Speaking of combat, I found it to be a mixed bag. Hinako can perform light and heavy attacks, dodge, and counter. Light attacks are fast but deal little damage, while heavy attacks have a long windup but deal a lot of damage and have a better chance to stun an enemy. Perfect dodging can replenish Hinako’s limited stamina, and countering will deal significant damage and almost always result in a stun. Since stunned enemies take more damage, this can create tense one-on-one encounters as you learn an enemy’s attack pattern to take advantage of its weaknesses for heavy damage. Toss in Hinako’s focus ability that increases her damage and makes it easier to spot when to counter but at the expense of her sanity, and there’s a cohesive combat system hiding behind the utterly horrible camera. I actually like the parry system, as it’s synergistic with Hinako’s characterization, and the deliberateness of it pairs well with boss fights and one-on-one enemy encounters, but mastering the parry system also ends up making enemy encounters less frightening and more like a puzzle to be solved, and that’s not the kind of puzzle I look for in a Silent Hill game.
The combat system begins to struggle when dealing with multiple enemies. The deliberate, slow paced push and pull between Hinako and a monster is gone the moment you have to start constantly repositioning to see where each enemy is, either in an attempt to time counters to hit all of them or to avoid damage from a faster enemy that’s slipped behind you (I’m looking at you, irohihi). On Hard difficulty, this will more often than not end in a death sentence, or deplete you of so many resources as to effectively ruin your next encounter. The game likes to throw a lot of forced combat encounters at the player later into the game, which ends up slowing the story pacing to a crawl right when the stakes are ramping up. It ends up creating an unsatisfying and uneven pace. This can be mitigated by upgrading Hinako’s stats across multiple playthroughs, but that also then trivializes the combat to the point of tedium and removes any tension from encounters. I find the best way to combat this is to play your first playthrough on Story difficulty, then move up to Hard and finally Lost in the Fog once you’ve completely upgraded Hinako and collected a decent amount of omamori.
Throughout the game, Hinako can find small charms called omamori that provide an assortment of benefits when equipped. These range from increased HP, sanity, or stamina, to making dodging easier, healing after defeating enemies, and even auto-countering. Mixing and matching omamori provides a lot of flexibility based on playstyle — I opted for a stamina build on my first playthrough with easier dodges and heavier damage based on weapon type; by the end, I was rocking a sanity build where Hinako would auto-counter enemies and then immediately replenish the sanity she lost by defeating enemies. You can obtain omamori through both exploration and a gacha you can access using faith at every hokora. Faith is also used to permanently increase Hinako’s stats in conjunction with blank ema boards. Since you earn faith by trading in items at the hokora, including some healing items, there’s a satisfying tradeoff between holding onto resources to heal while combating enemies, or trading them in to earn faith and immediately obtain equippable stat modifiers or hold off to earn permanent upgrades. (On Hard and Lost in the Fog difficulty, faith is also used to replenish Hinako’s sanity, adding yet another variable.)
Like its forebears, SH ƒ excels in the sound department. Enemies have distinct auditory tells; weapon impacts provide juicy, visceral feedback; and the environment moves seamlessly between unnerving silence to raspy winds and undulating squelching from the fleshy growths around town. The music marries traditional Japanese instrumentation and vocal performances with heavy industrial effects and Akira Yamaoka’s signature guitar, creating a unique soundtrack that has a handful of real standouts. Kensuke Inage composed the music for the Dark Shrine, giving those sections their own musical identity. I really love the tracks “Dizziness Drawn to a Faint Flame,” “Mayoi Uta,” “TSUKIYONOINERIME,” “Shichibi no Tasogare,” “Hougejaku,” and “The Bird’s Lament.” The voice acting here is also stellar, with standout performances from Konatsu Kato as Hinako, Kazuaki Yasue as Fox Mask, and Takeshi Masago as Hinako’s father Kanta.
I wish I could say the puzzles were better, but they are probably the weakest aspect of Silent Hill ƒ. On Story and Hard difficulty, most of the clues aren’t even clues, they’re flavor text. I found the Lost in the Fog hints to be the most interesting, but even then the puzzles themselves aren’t the best. There’s one or two environmental puzzles I really enjoyed (the diary is the standout), but the rest are puzzle boxes or moving around crests. It’s not bad, but it’s also not all that engaging. At least two of the puzzles I’m pretty sure are straight up mistranslated, because the hints don’t make sense with the solution (I’m looking at you specifically, rabbit and fox puzzle). You also aren’t safe from combat during a lot of these. In past SH games, combat and puzzles are explicitly separate, and you’re safe from enemy encounters while you’re trying to figure out whatever brain teaser the game has thrown your way. Here, with few exceptions, you are doing the puzzles in real time while enemies are still around, and in the case of the scarecrow puzzle, combat is a consequence of getting the wrong answer on top of having roving monsters around. In a game that’s already overly reliant on combat for its tension, having to worry about yet another encounter when I’m trying to read clues and take my time was honestly frustrating.
As noted above, the combat also has a detrimental effect on the general atmosphere of the game. I would not call Silent Hill ƒ scary. Disturbing, sure. Unnerving, yes. But it isn’t scary outside of a handful of individual sequences, and a lot of that is chalked up to the relentless combat. When you can beat everything to death with little consequence, it’s hard to be scared. The soundscape also isn’t quite as oppressive and overbearing as previous entries, despite being overall excellent. Outside of one specific scenario, I never got a pit in my stomach that made me turn the game off, or been so on edge my hands shook. This is also the only game in the series I’ve played through on harder difficulties and ran through multiple times. On the one hand, the lack of terrifying atmosphere allowed me to do this, but it also ended up making the game feel less like Silent Hill than I necessarily wanted.
Silent Hill ƒ suffers from some unfortunate technical issues. I played on the PlayStation 5 Pro and the game would stutter and chug, especially in Ebisugaoka. There were minor hiccups throughout the game, but in areas with dense flowers and growths, it was like playing a slideshow at times. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to change the presets on the PS5, so I couldn’t fiddle with my settings to see if it was fixable. I also encountered some input lag during combat, though infrequently. I never experienced any major glitches, thankfully.
Even with my gripes, I obviously enjoyed my time with SH ƒ. Early in my first playthrough, I called this game Silent Hill 3‘s more quiet, subtle sister, and having completed it, I stand by that assessment. Both games deal with similar themes, but approach them in completely different ways. Heather Mason’s story was angry and violent and in-your-face about it, while Hinako’s is subdued and simmers over multiple playthroughs. I found it a really neat contrast that still provided an emotional, resonate conclusion I haven’t stopped thinking about since beating it. Hinako is one of the most relatable protagonists in a game I’ve played in a long time. Silent Hill ƒ is absolutely a Silent Hill game in all the ways that matter. While the repetitive, frustrating combat and less-than-scary atmosphere keep the game as a whole from reaching the vaunted heights of SH2 and SH3, Hinako’s story stands toe-to-toe with James’ as the best in the series. It’s a story that’s deeply humanizing and impactful, and one I think is worth experiencing.
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Overall |   |
Game purchased by reviewer.
