I don’t remember how I found out about Silent Hill. The origins of this story have long since faded into the fog. But the memories remain, vivid as ever yet shifting with every passing playthrough. Always someone else’s, that is.
You see, I’ve always been too much of a wuss for anything horror-related. Unlike the protagonists of these games, I have the option to escape at any time—so I immediately do. Why submit myself to torrid discomfort? Fear and pain are not my thing, never have been. Everyone has a limit.
But sometimes you can’t help but look. And listen. So every now and again, I take to YouTube to vicariously live through someone else’s Silent Hill 2 playthrough to re-experience one of the greatest gaming stories of all time. And I’m looking forward to doing it again once the remake hits the digital storefronts tomorrow.
The town welcomes you
So, how might I introduce Silent Hill 2 from this twisted and strange vantage point, stuck behind a shopfront window so thick it might as well be a mirror?
Let’s call it a gentle, sad meditation on love and loss in a place full of monsters and fog, one that shifts and warps around you, always in a way you would never want it to. The gameplay, as I’m sure those who have actually played the original would agree, is secondary, involving tank controls, troublesome camera placement, and much monster-bashing. This time, you’re not a heroic father facing horrors to save his daughter from a grimy cult and its resurrected god—you’re grieving, selfish, delusional, looking for your dead wife, entering a town that seems to draw people in and twist itself around their sins as punishment. You’re James Sunderland.
Silent Hill 2 is an elegantly crafted, mature story that fully takes advantage of that very specific experience only interactive media can truly provide: not the mere feeling of powerlessness, but the loss of power, the way you’re progressively stripped of your defenses and denials. From survivor’s guilt to sexual abuse, the subject matter is always complex and heavy, and the execution is subtle without ever becoming too cryptic to enjoy. It’s a tale well worth experiencing, vicariously or otherwise, and its design and interactive nature made it one of my all-time favorites, even if I’ve inevitably missed out on certain parts by staying in the viewer’s seat rather than the driver’s.
It occurs to me now that I always appreciated stories where protagonists earnestly believe in the impact of their futile actions in a hostile world, from books like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell to Lovecraft-laced games like FreeSpace and Deadly Premonition. I wonder if I could trace this back to Silent Hill 2 if I could peer into the fog.
But, again, just for emphasis: I never played the damn game for myself.
No, it was in the pre-PewDiePie era of Let’s Plays where I stumbled upon it, when LPs were still the realm of amateur auteurs and conscientious tour guides—for those coming of age in that period, the names like LordVega, Helloween4545, and a later addition, Scribe, might ring a bell—people who always treated the story with the silence and respect it deserved.
Will the remaster do the same?
Restless dreams
Is it blasphemous to say I’m really excited about the remake? From this twisted and strange vantage point of the non-player, the remake offers room for additional subtlety. Blasphemous it may seem, I’m looking forward to seeing proper rigging and some strong voice acting (especially for Laura, the young girl), not to mention camera controls worthy of this millennium.
Not that any of these were dealbreakers back then. It’s a testament to the game’s story and presentation that it can appeal even at a younger age when loss and suffering are often still just abstract concepts from fiction that only happen to others.
Also, Akira Yamaoka’s legendary soundtrack can accompany so many moods of the troubled teenage mind. From the hopeful Theme of Laura to the melancholy of the Forest and True to the longing of Love Psalm and the angry angst of Betrayal, it’s a smorgasbord of feelings that stood the test of time, and one of the things I’m most looking forward to in the remake is his new take on the OST.
In an interview with Gamespot, the composer talked about how “the project required a lot of ‘self-counseling’ as he tried to reconcile the person he is now with who he was when he recorded the original soundtrack nearly 25 years ago,” saying, “unfortunately, I can’t quite remember that part of me as vividly.” We’re all set to return now to what awaits in Lakeview Hotel, more than two decades later, and like James Sunderland’s character in the remake, we’re all older, too, and perhaps more ready to relate to his struggles than we were way back then. To peer into a mirror and not quite believe our own eyes. To know better what it’s like to lose a loved one and not be able to let go. To see someone else’s suffering and to treat them with compassion. To get misty-eyed reading that letter the way the voice actors got in the booth all those years ago. To relive a mature story for adults.
So Oct. 8 will be a homecoming of sorts. I promised I’d bring myself there someday, to my special place, but I never did. But someone else will, surely. Yet again. And I will be there, watching, chasing my own once-vivid memories.
