Silent Hill Community • View topic - On the Exclusion of the Original Silent Hill

Ever since I heard the announcement about the impending release of the Silent Hill: HD Collection, I've been wondering why such a game would again neglect to include the original Silent Hill. We've already seen a "Silent Hill Collection" including both Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 released both in 2006 and 2009. Both of these lacked a remastered edition of the remastered Silent Hill. I understand that remodeling the entire first game would take a considerable amount of effort, and also recognize that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was an spirited acknowledgement of this idea, but I still find it a bit odd that no attempt would be made at remaking the original game seeing as third will be the third installement of the game to include previous made titles.

So what are all your takes on this? Why do you think the developers of Silent Hill have consistenly neglected to remake the first game, even though they've already released numerous compilations?
I'm curious to hear all of your insights.

You would have to remake the entire game.

Xuchilbara wrote:You would have to remake the entire game.

This. Even if the developers wanted to do that, they'd run a much greater risk of damaging the magic and artwork of Silent Hill then they do with SH2 and 3.

I do find it interesting how the series never seems to let go of that first game. Think about it. SH3, Origins, and Shattered Memories are all directly related to the first game. Homecoming, 2, and 4 are all sort of begin and end with that one game. We never go back and revisit James or Alex. But ever couple years, we've had a game that adds on to that first installment.

Meltdown wrote:
Xuchilbara wrote:You would have to remake the entire game.

This. Even if the developers wanted to do that, they'd run a much greater risk of damaging the magic and artwork of Silent Hill then they do with SH2 and 3.

I do find it interesting how the series never seems to let go of that first game. Think about it. SH3, Origins, and Shattered Memories are all directly related to the first game. Homecoming, 2, and 4 are all sort of begin and end with that one game. We never go back and revisit James or Alex. But ever couple years, we've had a game that adds on to that first installment.

The first game is so entirely different too. There no other SH like it. I don't know if it's because of Toyama's influence or not. But there's this 'charm' to it that the others are missing.

It's called the Silent Hill **HD** Collection. SH1 was only released on PS1 and is not and never was an HD game. It's the same deal with people asking about why MGS1 wasn't in the MGS HD Collection. Plus, both of these games are already on the PS Store for low prices, so if anyone wanted to play them they could just get them that way.

A PS1 game would still look bad by today's standards even if you upscaled it to 1920x1080 natively. It would be pointless.

NarooN wrote:It's called the Silent Hill **HD** Collection.

This, pretty much. Silent Hill 1 would not look good at all in HD...

you got that right!..

One box could not contain that much awesome.

1. Both 2 and 3 are usually the most highly regarded by fans and having those two games together would be the most profitable because of said reason.

2. These two would be the easiest to package together and remaster because the use the same gameplay mechanics, same graphical style, and even some of the same locations. 1 although has similar gameplay also has different mechanics than 2 and 3 and also has a different graphical style, plus being a PSONE game doesn't help, plus the extra cost of trying to add 1 to the game would have been passed onto consumers.

I'm glad Silent Hill isn't in the HD collection as I'd look a right dick buying the PS1 game of it online from Amazon.
Now 4 and Shattered Memories for volume 2 (seeing as they seem to be two games on each) I'd be happy with. Give me something to look forward to 2013 for!
I loved playing Silent Hill this year on my PS3. I love the texture of the early graphics. The charm is too great to attempt to fix onto more powerful machines. But I do like your thinking!

I've no doubt they'll make a 4. There are a large number of people asking for it, and theres no way this HD collection won't be a success. No way in the world. It may be DLC or something though.

I just hope they can manage to pull the VO without a huge clusterfuck this time. I don't mind them adding new improved voices, but I'm a nostalgic gamer to the core.

If they do a 4, I *hope* that they get new voices. Out of all the games, 4 possibly has the worst acting. Might be a tie between it and the first game.

I liked the voices in 4. But I wouldn't be upset with new ones as long as it didn't feel like they were trying too hard. I don't want Henry to sound like Bobcat or something.

What I wanna know is why in the world SH4 was excluded.

Sure, it got mixed reception from fans and critics... but making a game HD isn't that damn hard. So either they're astoundingly lazy, which I doubt, or they're just cheap bastards. I think that adding SH4 to the collection would've added another disc to the 360 version, and thus they decided it wasn't worth including.

Yaywalter wrote:What I wanna know is why in the world SH4 was excluded.

Sure, it got mixed reception from fans and critics... but making a game HD isn't that damn hard.

Yes it is. They have to rebuild the entire game, literally, from the ground up.

yep. And 2 and 3 were probably the easiest to remaster since they already looked pristine for PS2 games, and they are definitely the most popular games in the series, so it was a no-brainer that they'd use those two first.

4 would require some serious work to fix up (hopefully they'd redo some of the poor graphics that can be seen in FPS sections). 1 would be absurd. They would probably have to just do a REmake-style recreation instead of remastering the PS1 version.

Xuchilbara wrote:Yes it is. They have to rebuild the entire game, literally, from the ground up.

The only thing that HD implies is that they're rendering the scene at a higher resolution, resulting in polygons with smoother edges. They're probably doing a little bit of filtering to the textures to make 'em look better, maybe even re-making a few, but they're by no means recreating all the assets or rewriting the entire code of the game.

All they really have to do is get the core engine up and running on the PS3 (which they've already done... SH2, 3 and 4 are all based on the same engine), set it to render at HD resolution, and then test and fix any unexpected graphical glitches that might crop up from increasing the resolution.

SH4 can be played in HD right now with the PCSX2 emulator, if you've got a fairly powerful computer. The only reason they need to even do anything at all to release a "HD collection" is because the PS3 simply isn't powerful enough to emulate the PS2 running at HD resolutions.

Yaywalter wrote:
Xuchilbara wrote:Yes it is. They have to rebuild the entire game, literally, from the ground up.

The only thing that HD implies is that they're rendering the scene at a higher resolution, resulting in polygons with smoother edges. They're probably doing a little bit of filtering to the textures to make 'em look better, maybe even re-making a few, but they're by no means recreating all the assets or rewriting the entire code of the game.

This is NOT what they are doing for SH3 or 2. They are building it from the ground up, which you're not listening about. There is copyright expired material which is being deleted and replaced, plus rerecording of voices, remixing of sounds, adding graphics and taking away graphics etc. They are completely remastering it. They are not simply converting screens into HD. They are covering audio, visuals, extras, and the likes. They are adding things to it and taking away things. This is why it is taking so long for it to be released.

Xuchilbara wrote:
Yaywalter wrote:
Xuchilbara wrote:Yes it is. They have to rebuild the entire game, literally, from the ground up.

The only thing that HD implies is that they're rendering the scene at a higher resolution, resulting in polygons with smoother edges. They're probably doing a little bit of filtering to the textures to make 'em look better, maybe even re-making a few, but they're by no means recreating all the assets or rewriting the entire code of the game.

This is NOT what they are doing for SH3 or 2. They are building it from the ground up, which you're not listening about. There is copyright expired material which is being deleted and replaced, plus rerecording of voices, remixing of sounds, adding graphics and taking away graphics etc. They are completely remastering it. They are not simply converting screens into HD. They are covering audio, visuals, extras, and the likes. They are adding things to it and taking away things. This is why it is taking so long for it to be released.

Re-doing a handful of things =/= Re-doing everything

The music will remain untouched. The 3D models will remain either entirely or mostly untouched. The gameplay will remain untouched.

And even if they did redo the music and 3D models, enhanced the gameplay and added new areas and endings and shit, it still wouldn't take near as long as making an all-new game from the ground up.

Yaywalter wrote:Re-doing a handful of things =/= Re-doing everything

The music will remain untouched. The 3D models will remain either entirely or mostly untouched. The gameplay will remain untouched.

They are NOT keeping those untouched, this is what I am trying to tell you. It's been all over the news. Are you paying attention?

On the Exclusion of the Original Silent Hill

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