Silent Hill: The Short Message

Definitely the best "Silent Hill" thing that has come out since PT, which was now about 10 years ago. And still, it's nowhere near as nuanced, subtle and terrifying as that short demo.

This gets off to a pretty awful start. It has the main character narrating and commenting on every little thing in a very "breathy" tone that gets incredibly annoying. All the bullying and trauma themes are shoved down your throat with no care to actually make it matter to the story or characters, more just to be edgy. Honestly, it was nice looking but wholly uninteresting and hollow. However, the last two thirds of the game pick up considerably, taking obvious inspiration from the previous "PT", as well as a dash of "Shattered Memories" which was nice to see. I think it actually improved upon the chase formula of "Shattered Memories", and made for some effective terror. The music and monster design were of course great, because Yamaoka and Ito came back to work on both for this game. And it takes a while, but the story does end up having somewhat of a point and message, and they do add a level of care to the heavy themes further into the game.

This game is more or less screaming for subtlety. It has a decent story at the helm, and some good ideas, but needed to explore it without being so obvious about everything. Overall, it's a mixed bag, but a step in the right direction. I hope this will be a launching pad to actually revive the name of Silent Hill.

The short game takes on the very serious subject of suicide. I've been suicidal before so I get it, I'm not tone deaf to the message. But the story, which is probably 95% of the game, was so bad. The story made no point to make you connect to Anita, the character you play as, and she quickly and consistently comes off as pathetic, annoying, and edgy (the bad kind). I rolled my eyes everytime she spoke, and the voice acting was bad. I don't think that's the actress' fault though, the reason it was so bad was because every word was very breathy, and that's probably a director's choice. I was so glad when it was over.

Kind of hard to evaluate this game. I mean it's not really that hard the story, I think is fine. But this f** gameplay is tedious junk and the last part was the worst part of the game.

It is free so I can't be too upset about this game, but the gameplay Lift Me Hanging it's mostly story and text and then once in a while. There is a chasing and the chasing feels more like puzzles because it's very predictable, it will do the same thing every time in the chasing.

But the last one is a nightmare because have to find pictures in the map with no directions, a monster is chasing after me and after a few tries. I was so done, I had to watch the ending on YouTube because I didn't want to play this tedious god damn gameplay anymore.

The game looks very nice and has some detailed artwork, I think looked really pretty.

The story did press me in the later half, in the beginning I was laughing at the scream, Just like oh, this is so teenaged angst and sad, oh my god, It's so funny, but it actually grabbed my attention it was, oh my god this actually pretty good in the last half. I didn't expect it to go in the dark directs, I would recommend it even if it left me kind of laughing at the teenage drama in the beginning.

PS but the last level is garbage, so just watch on YouTube.

Sony randomly announced and released this game at their state of play event. Silent Hill has been a genre defining horror IP since the 90s, this game unfortunately does not live up to that level of quality the series once had, that being said, there is value in this game, especially since it's completely free of charge. The story is very dark, revolving around heavy themes of suicide, self-harm/hatred, abuse, and bullying, to the point where the suicide hotline and a warning is posted on the screen multiple times. However is does have a somewhat satisfying ending, the fact that it is short and free really helps make this worth playing, if it were any longer or costed anything more than $5 I could not recommend it. If you have 3 hours and a PlayStation 5, this Short Message from Silent Hill may be worth your time, and get you warmed up for Silent Hill 2 Remake later this year (2024 if anyone in the future is reading).