2 (Points automatically given to the Lake ending) + 2 (by following a needlessly long series of tasks) dats 4, quick maffs. Dog ending, raw dog. Just dogg. 🎶
When a game says "choices matter" this is what I'm expecting it to be doing in the background, but the reality is often "Which faction you accept missions from matters".
I mean the matter is fine too. New Vegas did that well and even then you still had to be on your best behavior with those factions and work for them. But yeah I agree. SH2 is more subtle and nuanced.
That replay bonus for unseen endings is just beautiful coding. So extremely simple, but acknowledging that players might want to get different endings on replays and subtly helping them.
in a world full of "multi-choice endings" which just sum up to which team you side with or, famously, which color you want in the final cutscene, to see a game like this do a lot of behind-the-scenes calculations to arrive at different endings is oddly refreshing.
I do wish games would do more playstyle-based ending conditions like SH2, though it is kind of hard to communicate to the player without ruining the illusion. SH2 makes a very good effort at helping players see all the endings without hinting at the scoring system, at least.
Once you get to take a peek under the hood, it actually doesn't look that daunting, but the fact that it seems so mysterious from a new player's perspective is some fantastic videogame smoke-and-mirrors 👍
I got the "in water" ending the first time I played and I completely blame the awesome haptic feedback that was kind of a new thing at the time. When you were injured on the PlayStation 2 version you could feel the character's heartbeat in the controller. I liked this so much that I would frequently run around very injured which absolutely gave me those two points and I would not be at all surprised if that's why I got the ending I did. It wasn't until later that I even knew the game had multiple endings so this was, quite shocking.
Thanks for sharing this. Even players just a couple of years younger wouldn't have been fascinated enough by a vibration feature to run around with low health. I still remember this time well, starting with the N64 rumble pack and later on the first Dualshock Controller.
@@Vas1 I think it was used better in SH2 than any other game that I ever played. Usually it's just used because there's like an earthquake or you're driving over gravel, full blast, heavy-handed. The vibration here was so subtle and light, it really did feel like you were feeling James' pulse in your hands.
@@Vas1 I just beat Silent Hill 2 for the first time an hour ago, I got the In Water ending because I prefer to only use health kits when I have the lowest possible health.
The more of these videos you put out, the more I go "I am totally okay with Punchy being my source for video game esoterica." You just have a very pleasant voice, a good cadence and a good sense for what is or isn't necessary to a video so I don't feel like you're wasting my time. Edit: HOLY SHIT I HOPE YOU'RE OKAY AND RECOVER SOON! I ONLY JUST READ THE DESCRIPTION!
Jesus christ this is one of the best character interaction systems I have ever seen. What an incredibly intuitive way to guide your players through the different scenarios that the developers have presented. Just another reason this is one of the best games ever made.
My brother and I were basically guaranteed to get In Water our first times because we both explored everything thoroughly. That gets you the points for the knife, the bar, the rooftop, the conversation, and maybe a point for low health depending on how you play, so 6 points, while you lose points for leave if you go the wrong way because you wanna explore more and I didn't gain a point for overheating I think.
@@JellyJman And when you think about it it's fucking genius, how James doing the same thing during the game but with an overall good health (mental and physical) can change how HE perceives the truth and decides if he wants to join Mary or leave the town and follow her words
Exactly! Idk how "Leave" supposed to be intentional for the first playthrough. In your first playthrough, you explore everything, so it's already minus 1 for trying to go the wrong way. While "In water" ending actually rewards exploration. Only 2 points for being in bad health, it means the game FORCES you to "In water" for your first playthrough, it's 6 (2+4) vs 5 (5-1+1) points. And the only way to set 6v6 and get prioritiesed to "Leave" is the dumbest fucking thing in the world - to OVERheal. Not just heal, not receive less than N amount of damage, not some formula calculating your "willing to live" and cautious play style like "bad health" points - no. Overheal. Who tf would waste an entire health kit when you're slightly injured, who's playing like that, I don't understand. If they made that criteria so stupid, at least they should've locked the hard difficulty for your first playthrough, so you would actually overheal at least by accident or out of excess of heals. Idk if in the original game hard difficulty was locked at the start btw, i just beat the remake for the first time, on hard, while a bit aware of the og game and this whole endings system, like i knew you should not keep your health low and you should from time to time check on your personal things to get the best ending, and so i was aiming to that, but got "In water" and now a bit salty about it on emotions 😅 This ending is still great though, it's bittersweet (although it should be sad as hell wtf, it's just the fact that James really loved Mary more than everything in the world warms the heart, that he literally can't live without her and now with the full awareness of what he did) and more grounded to me than the rest endings, like it's too much like a real life story with no happy ending. But i just wanted some happiness for James in my first playthrough, but the game hates exploration and optimal healing 😭 At least i assume so, just want to remind that i'm talking about the remake, and I have no idea how this system works there, so if i got "In water" totally fair because i actually played too depressed and didn't even realised it or something - i'm taking all the complaints back. But something's tells me they didn't changed this system much.
@@CoolSaver sounds about the same as the OG experience for me. I like In Water though just for the fact that it makes the most sense to me, like if I were James I'd probably do the same thing after going through all of this. The others make sense too if you consider it him processing his grief and emotions and coming away stronger, but I'm more of a pessimist so the easy way out makes a lot of sense, and it's a dismal ending for a dismal game. But I do agree poor James deserves a win :( I forget the SH1 endings but I think I did kinda the same thing where I got the more depressing ending? I forget though, 1 has a sort of secret/"true" ending if you do extra steps and I looked up a guide to make sure I didn't miss those. I just remember it being also sad. Actually I think if I'm remembering right it's kinda similar to In Water?
Oh wait I think that's the bad ending of SH1, I got the hood ending first which is secret steps that you're not super likely to do but if you're thorough there's a chance you'd do it on accident. But the bad ending that you'll usually get is pretty dismal while the best one is a nice ending to a tragic story
The reason why Silent Hill 2 it became a classic is because eventually people began to see how unique, eerie, melancholic and authentic the game's atmosphere it really is, and took the time to enjoy its deeply thoughtful narrative and symbolism. To this day it’s by far one of, if not the most mature examination of grief, sexual trauma, suicide, and morality all combined. It’s an intelligent game that does not hold anyone’s hand and comes at the player with utmost confidence in itself. It’s fantastic stuff. The rest of the original 4 are great in their own right and have their own well written stories, but they don’t hold the same emotional weight to them. I think SH2’s maturity by comparison is something that a lot of people are drawn to. ☯️
This is a true service to the modern internet culture. I’ve eventually learned that instead of saying “Duh! Us old fans knew this from the old game fans topic!” And recognizing that obviously people are not going to go find that. This is a terrific streamlining of this info for people who weren’t there for the original debate.
In my first blind playthrough of the game I got the "In water" ending and thought it was because I was always at low health to preserve as much healing as possible lol, but it's so interesting to know that there are many more variables to all this. Great video Punchy! I love this new type of content
That's the jumpscare that nearly got me to stop playing the game when I was a kid. I'm very glad that I persevered, despite being a little wuss. The worst part is that lying figures don't trigger the radio when they're hidden underneath a car. So their jumpscare bypasses your anti-jumpscare protection.
Honestly I super agree about how the ending points are done. It's very simple but it plays so well into how players often do new playthroughs and just try to do something a bit different in order to get a new ending. It's the kind of thing that I think is just a nice nod to how players typically play games rather than endings just being super elaborate puzzles. Maybe you got stuck and you ask a friend for some advice and they give you some vague hints about what to do and it works. There's an elegance to that honestly.
There is a certain mistique vibe to endings in video games that aren't achievable by doing *one specific task* and with them being explained in such detail, how they're programmed into the game... You gotta respect the ingenuity of how something so specific, programmable, is still able to dictate an event to occur in a way that still feels vague.
I graphed the in water bad health equation in a 3D calculator and assuming it only triggers when you're under 50% health (otherwise it would punish you for having very HIGH health as well) it does seem to do pretty much what Punchy said. Lower health bad, higher time bad, low health for long time very bad.
I don't know if it would punish you for it. It would be symmetrical. hpPercent is in decimal, e.g. 10% health is 0.1. sin(0.1pi) = sin(0.9pi) ≈ 0.1 1-sin(0.1pi) = 1-sin(0.9pi) ≈ 0.9 sin(0.4pi) = sin(0.6pi) ≈ 0.95 1-sin(0.4pi) = 1-sin(0.6pi) ≈ 0.05 So you'd be rewarded for having either very low or high health, and penalized for having health near the middle, which doesn't make sense, which is why the equation only applies below 50%.
@@yellowdoritos Sorry didn't see this. I agree with your maths, it's just when I said "Punish" I meant from an innocent player's perspective of "The In Water ending is a bad ending and you don't want to get it."
i think the esoteric workings of the exact outcomes add a lot to the immersion of the game. You don't know which actions matter so you just generally roleplay the character that James would be in the ending you want to achieve. It's brilliant
@azizabdul8914 she also coughs at the end, hinting she will have the same fate as Mary. It shows James learned nothing at all from his time in silent hill
I really liked this one!! ^^ Thank you for your work Punchy. I really enjoy hearing your musings on topics while watching speedruns, so it's interesting to see them put together in a much more thoughtful way than the off the cuff type, and I'm glad you're enjoying them too from what I can tell.
Oh my god I have legit ALWAYS wanted hard math on this stuff; you put up with vague 'uhhh do this' guidance for years and it makes you hungry for some real numbers.
I wish every game with endings like this had unseen-ending-bonuses. If only more SH-inspired games knew about this mechanic, it'd make many of them less of a pain in the butt.
I wonder how much of this applies to the remake and how much was added to account for the two new endings. Like obviously the "10 minutes with Maria" parameter was likely at least doubled, since from Rosewater Park to the room she lays down in in Brookhaven could be an hour depending on playstyle [I explore the shit out of everything so I definitely got that Maria point in my current and first remake playthrough], and the Leave ending's over-heal threshold was likely increased as well since the remake has way more combat focus and way more healing items.
Brilliant video, cleared up a lots of questions that I had for years. I'm really interested in knowing how this system was brought to the remake. I got the In Water ending myself on my first playthrough and, upon searching for it, found out that it was a lot of people's first ending as well. That's intriguing to know based on the fact that a few things were changed that made a few of the original requirements impossible to achieve, like not being able to bump into Maria, or being forced to read the diary in Brookhave to advance the story, for example. (I don't actually know if you are obligated to read the diary, but it is set up as to make you think that is the only way, at least. I know i read it)
Wonderful video to learn about. Also funny how every time I play sh2 it's always in water ending but fascinating to learn the game does try to get you to see more endings too
Not only interesting as a fan of Silent Hill 2, but also very interesting as a way to think of game endings. The idea of helping push casual players towards the other endings, without their need for a guide, is very well done. Just another reason this game is one of the greats. Great video.
Vauge descriptions were always enough for me to get all endings, but learning about this in depth was quite interesting. Never had an idea about boost to unseen endings (still failed to get Maria ending once, if I recall correctly)
I only ever did the Leave ending and all my friends always talked about getting in water first so I thought I was extra cool for getting a different one but I guess I'm konami's lowest common denominator... :/
My first ending was the leave ending. I did examine everything many times as I made my way through, so your explanation finally explains why the game associated me with "I don't want to live" lol
I got the water ending on my first run. Though I've heard this ending is the closest to cannon from some sources a long time ago. Interesting though that the leave (good ending) is what the developer's were stacking to be the first ending for players. I played resident evil so health management (no unnecessary healing for yellow status till orange or red condition) and item examination were something I made a habit of.
People say leave ending is default, but its only default if you're just rushing through the game and not reading everything and being fully immersed. If you actually go around and read everything and analyze your inventory, you're going to get the in water ending.
the reversed item noise in the maria section made me cackle so hard I have no idea why. Always wondered how these endings worked. Cool video Im surprised that the photo and letter dont factor into this. I was always told it did.
i think SIGNALIS is fairly well documented like there's a decent steam guide for it that got published pretty soon after the game came out. i did this because I thought it was interesting after SH2 fans largely went like two decades without much concrete info on it
In the remake i was trying to get the in water ending, but i got the Maria one. It makes sense, since I was trying to farm every bit of dialogue out of her
God. I remember I wanted to get the nuetral ending on my first playthrough. But when I had to choose between Chaos or Law, I would automatically follow those respective routes. Meaning that I unknowingly had my alignment at 0 during that choice. Only found out once i checked and couldnt believe I was playing too neutral.
Thank you for this easy to understand explanation! I wish I had access to my official Japanese strategy guides for this game because I think they included similar data on the endings. I will have to come back to this and compare when I finally retrieve them! Hope you are feeling better!
Hey my guy, I really enjoyed your video. I know this is a year old, but the new one just came out.Do you think by any chance you can do a math video for the tally system in the new one? That would be fantastic. :)
For whatever reason, i got the Leave ending on my first playthrough despite being a relative newbie to survival horror (I'd only played SH1). Now it actually makes sense!
I always thought that looking at the knife in the inventory actually improved the chances for In Water. Guess that explains that one time I failed despite trying my damndest to achieve it (yeah I followed that IGN guide and I guess I also achieved it once previously? Either that or it was a first run and I was already spoiled a little on the game's story so I figured I'd just go for the most appealing ending). In any case, thanks for this Punchy, very informative.
SH4 doesn't use a point system. The endings work depending entirely on two things: 1.) Clear 80% or more hauntings from room 302 2.) Prevent Eileen from dying Each permutation of these two factors has an ending, so 4 total endings.
interesting stuff! i finished the remake last night and got the in water ending. i definitely spent most of the playthrough refusing to heal to save my heals lol. i’ll keep this in mind when i do NG+ and try to get different endings
i hope this gets around because i also agree that there was so little info about how to get the endings online till now all i remember is "stare at knife to get james to drown" like thats all you had to do :/ didnt know about all these steps till now
This is so weird that going in the wrong direction after meeting Maria lowers the Leave ending score. I assume this is because the 'game' judges that you want to leave with Maria which is against the idea of the Leave ending, but then why doesn't it also adds a point to the Maria ending? Also it's such a specific condition and no other action deducts points from the 'default' route. I wonder what was the idea for this decision
This is probably the clearest answer. I’ve gotten on the subject, and have been trying to figure this out for over a decade.! I’ve always gotten the water ending and the dread of getting that ending has put me off playing the game again ha ha
Man, I didn't even know anything about these fulfillment requirements when I beat the game at least 5 times! I only played through it that often to get the missing endings, but I'm not sure I even ever got the "Leave" ending you say most people get the first time. With my style back then of preserving my health items, I naturally got the most depressing "In-Water" ending first and a few times more when trying to avoid the bonus endings. I don't feel like going back and doing it the right way now. An amazing game, but it often made me more depressed, unlike Silent Hill 1 and 3 that cheered me up. I know now how religion and cults are so successful at pulling people in, because Silent Hill 3 REALLY got to me INTENSELY with the promise of Paradise.
Came here after I beat the remake. Somehow both times I played SH2 nearly 20 years apart from one another, I ended up with the In Water ending each time.
So what I've learned from this is that when I played the shiny new remake a week or so ago, and completed SH2 for the very first time, I got the most bleak and difficult ending to get because I: 1) hoarded all my heals because I was terrified of running out, so I'd just run around on low health with 12 dirty ass syringes and a gallon of health drink in my pocket because if I use so much as one of them, that means I might screw myself down the line. 2) Examined the knife a bunch of times because I kept expecting the game to give me something to actually use it for instead of it just being in my inventory for the vibes. You know, it's a spooky town with monsters and stuff, you'd think just gaffer taping that knife to the pipe would be an option at some point but no, it's just... there. 3) never examined Mary's photo and letter because I assumed they'd be useful later or else why would they be in my inventory, and thought that James read the whole thing at the start. and 4) ignored Maria numerous times because I wanted to see what happens if you do what any rational person in James' situation would do and just get the fuck out of Silent Hill after realising everything's awful.
I think instead of the base value for each ending being the "canon" ending. I like to think its James' state of mind at the time. He intends to leave Silent Hill without any problem initially, but the journey molds him into the other two endings
I wouldn't say "canon" so much as "the ending(s) the developers wanted you to see first", like what Punchy described it. In fact, there's an argument to be made that In Water is canon from various bits of circumstantial things and commentary from Masahiro Ito, yet it starts with the lowest score. I'm not arguing against your hypothesis to be clear, just that I think the developers would've been more likely thinking "okay we want the player to see this ending first since it's more of a traditional ending" rather than "okay we want the player to see this ending first because it's the one we'll make canon".
@@LonelySpaceDetectivein a lot of games the ending that is treated as the true or canon ending us the hardest one to achieve so In Water might make sense. It is also mathematically the one you are likely to see last, which subtly imprints it as the one that will stick in your mind as you turn the game off for the last time
@@velvetbutterfly Yeah to be clear, I wasn't saying In Water definitely isn't canon, just that I don't think trying to determine "canoncity" from the starting scores is a good idea.
@@LonelySpaceDetective I actually thought you were saying the opposite. It sounded like you were saying due to context clues it was likely canon, and I was reinforcing that there are meta reasons to believe it could have been intended
@@velvetbutterfly Ah, I see. Maybe that's just 2 AM replying for me. My perspective on the subject is that the SH2 devs respect your own interpretation more than their authorial intent, though if you had to pin them to making one ending definitively canon they'd probably pick In Water. As for the mechanical end of things, you raise a good point regarding subtle imprinting but I don't really see In Water as being a particularly hard ending to get in the way you mean. The Rebirth ending is what comes to mind for me if you were to ask about the most difficult ending in SH2 (that isn't one of the two comedic endings), considering how it makes you gather select items from throughout the game and can only be obtained on New Game+. I have the impression a lot of people put Rebirth alongside the obviously non-canon UFO and Dog endings due to that NG+ requirement, but the game counts _three_ endings remaining rather than _two_ after a first playthrough, so I'd suspect the devs consider it just as legitimate as the three main endings. That said, I get what you mean in that In Water can require counterintuitive play (staying on low health for long periods of time, and also avoiding things that raise the score for the other endings while still exploring and examining stuff), it's just Rebirth seems like the more secretive ending to me and one that appears to be just as valid despite its NG+ requirement.
I’m surprised that interacting with any of the nooses too much has anything to do with the “In Water” ending. I got that ending as my first just today and i would’ve sworn it had something to do with how many times I looked at the gallows, mixing it up with the hanging men puzzle, which also took me a while to figure out. I guess the main thing was that I had horrible health in most of the apartments because I didn’t get most of the health items in the beginning of the game.
I got "In Water" ending first time. I played the game in a way to collect/inspect everything, I am below average player so took some damage and listened to all conversations. I have revisited Maria in Hospital, went through whole longhall dialogue with Mary and this way I got my the most depressive ending.
I got stuck when first playing Silent Hill 2 and I asked this friend a gamer for help through levels . or rather getting out of certain places within the town . Maria is good company for James I can see them with Laura yes the young girl that stepped on his hand in the old run down apartment complex with monsters in it .
I got the In Water ending first time I played. This was long before I even knew about game guides and scoring systems. I now have a Japanese console and a copy of the Saiga No Uta "Konami: The Best" version (NTSC J). I will be curious to muck about with the endings. What's interesting to me is that these three "main" endings are weighted right out the gate, and this to me helps bolster the idea that the In Water ending is the "correct" one. That's maybe not the best way to describe it, but in Silent Hill 1 the "best" ending takes the most amount of work or steps to achieve, and by that approach the In Water ending requires more activity or specific effort to trigger. I make this assumption while ignoring the apparent comments by the developers saying they feel In Water to be the most on-theme ending in terms of James' personality.
While for longer games, I don't mind if the ending is based on very specific choices you can save before, for shorter games I'd deffo welcome more of this kind of behind-the-scenes scoring system.
Ive beaten this game 3 different times in my life. 2 times on Playstation regular title and on Playstation remake. Everytime i got the in water ending. But i can see why. Its just my playstyle. I take my time and explore everything and patiently listen to conversations. And I probably did run around a lot with low health a lot because I'm a tight ass with my health drinks. I'm waiting till I'm in danger to heal.
First ending I got was Leave. Pretty interesting how I got it considering I did everything for the In Water ending but I kept my health up the whole game lol.
Overhealing for the Leave ending makes me feel better. In the the remake, i kept hitting Y to pick up stuff thanks to elden ring and ended up wasting a lot of healing items.
the real torture inflicted upon James this whole time was maths
He's a relatable guy.
@@TarotBelle so true, except for the whole wife murder thing
2 (Points automatically given to the Lake ending) + 2 (by following a needlessly long series of tasks) dats 4, quick maffs.
Dog ending, raw dog. Just dogg. 🎶
That means.... Pyramid Head symbolized Trigonometry all along
The real maths are the friends we burn along the way
When a game says "choices matter" this is what I'm expecting it to be doing in the background, but the reality is often "Which faction you accept missions from matters".
I mean the matter is fine too. New Vegas did that well and even then you still had to be on your best behavior with those factions and work for them. But yeah I agree. SH2 is more subtle and nuanced.
Or worse, the only choice that mattered was whether you accepted the quest(s) or not.
pick a or b, pick a resulting good ending pick b resulting bad ending
@@raul1642 This is pretty much silent Hill downpour isn't it
@@Simply_better22343 I don't feel _Downpour_ makes it interesting even to ask the question
Wait is this why i got all three endings without *actually changing my play style* in my runs!?
fuck that's smart
That's right susy clam guy, the devs thought ahead!
That replay bonus for unseen endings is just beautiful coding. So extremely simple, but acknowledging that players might want to get different endings on replays and subtly helping them.
in a world full of "multi-choice endings" which just sum up to which team you side with or, famously, which color you want in the final cutscene, to see a game like this do a lot of behind-the-scenes calculations to arrive at different endings is oddly refreshing.
I do wish games would do more playstyle-based ending conditions like SH2, though it is kind of hard to communicate to the player without ruining the illusion. SH2 makes a very good effort at helping players see all the endings without hinting at the scoring system, at least.
Once you get to take a peek under the hood, it actually doesn't look that daunting, but the fact that it seems so mysterious from a new player's perspective is some fantastic videogame smoke-and-mirrors 👍
What is the reference for the picking a color at the final cutscene from? Lol
@@davidosorio9427 Mass Effect 3.
You all would really like Signalis
I got the "in water" ending the first time I played and I completely blame the awesome haptic feedback that was kind of a new thing at the time. When you were injured on the PlayStation 2 version you could feel the character's heartbeat in the controller. I liked this so much that I would frequently run around very injured which absolutely gave me those two points and I would not be at all surprised if that's why I got the ending I did. It wasn't until later that I even knew the game had multiple endings so this was, quite shocking.
yes, that's why
You don't have to lie. We all know you used it as a vibrator
Thanks for sharing this. Even players just a couple of years younger wouldn't have been fascinated enough by a vibration feature to run around with low health. I still remember this time well, starting with the N64 rumble pack and later on the first Dualshock Controller.
@@Vas1 I think it was used better in SH2 than any other game that I ever played. Usually it's just used because there's like an earthquake or you're driving over gravel, full blast, heavy-handed. The vibration here was so subtle and light, it really did feel like you were feeling James' pulse in your hands.
@@Vas1 I just beat Silent Hill 2 for the first time an hour ago, I got the In Water ending because I prefer to only use health kits when I have the lowest possible health.
The more of these videos you put out, the more I go "I am totally okay with Punchy being my source for video game esoterica." You just have a very pleasant voice, a good cadence and a good sense for what is or isn't necessary to a video so I don't feel like you're wasting my time.
Edit: HOLY SHIT I HOPE YOU'RE OKAY AND RECOVER SOON! I ONLY JUST READ THE DESCRIPTION!
i will absolutely be fine I'm past the worst of it lol
Jesus christ this is one of the best character interaction systems I have ever seen. What an incredibly intuitive way to guide your players through the different scenarios that the developers have presented. Just another reason this is one of the best games ever made.
My brother and I were basically guaranteed to get In Water our first times because we both explored everything thoroughly. That gets you the points for the knife, the bar, the rooftop, the conversation, and maybe a point for low health depending on how you play, so 6 points, while you lose points for leave if you go the wrong way because you wanna explore more and I didn't gain a point for overheating I think.
I did the same thing but got leave cause I had good health
@@JellyJman And when you think about it it's fucking genius, how James doing the same thing during the game but with an overall good health (mental and physical) can change how HE perceives the truth and decides if he wants to join Mary or leave the town and follow her words
Exactly! Idk how "Leave" supposed to be intentional for the first playthrough. In your first playthrough, you explore everything, so it's already minus 1 for trying to go the wrong way. While "In water" ending actually rewards exploration. Only 2 points for being in bad health, it means the game FORCES you to "In water" for your first playthrough, it's 6 (2+4) vs 5 (5-1+1) points. And the only way to set 6v6 and get prioritiesed to "Leave" is the dumbest fucking thing in the world - to OVERheal. Not just heal, not receive less than N amount of damage, not some formula calculating your "willing to live" and cautious play style like "bad health" points - no. Overheal. Who tf would waste an entire health kit when you're slightly injured, who's playing like that, I don't understand. If they made that criteria so stupid, at least they should've locked the hard difficulty for your first playthrough, so you would actually overheal at least by accident or out of excess of heals.
Idk if in the original game hard difficulty was locked at the start btw, i just beat the remake for the first time, on hard, while a bit aware of the og game and this whole endings system, like i knew you should not keep your health low and you should from time to time check on your personal things to get the best ending, and so i was aiming to that, but got "In water" and now a bit salty about it on emotions 😅 This ending is still great though, it's bittersweet (although it should be sad as hell wtf, it's just the fact that James really loved Mary more than everything in the world warms the heart, that he literally can't live without her and now with the full awareness of what he did) and more grounded to me than the rest endings, like it's too much like a real life story with no happy ending. But i just wanted some happiness for James in my first playthrough, but the game hates exploration and optimal healing 😭 At least i assume so, just want to remind that i'm talking about the remake, and I have no idea how this system works there, so if i got "In water" totally fair because i actually played too depressed and didn't even realised it or something - i'm taking all the complaints back. But something's tells me they didn't changed this system much.
@@CoolSaver sounds about the same as the OG experience for me. I like In Water though just for the fact that it makes the most sense to me, like if I were James I'd probably do the same thing after going through all of this. The others make sense too if you consider it him processing his grief and emotions and coming away stronger, but I'm more of a pessimist so the easy way out makes a lot of sense, and it's a dismal ending for a dismal game. But I do agree poor James deserves a win :(
I forget the SH1 endings but I think I did kinda the same thing where I got the more depressing ending? I forget though, 1 has a sort of secret/"true" ending if you do extra steps and I looked up a guide to make sure I didn't miss those. I just remember it being also sad. Actually I think if I'm remembering right it's kinda similar to In Water?
Oh wait I think that's the bad ending of SH1, I got the hood ending first which is secret steps that you're not super likely to do but if you're thorough there's a chance you'd do it on accident. But the bad ending that you'll usually get is pretty dismal while the best one is a nice ending to a tragic story
The reason why Silent Hill 2 it became a classic is because eventually people began to see how unique, eerie, melancholic and authentic the game's atmosphere it really is, and took the time to enjoy its deeply thoughtful narrative and symbolism. To this day it’s by far one of, if not the most mature examination of grief, sexual trauma, suicide, and morality all combined. It’s an intelligent game that does not hold anyone’s hand and comes at the player with utmost confidence in itself. It’s fantastic stuff. The rest of the original 4 are great in their own right and have their own well written stories, but they don’t hold the same emotional weight to them. I think SH2’s maturity by comparison is something that a lot of people are drawn to. ☯️
This is a true service to the modern internet culture. I’ve eventually learned that instead of saying “Duh! Us old fans knew this from the old game fans topic!” And recognizing that obviously people are not going to go find that. This is a terrific streamlining of this info for people who weren’t there for the original debate.
In my first blind playthrough of the game I got the "In water" ending and thought it was because I was always at low health to preserve as much healing as possible lol, but it's so interesting to know that there are many more variables to all this.
Great video Punchy! I love this new type of content
11:32
Damn it, that jumpscare got me and I'm not even playing the game. I hate that little wiggly dude, creepily hiding under a child abductor van.
That's the jumpscare that nearly got me to stop playing the game when I was a kid. I'm very glad that I persevered, despite being a little wuss.
The worst part is that lying figures don't trigger the radio when they're hidden underneath a car. So their jumpscare bypasses your anti-jumpscare protection.
Thank you for this
Everyone and their mother has made a video essay on Silent Hill 2 but not enough videos on the game mechanics
Love it!
Honestly I super agree about how the ending points are done. It's very simple but it plays so well into how players often do new playthroughs and just try to do something a bit different in order to get a new ending. It's the kind of thing that I think is just a nice nod to how players typically play games rather than endings just being super elaborate puzzles. Maybe you got stuck and you ask a friend for some advice and they give you some vague hints about what to do and it works. There's an elegance to that honestly.
There is a certain mistique vibe to endings in video games that aren't achievable by doing *one specific task* and with them being explained in such detail, how they're programmed into the game... You gotta respect the ingenuity of how something so specific, programmable, is still able to dictate an event to occur in a way that still feels vague.
I got the water ending on my first play through. That will definitely always stick with me.
I graphed the in water bad health equation in a 3D calculator and assuming it only triggers when you're under 50% health (otherwise it would punish you for having very HIGH health as well) it does seem to do pretty much what Punchy said. Lower health bad, higher time bad, low health for long time very bad.
yeah the calculation only kicks in below 50% health otherwise it does Nothing
Thank you for this in depth explanation, didn't know sh2 endings were so manageable/convoluted
I don't know if it would punish you for it. It would be symmetrical. hpPercent is in decimal, e.g. 10% health is 0.1.
sin(0.1pi) = sin(0.9pi) ≈ 0.1
1-sin(0.1pi) = 1-sin(0.9pi) ≈ 0.9
sin(0.4pi) = sin(0.6pi) ≈ 0.95
1-sin(0.4pi) = 1-sin(0.6pi) ≈ 0.05
So you'd be rewarded for having either very low or high health, and penalized for having health near the middle, which doesn't make sense, which is why the equation only applies below 50%.
@@yellowdoritos Sorry didn't see this. I agree with your maths, it's just when I said "Punish" I meant from an innocent player's perspective of "The In Water ending is a bad ending and you don't want to get it."
i think the esoteric workings of the exact outcomes add a lot to the immersion of the game. You don't know which actions matter so you just generally roleplay the character that James would be in the ending you want to achieve. It's brilliant
It is funny how the most troublesome ending to get is the one that is objectively the WORST for James.
It makes sense. By doing Maria ending, he no longer cares for Mary, and would rather avert his eyes from the truth instead of facing it.
@azizabdul8914 she also coughs at the end, hinting she will have the same fate as Mary. It shows James learned nothing at all from his time in silent hill
Thank you for this video. With the information here, I was finally able to get the Maria ending on the 2001 version!
I've never even played anything from the Silent Hill series, but this was extremely enjoyable to watch! Awesome upload, dude! c:
I really liked this one!! ^^ Thank you for your work Punchy. I really enjoy hearing your musings on topics while watching speedruns, so it's interesting to see them put together in a much more thoughtful way than the off the cuff type, and I'm glad you're enjoying them too from what I can tell.
My first ending was "in water." I was often low on healing, I read everything and examined everything. I've yet to complete a 2nd playthrough
Same
Samex2
I feel like most people get the “in water” ending for their first playthrough
Oh my god I have legit ALWAYS wanted hard math on this stuff; you put up with vague 'uhhh do this' guidance for years and it makes you hungry for some real numbers.
That description. Ooof. Absolute legend, the quality of this video shows no signs of a hindered editor.
I wish every game with endings like this had unseen-ending-bonuses. If only more SH-inspired games knew about this mechanic, it'd make many of them less of a pain in the butt.
You got my ADD cursed brain to sit and pay attention, not only to math, but a breakdown of an algorithm. Kudos.
I wonder how much of this applies to the remake and how much was added to account for the two new endings. Like obviously the "10 minutes with Maria" parameter was likely at least doubled, since from Rosewater Park to the room she lays down in in Brookhaven could be an hour depending on playstyle [I explore the shit out of everything so I definitely got that Maria point in my current and first remake playthrough], and the Leave ending's over-heal threshold was likely increased as well since the remake has way more combat focus and way more healing items.
Brilliant video, cleared up a lots of questions that I had for years. I'm really interested in knowing how this system was brought to the remake. I got the In Water ending myself on my first playthrough and, upon searching for it, found out that it was a lot of people's first ending as well. That's intriguing to know based on the fact that a few things were changed that made a few of the original requirements impossible to achieve, like not being able to bump into Maria, or being forced to read the diary in Brookhave to advance the story, for example.
(I don't actually know if you are obligated to read the diary, but it is set up as to make you think that is the only way, at least. I know i read it)
About time someone data mined this. We've had a PC version for how many years now?
Wonderful video to learn about. Also funny how every time I play sh2 it's always in water ending but fascinating to learn the game does try to get you to see more endings too
Not only interesting as a fan of Silent Hill 2, but also very interesting as a way to think of game endings. The idea of helping push casual players towards the other endings, without their need for a guide, is very well done. Just another reason this game is one of the greats.
Great video.
Vauge descriptions were always enough for me to get all endings, but learning about this in depth was quite interesting. Never had an idea about boost to unseen endings (still failed to get Maria ending once, if I recall correctly)
Love this newer video format for sure
glad to hear it! although the corollary is that it's a lot more time consuming and difficult to put together lol but it seems the effort is worth it
Out here trying to find a better description for the remake - thanks o7
Bless you for pulling through Punchy! Youre a champ. Hope surgery went well!
I only ever did the Leave ending and all my friends always talked about getting in water first so I thought I was extra cool for getting a different one but I guess I'm konami's lowest common denominator... :/
Very cool, I didn’t know about the boost system to the other unseen endings.
My first ending was the leave ending. I did examine everything many times as I made my way through, so your explanation finally explains why the game associated me with "I don't want to live" lol
Wait, do you mean "In Water"? That's the "I don't want to live in this planet anymore" ending
Hey, Punchy! Love this format, keep it running! ❤
I got the water ending on my first run. Though I've heard this ending is the closest to cannon from some sources a long time ago. Interesting though that the leave (good ending) is what the developer's were stacking to be the first ending for players. I played resident evil so health management (no unnecessary healing for yellow status till orange or red condition) and item examination were something I made a habit of.
People say leave ending is default, but its only default if you're just rushing through the game and not reading everything and being fully immersed. If you actually go around and read everything and analyze your inventory, you're going to get the in water ending.
the reversed item noise in the maria section made me cackle so hard I have no idea why. Always wondered how these endings worked. Cool video
Im surprised that the photo and letter dont factor into this. I was always told it did.
Thank you for these Vidya docs, they're well planned and very much an entertaining watch.
Now we need a mathematical breakdown of Signalis's endings.
i think SIGNALIS is fairly well documented like there's a decent steam guide for it that got published pretty soon after the game came out. i did this because I thought it was interesting after SH2 fans largely went like two decades without much concrete info on it
I enjoyed the video, so thank you for your suffering. I hope you have a swift recovery!
Thanks Jokie for the data, thanks Punchy for making a video about it.
Get well soon!
"Quite the puzzle, isn't it Mr. Silent?"
In the remake i was trying to get the in water ending, but i got the Maria one. It makes sense, since I was trying to farm every bit of dialogue out of her
Great video, Signalis has a similar system for its endings, may want to take a look at it.
Just finished the remake and I got In Water for my first ending
If you want a bad example of this system, check out SMT4 alignment systems. Theres so little margain of error to get the "neutral" ending.
God. I remember I wanted to get the nuetral ending on my first playthrough. But when I had to choose between Chaos or Law, I would automatically follow those respective routes. Meaning that I unknowingly had my alignment at 0 during that choice. Only found out once i checked and couldnt believe I was playing too neutral.
“Or you can bump into Maria 30 times”
Honestly that would be something I would’ve found and never known it counted.
So going the wrong way slightly convinces James to drive his car into the lake
oh hell yes the direction your videos are going are 100% my jam, keep up the good shit!!
love these recent informative videos you have been putting out keep it up
Thank you for this easy to understand explanation! I wish I had access to my official Japanese strategy guides for this game because I think they included similar data on the endings. I will have to come back to this and compare when I finally retrieve them!
Hope you are feeling better!
Hey my guy, I really enjoyed your video. I know this is a year old, but the new one just came out.Do you think by any chance you can do a math video for the tally system in the new one? That would be fantastic. :)
For whatever reason, i got the Leave ending on my first playthrough despite being a relative newbie to survival horror (I'd only played SH1). Now it actually makes sense!
I got off a UA-cam channel the exact way to get all all of the endings it works every time you actually can’t even mess it up
"I'm just here for the math" said no one, ever
great vid punchy! watching this with the boys!
I always thought that looking at the knife in the inventory actually improved the chances for In Water.
Guess that explains that one time I failed despite trying my damndest to achieve it (yeah I followed that IGN guide and I guess I also achieved it once previously? Either that or it was a first run and I was already spoiled a little on the game's story so I figured I'd just go for the most appealing ending).
In any case, thanks for this Punchy, very informative.
Another great video, man. Keep it up. I'll try and stop by the stream sometime if you're still doing that.
I think they also used point system in SH3 and SH4. And then later used it in SH: Shattered Memories.
SH4 doesn't use a point system. The endings work depending entirely on two things:
1.) Clear 80% or more hauntings from room 302
2.) Prevent Eileen from dying
Each permutation of these two factors has an ending, so 4 total endings.
interesting stuff! i finished the remake last night and got the in water ending. i definitely spent most of the playthrough refusing to heal to save my heals lol. i’ll keep this in mind when i do NG+ and try to get different endings
This video is excellent just like the rest of your catalogue. I hope you're feeling better!
I think overhealing adds to leave and there's the flashback you witness when examining the headphones also adds to in water...maybe leave also but IDK
This video dropped at the absolute best time for me, thanks for the info in such an easily digestible video!
I quite enjoy these videos on esoteric knowledge
i hope this gets around because i also agree that there was so little info about how to get the endings online till now
all i remember is "stare at knife to get james to drown" like thats all you had to do :/ didnt know about all these steps till now
This is so weird that going in the wrong direction after meeting Maria lowers the Leave ending score. I assume this is because the 'game' judges that you want to leave with Maria which is against the idea of the Leave ending, but then why doesn't it also adds a point to the Maria ending? Also it's such a specific condition and no other action deducts points from the 'default' route. I wonder what was the idea for this decision
I feel like 2001 game design is something we're never gonna understand lol
I think it's because James is spending more time with Maria than necessary, rather than prioritizing his wife
Quite impressive it took so long for us to decipher the code for this when we take into account how long ago this has been released.
I know nothing about Silent Hill and this was still am interesting watch
the heavens night poster with maria on it at the starting bathroom is great =o
This is probably the clearest answer. I’ve gotten on the subject, and have been trying to figure this out for over a decade.! I’ve always gotten the water ending and the dread of getting that ending has put me off playing the game again ha ha
Man, I didn't even know anything about these fulfillment requirements when I beat the game at least 5 times! I only played through it that often to get the missing endings, but I'm not sure I even ever got the "Leave" ending you say most people get the first time. With my style back then of preserving my health items, I naturally got the most depressing "In-Water" ending first and a few times more when trying to avoid the bonus endings.
I don't feel like going back and doing it the right way now. An amazing game, but it often made me more depressed, unlike Silent Hill 1 and 3 that cheered me up. I know now how religion and cults are so successful at pulling people in, because Silent Hill 3 REALLY got to me INTENSELY with the promise of Paradise.
really great video as always. I hope you stay safe and feel better soon. Wishing you the best
This ain't choice matter, it's action matter
Came here after I beat the remake. Somehow both times I played SH2 nearly 20 years apart from one another, I ended up with the In Water ending each time.
What I love is the mystery in Silent Hill 2.
Okay so that explains why I got the maria ending on the PC version
So what I've learned from this is that when I played the shiny new remake a week or so ago, and completed SH2 for the very first time, I got the most bleak and difficult ending to get because I:
1) hoarded all my heals because I was terrified of running out, so I'd just run around on low health with 12 dirty ass syringes and a gallon of health drink in my pocket because if I use so much as one of them, that means I might screw myself down the line.
2) Examined the knife a bunch of times because I kept expecting the game to give me something to actually use it for instead of it just being in my inventory for the vibes. You know, it's a spooky town with monsters and stuff, you'd think just gaffer taping that knife to the pipe would be an option at some point but no, it's just... there.
3) never examined Mary's photo and letter because I assumed they'd be useful later or else why would they be in my inventory, and thought that James read the whole thing at the start.
and 4) ignored Maria numerous times because I wanted to see what happens if you do what any rational person in James' situation would do and just get the fuck out of Silent Hill after realising everything's awful.
I think instead of the base value for each ending being the "canon" ending. I like to think its James' state of mind at the time. He intends to leave Silent Hill without any problem initially, but the journey molds him into the other two endings
I wouldn't say "canon" so much as "the ending(s) the developers wanted you to see first", like what Punchy described it. In fact, there's an argument to be made that In Water is canon from various bits of circumstantial things and commentary from Masahiro Ito, yet it starts with the lowest score.
I'm not arguing against your hypothesis to be clear, just that I think the developers would've been more likely thinking "okay we want the player to see this ending first since it's more of a traditional ending" rather than "okay we want the player to see this ending first because it's the one we'll make canon".
@@LonelySpaceDetectivein a lot of games the ending that is treated as the true or canon ending us the hardest one to achieve so In Water might make sense.
It is also mathematically the one you are likely to see last, which subtly imprints it as the one that will stick in your mind as you turn the game off for the last time
@@velvetbutterfly Yeah to be clear, I wasn't saying In Water definitely isn't canon, just that I don't think trying to determine "canoncity" from the starting scores is a good idea.
@@LonelySpaceDetective I actually thought you were saying the opposite. It sounded like you were saying due to context clues it was likely canon, and I was reinforcing that there are meta reasons to believe it could have been intended
@@velvetbutterfly Ah, I see. Maybe that's just 2 AM replying for me.
My perspective on the subject is that the SH2 devs respect your own interpretation more than their authorial intent, though if you had to pin them to making one ending definitively canon they'd probably pick In Water.
As for the mechanical end of things, you raise a good point regarding subtle imprinting but I don't really see In Water as being a particularly hard ending to get in the way you mean. The Rebirth ending is what comes to mind for me if you were to ask about the most difficult ending in SH2 (that isn't one of the two comedic endings), considering how it makes you gather select items from throughout the game and can only be obtained on New Game+.
I have the impression a lot of people put Rebirth alongside the obviously non-canon UFO and Dog endings due to that NG+ requirement, but the game counts _three_ endings remaining rather than _two_ after a first playthrough, so I'd suspect the devs consider it just as legitimate as the three main endings.
That said, I get what you mean in that In Water can require counterintuitive play (staying on low health for long periods of time, and also avoiding things that raise the score for the other endings while still exploring and examining stuff), it's just Rebirth seems like the more secretive ending to me and one that appears to be just as valid despite its NG+ requirement.
Oh my god ive waited 20yrs for this video🙏🙏🙏
I’m surprised that interacting with any of the nooses too much has anything to do with the “In Water” ending. I got that ending as my first just today and i would’ve sworn it had something to do with how many times I looked at the gallows, mixing it up with the hanging men puzzle, which also took me a while to figure out. I guess the main thing was that I had horrible health in most of the apartments because I didn’t get most of the health items in the beginning of the game.
I got "In Water" ending first time. I played the game in a way to collect/inspect everything, I am below average player so took some damage and listened to all conversations. I have revisited Maria in Hospital, went through whole longhall dialogue with Mary and this way I got my the most depressive ending.
I got stuck when first playing
Silent Hill 2 and I asked this friend a gamer for help through levels .
or rather getting out of certain places within the town .
Maria is good company for James I can see them with Laura yes the young girl that stepped on his hand in the old run down apartment complex with monsters in it .
I love this kind of analytical stuff!
Great video, thanks! I hope for the same dissection of remake :)
Punchy bringing math to the masses
I just found ur channel and am binging all the silent hill videos!! They’re so good!! :D
Silent Hill 2 is my all time favourite game.
I got the In Water ending first time I played. This was long before I even knew about game guides and scoring systems.
I now have a Japanese console and a copy of the Saiga No Uta "Konami: The Best" version (NTSC J). I will be curious to muck about with the endings.
What's interesting to me is that these three "main" endings are weighted right out the gate, and this to me helps bolster the idea that the In Water ending is the "correct" one. That's maybe not the best way to describe it, but in Silent Hill 1 the "best" ending takes the most amount of work or steps to achieve, and by that approach the In Water ending requires more activity or specific effort to trigger. I make this assumption while ignoring the apparent comments by the developers saying they feel In Water to be the most on-theme ending in terms of James' personality.
While for longer games, I don't mind if the ending is based on very specific choices you can save before, for shorter games I'd deffo welcome more of this kind of behind-the-scenes scoring system.
Thanks, I'll keep this in mind when I'll decide to return to the game's completion^^)
My first ending was Water, loved the game ♥
Ive beaten this game 3 different times in my life. 2 times on Playstation regular title and on Playstation remake. Everytime i got the in water ending. But i can see why. Its just my playstyle. I take my time and explore everything and patiently listen to conversations. And I probably did run around a lot with low health a lot because I'm a tight ass with my health drinks. I'm waiting till I'm in danger to heal.
First ending I got was Leave. Pretty interesting how I got it considering I did everything for the In Water ending but I kept my health up the whole game lol.
Overhealing for the Leave ending makes me feel better. In the the remake, i kept hitting Y to pick up stuff thanks to elden ring and ended up wasting a lot of healing items.