently.
This is still one of the scariest games I've ever played. I got pretty far but I agree, it's way too confusing. I never beat the game because of it.
I recently got this game in great condition on PS2, I feel blessed.
The photorealistic faces in this game are amazing, they’re SO CREEPY, I totally agree that it really freaks me out. The badly done British accents really mess with me too, hearing games dubbed in British English always throws me off in general as I’m used to only hearing British accents in real life, but it’s so badly done that it really weirds me out even more. I wish more games went for photorealistic face textures, it works really well in horror games but I find it can work great in other games too, in Perfect Dark the pixelated 2D faces printed onto low poly models just feels really charming and I wish more low-poly style games would do that.
Siren is one of my favorite horror games ever. For me it's right up there with Silent Hill 2. I'm pretty sure this review is the video that convinced me to try it in the first place so thank you so much! I do think you were a little hard on the puzzles though. Each level is small and there are only so many locations to interact with so as long as you explore and experiment with the items you collect the puzzles aren't THAT bad. Some puzzles are more convoluted than others, like the piggy bank puzzle, but I've seen worse.
Finally a good review of this game! I've had this game on my shelf for like 3 years and I always wanted to know how good the game actually is and if its worth playing.