Silent Hill 3 (2003)

It's disappointing that the first female lead in the series is in my least liked entry (so far). The plot has a lot of throwbacks and I feel like that should be interesting but it isn't. Maybe this game exists to encourage people to play the first one, or to reward those who already experienced it, but I found it so dull.

I enjoyed exploring different environments, the previous games' environments could feel repetitive, though I didn't like the normal version of the mall. It was so derelict, it might as well have been the abnormal version. I guess it would be weird to see NPCs walking around though.

There weren't any memorable cutscenes (at least for me). The characters were weird, that's part of the series' charm, but again, I didn't like any of them. Many of the monster designs were just lumpy lumps, so not particularly scary (that didn't prevent me from screaming though, I'm a ginormous chicken).

There's some nice music that I recognized from the Silent Hill film. The save points have unique flavor text that was fun to read. Also this isn't a knock on the game, but some of those puzzles are insane. No idea how anyone solved these without a guide. There was only one puzzle I solved "on my own" but I still read a guide to explain what the clues meant, and then I added the clues up and solved it, so I still cheated on that one!

I've beat the first three games now, being handheld by internet guides the entire way, which isn't the way to experience these games, but as I've previously mentioned, I would never be able to play them otherwise. So take my opinion with a grain of salt. I'm here for the vibes and story, and the story didn't do anything for me, and supposedly the next several games until Silent Hill f are kinda trash so we'll see how they go.

A legendary series continues with its third entry. This is my first review that I will get to type for Silent Hill in my current writing style and I feel like I find this a little overwhelming especially since this game is so important to so many people. I think I will just have to start by saying that Silent Hill 3 is one of the best horror games I have ever played. The fact that this game was supposed to be a rail shooter at one point and the dev team managed to salvage that and still create a unique experience is incredible. I love this game so much that it overshadows every criticism I have and in some ways makes me fall in love a little more with the title. Heather Mason as a character will stick with me long after I finish this review. Let’s talk about one of the horror greats and why this game is so special.

I have been dying to talk about the environments of Silent Hill, especially of Silent Hill 2 and 3. I think what has been with this game in particular is a stroke of genius. I like how Silent Hill 3 took from the cramped and narrow hallways of Silent Hill 2 and expanded them into large areas in shopping centers and construction yards. I didn’t find any environment lacking even when I returned to Brookhaven Hospital. At first I rolled my eyes feeling like this area was a retread and it definitely is but they managed to put a unique spin on it and gave it a fresh view through Heather’s eyes. There is a throughline that felt very unsettling to me as the story progressed throughout the hospital. The environments in this game all do one thing very well and it is a thing that helps make Silent Hill stand out as a series. You just never feel safe. The game goes out of its way to play and toy with you through what can only be described as expert sound design.

Speaking of the sound design, it goes without saying that this always melds well with Akira Yamaoka’s otherworldly musical talent. Every time the combat started up it felt like I was being stomped by a boot on my chest with beats and percussion used by him and anyone else who had a hand in making the sound track. Walking into a room and having enemies and that sound come into my ears was always effective. Going back to the sound design for a brief moment, I always love when this game throws unexpected scares at you. Such as, the creature that you can hear but will never see, the pounding of walls or just the unexpected. Sometimes it just keeps you on your toes to never know what the game might put in your face and confront you with. I just love how the environments and sounds combine together to help us really get in the mind of Heather Mason.

Heather is my favorite Silent Hill protagonist. I know in my recent top 25 list I went on about how I related to James even though I know I should not because he is a bad person. There is a specific reason for that but I would not say that I like James. I do love Heather and it is incredible to like someone and root for someone who you want to succeed. Her journey starts out a little out of nowhere and doesn’t really begin to make sense until the midpoint of the game. By the end though she becomes so lovable that it is hard not to be on her side. She also feels like a real teenager with her attitude and quick cutbacks to authority. She feels more real the more the journey goes on and at the end of the journey I found myself being happy she made it through. The other characters all feel pretty fundamental to her growth and the terror as well which I want to dive into later but a standout for me was Vincent as he was just a jerk the whole time. He made my blood boil every time he spoke and I will get into that when I talk about the very real horror of this game.

It really helps that the character models in this game look gorgeous. I feel like we have reached the perfect level of where design and style hits realism? We all know about how game budgets have ballooned and how much it costs to make a very graphically demanding game. This game just has a style to it that defines the PS2 but at the same time I love seeing the models animate and move. I really do miss this era of games where it felt like we had a style. I mentioned that this game was going to be a rail shooter but they turned it into what we got within 10 months which just would not happen today with the game budgets we have all been hearing about. I know this has been talked about to death but the beginning scene where Heather wakes up in the diner is pure artistic cinema. Silent Hill continues to feel like a more horror inspired David Lynch movie the more entries I go through. I feel particularly strong about this during the Happy Birthday scene where it just feels surreal and especially unnatural.

The last and most important thing I want to talk about is the horror that this game addresses that has not really changed since its release. That of course is the horror of being a woman. The game tackles and lampshades issues of stalking, harassment, body image, forced pregnancy, abortion, the male gaze and more. I wanted to bring up Stanley from Brookhaven Hospital where the game actively shows and tells you that he is stalking you as you find notes around the hospital where he professes his love to Heather. Naturally this gets more and more dangerous as he starts to lose it over Heather’s rejection. It is reflected in the notes as your time in the hospital goes one but also you can hear him stalking you as you change floors in the hospital. You hear other doors slam and even though you never confront him at all, the game just makes you feel uneasy. I found that this paired with the environments and how they are used to make this quite an effective horror game. Hell the game even starts off with Heather being bothered by a detective who decides to respect a bathroom sign more than her right to refuse to talk to him. This game really put me in that place and combined with the large environments of the mall and subway made me feel that much more anxious considering how much space there was. There is another part about midway through the game where Heather is just outside and walking home alone at night that just showcased my male privilege. I go for walks or runs late at night sometime and I never feel scared or too worried that something might happen. I have reflective tape and carry a form of self defense with me and I just forget about everything else as I workout. Watching Heather go down a dark dimly lit alleyway had my heart bursting out of my chest as I recalled how a co-worker told me that they don’t feel safe going out past a certain time of day by themselves. Another example is just every scene with Vincent as you can hear the malice laced between every sentence as he speaks to Heather. He does not care about her despite what he is saying otherwise. He just wants to use her for his own ends and that just oozes a certain kind of cruelty in the performance. This is what makes Silent Hill 3 special as it feels like it is about being a woman and how women are used by others for causes that do not involve them, how we market to them unrealistic beauty standards and just as easily how people can and will discard them.

Taking a pause from the heavy stuff for a moment I want to share why this playthrough also will stick with me. I love when I make mistakes in games or can miss things but still complete them. In this game for example, I missed the shotgun which is an essential weapon to have in any survival horror. I feel like games can live and die by how good it feels to use their shotgun. The fact that I missed an iconic weapon and still beat this game feels so amazing to me. I had to fight and scrape through enemy infested hallways using different means than I normally would have. I just opted to run more often than not in order to save ammo and health items for tough boss encounters. Feeling that much more powerless put me into the right mindset to appreciate this game. Sure I can talk about how the combat isn’t the best or how there are too many enemies or even how the game feels disjointed between the two halves but ultimately I find that it all works. I was enthralled throughout the whole play and it just reaffirmed what so many people have said about Silent Hill as a series and why the Team Silent era is so beloved by many. If you aren’t sure about this game or are hesitant, I would say try your best to emulate it as it will cost a pretty penny to play on original hardware. I was able to get the windows port running from my abandonware with relative ease but it is just a shame that this game is buried by Konami. Please do yourselves a favor and play Silent Hill 3. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

The third mainline entry to the Silent Hill franchise is one of the most mature and psychologically unsettling entries in the survival horror genre. It continues the series trademark focus on atmosphere, symbolism, and emotional depth, while delivering one of the strongest narratives in the franchise. And as much as I wished to elaborate on the main plot's topic, it would be a shame to present spoilers, all I can say now is that it has the same level of quality as it's predecessors. The MC is called Heather Mason, a teenage girl whose ordinary day at a shopping mall spirals into a descent through nightmarish, blood-soaked worlds. What begins as a personal journey quickly evolves into a disturbing exploration of identity, grief, and inherited trauma, ultimately tying back to the events of the first Silent Hill.

Heather’s vulnerability, sarcasm, and humanity make her one of the most relatable and well-written protagonists in horror gaming. This is truly one of this biggest standouts compared to the previous titles, especially because the protagonist is younger this time around, making it more relatable to certain demographics in gaming. Visually, it was a technical showcase for the PlayStation 2. The use of lighting, fog, and detailed environments creates a constant sense of dread. From filthy hospital corridors to rust-covered amusement parks, every location feels alive with corruption and despair. This title is definitely the most varied one when it comes to it's environments and world, feeling like yet another element that was improved from previous entries.

The OST and ambient design elevate the experience to something truly haunting. The industrial noises, distorted radio static, and melancholic melodies perfectly mirror Heather’s emotional state and the decaying world around her. Few games use sound as effectively to manipulate mood and tension like this one does. Gameplay adheres to the series traditional structure, exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat. In my opinion this game has more combat than previous mainline entries, almost all rooms have at least one enemy for you to face. The clunky controls and limited camera are sometimes criticized, but they serve the atmosphere, making every encounter feel dangerous and every step uncertain.

The puzzles range from logical to cryptic, demanding careful observation and thought rather than brute force. Though it doesn’t reinvent the formula, this game refines it beautifully. The pacing, story, and psychological intensity make it arguably the last truly great entry from Team Silent before the series later decline. This title is a masterclass in psychological horror, disturbing, elegant, and emotionally resonant. Its layered storytelling, unforgettable visuals. This is definitely a must-play since it is a landmark of how polished this genre managed to get in the PlayStation 2 platform, and one of the best ones of all time.

After playing SH2 Remake (a profoundly meaningful journey of loss and guilt, and personally touching to my own lived experiences) and hearing about some of the themes this game was going to tackle (themes of womanhood, patriarchy, pregnancy and menstruation), i was hyped to give this game a try. But OMG does the cult nonsense drag this story down into the abyss for me, and not in a good or intentional way.

There's a reason why none of the amazing vid3o essays on the aforementioned themes of this game by some wonderful female creators barely being up the actual plot in favor of a thematic analysis.

Admittedly, i never played the original, so i barely understood anything out of this convoluted mess. Perhaps doing so might change my opinion somewhat, but i doubt it honestly.

Buried deep underneath the mess is still something truly amazing. And i completely agree and support the people for whom this has been a meaningful experience. But for me personally, this game did not have the same meaningful touch that its predecessor had.

Ps. The visuals are spectacular tho omfg

This is a lengthier write-up / borderline rambling.

I just replayed SH3, this time on Hard for both Combat and Riddle, and, it just so happened, that both my first playthrough years back and this second one took place almost exclusively in the middle of the night. I think that is the best time of day to play this game because of how weird it feels to stay awake in the middle of the night and how well it compliments the dream-like feel of the game itself.

First things first, this is probably the prettiest characters looked on the PS2 and what's more, Konami achieved it in the first part of the console's lifespan whereas most of the time consoles realize their tech potential closer to the end of the gen. Absolutely stunning cutscenes where characters move beautifully with the help of mo-cap. A massive, almost generational step forward compared to SH2 and with no FMVs, all in-game. Truly, the production value is showing here even playing the game 21(!) years later.

The Otherworld features some really trippy and disturbing imagery, it's definitely the scaries SH game, even replaying it, the game is super creepy and very opressive. The soundscape is just as visceral. With headphones it's often hair-raising.

STORY SPOILERS

The characters are mostly good and their limited number really benefits the story. Heather is a very good protagonist and she actually feels like a character, whereas Harry and James feel more like extensions of the player and are almost like silent protagonists. She is angry, sad, scared, annoyed, something that James and Harry rarely are if ever. Of course that had its purpose, but making this change for the third game was a great decision.

Douglas is fine, he opens up towards the end.

Vincent is amazing, his voice, mannerisms, weird facial quirks are fun to observe and until the very end he retains an aura of someone who you can't really trust and his intentions are never really clear. He combines this feel where you don't really know if the character is making a weird face or it's just the quirks of early mo-cap technology. I think it's mostly the former, but regardless, the end result works, really impressive. A character who is fun to watch every time he's on the screen.

Claudia is... interesting. On one hand she acts as a crazy person with no other angle or dimension, just a cultist and every time she and Heather meet she keeps repeating herself. On the other, there's a certain angle to the character that is left very vague. At the end, before the big boss battle Vincent confronts her and claims that she is the source of what's happening.

I don't know what to think of this. Obviously the monsters and the Otherworld in SH3 are created by Heather's subconcious as the God is growing within her. Maybe Vincent meant something else. Claudia was also abused as a child and was perhaps projecting her suffering. I'm digging too deep here and regardless, you're not supposed to take it all literally and overanalyze it in case of Silent Hill. Still, Claudia is at the very least interesting because her abilities aren't really clear. She seems like a normal human being who is simply in touch with Heather's Otherworld and the God. On the other hand, when Douglas corners her and aims a gun at her, the screen fades out and then later you find Douglas with a broken leg. Very ambiguous.

There's also Leonard and an another minor character, but they appear so briefly, there's very little to say.

The enemies are not that impressive: after SH2 featuring monsters that thematically represented a certain aspect of characters' psyche, like the Nurses, Pyramid Head, Abstract Daddy and others, here they just feel like scary guys. And it works, they are scary, but a certain thematic aspect was lost.

I think the plot itself isn't particularly great, but it is very well directed and scripted. I like the fact that the lore of the first game was combined with a much more psychological aspect of the second title. You can't really say for sure if all of what is happening is real or imaginary. On the other hand there's not much in the way of new lore nor is there a proper resolution at the end.

Gameplay has evolved considerably as the combat was improved. Hard difficulty is actually quite hard and requires you to conserve ammo and mostly avoid enemies instead of fighting them. Bosses are tough on hard, but the last one is almost impossible without exploits. Riddles are just mind boggling, "cryptic" doesn't really describe that properly. More like 90s classic quest games-tier. Bradygames is required reading here.

The music is what really elevates the game from "good" or even "very good" to "Amazing". This is Yamaoka's best work out of the four 4 SH games. The compositions that I like the most are the ones playing during cutscenes where Heather talks to other characters. They give this feel of a very dangerous, dark place, but also a dream-like state. They definitely enhance the story and also can be listened to separately. Just an amazing soundtrack to accompany a great game.

Like DirtyMidnighter said in his review, this is truly the last Survival Horror game before both SH and RE went in a different direction. SH3 definitely feels like an author-driven game, there was no commitee involved here: It is weird, it feels very expensive, almost pushing into the 7th generation territory, it focuses on themes that are not very marketable or even compatible with video games yet it pulls it all off very well. I know it's platitude nowadays, but they really can't make a game like that today.

Basically title. I think it’s worth a playthrough, but i found it to be the weaker game compared to the rest.

The puzzles and exploration (my favorite part) just weren’t as fun. Usually it was somewhat moon logic or obvious, but there wasn’t much in the sweet spot between.

The mall at the beginning was my favorite location, fun exploration and a unique place, but nothing else was very memorable. The art style in general also just isn’t my favorite, that kinda deep red shadowy look.

If this was in isolation, ya I would really enjoy it and not feel as critical. But I just didn’t get the sense that much was innovated here or pushed beyond what came before.

It feels good to have finally finished this game so many years after starting up a playthrough. Though I don't feel I quite got the great experience I had expected.

Silent Hill 3 has a lot going for it. There are so many well-crafted moments of horror in this game, such as the birthday phone call, the toppled wheelchair in the hallway, the bloody footsteps in the church, and the now well known line "They looked like monsters to you?". Each of these succeeded at catching me off guard and left me thoroughly unnerved. And these are just a few of the examples I could think of where the game leverages its master class sound design perfectly.

The environments in this game-- especially in the second half-- feel violent and threatening to run through, like the very walls around you are alive and pulsing. I think this game's take on the iconic blood and rust aesthetic that runs through the Silent Hill games might actually be my favorite. It really captures the feeling of wandering through hell itself. The enemy designs are great as well, with most seeming like disturbed corruptions of the human form; made up of limbs and torsos bloated just short of being beyond recognition.

It's rather unfortunate that the first half of the game feels so sparse of all of these things. The mall is a solid opening area-- no complaints there-- but to then follow this with a parade of three (four, if you count the short construction site) whole areas where basically nothing interesting happens save for a single introductory cutscene for a major character is just bad. It'd be easier to digest I think if there was some sense of rising tension in anticipation of what awaits Heather when she gets home, but there really isn't any of that to speak of. Just many empty-feeling locations you wander through until you figure out what obscure puzzle is blocking your way. I feel that the game would be much much stronger with most of the first half removed or severely cut down.

The puzzle design in this game is just absurd. There were so many points where I had thoroughly explored an area, collected all the items I needed to progress, and interacted with the very spot where I was meant to use them, yet couldn't for the life of me figure out what the game wanted so I'd continue wandering, assuming I missed something. I'm sorry I didn't see a shelf blocking my way that Heather says she can't move and immediately think to pull out the camera I found and snap a photo of it. There are a bunch of puzzles like this that are super unintuitive to the point where they're not so much about thinking and more about randomly combining and using shit you found to see if it satisfies the game's requirements.

I wanna briefly touch on one of the major areas in the game, Brookhaven Hospital. It was around this point in the game that the quality of my experience started improving. But I have to point out how lame it is that in a direct sequel to the first Silent Hill they opted to copy over the hospital from Silent Hill 2 rather than doing the work to recreate Alchemilla Hospital, an area with much more significance to Heather's history. I for one really like this area in Silent Hill 2. Hell, I like it a lot here as well. But this choice just reeks of deadline crunch or laziness.

Finally, the characters. These were more of a mixed bag for me. Heather has a ton of potential. She occupies such an interesting spot in this continuation of the first game's story. I love that they chose her to be the protagonist, but I think they went too hard on the moody teen angle for her personality. Her actual spoken dialogue is mostly fine, but the comments she makes when inspecting items and environments throughout the game are so repetitive and annoying that it brought down her overall quality as a character for me. It's as if every time she looks at something a wheel with three possible opinions spins to randomly select whether the object is Boring, Too Gross to Touch, or Something Heather Doesn't Care About. It got to the point where it almost felt like it was a self-parody or something.

To illustrate what I mean, there was a moment in the room before the final boss. I saw a big hole in the ground in front of what seemed to be a large altar. It was suspicious looking so I went over to inspect it. Heather said "It's a hole. I don't care about this right now." What. The large human-sized hole in front of an altar to a pagan god that actually leads down to the birthplace of said god is just... not something you care about. Like at all? You have no observation to make about this very important looking thing. Wild. My partner and I burst out laughing when we read that because this is basically what happens with most things you inspect, but for something this major, it just seemed absurd that despite it all, Heather would still react the exact same way she reacts to everything else. I just constantly felt disappointed whenever this type of thing happened because it felt worse than having no flavor text at all.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag, like I said before. Douglas just felt kind of off the whole time he was on screen. His weird voice acting reminded me a bit of Angela in Silent Hill 2, which isn't great. Claudia was solid enough. I like that you get some additional background on her if you go looking through the various rooms in the church. Vincent stole the show for me though. He's such a weird guy and was really unsettling to be around. Really seemed like the type of guy who wants to make people squirm just for the fun of it. But he also has an interesting backstory and provides a neat foil to Claudia. I wanted more of him, for sure.

So I'm glad I played this game, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed with it overall. There're just too many negatives for me to overlook, even when the positives are so good.

I think I'm nearing the end of the game now. I'm feeling very mixed and kind of disappointed to be honest.

There's a bunch to love here. This game has some of the best moments I think out of all the entries in this series I've played. I love the rust-and-blood aesthetic of the game in general, they clearly went all out with this aspect and it shows. Hell, many of the environments hold up today imo, despite some pixelation.

But there's also a lot of missteps. The puzzles kind of suck. A couple have been creative but the majority have made zero sense and felt frustrating to solve as a result. There are also too many annoying enemies, to the point where I stopped really fighting them at all except when I'm absolutely forced to. And despite how much I want to like Heather, she really is super irritating. So much of the flavor text in this game is her going "I don't like how this looks" or "I don't want to touch that, it's gross!" Like yeah I know the bloody body under a sheet is gross, Heather, I never asked you to give it a big ol' hug, just look at it in case there's something useful on it. It's a shame because I think otherwise she's one of the better characters in the series, but they went too far with her being moody and making sure everyone knows it, even given the circumstances she's in.

I started another playthrough of this (the first try years ago I ran into a softlock in the sewers that ruined my save file) and I just hit the subway train area. It's all coming back to me how absolutely awful this segment of the game is. Everything looks the damn same and the map kinda sucks too.

Really hoping I can actually finish the game this time and it can redeem itself.

So eight years ago my playthrough of Silent Hill 3 on PS2 was stopped in its tracks when I ran into a black infinite loading screen in the sewer area. Restarting the game did nothing, and this room was required for progression so I had to stop. I assumed it was a bad scratch on the disc or something because it did look a bit scratched up and cleaning it didn't help. I didn't have the money to just go get another copy so I gave up.

Fast forward to today and I spotted a copy in my local game store. Jumped on it instantly, even though it didn't have the manual, which makes me a bit sad (my old copy came in a thin sleeve). I went home and fired it up to test but while it ran perfectly fine, it seems like it still freezes on that same load screen. Kind of uncanny. So not a huge loss, it means my old copy is probably perfectly fine and I got the game's case out of the situation.

So that brings me here. Has anyone here who has played this game run into this? I was able to find a couple threads on Reddit and Gamefaqs describing the same problem, but there were no definitive answers on a cause or workaround there. It seems like too much of a coincidence for multiple people to have this issue on the same room, but it's also clearly not a widespread issue, so I assume it's a glitch that isn't simple to reproduce. It sounds like you need to have picked up the required hair dryer item (before doing so the room loads fine). The threads suggest that killing the enemies in the previous room may cause it, but it's definitely not all the enemies since when I checked today I had 1 of the 3 enemies left alive in my file and still hit the black screen freeze. Killing the last one and retrying didn't change anything, so maybe it's one of the other two enemies that has to stay alive.

Sorry about the long post, I'm just wondering if I and some others stumbled onto a little known glitch. I'm gonna start a new playthrough anyway since it's been eight years and I want to finish the game, so I'm hoping to test whether killing specific enemies in that prior room allows me to reproduce the issue.

The second best Silent Hill game I've ever played and probably the most challenging one!

Silent Hill 3 is probably everything I wanted the first one to be and an amazing sequel. While it does fail to live up to my expectations after SH2, it is surprisingly well done and still relevant.

Out of the three first SH games, this one is probably the most intense. It does deliver some very scary and eery moments, but its focus is in how heavy, dense and hellish the atmosphere can be. It takes a lot of cues from the first one, ramps it up and makes it better. Some areas are quite insane for the eyes.

The soundtrack and usage of sound also work hand in hand with how tense the game is. It's no secret to anyone that Akira Yamaoka is a GOD and, while I do think think that he did a better work in SH2, there's no denying that the songs in SH3 hold a much heavier tone. Also, the use of noises/silences are just perfectly implemented.

To help creating this unique atmosphere and feeling that only Silent Hill manages to deliver, I also have to say how well the graphics hold up. For a PS2 game, it works amazingly well. Better than its two predecessors and much better than many games of its generation. Thanks to the quick evolution from one game to another, it's clear to see how well it reflects in the story and characters. Heather is probably the most charismatic protagonist in the series and every single character in the game manages to shine, even for a little while. Enemy variety also improved and their designs are scarier as hell!

Which leads me to the story.

SH3 is the perfect follow up to the first game in the series. It just does everything right in moving the story forward. The whole story and lore is expanded. You get to know more about Harry, his daughter and about the town and its folk. And while yes, it's not as deep and nuanced as SH2, it's still a hell of a time. Almost quite literally. Silent Hill 3 is probably the most devilish game I've every played when it comes to story and design. A well-written journey and a love letter to the first game.

Now where does it hurt? Well... the gameplay!

Silent Hill 3 feels like a step back in when it comes to gameplay. After you go through a very slow start, the game starts to pick its pacing up, but it never quite hits the mark!

There are enemies EVERYWHERE and I felt like the combat was even WORSE than previous games! Movement might be a little easier to pick up and camera didn't bother me as much, but battling normal enemies and bosses is a huge hassle! Enemy placement is just very bad. It increases difficulty, causes an excess of item usage (which I don't encourage) and the worst thing of all - breaks the immersion! Puzzles and boss fights also felt a little off.

It may not seem like a big thing, but it's a very visible problem and it badly hurts how the game flows. The hospital is probably the best example on how this design philosophy didn't work out well for the entire game.

Silent Hill 3 is an incredible game!

A fantastic horror game and an incredible sequel to the first one. It's a game that I can't recommend enough. The way it stands the test of time, while still managing to mess with your fear and challenge you is diamond.

This was my favorite of the initial three Silent Hill games that I have played over the last couple weeks. I think it combined good elements of the prior two games into something more fun and more effective as horror to me personally. The final level alone can get absolutely unhinged and startling in a way I didn't feel in the prior games. While I can't 100% recommend it as a standalone title due to its dependencies on those earlier games, I think it makes a fantastic case for playing all three of the games in order.

The original Silent Hill's focus on safe, everyday locations being overrun by occult, unimaginable evil is escalated in this game. I think that kind of thing works so well because as unrealistic and over-the-top as it can get, it still taps into a real-world sense of anxiety about our safe places like schools, malls, amusement parks, and so on becoming dangerous. The last couple locations, an amusement park and an orphanage/church thing, especially love toying with the contrast between the innocent and the nightmarish to create an uneasy feeling.

This reflection of real-world anxiety is also seen in Heather's very long, stressful trip home in the dark from the opening mall level through the subway and other dangerous locations. [Big Spoiler:] That even the safety of her own home has been violated with a family member's murder when she gets back is the final nail in the coffin of any sense of safety and security, and ultimately drives Heather toward a numb anger. After feeling her stress and pain that she never asked for, I found her the most emotionally resonant protagonist of these three games.

Though the developers had a great sense of how to design surreal locations that would tap into real fears, I don't think they had a perfect sense of how to tie it all together. A sizable repeat area from Silent Hill 2 is fine in a vacuum, but feels out-of-place and somewhat pointless in its spot in the story. The long journey home tries to poke the overall narrative forward at times, but could really use a tighter sense of pace and progression for the character and her story. Some late-game returns to Silent Hill 1 places were pretty nicely done, though, probably because they're so quick and to the point.

I think the story in general is good, not as thoughtful and interesting as Silent Hill 2's story, but it has its strengths. I liked the main characters, and I'd say the game has better dialogue overall than the prior games, especially SH1. Sound design is still great, super unsettling with headphones later on. Visually, the game is one of the best-looking PS2 titles, with some great character detail / animations, some nice camera angles, and an overall good visual variety. The extra level of detail really makes the game feel immersive and interesting to explore, and adds believability to its unbelievable events.

Gameplay, including enemy and level design, feel like the best of the first three games as well. Enemies especially just felt so much more impactful and threatening this time, including some much more interesting and lengthy boss encounters. Puzzles also feel generally a bit more straightforward in a nice way. There are just a couple small, annoying gameplay moments that I could have done without.

I would definitely recommend grabbing these first three games, which are all relatively short and contribute to a very interesting universe. This game culminates a lot of the best aspects of the prior games into one fun package. Just prepare to see... some pretty wild stuff.

So, after being completely blown away and taken by surprise by Silent Hill 2, I figured I would play the next one (they both came together on the one disc, for PS3.. "HD version" or whatever). I was nonplussed by SH2, I expected some lame emo horror garbage but instead I was confronted with a really cool surreal dreamlike almost David Lynch-style (Twin Peaks) horror game with absolutely bizarre Lovecraftian monsters. I wanted more, so I went to play the next chapter.

Sadly, I must admit, I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, Silent Hill 3 is a great game. There are so many good things about it. The characters are well done, the environments are gross and spooky, and I loved the strong female protagonist, that was a nice touch. But there were issues. Firstly, the story. I'm not sure what they were trying to do, but I think the writing team got a little too carried away.. there was all this over-complicated stuff with way too many characters and big reveals and sub-plots going on, way too much unnecessary lore and what not. The big "villain" instead of being some horrifying unspeakable faceless horror was instead a weird ugly-looking irritating lady in a black dress, kind of like something out of one of the bad Matrix sequels. The monsters, while cool, didn't show much variety.. Instead of the completely off-the-wall batshit crazy surreal shit from SH2 it was more your run-of-the-mill zombies and fat-zombies and crawling-zombies and stuff, I wasn't very impressed particularly. Most disappointing was the atmosphere. Instead of the strange mysterious dreamy quality of the 2nd game, SH3 was a little cheesy..there were many cliches thrown into the mix, haunted houses, spooky carnival, insane asylum, satanic cultist church thing.. The developers seemed a little self-aware of this, but still, even the tone of the dialogue (with the environments) killed the immersion for me, instead of the surreal dream of SH2 it was more like a Rob Zombie film or something.

But there were some cool moments. The fight with the weird half-dead horse things was cool, some of the environments were weird and fucked up. But the whole "battle your evil self" thing was a bit predictable. My favourite thing about SH2 was that atmosphere, and they missed the mark on this one, so it loses big points in my book.

In terms of game mechanics though, the game really shined. I played on normal difficulty, but it was still very brutal. Ammo and health pack conservation was nervy at times, and I was down to my very last health pack and killed the final boss with my very last shotgun cartridge so the game was perfectly balanced.Controls worked well, no camera issues really. Puzzles were wonderfully done, no need for walkthroughs or anything, everything was balanced nicely with just the right amount of hints to push me in the right direction (although there was the occasional irritating "treasure hunt" type thing, having me search every single room for a little pixel or missing object/key. Also walking down a hallway with 30 doors checking every single door to find the 'unlocked' one becomes tiresome but I guess that's all part of the appeal of these games. Music and sound design was superb and foreboding, though some of the voice acting was pretty bad, but perhaps it was just the bad characters. I feel like the nerdy dude with the glasses and the "evil witch" lady were pretty much redundant and the game would have played better without them.

It's funny, according to my PS3 I completed the game in 10 hours but it felt more like 30 for 40 hours. Probably because I kept getting interrupted and played it over the space of a month or two, with breaks or something along those lines. I also got a ranking of "5 stars plus 2 little stars" I don't know what that means, I wonder if I did a good job! Admittedly I ran away from quite a lot of the monsters, not worth wasting my ammo. Glad I did so, otherwise I would have been in serious trouble for that last boss fight. It's hard to say whether I'd recommend this game. It's funny, despite all my gripes I still enjoyed it, I still have fond memories and I liked the characters, particularly the main girl and the detective dude, and some of those scenes will stay in my heart for a time; I liked it overall. If you loved Silent Hill 2, then perhaps it's worth playing, but don't expect the same level of brilliance. If you're looking for a good horror game, Alien Isolation and Outlast were really good ones [EDIT: actually, I think Deadly Premonition would be an even better recommendation, to me it feels like the true spiritual successor of the series, play that instead of SH3], so play those instead if you haven't already. I am curious to see how Silent Hill 1 stacks up since I've never investigated it. I also wonder what this "New Game Plus" feature entails..

Final score: ☆☆☆½ (3.5 out of 5).

As a continuation of the original Silent Hill (and the last great main console Silent Hill imo) Silent Hill 3 is an awesome sequel. The visuals in this game are still to this day pretty gross (see: Walls with pulsating veins.) Perhaps not the grossest game compared to something like today's Outlast, but the atmosphere, the visuals, the tension you can cut with a knife were heightened and made the forefront to the story. As outlandish as the first title was, this time around you play as Heather Mason, adopted daughter of Harry Mason, protagonist from the first game. The thing I love most about this entry is the mythos that was firmly embraced from the first story. Silent Hill 2 was very creepy, but Silent Hill 3 made me play with the lights on late at night. At the time, this was the only game that made me do that so kudos Team Silent.

I have one, and only one gripe about this game. Towards the end, you find yourself in a location you will recognize from the first game if you played it. Heather finds a book with a quill and ink bottle next to it (Save points from the first game) and begins to read it. The book is filled with Harry Mason's story up until that point. I wanted more of that and really truly wish that Team Silent crafted more of that to be found throughout the game as you visit several locations that were included in the original Silent Hill.