Random thoughts about Silent Hill to an empty audience.

This month has seen a lot of things for me, my birthday was a couple weeks ago. I've been dating someone for almost four months now and he hasn't cheated on or tried to manipulate my feelings into being a piece of emotional furniture or anything like that. This is unusual because most of my courtships seems to fall apart around the four month mark (excuse me while I knock on some wood). As of tomorrow I'll have been at my very interesting and fun job for a year.

But above all, my favorite video game franchise is releasing three new titles this month. Well technically two and one repaint of a couple old titles.

I speak of course, of the Silent Hill franchise.

On March 13, which was my birthday, Silent Hill Downpour was released. I might make a blog post about that once I played the game through a few times. But I'll say as much as I enjoyed Vatra's take on the franchise, but have some slight criticisms which I want to develop a little more thoroughly first.

At the end of the month, a top-down dungeon crawler-esque PSVita game Book Of Memories which a lot of people kind of freaked out about and are calling it an "insult" to the franchise and just a "Cash-in that proves Western Developers are ruining the franchise!". But I just find it a silly throw-away title that's not meant to be taken super-seriously, like the silly throw-away rail shooter that was developed by the "Hard-core" fan's beloved Japanese developers. In defense of both games, they have interesting story ideas, and of course, anything with "Silent Hill" tagged on it Konami will throw tons of money at so the production values are high for both.

I love the Silent Hill series. All of it. Yeah, I love some titles more than others but I still love all of them at the end of the day. These are the games that sparked my interest in composing music for games. These are games that showed me that games could provide a narrative experience with emotional depth and complexity that no other form of media can.

These games introduced me to real art.

So I view all the games as one would paintings by different artists that share a same theme. I see influences from everything. And I love it.

Regardless of what title you pick, the Silent Hill series always has a story and an emotional drive in it's characters that's always above most modern games.

(Some of the following video links contain spoilers, but are awesome stuff out of context, so if you don't care then go ahead and watch because it helps to understand where I'm going to be coming from later.)

The first game pokes the rotten corpse of the idealistic tourist town with a stick and shows the kind of hell it spawns through the striking imagery of an abused and drugged up child, raised from birth to be nothing but a tool used by other people.

The second game puts us in the shoes of a seemingly sympathetic, albeit purposely under-developed protagonist, James. We're supposed to be him, the game sucks us in his shoes, his confusion is our confusion, his fear is our fear, his reluctance is our reluctance. But the game isn't really about James it's about the woman behind those bars, Maria and what the "Thing That James Did" that everyone probably knows by now, which is the whole reason to play the game. A major theme of the game is guilt which is embodied by the very disturbing Pyramid Head. This game is still the most popular of the franchise, which kind of ruins my own enjoyment of the game. But it's still an excellent game with a wonderful supporting cast that pretty much makes up for James being merely "you" until the plot demands it. When that happens though you realize how dangerously three-dimensional James actually is because of that "thing he did".

The third game, has the most personality in my opinion. It's a direct sequel to the first game, but you never really find out how until halfway through. It stars Heather, the only female protagonist in the series to date, and revolutionized real-time environment textures.  Heather is snarky, rough around the edges and doesn't really put up with anyone's shit. But even though she reacts as such to some of the horrible things that happen to her, it really showcases her vulnerability when there are visible cracks through her outer persona. This tells us volumes of the kinds of emotional wall-building she's had growing up, and it's made abundantly clear as to why she's acts the way she does once you make it to that halfway point. We also actually learn about Heather. She'll make some very opinionated commentary when examining certain objects or situations and it'll build her as a character. This is something I found James lacking was made less compelling for it. While Heather lacks the great supporting cast from the second game, she and her cohort Douglas are really the only compelling characters in the game. Vincent certainly raises some interesting question. Claudia serves pretty well as an antagonist but isn't much more than that. This was my first Silent Hill game and remains one of my favorites.

The fourth game ended having the best story, but lacked a lot of character in everyone except the villian.

The prequel to the first game was... okay. I liked the main character and he was well developed, but the use of old characters was a little shallow. The games still has my favorite soundtracks of all the games and of all time to boot, if nothing for the seemingly out-of-left-field influences, but fit insanely well in some of the kinds of subtle imagery the game itself presents.

The fifth game was... this. That trailer makes it seem kind of laughable but was actually just...  meh? Story-wise it's not awful, but clearly Konami was in a transient place when they green-lit this. It was a decent flirtation with next generation technology at least?

And Shattered Memories did pretty much that by being a re-imagining of the first game. This game is certainly my whole justification for owning a Wii and one of my top three SH titles. I could and probably will write an entire post about this game.

This post was supposed to be about something else. But whatevs, I'll just make another post about it. This post is really just an introduction to my attitudes and opinions about the series and will give context when I talk about the game I got today.

The Silent Hill HD Collection 

Rule of Rose: Playthrough Thoughts Chp. 1

So I like really weird and hard to find games.

This one has been on my list for a couple years now and it just came in the mail yesterday. I was super excited and popped it in my old, dusty PS2 that supports the TV in my room.

This is going to be my first reactions and thoughts on my very first playthrough of this game. I'm not gonna give super-detail and try not to give away a lot of spoilers because it's really worth it just to play it on your own and devise your own opinions.

So this is merely a commentary and my opinions based on my on what I see, and my thoughts of the game as I progress.

There will be some spoilers, so if you're looking for an actual review or something that isn't going to give away anything, go elsewhere. I'll probably do a proper review of the game when I've actually completed it.

From the very start I'm greeted with a string prelude of the opening cinematic. Already this game has done correctly what so many games fail to do: Capture my ears and eyes instantly. The CG is absolutely gorgeous, capturing the look of what the insides of a worn, leather-bound English novel might be.

The music is done with live musicians, which wins major, major points with me already. The opening song "Love Suicide" that plays over the opening is sung by the perfectly smoky Kaori Kondo (who sounds a lot like the person who did that one song in Deadly Premonition). But the intimate and melancholy strings and piano all put through a filter to make it sounds like it's being played through an old phonograph really set the mood and the tone of the game.

The opening cinematic itself has a lot of striking and intriguing imagery that told me I was in for something I wasn't quite expecting. I'm still enamored by how well put together this was, the book-ends where  rose petals gather and then fall in time to the music are my favorite parts. Here, take a look for yourself.

The menus and text are made out in a chalk texture and have animation when you're highlighting an option as opposed to a 'highlighter box' or what-have-you. This is just a really cool thing to me, I appreciate the work that went into making those animations flow and look so great and stylistic, touches like this draw me in.

When I start the game itself, I'm told a story, by a man and then a boy on a bus reading a book with the story in it. The story is about a girl who had a friend who was a Princess. Rose, was her name. She was always by the girl's side, until her parents were taken away at least. The little girl was sent to a "Strange House" by Rose (that's always encouraging) and that's all. The rest of the story is missing, the boy gets up from his chair, carrying the book.

Here we're introduced to our main character, Jennifer. I'm broken out of the atmosphere by a what to me, feels like a sloppy, uneven delivery by someone who sounds remarkably like Mona Marshall as the little boy, (she's usually an excellent voice actress) but I can't confirm if it's her or not. The boy merely tries to get Jennifer's attention but immediately flees off the bus with Jennifer following.

It doesn't take long to draw me back in as I'm given control of Jennifer The area is small, and dark. The only light-source being a lamp by the Bus-stop. I follow the road after the bus first, but the road just leads me to the opposite side of the bus-stop. This confirms that we're not exactly in the Wales anymore.

I go after the boy and follow after the sounds of a dog and find an abandoned shed, it's empty on the inside, but I find a dog collar. Behind me comes the perverse sound that would haunt me for the remainder of my experience, a little laughing and running away.

Once again, following the sounds I found the little boy and gave chase until I stumbled upon a big ol' mansion. The boy escaped inside its front gates. Walking up to it gave me a small scene of little girls with paper-bags on their heads, gleefully beating an animal of some sort inside a sack (wait, what did I find in the shed?). Their instruments are bloody and the beating is brutal, it's contrast to the happy and innocent decorations drawn on the bags, the scene really turned my stomach sour.

Jennifer is a very non-confrontational sort. She wanted to avoid getting involved in this, and back away from the gate. I lead her to follow a path around the wall of mansion, seeing heads pop up over the wall and voices giggling in an anticipation that made me compelled to find out what it is they're planning, but also fear for poor, unlucky Jennifer after seeing those girls brutally wail on a helpless animal.

Once inside I immediately feel like I'm being watched. Laughter comes from all directions. Being a Survival Horror vet I start trying all the  doors. A couple are locked, but one that I try near a flight of stairs opens, but as Jennifer is about to go inside, a small arm reaches from behind the door and slams it in her face. This was surprising and unnerving, it made my feeling of being monitored intensify, I did not feel alone at all, but there was no soul to be seen.

This was not fear I felt, at least not conventional fear that games try to instill. This was the sour, lonely feeling of being left out. Like you were the butt of a joke and everyone was pointing and laughing at you from a safe distance even though you could clearly tell they were talking about you.

The perverse laughter became more maddening the more I heard it. I desperately followed the little boy, hoping I could find out what the hell they were laughing at me for!

Eventually, I found my way to the attic, where I found the boy, who was not as nice as he was before. He had a very pompous and superior attitude as he lectured me the rules that I would be abiding. The Aristocrats of the Red Crayon would be watching me, waiting for me to provide mandatory offerings for their acceptance and audience.

I eventually made my way out to an inner garden area. Tucked away in a corner was a grave with a shovel, I had Jennifer start digging. When she uncovered the casket and opened it, the contents were scarce. The casket was big enough for an adult, but only contained the now immobile brown sack. Before Jennifer could do any investigating little girls with decorated paper bags on their heads saw fit to pour water all over poor, unlucky Jennifer.

Jennifer merely sat there, letting them do it. Now, I'm not one to let water bug me or anything, but I don't know if I'd put up with that. But I get the feeling it's more of a symbolic thing, and will make more sense as to why she's so passive later. At least I hope.

Anyway, after these girls were done with their little rain-party they pushed Jennifer inside the casket, and sealed her inside. At first I thought they were going to bury her, but I soon figured out they were lifting her up and carrying her away somewhere.

The last thing we saw before this segment ended was Jennifer looking through a crack in the casket at the full moon. As the casket moved we would see trees pass over it, darkening the eerie light it provided.

Next time we meet the lovely Bucket Knight and look for a butterfly in the sky.

Happy fishing everyone.

And Here We Go

So out of impulse I decided to give this a whirl. Not sure what the hell I'm going to do with it. I'll probably use it as an outlet for my writing, maybe share some amazing music with whoever decides this is worth reading. Maybe review stuff. I'm a nerd, so I guess I'm going to be yet another one of the obsessive masses who wants to reviews game, movies and music. In reality I just need something to dedicate myself to until I find a job.

So stick around for... stuff, I guess. I've been playing a JRPG as of late, I'll share my thoughts when I actually beat it.