Watching Silent Hill go downhill feels like raising a kid only for them to get into a bad crowd, become a criminal and finally joining the Jersey Shore crew

Why didn't they make the main character Pyramid Head? It would make the hack and slash gameplay more 'believable' in the SH universe, and it would be a nice little blast of nostalgic catharsis

I worked on this game 9 years ago, I am surprised to see a review come out this recently. I enjoyed my time working that gig.

This is literally Silent Hill: Diablo edition.......

I would disagree on the fact that having a hack n' slash set in the Silent Hill universe is a great thing. It doesn't come from being a purist or anything, simply that since Silent Hill is a horror franchise, having those monsters be hacked by the dozen lessens their impact as terrifying creatures in their respective games, in my opinion. In Silent Hill, each encounter is supposed to feel a bit tense, with monsters being manageable one on one once you get a hold of the clunky combat mechanics, but additional monsters, even one, can make things go south real fast. But this tension may be partly negatively affected when in Book of Memories, you can just swing a gigantic sword a few times and kill 5 of them at once. Perhaps this is the kind of thing that doesn't affect everybody the same, but I absolutely think that this feeling of "the monsters are just pieces of meat for me to grind" can carry over. I would argue that there's quite a few genres that the Silent Hill franchise should avoid getting close to, in order to retain its effectivness as a horror series.

Thanks for taking a bullet for us Jared! Painful to see SH treated this way, trotted out for whatever money-squeezing idea Konami have, franchise suitability be damned. Not quite as depressing as "SH: the gambling machine", but it's down there

Fun fact about the games development history: The studio wanted to release the games both on current gen consoles and on the vita.. the fighting would still be like a standard dungeon crawler...but the exploration parts and puzzle solving would be made in third person view..using a flashlight.. but sadly.. konami wanted the game to use the vitas features, and it all went downhill from there And to be quite frank.. if only Bluepoint Games and Armature Studio were responcible for porting SH2 and 3 to the PS3, we would also have them on the vita instead of this, they did an amazing job with MGS HD on the PS3, and its such a shame we never got these two games on the home console and on a portable console, since i bet my ass that the vita could handle all 4 silent hill games on the go if in the right hands

The devs who had to make a multi-player silent hill game requested by Konami be like: Bruh

Brother, I needed some more Jared in my life, I got smashed in my work truck on Monday. Thanks for doing what you, my favorite Cuban viking.

@Avalanche Reviews: There is an audio loop in your video from 12:46 to around 13:10 in which you talk about the approach of Way Forward to the puzzles in the game. I believe it is the same sentence, but ending with different words.

This is a nice thorough look at this game. I've enjoyed all your Silent Hill videos so far, thank you for covering one of my favorite franchises!

Always love watching some late night Avalanche Reviews! Great stuff as always brother!!!

Yes! Notification pops up and everything in my life is dropped for 30 minutes. Thank you for making my morning!

just got silent hill: shattered memories for the ps2 today, great time for an upload

And I used to be stressed this is the only sh game I don't have ..now I know

Based on my experience with this game I'm going to guess this isn't going to go well. Woooo! Exactly what I needed to wake up to =)

This looks like exactly the game I've been looking for... when I want to play a Diablo clone. It's a shame knowing that it fails to satisfy that extremely specific cross genre itch of blending SH aesthetic and world building with rogulike mechanics. One of my favorite experiences of the original SH was when, towards the end of the game, you couldn't be sure what environment you'd arrive in when you passed through a door- that type of scenario could lend itself well to a roguelike. Remnant from the Ashes shows that a horror rogulike can be a fun experience. This looks like a modded version of Kingdom Hearts

I'm obsessed with all things Silent Hill. I'm looking forward to your future videos!

I kind of want to see Wayforward get another shot at SH, but with more creative freedom that plays into there strengths. Maybe a retro-remake of the first game that would play like a 2D Metroid-vania. Call it “Silent Hill: Demastered”.

Another great review bro. Keep em coming.

I love Silent Hill and I love RPG dungeon games. It doesn't mean that they combined together lol. Great review there Avalanche!

I'm glad wayforward found their passion with colorful platformers. I'm surprised THIS alone didn't spiral their whole studio into obscurity

Came for SH,stayed for the excellent video capture analysis. Nice work as always Jared 👌🏻

Thanks for recapping this, not many people gave it attention which sucks because i really love to watch retrospectives of anything related to silent hill😂

Hey man, thanks for the new video. Been looking forward to more Avalanche Reviews.

You damn hero, I was looking forward to this!

Literally just started replaying Silent Hill 1 yesterday and this pops up into my recommended.

Another great video and i appreciate you covering these more obscure games I have no interest in playing myself, thanks Jared.

I love this game because it has so much SH lore in it

I've been waiting for this one!

I know it would get old really quick, but just watching this footage, the melee attacks have some decent feedback. Smacking monsters looks pretty satisfying.

Book of Memories feels like Rob Zombie version of Silent Hill (no disrespect to RZ, I find his movies really fun but I can see some overlaping themes).

On the one hand, being able to wield Pyramid Head's Great Knife 🔪 effortlessly, whereas both he and James struggled to swing that bad boy is a sight! I took great pains to find and keep it😄 However, finding the connecting story as to why you had this book and your character's involvement in Silent Hill did seem to be lacking. It has the Diablo-style gameplay that is refreshing. I don't know it's a game with Silent Hill elements your mileage will vary😅

Avalanche posts a video, I watch, I like, it’s a simple process. Thanks man, great vid!

Never knew about this game great video. Also this kinda reminds me of hunter the reckoning

You said the "distillation" line twice (12:45 and 12:59) Regardless, great video as always!! I always had a vita and was interested in getting this game. This video makes me glad I passed on it

Love your retrospectives. Watched all of your resident evil and dino crisis ones and currently working my way through silent hill. That being said, dead space retrospective?

this feels like an idea that could have worked with less restrictions from the higher ups. there's parts of a really good game in here, by look of it.

The best thing to come out of this game is Mary McGlynn's rendition of 'Love Psalm'.

It really takes serious dedication to even touch this shit with your actual hands, I am truly impressed by the sheer amount of effort. So I'm guessing one of the titles left will be Silent Hills/P.T, but I'm not sure about the other. You can't possibly be talking about PACHINKO MACHINE, can you?!

Just in time when I felt like I’ve watched all the good sh videos

Were you still planning to do a House of The Dead retrospective?

I was expecting another RE movie or the Dead Space review, but i will take anything you put out 😎👍

I’m half surprised they didn’t try to somehow shoehorn Howard into the SH HD Collection. He brought James the letter!

SH3 being my fav, I actually didn’t know this existed but would love to play this.. not for the story but the different feel of SH. By the looks of it the big weapons with sfx kills the vibe. Could be darker and only light is your flashlight to make it scarier, also less enemies and cutscene when encountering a new one, scarce ammo that makes fights easy from afar and melee weapons being dreadful and a feel of danger when near enemies?

I thought I knew about all of the Silent Hill games. After watching this video, I now completely understand why I had never heard of this game.

to be fair, at 3:47 Silent Hill has used the postal service to give Jams Mary's letter

I really hope that next gen brings us a new silent hill I have seen some leaks but of course we don’t know for sure

"At the start of BM *chuckle*" I fucking lost it lol

Is anyone else imagining Howard running around Silent Hill with a fake moustache pretending to run all the shops and deliver the mail and serve at the cafe?

@Avalanche reviews, you covered both survivor games, are you planning on covering outbreak? Files one and two, it's like a healthy blend of classic fixed angles and modern style play with a real time inventory that doesn't pause the game, and severely limited space no more than 4 items at a time * barring you play as yoko who has double space, the games are amazing I picked them out of a bargain bin in like 2008 and I don't think enough folks have seen it yet

Omg how many silent hill games are out there!

Oh yay! I was wondering if you were gonna bring this game up!

Your chuckle at saying BM is great.

The top view perspective reminds me of Zombies ate my neighbors.

Finally got around to catching up on your videos, so glad that you were able to get Sharpscale working! You'll have to hit me up sometime and tell me what you did cuz it always crashed for me xD It makes me wonder how well Sharpscale would do playing PSP titles through the PSTV. I hate how the physical Vita carts are still expensive on the 2nd hand market, and it'll probably get worse as time goes on. So for anyone out there wanting to experience games on the Vita, I definitely recommend getting the homebrew up and running. Super easy to do and a ton of great games have been made super accessible because of it, and the HB community is pretty active. There is a ton of cool stuff outside the PS Vita and PSP games available so definitely worth it!

3:20 Fantastic

agreed, the only thing good that came from this was the short bonus animated comic where every main SH character is in it or is referenced

Jared now you're contractually obligated to review the Silent Hill Comics 🤣

In the words of Godfather part II: "Look how they massacred by boy" Edit: @Avalanche Reviews, has the Drakengard/Nier franchise been something you have thought of covering? I enjoy your take on things and would love to hear what you think of these games. Many sharks get jumped, but trust me, it works.

I didn't even know this was even in anay of the silent hill games

Random gameplay concept. A break system which works like this: Usable: is the typical state the weapons are found. Broken: this is the fun part, for most weapons it means they lose some power, but in other cases they actually become stronger (example, a glass bottle), of course this state has less durability than the "usable" state. Useless: The weapon may disappear from your inventory, or remain and can be repaired, trying to use them do next to nothing.

On this day 8/5/2020, Jared begot his only $199.99 + shipping on eBay for a Vita TV to save us from... this. Can't believe you put yourself through Book of Memories. Bless you, sir. Is one of the remaining games the Play Novel? I'd love to see your thoughts on the extra campaigns. Then there's the "DLC" for the game that had the three extra modes that vanished in Japan. It'd be a crazy ride, but nothing short of a miracle could locate that Play Novel DLC.

such tragedy, as the Concept to combine Silent hill with butterfly effect sounds pretty interesting on paper

One day someone will make a great Silent Hill inspired dungeon crawler. It's too good of a concept to let fail

This looks like one of those games where someone has to force themselves to like it. However, the idea of a random dungeon in the Silent Hill universe does make sense.

This game lost me when the titular Book of Memories wasn't a metaphor, but a literal book filled with a list of your memories... I just... that really made me roll my eyes xD I think "horror-themed rouge like" is a cool idea, but tacking the Silent Hill name onto it was just... tasteless corporate marketing. 1,000 points for name dropping Shiren the Wanderer in this review though. Now THAT is a must-own for Vita. ;D (it's coming to Switch this year, too)

silent hill always resonated with me because I have traditionally been my own worst enemy.

Great vid.

This game is salvageable. If they went full tilt on the idea of altering your past and flesh out some of the drama but stick with just one plot thread like someone getting fired for say an adiction getting in the way we could have had something good or at least half decent. And then when you finish one "past" for your character you could unlock another. Granted it would be hard to intigrate multiplayer but you could still make it a dungon crawler that changes each time you play it. As for the weapons one thing that could be done is add legendary weapons that could be significant to the character's past like say a hunting rifle they used when their dad took them on a family camping trip or a wooden sword they used to play with when they where a kid and have these stand out by being immune to breaking and have them scale with the character's or monster's level.

The mailman was supposed to be an entity of Silent Hill. He was supposed to be featured in all games and media going forward but the series all but died.

Honestly I can see a Co-op Silent Hill working. Since most of what happens in the SH games is the character's PTSD mental torture there's a lot of potential that can play off of that. For example when you create a character you can pick one of X amount of vague backstories and depending on what you pick creates different outcomes in your environment/play through. So if you picked a backstory based on being stabbed in the back by those close to you, your teammates on occasion (on your screen) will turn into some messed up enemy that tries to attack you and when you both speak on mic in game chat it's replaced with static. Once the enemy is killed you'd snap out of it and see that your partner wasn't yet another back stabber that your character was deathly afraid of. You could also have endings revolving around the amount of players you have and what their backstories are as well as the choices you all made throughout. And that amount of endings isn't even that unrealistic since SH games are known for their abundance of endings. I'm just spitballing here but if done well I think a co-op SH can work while still having the constant panic attack vibe and even having the co-op itself play into that anxiety. But for the love of Christ if there's a create character don't have ridiculous options like the one shown in video? SH was always about the average Joe/Jane with a garbage past so keep the options semi-generic with realistic hair colors/styles.

When this game first came out I remember thinking it didn't look all too polished for a Vita game and looking back it looks like a game for your phone. I never ended up getting it because though I am a huge fan of dungeon crawlers, especially old school ones, this one rubbed me wrong with the big Silent Hill in its title.

Much Love from Germany!!

love watching your reviews, keep up the great work :-)

True Silent Hill game here. I mean a person running around with an ice sword+2 and killing enemies. Just like all other SH games!

Can you review the rest of the clock tower franchise and nightcry ?

WayForward makes awesome 2D games, recently have made awesome gems. Silent Hill was their lowest point, they are much better than that.

Oh man, I forgot this game existed! I was so excited for a Vita SH game... then I played the demo...

'At the start of BM'..... sounds about right.

So I might have said this already on another SH video, but I have to take that make and say it here. I let out the most guttural "OH NO" in the world upon seeing this title!

James recieved a letter from "Mary" though.

Yo Jared you ever read the silent hill omnibus? Or the interactive graphic novel game silent hill experience for psp?

Whoever thought this game would make a nice addition to the Silent Hill franchise must be insane. This game looks like it could be anything else but SH.

Will you cover "The Silent Hill Experience" for PsP?

I wonder if the puzzles have been distilled down to their base level

“At the start of BM” You know what you did. You know...😀

Not Tomm Hulett's fault. Tomm prevented a super saiyen like battle between the cults God and a new God in SH in SH: Homecoming. Yeah, thats what he was working with.

I remember having really wanted to play this game. Still kind of do even knowing that it isn't a good Silent Hill game

Oh how could this game be expensive, I've my copy for years since it came out and thought it was total junk.

I didn't even know this game existed

Since ure doing Survival Horror games, would u tackle the underrated juggernaut Fatal Frame?

So glad I got this game for $22 complete in perfect condition. Regardless of the game's quality, any old game belonging to a classic franchise is sure to go up in price these days.

Welcome back 🐱

What retrospectives do you plan on doing after you finish the SH series?

I think this is ok but yeah the main reason I got it was that for some reason the Vita seemed starved for this type of dungeon crawler released physically when I asked online. Which is weird to me because the PSP had many games of this type. Fortunately I found a cheap copy in a local used game store.

I hope the rumors of the new silent hill game will be the one to bring Silent Hill back on the map, or should i say off the map and into the fog?

Great vid, thanks Jared 👍 I'm wondering, are you looking forward to The Medium? It looks like something made to be on your channel 😁

Not remotely a survival horror and a Silent Hill game, but I'd lie if I said I didn't have fun with this game. Sweet easter eggs with Diablo clone gameplay, some cool bosses. A 7/10 game, imo.

My friend worked on this game...to this day he's never wanted to talk about it, and I don't blame him. xD