047: Harry's Bad Trip, or SoraRabbit Plays More Silent Hill

Another spooky Halloween season is upon us, and readers of this blog know exactly what that means. That’s right… another visit to Silent Hill!

For those of you who are new here, Silent Hill is a popular and long-running survival horror video game series. I started my reviews shortly after beginning this blog with Silent Hill 2, since that is my favorite installment in the series. I decided to make it an annual tradition and last year I covered a game I had never played before, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. This time I decided to backtrack a little and revisit the first game in the series, named simply Silent Hill.

The first Silent Hill game came out for the PlayStation in 1999 by Team Silent and published by Konami. For this post I played the PS3 port. I also played on Easy mode for time’s sake in getting this post done. (I have completed the game a few times on Normal and at least once on Hard.)

As always, this is a recap of the story and game mechanics and a review. This will not be a full walkthrough or a complete analysis of the game. If you choose to play this game for yourself, you’ll still be in for a lot of surprises and fun. Spoilers do follow, so use care. Also, as mentioned in the first screenshot, the themes and descriptions are of a violent and disturbing nature, so if that’s not to your liking, you may want to skip this one. Also, I should mention that this is a straight port and not a remastered update or rerelease like Parts 2 and 3 got. The pre-2000 graphics are very much in evidence in these screenshots. I couldn’t do anything about that… the graphic smoothing settings did not help.

Still with me? Great, here we go!

The best explanation I’ve seen for a save spot. (Credit: Konami)

Before I start with the story and gameplay, I will mention my history with this game a bit, like I did in the first post. One of my exes got me into PlayStation (I was diehard Nintendo all the way prior to that.) and one of the first games I played was Resident Evil. After playing the first three games in that series, I wanted more in the survival horror genre. Perusing a video rental store (those were a thing in the ancient past— look it up) I found a clearance copy of Silent Hill 2 for sale. I was hooked on it from the start and played through it twice in a row.

Being curious about how the series started, I went off in search of the first game. I had to scour several video game stores until I located a copy. (It was fairly expensive if I recall.) I loved this game too, although the graphics and controls were archaic when compared to the sequel. Still, I ended up playing this one twice through too. At the time that was all there was for the Silent Hill series, so it was a year or two before I got the third one. Somewhere along the line I misplaced the disk for Part 1. (Probably hocked for cigarette money… that’s what happened to a lot of my game collection. Sigh, youth. I don’t smoke anymore, by the way. Almost 15 years smoke free by this point! Sorry, I’m proud of that.) When I got my PlayStation 3 I had a new rule. No more selling games. (Unless I got a updated copy of it.) I slowly built my collection back up, but the OG Silent Hill was an elusive game at that time. I couldn’t find it for under $50, and I wasn’t paying that just for nostalgia. Then I realized that they had ported a bunch of original PlayStation 1 games to PS3, which let me get back all the Final Fantasy, Spyro, Parasite Eve, and Resident Evil games that I no longer had. The first PS1 game I downloaded, of course, was the first Silent Hill.

Anyway, enough of memory lane. The gameplay mechanics in Silent Hill are much the same as in Silent Hill 2. You can turn on and off your flashlight. You can equip a weapon and collect items. You have an unlimited inventory. (The limited inventory is very much a part of the early Resident Evil games, and Silent Hill 4 uses this too. I hate it.) The objective of the game is to find your daughter, and to do so you will need to fight many demonic creatures and solve puzzles. The game takes place in the mostly vacant town of Silent Hill, in different locations from the second game. At various times an air raid siren sounds and Harry is transported to a darker, more dangerous version of the town known as the Otherworld.

Ammo and healing items are limited, and so it’s important to know when to fight and when to run away. (Items are often guarded by enemies, and so you end up with a trade off once you’ve healed your damage. Like you have to use a first aid kit to get a health drink. Not worth it. Conversely, bullets may be worth trading a health drink for because ammo is precious when you’re trying to survive.) You can fight with either melee weapons or firearms. The combat system is super clunky, and the developers explained this away as being because Harry is an average guy, not a trained combatant. (And they’re not kidding— the worst enemy you face in the game is Harry’s clumsiness. Thank god he can’t shoot himself in the foot!)

As with all Silent Hill games, the atmosphere makes up the brunt of the tension. Everything is cloaked in shadow or fog, details are obscured, nothing is entirely clear. The foreboding music and incidental sounds ramp up the tension and there are some jump scares. The surroundings are twisted and broken, rusting and bloody. Roads end in bottomless pits. Ordinary locations such as a quiet neighborhood, an elementary school, and a hospital all become haunted, scary places. A simple stroll down a suburban street becomes a fight for survival.

The dialogue can be a tad odd at times. (Credit: Konami)

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but many of the mechanics from this game eventually became staples of the series. Health drinks, the graphical indicator of your health on the inventory screen, the flashlight, the chasms and walls blocking off areas of the town, the map you mark off as you explore, and of course the iconic staticky radio. The radio bursts with static as enemies approach, letting you know when to be on guard. The enemies are drawn to your flashlight, and turning it off makes it hard to navigate and impossible to reference your map. Many of the names are references to horror authors and works. For instance, Bradbury Street and Bachman Road.

As I replayed this game, I couldn’t help but compare it to Part 2. The graphics are much more simplistic, seeing as how this was released on the PS1 as opposed to the PS2. The movement was less precise… clunky, actually. It took me most of the game to get the hang of how unresponsive ad jerky Harry’s movements were. (It didn’t help that sometimes the analog stick wouldn’t always work on my knock-off PS3 controller so I had to use the directional buttons, which is a pain in the ass on a 3-D game.) And then there were the graphical issues, which I got used to as my play continued. (It seemed worse at the beginning of the game for some reason, with some of the pixels showing as X’s, as you can see in the screenshot above. I’m pretty sure that’s a result of using a newer TV and console to play it.) Once I got used to the dated feel of the title, however, I found myself right back in the spirit of Silent Hill. As poorly executed as it may be, it’s still the foundation upon which the series was built, and so it deserves recognition for that.

You have nooo idea, Harry. (Credit: Konami)

Silent Hill begins, as part 2 did, with an opening movie that plays a jaunty tune (seriously, look up the main theme. It’s amazing!) and shows scenes that happen both during the game and prior to it, setting the stage. Harry and his seven year old daughter Cheryl are driving through Silent Hill. Harry swerves to avoid a girl walking in the road and crashes his car. When he comes to, Cheryl is gone. He sets off to locate her, finding the streets of Silent Hill quiet and empty, snow falling lightly. As he walks forward, Harry sees bloody marks on the street and notices who he thinks is Cheryl ducking into an alley. (This makes a lot more sense than part 2, where James saw a misshapen monster amble into an alley and decided it was a good idea to follow it.)

Everything appears fine in this alley. (Credit: Konami)

The alley gets darker and creepier as Harry traverses it. (This part is pretty common in Silent Hill games. A quiet, long area with strange camera shifts to build suspense.) A siren sounds and things get darker. Harry finds blood around the alley like someone got attacked. At the end of the alley there is a corpse hanging on the wall and two creepy gray kid-things approach, slashing at Harry with knives. Being unarmed at this point in the game, all you can do is flee, but I ended up struggling with the controls so much that the dead children killed me. It’s okay, though, this is a scripted battle and nothing you do here matters.

Harry awakens in a café with a blonde cop named Cybil, She says she has come from the nearby town of Brahms and has no idea what’s going on in the town. Harry tells Cybil about his daughter and insists that he has to go find her. She tries to talk him out of it since it’s dangerous, but relents and gives him a gun. You know… as police do.

Do cops often hand their guns to civilians? (Credit: Konami)

After looting the café for those sweet, sweet health drinks, a flashlight, a crappy knife, and a handy map of the town, Harry finds a radio. He comments that it doesn’t work, but as soon as you try to leave, it emits static and a pterodactyl-demon crashes through the window.

Thanks goodness for that gun. This is basically just here as a jump scare and to let you practice shooting the handgun. This monster is called an “air screamer” and they are seriously the most annoying monster in the game. They’re hard to hit with melee weapons unless they land, and hard to hit with guns since they like to swoop and divebomb you. I usually just ran from them. After unskillfully dispatching the enemy, Harry is free to leave and explore the town.

Roads that end in chasms to nowhere. Classic Silent Hill. Also, is this Cybil’s car? (Credit: Konami)

Harry is currently in Old Silent Hill. At this point in the game there is an aspect of free world, where you can go anywhere in this area of the town that isn’t closed off by impassable chasms. Most of the houses can’t be entered, and the southern area of the town is unreachable, as well as the bridge to the east of town. The game hints that the objective is to return to the alley where you were attacked, but you can wander around looking for items and fighting monsters as long as you like. (I can’t really recommend much exploration at first, since ammo is very limited and the knife is horrible.)

Harry brought a knife to a doggo fight. (Credit: Konami)

Along with the Rodan-looking bird jerks, there are also skinned doggies named Groaners wandering around. The monsters are drawn by light and sound, and as soon as the Groaners notice you, they pounce, running around and leaping at you. The knife is an epically bad idea here and I never really wasted bullets on them. I used the longer-reach melee weapons, which I’ll talk about as we get to them.

When Harry returns to the alley there are no gray kids with knives this time. Just a steel pipe that can be used as a beating stick. There’s also a sketch book that belonged to Cheryl with her drawings scattered around. One of the drawing has an obvious hint that she may have gone to the elementary school. (Sometimes this game leads you by the hand.)

Hmm, bloody dog house. No warning alarms going off, Harry? (Credit: Konami)

There are some important items that you can gather in the town. For instance, a key hidden in the dog house shown above and another key in the trunk of the police car. The game hints about where to find key items, but if you explore enough, you can do things out of order. If you don’t think to check in the dog house there is a piece of paper lying around that tells you to check the dog house on Levin Street. The key in the dog house opens the house right behind it. However, there is a locked back door that requires three other keys. Since all of the streets leading to the school are impassable, getting through the house on Levin Street is vital. (As a side note, why does the game always ask you if you want to pick up an item? I mean, inventory space is not limited and there are no items in the game that cause negative effects. It’s a weird mechanic.)

I’ve always loved the map system in this series. (Credit: Konami)

The three keys you need are at various places in this area of the town. They’re called the Keys of Scarecrow, Lion, and Tinman. Once the back door in the house on Levin Street is unlocked, it gets darker out. Now that you can go to the western part of the map, the way is open to get to Midwich Elementary School, the first major “dungeon” area of the game.

In the school there are a few puzzles to solve to proceed, with clues lying around. One is a clock puzzle with poems written in blood to help you solve it. (Ah, the simple charms of Silent Hill.) Just like with Part 2, if a door is jammed that means it’s impossible to open. If a door is stated as locked, there’s either a key somewhere or you have to unlock it from the other side.

Harry’s good at making friends. (Credit: Konami)

The ghostly gray children with knives you met in the alley are roaming the halls. They’re pretty easy to beat with the pipe. (Free tip: kick them when they’re down. This goes for all the monsters. If you don’t kick them they may get up and attack you again.) There are also little black shadows that resemble penguins and chirp. They’re harmless, but creepy. Interestingly enough, the radio emits static when they’re near even though they pose no threat. Later on there are full grown versions of the shadows that can kill you, so that’s probably why the radio reacts… they will eventually grow up to be dangerous.

As Harry explores the school, the strangeness just intensifies. There is unsettling crying in the boy’s bathroom, the source unclear. When you reach the lab and grab a chemical, tense music plays just to freak you out. The chemical turns out to be acid, which you need to melt the statue of a hand to get a gold medallion that you have to put in the clock tower of the courtyard. (Don’t think too much about these things being in an elementary school. Video game logic.) After this you get a silver medallion by solving a somewhat difficult piano/poem puzzle. Playing the right sequence of notes scores you the medallion.

Pretty red button. That always ends well. (Credit: Konami)

Before he can proceed, Harry has to find his way to the basement and push a tempting red button on the boiler. (The game text calls it a switch but it’s clearly a button.) Then he can crawl into a doorway in the clock tower and emerge… back in the courtyard? Not exactly. Now he’s in a darker, more run-down version of the school. The place he later comes to know as Otherworld. Checking the map shows that all the marks that Harry placed on it before are cleared off. There is a mystical-looking symbol on the ground in the courtyard. Inside the school is no better. The gray children are still around and now there are giant roaches too. The normal architecture has been replaced by chains, metal grates, and blood stains. The doors are jammed now and to gain access to the rest of the school, you have to find a picture card. The creepy painting in the other Silent Hill is now an actual door and the picture is the key.

After exploring more and gathering items for another puzzle, Harry finds the boy’s restroom where he heard crying in the other school. Now there’s a corpse hanging there and this is where he scores the very useful shotgun. (It’s stronger than the handgun and can hit multiple enemies at a time.) Adding to the weirdness, entering the girl’s restroom teleports you to the second floor. I can’t see any reason for this except to make you think that you’re trapped since there’s no way out besides reentering and leaving the restroom again. Just one of those surreal, unexplained details that makes this a Silent Hill game.

As you leave a teacher’s room, the unplugged phone rings and on the other end is a panicked Cheryl calling for her Daddy. You have to get a couple of keys and play with some valves to make your way to the first boss battle of the game. I couldn’t manage to get a decent screenshot of it, but it’s a giant lizard called a Split Head with jaws that open horizontally. A few blasts in the open mouth with Harry’s trusty new shotgun takes care of Mr. Lizard. At the end of the battle there’s a bit of a fake out as the air raid siren plays again and everything fades to black like Harry died. Then you see a young woman in an old-fashioned blue dress standing by the boiler. She disappears and a church bell starts chiming. At the boiler there’s a key. A quick glance at the teacher registry shows that the key belongs to one K. Gordon who the map shows lives nearby.

Dahlia, I’ll have you know that my floundering is very purposeful. (Credit: Konami)

Harry wants to visit the church to check on those bells, but another one of those impassable chasms is in the way. Which is why you need to cut through K. Gordon’s house. At the church Harry meets the exceedingly creepy Dahlia, a crazy old woman who speaks in riddles. She gives Harry a small pyramid that she calls the Flauros, which she claims can “break through the walls of darkness and counteract the wrath of the underworld”. The charming woman tells Harry to make haste to the hospital and that she sees everything. Yikes. She leaves a drawbridge key which allows Harry to lower the drawbridge into Central Silent Hill, a new area to explore. The fog makes it much harder to see, but at least the trip to the hospital is a short one.

Kaufmann knows the score. (Credit: Konami)

Shortly after entering Alchemilla Hospital, Harry meets the clearly unhinged Doctor Michael Kaufmann, director of the hospital. (His depiction here is why I couldn’t trust the version that appeared in Shattered Memories.) The Doc has just shot a monster and has no idea what’s going on or where everyone is. He also hasn’t seen Cheryl. In this conversation we learn that Harry’s wife died four years ago. Kaufmann is grumpy and unhelpful and wanders off on his own, which seems safe.

As you explore the hospital, you get both a basement map and a basement key. (It’s like the game is trying to tell you something.) In the Director’s office you find a shattered vial with red liquid around and scoop it into a bottle that you obtained elsewhere. (That comes back later.) After powering the elevator with the basement generator, Harry visits both the 2nd and 3rd floors, which are inaccessible. On the next visit to the elevator there’s suddenly a button for the 4th floor. Once Harry visits it, he has a vision of the woman in the blue dress entering an antique store. He ends up in the Otherworld again and it’s here that he faces yet another staple of the Silent Hill series: evil demonic nurses!

In this version of the hospital, you collect plates for an Alice in Wonderland-themed puzzle. You can also find a long-handled hammer, which is a nice upgrade to the pipe. The hammer is awesome. I’d switched to the handgun because the nurses took too many hits with the pipe and I was taking too much damage. But the hammer laid them out in a couple of hits. Plus the hammer kills things dead and you often don’t have to kick them.

At one point you get a VCR tape and have to find a room with a working VCR. The tape is distorted and mostly unwatchable but it stays in your inventory. (Yeah, you can use it again later.)

After exploring more and solving another easy puzzle, Harry finds himself in a creepy sub-basement hidden area. There is a sparse room with a stained bed and a machine next to it. Perched on the machine is a photo of a girl named Alessa.

Using a key he found in his explorations, Harry unlocks the examination room, where a nurse named Lisa Garland hides. Lisa pounces, embracing Harry. She’s been unconscious and is terrified. She hasn’t seen Cheryl and when Harry asks about the room in the basement, she says they’re under strict orders to never go down to the basement. The siren plays again and Harry collapses with a sudden headache. When he recovers, Lisa is gone but Dahlia waltzes into the room. Harry demands answers. In her usual roundabout and cryptic way, Dahlia explains that the town is being devoured by darkness. She predicted it would happen. Harry’s tired of her riddles but she insists he go to the “other church in town”. The mark he saw in the school yard was “the Mark of Samael” and it must not be completed. Dahlia exits, leaving behind a key to the antique shop, which is obviously Harry’s next stop.

On the way there, you can stop off at the police station for lots of ammo and some world-building. You get some info about a drug circulating through town that uses a rare local plant called White Claudia. No one knows who the dealers are. There is also information about a police officer who died of suspicious causes that the coroner deemed natural, even though the officer didn’t have a history of heart problems. Outside the police station is a new ape-like monster called a Romper. (I think all monsters should have cheerful, jolly names.)

At the antique store, Harry pushes a cabinet, exposing a hole in the wall. Cybil shows up then, saying there’s no way out of town. The roads are all blocked. Radios, phones, and cars aren’t working. Also she saw Cheryl, but the girl appeared to be walking on air, heading towards the lake. (She doesn’t seem to think this is strange.) When Harry asks about Dahlia, Cybil says she’s never heard of her, but she assumes she’s on drugs. Apparently someone sells drugs to the tourists and the police are clueless as to who’s behind it. Harry also asks her about the Otherworld, but Cybil has no idea what he’s talking about. Does that mean the world is only changing for him and no one else is affected? (But Kaufmann killed a monster… hmm, how strange.) Harry argues with Cybil about the hole. She says she should go in since it’s dangerous, but he convinces her to stay behind. (You guys, I’m starting to think maybe Cybil isn’t that good at her job.)

The hole in the wall leads to a secret room where there’s an altar. Harry wonders if this is the “Other Church” that Dahlia mentioned. He also finds a shiny hand axe. I was excited to see it, but after my first battle with the doggies, I switched back to the hammer. The axe is way faster, but has terrible range, allowing the enemies to get in way too close. I prefer to keep my distance from the things trying to kill me. Anyway, as Harry tries to leave, flames jump up in the altar and Cybil comes in, not finding Harry anywhere. He’s been transported back to the Otherworld version of Alchemilla Hospital. Lisa is sitting by Harry’s bed. Smooth as always, he says she doesn’t look so good. She says not to worry about her. Harry asks about Dahlia and Lisa explains that when the old woman’s daughter Alessa died, Dahlia went crazy. The townspeople have always been quiet. There was a cult of some sort operating. When Silent Hill became a resort town, the cult went underground. After casually dropping this important bit of plot, Lisa is gone and Harry is alone in the antique store. Since Cybil had said Cheryl was heading to the lake but the road is blocked, Harry decides he needs to find Lisa and ask how to get to the lake.

I’m sure Cheryl’s fine. (Credit: Konami)

Leaving the antique store, Harry is in the Otherworld version of Central Silent Hill. The streets have been replaced by rusty metal grating and the fog has given way to rain. Harry wonders if all of this is in his head… he was in a car accident after all. He soon finds he can’t get to the hospital because the roads are gone, leaving him stranded outside the antique store. Luckily there is a hole in the fence leading into the shopping mall. As Harry walks through the mall, a bank of TV screens come to life, showing the Mark of Samael. Then Cheryl’s face appears. She looks frightened and is calling for help. In the mall you visit a jewelry store that has ammo for a rifle you don’t have yet, a first aid kit, and a handy save point. If you’ve played enough video games, you should be sweating at the developer’s generosity.

Another new friend? Harry gets around. (Credit: Konami)

Sure enough, just outside the jewelry store, Harry falls through the floor and into a sand-filled area that contains two things: a convenient hunting rifle, and a boss battle. A giant larvae-thing bursts from the sand and spits acid at Harry. It’s not too difficult to avoid it and fire a few shots from the hunting rifle before it burrows under again. After a little bit of this, the larvae breaks a window and is gone, allowing Harry to continue his trek to the hospital. There are more Rompers on the streets, along with the other outer world enemies.

When Harry reaches the hospital, Lisa is there. She suggests the only other way to Toluca Lake is through the underground waterway. That’s right… a sewer level! Harry asks her to come with him, but she says she doesn’t think she’s supposed to leave the hospital. She feels cold. Harry promises to be back as soon as he’s finds his daughter. (Interestingly enough, if you reenter the room, Lisa is gone already.)

Outside the hospital another change has happened— the street you travelled on to get to the hospital is gone, leaving only one way to go. Harry climbs a staircase across the street from the hospital, wandering right into another boss battle.

Hey, you’re not Mothra… (Credit: Konami)

The larvae is back, and now it’s a moth. And it’s pissed. The hunting rifle makes short work of it. (The hunting rifle is nice, but you can’t move while using it.) After the moth dies, Silent Hill becomes normal again. (Ha ha.) Harry returns to the school (fast warping after crossing the bridge, which is nice.) and finds the entrance to the Waterworks. Thus begins the long, confusing trek through the sewer. Not much to say about this part. It’s creepy, nothing much happens, bug monsters chase you, it’s easy to get turned around, and you need a couple of keys to proceed. After this Harry finds himself in the resort area of Silent Hill.

The next place I visited was Annie’s Bar… a place I visited last year in Shattered Memories. Here we find Doctor Kaufmann again, with what looks like a Romper trying to eat him. Harry saves him in a cut scene and Kaufmann stands up, recovering quickly to his ordinary brusqueness. He hasn’t been able to find a way out of town, but he’s sure the military will come through town and rescue them. (I think he thinks he’s in Resident Evil or something.) Before he walks off, Harry asks him if he knows a girl named Alessa. Kaufmann grumbles “No” and is gone. He left his wallet behind and Harry heroically roots around in it. Inside is a receipt with a combination and a key to a motel room. The receipt is for a General Store called Indian Runner, so that’s where I went next. The combination unlocks the front door and inside Harry finds a safe that contains a bunch of baggies of drugs. (Harry doesn’t add them to his inventory because dope is for dopes, kids.) Also there’s a notebook that talks about handing off the package the woman left to some man. (Let’s try to be a little more vague, please.) The man showed up at Norman’s too. Hmm. There’s a grocery list on the wall for Norman that says to go in the back entrance and has a combination. Well then.

Next destination: Norman’s Motel. (Love the reference.) In the back entrance you find a newspaper that references the dead narcotics officer we learned about earlier. The anti-drug Mayor ended up dead too. The drug is referred to as “PTV”. There’s also a magnet and a note about a mysterious man who picks up the packages. The writer speculates that the man may have been the one who killed the Mayor. In Kaufmann’s room, you can use the magnet to get a key which unlocks the gas cap on a motorcycle in the Motel garage. Inside is a vial of red liquid that reminds Harry of the liquid in the Director’s office.

Kaufmann appears and gets very angry, demanding the vial. Harry hands it over. Doc tells Harry to stop messing with things that don’t concern him and threatens his life, saying he’ll die if he keeps messing around. Then he leaves. (I found out later that all this was optional. More on that later in the post.)

Harry meets Alessa. Sorta. (Credit: Konami)

After this, Harry wanders the streets and this time he actually sees Silent Hill changing. This makes him realize it’s not a dream, he’s not going crazy… it’s really happening. Harry heads towards the lighthouse and finds Cybil in a boat. Harry tells her the town is being invaded by the Otherworld— someone’s nightmare is coming to life. Their conversation is rudely interrupted by Dahlia, who claims the demon is awakening, spreading its wings. The demon will swallow up the land and everyone will die. You know, stuff a sane person would rant about. She actually seems pretty happy about the whole thing, her voice gleeful. She says there are “two left” to complete the Mark of Samael. Harry seems to disregard most of these lunatic ravings and asks how he can save Cheryl. Dahlia tells him he has to stop the demon that’s taking the child’s form to prevent his daughter from becoming a sacrifice. She directs him to the lighthouse and from there to the amusement park. Cybil offers to help by going ahead to the amusement park. Dahlia tells Harry to use the Flauros to stop it.

There are tons of enemies on the way to the lighthouse and then a long spiral staircase to climb. At the top, Harry sees the Mark of Samael on the floor, glowing eerily. Alessa is there, but vanishes. Back on the boat, Harry decides to move on to the amusement park. This is accessed by another sewer. (A much shorter one this time, but with lots more bugs.)

This is what happens when you hang out with Harry. (Credit: Konami)

At the Lakeside Amusement Park, tragedy has struck. Cybil is possessed and starts shooting at Harry. This part I remembered from my previous playthroughs. Your choice here impacts your ending. You can fight her like any boss (which is what I did the first time) but the optimal way to handle it is to throw the bottle of strange liquid on her that you got in the Director’s office. This saves her, making her collapse and causing a little worm thing to crawl from her. Harry steps on it.

Cybil regains consciousness and brings up a very good point— why did they target Cheryl? Harry doesn’t know, but he explains that Cheryl isn’t his biological daughter. His wife was sick and not getting any better. They had no kids. They found Cheryl as a baby by the side of the road and raised her as their own. He wonders if there’s a connection between her and the town. No matter what, he’s determined to save her.

After this, Alessa appears and Harry demands she let Cheryl go. Alessa gestures at him and he falls. When he tries to chase her, he hits a shimmering black force field. The Flauros levitates and glows, then fires a beam of energy that knocks Alessa out. Harry again demands his daughter. Dahlia appears and tells Alessa this is the end of her game. Alessa calls her mama. Dahlia says that she’d been careless thinking her daughter couldn’t escape from their spell. She’d grown too much and that’s why Dahlia needed Harry’s help. (Oh no the crazy old religious fanatic betrayed us! Who woulda thought?) Dahlia teleports her and Alessa away.

Harry awakens back in the hospital with Lisa. She says she went into the basement and saw the strange room. She felt like something bad happened there, but she couldn’t remember what. She runs off and Harry realizes a sound is coming from the basement. He exits into the last area of the game, a place the save point refers to as “Nowhere”. It almost looks like the hospital, but not entirely, and there is no map. Nurses are roaming around. The Alessa ghost goes into a door marked “Phaleg”.

Harry explores the new area collecting keys and magical artifacts and solving puzzles. Some of the rooms look like places he’d been before— the classroom, the jewelry store, the antique store.

At one point Lisa appears and says she understands now why she’s still around. She’s just like the others ones walking around, she just didn’t realize it yet. She tries to hug Harry and he recoils. She starts bleeding from her pores and starts staggering towards Harry like one of the possessed nurses. He runs out of the room and stands with his back to the door as Lisa knocks on it, sobbing. Upon reentering the room, Lisa is gone and her diary is lying on the floor. She was in charge of a strange patient even though she asked for a transfer. The patient was still alive, but with wounds that wouldn’t heal. The room was filled with insects even though they tried to keep them out. Blood and pus flowed from the bathroom faucet. Lisa wrote that she needed the drug and begged for help.

More plot unfolds as Harry continues exploring. A book details White Claudia, stating it was a plant used for religious ceremonies due to its hallucinogenic properties. There is another VCR and popping in the tape from before allows you to actually see the contents without distortion. Lisa talks more about her patient. She has burns all over her body that won’t heal. Lisa has no idea what’s keeping her alive. She promises she won’t ever tell anyone.

In one room you come across a ghostly child version of Alessa crying. In another room there is a phantom scene of Dahlia, Kaufmann, and two doctors discussing how the seed is incubating. Claudia says the problem is that she’s missing half of her soul. Kaufman demands what was promised to him. Dahlia explains that if they put her through terrible pain it will call the other half of her soul to her. They were surrounding the bloody bed from the Hospital basement. Alessa’s bed.

Leaving this room, Harry finds himself in Alessa’s childhood room. There are butterflies in cases on the wall, drawings scattered on the floor. (Hmm, who else do we know who likes to draw?) The final puzzle of the game is here. The door has slots in it to place the various artifacts Harry collected in Nowhere. As each item is inserted, the music builds in intensity. Upon opening the door, Harry is greeted by a phantom image of Dahlia dragging the child Alessa through a hallway. She’s demanding Alessa give her some of her power to “make everyone happy”. Alessa says she doesn’t want to, she only wants to be with her mommy. Dahlia gets a good idea… the womb has the power to create life. She could have done it herself. The apparitions fade and Harry descends a staircase to be greeted with a shocking scene.

Cybil is holding a gun on Dahlia. Alessa is in a wheelchair and the child Alessa is kneeling on the floor. Dahlia says some nonsense about the “Talisman of Metraton” which is not something we have heard of before, so whatever. Cybil shoots and is thrown backwards by magic or something.

Harry confronts them. Dahlia reveals that Alessa had been kept alive and suffering for seven years, trapped in an endless nightmare. The demon has been nurtured inside her by the nightmare and is finally ready to be born. She reveals that the girl Harry keeps seeing who he assumed was Alessa is actually Cheryl. The two girls are bathed in light and become one, a glowing woman in a white robe— the Incubator.

Kaufmann appears suddenly and shoots Dahlia. He’s angry at being used and brandishes the vial of liquid at her. Dahlia is scared of it and cries out that it’s the Aglaophotis. She’d thought she’d gotten rid of it all. He throws the vial at the Incubator and the red liquid spreads over her, tainting her white aura. A demon called the Incubus grows out of her and floats into the air, firing lightning at Dahlia, killing her instantly. Harry faces down the Incubus in the final boss battle. (Quick note: All this is just the cutscene I got. Depending on what you do in the game, the cutscene and boss battle can play out differently.)

This battle was somewhat tough even on easy. You have to run to avoid the lightning and then fire as many shots at the Incubus as you can. The problem is that the demon is floating just out of sight, so you have to rely on the game’s aiming system and listen for the crackle of the lightning about to be fired. The first time I tried to fight it, I went in with an ampoule (a rare item that prevents damage for a small amount of time) and the ampoule ran out without me realizing (maybe even during the cutscene?) and I wasn’t sure I was even hitting it. I got a game over screen and had to try again. (It didn’t help that the cutscene took so long that my controller went to sleep and I didn’t realize it until I’d taken the first volley of lightning. Oops.) Once I got better at dodging and got a few good combos in, the Incubus fell quickly.

The Incubus falls to the ground and all that is left is the combination Alessa/Cheryl. She hands a swaddled baby to Harry. Cybil recovers and staggers away. Kaufmann stands and starts to leave, but Lisa comes up behind him and grapples with him, dragging him down as he screams. Alessa holds off the darkness so Cybil, Harry, and the baby can escape as the building starts to collapse around them. The last of her power depleted, Alessa falls, dead.

Out on the streets of Silent Hill, the trio of survivors continue their escape as the end credits roll. In a post credit scene, Harry and Cybil are in a cemetery, looking at the baby happily. After this there were some silly bloopers, which were basically just the developers playing around with the 3-D models of the characters. Then the game results screen.

I did an average job at being Harry, thank you very much. (Credit: Konami)

The game results shows your score and various stats. On this playthrough, I got 47 points out of a possible 100. (Big stars are 10, small stars are 1.) I can’t recall my best all-time score, but I know I’ve done better. You are awarded points for the difficulty you play at, number of enemies defeated, low number of saves and continues, items picked up, etc. I’m not embarrassed by my low score, I wasn’t trying for a high score this time, I was just trying to get through the game to write this post. Still, it’s interesting to see how I did without really trying.

As is the custom with Silent Hill games, there are multiple endings. This one has five. Good+ (which is what I got), Good-, Bad-, Bad+, and the UFO ending. The ending you get depends on whether or not you find the vial in the motorcycle and whether or not you save Cybil. If you don’t get the vial, Kaufmann doesn’t appear and you have to fight the Incubator instead. It’s a more difficult battle, and she has a force field. (Also it guarantees a bad ending.) In the Bad- ending, Harry doesn’t get the baby and Cheryl thanks him for freeing her. Harry collapses in grief and we then see him dead in his car. (Pretty sure that’s what I got the first time I played.)

After you complete the game you can save your file and play a new game+ which is called Next Fear. On Next Fear the difficulty is automatically bumped up by 1 level and you get access to whatever secret unlockable items you earned. One of these is the channeling stone, which works like the one in SH2. If you use this is five specific places in the game, Harry is abducted by aliens and you get the UFO ending. (Which is kind of a tradition in Silent Hill.)

So what did all that mean? I’ll try to break it down. Essentially Dahlia and the cult were trying to summon the demon/god Samael, which is the Incubus. They wanted to remake the world in darkness and gain great power, which is what lured the crooked Kaufmann into their plans. Dahlia decided to grow the demon in her own daughter Alessa. Alessa, trying to prevent this, split her soul into two. The other half took the form of baby Cheryl, who Harry and his wife found and adopted. In order to get the other half of Alessa’s soul back, Dahlia set her on fire and cast a spell to keep her alive and suffering. Alessa escaped the spell and grew too powerful for Dahlia to contain, so she duped Harry into getting close enough to use the Flauros on her. Once Alessa and Cheryl were together, Dahlia was able to merge them to give birth to the Incubus. Somehow Kaufmann got ahold of a special liquid called Aglaophotis which has the power to dispel possessions. He managed to hide some away, which is what aided in the battle against the Incubus. The demon was born incomplete, so even a schmuck like Harry could defeat it. After the battle, Alessa once again split her soul, offering the baby to Harry to keep safe.

Um, the what of who now? (Credit: Konami)

So that’s the first Silent Hill game! It was fun revisiting this game and trying my best to explain it to you all. Like I said before, this game is a little crude when compared to the games that followed, but it was a solid foundation for the franchise. It was very moody and story-driven, which set it apart from other survival horror games. The use of lighting, creepy music, and sudden unexplained noises creates a fantastic spooky atmosphere.

The game of course had its downsides. I already mentioned the clunky controls and boxy, low-res graphics. The voice acting is not the best, and some of the lines in the subtitles are not spoken aloud. Sometimes the game very clearly spells out your objectives. Then they hit you with puzzles with unclear solutions. They’re not impossible… they just require thought and the right clues. It’s a little unbalanced, but it works. So much of the plot is left vague. The whole drug side plot appears to have been abandoned partway through… we learned some pieces, but not enough to make a coherent whole. Who was picking up the packages? What was the significance of the drugs anyway? None of this is made clear. What was the name of cult? What the heck was the talisman of Metraton?

Apart from all that, there’s a lot about this game that I love. The music is great. (I’m listening to the soundtrack on repeat as I work on this post.) The multiple endings, unlockable items, and scoring system allows for great replayability. I already mentioned the map system… it encourages exploration as you try to see how many marks you can get on your maps. I appreciate the unlimited inventory space, which immediately put it above the first few Resident Evil games in my esteem. I love the chasms and how the buildings and streets twist leading up to them. It’s like the world is broken, sick. I really love the concept of the ghost town and the dark flipside where nightmares come to life. Silent Hill is something different to everyone… Harry saw a ghost town being invaded by nightmares. Cybil saw a mystery she had to escape from. James in Part 2 saw a prison where he was punished endlessly.

Where Part 2 took a more psychological approach to Silent Hill, this one was a bit more straight-forward. Don’t get me wrong, the psychological horror is still very much in evidence, but the plot here was more cut and dry— a desperate man searching for his daughter in an empty, dangerous town while an evil woman pulls his strings. Part 3 (which I will likely cover next Halloween) continues directly from this one. So that begs the question that must inevitably come up… which ending is canon?

In Part 2, any of them could be since we never again see or continue James’s story. (Remember, he commits suicide in one of the endings.) So in that case, it’s whichever ending feels right to you as you play, depending on how you interpret the events of the game. In Shattered Memories, the ending is very subjective and depends upon the way you uncover Cheryl’s memories. All of the endings in that game really could be real, depending on how you look at the story because people are complex and have many facets.

But in this one, you could either live or die, leave the town alone or with the baby. (Minor spoiler: I’m leaving Cybil out of this equation because Part 3 neglects to mention her at all.) So which ending is canon in the context of Part 3? When you get right down to it, either of the good endings. The baby must escape Silent Hill with Harry for Part 3 to happen. Beyond that I won’t say more until our next visit to Silent Hill. (A year-long cliffhanger! You’re welcome.)

We all wonder that Harry. Drugs, I think. (Credit: Konami)

Unanswered questions and the aged feeling of the game aside, the potential is there, a potential that was reached with the next two installments in the series. (After that it becomes much more divisive, although I still enjoy the games.) This game set the stage for Silent Hill to grow into what it would become. Revisiting this game I was struck by nostalgia. There really were more good qualities than bad. The music and sound effects were amazing, the puzzles were challenging without being frustrating. (Except for the piano one— I remember having a hell of a time with that one on my first playthrough.) The story was memorable, but I wish there was more of it. It feels like there was a lot unexplained, but I think that was the developers’ intention. If it were up to me, I would have added extra story and documentation to discover on future playthroughs to encourage replayability and expand the lore. The addition of multiple endings as a result of Harry’s actions in the game is great, but underutilized here. (They made much better use of that feature in Part 2.) The monster designs, the items and weapons, the gameplay mechanics… all of it combines to create an experience that was much like the other survival horror games on the market but with an angle and feeling that was unique. If you play a Silent Hill game, it sticks with you, burrows into your subconscious and lives there. Silent Hill feels real, and Team Silent deserves accolades for creating something so effective and lasting.

Silent Hill is one of my favorite franchises, and I’ve really been enjoying revisiting these familiar streets, taking in the creepy sights and sounds, and sharing the experience with you all, year after year. I hope you’ve enjoyed our latest visit to Silent Hill. If you have any preference on which Silent Hill game I play next, let me know in the comments or on Twitter. (Otherwise I’ll just play Part 3.) I appreciate you all and I will see you next year for our annual holiday vacation!