Silent Hill 3 Review

Fuck the NTSC box art.

Game: Silent Hill 3
Platform: PS2, Gamecube, Windows, Xbox 360(HDC), PS3(HDC)
Genre: Survival Horror, Adventure
Content Rating: M(ESRB), 18+(PEGI), C/15+(CERO)
Developer: Team Silent
Publisher: Konami

Silent Hill 3

When I initially finished Silent Hill 2, considered by many to be the finest survival horror experience ever crafted, I felt a little underwhelmed by it. While the story was really good, monsters skulked around in plain sight, the controls were fairly clunky, and the PC version I played was very poorly optimized. Most of all, the monsters didn’t really feel “scary”. However, after a little time digesting the game, I came across a “making of” featurette that had interviews with project leads, who described it as a “terrible love story” rather than a straight horror experience. And therein lay the key to understanding the game. The game never tried to portray the horrible creatures as “scary” in the traditional sense. Even the great Pyramid Head served only as a reminder to James of his own guilt, internal torment and the fact that in the end, James is the one responsible for the horrors he faces. It was not a vile and repulsive experience, but a melancholic, subtle and soul-wrenching tragedy. After two full playthroughs on my PS2, where the technical issues that plagued the PC version vanished, Silent Hill 2 now sits solidified in my “greatest games ever” list.

Now, when moving on to Silent Hill 3, it almost feels like Team Silent completely reversed what themes and elements were focused on. While SH2 featured a deeply personal story about a man in his late twenties coming to grips with the death of his wife that had a barren and depressing feel about it, Silent Hill 3 instead focuses on a teenage girl fighting demons to save the world from eternal damnation. Quite the mood change, wouldn’t you say?

In actuality, Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1. It's a game I feel hasn’t aged well for several reasons, not the least of which being that the actual plot of that game is a tad silly. It involves a cult trying to summon their god into the world to bring humanity to paradise (AKA fiery death for all). Their plans get ruined by a 32 year old writer named Harry Mason, who seems more interested in finding his daughter than executing theological beatdowns. At the time of its release, Silent Hill was considered to be a masterpiece by many. But this was the early days 3D gaming, a time when Resident Evil still was taken seriously as video game story telling. The script is stilted, the voice acting was laughably bad, and everyone looked like they were made out of papier-mache. Thankfully, Silent Hill 3 is a much better effort, due to all the lessons learned and technology created since that game. In fact, barring a few missteps, Silent Hill 3 could be considered a classic.

During this outing to America’s shittiest tourist town, you play as Heather. Heather is a teenage girl with a dry sense of humor and a short temper who’s having a wonderful day at the mall when a creepy middle-aged man in a trench coat claiming to be a private eye approaches her. He asks to speak to her, saying he has information about her birth. Rightfully freaked out by this, Heather hides in the restroom and tries to find a way to leave. Now, we all know that female characterization in video games isn’t exactly fantastic. But Heather is something special. To me, she is one of the best female characters in gaming. Her femininity is important to the game’s plot, but she’s never objectified or put in demeaning positions because of it and her personality never feels shackled to it. Heather’s almost plucky spirit, hot-headed temperament and sarcasm really set her apart from all the quiet mopey fucks that usually inhabit games like this, and make her a breath of fresh air. Whether it’s her actions in a cutscene or her description of a dead body found in a subway station, her character oozes from the game and makes you care for her simply because she’s an interesting person, not because of some arbitrary tragedy given as back story. And when bad things actually do happen, it's all the more tragic. 

Above: A fantastic character

Unfortunately, none of the other characters reach the same height as Heather, but are by no means bad. A lot of this has to do with the voice acting and writing. While Heather’s voice acting and dialogue is top notch (and at one point almost brought me to tears for the right reasons), the three other supporting characters’ aren’t exactly. Douglas Cartland, the previously mentioned detective, has a weird scratchy voice that doesn’t seem to fit his face and of the two villains, one has a good voice that just seems to be reading lines, and the other just makes me want to punch her in the face because of the way she says “God”. Shame about that, because the facial animation tech used in this game is truly some of the best of the last generation and can still hold its own against some modern games. If the voice acting was a little tighter, I would say that this game would’ve conquered the uncanny valley that games with far more advanced tech *coughLAnoirecough* aren’t able to. 

 Gameplay is the same basic design that you’d expect from the classic survival horror genre. Tank controls, sluggish combat, inventory management, and puzzle solving form the core experience of the game, but it’s been improved from the second game. Heather can now block the attacks of enemies and has a far wider array of weapons at her disposal, including a submachine gun, a katana and several unlockable secrets. Despite this, the combat still remains pretty much that same in practice, with the exception of boss battles. They were included in the first game but were more or less absent from number two. These make the combat slightly more frustrating than the second game. If you didn’t stock up on ammo, you might as well just reload a save, because you aren’t going to kill them with melee weapons. Something that will probably frustrated some players is the puzzle difficulty. On the lower difficulties, it’s just a little roundabout. At higher levels, the player needs fairly intimate knowledge of Shakespeare canon and tarot cards, and will encounter one of the creepiest and most obtusely difficult puzzles put in a video game. The music in the game is your typical Yamaoka stuff. I don’t really feel like it stands when compared to his other work in the series, but it’s by no means bad. The rest of the sound design, on the other hand, is truly masterful. Creaks in the floor, rushing water in a sewer, and the cries of monsters that you know are just waiting for you feel immediate and build the kind of immersion that you’d expect from Silent Hill, but never has it felt so crushing and engulfing. And here lies the game’s strength.

This game is /fucking scary/. While Silent Hill 2 relies on mystery and a depressing uneasiness to creep you out, Silent Hill 3 goes for an intense, hellish and oppressive atmosphere. The Otherworld, Silent Hill’s alternate form that signals when the game is going to start screwing with you, is filled with all sorts of effects that grip you and don’t let go. Walking down a hallway could cause it to twist itself into a cruel mockery of what it once was. The walls could seem to be perpetually burning. One room in particular stands out as frantically creepy and unnerving in a way not seen in the other games. Sounds can seem to be coming from the door you just passed, begging you to satisfy your curiosity but unsettling you so much that you won’t want to. Disembodied screams waft and echo through the hallways. And one monster makes a sound so audibly unpleasant it actually gave me a few nightmares. It might take the squeamish a few pep talks if they want to get through it.

The fuck is that thing?

There are two major points I have against game that might keep it from greatness. Firstly, the game is far shorter than others, with an average playthrough clocking in at about 5-6 hours, while the second game was about 8-10. The second is, while the story and character moments work individually, the overarching plot is just… well, it’s still kind of silly. While the gameplay pits you in a cruel environment with nothing but contempt for you, The Order is still dumb and really not that scary. Instead of some unknowable malevolent force toying with you, it’s just a bunch of dipshits running around doing dipshit things. It’s still engaging and worth playing through to the end, but the smartest thing that Silent Hill 2 did was ignore that monkey house of stupidity and focus on a single person, rather than making him save the world. Silent Hill 3 didn’t seem to understand that. It’s good, but if you take a step back and examine it, it’s less interesting than it is in the moment.

Despite this, I heartily recommend this game to fans of horror games and horror media. When it hits its stride, it’s gripping and intense and very frightening. Heather is one of gaming’s best characters and one of horror gaming’s most genuinely likable protagonists. While the story falters a bit, the puzzles at times seem to be driven by moon logic and the gameplay still isn’t exactly visceral, it’s still a beautifully surreal and creepy. It probably won’t change the mind of those who dislike the genre or the franchise, but if you are fan, go for it.

On the subject of acquiring the game, Konami released the Silent Hill HD Collection containing remastered versions of this game and Silent Hill 2. While that might seem like a great deal, I implore you not to buy it. Many things were changed from the originals for no reason and it’s riddled with graphical and audio glitches due to it being built off of unfinished code of the games. This forced them to cut corners and the result is an unfinished product that doesn’t hold a candle to the originals. The re-recorded voice acting at best doesn’t improve anything, but Heather’s original voice acting was also changed and it simply isn’t as good. If you want to play this, try to locate a used copy for the Gamecube or the PS2. If worse comes to worst, you could probably pirate the PC version, as it’s far better than Silent Hill 2 port, as it actually works. That being said, if that’s what you need to do, make sure to use a USB controller or something. The keyboard controls aren’t as functional is a controller in this case. 

Also, the recent movie Silent Hill: Revelations is adapted from this. 

Don't see it. It's god awful.