Silent Hill: Origins

"Was it all just a dream?" Maybe "Silent Hill" was just that: a dream... a dream surrounded by the misty haze of a medium far too young and shallow to understand the true value behind Toyama's masterpiece. Only by acknowledging this fact can one understand the often convoluted story behind the series. Had Konami Japan understood the (artistic and commercial) value of the series, I doubt they would have been so eager in wasting the series potential with such a lenient production policy. So, what is the story behind Silent Hill? First, a revolutionary game, that is the epitome of psychological horror (SH1); then a game that builds on that basis and adds a twisted storyline and aesthethic that in my opinion are worthy of a David Lynch movie (SH2); an uninspired sequel that follows the event of the first chapter, but that still manages to retain the same level of dramatic efficiency and production quality of its predecessors (SH3); and finally, a deviation of the series, that not only was unable to take the series forward, as it also failed in replicating some of the more important standards fans came to expect (SH4).

Alas, a prequel is made... by an outsider, American studio: Climax. Let me start by saying that I wouldn't like to be in their shoes, having to uphold to so much, and with so little experience to do so. Just think about it: in case they didn't stick to canon, they would be criticized for not maintaining the series core values, and if they opted for a strict following of the previous games, they would be criticized for not adding any value to the franchise. No win situation. Climax chose the second road, and "Silent Hill 0rigins" ends up looking like what you've come to expect of "Silent Hill": the same foggy town, with its empty streets, hospital, motel, and creepy monsters wandering about, the same camera angles coupled with a noise filter, the same eerie soundtrack. But, sadly, as you explore the dreamy landscape, you'll notice the subtle differences, and you'll realize they were as important as everything else in creating the horror masterpiece devised by Keiichiro Toyama. Not that Climax doesn't try hard to embody everything that is "Silent Hill", they do, but the fact remains that a copycat is only as good as his ability to perceive what made the original work of art grand... and Climax doesn't cut it.

"God is in the details." Small details, the type of which you'd thought wouldn't matter, but do. A simple example: a crucial aspect in any horror game is the surprise factor, the ability to catch the player off-guard (not necessarily to make him jump off his seat). In the first chapters of the franchise, there were a lot of unique scenes where the designers changed the field of play, messing with your head's preconceptions. For instance: the brilliant cat-scene in "Silent Hill", where you could hear a noise coming from a locker, and when you opened it, a cat sprung out, only to be killed by a demon-kid (or whatever you wanna call those things); later, when you entered the otherworld, the scene would repeat, a noise coming from the locker, but only this time, when you got the nerve to open it, the entrains of the cat where laying there. These small episodes were crucial in placing the player in an uncomfortable place, where every move ended with unpredictable results. In "0rigins", there isn't anything like that, everything moves along smoothly and predictably.

The "Silent Hill" universe always inhabited the realm of the surreal, where ambiguity and mystery went hand in hand. "0rigins", on the other hand, starts off with the worst of premises: to explain the events behind the first game. Now, you might not have noticed, but "explain" doesn't really mix with "surreal", "ambiguous" or "mysterious". Besides that, "Silent Hill 3" had already "explained" the first "Silent Hill" for the average player, so why try and explain more? No good could ever come from that mindset. The result is sad, at best: scenes pan out in predictable ways, with none of the edginess, creepiness or surrealism you'd expect; dialogs are poorly written and straightforward. Everything is just so linear, shallow and... well, I'm gonna say it: "American", that it manages to destroy any sense of strangeness that was still left in that world. Adding to that, all of the "explanations" in the game are irrelevant, serving only as canon fodder for the overly zealous fan to devour.

On a design note, there are some good aspects to Climax's venture: A higher focus on puzzles and exploration, a better use of sound and especially, of Akira Yamaoka's brilliant scores, and a battle system that is, for the most part, able to walk the thin line between responsiveness and clunkiness, i.e. not responsive enough to allow the player to feel either overly confident about killing monsters, and not frustrating to the point of making him throw his console out the window.

The first two "Silent Hills" were some of the best games ever designed, and that is an admittedly hard lineage to uphold, and as expected, "0rigins" utterly fails in doing so. Yet, it does manage to copy most of the formula of the series, making it a very pleasing game for the hardcore fans, as long as they don't expect to find herein the finer subtleties that made "Silent Hill" a grand masterpiece. "0rigins" is what it is: a mimic of a great work of art, that is as shallow and linear as the original was subtle and unique. The hard truth is that "Silent Hill" is growing stale and old, and the time will come when one must start wondering if we'll ever see such joyous days as the ones in 1999, when "Silent Hill" first appeared... here's hoping that it wasn't all just a dream.