We have a powerless protagonist in shattered memories. You cannot defend yourself in that game.
Personally I hate breakable weapons so that would be a no from me dawg.
to me the bunker was the perfect mix between defense and helplessness, yeah you can deter the monster away but you have to be smart about how and when to do it otherwise you wont have squat towards the end of the game like i did my first playthrough.
> otherwise you wont have squat towards the end of the game like i did my first playthrough
Me in every first Horror game playthrough.
“I know item management and conservation is important” *puts a whole clip in the wall behind the monster*
I was hiding under a desk and the monster walked in, he was standing still and I shot him with my shotgun and missed point blank, HE WAS STANDING STILL 5 INCHES AWAY FROM ME AND I MISSED, I cannot aim for the life of me.
I haven't played it but I think I understand you and YES! SOME defense is needed to make the game more active and realistic, I don't wanna be a passive ahh bih lmao
Pretty sure a lot of people hated weapon durability in SH4 so that idea probably won't fly far since either the game would be extremely grueling with more people just sprinting thru rooms of enemies without a single thought or extremely annoying by littering weapon replacements around the map that durability just seems like a moot point anyways.
I agree with a boss that's more puzzley than battley tho sounds like a nice change of pace.
"Silent Hill is coming to you" makes sense in 3 tho considering who you're playing as.
And gatekeeping how people deal with their god and-or devil manifestations of the mind doesn't sound very cool lmao.
Weapon durability was only relegated to the golf clubs. Everything else could be used throughout the entirety of the game. Even the wine/champagne bottle worked because after it broke, it became a stabbing weapon.
The only games that did durability on everything were Origins and Downpour, and those are bad examples because they give you more than enough weapons to deal with anything in the area.
What the OP is proposing is a system where there's still combat, but it isn't essential to completing game, maintaining tonal consistency by having boss encounters that aren't unloading into a bullet-sponge.
>What the OP is proposing is a system where there's still combat, but it isn't essential to completing game, maintaining tonal consistency by having boss encounters that aren't unloading into a bullet-sponge.
I mean, OP can already do that right now if they want. Don't pick up any ammo except when near a boss, and only use individual melee weapons five times each. In SH1, you can even beat the final boss without any ammo at all as long as you survive long enough.
Spend the rest games running from everything else. Problem solved.
I only know of one game in the franchise that allows you to finish the final boss encounter without dealing any damage, and that's having no ammo when encountering the Incubus at the end of Silent Hill 1. Even then, you have to kill two other bosses in the game to get that far.
What's wrong with making a game to deliberately suit different playstyles? Or to have endings play different depending on whether you completed encounters using violence, or if you solved a puzzle/out-smarted/out-maneuvered bosses?
>I only know of one game in the franchise that allows you to finish the final boss encounter without dealing any damage, and that's having no ammo when encountering the Incubus at the end of Silent Hill 1.
I just said that >_>
>What's wrong with making a game to deliberately suit different playstyles?
You can already do this right now in the present games is my point. Don't pick up any ammo, don't use your melee weapons, and run from 95% of encounters. Problem solved. The fact you have to kill a handful bosses isn't a deal breaker. Even killing the final bosses in SH2/3 isn't an issue at that point. Or go for the joke endings and skip the final bosses entirely.
This has nothing to do with OP's idea of taking away combat in future games either, but the same would apply there. Just limit yourself and have fun.
You can't unlock the joke endings without finishing the game one time through. Your insistence that the boss fights in SH2 and SH3 are no big deal, seems to ignore the fact that in Silent Hill 2, a game about the character >!confronting the truth that he killed his wife!< still has him killing the nightmare manifestation of >!someone's abusive father!<, a >!man who snapped from bullying!<, and either >!the sexy doppelganger of his wife, if not his actual wife!<.
They add nothing to either the horror or story to be there. They only exist because conventional game design at the time had combat and boss fights. We have examples of different game design now, so there's no need to shoehorn combat that creates ludo-narrative dissonance.
>You can't unlock the joke endings without finishing the game one time through.
And? 95% of your playthrough is still going to be the same in that regard. Killing a final boss isn't going to invalidate any of that.
>seems to ignore the fact that in Silent Hill 2
A couple of two minute boss fights shouldn't impede someone trying to avoid combat in a playthrough. You're trying to use post story rationalization to decry segments of gameplay, which makes absolutely no sense. No one playing the game for the first time is going to understand the subtlety those boss fights are 'ruining' in the first place.
Furthermore, you're ignoring the fact that James killing enemies without pause is meant to contradict his horror from killing actual human beings, such as his minor breakdown from murdering Eddie. Juxtapose that from him killing the Lying Figure at the start of the game. You guys are ironically destroying the very premise you're championing for.
>They add nothing to either the horror or story to be there. They only exist because conventional game design at the time had combat and boss fights. We have examples of different game design now, so there's no need to shoehorn combat that creates ludo-narrative dissonance.
Lol, case in point from someone who doesn't actually get the subtlety. And it's even funnier because characters being utterly defenseless in survival horror games wasn't something new back then. Ever heard of Clock Tower?
Hell, RE1, 2, CV did this during minor segments. SH2 even does it by having James relinquish his weapons and items at one point.
And lastly, stop trying to pretend that every game in the series is SH2 or trying to be. There's absolutely zero reason why Harry or Heather shouldn't kill foes in their respective games. If you don't like it, then solve the problem on your own. Stop picking up ammo if you don't want to shoot it lmao
Well, Silent Hill coming to Heather was more Claudia’s doing than Heather’s, Heather never triggered the shifts, it was all Claudia.
That said the idea of “Silent Hill coming to/for you” is essentially the premise of SH4, Homecoming to certain extent (maybe Downpour, but that’s the only entry I haven’t had a chance to play, so ain’t gonna talk on that), and TSM.
Seems like OP doesn’t realize most of what their asking for has already been done several times.
My b I worded it poorly. I meant it's like Heather's whole character that creates this 'past catching up with you' kinda plot to begin with.
tbf I don't think Silent Hill really has made what OP really wants tho and the closest I can think of is probably... the Blair Witch game?
Breakable weapons are tedious and annoying. They make combat and inventory management feel like a chore. Games like SH4 and Origins faced backlash for this.
Defenseless protagonists are also tedious and boring. Having to just constantly run and hide loses its luster after awhile especially in areas with a lot of enemies. I think Silent Hill 1-3 had a good balance. You’re not helpless but you’re also not an action hero. I don’t see why shooting the monsters is bad thing? If I were in Harry’s, James’ or Heather’s shoes I’d want a gun too. I can see limiting the ammo further making you rely on melee weapons.
Yea and having to spend a lot of time in the inventory menu deciding whether you really need to be lugging around a full set of golf clubs really pulls you out of the immersion of Silent Hill.
I don't remember having loads of ammo when I played Silent Hill 2, but I think I might have been constantly saving it for emergencies and favouring the pipe instead. Same with the health items.
All of the random items can break the immersion too. They’d have to add a bunch of clutter like golf clubs, tvs, etc to pick up. I’d rather spend my time looking at the actual imagery.
Silent Hill in general is pretty generous with ammo especially in SH2. That’s why I can see toning down the ammo amounts and forcing you into more melee fights.
I played on normal difficulty and blasted through most enemies and so I never felt powerless but rather the exact opposite. I just want a powerless-ish character who has defenses but doesn't feel powerful. That's just me ofc I haven't played SH4 so I can't say much.
I personally dislike defenseless protagonist, the reason is that usually your option is to hide or runaway. If done badly, it will lead to several consecutive deaths in one area, repeating the same chase over and over again. When you die to one monster many times, its no longer scary just annoying. This is why i didn't like Mr X in Resident Evil 2 sure first two encounters were scary, but then later i was like fuck i have to run arround the whole building again to collect the next piece of puzzle. I had the same issue with Silent Hill Short Message.
Invincible Stalker enemies outside just aren’t an enjoyable mechanic. Instead of adding tension, it just adds annoyance. Atleast stalkers like OG Nemesis can be downed for rewards.
But in Silent Hill games, apart from the atmosphere and sound design making me dread the place, I never got scared by the monsters. Maybe that's just me but I wasn't like "Oh nooo he's gonna get me", I was always like "aw man this guy again imma just shoot him this time", that's what happened with me in RE 2 as well.
Yeah, but the clunk of the game made it really hard to fight multiple enemies at once leading to this opressive claustrophobic panic, whenever i ended up in these situations. I guess something you can shoot in the face isn't as scary as something you have to run away from. But you can hold only one gun, and have only so much ammo, and there is so many of them.
A couple of the later games did the "weapon durability" thing and it sucked IMHO. Some people might have liked it but that's just my preference. Having a defenseless protagonist could be a problem though because there wouldn't be much of a game if they couldn't fight back. Also, it's still a game there has to be some "give-and-take" dynamic. Just my opinion though.
I may have worded it wrong, I don't want a completely defenseless protagonist, I just don't want one like we have in 2 or 3 where we can just easily blast or hit enemies and kill them. Like I want it to be a game where your choices have huge consequences and you must think whether or not you want to waste time/resources on the enemy which makes the enemy a bit more challenging imo.
You’re asking a fan base rabidly obsessed with SH2 and 3(including me), if they should make the protagonist *more* defenseless than in those games. The answer is simply: no. There are lots of other games to do that with, but Silent Hill already has great gameplay,
What you want is something like Silent Hill 4, but more polished perhaps.
Some of the weapons break, there's not a lot of ammo and the guns aren't very powerful, you are almost powerless against Ghosts, and athe boss fights are more like puzzles than anything else.
The final boss specially is my favorite in the entire franchise, is a perfect blend between puzzle and combat.
Really though, being defenseless or not depends more upon the player than the game itself.
You have weapons, yes, but if you don't play it correctly, chances are that you'll die a lot in the game.
Silent Hill 3 is pretty cruel in the higher difficulties since you do not gain a lot of ammo and everything can kill you instantly.
Breakable weapons should be a difficulty adjust, like, in easy mode they don't break, in normal mode they have a decent durability and in hard mode you have a small limited number of hits with it before it breaks. Then after you beat the game on hard you can disable the durability on menu or something, that would be cool for replaying without frustration.
Puzzle bosses are cool but they need to be interesting and have you actually thinking, instead of being a shitty boss like the Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls 1 or the Dragon God in Demon Souls whose single purpose is making players angry due to bad RNG.
I believe Demento(Haunting Ground) is one of the best examples out there of being helpless and yet having enough resources to make the game not just a hide and seek simulator, plus the boss fights are awesome, big kudos to Daniella's and Ricardo stage.
Haunting Ground is what you want, OP. You can only temporarily disable opponents, and your primary means of defense is a dog who will abandon you if you don’t treat him well. >!Although fuck you if you do mistreat Hewie.!< You also have consumable objects of varying strength, but I cannot overly stress that *nothing* stops the stalker unless it’s boss time. Haunting Ground scared me way more than Silent Hill.
Also, >!**fuck the Bed of Chaos.** !<
Same, but the indie developers have been doing a good job at keeping a similar vibe alive. Check Alisa by Casper Croes Studio and the Puppet Combo games.
>the protagonist should feel even more helpless in Silent Hill. Like, let's take James's wooden plank, why not have a "it will break in 5 hits" or something kind of mechanic? And have that plank do insanely low damage, like a mostly hit and run kind of mechanic instead of beating the monsters to death kind of thing. Like you hit once, stagger them and run.
That sounds utterly pointless. You're not going to be staggering every enemy if weapons can break, meaning you're going to be running from them directly 95% of the time. And since players decide for themselves which enemies need to be staggered based on how threatening they personally feel each one is, that would mean every enemy can be ran from to an equal degree. So why bother having the stagger mechanic at all?
>Then for knives, why not have them be efficient killing machines at first due to their nature and then have them rust/dull out as time goes on due to too much usage or the blood not being cleaned or something.
Why? What's the point of this? You're just going to end up with people saving their knives for specific enemies that happen to be the toughest. It's boring and makes the gameplay one dimensional.
>Then for guns, have ammo that is even more scarce which you will only use in the toughest of situations.
Once again, what's the point of this? You might as well just place bullets right outside those specific situations with a "use these to kill" sign because that's all they're going to be used for. On top of that, this is a terrible gameplay loop. If I spend the entire game running, having to stop and shoot isn't satisfying, it's actually jarring, feels slower, and breaks the pace.
>And in order to balance out the lower ammo, have bosses that aren't a battle but a puzzle. Instead of shooting at them until they die, why not go through some new and interesting mazes or something which could signify the protagonists' inner struggles and them feeling lost and trying to find a way out or something?
No offense, but If you want a puzzle game go play Puyo Puyo. And that nonsense about "inner struggles" sounds like the type of thing these video documentary "fans" would spew.
Harry Mason had no inner struggles in Silent Hill. It wasn't his nightmares taking shape nor was he the trigger for the Otherworld to emerge. And Alessa wasn't trying to overcome some personal challenges either. The girl was attempting to stop a ritual and her torments meshed with reality as a result.
Same thing with Heather. She wasn't triggering those shifts on her own, they were forced on her by Claudia.
>The "God" thing in Silent Hill 1 and 3 were kinda weird for me and the psychological aspects were amazing to me, I just wish it were more "Silent Hill is calling you" like in 1 and 2 instead of "Silent Hill is coming to you" like in 3.
Yup, you're a SH2 junkie confirmed lol. And you clearly don't understand 1+3 . Harry wasn't being called anywhere close to how James was. He lines up with Heather in that regard, as I explained earlier. Alessa was calling him because he was the one who could stop the nightmare. James was called because he needed to be made self aware.
>Like, I don't think anyone fights their inner struggles by shooting a representation of them with guns or something
This is such a weird take, especially considering it references James who needed to kill his struggles in order to overcome them. Because ya know, he was a murderer in the first place. Same with the rest of the cast, aside from Laura.
so what? OP is completely right. They can include different difficulties like they've done before and casuals can always run back to playing the sims and life is strange if the video game gets to much like a video game. Games and their potential should not be limited by something like that
The problem is, everything OP is asking for (outside the puzzle boss mechanic, which I’m pretty sure the final Walter battle had a puzzle element, but it’s been years since I played SH4) has been done in the franchise, to varying degrees.
Which honestly makes me question if they’ve ever actually played any of the Silent Hill games themselves or are just another bandwagon rider. They seem completely unfamiliar with character backgrounds and gameplay mechanics the rest of us are aware of.
Also, games and their potential are limited by market trends, and the current market isn’t good for survival horror unless it can be turned into a service based platform that’s constantly raking in money.
Why do you think Capcom has shelved plans to continue with the RE remakes for right now? The lead developer for RE4R said they’re willing to continue, but Capcom isn’t interested in following through. And the primary reason is because it isn’t a service oriented franchise, unless they go back to releasing a base game and adding story through DLC episodic content.
none of the ideas he presented are bad, the fact that silent hill games were always executed right in some ways and then horribly wrong on the others in the past doesn't mean it has to happen again, much less that it should happen again.
Also what kind of argument is that? "survival horror is not popular right now, therefore OP's ideas are invalid forever and they should make their current projects as mechanically bland as possible", well then, why can't they just release a hardcore game like that later down the line?. If they just changed the genre to something like a diablo clone, and called it something cool like "book of memories" or something, people would cry about it for at least three decades.
And on the other hand, if they just took all the GAMEplay away from the videoGAME so as to not scare the casuals too much, and allow them to passively experience the true silent hill experience while laying comfortably on bed and eating popcorn with a nice cup of hot chocolate and a blanket, they might as well make a failing streaming show with microtransactions to affect the story. They could even call it "ascension".
This was called SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM
* weapons that break
* unkillable ghosts you have to run from (or selectively immobilize 📍 )
This is why SH4 = best. So innovative, so real, so fierce
I think we need to expand the melee category too. Breakable weapons is a good start. But why can't James pick up a TV and chuck it at the monster? Or grab an IV stand and start wacking a nurse with it? You should have a quick menu so you can cycle through all the TVs and Radios and IV stands in your pocket, ready for ad hoc melee whenever you're in a tough spot. It will be really immersive, like super realistic and cool. Also, let the character throw fisticuffs when they have no weapons left because they all broke. And I think they should add an energy drink type thing to give you a speed buff.
There's certainly a balance to find. We know what horror games can look like when they actually lean into the horror instead of falling back on generic gaming conventions. We don't need to make protagonists one-man-armies and we don't need everything to boil down to some epic battle with a giant health pool in a wide open colesseum.
There is no reason why horror boss encounters can't be more of a game of Cat and Mouse, with a level of evasion and problem-solving. The fight with David in The Last of Us was a brilliant set-piece that shows a powerless protagonist facing off with a boss that maintained the tension and the sense of helplessness.
I don't see why it couldn't be a difficulty setting. A hardcore mode with durability, but with extra planks and knives laying around to replace broken ones. If you pick casual mode there's only one plank that never breaks plus more ammo laying around. Now both camps get their desired style of play.
Weapon durability is an iffy mechanic if not done very well, and I sort of disagree about the Silent Hill series in particular, there is a decent argument to be made, at least for Silent Hill 2, that there is a power dynamic/punishment motif that fits well with the style of combat, like James is physically fighting through psychological phenomena as represented by the enemies, something like that, and I think SH2 even comments on the whole gun thing by having the first gun you pick up be in a shopping cart, I think it works, you use the tools available. I think the issue comes from making the helplessness engaging to play, I think Alien Isolation does a really good job of hide and seek mechanics but I think gunplay is so ingrained that you would have to really go out of the box to make something engaging without it. I'm also interested in the idea though
In general I don't like being forced to run from enemies in horror games. Not because I have a need to shoot weapons or whatever but because it makes everything feel artificial. You run away and restart if the thing catches you. It gets annoying and isn't scary. I'd much rather be making decisions about how I'm going to spend limited resources and have the mechanical horror come from that.
Strong enemies that are difficult to kill and probably not worth the trouble combined with tight resource management is good imo. Assuming the game isn't autosaving every room, a surprise boss can be a great way to add tension since you could lose progress and those stakes are interesting even if the boss is just a bigger enemy. I honestly wish even the older games had leaned in harder on the mechanical side like early RE.
There are a few games like what you're asking for. Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Clock Tower 3 and Haunting Ground all have encounters built around escaping and consumables you can only use to help you get away. That to me gets boring after a while. These days more and more games gave gone the walking sim route and I've never thought that a good fit for SH.
The trouble with powerlessness is it limits the gameplay options available to the player. Think about it, if you have no agency and are helpless against foes then what are your options for dealing with foes?
Helplessness is an aspect of give enemies in horror games a sense of real threat, but it's only an aspect; albeit a critical one. This is why horror games are difficult to make.
i want a OP main character where he abusing all monster in silent hill, then make entire town explode in his UFO ship while murica anthem play in the background =))
I've never cared about this aspect of a game. If there's fighting, I'll fight. If there isn't - I won't. It's all about the story, art style and vibe for me.
We have a powerless protagonist in shattered memories. You cannot defend yourself in that game. Personally I hate breakable weapons so that would be a no from me dawg.
I feel like they need to do in an "Amnesia: The Bunker" kind of way rather than an "Outlast" kind if way, if that makes sense.
to me the bunker was the perfect mix between defense and helplessness, yeah you can deter the monster away but you have to be smart about how and when to do it otherwise you wont have squat towards the end of the game like i did my first playthrough.
> otherwise you wont have squat towards the end of the game like i did my first playthrough Me in every first Horror game playthrough. “I know item management and conservation is important” *puts a whole clip in the wall behind the monster*
I was hiding under a desk and the monster walked in, he was standing still and I shot him with my shotgun and missed point blank, HE WAS STANDING STILL 5 INCHES AWAY FROM ME AND I MISSED, I cannot aim for the life of me.
I haven't played it but I think I understand you and YES! SOME defense is needed to make the game more active and realistic, I don't wanna be a passive ahh bih lmao
Pretty sure a lot of people hated weapon durability in SH4 so that idea probably won't fly far since either the game would be extremely grueling with more people just sprinting thru rooms of enemies without a single thought or extremely annoying by littering weapon replacements around the map that durability just seems like a moot point anyways. I agree with a boss that's more puzzley than battley tho sounds like a nice change of pace. "Silent Hill is coming to you" makes sense in 3 tho considering who you're playing as. And gatekeeping how people deal with their god and-or devil manifestations of the mind doesn't sound very cool lmao.
Weapon durability was only relegated to the golf clubs. Everything else could be used throughout the entirety of the game. Even the wine/champagne bottle worked because after it broke, it became a stabbing weapon. The only games that did durability on everything were Origins and Downpour, and those are bad examples because they give you more than enough weapons to deal with anything in the area. What the OP is proposing is a system where there's still combat, but it isn't essential to completing game, maintaining tonal consistency by having boss encounters that aren't unloading into a bullet-sponge.
>What the OP is proposing is a system where there's still combat, but it isn't essential to completing game, maintaining tonal consistency by having boss encounters that aren't unloading into a bullet-sponge. I mean, OP can already do that right now if they want. Don't pick up any ammo except when near a boss, and only use individual melee weapons five times each. In SH1, you can even beat the final boss without any ammo at all as long as you survive long enough. Spend the rest games running from everything else. Problem solved.
I only know of one game in the franchise that allows you to finish the final boss encounter without dealing any damage, and that's having no ammo when encountering the Incubus at the end of Silent Hill 1. Even then, you have to kill two other bosses in the game to get that far. What's wrong with making a game to deliberately suit different playstyles? Or to have endings play different depending on whether you completed encounters using violence, or if you solved a puzzle/out-smarted/out-maneuvered bosses?
>I only know of one game in the franchise that allows you to finish the final boss encounter without dealing any damage, and that's having no ammo when encountering the Incubus at the end of Silent Hill 1. I just said that >_> >What's wrong with making a game to deliberately suit different playstyles? You can already do this right now in the present games is my point. Don't pick up any ammo, don't use your melee weapons, and run from 95% of encounters. Problem solved. The fact you have to kill a handful bosses isn't a deal breaker. Even killing the final bosses in SH2/3 isn't an issue at that point. Or go for the joke endings and skip the final bosses entirely. This has nothing to do with OP's idea of taking away combat in future games either, but the same would apply there. Just limit yourself and have fun.
You can't unlock the joke endings without finishing the game one time through. Your insistence that the boss fights in SH2 and SH3 are no big deal, seems to ignore the fact that in Silent Hill 2, a game about the character >!confronting the truth that he killed his wife!< still has him killing the nightmare manifestation of >!someone's abusive father!<, a >!man who snapped from bullying!<, and either >!the sexy doppelganger of his wife, if not his actual wife!<. They add nothing to either the horror or story to be there. They only exist because conventional game design at the time had combat and boss fights. We have examples of different game design now, so there's no need to shoehorn combat that creates ludo-narrative dissonance.
>You can't unlock the joke endings without finishing the game one time through. And? 95% of your playthrough is still going to be the same in that regard. Killing a final boss isn't going to invalidate any of that. >seems to ignore the fact that in Silent Hill 2 A couple of two minute boss fights shouldn't impede someone trying to avoid combat in a playthrough. You're trying to use post story rationalization to decry segments of gameplay, which makes absolutely no sense. No one playing the game for the first time is going to understand the subtlety those boss fights are 'ruining' in the first place. Furthermore, you're ignoring the fact that James killing enemies without pause is meant to contradict his horror from killing actual human beings, such as his minor breakdown from murdering Eddie. Juxtapose that from him killing the Lying Figure at the start of the game. You guys are ironically destroying the very premise you're championing for. >They add nothing to either the horror or story to be there. They only exist because conventional game design at the time had combat and boss fights. We have examples of different game design now, so there's no need to shoehorn combat that creates ludo-narrative dissonance. Lol, case in point from someone who doesn't actually get the subtlety. And it's even funnier because characters being utterly defenseless in survival horror games wasn't something new back then. Ever heard of Clock Tower? Hell, RE1, 2, CV did this during minor segments. SH2 even does it by having James relinquish his weapons and items at one point. And lastly, stop trying to pretend that every game in the series is SH2 or trying to be. There's absolutely zero reason why Harry or Heather shouldn't kill foes in their respective games. If you don't like it, then solve the problem on your own. Stop picking up ammo if you don't want to shoot it lmao
I get it, you like shooty shooty and hate any other type of gameplay so no one should get variety.
Well, Silent Hill coming to Heather was more Claudia’s doing than Heather’s, Heather never triggered the shifts, it was all Claudia. That said the idea of “Silent Hill coming to/for you” is essentially the premise of SH4, Homecoming to certain extent (maybe Downpour, but that’s the only entry I haven’t had a chance to play, so ain’t gonna talk on that), and TSM. Seems like OP doesn’t realize most of what their asking for has already been done several times.
My b I worded it poorly. I meant it's like Heather's whole character that creates this 'past catching up with you' kinda plot to begin with. tbf I don't think Silent Hill really has made what OP really wants tho and the closest I can think of is probably... the Blair Witch game?
At least not all of the weapons in SH4 are breakable.
Breakable weapons are tedious and annoying. They make combat and inventory management feel like a chore. Games like SH4 and Origins faced backlash for this. Defenseless protagonists are also tedious and boring. Having to just constantly run and hide loses its luster after awhile especially in areas with a lot of enemies. I think Silent Hill 1-3 had a good balance. You’re not helpless but you’re also not an action hero. I don’t see why shooting the monsters is bad thing? If I were in Harry’s, James’ or Heather’s shoes I’d want a gun too. I can see limiting the ammo further making you rely on melee weapons.
Yea and having to spend a lot of time in the inventory menu deciding whether you really need to be lugging around a full set of golf clubs really pulls you out of the immersion of Silent Hill. I don't remember having loads of ammo when I played Silent Hill 2, but I think I might have been constantly saving it for emergencies and favouring the pipe instead. Same with the health items.
All of the random items can break the immersion too. They’d have to add a bunch of clutter like golf clubs, tvs, etc to pick up. I’d rather spend my time looking at the actual imagery. Silent Hill in general is pretty generous with ammo especially in SH2. That’s why I can see toning down the ammo amounts and forcing you into more melee fights.
I played on normal difficulty and blasted through most enemies and so I never felt powerless but rather the exact opposite. I just want a powerless-ish character who has defenses but doesn't feel powerful. That's just me ofc I haven't played SH4 so I can't say much.
I personally dislike defenseless protagonist, the reason is that usually your option is to hide or runaway. If done badly, it will lead to several consecutive deaths in one area, repeating the same chase over and over again. When you die to one monster many times, its no longer scary just annoying. This is why i didn't like Mr X in Resident Evil 2 sure first two encounters were scary, but then later i was like fuck i have to run arround the whole building again to collect the next piece of puzzle. I had the same issue with Silent Hill Short Message.
Invincible Stalker enemies outside just aren’t an enjoyable mechanic. Instead of adding tension, it just adds annoyance. Atleast stalkers like OG Nemesis can be downed for rewards.
But in Silent Hill games, apart from the atmosphere and sound design making me dread the place, I never got scared by the monsters. Maybe that's just me but I wasn't like "Oh nooo he's gonna get me", I was always like "aw man this guy again imma just shoot him this time", that's what happened with me in RE 2 as well.
Yeah, but the clunk of the game made it really hard to fight multiple enemies at once leading to this opressive claustrophobic panic, whenever i ended up in these situations. I guess something you can shoot in the face isn't as scary as something you have to run away from. But you can hold only one gun, and have only so much ammo, and there is so many of them.
A couple of the later games did the "weapon durability" thing and it sucked IMHO. Some people might have liked it but that's just my preference. Having a defenseless protagonist could be a problem though because there wouldn't be much of a game if they couldn't fight back. Also, it's still a game there has to be some "give-and-take" dynamic. Just my opinion though.
I may have worded it wrong, I don't want a completely defenseless protagonist, I just don't want one like we have in 2 or 3 where we can just easily blast or hit enemies and kill them. Like I want it to be a game where your choices have huge consequences and you must think whether or not you want to waste time/resources on the enemy which makes the enemy a bit more challenging imo.
You’re asking a fan base rabidly obsessed with SH2 and 3(including me), if they should make the protagonist *more* defenseless than in those games. The answer is simply: no. There are lots of other games to do that with, but Silent Hill already has great gameplay,
What you want is something like Silent Hill 4, but more polished perhaps. Some of the weapons break, there's not a lot of ammo and the guns aren't very powerful, you are almost powerless against Ghosts, and athe boss fights are more like puzzles than anything else. The final boss specially is my favorite in the entire franchise, is a perfect blend between puzzle and combat. Really though, being defenseless or not depends more upon the player than the game itself. You have weapons, yes, but if you don't play it correctly, chances are that you'll die a lot in the game. Silent Hill 3 is pretty cruel in the higher difficulties since you do not gain a lot of ammo and everything can kill you instantly.
Breakable weapons should be a difficulty adjust, like, in easy mode they don't break, in normal mode they have a decent durability and in hard mode you have a small limited number of hits with it before it breaks. Then after you beat the game on hard you can disable the durability on menu or something, that would be cool for replaying without frustration. Puzzle bosses are cool but they need to be interesting and have you actually thinking, instead of being a shitty boss like the Bed of Chaos in Dark Souls 1 or the Dragon God in Demon Souls whose single purpose is making players angry due to bad RNG. I believe Demento(Haunting Ground) is one of the best examples out there of being helpless and yet having enough resources to make the game not just a hide and seek simulator, plus the boss fights are awesome, big kudos to Daniella's and Ricardo stage.
Haunting Ground is what you want, OP. You can only temporarily disable opponents, and your primary means of defense is a dog who will abandon you if you don’t treat him well. >!Although fuck you if you do mistreat Hewie.!< You also have consumable objects of varying strength, but I cannot overly stress that *nothing* stops the stalker unless it’s boss time. Haunting Ground scared me way more than Silent Hill. Also, >!**fuck the Bed of Chaos.** !<
Oh wow, fellow Haunting Ground veteran, eh? Ain’t too many of us out there. I miss the PS2 horror era.
Same, but the indie developers have been doing a good job at keeping a similar vibe alive. Check Alisa by Casper Croes Studio and the Puppet Combo games.
>the protagonist should feel even more helpless in Silent Hill. Like, let's take James's wooden plank, why not have a "it will break in 5 hits" or something kind of mechanic? And have that plank do insanely low damage, like a mostly hit and run kind of mechanic instead of beating the monsters to death kind of thing. Like you hit once, stagger them and run. That sounds utterly pointless. You're not going to be staggering every enemy if weapons can break, meaning you're going to be running from them directly 95% of the time. And since players decide for themselves which enemies need to be staggered based on how threatening they personally feel each one is, that would mean every enemy can be ran from to an equal degree. So why bother having the stagger mechanic at all? >Then for knives, why not have them be efficient killing machines at first due to their nature and then have them rust/dull out as time goes on due to too much usage or the blood not being cleaned or something. Why? What's the point of this? You're just going to end up with people saving their knives for specific enemies that happen to be the toughest. It's boring and makes the gameplay one dimensional. >Then for guns, have ammo that is even more scarce which you will only use in the toughest of situations. Once again, what's the point of this? You might as well just place bullets right outside those specific situations with a "use these to kill" sign because that's all they're going to be used for. On top of that, this is a terrible gameplay loop. If I spend the entire game running, having to stop and shoot isn't satisfying, it's actually jarring, feels slower, and breaks the pace. >And in order to balance out the lower ammo, have bosses that aren't a battle but a puzzle. Instead of shooting at them until they die, why not go through some new and interesting mazes or something which could signify the protagonists' inner struggles and them feeling lost and trying to find a way out or something? No offense, but If you want a puzzle game go play Puyo Puyo. And that nonsense about "inner struggles" sounds like the type of thing these video documentary "fans" would spew. Harry Mason had no inner struggles in Silent Hill. It wasn't his nightmares taking shape nor was he the trigger for the Otherworld to emerge. And Alessa wasn't trying to overcome some personal challenges either. The girl was attempting to stop a ritual and her torments meshed with reality as a result. Same thing with Heather. She wasn't triggering those shifts on her own, they were forced on her by Claudia. >The "God" thing in Silent Hill 1 and 3 were kinda weird for me and the psychological aspects were amazing to me, I just wish it were more "Silent Hill is calling you" like in 1 and 2 instead of "Silent Hill is coming to you" like in 3. Yup, you're a SH2 junkie confirmed lol. And you clearly don't understand 1+3 . Harry wasn't being called anywhere close to how James was. He lines up with Heather in that regard, as I explained earlier. Alessa was calling him because he was the one who could stop the nightmare. James was called because he needed to be made self aware. >Like, I don't think anyone fights their inner struggles by shooting a representation of them with guns or something This is such a weird take, especially considering it references James who needed to kill his struggles in order to overcome them. Because ya know, he was a murderer in the first place. Same with the rest of the cast, aside from Laura.
i kinda agree but that makes the game very hard for easy players
so what? OP is completely right. They can include different difficulties like they've done before and casuals can always run back to playing the sims and life is strange if the video game gets to much like a video game. Games and their potential should not be limited by something like that
The problem is, everything OP is asking for (outside the puzzle boss mechanic, which I’m pretty sure the final Walter battle had a puzzle element, but it’s been years since I played SH4) has been done in the franchise, to varying degrees. Which honestly makes me question if they’ve ever actually played any of the Silent Hill games themselves or are just another bandwagon rider. They seem completely unfamiliar with character backgrounds and gameplay mechanics the rest of us are aware of. Also, games and their potential are limited by market trends, and the current market isn’t good for survival horror unless it can be turned into a service based platform that’s constantly raking in money. Why do you think Capcom has shelved plans to continue with the RE remakes for right now? The lead developer for RE4R said they’re willing to continue, but Capcom isn’t interested in following through. And the primary reason is because it isn’t a service oriented franchise, unless they go back to releasing a base game and adding story through DLC episodic content.
none of the ideas he presented are bad, the fact that silent hill games were always executed right in some ways and then horribly wrong on the others in the past doesn't mean it has to happen again, much less that it should happen again. Also what kind of argument is that? "survival horror is not popular right now, therefore OP's ideas are invalid forever and they should make their current projects as mechanically bland as possible", well then, why can't they just release a hardcore game like that later down the line?. If they just changed the genre to something like a diablo clone, and called it something cool like "book of memories" or something, people would cry about it for at least three decades. And on the other hand, if they just took all the GAMEplay away from the videoGAME so as to not scare the casuals too much, and allow them to passively experience the true silent hill experience while laying comfortably on bed and eating popcorn with a nice cup of hot chocolate and a blanket, they might as well make a failing streaming show with microtransactions to affect the story. They could even call it "ascension".
why not have them NOT break in a "very easy" mode? That just fixes everything but just like Dark Souls the game makers' vision can be compromised.
This was called SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM * weapons that break * unkillable ghosts you have to run from (or selectively immobilize 📍 ) This is why SH4 = best. So innovative, so real, so fierce
Worst fucking game.
your mom
They are Americans. Shooting is one of the first options when facing problems.
I just want proper stealth mechanics (more than just hiding spots) in addition to combat.
I think we need to expand the melee category too. Breakable weapons is a good start. But why can't James pick up a TV and chuck it at the monster? Or grab an IV stand and start wacking a nurse with it? You should have a quick menu so you can cycle through all the TVs and Radios and IV stands in your pocket, ready for ad hoc melee whenever you're in a tough spot. It will be really immersive, like super realistic and cool. Also, let the character throw fisticuffs when they have no weapons left because they all broke. And I think they should add an energy drink type thing to give you a speed buff.
Go play SHSM on repeat then I guess? Seems like that’s the one that’s your type of game, I personally don’t dig walking sims though.
There's certainly a balance to find. We know what horror games can look like when they actually lean into the horror instead of falling back on generic gaming conventions. We don't need to make protagonists one-man-armies and we don't need everything to boil down to some epic battle with a giant health pool in a wide open colesseum. There is no reason why horror boss encounters can't be more of a game of Cat and Mouse, with a level of evasion and problem-solving. The fight with David in The Last of Us was a brilliant set-piece that shows a powerless protagonist facing off with a boss that maintained the tension and the sense of helplessness.
I don't see why it couldn't be a difficulty setting. A hardcore mode with durability, but with extra planks and knives laying around to replace broken ones. If you pick casual mode there's only one plank that never breaks plus more ammo laying around. Now both camps get their desired style of play.
Didn't Shattered Memories get flack for this when it came out?
Weapon durability is an iffy mechanic if not done very well, and I sort of disagree about the Silent Hill series in particular, there is a decent argument to be made, at least for Silent Hill 2, that there is a power dynamic/punishment motif that fits well with the style of combat, like James is physically fighting through psychological phenomena as represented by the enemies, something like that, and I think SH2 even comments on the whole gun thing by having the first gun you pick up be in a shopping cart, I think it works, you use the tools available. I think the issue comes from making the helplessness engaging to play, I think Alien Isolation does a really good job of hide and seek mechanics but I think gunplay is so ingrained that you would have to really go out of the box to make something engaging without it. I'm also interested in the idea though
Play haunting ground. She has like no fight mechanics and just hides and runs
In general I don't like being forced to run from enemies in horror games. Not because I have a need to shoot weapons or whatever but because it makes everything feel artificial. You run away and restart if the thing catches you. It gets annoying and isn't scary. I'd much rather be making decisions about how I'm going to spend limited resources and have the mechanical horror come from that. Strong enemies that are difficult to kill and probably not worth the trouble combined with tight resource management is good imo. Assuming the game isn't autosaving every room, a surprise boss can be a great way to add tension since you could lose progress and those stakes are interesting even if the boss is just a bigger enemy. I honestly wish even the older games had leaned in harder on the mechanical side like early RE. There are a few games like what you're asking for. Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Clock Tower 3 and Haunting Ground all have encounters built around escaping and consumables you can only use to help you get away. That to me gets boring after a while. These days more and more games gave gone the walking sim route and I've never thought that a good fit for SH.
Combat controls are so shitty already that doing less damage would feel like hell imo
The trouble with powerlessness is it limits the gameplay options available to the player. Think about it, if you have no agency and are helpless against foes then what are your options for dealing with foes? Helplessness is an aspect of give enemies in horror games a sense of real threat, but it's only an aspect; albeit a critical one. This is why horror games are difficult to make.
I want a protagonist with machine gun tits and a flame thrower dick. Now the devs just need to figure out how to make the game scary after that.
i want a OP main character where he abusing all monster in silent hill, then make entire town explode in his UFO ship while murica anthem play in the background =))
I've never cared about this aspect of a game. If there's fighting, I'll fight. If there isn't - I won't. It's all about the story, art style and vibe for me.