petrol_sniff_king

Oh hell yeah. The perfect system for Yamaoka's industrial scrape music.

Let me know how it goes. I've been real excited to see people experience this for the first time, haha.

Yeah, that's a tough one.

I'd say "well, don't," but that's pretty obviously useless. :p

I think I can say this much, though: Silent Hill, being so metaphorical, it's kind of built like a big puzzle? It's okay to "not get it" while you're playing. Most of the stuff I know I'm pretty sure I picked up from fan wikis later on.

So, easier said than done, but: try not to think so much, haha.

The remake is also a little better about explaining its own plot, I think just by being a little more obvious. So, by the end, some things might click into place a little more.

And yeah, the sound design, (minor early game spoiler) have you noticed that >!the radio!< >!is a positional sound?!<

!Normally, you hear it kind of left and behind you. My instinct that the sound is supposed to be telling me where to look was so strong that I kept turning away from enemies I knew were right in front of me. That's so genius I almost feel it must have been an accident.!<

SH2 remake is sooo good. I'm in disbelief, honestly—and I'm still not convinced Konami will take Silent Hill f seriously enough. God willing.

But yes, if you're interested, play SH2 remake.

It's what conservatives say instead of the n-word.

Stacked rectangles get the point across. You ever seen geometry homework?

No problem! There is about 40 hours of walking down a single path, but I actually like 13 a lot.

I've never seen google do that, by the way. That's crazy.

The paradigm shift system also introduces this... I dunno, ducking and weaving style gameplay? It's like you're the director of an orchestra looking for the right musical swell at the right time.

This paradigm shifting is the same kind that you do in other games when a party member needs to stop and focus on healing, but now that you have to shift your entire team's focus, while keeping in mind that each role really needs time and momentum to truly be effective, you end up making these real-time opportunity cost decisions about which urgent thing needs the most attention, or whether you can split your focus even though a team that can do this is much weaker at both things it's trying to accomplish. I really like the way 13 forces you to think about party formation.

I also give it credit for establishing the stagger meter, which was such a good idea that they've included it in like every game since then.

That would be 13. :p

I actually really liked 16's main storyline. Not sure where I rank it, exactly, but parts of it were extremely cool.

What I did not like were the barrel-bin jrpg-tier sidequests where characters show up out of the blue because they're supposed to be in this scene and "you really thought I wouldn't see the two of ya's slinkin' off" was all I guess the project had the budget for.

I can't tell you how many times it felt like a character would tell me to go somewhere to do a thing because they can't go, and so I'd go do it, only for them to show up anyway so they could thank me with sad music.

It was just exhausting how shallow and uninspired most of the side content was.

Funny enough, 13 is actually the one I've replayed the most. I think I've beaten it like 3 different times, in addition to whatever runs I didn't finish. It's kind of grown on me as one of my favorite ones.

Do be ready for about 40 hours of single-path walkways if you ever go back, though. I don't actually think this is the problem some people make it out to be, but the game isn't polarizing for no reason.

dozens of kids acquiring life altering tbi for doing something as mundane as running near a pool.

😬 yeesh, the mental image.

I suppose the whole white supremacy thing shouldn't surprise me, but still, I did not know this. Thanks for being such a firebrand about it here, I guess, haha.