Silent Hill: The Short Message

Fuckin' hate shit like this. Being chased by unstoppable monsters. It's scary the first time, to be sure. Maybe the second time. But if I die enough - and the woooh spooky lighting ensured I did die enough - I get to a point where I just want this flower bitch to sit down so I can solve the fucking puzzles and get the rest of the fucking story. Swear to Christ if they turn Red Pyramid into a Mr. X ripoff in Silent Hill 2's remake I'm gonna be mad (I'll still play it, and hopefully it's good, but still).

This was the first thing I played on my PS5 so it took me a while to realize the Maya scenes were live-action and not that the PS5 has such insane graphics. But, I don't know, I guess because I'm 30 and also don't play newish games often, so I'm still blown away by splotchy skin in Marvel's Spider-Man, or even how Anita's eyebrows here have like individual hairs. Since, really, all I do most of the time is play PS1 Resident Evil [バイオハザード] or NES Mega Man [ロックマン]....

So with The Short Message, can we say Silent Hill is back? What would that mean? Is Team Silent ever going to reunite? Probably not, but that doesn't mean the SH2 remake will necessarily be bad. Will Konami redeem themselves for cancelling Silent Hills and burying P.T.? No, I don't think so, but they could at least redeem themselves from the PS3-era games, can't they? Or does The Short Message mean "Silent Hill is back" in the same way that, technically, Silent Hill: Book of Memories was technically a Silent Hill game?

First off, it's about time I admit to myself there's definitely a difference between "being a fan of Silent Hill (the first game)" versus "being a fan of Silent Hill (the entire franchise)." The original game is my favorite, but it's never going to come back in any way. Rather, SH2 hijacked the franchise's direction with this "the town is limbooooooo xDD" shit I don't really love. SH2 is itself a great game, better indeed than SH1 in a number of respects, but I simply prefer the wacky sub-JRPG evil cult plot over the "spooky foggy town forcing you to atone for your sins" plot. Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to SH1, skipping any concrete link to SH2, but the themes of SH2 have infected the world of SH1, and now all the monsters are allegorical for Heather instead of being "what if Resident Evil but surreal," which is comparatively superficial, but it's what I appreciated most about the original game (Ito seemed to be "trying too hard" with SH3...).

So, The Short Message brings us a world not unlike SH2, except somehow the horrors of Silent Hill (the town) have spread to Germany through a mix of Japanese witchcraft and COVID-19 isolation (??). I don't feel like spoiling the story here, but basically Anita is uncovering a mystery about herself, her mother, and her friends in a manner not unlike James, and decidedly unlike Harry. But our sole monster here is more like the Butcher from Silent Hill Origins. Or am I misremembering that game? Then the dad boss, at least. Something like that. The monster is Anita's mom, right? Not Maya?

I guess some people have complained that the story is too overwrought and on-the-nose. That's not untrue, but I'm okay with it; the social media bullying stuff is essentially alien to me because I consider myself too old for that sort of thing, so it's basically the opposite end of the spectrum of Harry trying to save his daughter - it's just different from my life either way. The voice acting is shit, and I don't think it's an intentional choice to pay homage to the early games, so this is the real reason why I might think less of the story. I also feel there's maybe a hole here? Who is the boy in the sketchbook? There are people it could be, but nothing too overt, in my opinion.

Also, I understand why they do the content warnings, but I feel maybe it comes up too often? Is it trying to be postmodern by showing it every chapter? Or should I expect SH2 Remake to open with a warning, "The following game contains scenes of a dude fucking murdering his terminally ill wife to euthanize her"? Because... uh, spoilers?

The future sucks we should just let this series die and move on.

The Silent Hill series is an interesting phenomenon. It's probably the most well regarded horror game franchise of all time but also one that haven't got a good game released in 15-20 years. The most recent outing was Silent Hill: Ascenscion which took the bar that was already on the floor and buried it close to the core of the Earth. The incredibly low expectations are definitely a factor in my opinion here, but compared to the previous game (if you can even call it that) I found The Short Message to be actually somewhat decent?

Let's start with what I think are its biggest strenghts. First of all, the visuals, both in terms of graphical quality and art design. The game takes place in an abandoned apartement complex and right off the bat you can tell there was thought and care put into designing the place. With graffiti sprawled all over its walls it looks atmospheric and realistic. There are of course also more surreal elements added to the design with the series staple rusted, chain link fences making an apperance too and it all looks good.

I also really liked the music and sound design. It feels like cheating for Konami to be able to just bring the series veteran and legend Akira Yamaoka to the table but it gets the job done. I played this at night with headphones on and the sound does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to the atmosphere. Speaking of veterans, Masahiro Ito designed the star of the show here, our spooky Silent Hill creature and it's really good. Reminiscent of his classic designs but also adding something new. Easily the best monster the series seen in years.

Now to the parts that drag the experience down. The gameplay is serviceable at best. You walk around and collect various notes and lore objects and then you run away from the monster in a maze like chase sequence. There's an attempt at incorporating the character's phone in to the gameplay but it doesn't really go anywhere. I wish there was more to it but for a two hour game it works okay and doesn't overstay its welcome.

The biggest point of contention by far seems to be the writing. I really can't hate on it too much though, yes it's heavy handed and borderline a PSA but I think there are parts of it that work pretty well. It generally seems like it's coming from a well meaning place (though there are bits of extreme child abuse that don't really add much other than shock value) and it feels like it's written by an actual human (can't believe this is a compliment we can give right now).

Overall I'm not getting carried away and this definitely isn't something so high quality that would make me start ringing the "Silent Hill is back" bell, but it just feels nice to be pleasantly surprised for a change as a fan of the series. It's completely free to play on PS5 so there's no reason to not give it a go if you're interested. Hopefully Konami won't purge this one out of existance.

Una experiencia bastante interesante pero mediocre a la vez, Silent Hill: The short message nos presenta una idea en cuanto a argumento muy interesante pero en cuanto a juego es mid.

No es un argumento tan espectacular y tampoco tiene un buen ritmo del todo pero tocar temas como el suicidio y relacionarlo a la época actual se me hace algo bastante bien, no hay duda que hoy en día la importancia de las redes sociales es otro factor para que el ser humano cometa esta terrible acción, pero si que es verdad que una cosa es la idea y otra la ejecución.

En cuanto a juego es muy olvidable, un walking simulator que hasta cierto punto se me hizo muy aburrido y no es por hacerme el interesante pero honestamente no da nada de miedo, no voy a negar que un jumpscare por ahí me asustó pero en cuanto a terror yo siempre busco algo más psicológico.
Visualmente está muy bien y no se me hace tan mal en escenarios.

Ni bueno ni malo, simplemente una experiencia muy mid que aun con eso lo recomiendo mucho ya que es gratis y no dura más de 2 horas