"You don't realize it's your fault James" is a line that could realistically be said in that game because there can never be anything good in this world
They kinda already did that for downpour. Downpour had special lockers that you needed a code to open, but the game never gives you a code to unlock them. You'd get the code as a pre-order bonus from specific retailers (gamestop and amazon iirc). Depending on what code you got, it'd unlock new exclusive weapons for that playthrough. It sucked so bad.
@@add8402 The funny thing is that those codes are universal, so you can use them with any version of the game. It still sucks but it at least wasn't like an actual exclusive thing.
Small corrections on James Sunderland and Guy Cihi. He was accompanying his daughter for an audition and they asked him to audition as well, and he ended up being the best performer for the role. There weren't many english VAs in Japan at the time, so I guess competition was not very stiff. For a lot of english voice acting in games they just got random foreigners in there, but SH2 did have auditions, even if the talent pool... Uh, was less than ideal. Also, Guy said that he was going through a tough divorce at the time, so it's interesting to think that it might have colored his performance. Although I'm still in awe at Monica Taylor Horgan, who acted for Maria and Mary, did such a phenomenal job... And then disappeared from any media that we know of. Early game VA was so crazy.
Ya know I can totally relate to the whole "I'm going through a lot and it's affecting every aspect of who I am even how I speak" I know I'm starting to slip into depression when I don't hear any modulation in my voice. Like you can't even "sound" alive it's just a dead pan all the way through.
Monica Taylor Horgan has been credited in a few other things, namely Shenmue 1+2 as recently as 2018, but she was likely focussing on raising her daughter. The Silent Hill Memories fansite managed to interview her in 2011 and she says a lot about the contract with Konami and how shady it was, how Konami tried to waive their rights for their voices for the HD remake etc. She also apparently did the Mary letter in ONE TAKE - the first time she read it was the time we hear in the game. '...and it was a perfect take the first time. I remember distinctly everyone taking a Loooooong moment afterward. We nailed it. Great material. And a solid read. Probably the best I ever did.'
@@Mercy_Plays_YT That was THE FIRST TAKE IF HER READING THE FIRST TIME?!?! Are you shitting me?! I'm not calling you a liar by any means but that's unbelievable, as in it's so shocking I have a hard time believing it. Amazing. And she barely did anything else.
More significant than the Nurse doing a cover vault, to me, is that James clearly knows how to shoot a shotgun eith competition form now, down to the elbow cock. Instead of doing it concerningly wrong, and making the shots slow and stressful
James held every gun in the worst possible way in the original, especially the shotgun. The recoil nearly knocked him over. It took him ages to pump another round in or work the bolt action on the rifle. He had obviously never used them before. Now James is working the bolt without even looking at it, and firing off shotgun rounds like nobody's business. It's shameful.
@@mortified0 seriously. And like- I could believe that.. Someone was like "Well he has to shoot them good, it's over the shoulder now". But there's totally things you could do. Like, have random chances he forgets to pump between shells, trigger panic, or get his sleeve caught on the bolt or something- maybe if he's walking while shooting he just trips all over. Things *people who don't do guns are liable to do*. And then if you just, absolutely can't refuse dumb exec, you set it up so over the course of a game the errors happen less frequently, and he adopts the more stable but still incorrect stances people figure out with guns if left to their own devices. But it's *really* hard to not just immediately go "No, they just. Don't care." And it's infuriating
@@therapymutt1468 That would be great mechanics for a sanity system in a horror game. Like in addition to hallucinations and the game fucking with your controls or angles, you could have an increased chance of dropping a shell or stuttering with the reload.
I'm reminded of cooking eggs as was explained to me by a chef. In that eggs are kind of amazing and you can do a lot of things with them, but it is very VERY easy to screw up eggs. A horror setting that takes a persons latent guilt/trauma/fears and manifests them as physical challenges to overcome is obviously a very powerful concept to tell very gripping stories, but MAN is it easy to screw up.
A big part of it is that the people who want to make games based on that have no personal experience with it, don't know anyone with any personal experience with it, do not consult anyone with personal (I suppose also professional) experience with it. There is no reason for them to want to make a game with these themes or topics, they just know it's something popular that will get them credit and possibly props for being "brave" or doing something "important." The things that land their intention the best are made by people that actually have a personal connection or passion with whatever that is. From a platformer to an action game to a game with serious subject matter.
@outwrangle dude you can burn eggs so easily and if you cook them for too long they turn out bland. We havent even gotten ibto the seasoning/spice part of it
Searching for "what shakes a human heart" and it turned out hacks reusing a specific enemy you designed for a specific character in situations is doesn't make sense was the answer all along
At least in short message it's your mom dressed as your bisexual tormentor, just really weird the whole mini game focuses on the vapid chick who got groomed by an older dude then gets bullied by the main character, when the protag literally got locked in a closet and watched her baby brother die and get shoved into a freezer. like it feels like two different teams wrote the plot of this game. One wants to propose Maya is the descendent of a witch the other says it's all Anita's personal guilt trial.
I'm glad Resident Evil didn't start having Nemesis in every game. It kept the general idea, but it didn't make the mistake of thinking the specific monster was important.
Woolie would lab grocery checkout systems if there weren’t people in line behind him. Man was born a scientist and belongs in a white coat, counting frames to find optimal tooth brushing strats, trying to understand why the chemicals in his brain trick him into liking jetpacks. And we love him for it.
@krodmandoon3479 I was playing it up like a slimey businessman, like "here's the new ps5! And on the side here, he have a "backwards compatibility" disc slot, perfect for your PS2-copy of Silent Hill 2" and it's just a tucking shredder taped to the console 🤣
Technically if you want to follow the legacy of SH, your best bet is to play Siren, since Team Silent's members went on to form Siren Project / Team Gravity Those members left in 2020 and formed Bokeh Studio, which announced their first game in 2021 (Slitterhead) So yeah, if you wanna keep tabs on what theyre doing, keep an eye out for Bokeh Studio going forward.
i'm not really into horror games that much, but i watched a bit of one of the Siren games, and the music is incredible :o especially the ones with throat singing
Even before I knew they were basically made by the same people, I always felt Siren had such similar vibes to Silent Hill despite being almost completely different gameplaywise.
Amnesia: The Bunker is the perfect example of giving the player a working, good-to-control, and decently-powerful gun yet still makes you wet yourself when you need to use it. Because you actually have to _load_ and _aim_ the gun. It isn't just pressing buttons and your character handles the rest. The player has to manually put each bullet into their revolver, close the barrel, hold the gun up so that you can aim, and then when you fire, you'd better hope whatever you're shooting at either goes down, or gives you enough time to either re-aim due to the knock-back, or run away, cause you are _dead_ if it doesn't. It's super hard to pull off without making the player frustrated, but if I was making a horror game, that would be the philosophy I would use when designing the gun-play.
The shotgun in the Bunker is like the flamethrower in Alien: Isolation. The second I got it I was like “PAYBACK TIME BITCH!” It was such a sense of RELIEF after scrambling around in terror for so long.
A gun in horror needs to be a tool and ideally a last resort that doesn’t remove threats but provides potential for maybe a few seconds of safety to allow ebb and flow of player tension. Having other uses for bullets is a good start, and making it difficult enough to use that the player doesn’t immediately pull it out as the first solution to a problem is another.
Hearing Pat talk about all these fine, important details reminds me of a comment they mentioned back in one of the old LPs like "this is like listening to Pat talk about Dark Souls, except he's not completely wrong about everything"
The credits will have James look into the camera and say "My name is James." Then he'll skateboard away while flipping the bird. The skateboard is ng+ weapon and James will do a sick kickflip like the meme
In all seriousness, there is ONE thing they can do to unfix the combat, but make it usable enough to actually use. Add sway. James isn't a soldier. He's not gonna be spinning guns like Ocelot and b-hopping through Silent Hill. The dude's panicking facing nightmare monsters and fighting for his life, so his grip on guns is gonna be loose and shaky at best. Alan Wake 2 did a similar thing. Alan's less accurate with his gun than Saga is, purely because she's a trained FBI agent with firearms training and Wake is a writer who last used guns OVER A DECADE AGO.
And as Woolie mentioned, make reloading take a second or two longer than it should. You can also add in James not knowing how to handle the recoil of guns, especially the rifle.
@@TAMAMO-VIRUS Perfect. It doesn't make guns completely useless, but it makes them a lot less viable as opposed to melee weapons or just straight RUNNING from enemies. Add say and a second-extra reload time and we've done it.
They also did this in RE7 to great effect. In the beginning it's almost impossible to accurately shoot the mold because of the sway, recoil and head bobbing of the enemies weird movement pattern. But by the end you're better but not so much better it feels professional.
That would be super cool as a feature, I remember RE4 (the PS2 one) having a lil bit of sway and shake, even Leon being a super cop couldn't control his shaky hands in the tension of the moment so why would average joe James Sunderland do?
Silent Hill 2 is about the dialogue...It's almost like no one who did the Remake knows the main theme of SH2 is about running away and avoiding problems. James flailing around and the Eddie "fight" being 2 idiots running around in circles was great. Even Harry in 1 looking like he's never held a gun or hit something in his life is such a good detail
For me, the twist in Silent Hill 2 works entirely because Silent Hill 1 conditioned me to think that the spooky stuff was the result of cults and magics and ghosts etc. If I went into the game viewing Silent Hill only as a personal trauma crucible, the twists wouldn’t work. I would see through everything. This is not a concept that should have been done a second time, never mind one that took over the entire identity of the franchise
The best thing about Silent Hill to me is the inspiration from that Lovecraft short story ( i think is "The darkness under the bell tower" or something). Basically it's the story of a depressed writer who uncovers a cult in an abandoned church ( as he gazes in what is basically a flauros.) What is so cool about that story and Silent Hill imo is that at it's core the monsters are real. It isn't some sort of lucid nightmare, everything is real. So yes you get the psycological introspection AND the cosmic horror. I hope bloober team doesn't screw that up by making it all a dream
And even then, when you think about it, they didnt even completely omit traces of cult behavior that was present in the town. It just isn't evident to many because of a book that is hidden. However, the fact that one of the endings involves James doing a cult ritual also shows that Team Silent didn't completely abandon the cult concept. It just wasn't on the forefront that time.
@@Disco4ia exactly SH1 is about the cult but SH2 is more about a random "Festival of the Mist". Which makes it so cool to me because it shows you how fucked up the town is even without the cult. The way 1 and 2 are completely opposite and yet perfectly fit in the same universe is really good.
@Lampoluke yeah I agree. As flawed as some of the real silent hill experience is in some parts, I also fall in line with the idea that SH2 is the aftermath of how the forces of the town were warped by the cult. They don't have to be the center fold of every sh story but I remember that some of the western devs of the later games didn't like the cult and wanted to stay away from it by any means. All while warping what the town could be and creating their new canon of how things work. I'm ranting into winding paths at this point though I will take a chill lol
Pat jokes that he doesn't even know if Mary's original voice actor is still alive, but I can't find anything about her that isn't after 2001. She was only ever in 2 things (Shenmue and SH2).
Did they ever find Heather's actress? I remember hearing that Konami wanted to reach out to her to get her permission to reuse her lines for the HD collection, but apparently she made like Inezh and just dropped off the face of the planet.
@@NucleaRaptorGetting all the permissions for SH3 was going to be impossible from the get go, Douglas's og VA died around the time the game first released IIRC. I guess maybe in that case it would fall onto the family to okay it? Someone did find her for an interview though yeah.
The early days of video game voice acting was so fascinating. A lot of non-actors, or people who were not actors for very long before their careers and lives went a different direction came and went extremely quickly. It was an era where we weren't all as online too, so some barely left a footprint outside of their roles.
“Get Pyramid Head’s sword early” that phrase hit me with like a ton of bricks, thankfully I have a my PS2 copy of both 2 and 3 so I didn’t care about the remake I could just ignore it. But that phrase pinned me to the ground and shoved itself down my gobhole I swear to god I hate it.
PATS WRONG ABOUT DOWNPOUR, partially. He wasn't traumatized by getting revenge. But by the good prison guard who trusted him getting killed because of him in the process by the evil guard. He blames himself for his death. Not the other murderer.
It's kinda hilarious about how big of a fuck up that is, because the game is VERY explicit with it. I don't think Murphy EVER says he regrets killing that fatso abuser, so it's kinda funny that he somehow managed to latch on to that being a fact of all things.
@@alephnole7009 True, though this segment being started with the fact of how much he cares about the franchise, only to misremember one of the games he is criticizing is quite ironic and funny.
In downpour, the extent of Murphy's actions change based on his ending. If you were good, Murphy got himself locked up to kill his son's killer, beat him severely, but couldn't go through with killing him because Murphy is a good person. The problem was that the prison guard who helped him also wanted him to kill another guard, and Murphy wouldn't play ball. It's still bad and convoluted.
@@SciontheDark It isn't bad or conveluted, it's just a twist if anything. The story is still very much consistent if you take the good ending as a basis.
Pat: Layers of fear by unity! Matt: Okay, not by unity, you saw a little developer name right before that did you not Pat? Pat: It was blood boobs... Matt: It was actually Blooper Team. Want to want to throw any guess about who Blooper Team is? Pat: I do not. Matt: It's the remnants of the team that made Sadness... Pat: Did that ever come out? Matt: No. Pat: Yeah, okay... Matt: But the team kind of disbanded and became Blooper Team and they're also not great at developing things... Pat: Not putting out that game was a Big Blooper. From Shitstorm 4 - Layers of Fear on Super Best Friends Play channel. This is what I thought of when Bloober Team was announced as the developers of the SH2 remake. Not the best company to do a remake of such a beloved entry to the best (and worst) horror franchise of all time.
The irony is you can do both a story about the cult and the crucible of trauma, because they did it already, it was called Silent Hill 3. It's the sad fact that the crucible of trauma idea is not inherently bad, it just drew all the worst pseudo-intellectuals to it like moths to a flame to make their hackjob stories using monsters as on-the-nose metaphors because 2 managed to do it well. And that's how we ended up with stuff like Downpour, Homecoming, and Origins. There are potentially good ideas in them, but they get drowned under all their attempts to be SH2 because they're terrified of being anything else.
What I resent is that it didn't get enough credit at the time. There was an entire subplot about how various cult members viewed religion through their own personal biases and interpretations. And that in fact, the cult religion evolved over time as a result of cultural drift -- you find documents in game alluding to this fact. Part of the cult's lore is cribbing off Christianity. And you see that struggle play out in the cult NPC's. Vincent is the self-serving skeptic using the religion to enrich himself. While that's ignoble in his way, he really does believe, he just doesn't like the weird magical bs going on around him and thinks the other members are clearly crazy. Leonard is the intolerant crusading knight smiting heretics, which we see was a formative dream for him in childhood. Claudia wants to birth their god as a way of compensating for her past childhood abuse and traumas, since she figures any sacrifice for a kinder world is justified. Also Valtiel has a silhouette and profile vaguely reminiscent of Pyramid Head. Gesturing at the idea that both are simply the same entity donning different masks to play different roles in whatever current "psychological play" is currently happening around it. The town is a dark mirror that reflects what you bring into it. But this is an angle of analysis I pretty much _never_ hear about SH3. I thought it was an interesting commentary on religion. It's very much shaped by the personal biases and needs of its congregants and is a much more fluid and malleable thing than believers would like to think. (The idea of angels being winged people is a recent invention, for example.)
13:30 Do no if Pat is serious about it but the original VA for James went to the casting for the part (with his daughter who was auditioning for Laura) and got the part legitimately.
Silent Hill 4 rules. The only new one i'm a bit hyped about is the one with Higurashi writer, it's proably barely Silent Hilly but i'm hoping it's just something original something interesting.
I can't wait to do sick tactical rolls and QTEs to protect Angela from the abstract daddy. Or have Eddie hiding behind waist high cover like it's Gears of War I wanna do the In Water Ending to myself.
Don't forget having to juggle running from two Pyramid Heads and loading a harpoon gun that is just in that room for some reason at the end of the game.
So I don't like the escort quest retread second half of the game but I really REALLY liked Silent Hill 4. Just the first person in that nasty scary appartment gets to me so bad. The fact that the game lets you think you're safe for so long only to start having hauntings happen if you make certain choices is so great. The themes of home and what makes a place your home and what it does to you to have that undermined is so great.
They bring up the letter and the combat and other glaring red flags about this remake, but to me there's a massive elephant in the room that I would stake my life on Bloober Team botching: Angela. Her entire character from her introduction, to her themes of suicidal ideation and childhood trauma, to the incredibly bleak and defeatist resolution of her story there's no way in hell they're going to handle any of that with any degree of subtlety or tact.
Yes; I love Angela as a character and feel for her deeply; she is one of, if not the most, sympathetic characters in the franchise. I'm particularly worried about the subtext of her father's abuse on her. The game never uses the word 'rape'. and even if you take Angela's words at face value ('Or you could just force me. Beat me up like... he... he always did.) could still just represent physical abuse where her father is making her do things (housework, chores, etc). However, we know what did happen and I'm worried they're going to spell it out - like James' own trauma, it's supposed to creep up on you until you sit there going 'oh. ...fuck'. Subtlety and tact will be missing. I also found out something pretty horrible when I looked for the Angela quote: Ito confirmed that what Angela sees when the Abstract Daddies attack her is WAY WORSE than what James sees - which is bad enough.
What I like about Angela is that she is an obstacle to James, he knows he should probably stop and help her but he is on his mission. It makes her come off as almost annoying at times because James wants to move on. I would be afraid they'd make her too sympathetic to the point where the player character's actions seem ridiculously cruel.
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat I don't mind that she's overweight, but I do mind that her facial animations and model quality are way lower than the ps2 prerendered cutscenes. _That's_ troubling.
Angela is so important because Silent Hill writers not getting her story is the reason why they keep writing Silent Hill badly. Lots of writer’s approach to Silent Hill is that it is a place that is punishing sinners for being bad people, which then ultimately makes Silent Hill a force for retributive justice. I always remember the stupid scene in Silent Hill Downpour where a fucking _Christian nun_ is basically explaining to Murphy that he did the bad thing and needs to face his guilt. But Angela is very obviously a victim of horrific chronic abuse, and her violent actions that she is being punished for are reactions to repeat physical/sexual assault. Her actions could be considered retributive justice, but Silent Hill isn’t any less cruel to her than anyone else. Imagine that stupid nun scene happening with Angela, with the nun telling this suicidal rape victim that she needs to face her guilt for killing the people that raped her. Because Silent hill isn’t a place of retributive justice to punish the guilty, its a liminal hellspace that collects trauma. The people who end up there in Silent Hill 2 are not just murderers, they are also abuse victims who killed their abusers and it doesn’t care why they did it. It’s a situation more complicated than most writers are capable of handling well, let alone writers as bad at handling abuse themes as Bloober Team.
Look, WE ALL have very valid reasons to have doubts about this remake. This video is a perfect time capsule of which ones and why. But I can't remember the last time so many people online were collectively so happy about being wrong about something!
My theory of why SM was good is bc the same team that salvaged Origins on the pcp when the og company it was pimped out to went under, so they were already experienced with Konami's crap going in. It also could be the head dev actually had a grasp on the series bc when they got on with Origins he was out right like "idk why this series needed a sequel"
Woolie: I will lab anything! I will lab every Silent Hill! I will lab Lego Star Wars! Also Woolie: I will do nothing but press square over and over in Arkham Asylum and complain.
@@Zeronigel332 Damn, and I started to find Arkham City easy with time nowadays. Really strange contrast cause I had some stumbles on my 1st playthrough of Asylum, but that was mainly stealth. I know it sounds lot like saying "skill issue", but it's taking my head for spin trying to understand why he's struggling with Asylum of all games.
@@Zeronigel332 I'm a giant Arkham Asylum mark, but the combat in that game is the weakest out of all of them. I will put it above everything else but combat is simple, there's no labbing needed for it. I can understand that Woolie would've gained something if it was City or Origins or Knight, but not Asylum, if he can't understand the basics of combat then he's just not going to get it.
It's mildly amusing that Hellblade by ninja theory of all people is arguably a better silent hill game thematically and presentation wise than most silent hill games for the past decades.
I mean, Ninja Theory made games, actual playable ones with uniqueness. Bloober just squirts walking sims (derogatory). Hellblade feels like the thing they always wanted to achieve. I don't particularly love it, but it's their vision, and undeniably was something being brewed throughout their lifetime. SH2 Remake is just... Ughhh guess we'll do this now (I'm prolly being super reductive, but that's the feeling they pass).
@@foo3268oh, not shitting on NT as devs. Its more that Enslaved, Donte: el Exterminador de Demonios, and Heavenly Sword are significantly different kinds of games compared to Hellblade. Hellblade is just a whole nother level of ambition that they managed to achieve very well. I have pretty much zero faith in bloober on the other hand. I hope its not bad, I never really want a game to be bad, but I doubt it'll be a good remake.
I only new about two best friends back in the day and I was skeptical about their let's play channel, but when I watched their Downpour LP oh man I knew I would never unsub from that channel.
The funny thing about Homecoming's UFO ending is that the choices you have to do to get it are choices that actually seem pretty logical given the game's story.
If I remember correctly, wasn't it just. "Spoilers" Mercy Kill Alex's mom, Forgive Alex's father actions, and save Wheeler? In which case, are all the GOOD OPTIONS. Also, I just remember that Wheeler is a joke character, cause the only ending he affects is THE UFO ENDING. *Homecoming is worse than Downpour*
The wall graffiti is so on the nose. You might as well call the game Screaming Mountain. Along with that, it's very interesting to learn that Maria and Mary basically only share a face. It's another layer to the game pointing at you, like James only takes things at face value.
Its kinda the same with RE4, most people (including myself) love that game, but lets be honest here, RE4 kinda almost ruined Resident Evil, with RE6 being the epitome of how messy and bad Resident Evil as a franchise got to be, of course, later we get RE7, and on a way lesser extend Revelations 2, be the games that brought back the horror aspect of the survival horror of Resident Evil, and then we have RE2 Remake being the perfect balance between survival horror and "over the shoulder camera" gun action.
@@alejandro9043 You can't blame the people that made the good game for other people missing the point and making bad games. Re6 didn't even keep the best stuff from the RE4 system, like weapon upgrades.
I still maintain RE7 is proudly in the pantheon of really good Capcom action games. It's just a bad RE game. I mean, parries, quickshots that intertupt AND combo, i-frame dodge, high and low attacks you can dive under and roll out of the overhead followup? Fuck, RE7 is the best gun-based melee game ever.@@alejandro9043
@@alejandro9043 everybody trying to be SH2 made personal demon monsters lame, bring back the occult shit! Need more Harry Mason's(I just wanna end this nightmare and go home!) protags and less James's (I'm sad, guilt ridden and traumatized) protags. Kinda just wanna go back to when the the main characters personal issues didn't project itself onto the town in anyway.
@thecaptain6520 I don't really agree, I've always had the opinion woolie came to here, that the game presents a scenario and your actions in game dictate how James really deals with it. It's a depressing ending, and it fits if we play the game as if James can't really deal with the loss, his part in it and moving on, but there's the Leave ending which shows us if James really does take Mary's final words to heart and realizes he really did love his wife and he's not some monster, that they were dealt a really shitty hand.
@@theyellowlurker5201 i think people forget that James forgives himself regardless of which ending you get. the endings basically only recontextualize why he does so and what he chooses to do with his life afterwards. in that sense In Water has always felt quite anticlimactic to me, despite it being by far the most emotional and well-performed ending. in In Water, James still has a moment of perfect clarity, still triumphs over his demons, resolves his guilt, defeats his tormentors, and then... decides he can't live without his wife anyway, the same as if he'd never come to Silent Hill at all, probably even the same as if Mary had just died of her illness. and certainly that's tragic - in fact it's among the most debilitating gut punches in video game history - but people misconstrue that as necessarily making it the most fitting by default. and i don't think simple tragedy (no matter how well-executed) is what made SH2 resonate with so many people; it's not just a story about having unbearable burdens, but also the pain of carrying them onwards, choosing to accept that pain, to survive it, in memory of someone you loved and did everything in your power to help.
@@conelybiscuit4985 Well fuckin put, I don't love SH2 for the tragedy, I love it for just how human it is, whether it be in our darkest or most hopeful moments.
@@thecaptain6520 All the (serious) endings make sense. I've said it before in Woolie's LP, the endings aren't good or bad, it's different levels of how James copes with the fact about Mary. In Water - is admitting his guilt and punishing himself. Maria - is refusing to admit guilt and dooming himself to repeat the same sins Leave - is admitting his guilt but moving on.
The drawback of creating a great work of art is that it will inspire hundreds of crapper pretenders that aren't half as good, Silent Hill 2 sounds like Watchmen of Horror games. Great but create worst versions of itself in the aftermath.
The analogy fits even more just due to all the shitty spin offs, prequels, sequels (the show is okay for a bit), The remake (movie) being entirely missing of the point, and not to mention all the corporate bullshit that makes the creator hate the project with a passion
Pat thats not it, Murphy is the Punisher because he crippled the warden to get close to his kids killer and that's why the main guard lady hates him so much because its not Murphys trauma its her trauma.
Silent Hill 4 is more similar to Silent Hill 2 than 1 or 3 though. While yes, they do reference the cult, and the cult does play a part in the story, the cult doesn't play the role the same way that 1 and 3 does. Much like Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 4's environment/otherworld is related to Walter Sullivan's psyche, kinda like how Silent Hill 2 revolves around James. So the argument saying Silent Hill 2 is unique to the personal trauma focus in the og team silent games is just wrong. 4 did it as well, only difference is that it revolves around the antagonist, not the protagonist. The cult in SH4 is only mentioned in order to provide context of Walter's upbringing and his motives; SH4 was never focused on the cult itself like SH1 and SH3.
That's exactly it. Combat was a solution to a problem, not the crux of the gameplay. It's like Bloober Team went "oh it has guns? That must mean it's a shooter".
as much I hate Silent Hill Homecoming, at least the cult is very much involved in that plot and the crucible of trauma is just a side effect of said cult AS IT SHOULD BE.
Small correction for Pat: You cant get the Downpour joke ending on your first playthrough. Digging up the past is only available on your 2nd playthrough!
Just wanted to refresh some people's memories. Pat is just wrong about Downpour's story. The Boogieman is NOT Murphy's guilt about killing abuser. The Boogieman AND everything about Murphy's story in Silent Hill is about him confronting the fact that, to kill the abuser, he had to do a favour to a piece of shit officer. That piece of shit, made so Murphy had to kill a very good officer, which had become friends with Murphy during the time he spent in prison. When he had to do it, Murphy did not do it, but he was not able to save the good officer from being stabbed and essentially left for dead by the evil officer, the good officer eventually dying in horrible basically invalid state. Murphy blames himself for the good officer's death and the Boogieman is literal manifestation of his guilt and want to be punished because for his fuck up. Murphy straight up does not regret killing the abuser who killed his son, never stated to have ever regretted it on any notes or lines, i believe. If anything, Downpour's story is actually fairly consistent, Pat just did not pay attention.
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat Oh i am not saying Downpour is amazing. It's way better than a actual trashfire like Homecoming, but nowhere near the old Silent Hill games in terms of quality. It's pretty okay and serviceable, would not call it bad though.
Yeah, but the whole thing is *about* the kid. Not the guard. It's like if James had run over a hobo or something, and after the Mary fight, the hobo ghost in a wheelchair shows up for the runback. That's Downpour.
@@Vulgarth1 If you interpret the Boogeyman as a manifestation of Cunningham's psyche instead of Moiphy's, it kinda makes sense in context though. It's the old "becoming a monster to strike down a monster" thing. Downpour probably could've benefited from another pass at the script, but I thought Vatra had some some solid ideas there. Basically, Downpour > Homecoming.
See if they mixed the cult stuff with the crucible of trauma in some games it could work. Imagine a former member of the cult going on the warpath in the game. And you traverse and skull your way through confronting the past and your former compatriots. The themes of self worth and redemption are built into that story. With your character being for ed to answer if they are worthy to even place judgement on the cult. With there being a broken ending, a rage ending, a servile ending, and an absolution ending. Where depending on the actions and the items taken or left behind your character this former cult member either strikes against the cult and faces the consequences of their actions afterward.
which is also annoying because it encapsulates the problem with him and other diehard fans of this. The minor nitpick. It's instantly proven by asking Woolie that that's such a minute detail, that while cool and a nice fun fact, he didn't even realize that. Why would he? As Pat admits Maria and Mary are never in the same room, or scene. Heck, I didn't even realize that, the only reason one would is if they extensively tried to read a bunch of essays for the game because this game was one of the biggest magnet for marks who want to feel smart. AND THAT'S FINE! But it's also why this series is is partly in a rut, not just by the fumblings of the studio, but because anytime a new one comes out its all "ITS NOT 2DEEP4ME ENOUGH!" and when it does try to be 2deep4u, they get upset its on the nose.
@@SteelBallRun1890There's a difference between the deepness being subtle game design details, and the "deepness" just being outright lore logs or exposition dumps. In a well written, fully thought through world, you feel or sense the depth instead of outright seeing it. But a deep dive shouldn't be necessary for enjoyment of the media. An example is the background world of Lord of the Rings. If you only read the main trilogy, you may not know about the whole 1st and 2nd Age epic in the Silmarillion. But you feel the history behind the places they go, and the snippets of song or poems they recite. You may not know Tolkien was a linguist who invented 11 full languages for his world, but you feel the cohesion between every name and line spoken by the elves. Back in Silent Hill: if you're playing a psychological experience, and you feel oppressed the whole way through without knowing about model changes or flashlight angles, you're playing a good game. If you had to have Pat or a wiki tell you details from alternate endings to feel the atmosphere, then you've done "depth" wrong.
@@jorgamund07 which is ironic because not that Silent Hill 2 fails to capture everything you said, but a lot of what Pat explains for SH2 in their old LP in the old channel, would fly by the majority of people who played it. He even said on the old channel that if he has to know the monsters name in the game itself, then the game has failed. Because the only way you'd know these monster names is if someone told you because they got some Silent Hill artbook or something telling you what the artists intended them to be. Like the whole spiel about "You Reap What You Sow", he says that's on the nose (and it is), while dismissing the whole "Mary's dead, you're going to hell, James" in the original as if it was some vague message and not an outright intent. Only reason you would know what Reap What You Sow's intention is because people already know what SH2 remakes deal is, and that's the whole problem. RE4make's main problem was living up to the gameplay, no one needs some refixing of the story, the story isn't anything special its a typical action horror story. SH2 remake's problem is that everyone already knows SH2, and every essayist and wiki or wherever you read the deep lore and symbolisms to feel smart, already unearthed what needed to be said.
@@SteelBallRun1890 I want everyone to know that Pat's observation about Maria is less of a "nitpicky Silent Hill fan" thing and more of a "Pat talking out of his ass" thing. "every single bone in their head is different" lmao. The way Takayoshi Sato put it was that their faces have the same polygonal structure, but that the "skull and muscle structure is **a little bit different.**" It was a very minor point in the Making Of, and if you actually look at their faces side-by-side you'll see it's not intended to be a huge difference even with the structural changes. But Pat is terrible at identifying physical features on people and gaslit Woolie and his audience into believing he was cooking something there by saying it with confidence. As for their body sizes being different, I've never compared that myself but it sounds pretty [citation needed] to me. He really does make purists look kind of stupid and arbitrary with some of his claims and I'd rather he didn't.
@@kahir8642 "But Pat is terrible at identifying physical features on people and gaslit Woolie and his audience into believing he was cooking something there by saying it with confidence." I'm gonna be honest, i just thought Pat heard it somewhere and didn't even check if it was true. So i wouldn't be surprised if their models were actually identical. As people pointed out, this is the issue with Pat, he exaggerates, focuses on miniscule details that someone else probably had to tell him about and spreads meaningless misinformation so much, that it instead detracts from his point. It's the "you don't have to make up shit or focus on miniscule details, when there is plenty of real problems to call out". Pat does it with everything, Cage games, Ubisoft\Ea\Blizzard\etc controversy, Last of US 2, games he doesn't like, games he doesn't care about. What it boils down to is "Pat doesn't care" and at this point he did this so much, that even when he cares, Pat actually rarely checks to get his facts straight and still fall into exaggeration bit, that makes his argument weaker. I literally didn't believe a bunch of stuff he said about Short Message and it did turn out to be wrong. Yet after watching the whole thing myself it actually somehow was worse than he described. Ironically it is just like the "Strongest animals all live alone" quote from the game aka it's wrong on a fundamental level so it doesn't work anyway, despite the intent of it being purposefully wrong to be corrected at the end of the game.
I've got fingers crossed for a far fetched: "Retro Studios getting Metroid" scenario but otherwise not much faith until the finished product speaks for itself. Bloober has stretched "from the creators of Layers of Fear" way further than deserved.
Man, I'm glad I was never into SH2. I got into the series when SH4 came out. I was actually more interested into the cult shit rather than the psychological stuff
it would've been funny if blooper team said "fuck it this series is a dumpster fire let's get nutty with the gameplay" and they made silent hill 2 remake with the gameplay mechanics of just cause 2. James is fucking grappling hooking everywhere, snatching helicopters out of the air and hood surfing cars off cliffs. but the story is still dead serious as it was originally.
I can't wait to see the combat skill tree in the remake. You'll have to collect parts of your wife's outfit, which you can then turn into skill points to upgrade accuracy and damage
I'm down with completely redoing the combat. My biggest issue with the combat trailer is that they made a combat trailer for SH2. All SH2 fans want is combat that isn't so actively bad that it hurts the enjoyment of the game. Otherwise, combat is not what any SH2 fan likes that game for. I think they made the combat trailer because they're scared to show more story after the reaction previous trailer and leaks got. That said, I agree with Pat that combat should not be bombastic. The combat should be like the multiplayer mode in RE3 remake, which is to say like RE2 remake but with melee combat.
I was just thinking about this, but it occurs to me that Shattered Memories and Homecoming almost feel like parallels to one another. Homecoming tried to play to nostalgia by aping off of SH2 in a way that felt disingenuous and exploitative, Shattered Memories played to nostalgia by _deliberately and self-admittedly_ referencing SH1. Homecoming thought that being a survival horror game meant actionizing the Silent Hill formula, while Shattered Memories, in trying to break away from not only Silent Hill tradition but horror game tradition in general, made it so your only "action" was fleeing from monsters in terror, ironically making it much more effective in putting you in the shoes of a horror protagonist. Homecoming throws a bunch of Halloween spooks at you, Shattered Memories has only one type of monster but one which grows to reflect your actions in subtle ways. Homecoming's psychological aspects are always painfully obvious, Shattered Memories' appear obvious but upon a second playthrough you realize just how much you missed, and you feel smart. Whereas with Homecoming, all you feel when you see something like Asphyxia is "oh, come ON". I like Shattered Memories a lot and always remember it. I almost never think about Homecoming. It's crazy to think that they were both made by the same team. I feel like future SH developers ought to remember the contrast between these two releases, and why one failed and the other succeeded.
Everyone keeps saying the combat in the remake is trying to be Resident Evil but the second I saw it my mind flashed to The Last Of Us. Like it looked like a cheap European knockoff especially with the melee combat and having enemies vaulting over waist high cover.
I came up with an idea for combat gameplay in a third person survival game: Instead of there being a normal reload button, you instead have a gun maintenance button. In this state many of your controller buttons are now used for tinkering with different aspects of the gun while there's also an on-screen symbol to show the current state of the gun for the sake of clarity. A separate button for taking off and inserting a magazine, choosing a magazine from inventory, reloading, an option to put away the gun in its current state or to throw it away due to the player needing to act before they're done. And when actually shooting the aiming reticule will take a long time to focus like in Deus Ex 1 and simply moving around makes the aim more unstable. Also an option for pressing the gun against the enemy if you're at melee range so you don't need to aim. This way guns are a massive headache, take a lot of consideration to use, powerful when used right but you will always feel more comfourtable with melee weapons since they have no aiming nor ammo management to worry about. Also I'd use a stamina/dashing system akin to Cry of Fear. You can dash, but it has no i-frames, some melee strikes will use more stamina than others, so keeping distance and avoiding enemies in general is always the preferred option. The weapon throwing is treated as a panic option, a move to quickly attack an enemy as a distraction for either getting away or for lining up a shot. It's risky, hasty, but an option if you're panicking or messing up with gun management.
This sort of thing works pretty well in a VR context. The more realistic they make the gun handling, the harder and more complicated it gets and some games have used that to great effect for horror where you find yourself fumbling in live or death situations. The only flatscreen version of this I've seen is Receiver 1/2 but those aren't horror games.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. At the very least, it's a relief knowing that there are other people that "get it". Unfortunately, most of the game industry management doesn't - but hey, the original game isn't going anywhere. It will always be there for those who are willing to draw inspiration and writing tips with a modicum of nuance.
Personally I love the angle of Silent Hill 2 way more than any of the cult shit from a lot of the other series. I feel it has way more potential for good storytelling, but is way easier to fuck up. The cult stuff is the safe option. Really love 1, adore 2, like 3 but wish it was something different again, or new stuff taking the angle of 2. 4 is okay and then the rest, well yeah.
I understand that people want access to a beloved classic that's increasingly hard to get ahold of, but between the "hd remaster" and ....this.... this is just such a no win situation. The best possible experience is going to be emulating or burning your own ps2 dvd disc ala freemcboot in perpetuity for the foreseeable future.
There is also the PC version of silent hill 2, which has a community remaster. that's by far the easiest to set up and play. Just gotta make a quick stop on the high seas.
This is basically the same thing said by RedLetterMedia, when Rich Evans said that now he hates "Empire Strikes Back", because that was the film that made all these new hacks make Star Wars movies where there is a Dark Lord with a family connection to one of the protagonists and the family drama dynamic, laser swords and the "believe in yourself" bullfuck.
If by "New hacks" you mean "Literally just JJ Abrams, the hackiest filmmaker of all, who we knew was a hack before they gave him Star Wars and who inexplicably got handed it a second time", then sure? Also "Believe in yourself" bullfuck is Star Wars. Like, it IS Star Wars. That's what the finale of Star Wars is: Luke believing in himself (and the Force) and saving the day. If you don't like it when Star Wars is about believing in yourself, I'm curious if you've ever liked Star Wars at all.
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat Definitely. Garbage will never EVER stop selling well. In the world where Hideki Kamiya's absolutely original and utterly superb *The Wonderful 101* sold badly even after getting ported on PC, PS4 and Switch, just like *"Okami"* before it there is quite literally no hope that things will ever get better and people will keep buying into low-grade crap forever and ever. When's that next Call of Duty, amIright or amIright, fellas !!! *vomits*
I don't dislike that stuff at all, but I do when it becomes formulaic. To remind you, there's very few *ideas* in fiction that are outright bad. It's all about the execution. Star Wars' biggest fault is that it ended up eating itself by its own legacy and can't make a new project without inserting things from other movies that don't belong there. The Mandalorian is a great show that was killed by shoving in other Star Wars media to the detriment of the plot.
The only QOL that it could be improved and I wouldn't mind is Maria's AI. I literally wouldn't mind that she is more talkative and reacts more to you and the environment. Make them have chit chat so they know each other more. Make her to be indispensable in some sections where she helps you overcome an obstacle. I think that little additions like that would add a ton to the game. I don't want to have to take care of this lady that ONLY speaks to me in certain cutscenes and 90% of the time doesn't reacts to anything. I get that the game is weird but that doesn't mean that certain things cannot be fleshed out.
Love how genuinely upset and furious Pat gets at his hypothetical There Was A Hole scenario that hasn't happened (yet)
Because even if it’s not definitively going to happen, when they’ve managed to do so much worse, it’s really not hard to see it being reality
"You don't realize it's your fault James" is a line that could realistically be said in that game because there can never be anything good in this world
Because we all know Bloober won't be able to help themselves.
Get ready for the Pyramid Head Origin Story too btw
@@Loffeleiforigin is someone made a painting, and James saw it
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeatYes but I'm not expecting these devs to have enough self restraint to not make PH into a real guy with a sad backstory
"Pre-order weapons" made me physically flinch
It's still not as cringe as the "It's Trauma!" Sticker/Emote...
That was just gross.
And a thing that has actually happened.
Don't you want the special golden radio and pipe?
@@Brave_SJ special golden pipe has a 5% damage bonus
They kinda already did that for downpour.
Downpour had special lockers that you needed a code to open, but the game never gives you a code to unlock them.
You'd get the code as a pre-order bonus from specific retailers (gamestop and amazon iirc).
Depending on what code you got, it'd unlock new exclusive weapons for that playthrough. It sucked so bad.
@@add8402 The funny thing is that those codes are universal, so you can use them with any version of the game. It still sucks but it at least wasn't like an actual exclusive thing.
Small corrections on James Sunderland and Guy Cihi. He was accompanying his daughter for an audition and they asked him to audition as well, and he ended up being the best performer for the role. There weren't many english VAs in Japan at the time, so I guess competition was not very stiff. For a lot of english voice acting in games they just got random foreigners in there, but SH2 did have auditions, even if the talent pool... Uh, was less than ideal.
Also, Guy said that he was going through a tough divorce at the time, so it's interesting to think that it might have colored his performance. Although I'm still in awe at Monica Taylor Horgan, who acted for Maria and Mary, did such a phenomenal job... And then disappeared from any media that we know of. Early game VA was so crazy.
Ya know I can totally relate to the whole "I'm going through a lot and it's affecting every aspect of who I am even how I speak" I know I'm starting to slip into depression when I don't hear any modulation in my voice. Like you can't even "sound" alive it's just a dead pan all the way through.
Thank you for correcting Pat's crazy talk. Glad Woollie also caught it. Pat says things with such conviction
Monica Taylor Horgan has been credited in a few other things, namely Shenmue 1+2 as recently as 2018, but she was likely focussing on raising her daughter. The Silent Hill Memories fansite managed to interview her in 2011 and she says a lot about the contract with Konami and how shady it was, how Konami tried to waive their rights for their voices for the HD remake etc. She also apparently did the Mary letter in ONE TAKE - the first time she read it was the time we hear in the game. '...and it was a perfect take the first time. I remember distinctly everyone taking a Loooooong moment afterward. We nailed it. Great material. And a solid read. Probably the best I ever did.'
Wasn’t it Troy Baker who was going through divorce? I mean he was the one who did the voice work for sh2 remaster
@@Mercy_Plays_YT That was THE FIRST TAKE IF HER READING THE FIRST TIME?!?! Are you shitting me?! I'm not calling you a liar by any means but that's unbelievable, as in it's so shocking I have a hard time believing it.
Amazing.
And she barely did anything else.
More significant than the Nurse doing a cover vault, to me, is that James clearly knows how to shoot a shotgun eith competition form now, down to the elbow cock. Instead of doing it concerningly wrong, and making the shots slow and stressful
James held every gun in the worst possible way in the original, especially the shotgun. The recoil nearly knocked him over. It took him ages to pump another round in or work the bolt action on the rifle. He had obviously never used them before. Now James is working the bolt without even looking at it, and firing off shotgun rounds like nobody's business. It's shameful.
@@mortified0 seriously. And like- I could believe that.. Someone was like "Well he has to shoot them good, it's over the shoulder now". But there's totally things you could do. Like, have random chances he forgets to pump between shells, trigger panic, or get his sleeve caught on the bolt or something- maybe if he's walking while shooting he just trips all over. Things *people who don't do guns are liable to do*. And then if you just, absolutely can't refuse dumb exec, you set it up so over the course of a game the errors happen less frequently, and he adopts the more stable but still incorrect stances people figure out with guns if left to their own devices. But it's *really* hard to not just immediately go "No, they just. Don't care." And it's infuriating
@@therapymutt1468 That would be great mechanics for a sanity system in a horror game.
Like in addition to hallucinations and the game fucking with your controls or angles, you could have an increased chance of dropping a shell or stuttering with the reload.
@@therapymutt1468
Ok but if he doesnt shoot good how will I win the bang bang spooky shoot game?
I'm reminded of cooking eggs as was explained to me by a chef. In that eggs are kind of amazing and you can do a lot of things with them, but it is very VERY easy to screw up eggs. A horror setting that takes a persons latent guilt/trauma/fears and manifests them as physical challenges to overcome is obviously a very powerful concept to tell very gripping stories, but MAN is it easy to screw up.
And The Medium was like seasoning those eggs with arsenic!
A big part of it is that the people who want to make games based on that have no personal experience with it, don't know anyone with any personal experience with it, do not consult anyone with personal (I suppose also professional) experience with it. There is no reason for them to want to make a game with these themes or topics, they just know it's something popular that will get them credit and possibly props for being "brave" or doing something "important." The things that land their intention the best are made by people that actually have a personal connection or passion with whatever that is. From a platformer to an action game to a game with serious subject matter.
how tf do you screw up eggs????
@outwrangle dude you can burn eggs so easily and if you cook them for too long they turn out bland. We havent even gotten ibto the seasoning/spice part of it
@@outwrangle
Good omelets are a fucking BITCH to make, dude. Especially French Omelets, those are notorious for filtering even experienced chefs.
If Bloober Team wants to be cool, they should have Laura run into a wall like that baby in Layers of Fear
That you can trigger over and over
Not gonna lie.
If they had an Easter egg where that happened it would be hilarious.
if bloober team werent cowards theyd do a fortnite collab
In fairness, they removed that in LOF 2023
They could also steal some more scenes from Indiana Jones, barely change them and stick them in Sh2R 😂
To quote Masahiro Ito: "I wish I hadn't designed fucking Pyramid Head"
If it wasnt him, it would be something else.
Searching for "what shakes a human heart" and it turned out hacks reusing a specific enemy you designed for a specific character in situations is doesn't make sense was the answer all along
At least in short message it's your mom dressed as your bisexual tormentor, just really weird the whole mini game focuses on the vapid chick who got groomed by an older dude then gets bullied by the main character, when the protag literally got locked in a closet and watched her baby brother die and get shoved into a freezer. like it feels like two different teams wrote the plot of this game. One wants to propose Maya is the descendent of a witch the other says it's all Anita's personal guilt trial.
I'm glad Resident Evil didn't start having Nemesis in every game. It kept the general idea, but it didn't make the mistake of thinking the specific monster was important.
@@DriscolDevil I dunno lady D could be my pyramid head any day
This video aged strangely.
Hearing woolie say he lab the combat in silent hill sent me to another world of cackling.
When you Lab in Silent hill we call that the Trauma Ward
Woolie would lab grocery checkout systems if there weren’t people in line behind him. Man was born a scientist and belongs in a white coat, counting frames to find optimal tooth brushing strats, trying to understand why the chemicals in his brain trick him into liking jetpacks. And we love him for it.
I 1000% agree with Woolie, there's almost no way the letter will be even close to as good.
Incoming AI voice generated reading of the letter mod.
@@sunkeyavad6528or they’ll have a RUclipsr voice it
@@morbidtoaster8615 markiplier
@@LargeInCharge77see that would be outrageous enough to make me want to play it out of morbid curiosity.
Just hope they don't use comic sans this time
I still have the original Silent Hill 2. That's all I need.
You need a system to play it tho 🤑🤌
😂
@@alldayagain Yes, yes and you need a TV and a controller and cables. Wicked sick observational humor, Seinfeld.
@@alldayagain I have a PS2.
@@krodmandoon3479 The Seinfeld theme started playing in my head.
@krodmandoon3479 I was playing it up like a slimey businessman, like "here's the new ps5! And on the side here, he have a "backwards compatibility" disc slot, perfect for your PS2-copy of Silent Hill 2" and it's just a tucking shredder taped to the console 🤣
Technically if you want to follow the legacy of SH, your best bet is to play Siren, since Team Silent's members went on to form Siren Project / Team Gravity
Those members left in 2020 and formed Bokeh Studio, which announced their first game in 2021 (Slitterhead)
So yeah, if you wanna keep tabs on what theyre doing, keep an eye out for Bokeh Studio going forward.
i'm not really into horror games that much, but i watched a bit of one of the Siren games, and the music is incredible :o
especially the ones with throat singing
Bro, any word on Slitterhead?
I forgot about Slitterhead. Feels like Kowloon’s Gate but more emphasis on horror
Even before I knew they were basically made by the same people, I always felt Siren had such similar vibes to Silent Hill despite being almost completely different gameplaywise.
Hot take: the best Silent Hill game that's not Silent Hill is actually Rule of Rose.
Amnesia: The Bunker is the perfect example of giving the player a working, good-to-control, and decently-powerful gun yet still makes you wet yourself when you need to use it.
Because you actually have to _load_ and _aim_ the gun. It isn't just pressing buttons and your character handles the rest. The player has to manually put each bullet into their revolver, close the barrel, hold the gun up so that you can aim, and then when you fire, you'd better hope whatever you're shooting at either goes down, or gives you enough time to either re-aim due to the knock-back, or run away, cause you are _dead_ if it doesn't.
It's super hard to pull off without making the player frustrated, but if I was making a horror game, that would be the philosophy I would use when designing the gun-play.
The shotgun in the Bunker is like the flamethrower in Alien: Isolation. The second I got it I was like “PAYBACK TIME BITCH!”
It was such a sense of RELIEF after scrambling around in terror for so long.
It's even better because every bullet spent on an enemy is a lock you can't shoot open.
A gun in horror needs to be a tool and ideally a last resort that doesn’t remove threats but provides potential for maybe a few seconds of safety to allow ebb and flow of player tension. Having other uses for bullets is a good start, and making it difficult enough to use that the player doesn’t immediately pull it out as the first solution to a problem is another.
Hearing Pat talk about all these fine, important details reminds me of a comment they mentioned back in one of the old LPs like "this is like listening to Pat talk about Dark Souls, except he's not completely wrong about everything"
These details I unfortunately never hear anyone else ever show a sign of hearing about
I have mightily enjoyed coming back to this video with maximum hindsight
The credits will have James look into the camera and say "My name is James." Then he'll skateboard away while flipping the bird. The skateboard is ng+ weapon and James will do a sick kickflip like the meme
And somehow ends up in the Big Shell attacking Cyphers and doing jumps
Okay, to be fair, SH3 had some rather silly NG+ stuff
The best part about the combat trailer is the first 20 seconds, when there was no combat. After that it just reminded me of Silent Hill Homecoming.
In all seriousness, there is ONE thing they can do to unfix the combat, but make it usable enough to actually use.
Add sway. James isn't a soldier. He's not gonna be spinning guns like Ocelot and b-hopping through Silent Hill. The dude's panicking facing nightmare monsters and fighting for his life, so his grip on guns is gonna be loose and shaky at best.
Alan Wake 2 did a similar thing. Alan's less accurate with his gun than Saga is, purely because she's a trained FBI agent with firearms training and Wake is a writer who last used guns OVER A DECADE AGO.
And as Woolie mentioned, make reloading take a second or two longer than it should. You can also add in James not knowing how to handle the recoil of guns, especially the rifle.
This would be brilliant and everyone would sort of get what they want that way.
@@TAMAMO-VIRUS Perfect. It doesn't make guns completely useless, but it makes them a lot less viable as opposed to melee weapons or just straight RUNNING from enemies.
Add say and a second-extra reload time and we've done it.
They also did this in RE7 to great effect.
In the beginning it's almost impossible to accurately shoot the mold because of the sway, recoil and head bobbing of the enemies weird movement pattern.
But by the end you're better but not so much better it feels professional.
That would be super cool as a feature, I remember RE4 (the PS2 one) having a lil bit of sway and shake, even Leon being a super cop couldn't control his shaky hands in the tension of the moment so why would average joe James Sunderland do?
Silent Hill 2 is about the dialogue...It's almost like no one who did the Remake knows the main theme of SH2 is about running away and avoiding problems. James flailing around and the Eddie "fight" being 2 idiots running around in circles was great. Even Harry in 1 looking like he's never held a gun or hit something in his life is such a good detail
For me, the twist in Silent Hill 2 works entirely because Silent Hill 1 conditioned me to think that the spooky stuff was the result of cults and magics and ghosts etc. If I went into the game viewing Silent Hill only as a personal trauma crucible, the twists wouldn’t work. I would see through everything. This is not a concept that should have been done a second time, never mind one that took over the entire identity of the franchise
Fucking EXACTLY. And clearly Team Silent thought so too as they didn't even approach that angle again.
The best thing about Silent Hill to me is the inspiration from that Lovecraft short story ( i think is "The darkness under the bell tower" or something). Basically it's the story of a depressed writer who uncovers a cult in an abandoned church ( as he gazes in what is basically a flauros.) What is so cool about that story and Silent Hill imo is that at it's core the monsters are real. It isn't some sort of lucid nightmare, everything is real. So yes you get the psycological introspection AND the cosmic horror. I hope bloober team doesn't screw that up by making it all a dream
And even then, when you think about it, they didnt even completely omit traces of cult behavior that was present in the town. It just isn't evident to many because of a book that is hidden. However, the fact that one of the endings involves James doing a cult ritual also shows that Team Silent didn't completely abandon the cult concept. It just wasn't on the forefront that time.
@@Disco4ia exactly SH1 is about the cult but SH2 is more about a random "Festival of the Mist". Which makes it so cool to me because it shows you how fucked up the town is even without the cult. The way 1 and 2 are completely opposite and yet perfectly fit in the same universe is really good.
@Lampoluke yeah I agree. As flawed as some of the real silent hill experience is in some parts, I also fall in line with the idea that SH2 is the aftermath of how the forces of the town were warped by the cult. They don't have to be the center fold of every sh story but I remember that some of the western devs of the later games didn't like the cult and wanted to stay away from it by any means. All while warping what the town could be and creating their new canon of how things work. I'm ranting into winding paths at this point though I will take a chill lol
Correction Pat: James in the Silent Hill 2 Remake is being voiced by Luke Roberts.
Thank god it’s not Troy baker
Pat: "Who's voicing James in the remake? Troy Baker!"
CRAZY TALK
@@chuckin6823 She talks crazy talk. She can make a man a ruin.
BTW Luke Roberts was fucking ace in this show Black Sails as Woodes Rogers.
bloober CANNOT handle angela
Pat jokes that he doesn't even know if Mary's original voice actor is still alive, but I can't find anything about her that isn't after 2001. She was only ever in 2 things (Shenmue and SH2).
Did they ever find Heather's actress? I remember hearing that Konami wanted to reach out to her to get her permission to reuse her lines for the HD collection, but apparently she made like Inezh and just dropped off the face of the planet.
@@NucleaRaptorGetting all the permissions for SH3 was going to be impossible from the get go, Douglas's og VA died around the time the game first released IIRC. I guess maybe in that case it would fall onto the family to okay it?
Someone did find her for an interview though yeah.
So, she's basically a franchise killer?
The early days of video game voice acting was so fascinating. A lot of non-actors, or people who were not actors for very long before their careers and lives went a different direction came and went extremely quickly. It was an era where we weren't all as online too, so some barely left a footprint outside of their roles.
@@ryangallagher8194And it was better that way. I hate hearing and recognizing the same 5 voice actors in everything, especially in dubbed work.
Silent Hill just SHOULDN'T be a franchise. A couple dudes got together and made a couple banger fucking games, and thats ALL it should have been
Pat is the Art Cop of the Silent Hill series. Every time a new one comes out, he can't even look at this shit...
His sensibilities are being spoiled by this knock of trash
I bet James will climb into the hole at the bar and end up in Henry Townshend's bathroom.
I mean that is kinda a cool idea, seeing as they are the two games to mention Walter Sullivan. But like Pat, I'd prefer there never being a hole
That'd make more sense than seeing the Door to Henry's room in Downpour at least
Or inside John Malcovich's head
“Get Pyramid Head’s sword early” that phrase hit me with like a ton of bricks, thankfully I have a my PS2 copy of both 2 and 3 so I didn’t care about the remake I could just ignore it. But that phrase pinned me to the ground and shoved itself down my gobhole I swear to god I hate it.
I remember Silent Hill Downcoming...
After watching the downcoming comp again, yeah it looks wildly similar
One of the best lps I've ever seen about that game was from Matt and Patt
What about Homepour tho?
There was an axe here. It's gone now
I'll make my own silent hill, there'll be no trauma, there'll be cults and there'll be aliens.
....h.p lovecraft?
(well, I mean, he never called them aliens. )
Throw in a doge and you got yourself a deal.
@@marialuke2116 haven't added anything lovecraftian yet, but it'll probably happen.
Dead Space?
@@deadnalive9166 And it WON'T be a shooting game, right? ...right?
PATS WRONG ABOUT DOWNPOUR, partially.
He wasn't traumatized by getting revenge.
But by the good prison guard who trusted him getting killed because of him in the process by the evil guard.
He blames himself for his death. Not the other murderer.
It's kinda hilarious about how big of a fuck up that is, because the game is VERY explicit with it. I don't think Murphy EVER says he regrets killing that fatso abuser, so it's kinda funny that he somehow managed to latch on to that being a fact of all things.
@@codyhax0995 tbf, idk how long it's been since Pat last played downpour.
I know I forgot the plot multiple times myself over the years.
@@alephnole7009 True, though this segment being started with the fact of how much he cares about the franchise, only to misremember one of the games he is criticizing is quite ironic and funny.
In downpour, the extent of Murphy's actions change based on his ending. If you were good, Murphy got himself locked up to kill his son's killer, beat him severely, but couldn't go through with killing him because Murphy is a good person. The problem was that the prison guard who helped him also wanted him to kill another guard, and Murphy wouldn't play ball.
It's still bad and convoluted.
@@SciontheDark It isn't bad or conveluted, it's just a twist if anything. The story is still very much consistent if you take the good ending as a basis.
Knowing Bloober Team, I'm half expecting for the game to require you to shoot Angela in order to get the good ending
Pat: Layers of fear by unity!
Matt: Okay, not by unity, you saw a little developer name right before that did you not Pat?
Pat: It was blood boobs...
Matt: It was actually Blooper Team. Want to want to throw any guess about who Blooper Team is?
Pat: I do not.
Matt: It's the remnants of the team that made Sadness...
Pat: Did that ever come out?
Matt: No.
Pat: Yeah, okay...
Matt: But the team kind of disbanded and became Blooper Team and they're also not great at developing things...
Pat: Not putting out that game was a Big Blooper.
From Shitstorm 4 - Layers of Fear on Super Best Friends Play channel. This is what I thought of when Bloober Team was announced as the developers of the SH2 remake. Not the best company to do a remake of such a beloved entry to the best (and worst) horror franchise of all time.
“Out-footsied Pyramid Head” is an amazing grouping of words.
I’ve been waiting to come back to this till after he finished the remake and I’m so glad I did 😂
What did you think? Good, bad, or mid?
This aged good
The irony is you can do both a story about the cult and the crucible of trauma, because they did it already, it was called Silent Hill 3. It's the sad fact that the crucible of trauma idea is not inherently bad, it just drew all the worst pseudo-intellectuals to it like moths to a flame to make their hackjob stories using monsters as on-the-nose metaphors because 2 managed to do it well. And that's how we ended up with stuff like Downpour, Homecoming, and Origins. There are potentially good ideas in them, but they get drowned under all their attempts to be SH2 because they're terrified of being anything else.
SH3 is so good. Shame it doesn’t get as much adoration as too, though I love them both
What I resent is that it didn't get enough credit at the time. There was an entire subplot about how various cult members viewed religion through their own personal biases and interpretations. And that in fact, the cult religion evolved over time as a result of cultural drift -- you find documents in game alluding to this fact. Part of the cult's lore is cribbing off Christianity. And you see that struggle play out in the cult NPC's.
Vincent is the self-serving skeptic using the religion to enrich himself. While that's ignoble in his way, he really does believe, he just doesn't like the weird magical bs going on around him and thinks the other members are clearly crazy. Leonard is the intolerant crusading knight smiting heretics, which we see was a formative dream for him in childhood. Claudia wants to birth their god as a way of compensating for her past childhood abuse and traumas, since she figures any sacrifice for a kinder world is justified.
Also Valtiel has a silhouette and profile vaguely reminiscent of Pyramid Head. Gesturing at the idea that both are simply the same entity donning different masks to play different roles in whatever current "psychological play" is currently happening around it. The town is a dark mirror that reflects what you bring into it.
But this is an angle of analysis I pretty much _never_ hear about SH3. I thought it was an interesting commentary on religion. It's very much shaped by the personal biases and needs of its congregants and is a much more fluid and malleable thing than believers would like to think. (The idea of angels being winged people is a recent invention, for example.)
13:30 Do no if Pat is serious about it but the original VA for James went to the casting for the part (with his daughter who was auditioning for Laura) and got the part legitimately.
guy cihi getting the part of james is so funny bc he was there bc he took his daughter to the audition for the part of laura, same with eddies VA
Silent Hill 4 rules. The only new one i'm a bit hyped about is the one with Higurashi writer, it's proably barely Silent Hilly but i'm hoping it's just something original something interesting.
blessed r07, save us...
Ohhhhhh same, story wise we are in for a treat with Silent Hill f
I can't wait to do sick tactical rolls and QTEs to protect Angela from the abstract daddy. Or have Eddie hiding behind waist high cover like it's Gears of War
I wanna do the In Water Ending to myself.
Don't forget having to juggle running from two Pyramid Heads and loading a harpoon gun that is just in that room for some reason at the end of the game.
This is mirroring plague of gripes reaction to hearing dark souls 1 getting a remaster
I kinda wanna see James wall bounce and doing shotgun kills
That would be surreal.
Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing James do aerial raves using a steel pipe.
then do it instead of being cute about it, wuss.
So I don't like the escort quest retread second half of the game but I really REALLY liked Silent Hill 4. Just the first person in that nasty scary appartment gets to me so bad. The fact that the game lets you think you're safe for so long only to start having hauntings happen if you make certain choices is so great.
The themes of home and what makes a place your home and what it does to you to have that undermined is so great.
"Signalis" is a better "Silent Hill" game then like the last 10 years of "Silent Hill" games.
They bring up the letter and the combat and other glaring red flags about this remake, but to me there's a massive elephant in the room that I would stake my life on Bloober Team botching: Angela. Her entire character from her introduction, to her themes of suicidal ideation and childhood trauma, to the incredibly bleak and defeatist resolution of her story there's no way in hell they're going to handle any of that with any degree of subtlety or tact.
Yes; I love Angela as a character and feel for her deeply; she is one of, if not the most, sympathetic characters in the franchise. I'm particularly worried about the subtext of her father's abuse on her. The game never uses the word 'rape'. and even if you take Angela's words at face value ('Or you could just force me. Beat me up like... he... he always did.) could still just represent physical abuse where her father is making her do things (housework, chores, etc). However, we know what did happen and I'm worried they're going to spell it out - like James' own trauma, it's supposed to creep up on you until you sit there going 'oh. ...fuck'. Subtlety and tact will be missing.
I also found out something pretty horrible when I looked for the Angela quote: Ito confirmed that what Angela sees when the Abstract Daddies attack her is WAY WORSE than what James sees - which is bad enough.
What I like about Angela is that she is an obstacle to James, he knows he should probably stop and help her but he is on his mission. It makes her come off as almost annoying at times because James wants to move on. I would be afraid they'd make her too sympathetic to the point where the player character's actions seem ridiculously cruel.
Also for some reason she looks really....off in the trailer
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat
I don't mind that she's overweight, but I do mind that her facial animations and model quality are way lower than the ps2 prerendered cutscenes. _That's_ troubling.
Angela is so important because Silent Hill writers not getting her story is the reason why they keep writing Silent Hill badly. Lots of writer’s approach to Silent Hill is that it is a place that is punishing sinners for being bad people, which then ultimately makes Silent Hill a force for retributive justice. I always remember the stupid scene in Silent Hill Downpour where a fucking _Christian nun_ is basically explaining to Murphy that he did the bad thing and needs to face his guilt.
But Angela is very obviously a victim of horrific chronic abuse, and her violent actions that she is being punished for are reactions to repeat physical/sexual assault. Her actions could be considered retributive justice, but Silent Hill isn’t any less cruel to her than anyone else.
Imagine that stupid nun scene happening with Angela, with the nun telling this suicidal rape victim that she needs to face her guilt for killing the people that raped her.
Because Silent hill isn’t a place of retributive justice to punish the guilty, its a liminal hellspace that collects trauma. The people who end up there in Silent Hill 2 are not just murderers, they are also abuse victims who killed their abusers and it doesn’t care why they did it. It’s a situation more complicated than most writers are capable of handling well, let alone writers as bad at handling abuse themes as Bloober Team.
Look, WE ALL have very valid reasons to have doubts about this remake. This video is a perfect time capsule of which ones and why. But I can't remember the last time so many people online were collectively so happy about being wrong about something!
13:50 I love your point about Guy Cihi so much. He was in the right place in the right time. It's impossible to manufacture that, man!
My theory of why SM was good is bc the same team that salvaged Origins on the pcp when the og company it was pimped out to went under, so they were already experienced with Konami's crap going in. It also could be the head dev actually had a grasp on the series bc when they got on with Origins he was out right like "idk why this series needed a sequel"
Right now SM could mean Shattered Memories or Short Message
@@ramonekiwari7196 ShaMe or ShoMe
Pat gains the same kind of energy Woolie gets from racism when he sees his beloved games getting awful remakes/sequels.
Did Woolie play RDR2, and if so, did he kick the shit outta the eugenicist? It’s a Saint Denise tradition 😊
Oy Rockstar games he's touches is GTA 3 I think and LA Noire@@stingerjohnny9951
Woolie: I will lab anything! I will lab every Silent Hill! I will lab Lego Star Wars!
Also Woolie: I will do nothing but press square over and over in Arkham Asylum and complain.
To be fair Woolie did lab off screen, he said he did multiple times but when in the middle of combat it’s hard to apply what you lab in real time
@@Zeronigel332 Damn, and I started to find Arkham City easy with time nowadays. Really strange contrast cause I had some stumbles on my 1st playthrough of Asylum, but that was mainly stealth.
I know it sounds lot like saying "skill issue", but it's taking my head for spin trying to understand why he's struggling with Asylum of all games.
@@leithaziz2716 well it’s different when you are talking and trying to be entertaining while playing the game
@@Zeronigel332 I'm a giant Arkham Asylum mark, but the combat in that game is the weakest out of all of them. I will put it above everything else but combat is simple, there's no labbing needed for it.
I can understand that Woolie would've gained something if it was City or Origins or Knight, but not Asylum, if he can't understand the basics of combat then he's just not going to get it.
It's mildly amusing that Hellblade by ninja theory of all people is arguably a better silent hill game thematically and presentation wise than most silent hill games for the past decades.
I mean, Ninja Theory made games, actual playable ones with uniqueness.
Bloober just squirts walking sims (derogatory).
Hellblade feels like the thing they always wanted to achieve. I don't particularly love it, but it's their vision, and undeniably was something being brewed throughout their lifetime.
SH2 Remake is just... Ughhh guess we'll do this now (I'm prolly being super reductive, but that's the feeling they pass).
it just occurred to me the same studio made one game called Hellblade, and a previous one called Heavenly Sword
HEAVEN AND HELL LETS ROCK
@@foo3268oh, not shitting on NT as devs. Its more that Enslaved, Donte: el Exterminador de Demonios, and Heavenly Sword are significantly different kinds of games compared to Hellblade. Hellblade is just a whole nother level of ambition that they managed to achieve very well.
I have pretty much zero faith in bloober on the other hand. I hope its not bad, I never really want a game to be bad, but I doubt it'll be a good remake.
Hellblade was great. I loved the voices in my head.
I only new about two best friends back in the day and I was skeptical about their let's play channel, but when I watched their Downpour LP oh man I knew I would never unsub from that channel.
I was aware of TBF prior to them starting their LPs.
But I was more into them doing LP's considering the first one was Resident Evil 2.
The funny thing about Homecoming's UFO ending is that the choices you have to do to get it are choices that actually seem pretty logical given the game's story.
If I remember correctly, wasn't it just. "Spoilers"
Mercy Kill Alex's mom, Forgive Alex's father actions, and save Wheeler? In which case, are all the GOOD OPTIONS. Also, I just remember that Wheeler is a joke character, cause the only ending he affects is THE UFO ENDING. *Homecoming is worse than Downpour*
@@AceRevero I can't remember if you have to forgive his dad or not, but the other choices are correct.
Okay to be fair homecoming and origins were about the cult and the personal trauma
Ironically, I feel like the kid in Layers of Fear running into the wall is somehow more "Silent Hill" than any modern attempts at Silent Hill.
The wall graffiti is so on the nose. You might as well call the game Screaming Mountain.
Along with that, it's very interesting to learn that Maria and Mary basically only share a face. It's another layer to the game pointing at you, like James only takes things at face value.
I can't wait for zany RE4 remake style action in my depression horror game
Can't wait to suplex my [REDACTED] into the water!
"Where'd everyone go, Bingo?" - James Sunderland
@@SSD_Penumbra"Where'd that hole go? Bingo?"
@@Who_is_Ari "Hasta La Luego" while fighting Pyramid Head and doing sick knife-parries.
Suplex the abstract daddy to save Angela
I came back to rewatch this now that the remake is out and now that I think about it isn't Pat misremembering Downpour?
I dont hate Silent Hill 2
I just hate what it represents for the rest of the franchise post "The Room".
Its kinda the same with RE4, most people (including myself) love that game, but lets be honest here, RE4 kinda almost ruined Resident Evil, with RE6 being the epitome of how messy and bad Resident Evil as a franchise got to be, of course, later we get RE7, and on a way lesser extend Revelations 2, be the games that brought back the horror aspect of the survival horror of Resident Evil, and then we have RE2 Remake being the perfect balance between survival horror and "over the shoulder camera" gun action.
@@alejandro9043 You can't blame the people that made the good game for other people missing the point and making bad games. Re6 didn't even keep the best stuff from the RE4 system, like weapon upgrades.
I still maintain RE7 is proudly in the pantheon of really good Capcom action games. It's just a bad RE game.
I mean, parries, quickshots that intertupt AND combo, i-frame dodge, high and low attacks you can dive under and roll out of the overhead followup? Fuck, RE7 is the best gun-based melee game ever.@@alejandro9043
you are TEARING ME APART, KONAMI
@@alejandro9043 everybody trying to be SH2 made personal demon monsters lame, bring back the occult shit!
Need more Harry Mason's(I just wanna end this nightmare and go home!) protags and less James's (I'm sad, guilt ridden and traumatized) protags.
Kinda just wanna go back to when the the main characters personal issues didn't project itself onto the town in anyway.
mark my words the way bloober treats this type of subect matteer the lake ending might be the only ending now.
It's the only ending that makes sense
@thecaptain6520 I don't really agree, I've always had the opinion woolie came to here, that the game presents a scenario and your actions in game dictate how James really deals with it. It's a depressing ending, and it fits if we play the game as if James can't really deal with the loss, his part in it and moving on, but there's the Leave ending which shows us if James really does take Mary's final words to heart and realizes he really did love his wife and he's not some monster, that they were dealt a really shitty hand.
@@theyellowlurker5201 i think people forget that James forgives himself regardless of which ending you get. the endings basically only recontextualize why he does so and what he chooses to do with his life afterwards.
in that sense In Water has always felt quite anticlimactic to me, despite it being by far the most emotional and well-performed ending. in In Water, James still has a moment of perfect clarity, still triumphs over his demons, resolves his guilt, defeats his tormentors, and then... decides he can't live without his wife anyway, the same as if he'd never come to Silent Hill at all, probably even the same as if Mary had just died of her illness.
and certainly that's tragic - in fact it's among the most debilitating gut punches in video game history - but people misconstrue that as necessarily making it the most fitting by default. and i don't think simple tragedy (no matter how well-executed) is what made SH2 resonate with so many people; it's not just a story about having unbearable burdens, but also the pain of carrying them onwards, choosing to accept that pain, to survive it, in memory of someone you loved and did everything in your power to help.
@@conelybiscuit4985 Well fuckin put, I don't love SH2 for the tragedy, I love it for just how human it is, whether it be in our darkest or most hopeful moments.
@@thecaptain6520 All the (serious) endings make sense.
I've said it before in Woolie's LP, the endings aren't good or bad, it's different levels of how James copes with the fact about Mary.
In Water - is admitting his guilt and punishing himself.
Maria - is refusing to admit guilt and dooming himself to repeat the same sins
Leave - is admitting his guilt but moving on.
The drawback of creating a great work of art is that it will inspire hundreds of crapper pretenders that aren't half as good, Silent Hill 2 sounds like Watchmen of Horror games. Great but create worst versions of itself in the aftermath.
The analogy fits even more just due to all the shitty spin offs, prequels, sequels (the show is okay for a bit), The remake (movie) being entirely missing of the point, and not to mention all the corporate bullshit that makes the creator hate the project with a passion
Watchmen is a good story, but I am just not a fan of its attitude at all.
Last note, the only thing I would accept as DLC for this game would be a remake of the Born From A Wish campaign where you play as Maria.
Pat thats not it, Murphy is the Punisher because he crippled the warden to get close to his kids killer and that's why the main guard lady hates him so much because its not Murphys trauma its her trauma.
Silent Hill 4 is more similar to Silent Hill 2 than 1 or 3 though. While yes, they do reference the cult, and the cult does play a part in the story, the cult doesn't play the role the same way that 1 and 3 does. Much like Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 4's environment/otherworld is related to Walter Sullivan's psyche, kinda like how Silent Hill 2 revolves around James. So the argument saying Silent Hill 2 is unique to the personal trauma focus in the og team silent games is just wrong. 4 did it as well, only difference is that it revolves around the antagonist, not the protagonist. The cult in SH4 is only mentioned in order to provide context of Walter's upbringing and his motives; SH4 was never focused on the cult itself like SH1 and SH3.
Silent Hill has always worked better when it played like a point and click adventure game where the puzzle was sometimes "use weapon on monster."
that doesn't work
that doesn't work
that doesn't work
ok it worked that time
That's exactly it. Combat was a solution to a problem, not the crux of the gameplay. It's like Bloober Team went "oh it has guns? That must mean it's a shooter".
as much I hate Silent Hill Homecoming, at least the cult is very much involved in that plot and the crucible of trauma is just a side effect of said cult AS IT SHOULD BE.
Troy Baker isn't voicing James this time, but all your points still stand.
Funny coming back to this now 😊...GG bloober u done it justice!
Small correction for Pat: You cant get the Downpour joke ending on your first playthrough. Digging up the past is only available on your 2nd playthrough!
The safest choice for the letter would be to just use the original audio. Try to clean up the quality a bit if need be.
Just wanted to refresh some people's memories. Pat is just wrong about Downpour's story.
The Boogieman is NOT Murphy's guilt about killing abuser. The Boogieman AND everything about Murphy's story in Silent Hill is about him confronting the fact that, to kill the abuser, he had to do a favour to a piece of shit officer. That piece of shit, made so Murphy had to kill a very good officer, which had become friends with Murphy during the time he spent in prison. When he had to do it, Murphy did not do it, but he was not able to save the good officer from being stabbed and essentially left for dead by the evil officer, the good officer eventually dying in horrible basically invalid state. Murphy blames himself for the good officer's death and the Boogieman is literal manifestation of his guilt and want to be punished because for his fuck up. Murphy straight up does not regret killing the abuser who killed his son, never stated to have ever regretted it on any notes or lines, i believe.
If anything, Downpour's story is actually fairly consistent, Pat just did not pay attention.
It's also important to note that if Murphy was good, the bad officer explains that Murphy didn't even kill his son's killer.
@@SciontheDark That is true too! Which makes Pat having this conclusion from the plot even more baffling.
I’m just waiting for the jump to “and that’s why downpour was actually amazing guys! I got you”
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat Oh i am not saying Downpour is amazing. It's way better than a actual trashfire like Homecoming, but nowhere near the old Silent Hill games in terms of quality. It's pretty okay and serviceable, would not call it bad though.
The MC in downpour is actually upset about what happened to the good guy guard due to his actions.
Yeah, but the whole thing is *about* the kid. Not the guard. It's like if James had run over a hobo or something, and after the Mary fight, the hobo ghost in a wheelchair shows up for the runback.
That's Downpour.
@@Vulgarth1 If you interpret the Boogeyman as a manifestation of Cunningham's psyche instead of Moiphy's, it kinda makes sense in context though. It's the old "becoming a monster to strike down a monster" thing. Downpour probably could've benefited from another pass at the script, but I thought Vatra had some some solid ideas there.
Basically, Downpour > Homecoming.
@@NucleaRaptor Downpours story is seemingly a, as someone once described it, Speculatory Nightmare.
Oh my god... did... did Pat just reference Face/Off?!
See if they mixed the cult stuff with the crucible of trauma in some games it could work. Imagine a former member of the cult going on the warpath in the game. And you traverse and skull your way through confronting the past and your former compatriots. The themes of self worth and redemption are built into that story. With your character being for ed to answer if they are worthy to even place judgement on the cult. With there being a broken ending, a rage ending, a servile ending, and an absolution ending. Where depending on the actions and the items taken or left behind your character this former cult member either strikes against the cult and faces the consequences of their actions afterward.
I wonder how much the remake is gonna fail on the fear of the confusing and the unknowable.
Considering how The Medium turned out this will be a dumpster fire of epic proportion
Don't wanna be that guy, but iirc the birthday ending for downpour was something you had to go out of your way to find.
Pat’s Maria/Mary explanation gave me chills.
which is also annoying because it encapsulates the problem with him and other diehard fans of this. The minor nitpick.
It's instantly proven by asking Woolie that that's such a minute detail, that while cool and a nice fun fact, he didn't even realize that. Why would he? As Pat admits Maria and Mary are never in the same room, or scene.
Heck, I didn't even realize that, the only reason one would is if they extensively tried to read a bunch of essays for the game because this game was one of the biggest magnet for marks who want to feel smart. AND THAT'S FINE! But it's also why this series is is partly in a rut, not just by the fumblings of the studio, but because anytime a new one comes out its all "ITS NOT 2DEEP4ME ENOUGH!" and when it does try to be 2deep4u, they get upset its on the nose.
@@SteelBallRun1890There's a difference between the deepness being subtle game design details, and the "deepness" just being outright lore logs or exposition dumps. In a well written, fully thought through world, you feel or sense the depth instead of outright seeing it. But a deep dive shouldn't be necessary for enjoyment of the media.
An example is the background world of Lord of the Rings. If you only read the main trilogy, you may not know about the whole 1st and 2nd Age epic in the Silmarillion. But you feel the history behind the places they go, and the snippets of song or poems they recite. You may not know Tolkien was a linguist who invented 11 full languages for his world, but you feel the cohesion between every name and line spoken by the elves.
Back in Silent Hill: if you're playing a psychological experience, and you feel oppressed the whole way through without knowing about model changes or flashlight angles, you're playing a good game. If you had to have Pat or a wiki tell you details from alternate endings to feel the atmosphere, then you've done "depth" wrong.
@@jorgamund07 which is ironic because not that Silent Hill 2 fails to capture everything you said, but a lot of what Pat explains for SH2 in their old LP in the old channel, would fly by the majority of people who played it.
He even said on the old channel that if he has to know the monsters name in the game itself, then the game has failed. Because the only way you'd know these monster names is if someone told you because they got some Silent Hill artbook or something telling you what the artists intended them to be.
Like the whole spiel about "You Reap What You Sow", he says that's on the nose (and it is), while dismissing the whole "Mary's dead, you're going to hell, James" in the original as if it was some vague message and not an outright intent. Only reason you would know what Reap What You Sow's intention is because people already know what SH2 remakes deal is, and that's the whole problem.
RE4make's main problem was living up to the gameplay, no one needs some refixing of the story, the story isn't anything special its a typical action horror story.
SH2 remake's problem is that everyone already knows SH2, and every essayist and wiki or wherever you read the deep lore and symbolisms to feel smart, already unearthed what needed to be said.
@@SteelBallRun1890 I want everyone to know that Pat's observation about Maria is less of a "nitpicky Silent Hill fan" thing and more of a "Pat talking out of his ass" thing.
"every single bone in their head is different" lmao. The way Takayoshi Sato put it was that their faces have the same polygonal structure, but that the "skull and muscle structure is **a little bit different.**" It was a very minor point in the Making Of, and if you actually look at their faces side-by-side you'll see it's not intended to be a huge difference even with the structural changes. But Pat is terrible at identifying physical features on people and gaslit Woolie and his audience into believing he was cooking something there by saying it with confidence.
As for their body sizes being different, I've never compared that myself but it sounds pretty [citation needed] to me. He really does make purists look kind of stupid and arbitrary with some of his claims and I'd rather he didn't.
@@kahir8642 "But Pat is terrible at identifying physical features on people and gaslit Woolie and his audience into believing he was cooking something there by saying it with confidence."
I'm gonna be honest, i just thought Pat heard it somewhere and didn't even check if it was true. So i wouldn't be surprised if their models were actually identical. As people pointed out, this is the issue with Pat, he exaggerates, focuses on miniscule details that someone else probably had to tell him about and spreads meaningless misinformation so much, that it instead detracts from his point. It's the "you don't have to make up shit or focus on miniscule details, when there is plenty of real problems to call out". Pat does it with everything, Cage games, Ubisoft\Ea\Blizzard\etc controversy, Last of US 2, games he doesn't like, games he doesn't care about. What it boils down to is "Pat doesn't care" and at this point he did this so much, that even when he cares, Pat actually rarely checks to get his facts straight and still fall into exaggeration bit, that makes his argument weaker.
I literally didn't believe a bunch of stuff he said about Short Message and it did turn out to be wrong. Yet after watching the whole thing myself it actually somehow was worse than he described. Ironically it is just like the "Strongest animals all live alone" quote from the game aka it's wrong on a fundamental level so it doesn't work anyway, despite the intent of it being purposefully wrong to be corrected at the end of the game.
6:05 oh dear, I know that pain.
I've got fingers crossed for a far fetched: "Retro Studios getting Metroid" scenario but otherwise not much faith until the finished product speaks for itself.
Bloober has stretched "from the creators of Layers of Fear" way further than deserved.
Well holy sh*t they pulled it off!
Man, I'm glad I was never into SH2. I got into the series when SH4 came out. I was actually more interested into the cult shit rather than the psychological stuff
it would've been funny if blooper team said "fuck it this series is a dumpster fire let's get nutty with the gameplay"
and they made silent hill 2 remake with the gameplay mechanics of just cause 2. James is fucking grappling hooking everywhere, snatching helicopters out of the air and hood surfing cars off cliffs. but the story is still dead serious as it was originally.
I can't wait to see the combat skill tree in the remake. You'll have to collect parts of your wife's outfit, which you can then turn into skill points to upgrade accuracy and damage
I'm down with completely redoing the combat. My biggest issue with the combat trailer is that they made a combat trailer for SH2. All SH2 fans want is combat that isn't so actively bad that it hurts the enjoyment of the game. Otherwise, combat is not what any SH2 fan likes that game for. I think they made the combat trailer because they're scared to show more story after the reaction previous trailer and leaks got.
That said, I agree with Pat that combat should not be bombastic. The combat should be like the multiplayer mode in RE3 remake, which is to say like RE2 remake but with melee combat.
This is incredibly incorrect. Troy Baker is NOT playing the new james. I don’t know where the fuck you got that.
The actor is Luke Roberts.
I was just thinking about this, but it occurs to me that Shattered Memories and Homecoming almost feel like parallels to one another. Homecoming tried to play to nostalgia by aping off of SH2 in a way that felt disingenuous and exploitative, Shattered Memories played to nostalgia by _deliberately and self-admittedly_ referencing SH1. Homecoming thought that being a survival horror game meant actionizing the Silent Hill formula, while Shattered Memories, in trying to break away from not only Silent Hill tradition but horror game tradition in general, made it so your only "action" was fleeing from monsters in terror, ironically making it much more effective in putting you in the shoes of a horror protagonist. Homecoming throws a bunch of Halloween spooks at you, Shattered Memories has only one type of monster but one which grows to reflect your actions in subtle ways. Homecoming's psychological aspects are always painfully obvious, Shattered Memories' appear obvious but upon a second playthrough you realize just how much you missed, and you feel smart. Whereas with Homecoming, all you feel when you see something like Asphyxia is "oh, come ON".
I like Shattered Memories a lot and always remember it. I almost never think about Homecoming. It's crazy to think that they were both made by the same team. I feel like future SH developers ought to remember the contrast between these two releases, and why one failed and the other succeeded.
Silent Hill after SH4 never stopped chasing SH2.
Everyone keeps saying the combat in the remake is trying to be Resident Evil but the second I saw it my mind flashed to The Last Of Us. Like it looked like a cheap European knockoff especially with the melee combat and having enemies vaulting over waist high cover.
Cheap European knockoff is their brand.
MASH X TO SAVE YOUR DEAD WIFE
HIT THE LEVER!
I came up with an idea for combat gameplay in a third person survival game:
Instead of there being a normal reload button, you instead have a gun maintenance button. In this state many of your controller buttons are now used for tinkering with different aspects of the gun while there's also an on-screen symbol to show the current state of the gun for the sake of clarity. A separate button for taking off and inserting a magazine, choosing a magazine from inventory, reloading, an option to put away the gun in its current state or to throw it away due to the player needing to act before they're done. And when actually shooting the aiming reticule will take a long time to focus like in Deus Ex 1 and simply moving around makes the aim more unstable. Also an option for pressing the gun against the enemy if you're at melee range so you don't need to aim. This way guns are a massive headache, take a lot of consideration to use, powerful when used right but you will always feel more comfourtable with melee weapons since they have no aiming nor ammo management to worry about. Also I'd use a stamina/dashing system akin to Cry of Fear. You can dash, but it has no i-frames, some melee strikes will use more stamina than others, so keeping distance and avoiding enemies in general is always the preferred option.
The weapon throwing is treated as a panic option, a move to quickly attack an enemy as a distraction for either getting away or for lining up a shot. It's risky, hasty, but an option if you're panicking or messing up with gun management.
This sort of thing works pretty well in a VR context. The more realistic they make the gun handling, the harder and more complicated it gets and some games have used that to great effect for horror where you find yourself fumbling in live or death situations. The only flatscreen version of this I've seen is Receiver 1/2 but those aren't horror games.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. At the very least, it's a relief knowing that there are other people that "get it". Unfortunately, most of the game industry management doesn't - but hey, the original game isn't going anywhere. It will always be there for those who are willing to draw inspiration and writing tips with a modicum of nuance.
AT4W longtime fans know full well how rancid the comics by Scott Ciencin are.
Personally I love the angle of Silent Hill 2 way more than any of the cult shit from a lot of the other series. I feel it has way more potential for good storytelling, but is way easier to fuck up. The cult stuff is the safe option. Really love 1, adore 2, like 3 but wish it was something different again, or new stuff taking the angle of 2. 4 is okay and then the rest, well yeah.
13:00 I love how I didn’t know who was actually voicing James, but being able to guess “Troy Baker” proves Pat’s point.
Proves his point by being completely wrong? Troy Bake isn't voicing James in the Remake, Luke Roberts is.
I understand that people want access to a beloved classic that's increasingly hard to get ahold of, but between the "hd remaster" and ....this.... this is just such a no win situation. The best possible experience is going to be emulating or burning your own ps2 dvd disc ala freemcboot in perpetuity for the foreseeable future.
There is also the PC version of silent hill 2, which has a community remaster. that's by far the easiest to set up and play. Just gotta make a quick stop on the high seas.
Its refreshing to hear somebody finally say it. the definition of pretentious❤
This is basically the same thing said by RedLetterMedia, when Rich Evans said that now he hates "Empire Strikes Back", because that was the film that made all these new hacks make Star Wars movies where there is a Dark Lord with a family connection to one of the protagonists and the family drama dynamic, laser swords and the "believe in yourself" bullfuck.
The worst part is garbage will continue to sell.
If by "New hacks" you mean "Literally just JJ Abrams, the hackiest filmmaker of all, who we knew was a hack before they gave him Star Wars and who inexplicably got handed it a second time", then sure?
Also "Believe in yourself" bullfuck is Star Wars. Like, it IS Star Wars. That's what the finale of Star Wars is: Luke believing in himself (and the Force) and saving the day. If you don't like it when Star Wars is about believing in yourself, I'm curious if you've ever liked Star Wars at all.
@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat Definitely. Garbage will never EVER stop selling well. In the world where Hideki Kamiya's absolutely original and utterly superb *The Wonderful 101* sold badly even after getting ported on PC, PS4 and Switch, just like *"Okami"* before it there is quite literally no hope that things will ever get better and people will keep buying into low-grade crap forever and ever.
When's that next Call of Duty, amIright or amIright, fellas !!! *vomits*
@@The5lacker I did. When I was a wee boy and haven't yet got a job.
I don't dislike that stuff at all, but I do when it becomes formulaic. To remind you, there's very few *ideas* in fiction that are outright bad. It's all about the execution.
Star Wars' biggest fault is that it ended up eating itself by its own legacy and can't make a new project without inserting things from other movies that don't belong there. The Mandalorian is a great show that was killed by shoving in other Star Wars media to the detriment of the plot.
Wasn’t the Boogeyman in Downpour his guilt for killing the one nice cop in the jail and not his guilt over his son’s murderer?
"Troy Baker"
I want to die.
I hope they put the protagonist from The Medium in the bar and you can talk to him.
The only QOL that it could be improved and I wouldn't mind is Maria's AI.
I literally wouldn't mind that she is more talkative and reacts more to you and the environment. Make them have chit chat so they know each other more. Make her to be indispensable in some sections where she helps you overcome an obstacle. I think that little additions like that would add a ton to the game.
I don't want to have to take care of this lady that ONLY speaks to me in certain cutscenes and 90% of the time doesn't reacts to anything. I get that the game is weird but that doesn't mean that certain things cannot be fleshed out.
For me, the music and sound design in these games, especially in SH2 is critical to me. I'm genuinely curious to see how they'll tackle it.
those were rubber bullets, Silent Hill Downpour Guy