Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004)

If they had not directly put me in a Silent Hill-adjacent location within the first hour, this game would have been practically unrecognizable as even being from the same series.

Controls, inventory, health, the entire game structure, and more were completely changed, and I can't say I am thrilled about any of it in my first impressions. Enemies seem especially annoying, inventory system feels unwelcome, and I miss the option for tank controls here with these static camera angles. I have also heard you have to play through many/all of the levels twice, which I can tolerate in some instances, but am not pumped about here.

I am typically welcoming of big change and experimentation in a series, and the story is definitely a bit intriguing so far, so I'm still open-minded to see where it's going for now. Just unfortunately is by far the worst I've felt about one of these after the first sitting.

Recently I had the pleasure of finally playing the fourth Silent Hill game after years of wanting to. I just finished it last night after three lengthy play sessions over the past week. It definitely had its flaws but I couldn’t help but love the game and wanted to share some of my thoughts. Obvious spoilers below.

This is going to be a long one, so buckle up. First, a little background. If you really don’t care and just want my thoughts on the game, skip down to below the line of ‘=‘s.

It must have been around 7 years ago I played my first Silent Hill game. I had heard bits and pieces about the series for a long time and finally I managed to get my hands on a Playstation 2 along with a copy of Silent Hill 2. The TV at my mom’s place didn’t make much sense to play games on, as I had to share it with a family that didn’t care much for watching games, and so only allowed me to play for short bursts. Definitely not suitable for playing through a game where atmosphere is one of the key elements to the experience. So instead I absconded with my PS2 and the game to the ancient CRT TV in my bedroom at my dad’s place, where I spent the night at most a few times a week. The solitude and old television at night made for a near-perfect playing environment for a game like SH2. The sound effects of the menus and the vibrant red of the save screen casting a bloody shade over the walls of that room are memories permanently imprinted in the inside of my head.

I had a great time with the game and eventually picked up Silent Hill 3 as well, excited for another journey to that destitute, foggy town. Unfortunately, after playing through around a third of the game, I discovered my disc was scratched and couldn’t continue, despite my best attempts to clean and buff it out. At that point I didn’t have any sort of disposable income so buying another copy just didn’t seem worth the expense. So unfortunately, my journey with that game ended there.

I was aware that the fourth game, like the first three, was fairly highly regarded, so I kept a tab on it in the back of my mind for opportunities to play. This past fall, I finally got my chance. I jumped with excitement at seeing GOG offering the now-ancient (by video game standards) title and immediately purchased it, fully prepared to experience what I had been missing all this time. I booted it up several days after and played for around an hour. There was the gameplay I remembered in all its clunky glory. As well as the haunting sound design and twisted visuals. It was a great throwback, but for some reason I didn’t come back for more. I planned to play more but it sat on the digital shelf for months before I would finally touch it again, this time with my partner at my side to experience it along with me. At first I worried having another person there would take away from the atmosphere, which is what I always saw as the strongest part of the series. Thankfully this wasn’t really the case. Anyway, now after enough extra shit, my thoughts on the game itself.

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What first struck me was how creative and intriguing I found the setting to be. I’ve known for a long time what it was, but actually playing it now I found it resonated with me in an unexpected way. I recently moved into my first non-college apartment and as I played I found myself sort of day-nightmaring about what it would be like to wake up one day and find myself trapped in my apartment, door chained shut, windows stuck, and no real communication to the outside world but a strange hole which has appeared in my bathroom wall. Letting myself sort of float in that headspace really got me immersed into the world and I really grew to appreciate the apartment as a sort of hub world in the game. A safe space from the horrors that lay on the other side of the hole. At least, temporarily safe as I would eventually discover. Throughout the first half of the game the apartment served as a resting point in between forays into the unforgiving outside world.

Then one time I came home to discover that the ceiling fan had mysteriously broken and smashed down upon the coffee table. Henry, our lovely protagonist, commented that the air felt heavier as though a weight was bearing down upon him. The in-game ramifications of this event didn’t become clear until a bit later, when I discovered that my health no longer regenerated when in the apartment. My one reliable form of healing had been taken away from me. And the game being a survival horror game, I very quickly felt its effect. Healing supplies were very limited and I found myself struggling to survive through various enemy encounters now where before I had done alright with occasional trips home to heal up. But this was only the beginning.

It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two later that upon entering the apartment I was greeted by a castrophony of crashing and banging coming from the living room. I entered and found the windows there shaking and slamming against their frames, as if by the manipulation of some violent poltergeist. Even so much as nearing them damaged me and despite the frustration at not being able to interact with them anymore without fear of taking lethal damage, it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a game for a while. From that point onward every few visits to the apartment, I was met with some new form of haunting in various parts of the few rooms I had. Eventually they crept in the way of the save point, forcing me to put myself at risk in order to even so much as save my game. It was a level of brutality that has become much less common in games. Thankless and cruel. But I loved seeing my safe prison twist and disfigure into a dangerous nightmare. For once in a piece of horror, whether game, book, or movie, I felt as if I was the one being haunted. This was my home and it was being slowly but surely wrenched from my hands. The hub easily became one of my favorite things about the game as a result.

My feelings about the rest of the game were a little more mixed. As is Silent Hill tradition, the controls were a clunky mess. I’m sure it was by design, as fumbling with them creates a tension in common interactions in the game not unlike the loss of coordination one might experience in a dream. As neat as that is as an artistic touch, from a gameplay standpoint it did sour the experience a bit when it came time to deal with enemies (FUCK the ghost victims).

On a related note, for some reason the devs thought it’d be a good idea to have the entire back half of the game be a goddamn escort mission. One where the quality of your performance affects the ending you get for some reason, no less (???). In general I liked Eileen as a character and appreciated the whole slow possession thing she had going on, but trying to maneuver through the cramped corridors of the game while also trying to move around her and make sure she didn’t get left behind with a bunch of enemies was a nightmare in and of itself. One of the worst things about the game, honestly. There were times I made sure she got left behind in areas just to give myself some room to breathe.

Enemies in general were a massive pain in the ass, at least until late in the game when I figured out how to deal with them efficiently. It didn’t help that their designs for the first third of the game were so bland. One of my favorite things about the series is seeing all the fucked up enemy designs and the speculation from the fanbase about what they might represent from a narrative standpoint, so I was super disappointed to find the first chunk of the game only feature zombie dogs, some ghosts, and pointy bats. Later on I discovered that the ghosts were actually Walter’s past victims who had lost all control and sense of reality after being slain for his ritual, which was a VERY cool detail I missed early on. It lent a whole new dimension to what would otherwise be boring generic ghost enemies. I just wish it had been conveyed better, because obviously I didn’t recognize any of them until Cynthia’s showed up during the second visit to Subway World (Yep. It’s actually called that.) It was a lot of fun seeing how each of the people I had seen murdered had unique abilities as ghosts meant to represent their personalities or behavior in life.

Once I hit the water prison, the game’s enemy design picked up though. I had seen images of the Twin Victims before, but it hadn’t prepared me for their sudden appearance in those cramped circular halls. In the past games and the beginning of this one it seemed like enemies usually had a sort of introductory cutscene showcasing a little of their personality or abilities, but for the Twin Victims? Nope, you get nothing. One second you’re in ignorant bliss of their existence, the next a two-headed shrouded figure is charging at you on its hands.

The rest of the enemies were all decent I think in my memory, though some better than others. I’m not sure who gave the okay on the decision for the Patient creatures in Hospital World to fucking let loose the most wild burps known to man whenever they take a hit, but it was simultaneously tension-ruining and laugh-inducing to knock one down the stairs by accident only to receive a musical number comprised solely of belches in response. Definitely a highlight of the experience, if an unintended one.

Since I don’t want to spend a ton of time on the areas themselves I’m gonna just throw together a little list here of quick opinions on them.

• Subway World - Awful. Boring area, especially since this exact type of thing was done already in a fairly lengthy section in SH3. Fuck the dogs. Second visit wasn’t any better because being chased by Cynthia’s ghost was incredibly annoying, especially since you’re still just figuring out the mechanics of Eileen following you at this point.
• Forest World - Refreshing after Subway World but still boring. Just a bunch of trees and annoying bats. Highlight was Jasper, my bro whose character arc consists of being scared of rocks, drinking some choccy milk, then burning to death. Second visit was a little better? I liked the torch mechanic and finding the body parts in the 5 wells was a creepy little sort of puzzle.
• Water Prison World - One of my favorite areas. Really interesting design and home to one of the few true puzzles in the game, even if it is kind of explained to you outright. Also home to the debut of one of the creepiest enemies, Twin Victims. Second visit was kind of underwhelming and frustrating because of Eileen getting swarmed by them though.
• Building World - Other than winning the Dumb Area Name of the Century award, this place was fine. Some areas were a bit too swarmed with enemies, but otherwise a pretty fun place to explore. Reminded me of past games in the series in terms of design. Second visit was ROUGH. I finished with no healing items and only a sliver of health remaining as I went into the boss fight, so I had to make sure I wasn’t hit once for its duration. Also what the fuck is up with the way Richard’s ghost moves? Thought my game was straight up glitching for a bit.
• Apartment World - I think possibly my favorite area of the game. Just your classic Silent Hill apartment complex. Loads of rooms to explore and find keys for, etc. Second visit was exactly what I wanted. Just chaos throughout the building and creepy shit around every corner. Highlight for me was the chains on the superintendent’s door, for some reason. Just thought it was cool setpiece.
• Hospital World - A pretty cool place overall, but too short and with no second visit it had me wishing there was more of it. A bit simplistic in design but I had fun checking out all the various rooms and the creepy shit inside them. Creepiest Shit in the Game award goes to the massive bloody head of Eileen that stares you down with eyes that can only be described as vibrating. Normally I’d be annoyed at Henry literally not reacting to it, but it somehow adds to its disturbing factor. Almost as if its some kind of meta-scare that Henry can’t even see.

As for the characters, I found them overall to be okay. Nothing special really. Henry is boring as hell and doesn’t really seem to react much to any of the crazy things happening around him, which makes me question his mental state a bit. Eileen is probably the best of the group in my eyes. She goes through a LOT during the game. I thought the possession mechanic with her was very cool and loved eventually finding out that her level of possession actually modifies her dialogue at various points in the game. Definitely a very nice touch. Walter is pretty meh. Just your ordinary insane serial killer really. Nothing to write home about. Didn’t really have a personality beyond “I’m bloodthirsty and I want my mommy.” Also, for someone who was trying to kill me, it really didn’t feel like his heart was all in it. He was easy to sidestep and he’d just sort of become disinterested and wander off. I was a bit underwhelmed to find the superintendent didn’t have any role really past the halfway point in the game. Where did he go? In one of the endings he’s confirmed to be dead but otherwise not mentioned at all. He got a lot of the spotlight in the first half so it really makes no sense.

The plot was pretty cool. Might be sacrilege to say so, but I think I preferred it to SH2′s despite its flaws, though it’s been a while since I played that so maybe I’ll have to give it another run-through sometime and see. I just had a lot of fun following Joseph’s notes and slowly learning about the Wishing House cult and Walter’s murders. I found myself guessing at what we could expect from Walter and his twisted ritual around every corner and how the tale would eventually unravel.

Upon tearing into it more closely my partner and I found a number of weird little issues and nitpicks with the plot that we couldn’t seem to find any explanation for. Was Walter ever really in prison? The game is deliberately vague about this detail, and I assume we’re meant to come up with our own conclusions, but it felt a bit strange to not give a more solid explanation, as other issues arise from the lack of one. If he did really kill himself in prison, how did he get out of his grave and perform the Ritual of the Holy Assumption? If that wasn’t him in prison, why would anyone bother digging up the grave at all? And either way, why mark the coffin with his number, 11/21? It doesn’t really make sense. Not quite related, but we’re also missing the why of Walter’s split manifestations. What about the ritual caused him to split off a child version of himself? It’s not exactly important to the plot’s progression, but it’d be nice to know if he fucked up some part of the ritual, or was punished for being a little shit by God or whatever.

Unfortunately my partner and I found the endings to all be pretty lame. I got the ‘21 Sacraments’ ending, which I guess is to be expected because I wasn’t very careful in taking care of Eileen due to the controls being a massive pain in the ass while also not really understanding how to purge the apartment of hauntings with candles. I understood the mechanic but literally couldn’t figure out where to place the candles to achieve the desired affect despite all my attempts to, which was a shame. I’m also still not entirely sure why the ending I got results in Walter possessing Henry’s body when I clearly followed the instructions to put a stop to his ritual, but the other endings aren’t all that much better. In the ‘Mother’ ending, apparently Eileen is somehow still possessed? Why? By who? No explanation is given! Always a good time.

Despite the nitpicks at the plot, the confusing decision to make most of the game an escort mission, and the messy Silent Hill game controls, I still had a fantastic time. I still felt just in love with the atmosphere, sound, and enemy design as I did back when I played SH2. I wish there were more in the series to experience, but it seems like my options aren’t all that great. The first game is kind of a dated mess visually, I’m not sure I have the heart to replay so much of the opening of the third game to allow myself to experience the entire thing, and apparently all the games after kind of suck in various ways.

I find myself leaving Silent Hill 4 with a renewed sense of sadness at the cancellation of PT and the grim hopes for the future of the series, but excited to maybe get back into playing more horror games. It’s a genre I used to be all over but eventually fell out of entirely, save for a few recent titles, such as Resident Evil VII.

I’d definitely recommend Silent Hill 4: The Room in a heartbeat to anyone who can stomach the clunky controls as well as some some dated graphics and game mechanics.

Goodbye for now, Silent Hill.