I played the game recently and I kind of liked it. It had some problems don’t get me wrong but It was an overall enjoyable experience. I was playing the PS2 version which is pretty buggy. My main issue with the game are the lore inconsistences. I question weather or not this game could even be considered cannon. The soundtrack goes pretty hard at times as well. So, it’s sort of a mixed bag for me. Anyway, I’d be more curious to hear what everyone else thinks.
Origins certainly could have been worse. The beta version was pretty bad.
I have to disagree here. I think the cult is the weakest part of Silent Hill. Which is why I feel Silent Hill 2 is so good (it still referenced it as the town history, just like Salem Witch Trials would be mentioned in museums in Salem), and why I dislike Silent Hill 3 going back to it and Silent Hill 4 continuing it. In my opinion, Silent Hill should be thought of similarly to something like The Twilight Zone. The town of Silent Hill itself is a character, which utilizes various things to move the plot along. This is a simple to understand concept, but it also frees up the writers from having to try to explain things unnecessarily (ie “Why does X thing happen/appear?” “Because the town made it happen/appear to that character”). The town draws characters to it, for what reason we don’t know until the end of each game. The character doesn’t necessarily always have to be guilty of a crime or dealing with negative emotions, a character could be an innocent that is used to move the plot of side characters along, and seeing those characters may cause the player to reflect on how different they are from the main characater. The human element could be explored in various way like this. There are many ways such stories could be explored, but Konami is just bad at picking writers I guess. (I would love to see them play with time periods too, a medieval Silent Hill would be really cool to see if written well).
Homecoming is rough. IMO, its so rough because it had a really interesting concept. Playing as a war veteran would have been a very interesting Silent Hill game, but the way the story is handled it really just falls completely apart in the end. Very disappointing. That is, if you can even make it to the end before your game crashes in the underground area.
As I said, Book of Memories is different. Its a spinoff like Hyrule Warriors is for Zelda, I wouldn’t expect mainline gameplay from a spinoff. Would I have liked mainline gameplay with effectively a Silent Hill version of Resident Evil Outbreak? Yeah, absolutely. But in the end, a dungeon crawler is fine for some Silent Hill themed multiplayer. Not better than The Arcade though.
Dementium: The Ward was cool as a DS game but I can’t imagine it being a Silent Hill title. Some parts of the designs and story were similar, but the gameplay was too different. I already don’t like the too generic Over the Shoulder (Copying RE) camera style of gameplay shown in the remake, a first person game wouldn’t be much better IMO.