OK...just beat this. Liked it the least. Anyone agree?

[what]

But didnt they try and make Downpour like the originals and it turned out to be really great? Origins tried to be like the originals and I thought it turned out really good. I dont see how Homecoming or SM are anything like the originals.

The terms 'like the originals' and 'that SH feel/vibe' are so vague that they have no meaning. That was my point.

[devil hunter]

Downpour doesn't try to be like the older games, it is its own game with the unique atmosphere and other stuff.

Some people disliked Origins for feeling too much like older games and not offering something new. Fans really don't know what they want.

[NarooN]

Downpour isn't trying to be "like the originals" (whatever that's supposed to mean). I do tire of hearing phrases like that, i.e. "classic SH feel", because whenever I ask people to explain themselves, they always fail to do so besides the occasional person providing some ridiculous overblown explanation which makes no sense.

[Oomi]

I have to disagree with people when they say Homecoming wasn't scary. Even when I unlocked the laser pistol I was still scared, especially of those damn Needlers. xD

[SLDT]

Downpour isn't trying to be "like the originals" (whatever that's supposed to mean). I do tire of hearing phrases like that, i.e. "classic SH feel", because whenever I ask people to explain themselves, they always fail to do so besides the occasional person providing some ridiculous overblown explanation which makes no sense.

Well, I personally really did enjoy this game, but I would agree with the general consensus that it doesn't really have a traditional Silent Hill "feel" to it. When I say this, what I mean is that it lacks the same kind of originality and artistic design. In the older Silent Hill games, you had lots of disturbing imagery and environmental diversity. Every time you would enter a new area, you would see something new and visually unsettling (like a cooked dog or a "living hallway" or an eviscerated, bed-ridden corpse). You would never be able to get comfortable, and often times the environment itself would bring up more questions in your mind than the actual story.

In later Silent Hill games, you don't have that same kind of abstraction. The environments are generally very bland (with the exception of Downpour, which was spectacularly detailed in my opinion) and have very little to entertain the dark side of your imagination. The creature designs in later titles (Downpour not excluded) are also very bland. This can be seen particularly well in Homecoming, where most of the monsters are not only visually but also symbolically derivative of creatures used in previous titles.

Oh, look, we have nurses again...
Oh, hey, there's Pyramid Head again...
Oh, grand, another skinless dog...
Oh, hey! There's a smoke mons- Oh, wait, that's just a Lying Figure...

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is an even more disgraceful example of this, as the one and only creature design presented in that game (the "Raw Shock") was not only harmless-looking, but also highly derivative of a similar monster design used as a common-fodder enemy in Silent Hill 1 (which at least had a knife to attack you with rather than "freezing hugs"). While I cannot deny that reuse of enemy designs has been done with a variety of monsters throughout the series (most notably the nurses, which have appeared in almost every Silent Hill game to date bar Downpour and Shattered Memories), the new creature designs presented in all of its earlier releases usually far outnumbered those which were recycled. That's actually why I really liked Homecoming's bosses more than anything else in the game: because the designs used for them actually felt like they were relevant to the story being told.

[what]

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is an even more disgraceful example of this, as the one and only creature design presented in that game (the "Raw Shock") was not only harmless-looking, but also highly derivative of a similar monster design used as a common-fodder enemy in Silent Hill 1 (which at least had a knife to attack you with rather than "freezing hugs").

I guess that would make sense except for the fact that it's entirely untrue.

Your post is a perfect example of how preference translates into bias, in that you attempt to display your preferences as an objective observation. And in how you seem to believe that the Raw Shocks having a humanoid appearance makes them 'derivative'. I guess I can sort of understand projecting bias, we all do that. The thing about the Raw Shocks is just ridiculous.

[Augophthalmoses]

I do think we should move past having monsters based on distorted versions of the human body. It's a technique that's been used in the Team Silent games as well, and it's just becoming a bit of a cliche and expectation at this point.

[SLDT]

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is an even more disgraceful example of this, as the one and only creature design presented in that game (the "Raw Shock") was not only harmless-looking, but also highly derivative of a similar monster design used as a common-fodder enemy in Silent Hill 1 (which at least had a knife to attack you with rather than "freezing hugs").

I guess that would make sense except for the fact that it's entirely untrue.

Your post is a perfect example of how preference translates into bias, in that you attempt to display your preferences as an objective observation. And in how you seem to believe that the Raw Shocks having a humanoid appearance makes them 'derivative'. I guess I can sort of understand projecting bias, we all do that. The thing about the Raw Shocks is just ridiculous.

While they may not be derived specifically from the Grey Children, you must admit that the resemblance is striking. I will concede that the developers didn't waffle through Silent Hill 1 and say "Oh, here's an interesting looking creature: let's copy-paste", but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. The Raw Shocks' design was generic. All of its variations were generic. It very much resembled a creature already used in a previous game, and the film, and it was all the game had to offer as far as hostile pursuers went. Hence, it wasn't scary, and it wasn't original, either. It had nothing to offer whatsoever. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that you sat there, played the game, and even once looked at that creature and thought "Oh, that there is a substantial monster. I can totally see that a lot of thought went into creating it's bland, completely undetailed, and uninspiring face."

Needless to say, there was nothing disturbing about it, and not really anything disturbing about that game in general. After playing through it twice, the only thing I can say that I found at all disturbing or enriching were the occasional phone messages revealing some fucked-up detail about some resident living in town. However, I feel that discussing my qualms with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories would be going a bit off-topic. I'm sorry that you didn't like my example and/or that you don't feel the comparison was well-deserved, but I felt that it helped to enforce my original point, which was that this game - Homecoming - didn't feel like a Silent Hill game because, unlike previous iterations in the series, I personally felt that many aspects of it (primarily the common monster designs and environment) were very unoriginal and very uninspiring, and therefore provided little to scare you with, unsettle you, or make you think about.

I do think we should move past having monsters based on distorted versions of the human body. It's a technique that's been used in the Team Silent games as well, and it's just becoming a bit of a cliche and expectation at this point.

I remember watching a documentary on the making of Silent Hill 3 a while back, and I recall something about the humanoid design of many of the monsters used in that game was done purposely to produce more disturbing imagery. I believe the rationale behind this was that players and viewers would be more disturbed by contortions and mutations associated with the human body than they would be by similar designs applied to something else. While there's probably more to this than what my memory of it can currently recall, you can take from that what you will, or look the documentary up on Youtube (I'm fairly certain it's on there) for more information.

I personally don't really have a qualm with either direction, as long as whatever designs they choose to use in the future bring something new to the table.

[what]

While they may not be derived specifically from the Grey Children, you must admit that the resemblance is striking. I will concede that the developers didn't waffle through Silent Hill 1 and say "Oh, here's an interesting looking creature: let's copy-paste", but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. The Raw Shocks' design was generic. All of its variations were generic. It very much resembled a creature already used in a previous game, and the film, and it was all the game had to offer as far as hostile pursuers went. Hence, it wasn't scary, and it wasn't original, either. It had nothing to offer whatsoever.

The Raw Shock resembles the Mumbler in that both of them have arms and legs? I don't see any resemblance that isn't entirely superficial. I don't think they look the same and certainly they do not behave the same.

But, then again, I don't base my overall opinion of a game on whether its monster design is original any more than I would base my opinion of a book on the font used on its pages. Otherwise, I would have hated the second game for reusing Creepers and the third game for taking Silent Hill 2's Mandarin, putting it above ground, and calling it a Closer. Because, to be honest, I don't really much care what the monsters look like. It's entirely trivial to my enjoyment of a survival horror game.

Can you honestly sit there and tell me that you sat there, played the game, and even once looked at that creature and thought "Oh, that there is a substantial monster. I can totally see that a lot of thought went into creating it's bland, completely undetailed, and uninspiring face."

I can say with absolute certainty that this exact thought never crossed my mind.

Even if it did, who cares.

[Crystopsy]

Can't say I liked it the least, but in terms of scariness, SH2 & 4 aren't scary at all to me either. Then again, when you play horror games, you gain an immunity to the fear and you're basically numb to it. If Dead Space came out in 1998, I would've shat myself countless times, but playing it when it actually came out, didn't do it for me.

I'd replay this any day over 2 or 4 though.

Exactly. The older we get the more immune we are to the scare tactics involved in a Silent Hill game, or the Survival Horror genre as a whole. I've alluded to this fact multiple times when It comes to "scariness" involved in these last few games. We all play and observe the games in a different light, so no one persons opinion/perspective is unjustified. I prefer a SH game to be more disturbing then anything. In terms of 'Homecoming' (and I beat it 11 times), It had It's moments, but left me with the impression that they were veering away from Survival Horror and going for a more Resident Evil-like combat approach. One of the best aspects I enjoy about a SH game is just becoming lost in it, in dark spaces, no enemies, and haunting noises in the background. But to answer the question, It was and still is my least liked game in the series.