"Giving you AMPOULE time" It's quips like this why I trust your opinion 100%.

So what you're saying is that dark souls is actually the silent hill 2 of cuphead platformers and other digital media, and that Digimon World 3 is the true 4 Fast 4 Furious of media.

Jeremy blumstein said a lot of the lines didn't really satisfy him, but some of the actress simply couldn't pull it off and they had limited the time and budget for it. so pretty much the belief that every single line was meticulously done is a big fat lie.

I like the dialogue, just because the clunky nature of it makes it feel like an earnest little student film. Where the director doesn't really know how to work with actors, and the actors are just broke people off the streets, who just saw a flyer that offered pizza for shooting some scenes. Except Mary/Maria who was a stage kid thru college and is trying to get into bigger leagues and is just flexing on everyone else on cast. idk where I was going with this.

Lmfao, Angela's anime boyish "Right?!" has always killed me. So dorky, and during such a powerful scene. Love/d you, Team Silent.

“Bro how can you say that 3 or 4 is your favorite, Silent Hill 2 has the most essays and good reviews!!!!” I just beat the game, and it is a damn masterpiece, but people act like no one should DARE prefer another game in the series over it or think it’s not as scary as some of the others. Sure, Pyramid Head is scary, but most encounters with him have him walking away after a bit or well, just straight up killing himself. I think the ghosts from Silent Hill 4 are much more terrifying. And in terms of general scariness, Silent Hill 3 exceeds it. Most of the average enemies in SH2, can have the shit beaten out of them very easily with little-to-no resistance. In SH3, the basic enemies at the beginning of the game are already a big threat and can kill you very easily.

You really start to appreciate these voices once you hear v-a from SH2 remaster, THESE were fucking bad and it's even funnier when you realize they were made by professional voice actors. I'm mean yeah, oryginal voices sometimes sounded amateurishly BUT actors were perfectly matched with characters and sounded a lot more emotionally and involved with dialogues.

5:16 You say how it's ridiculous that they are shooting each other in the face but in reality it is a metaphorical representation of the tug-of-war happening within James' subconscious of his guilt vs repression. You can see each one go backwards as they're shot in a tug-of-war like manner. *Takes off nerd glasses* In all seriousness, this was a great and well-written analysis and you've earned yourself a subscriber.

0:40 All of the acting in Silent Hill 2 is completely believable to me. I grew up around a lot of weirdos and broken people (and I'm including myself in these descriptions) so none of it really seems too far outside of behavior you'd see in the real world.

When we decide something is above criticism, we turn it into more of an idea than something that exists in reality, which makes it harder to actually appreciate the good things. Being able to say "the combat is shit" makes "most of the writing is really fucking good" way more meaningful.

The dialogue being weird i think it is positive, because for me the game has a dream vibe. My dreams always have these weird/out of place conversations, so it kind of fits, i dunno man.

I played silent 2 during my post-breakup depression from a 6 year relationship, that gave the game a total new layer for me.

"I've got to like this game, all the cool kids like it. God I'm cool, look at my cool taste." That's sort of what a lot of the mentality boils down to I feel. I can guarantee most of the parroting types haven't even played the games to begin with, at most maybe watched an LP and thought that is identical to playing through it. It's pretty ironic how the mindset then creates a counterculture of the opposite extreme, "EVERYONE LIKES THIS GAME SO I MUST HATE IT WHOLE HEARTEDLY". Having a nuanced perspective on things doesn't seem to be very cool among the cool kids.

Man, I love the fact that your RE4 merchant and Ocelot sound exactly the same. XD

Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls 1 doesn't function as intended at all. It's a poorly designed mess where none of its aspects really work together all that well. Ancient Dragon from Dark Souls 2 meanwhile functions as it was clearly intended to function. It has no real collision issues or weird design decisions that would make its attacks and environment overlap in some odd ways. And yet the boss is still absolute shit. So something working more or less according to the original intent is more of just an observation. It all boils down to the context itself. Like Smash Bros Melee's depth comes from completely unintentional things, and David Cage's games come off as hilarious despite that never being the intent.

I actually just replayed Silent Hill 2 on Halloween. I need to go back through the rest of the series.

I really love Silent Hill 2, but I also enjoy critiquing it. Silent Hill 3 is my favorite in the series, and I love that people are finally coming out of the woodwork to praise the game fairly instead of constantly comparing it to Silent Hill 2.

I've never had a problem with people critiquing things I enjoy. A lot of it for me is the intent of the critique. Like can you actually think of a way to improve the work you're critiquing or are you just trying to seem smarter than the thing people like? You mention intent. Would any change suggested go against that intent? I think a lot of people have trouble squaring what they want with what a work wants to do. Whether you like what it wanted to do is ultimately personal preference. This is what I keep coming back to when people talk about the combat in old survival horror games. Like sure, maybe you've had more fun fighting stuff in other games but IDK that doesn't seem like the point here. Like what do you want from the combat? Sick juggles? Headshots? Dodge rolls? Roundhouse kicks? They never have an answer that isn't "Make it more like this other action game" and I'm not about it. I'll take the clunky combat because IMO it adds to the atmosphere more than some SSSomkin' Sick Style would. And the VA is whatever. I really feel like that's personal preference. Can you get drawn in by it's weird qualities or not? If not that's cool but it never bothered me and I don't think it's hand waving criticism to say it's preference and move on. I get the vibe that some people get really upset if they can't get you on the voice acting being "oBJeCtiVEly BAd". Like chill, guy. These people are weird and the story got told and the performances touched me. It didn't work for you? Okay. I Didn't have that problem. Mostly I'm just sick of all these refrigerator temp takes of "Thing You Like is BAD and Here's WHY..." by Internet Fucko. It's so tired. I don't like Star Wars movies or Zelda games but I don't go around trying to convince everyone that I'm some kind of secret genius cause they didn't appeal to me (something Twin Perfect themselves are guilty of). Over defensive fans of stuff can be obnoxious but I feel like a lot of the people that make that complaint can get pretty upset that their opinion was disagreed with. And it would be pretty silly if someone thought their own critiques were themselves immune to critique. It's really not that hard to accept that people don't agree with you whether you liked something or not.

People trying to find symbolism in every little aspect of this game reminds me of all the shitty symbolism projects I had in English.

I almost quit sh2 my first time playing because of how well hidden some of the puzzle items are to find. The puzzles themselves were actually pretty easy for me most the time (on normal, that is), but i had to look up guides once or twice to find that one item i was overlooking while scouring ever pixel of the map. After i finished it i realized how much i enjoyed it despite all the frustration, but nah this game is FAR from perfect from a gameplay perspective. I still love it and consider it a masterpiece but even the mona lisa has a few details that look awkward and aee objectively bad

I've even see people go so far as to claim that Silent Hill is not a game where you shoot monsters or hit them with rusty pipes, and then admit that the game has that stuff, but it should not be talked about in favour of atmosphere and deeper meaning. This distorted view of what the game is vs. what they want it be seen as might explain why Silent Hill fans are unpleasible when it comes to sequels. Fun bit of trivia. Mary's outfit might not have been some deep design choice, but a Con Air reference.

As much as I agree with this commentary, in a way I really like the way people claim that certain elements of the game would be intentional and that everything ties in to the overall narrative, because of the power of interpretation. If you look at a painting, you might never know which part of your interpretation of it was or wasn't intentional, even if you'd just interpret a mistaken brush-stroke as a symbolic expression. Of course there's a difference between making interpretations in things like that, and just circle-jerking a game so much that every single technical aspect is received as an ingenious implementation. Still, I love just immersing myself into SH2 so much that I accept every single thing about it as intentional.

When I was before fighting Eddie I couldn't stop laughing at the strangeness of James' voice, and I felt a bit guitly. But I see im not the only one...

I found your channel last week and subscribed, seriously love your videos dude!! Really enjoyed this one as well.

Off topi but your videos aesthetic are really inspiring, good stuff man, love ya

As a SH fan who has devoured anything and everything Silent Hill since 2013, thanks for a refreshing take on SH2. I don’t speak for all SH fans but I can’t be the only one that takes a large break from scouring the internet about talk about SH2 because at the end of the day, all the parroting can kinda bleed and blend in together. So this was the first SH video I watched and wasn’t bored of in a long time.

Concerning the voice acting, Honestly i talk to people who speak like silent hill characters pretty frequently, and i can talk that way myself often enough - it's fairly common when folks are troubled in some way. Cause of that i find myself more immersed and the characters' plights feel just a bit more real, so intentional or not i think something true to life was captured and the game is better for it.

This was a really good video and it restored my sanity a bit. I've been deepdiving in the Silent Hill 2 community and this accurately describes the experience of just coming with some small criticism and you get drowned in "AHKSUALLY...!"

Heather was american, she knew how to handle guns >things europoors will never understand

i could start and entire y2k aesthetic tumblr clout blog screencapping exclusively Thorbrand "i dunno man" cutaways like the chad i am

‘Actually... in issue 45...’ hahahaha, you are brilliant man. Keep it up!!

ThorHighHeels is truly the most prolific critique-er of the medium

I've watched a lot of your videos, and I'm a fan, you've done great work before. This was excellent. Like, show-to-people-who-don't-play-games excellent. There's aspects here that touches on fandom, literary criticism, and auteur-ship in a unique way that really adds something to all those discussions

I'm always skeptical when to comes to critiques centered around a perceived intent on the part of the creator(s) of any artwork. Like I love SH2, and I personally find the voice-acting to be excellent across the board. But, if I didn't feel that way and someone was like "nah bro like it's supposed to sound weird and awkward, the developers did it on purpose to achieve a certain effect, it's actually super thought out so you have to like it" I wouldn't be compelled to change my mind. It's a stupid and wholly speculative argument, especially when discussing artworks typically made by groups of people like film and video games. Idgaf what the makers are trying to do/want me to think or feel, my primary concern is with how the text itself affected me, and then once I've made up my mind in regards to that personal experience I'll consider looking into background/production info. If you need to justify your enjoyment of something by constantly jerking off the creators and their "intent" then imo you're liking something for the wrong reasons. Like it's all subjective let people like or dislike things. SH2 is my favorite game but I can see why someone would find it just okay or actually a terrible experience, especially nowadays. Anyways I'm very late to the party but great video, dude!

18:50 where can i buy the "chotto matte iku" magazine?

See, i agree with you to a certain extent... “Imagined-in intent” is a real issue a lot of romanticised old media get plagued with but i think that a lot of people defend the games weaker aspects because weather intentional or not, these aspects add to the experience regardless, and I don’t see the benefits of smugly going “ya reading too much into it kid” serves? Is it supposed to invalidate my fondness of the aspects by introducing doubt that they weren’t a part of the other’s intention? Or am I supposed to have an eye opening experience of realising that “wow this amazing thing that i love isn’t 100% perfect”

TY for the nostalgic ff10 music, hngh, needed that.

I was wondering how you’re gonna make a video about Silent Hill with Mirror’s Edge in it. I should play that.

To give my two cents on Silent Hill 2, it’s a much more saddening and personal game than it is a scary one. It’s a result of this that makes Silent Hill 2 my favorite purely because of how personal and intimate it feels. I would agree that the voice acting isn’t what you would expect nor want in a big-budget production (especially when Silent Hill 1 had arguably better voice acting 2 years prior), but I nonetheless think it feels very human and fittingly Lynchian. It becomes more believable when you take in mind that generally, people don’t behave or sound like characters in film, television, etc. I would even go as far to say that most people are pretty damn weird, or at least it can seem that way from an outsiders perspective. To pop the question, is Silent Hill 2 the best Silent Hill game? No, even as my favorite, I wouldn’t say so. That’s a question with an answer that varies from person to person anyways. I think each game offers a much different experience and your enjoyment in each one really depends upon what you’re looking for with each game. The mellow atmosphere of 2 might not appeal to a lot of people, and as a result they might like the insanity of 3 or 4 better, and vice versa. Overall, the takeaway should be this: just play the original 4, have a good time, wish the rest of the games were better, repeat.

I dunno. Most people I've talked to about Silent Hill 2 online and off for almost 2 decades that love it can also roast the hell out of it with joy. Absolutely nothing is flawless, all your faves are problematic, etc. Whenever someone is quick to defend something, it shows some insecurity. Maybe they want to be seen as a """serious""" gamer or fan or whatever. Blemishes are FINE. In certain cases it creates character, reliability. Perfection does not exist, but we can get close. Except for Knack 2. That's a masterpiece.

I love this game! Also really like 1 & 3, but they have kinda weak stories imo. SH2 is quite phenomenal.

I think the biggest let down with the game is Angela as a whole. I feel like they didn't got her. She was supposed to be way younger, the voice direction and performance is the worst in the game. And her character has such a strong trauma too.

💯% my favorite KZfaqr Who would have thought you could resonate with an Aussie guy in his 30s keep it up don't ever change, love your vids man.

Honestly, stilted dialogue in inappropriate situations is creepy as all hell to me. Idk about the fandom or whatever (I never owned a PlayStation) but I never had a problem with the arthouse/Twin Peaks-ass voice acting, intentional or not.

wow that’s crazy. i was literally searching up specifically silent hill 2 and thorhighheels related videos yesterday. no joke.

silent hill 2 is at its best in the darkest saddest wettest labyrinths when you are confused and angry and want to throw up and feel kinda sick

this video had me dieing xD great edits and fonts

This is kind of what makes it fantastic... It is the unsettling nature, the feeling like it could be real, but not knowing truly what it is. It is bizarre and chilling.

The most miserable time awaits us when the Remake comes out. "The original was always shit. Glad they fixed it." "True vision. Finally we get to see the intended story the way it was always meant to be...told? Angelas story is now better than ever thanks to the team who thinks the abused and mentally ill are better off dead." "Fuck subtle and awkward OLD James. That shit just doesn't fly today we need Sad Onion Face. Speaking of face i like mine to be sledgehammered with subtext and meaning thank you Bloober i mean thank you." It's gonna be baaaaaaad. Edit: Oh i forgot something sorry guys! "The combat is now fun."

People can critique whatever they want, but that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy SH2's voice acting. I know I do. That's a major part of the game's charm.

13:48 made me cackle like a fucking child. Your editing never fails to entertain me, Thor. Keep doin what you're doin

I used to roam around the town in the early parts of the game just because it was oddly relaxing. Greatly prefer Silent Hill 3. 2 is good, but 3's scares appealed to me more. May have just liked Heather, too. This game was my first M rated game. Got it and Shadow Hearts or DMC3's black label version from a used game store. Fell in love with Silent Hill. This game is a bit of a nostalgic one for me.

Never played a Silent Hill game, but I've had enough exposure to the series and its fans to know exactly what you're talking about. SH2's a result of internet hype mobs that so overwhelmingly hold up a game as great that everything about it gets raised higher and higher in modern day urban legends, over analysis, personal biases and beliefs, half-truths and assumed authorial intent. It goes the other way, too, where games can be 'verified' as bad by a faceless group of unrelated, noisy cynics even before release, doomed to failure and made an internet-acceptable target for any low brow joke at its expense, or using it as a reference point for anything else they don't like-even an excuse for hating other things by vague relation in extreme cases. The hailing of Bloodstained as "finally, a GOOD Kickstarter game" despite the actual track record of many praised games coming out (and the vast majority of the money not even coming from crowdfunding) and using it as a 'take that' against Konami. The instant hate for Contra: Rogue Corps and damning verdict of being a bad cash-in game from the first reveal despite the long time series director working on it and saying he's been trying to get a new Contra made for years (and the game launching at a reduced price). The near deification of Hideo Kojima (and by extension major unintended dismissal of everyone else who ever has or does work at Konami) not just from players, but within the industry to a point of total absurdity and fans calling any reviews of Death Stranding giving it less than perfect scores wrong despite none of them even having the ability to play, or even watch someone else play, the game themselves. The eternal curse placed upon Mighty No. 9 leading it to be the internet's punching bag over 3 years after release and the first example of "crowdfunding bad" everyone goes to to the point Keiji Inafune's reputation was destroyed and his past rewritten by hate mobs to undermine all the work in his entire career and use him as a scapegoat for the reason Capcom sucked for a good near-decade, all over a game that committed the sin of not being spectacular. All two sides of the same coin, mob mentality erasing the ability for critical thought and the ability or even desire to find out if any facts one is repeating are even true. It's genuinely depressing to me to see so much passion wasted by devoting it to something as petty as intensely hating a video game, or raising up others largely out of sardonic pleasure for how it contrasts with the ones you hate. It's all so tiring. ... Anyway, good video, dude. You put a lot of thoughts I've had into words, which is what inspired my outpouring above. As for analysis of the script and acting, has anyone ever asked Blaustein about how much of it was intentional, how much was directly translated with intent from Team Silent and how much, if any, he rewrote? Seems like the guy to go to for that aspect.

The voices are perfect. They're everyday people not Hollywood actors. The characters are all fucked up from past abuse and trauma. Guy Cihi was even going through a rough divorce at the time. Also Laura's VA makes sense because she was a kid.

The King is back! I had rough day...I feel much better now. Thanks man, keep em coming!

team silent went full tommy wiseau and leaned into their obtuse development as if it was their original intention all along. when really it was supposed to be a half ass resident evil clone but ended up being an accidental masterpiece

This game has always unfairly benefited from groupthink (or mob mentality, or whatever semantics you may prefer), just as works like Final Fantasy VIII and The Last Jedi (just two major examples that easily come to mind, different examples could be used and the point would be the same) have unfairly suffered in pop culture and general public opinion because of many factors unrelated to the works themselves (the political zeitgeist of the moment for the latter, and the once-in-a-generation significance of its predecessor which created essentially unsatisfiable expectations for the former). Silent Hill 2 was at the right place at the right time (early days of the PS2) and most people played it just as they were coming into maturity themselves, so it became the go-to example of "games can be art" etc in the minds of a generation, when the truth is that games had been art for a very long time already; it's just that those games weren't in such an ideal place or time when they released. It's still a great game, a great work of art, of course, but the almost religious reverence with which it has always been discussed is attributable to many factors outside of the work itself, and... yeah. It also resulted in earnest attempts to continue the series such as Downpour and Shattered Memories being unfairly lambasted merely for "not being Silent Hill 2", much in the same way that a generation of adolescents whose only previous exposure to the JRPG genre was Final Fantasy VII would deride VIII for a million different reasons, but that would have almost certainly happened to it no matter what it was: so long as it wasn't FFVII, it would be deemed a disappointment. That's how I see things anyway. I've always felt that the original Silent Hill and Siren (NOT Blood Curse, the original Siren) were vastly better than Silent Hill 2 in most regards. The Sixth Sense is another good example of this phenomenon.

TwinPerfect was the worst thing to happen to the Silent Hill fanbase. Only confused people more and weaponized the "i'm smarter than you" crowd

I don’t mind the voice acting at all, but what kills silent hill for me is the combat. More particularly the amount of ammo you get makes the game way less scary. There are parts in silent hill 2 where you’re running around with upwards of 250 bullets in a gun, and on top of that its really easy to dodge enemies when running around, the only time you have to worry about being hit is if you’re in a small room or hall, but even then you have so much ammo you don’t have to worry about fighting enemies at all. I think it would be way scarier if the game forced you to fight enemies more often or simply made enemies faster, because avoiding enemies is incredibly easy. In other games like Resident Evil, enemies can easily grapple onto you and avoiding enemies is much more difficult. In Silent Hill enemies have charge up attacks instead which makes them easier to avoid as a result

I think a lot of the weird phrases really is "japanese to english writing". Because I, a Russian guy, only think that their intonnations and acting are off, and don't really see anything weird in choice of words, like in "Who is it?" from 16:55. And considering that it was written by Japanese and not Russian people it probably sounded completely natural to them.

Actually, it is stated in the special edition manual that James is not trained to be a soldier, so he misses shots on the distance because he doesn't know how to use a gun. But yeah, it's just one detail of the battle system and could be added by PR.

Comparing the stilted acting and weird dialogue of Silent Hill 2 to David Lynch is very appropriate. Because the work of David Lynch, I believe, is another example of people confusing emotional impact with intention. I studied film history and film theory under Bruce Kawin, who was also a film teacher to David Lynch when he was a young film student at the American Film Institute. Kawin stated that the one of the qualifications for being accepted by the AFI failing previously in another field. David Lynch was an failed painter before becoming a filmmaker. He demonstrated no interest in the dramatic arts. Everything that people love about him relies on him being able to render visual texture and mood. Otherwise he is basically Tommy Wiseou.

Halfway through this reinforces its critical immunity. Oh well.

Your impression of the Resident Evil 4 merchant literally made my day, thank you

New subscriber just wanna say that after watching this video, I'm convinced that ThorHighHeels is the Charlie Kaufman of video game criticism. Meta in a way that feels appropriate and valuable and not just for the sake of being clever. This exploration into the experience of video game criticism, and the role that it plays, was a helluva ride, super thought provoking. Thanks mate, loved it.

Silent Hill 2 is the Evangelion of video games

"its 3 am in the morning, so look man i dont know" in a game review

DSP beat silent hill 2 on hard, hes the true silent hill gamer

This was a wild ride. Genuine, really smart and well argued points combined with absolute silliness. I love it!

“ cause he’s not getting the suck and fk “ You described most marriages lol . It’s 2019 and we’re still talking about and watching stuff on SH2. It’s a very special game. Lol you described those two types of fans perfectly btw .

i dont think is the best survival horror of the world,ints not even the best of the series i take 3 and 4 anyday

I love SH2 to bits, but you can bet your ass that it will start getting critisized once the remake comes out (no matter the quality of it). The same happened to RE4. It was immune to critique and once the remake came out suddenly everyone and their mother is saying that it's outdated, that it was always too silly for them and that it needed a remake. People go sheep mode when a remake comes out.

I feel like you read some posts in a forum from people who didnt even play the game overhyped about it and then decided that you should make a video criticizing because saying that a good thing has minor flaws is cool, I guess?

I love your delivery, dude. You'd think that laid back, jocular and self-deprecating tendencies would undermine the more cerebral arguments you're making but they actually work perfectly together.

Really enjoy all of your work, and this video especially felt spot-on! Thanks for all these great videos. (Also: please review Shemue III!)

Damn, forgot how much I loved your videos.

"Has any film really been as convoluted as the Kingdom Hearts series?" Primer. You mean Primer.

Oh mi God you're gonna talk about the walkie fetus date simulator made by Kojima very soon, I don't know what to feel

"Shit's great.. On perp, or accidental. "

Everything should be taken with scrutiny as Silent Hill 2 has some issues in its pacing and general style, but it is very good game. I still remember unease I felt when I saw Pyramid Head just standing in that corridor and staring at James. It has aged technically, but mostly manages to work with those weaknesses.

Like him or hate him, this guy's spitting straight facts.

So, I found this channel by accident, and I gotta say, you got yourself a new fan, I love your work, keep it up!

Just found your channel and I LOVE your voice, narration and humor. But I don't really understand what you're talking about in the video lol

The "Citizen Kane of blank" is a work of art that puts already known devices together into a coherent system, influences the industry for decades to come and uses the medium's aspects to their full potential. In movies, that means focusing on cinematography and editing. In games, it would be interactivity and choice. It is NOT a game that looks like a half-decent movie, nor a game that's just emotional or fun to play. And it doesn't need to be perfect. Fallout, Deus Ex, MGS and Half-Life could qualify for different reasons. The Last of Us? Not even close.

After I finished this game I looked up what other's thought of it, and probably had the same experience. Barely anyone is talking about the game, rather the devs or what was intended, almost every critique is followed up by a defense based on the game development. Constantly thinking about why the voice acting is the way it is, or what every random thing is supposed to represent by Team Silent kind of ruins immersion especially while playing, what makes it creepy and unsettling is the mystery. Anyway I'll appreciate any critique like this that doesn't just say "it's overrated"

I’m one of those people who feels Mirror’s Edge 1 is better than Catalyst for a few good reasons: Faith as a character, the aesthetics of the city, the weight to your character movement, the comic-like cutscenes, not having an upgrade system. But Catalyst has that “think on your feet” element due to not being an easily memorizable series of straight levels, and that really speaks to freerunning as a sport and lifestyle. And the aesthetics of the city in Catalyst are high quality, even if I don’t like how futuristic they made them. Both have strengths and weaknesses. There are just aspects of the first game that I feel outweigh the positives and eclipse the negatives of Catalyst. This isn’t even a Mirror’s Edge video. Regardless, thank you Mr. HighHeels.

My problem with Catalyst is that i found it boring to take the same paths over and over. It's not that it's bad because it's open world, it's bad because the level design is weak. Mirrors Edge 1 level design was better and linearility makes it easier.

I liked the game, I really do. But I do have my problems with it and I'm sick of being shot down as a "you just don't get it" 'er. - The combat was so unfun that I sighed everytime I saw enemies in a narrow hallway. Enemies are just piñatas you bonk on the head several times. Would've been much better, scarier and overall fun if the game didn't have any combat at all - The bossfights are all the same: run around in a small room and shoot the tanky boss. How silly it may be, Eddy's second phase was the only interesting fight in the whole game. - How on God's green earth were people in the early 2000's able to figure those puzzles out on their own?! - Not noticing a 1-pixel-big key item that is only shown to you in a cutscene makes you run around looking for it for hours. - 90% of the first playthrough is a locked door simulator, gets old after the third location - The camera is scary and superultracool at first, but becomes extremely frustrating after a while - Not everything has a symbolic meaning, Reddit. Lightbulbs in a can do not have any symbolism outside of being a joke from the devs. Same with the voice acting: it's awkward, laughable and ruined the atmosphere (for me) because of budget; not because Team Silent thought it was a good fit for the spo0kyness of the game Outside of that, again, I liked the game. It's memorable, the story was good and the music sticked to me. But to call it the best game of all time?! 🤨 I even saw a guy say *"Silent Hill 2 proves that a game doesn't need good gameplay to be a good game"* O_O U WOT? I'll keep saying it: Silent Hill 2 is a masterpiece in horror media, but fails as a GOOD video game. It's an experience and must play, but I refuse to replay it anytime soon. I've been playing Silent Hill 3 now and it's much more to my taste: I'm having fun. The game feels scarier to me than its predecessor, the puzzles are more fun to do and enemies behave different; making you change combat strategy.

Really? I've beaten this game on Hard mode countless times, and you're telling me to degrade to Normal difficulty? Nice joke.

This is a masterpiece. It has its problems with the controls voice acting and combat. But also remember that James is just a every man and isn’t combat trained. Everything else from the graphics, story, and music is superb. This the strong case of the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Nope, the puking part is not funny . Nothing in this game puts you in a mindset of "lol I hear puking sounds, must be something real funnay!" Nope . "what twisted shit is happened now?" is more like it.

Hey dude, I really like ur videos. Been subbed for like 2 years now and sometimes I catch myself just marathoning ur videos for like 5 hours straight haha.

Like Lynch films SH2 kinda sucker punches you, lulls you in with strange or goofy dialogue or situations then hits you with something deep and genuinely emotional, the stark contrast makes it feel more impactful But yeah...lots of goofy stuff in the game in terms of actual game design

KZfaq man hate game? He bad!!! Seriously though, thanks for making this. Definitely nice to be able to look at things with more than one opinion on them even if you're a fan; especially if you're a fan.

Now I'm picturing the Catalyst Defense Squad in those Ultraman support team uniforms. Your point about the awkwardness of the line "who is it" as opposed to just "who" reminded me that English is your second language (maybe I'm wrong about that?). If so, your immersion in the language to the extent that you would notice that subtlety is certainly impressive.

I liked this video a lot, in no small way because it addresses the possible loopholes in some of your arguments in Style, Substance & Game Reviews. That video and this video feel like two sides of the same coin and should be watched together.

Great as always, friend.

SH2 fans are delusional, to them any criticism of the game is just from somebody who just doesn’t get it

Alternative title: To be or not to be intentional... We still love it.

One of the things that defined Citizen Kane was the creative camera angles used, so if anything is the Citizen Kane of video games, it's Silent Hill.