I'm eager to watch the video but first let me just add a quick commenterinooo!, which is all just a Video suggestion about Condemned Criminal Origins, I think its an awesome game and very unique to this day havent seen smth like that and yet fairly not known, Thanks for your content and attention, have a good year. (edit: I watched it! It was awesome thanks nice narration)
I don't think it was accidental, the theme of 4 is about the anxiety of young adults, and Henry being a shy, lonely guy who lives alone and pays attention to a woman (who he doesn't have the guts to flirt with) kind of matches.
To both the comments up there yes but he also went to SH and took a picture of the haunted lake of SH, which could be the slightest coincidence but just the fact he moved into the cursed apartment makes sense otherwise. Henry was the most innocent and maybe that’s why they did the game like that anyway, because of how treacherous SH is anyways
@@JaketheJedi23 I played Silent Hill Downpour not too long ago and stumbled upon Henry's apartment. It looked virtually unchanged. Still had the locks on the front door. The hole in the wall where you find Walter's body was plastered up and sealed. You couldn't go into the bedroom, bathroom, or laundry room but hey! It still was a great 'Easter Egg' from the developers. Really felt the nostalgia kick in. Just like when Silent Hill 3 reused portions of Silent Hill 2's map in the latter half of the game.
It took me years to realize the Room itself is actively helping you because Walter NEEDS you alive. The Room manifests as almost a loving mother, healing you, feeling like a safe place that you’re better off in; later on, when the Room becomes haunted, it becomes more like Walter and his sinister intentions. It no longer heals you because Walter wants you dead now, it becomes haunted to get you out into the world Walter can kill you in. He gives you the Doll specifically to kickstart that.
That's Joseph Schreiber trying to protect Henry from afterlife. The room changed once Joseph told the truth to Henry. Joseph is the giver of wisdom, he protected Henry for the truth. Remember that Joseph was a journalist, so he saw Henry like a cameraman, he guided him, but also trying that Henry avoided to make the same mistakes that he did, he was the resident of the room before him. He also is the most calm ghost against Henry, because he saw him, like a member of a team, he was a journalist, and Henry is the cameraman.
A theory about why Henry acts so strange during the game is that he has social anxiety or a similar mental disorder. He most likely didn't leave his apartment often and saw it as a safe place, which makes him being stuck there during the game more impactful. He is also forced into situations where he has to interact with people in disturbing and unfamiliar places. Or it could just be bad voice acting, but I like to think it was intentional.
What you said and I also think Henry never slept throughout SH4. All the other characters that we came across were technically sleeping and trapped in Walters Otherworld nightmares (we see this when we see Braintree in the Building World and sleeping in his apartment at the same time). Since Henry had a direct connection to the nightmare worlds, it’s possible he hadn’t actually slept himself in a few days
I found Henry to be one of the most relatable characters to me for that reason, Ive heard about how unemotional he is before playing but during the game couldn't help but think "Id be reacting the same way here"; and its even more obvious with how it ties to the game's main themes of isolation and feeling that you don't belong
@@czarnoksiezhnik Yeah i have pretty bad social anxiety as well and Henry represented it so well and it felt oddly comforting to see, like the detachment and choosing to be silent mostly and have a more repressed response to things
Henrys cadence reminded me of how odd the dialogue of the original Silent Hill felt at times. Something just wasnt... quite right. Like a dream. And after learning that the voice actors were given specific instructions, so things would sound a little "off", it made sense. I wonder if there was a similar approach in the making of The Room. And sorry in advance if im contradicting something in the video I havent watched it yet, but I will once I finish my playthrough. Lol
Yes I definitely think he himself is a bit shy and introverted, and also the fact he’s like in a nightmare dreamworld where it’s seems like that how we’d react in most of our dreams. But I remember back in the day how funny it was for Henry specifically lol.
Regardless of whether people liked Silent Hill 4 or not, it's undeniable that the chained door is one of the most iconic images in horror media history Even with zero context it's a super creepy image and makes your imagination run wild about what could make someone so scared that they'd put so many locks on a door to keep something out (or in the context of the game, keep someone IN)
@@Dat_Feathered_Boi Eh youre still overrating it. the room was a shit game. Many fans may recognize it but its nothing like the main hall of the RE 1 Mansion, or the RPD station. Those are way more recognizable.
@@blackjackfan58 The Room wasn't "a shit game". The settings were the best in the series (water prison, the escalator level, room 302), and the monsters (in my opinion) were the most grotesque. The story was pretty concise as Silent Hill story lines go. The music was beautiful as always. If only the combat didn't suck (as basically every silent hill game did), the back tracking wasn't as horrid, and time spent escorting Eileen was halved it'd be regarded as high as the first three games. But yes, you are correct in it not being THAT popular.
SH4 was my intro to the series. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about this one is how Henry was truly just a normal guy. He wasn’t a father looking for his missing daughter, he wasn’t a man haunted by his dead wife and he wasn’t a teenage girl confronting her past and seeking revenge. Henry was just a guy who got locked in his apartment. Which makes it that much scarier, he picked the wrong apartment to live in. If not him, it would’ve been someone else.
@@johnlawful2272 He could have adopted another child but you are right, no one would expect that you adopt some split souled kid that is a the result of a dark ritual. So yeah Harry is just a dude and anyone else could have taken his place if he didn't adopted her.
It's a real animanga kind of twist, I tell you. You could probably tell for yourself that it's actually a slash if the graphics were better, but it's kind of baffling that no one thought of that before the reveal.
I can't lie, as clear as it is that Walter was an insane serial killer, I always felt so sad for what he went through as a child. Convinced he could see his mom and trying to escape the crazy cult brainwashing and abuse, and instead of it being Henry's hell, we see Walter's. It's honestly a really tragic story that holds up on the silent hill themes really well
The cutscenes with the parents are so filled with unrelenting loneliness it’s a perfect summary of both the silent hill sensitivities and 2000 angst that makes the room so iconic
That's one of my favorite things about SH4, it makes you simultaneously confront Walter as he is *and* how he came to be that way. It doesn't try to excuse his actions nor ask the player to forgive him, it just asks that you acknowledge him, both his past and his present.
I actually cried the first time I played it.. I felt so horrible for Walter. He just wanted his mother and love.. but he was brainwashed by the cult and therefore turned into a monster.. poor boy
As someone whose dealt with abandonment and isolation this has always been my favorite silent hill. The themes and how relatable Walter actually feels when you look deeper is just peak
In regards to Henry's lack of response to finding a gun laying around his apartment, you must remember this game takes place in the US. We actually DO find them randomly while dusting sometimes.
I was troubleshooting a clog in my kitchen sink the other day and I shit you not, there was at least 3 handguns, 2 shotgun, an AR-15 and 7 folded American flags in the pipes.
When I arrived at my new apartment, I found a garand in the bathroom's mirror with the note, "I had too many of these and didn't have any space. So it's yours now I guess, bich." God bless America.
@@Lunaria.Praesentia I agree wholeheartedly. It was the closest to a silent hill game out of all the trash thereafter. I was just disappointed in the mangled story and characters.
@@bebopcola4643 I noticed that... my guess is they're probably born in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and their first system was either a Playstation 3 or XBOX 360
Absolutely agree. Sh4 was by far the scariest with the ghosts. I remember in the water tower running the circle and suddenly bumping in to a baby faced giant monster that stands still and pointing finger at you , me and my friend fucking shit ourselves and switched off the game.. SH4 was the one we eould switch off constantly because of how scary it was.
I feel that Henry's Blazé reaction to most things has to be implying depression on his part as apathy is one of the big symptoms. Feeling like you are trapped in your own body, your own room, a silent witness to the world with no way to interract with it or help people is a major part of the illness, which is what the game is all about.
It's mentioned that Henry is a journalist, hence the various photos of places. He must have grown desynthesized from learning dramatic stories and things others didn't want to reveal. No wonder he never mentioned feeling like a creep looking through the peephole, in fact me neither. I only learned it was supposed to make me feel awkward because other reviewers pointed that out, maybe there's something wrong with me too.
This game's gameplay makes a lot more sense when you consider Henry an agoraphobic and the game situated as a paranoid agoraphobia. During the time this game was being made, the hikikomori was a type of personality trait that was just starting to become very prominent. This gameplay is essentially a looking view through the lens of a hikikomori/severe agoraphobic. The social isolation, looking in through windows and holes for glimpses of social contact, feeling locked in your own home, invading privacy in an almost intimate setting, and on and on. The fact that the game has ghosts that "stalk" you also portrays the game's focus on avoiding social contact, anyone with anxiety will tell you what it's like to be too close to someone; simply being "damaged" by a humanoid ghost being nearby is a good 1 for 1 example of this. The fact that the escort portion of this game is also so taxing is another principle of the agoraphobic or socially anxious sort. You are now no longer beholden only to you and your wellbeing, but someone else's as well. The escort portion simply reminds me of the time I had my first date and girlfriend, in which I immediately chose the self-destructive nuclear option because my own form of social self-loathing made me not only feel like things were "too good for me" but that I felt like no matter what I did there was NOTHING I could do to help/better my girlfriend. The game captures this pretty well, you WANT to tell Eileen to wait someplace safe, safe away from you. You WANT her to be safe, you WANT her to feel content, you KNOW that you will NEVER make them safe nor happy and want them to find a place of rest or a place to be gone but that simply isn't an option. For all rights and purposes, you are tied to this individual, your personal safety in social isolation has now been forcefully breached and you're forced to deal with enemies and monsters (stressors and vulnerabilities) head-on rather than retreat. Because if you retreat, your in-game partner cannot. She cannot physically follow you in the same pace that you hold. This is also true with real life when you feel the urge to retreat inside and back to social isolation where the vulnerabilities you suffered during your trauma that made you this way _just . shut. up._ for a while and allow you to think and experience peace for the precious few moments you feel like you can grasp. That's why I still consider Silent Hill 4 to be "Of the original stock" because Team Silent knows their strengths in psychological horror, atmosphere, world building, and enemy design and Silent Hill 4 tells it's story *exactly how it needs to be told.*
The room healing Henry is also an in universe explanation how Henry hasn't died from starvation or otherwise while being imprisoned in the room. The room is literally keeping him alive until he's needed for the sacraments.
As someone who's never going to play the game cause I'm a chicken, I really loved this kind of walkthrough with the informative, funny and totally not pointless commentary. Thank you!
You're ironically the best candidate to play horror games, because the whole point is to get scared and that sweet rush of adrenaline coursing through your body. Similar to rollercoasters they're designed as a safe way to experience fear.
yeah as much as I love some other Silent hill titles this one is the scariest to me. I felt myself like playing inside a japanese horror movie the first half of the game, the second when you repeat stages with Eileen I felt a little more "comfortable".
I always felt the prison levels was meant to be some kind of homage/reference to the Panopticon. A conceptual prison that was a massive circle with no cell doors and a single guard post in the center that could look down but none of the inmates could tell where he was looking.
funny thing a Panopticon was actually built in 1817 and is still in use, and others have been built but were closed down the last one in the US was closed in 2016.
maybe it's a manifestation of the paranoia of the victim in general or walter's paranoia at the orphanage, or it's just the combination of paranoia & isolation.
Despite this series being about the "Most Hated" Silent Hill Games, I'd love to hear you go through all the main titles like Origins, the first game, SH2, 3 and Shattered Memories.
Honestly Origins totally fits in the "Most hated" list for some people. Not for me though, but I admit there's bias there because it was my first Silent Hill.
@@MASHo1992 when i played that in ps2 i LOVED IT, an then i forget it even existed, but its pretty good compared to the "silent hills" that we got in that time
“I often find a 9mm under my sofa when I do a bit of light dusting” Yeah, happens to me so often as an American. On a more serious note, I never understood the hate for this game. It was my first Silent Hill game. I feel Henry is such a perfect metaphor for extreme, paralyzing social anxiety. And, imho, it makes the fight seems so much heavier. Every interaction is a fight for Henry, now imagine having to fight a serial killer. It would make any socially anxious person infinitely worse if they survived.
People don't like this silent hill game because the quality is significantly lower than the previous instances of the franchise. It's buggier, uses stock sound effects, and generally doesn't fit in with silent hill 1-3. Silent hill 1-3 and a rusty, industrial aesthetic. The monster were physical threats as well as representations of the main character's psychie (this is leaned on way more heavily in silent hill 2&3). It's just out of place to see these more generic ghost enemies. The major villain and dangerous pursuing enemy also literally just being a man with a gun is pretty lame. It's a massive step down from the previous games in the series.
This was the first silent hill I played. I had to keep putting the game down and walking away because I was so scared. What a great game. Shame the hate it got.
True that, and hell yeah same here. Saw the movie in high school and was intrigued by the concept, then played 4 on my friend's modded xbox. Was such a strange but fun game and wasn't anything like Resident Evil, so I played the rest from SH 3-1 and loved those too. Im really into game design, always wanted one day to recreate a segment of SH4 in UE5, probably the water prison area or hospital
Even tho I was SUPER into horror when I first played SH2 the horse sounds in the gallo room SCARED TF OUT OF MEEE 🤣 and even now that I'm super desensitized by horror this shit still spooks me sometimes. That's good horror
The most chilling moment about this game (for me, personally) is the Walter reveal once you get the pickaxe. Something that bothered me subconsciously throughout the entire apartment level was the sense of space -- I realized all the rest of the apartments were larger than mine, went "huh, that's weird, there's more space in these apartments", but it didn't "register" until I got the pickaxe that my apartment wasn't actually any different than the others. When I opened the wall, saw what was back there, and mapped out everything in my mind? It wasn't so much the fact that Walter was back there the whole time that shook me -- but the fact that he perfectly positioned himself to "watch" the next occupants WHILE THEY SLEPT. Then it dawned on me that one of the hauntings replaces the picture on the wall across from your bed with dead Walter's face -- essentially showing you EXACTLY what's behind that wall!
I still don't know if this is intentional, but you can completely ignore Eileen taking damage for the entire game. Then when you're just outside the door to the final boss fight, you can light a candle to remove all the corruption from her pretty much guaranteeing a good ending at little effort.
Unless you play on hard, its super easy to protect eileen, she's like the easiest escort ever since she cant really die and can help you fight and yet people shit on her just because she walk slower, yes her ai could be better but she's really not that bad, she got beaten half to death by a serial killer who she gave her doll when she was a child, she got her arm in a cast, bandage over her eye and she is probably in pain from just walking yet she show an incredible will to live, most people would give up if they were in her situation and just because she sometime complain to youre too fast,people hate her, yet they worship heather who act bitchy with everyone she meet
@@slaviclad9705 So all feminine protags have to be like Eileen? Please. I'm not disputing Aileen is a good character, because she is, but Heather was a great depiction of a teenaged girl who is mostly on her own in a freakish alternate reality having to deal with some pretty serious shit, most notably from older, creepy people. Like any dangerous scenario, it's a fight or flight mechanism to deal with it and she chose to fight. It's long been established that her attitude would be in direct response to her environment and the people around her, and possibly to cope with what she's going through, to overcome the fear. I think it's fairly understandable that she reacts the way she does.
42:15 - If I remember correctly, the phone is a trap; as long as the phone is ringing, the ghosts are meant to be even more hostile/active against Henry than what they already were to begin with until you stop the phone call. It literally exists to make the ghosts hunt you with greater aggression. It's been a long while though for me.
Once you get the Axe you can kill anything without taking damage, even the whole room of Twin Victims, the charged attack swing gives you immunity frames for the whole duration and you can charge it while doing normal swings.
My theory about the giant umbilical cord you find through out the world was that it's actually the tunnel you take between worlds but poking out in Walter's world.
@@ryohio4706 Yep. Although the worm is theorized to hint at 'Walter feeling as if he was a lowly parasite to his real mother, with the umbilical cord being a "greedy worm" that stole nourishment from her.'
23:00 Honestly, the solution for the Choccy Milk puzzle is so stupidly simple yet genius that I'm not even mad at the game designers. That was 10/10 puzzle design. Throw the players in for a loop by making an important quest item actually reside in the designated saferoom instead of some dangerous area in the level. I'd say give the boys a promotion!!
@@mikeharris6429 I don't know about lazy, but perhaps asking too much. Makes a lot of sense logically, but the logic is a rather long chain. Guy wants milk. Where do we find milk? Milk has to be refrigerated, so a fridge somewhere. Where would we find a fridge? A kitchen, of course. Only been one kitchen so far, might as well try it. I'd bet the guy who came up with Milk Bro found the idea especially clever, but grossly overestimated players' propensity for thinking outside the box. There's unfortunately also not a lot of room to squeeze in a hint or guideline without compromising the entire puzzle, given how simplistic the solution is. Any even vague mention of going back to the apartment would be a neon sign with a direct answer.
@@mikeharris6429 nah it's not lazy at all, most players are gonna explore a safe space in a game. Game is survival horror, you better be exploring. Be going straight to the hole in the beginning of the game and check nothing else, thats your fault, nothing else.
I love the key puzzle in the forest too. It took me a few minutes when I first played when it released, but it felt good actually solving that one lol.
The best part about Walter was the references to him in Silent hill 2 which shows this game was meant to be made and the fact they did smth different with this game I appreciate it
....you know that means nothing right? They could make a Resident Evil Kart racer starring the dead villager on the hook in Resident Evil 4 and that doesn't mean it was part of some grand plan it just means they wanted to put SOMETHING as connection that actually effects and changes literally nothing. "The game was meant to be made" what does that even mean lol
@@dissraps I think this person is talking about the whole rumour of it not being related to Silent Hill at all, but why make a game based around a serial killer who was mentioned years ago in SH2 if it wasn’t intended to fit into the franchise somehow? Makes perfect sense and i see where they’re coming from
@@royalcouncilsoldier1301 silent hill 4 was not even intended at the time silent hill 2 was released. but i suppose team silent wanted to do something with the walter sullivan story in the idea of developing silent hill 4
@@glow.8538 hell, the silent hill arcade main plot device of being the Baroness ship that drowned in Toluca lake is mentioned in SH2. Funny to think that SH2 created a mainline game and an arcade spin-off.
something that really stood out to me in this game was the beginning of the stand-off between walter and henry at 1:07:00, at the beginning of the scene, henry confidently walks up to walter with a determined look on his face, a far contrast of the confusion and fear he's usually expressing. its no longer just about finding answers, surviving, and escaping the room to him. he's finally broken out of his reclusive photographer shell, he's no longer just an observer, he's determined to stop walter and save eileen. this moment of courageous heroism from an otherwise unremarkable protagonist (although i do love henry a lot) really shined through for me.
The water prison still is one of the most creepy places in video game history, hands down. It looks odly realistic in how bland everything is. When I first played SH4, back in the good ol' days, it was a cold, rainy, late autumn day. I had my window open and the whole room smelled like rain. It was the perfect setting for a level like this.
The opening/trailer for this game is still one of the most impactful horror inspirations that I think formed what I aim for in a lot of my horror work. The atmosphere is just so utterly threatening in it in a grimy, real way. It even freaked my parents out when they originally got the game for me lol. As much as the second half haunts my nightmares for all the wrong reasons I do love this game, and it's nice seeing someone talk about it... and laugh at the burp monsters with me.
I had a demo of this along with other good games. One being a fps shooter against aliens and a burnout game. That opening gave me the creeps and I couldn’t get past it. I eventually gathered the courage to say fuck it and played the few playable minutes of the demo. Those floating ghosts are unforgettable. Same with the found footage effect. Man that was such a nice touch.
Yeah the trailer is so amazing. Also a lot of the material leading up to the release of the game such as the surprisingly expansive stories of the first sacraments that end up being enemies in the game. I remember being so hyped up for this game because all the materials and the cool grunge kind of vibe it all had going for it was so cool.
When you read about the children described as "small grey lumps" my mind went to the Grey children (or mumblers as they are in the European release) from Silent Hill 1. I then figured as they represented the children Alessa knew at school, she must have visited the Orphanage with Dahlia atleast once and seen some of what went on there
@@JaketheJedi23 I read elsewhere that she did know, and in fact, the 21 sacraments was another way to invoke Valtiel, she tricked Walter into reviving his mother.
same, i already struggled with the old RE's puzzles. and only beat silent hill 1 and 2 but the puzzles in those games were damn near impossible lmaoo plus backtracking is really not for me. I used to have the patience for that stuff, but nowadays I just don't
I agree, but unfortunately you do miss out on many aspects of the experience. In this video for example the viewer is never presented with one of the best tracks in SH OSTs because of copyright; Room of Angel. That track makes situations in this game 10 times more powerful.
Couldn't agree more. Never having played the games, and finding the gameplay a bit lacking I always loved the premise and the lore behind. These videos are the perfect solution for me!
My favorite SIlent Hill game by far. This game hit hard when I was in state of extreme depression due to the death of my brother. At the time I was unemployed, lived in a one bedroom apartment and rarely left it except for food and toilet paper so the theme of the game fit perfectly into my own personal hell. Can't explain why this game got me through some rough times but it did.
I don't believe I've ever had psychotic or schizophrene episodes, but for me, yeah, going to the alternate reality of Silent Hill has been very evocative of my experience of depression, too. Like the ending of the movie, though rather, more grey and drab, than gory monster colorful. I'm very much there right now, at least for the past five years I've been bumming in my hidey hole, and this sequel is starting to feel super-extra long... But the games, the mournful, nostalgic, both unsettling and calming music, I think it feels comforting in it's darkness, because it validates the experience of being disconnected from reality, and provides some light, in the sense that it reminds us, it is in fact possible to be even more psychologically unwell.
i relate to this but with downpour, my kookum (grandmother) passed when near my birthday and after i graduated highschool and that game helped me through so much of that grief. unfortunate we have to relate in such a way but i hope you're doing better ♡
I don't think Cynthia wandered off on her own, I think she'd be too scared to do so. I think her disappearance is due to Walter ultimately being in control of the nightmare and therefore escape for her was impossible and her fate inevitable which is terrifying. It's like when you're in a nightmare yourself and no matter how fast you run it feels like you're jogging in place. Utter powerlessness.
Covid really made me appreciate this game more . It clearly mirrors depression Soo much seeing the world moving and being unable to interact at all, being shut into his home unable to wake up front this nightmare as if everything is not quite right a meaningless day after day existence.
I personally found The Room to be one of the eeriest in the series. Taking a place that is generally considered a "safe space", your home, and making it gradually dangerous is completely unsettling. My cousin and I rented it on a whim from the video store back when it first came out, staying up all night trying to figure it out, and it gave me nightmares off and on for years. It still to this day unsettles me in ways the other 3 never did - I specifically hate the idea of climbing through little spaces because of that damn tunnel in the bathroom 😅
What I love most about Silent Hill 4 is that the room is a perfect metaphor for Henry's personality and his way of seeing the world. Henry is an extremely introverted person, to the point that it could be said that Henry has some symptoms of an autistic person, he desperately tries to fit in with his surroundings but doesn't know how to express his emotions correctly, which is why he is so neutral when it comes to interacting with people, but what he does know how to do perfectly is observe, and waking up one day locked in that room, his ability to observe the world around him is what will allow him to get out of that nightmare.
Hmm, yes, this is true. Because people don't like it when there's any difference in a game series, but also hate when there's no difference. Or for one dude, the state of one's member. I agree that The Room is pretty frickin' cool though.
I hate it when developers just churn out a glorified expansion pack as a sequel! I also hate it when it's nothing like the original, just call it a new IP! I want everything different except the same, plus a bunch of new things that feel just like the old things!
People disliked this cuz it kinda missed the entire point of silent hill. I mean, it ain't bad on its own. And i think people would've appreciated it way more if they didn't mold it into a silent hill game halfway through development. Personally I'm rather curious about what this game could've been
@@112523 why the hell would team silent decide to do a new ip out of nowhere especially without konami approval ? That " silent hill 4 wasnt supposed to be a silent hill game" rumor has been debunked by team silent themselves and yet the game's haters keep repeating this rumor over and over to justify why the game is different, is it so hard to believe team silent just wanted to experiment with their series ?
Love it or hate it, SH4 brought so much cool shit to the table. The whole “Room” aspect is one of two times I genuinely had to turn the console completely off from fear, the other being from Fatal Frame 2. The main issue is that, personally, I feel like the game would be better if it WASN’T a Silent Hill game, but a whole different IP. Probably just me though.
I think at one point it was a different game before it was later decided to become a silent hill game Edit: Ah. Maybe not? Was a spin off but became a part of the major line? Lol
@@foggytuesday101 Yup they totally had another game almost entirely developed and turned it into a silent hill game for brand recognition. lol Also, come on man, you had to turn of the console from fear? LOL Where's Soldier Boy when you need him. He'd slap you like Connery.
The Room is the last true Silent Hill to have been made. It’s has one of the most interesting and understandable stories in all of the games and the first time that it was revealed that the numbers were actually a count blew me away. Seeing 16121and realizing later that it was actually 16/21 etc was a great twist
Yeah, I started watching this video and I was like "were there really that many people who hated this game?" I don't remember it being "controversial" at all when it came out. Sure it's a bit different from the first three, but did people want the same thing forever? This is my second favorite one, the first being 2. Everything that came after this one seemed like trash.
@@Martinroadsguy I remember some flak for "not being in Silent Hill" which I think was fair but other than the majority of the game not being in the town, it feels exactly like a SH game. Considering the first 3 games were all mostly in SH, I think changing location was fine (although, they're basically in the town over).
@@hunger4wonder I'm one of them. It's not a bad game... it's just not a Silent Hill game. I remember the hate SH4 got firsthand, and IMO it was justified. Just look at what happened to the franchise. That's the change SH4 represented, and people saw it coming.
SH4 was rough and looked like it was a betrayal of what Silent Hill was about. But the non-TS games make it look better by comparison. Lack of polish aside, it dared to branch out and had some good, novel ideas (both in terms of gameplay and story), some fairly good writing, and managed to be really scary at times. Later games are missing at least one of these factors, and none of them were scary.
The ghosts were definitely annoying but I do appreciate the sheer terror of them approaching you and that horrifying noise that plays when they get close
Cheers! Don't stray to far in this game they'll often spawn back If you kill them, then head back in the direction you just game. I almost developed a well crafted PTSD due to dealing with these demons. Happy Gaming Lad.
Me and my partner played this over a few sessions in the middle of the night during drinking sessions. We never realized that the candles were meant to make the hauntings go away, so our apartment became the most insanely cursed place. The worst of it was when we got the phone call, but it was combined with a red flashing screen and scary music and it genuinely scared us so much that we had to pause and google how to make it stop, which is when we figured out that instead of just collecting candles and burning them in the levels to get more inventory space, they could be used to make our apartment livable again.
This game is horribly under appreciated. Truly, it's horror is amazing, feeling eerie senses of isolation and oppression, seeing things that people can't see around them in almost a conspiratorial way. It is fantastic. And while I do agree that Henry probably is the most bland of all the protagonists, I would like to believe it is due to an effect similar to Eileen's possessions. Henry is mildly possessed by Walter the entire time. He is after all the receiver of wisdom, the human manifesto of Walter Sullivan. I know some argue that Henry is Walter or related to Walter, but I don't think that's the case. He is just mildly possessed the entire game and because of it, becomes this sort of blank slate for Walter to write and imprint himself upon. Either way, this will always be my personal favorite game of the Silent Hill franchise. After all, no one said Silent Hill had to be one physical location. Silent Hill could just be purgatory and repentance in its worst form, personalized to the person and those their life touched along the way.
Here's something that just hit me: with all the referenses to dreams in this game, it kind of makes sense that Henry has no reaction to the things around him. It's probably just bad writing, sure, but think about when you have really weird dreams - you tend to just accept the premises in the dream state, it's not until you wake up when you realize just how weird the dream was. Just a thought.
@@JaketheJedi23 I mean also realize how long he probably has been stuck in this situation before the hole appeared things have been weird for him for a while, so the things that he goes through in the game isn't any new shock to that point in the game
I had a dream last night that started In the FNAF pizzeria with about 11 new characters which shifted to an underwater kingdom, still with the animatronics, inside of a huge temple in the middle was a metroidvania Kakariko Village, and then two dragons from the Monster Hunter series appeared and then I woke up
I think henry is just meant to be an awkward shut-in kinda guy. Honestly makes perfect sense to me why someone like that wouldn’t have the most animated or expressive reactions to things. It’s not really a character flaw in my eyes tbh
Whenever I hear about this game all I think about is the time where a rogue silent hill mod made a whole ass page about circumsision and literally fought everyone who said "cool, but this is a silent hill wiki."
The awful thing about that whole situation isn't even that the guy went completely ballistic but that he suffered zero consequences because he was friends with the right mod (Alessa). Literally everybody else wanted to ban him. That wiki is just all kinds of awful.
@@bodhidaruma2824 AlexShepherd is still active and editing but all references to circumcision had been removed. AlessaGillespie, the mod who saved him from being banned, almost immediately left the wiki.
SH4 came out at the exact right/wrong time for me - when I'd just moved out of home for the first time and was feeling horribly isolated and cut off in my first apartment. I thought it was pretty excellent, mainly because it was such a step up graphically from the previous SH game I'd played (SH2 - I'd skipped SH3 for some reason). Mainly though... in the second half when you suddenly realise that going back to your room isn't healing you anymore... is just a great little oh-shit moment. It's when you realise how much you've been relying on the room as a safe harbour, and how screwed you are once it turns on you. I got to the point where I was dreading having to go back there because it was almost more dangerous than the Otherworld. That complete destabilisation is masterful. I just wish the last half of the game had been maybe a lil bit shorter? Oh, and yeah, fuck that damn phone.
Yes! I came here to say this. I experienced this on the vanilla PS2 with a CRT television, and I was just amazed at how beautiful I thought this game was at the time. Still holds up extremely well, imo, compared to a lot of later games.
To me, the most notable controversy for this title will always just be the guy who was so obsessed with his sh4 circumcision theories that he would abuse his power as a wikia (now fandom) admin to put them on the wiki and got extremely defensive about it
He's not just ravaged the SH wiki but other wikia as well. The fact that nobody agree nor disagree with his POV, just that it's inappropriate place to spread personal theory and presented it as a fact, let alone mod abuse it in.
I remember hearing that he was kicked off multiple times, and always coming back with a different username just to continue on with his tirades. Now I wonder if he ever watches videos like these just to see if someone mentions him, or if he ever steps forward if someone does. As if to say, "Yup! That's me! I'm circumcision guy!"
Yeah. I don't think babies should be circumcized. But a silent hill fan wiki is the wrong place to become a diehard zealot about that issue and have a public meltdown.@@6Kubik
The phone ringing in the Apartment world is actually a booby trap bc what it does, is spawning an additional ghost victim in the vicinity so better leave it alone and your ears won’t hurt from the constant ringing 👍 Some other fact: the submachine gun is the best weapon in the game for Eileen in terms of damage but what i did discover very late after multiple runs is that this weapon’s recoil damages her over time, preventing you from saving Eileen and getting the Escape/Mother ending. I was wondering at the time why i failed getting these 2 good endings. From that point on, i gave Eileen the riding crop which does more than decent damage and doesn’t hurt her when using it.
yes but is also there to solve the mystery of an alleged affair and murder that happpened between the residents read all the memos and you'll see. is pretty much a side quest to solve the mistery of what residents were connected with the torture murder.
@@rotciv557 i did, but in the cutscene at the end she would just be possessed again. I don’t know what it is, it’s either a glitch or the damage sustained from the SG is so severe that her wounds are beyond healing from a certain point on
My theory on Henry being less vocal then previous SH protagonists is that he's already been locked up for several days before the Hole even appeared. So maybe the utter isolation has effected him mentally?
other theories indicates that Henry has extreme social anxiety or some mental illness of that category. I mean, the chains in the door is like how a person with social anxiety views his door, only that to that person the chains are outside.
5:31 I remember looking at pictures of E3 2004 and Konami built a set of Henry's room. They had the door with the chains and everything. It looked amazing. Does anyone find it fascinating that the character designs and face details of Silent Hill 2,3 and 4 look better than the character faces from Silent Hill Homecoming and Downpour?
Shows that the Team Silent games were games with high production values made by a talented team. Shingo Yuri usually gets singular credit for how good the faces ar. He deserve some credit for being the lead character modeler on SH2&3 (he's at KojiPro now and worked on Death Stranding). But the character model/facial motion team also included Sachiko Sugawara and Minako Asano. On SH4 the character model lead was Chieko Ogura, with the three from 2-3 returning, and Naomi Hara and Tomoko Mori joining the team.
I remember being young teenager playing through this with one of my friends and we are smart enough to buy the strategy guide but stupid enough that when we read if you took the doll it led to more hauntings we deliberately chose it because he wanted to see The hauntings
Oh man, I bought SH4 for $100 (a steal if I may say so) and played and finished it in 4 days and even though I was warned not to accept the dolls, I did anyway cause you know, curiosity lol. What a nightmare! I actually bought the strategy guide a few days after too 😂
27:41 Funny enough that 'peep hole' thing for cells was also used by a lot of early Aslyumn and Psychiatric prisons. People would refer to it as the "eye of god" so when it became light out, the light would shine a beam into the cell, invoking the feeling that 'god was always watching'.
Walter is a fantastic SH "villain", especially when you deep dive the lore and realize he's just as much a victim as his, victims. He is potentially even possessed by Valtiel himself due to what the Cult did to him as a child... So his murders may not even be entirely his fault.
I like to imagine that “Walter” in full is just the child. And Valtiel is controlling him through empty promises. That’s why he’s able to transcend into a ghost immediately after killing himself and (probably) putting his own body up in the walls. I love the game a lot with how open yet developed Walter is :)
I don't think he's possessed, he was just heavily indoctrinated and after finding out that his parents abandoned him, he sought to right that injustice by carrying out the holy mother ritual. I think the knowledge that you'd been abandoned as soon as you were born would fuck anyone up.
One thing I noticed was missed in the video is that the spinning 'blades' in Walter's boss fight was designed to look like a high-ranking Angel in their undisguised form, often described as 'biblically accurate'. Along with receiving the Metatron tablet earlier in the game, Metatron being the chief of the angels, this is certainly not a coincidence but I don't know enough about symbolism or silent hill to tell you what it could mean.
I might be able to help! One interpretation I see, sometimes, is that "Light is Not Good" and "God is Evil" (if you are familiar with those ideas) TVTropes, as usual, goes into deeper detail, as usual, haha.
My favorite part about silent hill analyses is trying to figure out how much was intentional psychological design, or just shitty implementation. Like the ringing phone. Is it supposed to be full volume to disorient the player and emphasize confusion and being lost, or did someone just fuck up the sound mixing?
Might be a David Lynch moment. In twin peaks, there's a subtle scene that came from a mistake. One of the camera guys said "We gotta redo the shoot, one of the crew members was in the mirror." This crew member was a serious, scraggly looking fella, who couldn't have possibly been in the reflection in said shot. Lynch saw it and said "That's perfect, that's exactly what we need!" And wrote the crew member in as the main antagonist, lol. A director may have heard the unintentionally loud ringing and said "fuck it, that was jarring and scary, keep it in!"
@@roachdoggjr155 I have only seen bits and pieces, but I like the other Lynch stuff I have seen, so I looked up a lot of videos on him. The guy is pretty great, haha. But it seems like twin peaks is having a bit of a resurgence
I would think probably a bit of laziness that went a long way. You'd probably have to put different triggers in each section you can hear the ringing in to play it at different volumes, and that would be if you didn't want it to dynamically get louder down the hallway, which I imagine would be an even harder thing to do just for a phone puzzle. Or maybe they implemented that dynamic volume and thought it was too easy to find the phone, so they made the volume static and loud in all rooms.
It's bad sound design. They also used stock audio, it really grates my ears. They went the fast and dirty route because they were also developing SH3 at the same time and didn't have as much time or power for anything better.
I second this, had this man not made that bully video or previous silent hill videos, i wouldn’t have bothered to look up/figure out the story telling in either games
45:50 this was one of the times where Harry having a lack of commentary actually made a scene better. Just walking in on that giant twitching abomination and neither Harry nor Eileen react to it while I'm feeling really disturbed... it reminds me how Harry could see the bloody handprints on the wall that nobody else seemed to be able to.
is it a good game to play? i never played any of the SH games before but this game doesn't look that scaryer and looks ok but I play games on my phone.
2004. For a whole trimester in middle school I finished class at 2.30 on Fridays. I would come home around 3 and I remember my dad playing SH4 and I'd sit behind him in the living room to follow the story while doing my homework. The air was warm, the sun was shining softly. Good ol times, man.
I really liked the room for its oddness and claustrophobia. That odd feeling of being in the same place for a long time but I was terrible at the combat
The burping noise I think is meant to replicate something called 'rattling' which is the term for the noise you hear when someone is close to passing away naturally. As their body stops doing basic functions, the swallow reflex is one of those things that stops, so as a result the saliva sits in the throat and as air passes over it it makes a rattling noise that sounds similar to this burp. The only difference is it is a lot quicker as a rattle would be as long as a shallow breath, other than that... this is pretty much what it sounds like
Silent 4 is by far my favorite installment of the series. For me, it is the one that stays with me most, especially being single and living alone when it first came out. The idea of being trapped inside, having hauntings and other horrors while being unable to escape or even contact the outside world is by far the most realistic Silent Hill nightmare and always keeps me coming back for more.m
For what it offers to the conversation about Henry's character, I remember a discussion in another video about this game. Specifically, it was about the Hikikomori vibes you get off of not only his isolated situation, but his behavior. The situation of being locked in his room and only able to interact with his neighbours and the general public in voyeuristic ways is imposed on him, yes, but creates an experience I imagine is very alike a hikikomori's social isolation if not clinical agoraphobia. Even the claustrophobic feeling of "no going back" you get when crawling through the hole that takes you out of the apartment, must echo the anxiety someone like that would feel when leaving their home for necessary trips. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's explicitly a statement about Henry or Walter's character, but it certainly layers those feelings on the whole experience. One of the most powerful mechanisms in the gameplay is that many of the voyeuristic activities are elective and part of a narrow range of things that you can do in any apartment. "I might as well check the peephole again" is a sensation I got a couple times through my play of the game. The motivation is part investigative since there might be something important and SH games sometimes reward or punish repetitive/compulsive actions; part feeling that there is more life and action going on the other side and that one-way interaction is the best social reprieve you can get from your own thoughts in that stale apartment; and it of course teases any unwholesome reasons we, as players, may have for doing so. This last one, and the discomfort it brings, only works because the game doesn't force the player to; we have no excuse for lingering at the hole to Eileen's bedroom with a feelings-tangle of wanting to reach out, needing to progress the story, guilty for invading her private space, and wondering whether doing so will get us the good or bad ending. It gets to the point that it feels slightly rewarding to go to the peephole at the door and see something completely mundane. I can imagine that a severely lonely person in an apartment building may do the same check on their peephole just for those little easter eggs of social contact. I love talking about this game.
These Littl' buggas cause me a massive headache. I almost went sixes and sevens dealing with them. I'll have to venture back into this game during Halloween to see if I can run it again. Happy gaming Lad!
This may be weird, but this has become my comfort video. I work from home at a desk job and the quiet bothers me. I stick on this video, about a game special to me, and can work away! I really enjoy your content! I look forward to more videos and if you ever come back to Silent Hill for more videos 😊
I still love the ghosts in this game. They've got that Jacob's Ladder twitchy head thing, all are unique and the way they go through walls is way cooler than how it usually is. Like, it almost looks kind of like it hurts for them to do so and is scarier than the normal "used the no-clip code" of the traditional ghost.
Finally someone else love the ghosts i thought i was the only one, they are super easy to evade i dont get why everyone think they are annoying, nemesis and mr x ( re 2 remake) are way more dangerous than them
@@slaviclad9705 They can be annoying in small corridors and stuff but it was never enough to make me dislike the twitchy, gooey, drippy, really-upsetting-sounding nightmares. I'd pay to see, like, a Ghost Adventures episode where they get _actual_ proof of ghosts and it's one of _these_ things.
@@groovesan the backtracking is usually not fun in Silent Hill because the threat level is really not there on repeated trips. Trip through a Resident Evil game you may have to pass through zombie dogs; or hunters, or something that may hit you. Hit the Silent Hill monsters rather easily, or they are usually easy to bypass, making your second trip down the hall kinda meh, still a great franchise.
Wanted to add a correction, the giant body at the end boss fight that you use the umbilical chord on is Walter's true body existing in that world, its basically a representation of his corpse twisted in the beam you find in your storage room
Despite its deviation from the typical Silent Hill formula, it is still one of the best horror games i have played. Two of the most unsettling things I've ever experienced in a video game were from this game: one was the giant Eileen head; the other was the first time i saw a twin victim, just standing there, menacingly (pointing at me)
The Twin victims has always been my absolute favorite Silent Hill enemy, and I always mention them when the games come up, but usually people look at me like they don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It's good to know that I didn't make them up!
As a long suffering agoraphobe. I think not only does Henry probably have social anxiety. He straight up has agoraphobia. In my totally unprofessional opinion anyhow lol. I think that's why I connected with the game so hard when I played it. And why it freaked me out so bad too. A classic in my books!
@@liquidanimations3397 Literally, it means "marketplace fear" but colloquially, it means "fear of public places" or "fear of the outdoors". Now, it's not just "oh, I don't like going outside" it's debilitating and intense. For me, many years ago, it was so bad I, actually-factually, did not leave my appartment for just over two years. It was bad. And just when I started to deal with it all better, and not "freak out" every time I went outside... covid struck and it massively reset my progress. These days, it's bad but not to where I can't leave. One night at a time...
@@spookyhelmet I'm in the same boat. Sadly, it's a "rock & hard place" situation, due to who I'm currently living with, and it's very unfortunate. I hope things don't get too overwhelming for you, and I hope the same for myself.
I always loved the hauntings in the apartment, especially the crying child in the closet since I always interpreted that as not Walter, but Henry. This is just my take on things, but I kinda get some Autism Spectrum Disorder vibes from Henry. He's not very expressive, his body language is reserved, he's soft spoken, and he's very empathetic of everyone he meets before they're killed. Combined with the crying child haunting in the closet, I get the impression that Henry was abused as a child and hid in his closet whenever he was in trouble, and likely had to attend therapy and find a new support circle to help him get out of that abusive home life. I admit, I may be biased since I empathize with Henry and have experienced moments like that in my life, but Henry seems like someone that Walter saw a piece of himself in and chose him as the final sacrifice, thinking that his final kill to reunite with his mother would be to end the suffering of someone who also had a shitty childhood. Again, I could just be projecting, but that kinda stuff is what I like about psychological horror like Silent Hill.
That's actually something I hadn't thought about and I've read all the wikis on the back stories and meaning in these games. I do believe how they made Henry was more than just bad writing considering everyone had their personalities and was way more talkative and he was just kind of taking it all in which I can relate, I would not know how to process any of what was going on either. I don't know why he got so much shit, he's clearly a good guy who really wants to help the people around him but is unable to. So what if he's not a big talker. He was the polar opposite to how heather behaved adding more diversity to the games and honestly I love them both. 3 and 4 are still my favorite in the series
I think the point of teleporting illogically into the dream is the fact you never start a dream at the beginning, it’s always partway through with the “story” going along from there
I remember being in high-school and I had already beat the first three silent hill games. A friend of mine said they had a demo for silent hill the room. After playing the demo I had to rent it.....I was poor lol after renting it and beating it. I saved up some money and bought the game, I loved it. I was surprised when I heard people didn't like it. I felt It was a breath of fresh air from the same formula of the first 3 games.
@vicentegeonix have you played the first 4 silent hill games? The first 3 felt like the same shit just a different story and different main character but same type of game play. The fourth you started off locked in your apartment. It felt like the first time they tried something new while keeping some of what made the first 3 games enjoyable. If you havnt played it I don't want to go into full detail, it's just a breath of fresh air lol
@@malicedraven7658 considering the 4 games have like shitty identical type of gameplay calling it fresh air is kind of a stretch. Hahaha. But i see what you mean.
@@vicentegeonix 4 definitely has different mechanics than the first 3 so it’s definitely a breath of fresh air. No tank controls, more combat based, limited inventory space…etc
R.I.P. Team Silent. The best Silent Hill devs. Even Kojima would've had a difficult time making a great full game, although the demo was pretty awesome. "The Room" was somewhat of a letdown but I do enjoy the atmosphere and superb design of several levels. Plus some characters were legit creepy the first time encountering them.
One thing I remember discovering when I played this (one of my favourites of the series): A fully charged attack is almost completely invincible. Knowing this, I was able to get through that escalator far easier than most. Full charge a swing, then use it on one of the wall monsters. You deal massive damage, and utterly ignore its attacks.
Man I remember playing a demo of this game with my cousin I was 10 he was 8 we had no idea what Silent Hill even was and when that first ghost came out of the wall I legit had nightmares for days. This game is freaky as hell!
The premise of The Room is soooo good! It was eerie and unsettleing even before going into Silent Hill. I saw my brother play this game and definetly remember it very fondly as something that made me want to leave the door open and lights on for a long time. What a good game!
If deformed monkey men and burping nurses and annoying tall stationary mushroom things is scary to you then you and I have very different definitions of the word “horror.” To each their own though.
@@lhays117 hey man I'm just saying the 2 headed doll monster from the prison is IMO the single most striking monster design in the series. Every time I encounter those things I crap my pants a little
The hauntings doll woulda been the perfect way to add a joke ending. If you take it the first time it works like normal but if you takebit again it causes the joke ending like right before the 2nd apartment area
I'm so glad I am not the only person who remembers the trailer for this game. At the time the trailer came out I was a little kid with Game Informer and I remember the magazine hyping this series I had never played before. As such I went to the website and downloaded the trailer and remember being thoroughly spooked... So spooked I managed to save up money from doing chores and work around the neighborhood to buy a used copy of Silent Hill 2 and 3. Due to the trailer, I am now here watching TotallyPointless hour long videos. Thanks for that trip down memory lane, your videos have been fantastic!
Ever since you unexpectedly started making game content it’s been some of my favorite game retrospectives on UA-cam period. You always make great points, you’re funny, and even though they’re lengthy it never feels like you drag.
Never played it but I do remember getting nightmares seeing footage of the girl's face taking up a particular room and the fact that the safe house becomes increasingly more possessed as the game continues. I'll definitely never touch this game because of the stress factor
@@lewispooper3138 i play the right amount, horror games mostly rely on cheap jumpscares the sense of dread that silenthill managed to make in that room was pretty unique, but if you recommend something i'm all ears.
A detail I really like is that Walter's dad's hair looks a lot like Adult Walter's hair. Theres something poetic to be said there about the cycle of abuse, but I'm not a good enough writer for it.
I absolutely loved Silent Hill 4 The Room! I don't even care if it wasn't exactly a "traditional silent hill" game. This game was terrifying and still to this day, besides silent hill PT, the scariest game I've ever played. Don't get me wrong, the earlier silent hill games were amazing too but this was the first one I had played and will always have a special place in my heart.
This has to be my favorite one by far, mainly because of the whole horror and disturbing aspect. Not many games can reach this level of disturbing horror your seeing right now. That's what I liked most about OG silent hill, it was way scarier as compared to the ones today.
God this game is so brilliant. The part with the phone ringing in the apartment world is genius because it fills the player with anxiety, especially with the doll and all the ghosts hunting you. I remember being so relieved when I finally found the phone in room 202.
I think my biggest problem at the time was figuring out when to go back and forth to the room. At the time (maybe I'd have an easier time now), I would get frustrated trying to advance only to find out I had to leave to get the next part
your small quips where you state how easily things could have been solved in so many scenarios made me hit the sub button. Im over here working on my work and suddenly burst out laughing at these dry little remarks with no break in voice. I love it.
Great video as always. That medallion @ 54:32 is actually The Halo of the Sun. You can tell because it has the triple moons inside of the circle (the past, future, and present). The Seal of Metatron has a triangle drawn inside of the circle on it.
I remember hearing a guy talk about how the makers of Silent Hill games after Silent Hill 2 were so desperate to recapture the magic of that games big twist about the protagonist. How Konami was desperate to repeat the success of Silent Hill 2. I'm not saying that is entirely wrong. I just sometimes wonder if the fanbase is even more obsessed with Silent Hill 2. As a total outsider looking in, that's just how it looks to me sometimes. No feelings on if anybody is right or wrong to obsess over that game or not. I just kinda started thinking about that cuz of this game's mixed reception compared to Silent Hill 2's.
To be fair SH2 is an actual masterpiece. I know the word gets thrown around a lot these days but I genuinely think it's one of the best video games ever. So yeah, it was a blessing and a curse for the franchise, because when you peak early that means you can only go down, even if that "down" is overall higher than your average video jame.
never understood the silent hill hype as a kid or an adult mainly cuz i hated how clunky it was i didnt get into survival horror until it got more smooth clunk wise. so to me sure its a good twist but like theres others maybe better twists they could use. i honestly only found the joke endings fun cuz ya dont see that anymore.
@@yunjin909 Because it doesn't expand on the lore in the first game, instead favoring a new protagonist and his unpredictable mental issues. It started a bad trend for the Silent Hill series where people started to want fucked up protagonists in a world meant to torture them poetically instead of a series where helpless people try to fight unknowable creatures and those that would bring them.
@@shaynehughes6645 Honestly this ''trend" started only with the western Silent Hill games, I still don't see how it's a bad thing, I just wish they didn't try to be exactly like 2, but still the cult storyline was never that interesting for me personally
Little correction, theres two areas that are in Silent Hill, Forest and Water Tower. They're both mentioned in SH3 Hospital magazine, The water tower sits in the middle of the lake.
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@@NoName-zn6hk he's probably doing ok rn
I'm eager to watch the video but first let me just add a quick commenterinooo!, which is all just a Video suggestion about Condemned Criminal Origins, I think its an awesome game and very unique to this day havent seen smth like that and yet fairly not known, Thanks for your content and attention, have a good year. (edit: I watched it! It was awesome thanks nice narration)
You should do Alone In The Dark Inferno
Henry Townshend is by far the unluckiest Silent Hill protagonist. He's a regular dude and all he did was rent the wrong apartment.
So basically, in a nutshell...
Henry was an "NPC" who became an accidental hero.
I don't think it was accidental, the theme of 4 is about the anxiety of young adults, and Henry being a shy, lonely guy who lives alone and pays attention to a woman (who he doesn't have the guts to flirt with) kind of matches.
To both the comments up there yes but he also went to SH and took a picture of the haunted lake of SH, which could be the slightest coincidence but just the fact he moved into the cursed apartment makes sense otherwise. Henry was the most innocent and maybe that’s why they did the game like that anyway, because of how treacherous SH is anyways
@@JaketheJedi23
I played Silent Hill Downpour not too long ago and stumbled upon Henry's apartment.
It looked virtually unchanged. Still had the locks on the front door. The hole in the wall where you find Walter's body was plastered up and sealed. You couldn't go into the bedroom, bathroom, or laundry room but hey! It still was a great 'Easter Egg' from the developers.
Really felt the nostalgia kick in. Just like when Silent Hill 3 reused portions of Silent Hill 2's map in the latter half of the game.
Henry was just Free Guy, in short
It took me years to realize the Room itself is actively helping you because Walter NEEDS you alive. The Room manifests as almost a loving mother, healing you, feeling like a safe place that you’re better off in; later on, when the Room becomes haunted, it becomes more like Walter and his sinister intentions. It no longer heals you because Walter wants you dead now, it becomes haunted to get you out into the world Walter can kill you in. He gives you the Doll specifically to kickstart that.
Amazingly put man
Great insight
That's only if you live in the hood
@@octaviusbass7192true
That's Joseph Schreiber trying to protect Henry from afterlife. The room changed once Joseph told the truth to Henry. Joseph is the giver of wisdom, he protected Henry for the truth. Remember that Joseph was a journalist, so he saw Henry like a cameraman, he guided him, but also trying that Henry avoided to make the same mistakes that he did, he was the resident of the room before him. He also is the most calm ghost against Henry, because he saw him, like a member of a team, he was a journalist, and Henry is the cameraman.
Ah, so you`re about to become Walter`s vessel and the room is your mother?
A theory about why Henry acts so strange during the game is that he has social anxiety or a similar mental disorder. He most likely didn't leave his apartment often and saw it as a safe place, which makes him being stuck there during the game more impactful. He is also forced into situations where he has to interact with people in disturbing and unfamiliar places. Or it could just be bad voice acting, but I like to think it was intentional.
What you said and I also think Henry never slept throughout SH4. All the other characters that we came across were technically sleeping and trapped in Walters Otherworld nightmares (we see this when we see Braintree in the Building World and sleeping in his apartment at the same time). Since Henry had a direct connection to the nightmare worlds, it’s possible he hadn’t actually slept himself in a few days
I found Henry to be one of the most relatable characters to me for that reason, Ive heard about how unemotional he is before playing but during the game couldn't help but think "Id be reacting the same way here"; and its even more obvious with how it ties to the game's main themes of isolation and feeling that you don't belong
@@czarnoksiezhnik
Yeah i have pretty bad social anxiety as
well and Henry represented it so well and it felt oddly comforting to see, like the detachment and choosing to be silent mostly and have a more repressed response to things
Henrys cadence reminded me of how odd the dialogue of the original Silent Hill felt at times. Something just wasnt... quite right. Like a dream. And after learning that the voice actors were given specific instructions, so things would sound a little "off", it made sense. I wonder if there was a similar approach in the making of The Room.
And sorry in advance if im contradicting something in the video I havent watched it yet, but I will once I finish my playthrough. Lol
Yes I definitely think he himself is a bit shy and introverted, and also the fact he’s like in a nightmare dreamworld where it’s seems like that how we’d react in most of our dreams. But I remember back in the day how funny it was for Henry specifically lol.
Regardless of whether people liked Silent Hill 4 or not, it's undeniable that the chained door is one of the most iconic images in horror media history
Even with zero context it's a super creepy image and makes your imagination run wild about what could make someone so scared that they'd put so many locks on a door to keep something out (or in the context of the game, keep someone IN)
Horror media history? Not a chance bro. Settle down. Its cool but you're talking wild.
@@blackjackfan58 "Not a chance" is pretty extreme. Most horror game fans are able to notice the room 302 chain door.
@@Dat_Feathered_Boi Eh youre still overrating it. the room was a shit game. Many fans may recognize it but its nothing like the main hall of the RE 1 Mansion, or the RPD station. Those are way more recognizable.
@@blackjackfan58 The Room wasn't "a shit game". The settings were the best in the series (water prison, the escalator level, room 302), and the monsters (in my opinion) were the most grotesque. The story was pretty concise as Silent Hill story lines go. The music was beautiful as always. If only the combat didn't suck (as basically every silent hill game did), the back tracking wasn't as horrid, and time spent escorting Eileen was halved it'd be regarded as high as the first three games. But yes, you are correct in it not being THAT popular.
@@Dat_Feathered_Boi your opinion is irrelevant when the general opinion is that it is in fact a shit game
SH4 was my intro to the series. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about this one is how Henry was truly just a normal guy. He wasn’t a father looking for his missing daughter, he wasn’t a man haunted by his dead wife and he wasn’t a teenage girl confronting her past and seeking revenge.
Henry was just a guy who got locked in his apartment. Which makes it that much scarier, he picked the wrong apartment to live in. If not him, it would’ve been someone else.
Harry was just a guy who drove into that mess just a guy who went on the wrong road
@@johnlawful2272 Not really. Harry was a guy who adopted part of the split soul of a powerful psychic.
@@Langtw did he have other choices in adopting?
@@johnlawful2272 He could have adopted another child but you are right, no one would expect that you adopt some split souled kid that is a the result of a dark ritual. So yeah Harry is just a dude and anyone else could have taken his place if he didn't adopted her.
Tbh, that's true to real life. One apartment could have some nice old lady as your neighbor whilst another could be harboring a serial killer.
The reveal that the “1” in the carved numbers on the victim wasn’t a 1 at all, but actually a “/“ was a game changing plot twist honestly.
Iunno its pretty obvious when you look out the peephole and you see a new handprint.
@@DozleZabi No.
@@DozleZabi
The handprint is easier to figure out, but getting how they're connected is different
It's a real animanga kind of twist, I tell you. You could probably tell for yourself that it's actually a slash if the graphics were better, but it's kind of baffling that no one thought of that before the reveal.
@@michaelp.3485 yeah I’m with you. No. 😂
I can't lie, as clear as it is that Walter was an insane serial killer, I always felt so sad for what he went through as a child. Convinced he could see his mom and trying to escape the crazy cult brainwashing and abuse, and instead of it being Henry's hell, we see Walter's. It's honestly a really tragic story that holds up on the silent hill themes really well
The cutscenes with the parents are so filled with unrelenting loneliness it’s a perfect summary of both the silent hill sensitivities and 2000 angst that makes the room so iconic
Reminds me of "The Tattooist" Film
That's one of my favorite things about SH4, it makes you simultaneously confront Walter as he is *and* how he came to be that way. It doesn't try to excuse his actions nor ask the player to forgive him, it just asks that you acknowledge him, both his past and his present.
I actually cried the first time I played it.. I felt so horrible for Walter. He just wanted his mother and love.. but he was brainwashed by the cult and therefore turned into a monster.. poor boy
As someone whose dealt with abandonment and isolation this has always been my favorite silent hill. The themes and how relatable Walter actually feels when you look deeper is just peak
In regards to Henry's lack of response to finding a gun laying around his apartment, you must remember this game takes place in the US. We actually DO find them randomly while dusting sometimes.
Ugh, I keep finding them under cupboards and appliances. The last people who rented here did _not_ clean like they should have before they left. 😑
Last night I was vacuuming the rug, under the rug a freakin gun. These things just keep turning up. What the heck
I was troubleshooting a clog in my kitchen sink the other day and I shit you not, there was at least 3 handguns, 2 shotgun, an AR-15 and 7 folded American flags in the pipes.
Yesterday I was cooking a turkey and when I reached inside for all the giblets I ended up finding a Mac 11
When I arrived at my new apartment, I found a garand in the bathroom's mirror with the note, "I had too many of these and didn't have any space. So it's yours now I guess, bich."
God bless America.
To think: this is what people called “bad” or the “worst thing with silent hill” once upon a time. Then we got origins… and homecoming…and the rest
Origins was pretty decent overall, I'd even venture to say it had amazing moments worth of being in a Silent Hill game, the rest.......is sad history
@@Lunaria.Praesentia I agree wholeheartedly. It was the closest to a silent hill game out of all the trash thereafter. I was just disappointed in the mangled story and characters.
There are a lot of kids in the comments of his Homecoming video that unironically like that meme game more.
@@bebopcola4643 I noticed that... my guess is they're probably born in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and their first system was either a Playstation 3 or XBOX 360
@@bebopcola4643 most likely their introduction to the series so they look at it through rose tinted nostalgia lenses
Despite it flaws this was the scariest silent hill for me. The special ghosts in each stage with their found footage introductions are nightmare fuel.
me too, the big black monster scare the shit out of me
Yeah, SH2 and 3 was supremely scary, SH4 was truly disturbing for me. The gray colors makes it seem so strange.
Agreed
@@KobraKai69 good way to word it The Room wasn't scary it was unsettling
Absolutely agree. Sh4 was by far the scariest with the ghosts. I remember in the water tower running the circle and suddenly bumping in to a baby faced giant monster that stands still and pointing finger at you , me and my friend fucking shit ourselves and switched off the game.. SH4 was the one we eould switch off constantly because of how scary it was.
I feel that Henry's Blazé reaction to most things has to be implying depression on his part as apathy is one of the big symptoms. Feeling like you are trapped in your own body, your own room, a silent witness to the world with no way to interract with it or help people is a major part of the illness, which is what the game is all about.
i totally agree, i didnt like that henry was so quiet at first but i rlly grew to understand it n prefer it that way
I like that, it definitely fits.
I personally though that he was pretty tired as well, the fact that everytime he tried to sleep he would be in a nightmare for the next 5 days
That's a cool observation but if that was the case I wish they would have touched on it more.
Also in the intro it says that Henry was "happy."
It's mentioned that Henry is a journalist, hence the various photos of places. He must have grown desynthesized from learning dramatic stories and things others didn't want to reveal. No wonder he never mentioned feeling like a creep looking through the peephole, in fact me neither. I only learned it was supposed to make me feel awkward because other reviewers pointed that out, maybe there's something wrong with me too.
This game's gameplay makes a lot more sense when you consider Henry an agoraphobic and the game situated as a paranoid agoraphobia. During the time this game was being made, the hikikomori was a type of personality trait that was just starting to become very prominent. This gameplay is essentially a looking view through the lens of a hikikomori/severe agoraphobic. The social isolation, looking in through windows and holes for glimpses of social contact, feeling locked in your own home, invading privacy in an almost intimate setting, and on and on. The fact that the game has ghosts that "stalk" you also portrays the game's focus on avoiding social contact, anyone with anxiety will tell you what it's like to be too close to someone; simply being "damaged" by a humanoid ghost being nearby is a good 1 for 1 example of this.
The fact that the escort portion of this game is also so taxing is another principle of the agoraphobic or socially anxious sort. You are now no longer beholden only to you and your wellbeing, but someone else's as well. The escort portion simply reminds me of the time I had my first date and girlfriend, in which I immediately chose the self-destructive nuclear option because my own form of social self-loathing made me not only feel like things were "too good for me" but that I felt like no matter what I did there was NOTHING I could do to help/better my girlfriend. The game captures this pretty well, you WANT to tell Eileen to wait someplace safe, safe away from you. You WANT her to be safe, you WANT her to feel content, you KNOW that you will NEVER make them safe nor happy and want them to find a place of rest or a place to be gone but that simply isn't an option. For all rights and purposes, you are tied to this individual, your personal safety in social isolation has now been forcefully breached and you're forced to deal with enemies and monsters (stressors and vulnerabilities) head-on rather than retreat. Because if you retreat, your in-game partner cannot. She cannot physically follow you in the same pace that you hold. This is also true with real life when you feel the urge to retreat inside and back to social isolation where the vulnerabilities you suffered during your trauma that made you this way _just . shut. up._ for a while and allow you to think and experience peace for the precious few moments you feel like you can grasp.
That's why I still consider Silent Hill 4 to be "Of the original stock" because Team Silent knows their strengths in psychological horror, atmosphere, world building, and enemy design and Silent Hill 4 tells it's story *exactly how it needs to be told.*
I agree, very well put.
Fantaastic write up!
@@CrackyBoi69
Thank you, it wasn't my original idea but I couldn't find the video I watched which analyzed these details as well.
Nice essay, my friend. A++
This take made me apreciate the game more
In Jasper’s defense, if I were wandering an unholy nightmare realm and freaking out about some nosey man, I’d really want some chocolate milk too.
It's a morale booster that's for sure!
Make it raspberry or you get your ass haunted for sure.
milk
Completely fair and reasonable
@@rensis1621I have never heard of raspberry
The room healing Henry is also an in universe explanation how Henry hasn't died from starvation or otherwise while being imprisoned in the room.
The room is literally keeping him alive until he's needed for the sacraments.
Or the fridge gets daily food and drinks offscreen for those first 5 days
As someone who's never going to play the game cause I'm a chicken, I really loved this kind of walkthrough with the informative, funny and totally not pointless commentary. Thank you!
Liar, chickens can't type.
@@Hkt1kTurniebrooooo 😭😭😭😭
it was the only one i was able to play through alone. honestly not hat bad! but still crazy ride
You're ironically the best candidate to play horror games, because the whole point is to get scared and that sweet rush of adrenaline coursing through your body. Similar to rollercoasters they're designed as a safe way to experience fear.
yeah as much as I love some other Silent hill titles this one is the scariest to me. I felt myself like playing inside a japanese horror movie the first half of the game, the second when you repeat stages with Eileen I felt a little more "comfortable".
I always felt the prison levels was meant to be some kind of homage/reference to the Panopticon. A conceptual prison that was a massive circle with no cell doors and a single guard post in the center that could look down but none of the inmates could tell where he was looking.
Chilling.
funny thing a Panopticon was actually built in 1817 and is still in use, and others have been built but were closed down the last one in the US was closed in 2016.
@@skarjj1 where at? cause I may be getting my facts wrong but wasn’t it a Dutch idea?
@@Killdust99 it was an Englishman idea by the name of jeremy Bentham in the 1700's
maybe it's a manifestation of the paranoia of the victim in general or walter's paranoia at the orphanage,
or it's just the combination of paranoia & isolation.
Despite this series being about the "Most Hated" Silent Hill Games, I'd love to hear you go through all the main titles like Origins, the first game, SH2, 3 and Shattered Memories.
Especially Shattered Memories, i loved it a lot when i first played through it
I legit always forget that Shattered Memories ever existed.
Shattered memories just screams wii/psp to me for some reason. Even if th game was on other consoles its just so wii/psp to me
Honestly Origins totally fits in the "Most hated" list for some people. Not for me though, but I admit there's bias there because it was my first Silent Hill.
@@MASHo1992 when i played that in ps2 i LOVED IT, an then i forget it even existed, but its pretty good compared to the "silent hills" that we got in that time
“I often find a 9mm under my sofa when I do a bit of light dusting”
Yeah, happens to me so often as an American.
On a more serious note, I never understood the hate for this game. It was my first Silent Hill game.
I feel Henry is such a perfect metaphor for extreme, paralyzing social anxiety. And, imho, it makes the fight seems so much heavier. Every interaction is a fight for Henry, now imagine having to fight a serial killer.
It would make any socially anxious person infinitely worse if they survived.
I helped a friend pickup a couch off craigslist once and it had a 9mm Jimenez in it
@@bradlfsh bonus!!
People don't like this silent hill game because the quality is significantly lower than the previous instances of the franchise. It's buggier, uses stock sound effects, and generally doesn't fit in with silent hill 1-3.
Silent hill 1-3 and a rusty, industrial aesthetic. The monster were physical threats as well as representations of the main character's psychie (this is leaned on way more heavily in silent hill 2&3). It's just out of place to see these more generic ghost enemies.
The major villain and dangerous pursuing enemy also literally just being a man with a gun is pretty lame.
It's a massive step down from the previous games in the series.
Homeboy got the Rachet and he gon let it Clank turn the oppas into ashes
This was the first silent hill I played. I had to keep putting the game down and walking away because I was so scared. What a great game. Shame the hate it got.
True that, and hell yeah same here. Saw the movie in high school and was intrigued by the concept, then played 4 on my friend's modded xbox. Was such a strange but fun game and wasn't anything like Resident Evil, so I played the rest from SH 3-1 and loved those too. Im really into game design, always wanted one day to recreate a segment of SH4 in UE5, probably the water prison area or hospital
It's pretty damn good but the lip smacking done by the voice actor's(especially Eilleen) drove me nuts lol
@@JoeKing69 That's more down to the audio engineers for not properly pop-filtering the mic.
Even tho I was SUPER into horror when I first played SH2 the horse sounds in the gallo room SCARED TF OUT OF MEEE 🤣 and even now that I'm super desensitized by horror this shit still spooks me sometimes. That's good horror
@@HeadsetHistorian fair enough. Still made me cringe more than anything else in the game lol
The most chilling moment about this game (for me, personally) is the Walter reveal once you get the pickaxe. Something that bothered me subconsciously throughout the entire apartment level was the sense of space -- I realized all the rest of the apartments were larger than mine, went "huh, that's weird, there's more space in these apartments", but it didn't "register" until I got the pickaxe that my apartment wasn't actually any different than the others. When I opened the wall, saw what was back there, and mapped out everything in my mind? It wasn't so much the fact that Walter was back there the whole time that shook me -- but the fact that he perfectly positioned himself to "watch" the next occupants WHILE THEY SLEPT.
Then it dawned on me that one of the hauntings replaces the picture on the wall across from your bed with dead Walter's face -- essentially showing you EXACTLY what's behind that wall!
I still don't know if this is intentional, but you can completely ignore Eileen taking damage for the entire game. Then when you're just outside the door to the final boss fight, you can light a candle to remove all the corruption from her pretty much guaranteeing a good ending at little effort.
She can end up getting cursed and damage you so really up to you
Unless you play on hard, its super easy to protect eileen, she's like the easiest escort ever since she cant really die and can help you fight and yet people shit on her just because she walk slower, yes her ai could be better but she's really not that bad, she got beaten half to death by a serial killer who she gave her doll when she was a child, she got her arm in a cast, bandage over her eye and she is probably in pain from just walking yet she show an incredible will to live, most people would give up if they were in her situation and just because she sometime complain to youre too fast,people hate her, yet they worship heather who act bitchy with everyone she meet
@@slaviclad9705 So all feminine protags have to be like Eileen? Please. I'm not disputing Aileen is a good character, because she is, but Heather was a great depiction of a teenaged girl who is mostly on her own in a freakish alternate reality having to deal with some pretty serious shit, most notably from older, creepy people. Like any dangerous scenario, it's a fight or flight mechanism to deal with it and she chose to fight. It's long been established that her attitude would be in direct response to her environment and the people around her, and possibly to cope with what she's going through, to overcome the fear. I think it's fairly understandable that she reacts the way she does.
Smart man 😤😏 I’ll try that when I play the game again 🕯
@@Anthoberries i can dislike heather if i want, i dont like her tough girl attitude it feel forced
42:15 - If I remember correctly, the phone is a trap; as long as the phone is ringing, the ghosts are meant to be even more hostile/active against Henry than what they already were to begin with until you stop the phone call. It literally exists to make the ghosts hunt you with greater aggression.
It's been a long while though for me.
Really?
If true I never knew this
It spawns more standard ghosts in between the path of those two rooms.
Exactly what is there for. Silent hill has done some stuff like that before
Nice timestamp after the ringing
Once you get the Axe you can kill anything without taking damage, even the whole room of Twin Victims, the charged attack swing gives you immunity frames for the whole duration and you can charge it while doing normal swings.
Best weapon in game. Pickaxe of despair was great too but slow. Axe was better
Reminds me of the knife in homecoming were you can perma Stunlock enemies
@@berensteinbear5916 people like you will never get that there is a story reason why you revisit the levels
Had this been an online game they would have "nerfed" that weapon. That weapon was so overpowered.
@@slaviclad9705 Still shit nevertheless.
My theory about the giant umbilical cord you find through out the world was that it's actually the tunnel you take between worlds but poking out in Walter's world.
Isn't that part of that giant worm?
@@ryohio4706 Yep. Although the worm is theorized to hint at 'Walter feeling as if he was a lowly parasite to his real mother, with the umbilical cord being a "greedy worm" that stole nourishment from her.'
23:00
Honestly, the solution for the Choccy Milk puzzle is so stupidly simple yet genius that I'm not even mad at the game designers. That was 10/10 puzzle design. Throw the players in for a loop by making an important quest item actually reside in the designated saferoom instead of some dangerous area in the level. I'd say give the boys a promotion!!
Nah it’s bullshit and lazy game design because nothing points you in that direction.
@@mikeharris6429
I don't know about lazy, but perhaps asking too much. Makes a lot of sense logically, but the logic is a rather long chain. Guy wants milk. Where do we find milk? Milk has to be refrigerated, so a fridge somewhere. Where would we find a fridge? A kitchen, of course. Only been one kitchen so far, might as well try it. I'd bet the guy who came up with Milk Bro found the idea especially clever, but grossly overestimated players' propensity for thinking outside the box. There's unfortunately also not a lot of room to squeeze in a hint or guideline without compromising the entire puzzle, given how simplistic the solution is. Any even vague mention of going back to the apartment would be a neon sign with a direct answer.
@@mikeharris6429 nah it's not lazy at all, most players are gonna explore a safe space in a game. Game is survival horror, you better be exploring. Be going straight to the hole in the beginning of the game and check nothing else, thats your fault, nothing else.
I love the key puzzle in the forest too. It took me a few minutes when I first played when it released, but it felt good actually solving that one lol.
@@mikeharris6429 Sorry that your mommy has to hold your hand in video games.
The best part about Walter was the references to him in Silent hill 2 which shows this game was meant to be made and the fact they did smth different with this game I appreciate it
....you know that means nothing right? They could make a Resident Evil Kart racer starring the dead villager on the hook in Resident Evil 4 and that doesn't mean it was part of some grand plan it just means they wanted to put SOMETHING as connection that actually effects and changes literally nothing. "The game was meant to be made" what does that even mean lol
@@dissraps I think this person is talking about the whole rumour of it not being related to Silent Hill at all, but why make a game based around a serial killer who was mentioned years ago in SH2 if it wasn’t intended to fit into the franchise somehow? Makes perfect sense and i see where they’re coming from
@@royalcouncilsoldier1301 silent hill 4 was not even intended at the time silent hill 2 was released. but i suppose team silent wanted to do something with the walter sullivan story in the idea of developing silent hill 4
@@glow.8538 hell, the silent hill arcade main plot device of being the Baroness ship that drowned in Toluca lake is mentioned in SH2. Funny to think that SH2 created a mainline game and an arcade spin-off.
need resident evil cat racer now!!!!! with dead villager on hook from resident evil 4!!!!!
something that really stood out to me in this game was the beginning of the stand-off between walter and henry at 1:07:00, at the beginning of the scene, henry confidently walks up to walter with a determined look on his face, a far contrast of the confusion and fear he's usually expressing. its no longer just about finding answers, surviving, and escaping the room to him. he's finally broken out of his reclusive photographer shell, he's no longer just an observer, he's determined to stop walter and save eileen. this moment of courageous heroism from an otherwise unremarkable protagonist (although i do love henry a lot) really shined through for me.
The water prison still is one of the most creepy places in video game history, hands down. It looks odly realistic in how bland everything is. When I first played SH4, back in the good ol' days, it was a cold, rainy, late autumn day. I had my window open and the whole room smelled like rain. It was the perfect setting for a level like this.
The opening/trailer for this game is still one of the most impactful horror inspirations that I think formed what I aim for in a lot of my horror work. The atmosphere is just so utterly threatening in it in a grimy, real way. It even freaked my parents out when they originally got the game for me lol. As much as the second half haunts my nightmares for all the wrong reasons I do love this game, and it's nice seeing someone talk about it... and laugh at the burp monsters with me.
As a kid that opening really disturbed me, besides the graphics were amazing for the time
I had a demo of this along with other good games. One being a fps shooter against aliens and a burnout game. That opening gave me the creeps and I couldn’t get past it. I eventually gathered the courage to say fuck it and played the few playable minutes of the demo. Those floating ghosts are unforgettable. Same with the found footage effect. Man that was such a nice touch.
What horror do you make?:)
Yeah the trailer is so amazing. Also a lot of the material leading up to the release of the game such as the surprisingly expansive stories of the first sacraments that end up being enemies in the game. I remember being so hyped up for this game because all the materials and the cool grunge kind of vibe it all had going for it was so cool.
By ripping off The Grudge?
When you read about the children described as "small grey lumps" my mind went to the Grey children (or mumblers as they are in the European release) from Silent Hill 1. I then figured as they represented the children Alessa knew at school, she must have visited the Orphanage with Dahlia atleast once and seen some of what went on there
That's exactly what I was thinking! Surprised he didn't mention it.
Very good analysis on that part. And maybe knew Walter and what he was doing.
@@JaketheJedi23 gotta love how all these years later we can still make new analysis on this series
@@JaketheJedi23 I read elsewhere that she did know, and in fact, the 21 sacraments was another way to invoke Valtiel, she tricked Walter into reviving his mother.
This is the best way to experience these stories and games without playing them, way better than watching a let's play
Yeah I can't play horror games because I just get to anxious and unable to complete them. This is a great method.
If for some reason you get into this series, I don't recommend starting with this one as it's probably the most stressful
same, i already struggled with the old RE's puzzles. and only beat silent hill 1 and 2 but the puzzles in those games were damn near impossible lmaoo plus backtracking is really not for me. I used to have the patience for that stuff, but nowadays I just don't
I agree, but unfortunately you do miss out on many aspects of the experience. In this video for example the viewer is never presented with one of the best tracks in SH OSTs because of copyright; Room of Angel. That track makes situations in this game 10 times more powerful.
Couldn't agree more. Never having played the games, and finding the gameplay a bit lacking I always loved the premise and the lore behind. These videos are the perfect solution for me!
My favorite SIlent Hill game by far. This game hit hard when I was in state of extreme depression due to the death of my brother. At the time I was unemployed, lived in a one bedroom apartment and rarely left it except for food and toilet paper so the theme of the game fit perfectly into my own personal hell. Can't explain why this game got me through some rough times but it did.
I don't believe I've ever had psychotic or schizophrene episodes, but for me, yeah, going to the alternate reality of Silent Hill has been very evocative of my experience of depression, too. Like the ending of the movie, though rather, more grey and drab, than gory monster colorful.
I'm very much there right now, at least for the past five years I've been bumming in my hidey hole, and this sequel is starting to feel super-extra long...
But the games, the mournful, nostalgic, both unsettling and calming music, I think it feels comforting in it's darkness, because it validates the experience of being disconnected from reality, and provides some light, in the sense that it reminds us, it is in fact possible to be even more psychologically unwell.
same here, but i just unemployed and had bipolar and acute ocd... this game is art,, its nightmare but i feel calm with the music and atmosphere
i relate to this but with downpour, my kookum (grandmother) passed when near my birthday and after i graduated highschool and that game helped me through so much of that grief. unfortunate we have to relate in such a way but i hope you're doing better ♡
I don't think Cynthia wandered off on her own, I think she'd be too scared to do so.
I think her disappearance is due to Walter ultimately being in control of the nightmare and therefore escape for her was impossible and her fate inevitable which is terrifying.
It's like when you're in a nightmare yourself and no matter how fast you run it feels like you're jogging in place. Utter powerlessness.
huh never thought I'd find someone else with the same profile pic lol
Very good thought on that too and for his victims like Henry himself the same.
@@Archon... let's see Paul Allen's profile picture.
@@JoeKing69 like your American Psycho pfp
@@kyrohowe3156 thanks buddy!
Covid really made me appreciate this game more .
It clearly mirrors depression Soo much seeing the world moving and being unable to interact at all, being shut into his home unable to wake up front this nightmare as if everything is not quite right a meaningless day after day existence.
Very good pointers. I agree lots ✊
I felt the same way, I actually played it very recently for the first time abd it was surprisingly relatable
I have agoraphobia and depression IRL and this game like simulator for my life. Really cool.
That was true to me even before covid though.
I'm glad I wasn't living in the panopticon shaped apartment building when it happened.
I personally found The Room to be one of the eeriest in the series. Taking a place that is generally considered a "safe space", your home, and making it gradually dangerous is completely unsettling. My cousin and I rented it on a whim from the video store back when it first came out, staying up all night trying to figure it out, and it gave me nightmares off and on for years. It still to this day unsettles me in ways the other 3 never did - I specifically hate the idea of climbing through little spaces because of that damn tunnel in the bathroom 😅
Make sure you pack a massive package before delving into this game for a flaccid whacker won't due you any goods.
What I love most about Silent Hill 4 is that the room is a perfect metaphor for Henry's personality and his way of seeing the world. Henry is an extremely introverted person, to the point that it could be said that Henry has some symptoms of an autistic person, he desperately tries to fit in with his surroundings but doesn't know how to express his emotions correctly, which is why he is so neutral when it comes to interacting with people, but what he does know how to do perfectly is observe, and waking up one day locked in that room, his ability to observe the world around him is what will allow him to get out of that nightmare.
Yessss
he's like me fr
Lol
It's just a gross worm
But see, isn't it possible he's just... really sleep-deprived? I'm kinda like Henry, but only when my insomnia is... really bad.
Hmm, yes, this is true. Because people don't like it when there's any difference in a game series, but also hate when there's no difference. Or for one dude, the state of one's member. I agree that The Room is pretty frickin' cool though.
I hate it when developers just churn out a glorified expansion pack as a sequel! I also hate it when it's nothing like the original, just call it a new IP! I want everything different except the same, plus a bunch of new things that feel just like the old things!
Can't agree more !
@@sa.agarrr I can't agree and disagree more!
People disliked this cuz it kinda missed the entire point of silent hill. I mean, it ain't bad on its own. And i think people would've appreciated it way more if they didn't mold it into a silent hill game halfway through development. Personally I'm rather curious about what this game could've been
@@112523 why the hell would team silent decide to do a new ip out of nowhere especially without konami approval ? That " silent hill 4 wasnt supposed to be a silent hill game" rumor has been debunked by team silent themselves and yet the game's haters keep repeating this rumor over and over to justify why the game is different, is it so hard to believe team silent just wanted to experiment with their series ?
Love it or hate it, SH4 brought so much cool shit to the table. The whole “Room” aspect is one of two times I genuinely had to turn the console completely off from fear, the other being from Fatal Frame 2. The main issue is that, personally, I feel like the game would be better if it WASN’T a Silent Hill game, but a whole different IP. Probably just me though.
Ratio
I think at one point it was a different game before it was later decided to become a silent hill game
Edit: Ah. Maybe not? Was a spin off but became a part of the major line? Lol
@@foggytuesday101 Yup they totally had another game almost entirely developed and turned it into a silent hill game for brand recognition. lol Also, come on man, you had to turn of the console from fear? LOL Where's Soldier Boy when you need him. He'd slap you like Connery.
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@@tgreaux5027 this video literally disproves that myth
The Room is the last true Silent Hill to have been made. It’s has one of the most interesting and understandable stories in all of the games and the first time that it was revealed that the numbers were actually a count blew me away.
Seeing 16121and realizing later that it was actually 16/21 etc was a great twist
Yeah, I started watching this video and I was like "were there really that many people who hated this game?" I don't remember it being "controversial" at all when it came out. Sure it's a bit different from the first three, but did people want the same thing forever? This is my second favorite one, the first being 2. Everything that came after this one seemed like trash.
@@Martinroadsguy I remember some flak for "not being in Silent Hill" which I think was fair but other than the majority of the game not being in the town, it feels exactly like a SH game. Considering the first 3 games were all mostly in SH, I think changing location was fine (although, they're basically in the town over).
@@Martinroadsguy there are still a lot of people who hate silent hill 4 with a passion. Which is a shame.
@@hunger4wonder I'm one of them. It's not a bad game... it's just not a Silent Hill game. I remember the hate SH4 got firsthand, and IMO it was justified. Just look at what happened to the franchise. That's the change SH4 represented, and people saw it coming.
SH4 was rough and looked like it was a betrayal of what Silent Hill was about. But the non-TS games make it look better by comparison. Lack of polish aside, it dared to branch out and had some good, novel ideas (both in terms of gameplay and story), some fairly good writing, and managed to be really scary at times. Later games are missing at least one of these factors, and none of them were scary.
The ghosts were definitely annoying but I do appreciate the sheer terror of them approaching you and that horrifying noise that plays when they get close
They were, but to me that's what made them great. They served their purpose brilliantly.
Cheers! Don't stray to far in this game they'll often spawn back If you kill them, then head back in the direction you just game. I almost developed a well crafted PTSD due to dealing with these demons. Happy Gaming Lad.
Me and my partner played this over a few sessions in the middle of the night during drinking sessions. We never realized that the candles were meant to make the hauntings go away, so our apartment became the most insanely cursed place. The worst of it was when we got the phone call, but it was combined with a red flashing screen and scary music and it genuinely scared us so much that we had to pause and google how to make it stop, which is when we figured out that instead of just collecting candles and burning them in the levels to get more inventory space, they could be used to make our apartment livable again.
Lmao I love this perspective 😂
This game is horribly under appreciated. Truly, it's horror is amazing, feeling eerie senses of isolation and oppression, seeing things that people can't see around them in almost a conspiratorial way. It is fantastic.
And while I do agree that Henry probably is the most bland of all the protagonists, I would like to believe it is due to an effect similar to Eileen's possessions. Henry is mildly possessed by Walter the entire time. He is after all the receiver of wisdom, the human manifesto of Walter Sullivan. I know some argue that Henry is Walter or related to Walter, but I don't think that's the case. He is just mildly possessed the entire game and because of it, becomes this sort of blank slate for Walter to write and imprint himself upon.
Either way, this will always be my personal favorite game of the Silent Hill franchise. After all, no one said Silent Hill had to be one physical location. Silent Hill could just be purgatory and repentance in its worst form, personalized to the person and those their life touched along the way.
Here's something that just hit me: with all the referenses to dreams in this game, it kind of makes sense that Henry has no reaction to the things around him. It's probably just bad writing, sure, but think about when you have really weird dreams - you tend to just accept the premises in the dream state, it's not until you wake up when you realize just how weird the dream was. Just a thought.
You said it better than me lol yeah I relate to Henry at least on that level when I have weird dreams. Later on he realizes this shit is REAL 🫢🫣
I would be freaking out if I were him
@@JaketheJedi23 I mean also realize how long he probably has been stuck in this situation before the hole appeared things have been weird for him for a while, so the things that he goes through in the game isn't any new shock to that point in the game
I had a dream last night that started In the FNAF pizzeria with about 11 new characters which shifted to an underwater kingdom, still with the animatronics, inside of a huge temple in the middle was a metroidvania Kakariko Village, and then two dragons from the Monster Hunter series appeared and then I woke up
True
I think henry is just meant to be an awkward shut-in kinda guy. Honestly makes perfect sense to me why someone like that wouldn’t have the most animated or expressive reactions to things. It’s not really a character flaw in my eyes tbh
Whenever I hear about this game all I think about is the time where a rogue silent hill mod made a whole ass page about circumsision and literally fought everyone who said "cool, but this is a silent hill wiki."
Yeah, I am disappointed by the lack of mentions to Walter's foreskin trauma
The awful thing about that whole situation isn't even that the guy went completely ballistic but that he suffered zero consequences because he was friends with the right mod (Alessa). Literally everybody else wanted to ban him. That wiki is just all kinds of awful.
@@coldstuff9784 are his edits still up? Is he still active in the wiki?
@Xx-raZ0r_pup-xX what's his name? send some links to the essays
@@bodhidaruma2824 AlexShepherd is still active and editing but all references to circumcision had been removed.
AlessaGillespie, the mod who saved him from being banned, almost immediately left the wiki.
SH4 came out at the exact right/wrong time for me - when I'd just moved out of home for the first time and was feeling horribly isolated and cut off in my first apartment. I thought it was pretty excellent, mainly because it was such a step up graphically from the previous SH game I'd played (SH2 - I'd skipped SH3 for some reason).
Mainly though... in the second half when you suddenly realise that going back to your room isn't healing you anymore... is just a great little oh-shit moment. It's when you realise how much you've been relying on the room as a safe harbour, and how screwed you are once it turns on you. I got to the point where I was dreading having to go back there because it was almost more dangerous than the Otherworld. That complete destabilisation is masterful. I just wish the last half of the game had been maybe a lil bit shorter?
Oh, and yeah, fuck that damn phone.
Also, the reason the city wouldn't have looked so bad back in the day is because it was being rendered in 480p on a PS2 on probably a CRT TV.
Yes, shit looks better on CRT
Yes! I came here to say this. I experienced this on the vanilla PS2 with a CRT television, and I was just amazed at how beautiful I thought this game was at the time. Still holds up extremely well, imo, compared to a lot of later games.
To me, the most notable controversy for this title will always just be the guy who was so obsessed with his sh4 circumcision theories that he would abuse his power as a wikia (now fandom) admin to put them on the wiki and got extremely defensive about it
Apparently he was abused as a child and (quite reasonably) just takes issue with circumcision.
He's not just ravaged the SH wiki but other wikia as well. The fact that nobody agree nor disagree with his POV, just that it's inappropriate place to spread personal theory and presented it as a fact, let alone mod abuse it in.
I remember hearing that he was kicked off multiple times, and always coming back with a different username just to continue on with his tirades.
Now I wonder if he ever watches videos like these just to see if someone mentions him, or if he ever steps forward if someone does. As if to say, "Yup! That's me! I'm circumcision guy!"
@@theonlybilgewell, everyone should take issues with genital multilation 😅
Yeah. I don't think babies should be circumcized. But a silent hill fan wiki is the wrong place to become a diehard zealot about that issue and have a public meltdown.@@6Kubik
The phone ringing in the Apartment world is actually a booby trap bc what it does, is spawning an additional ghost victim in the vicinity so better leave it alone and your ears won’t hurt from the constant ringing 👍
Some other fact: the submachine gun is the best weapon in the game for Eileen in terms of damage but what i did discover very late after multiple runs is that this weapon’s recoil damages her over time, preventing you from saving Eileen and getting the Escape/Mother ending. I was wondering at the time why i failed getting these 2 good endings. From that point on, i gave Eileen the riding crop which does more than decent damage and doesn’t hurt her when using it.
yes but is also there to solve the mystery of an alleged affair and murder that happpened between the residents read all the memos and you'll see. is pretty much a side quest to solve the mistery of what residents were connected with the torture murder.
Can't you just use one of the candles on Eileen right before the final battle to completely heal her of her damage/curse?
@@rotciv557 i did, but in the cutscene at the end she would just be possessed again. I don’t know what it is, it’s either a glitch or the damage sustained from the SG is so severe that her wounds are beyond healing from a certain point on
The chain is the best weapon if you can get it.
@@Sorakeyblademaster37 i always considered the riding crop her best melee weapon
My theory on Henry being less vocal then previous SH protagonists is that he's already been locked up for several days before the Hole even appeared. So maybe the utter isolation has effected him mentally?
other theories indicates that Henry has extreme social anxiety or some mental illness of that category. I mean, the chains in the door is like how a person with social anxiety views his door, only that to that person the chains are outside.
He might have social anxiety I heard somewhere he did not had very bright childhood.
I've always thought he was autistic or something
My biggest gripe about this game is that Henry doesn’t get any sexy unlockable outfits at all.
That's the true flaw of this entry
Where's my nurse Henry skin, Konami?!
A damn shame
thats what the fuck im talking about!!!!!!!!!!
He's too shy to wear those
5:31 I remember looking at pictures of E3 2004 and Konami built a set of Henry's room. They had the door with the chains and everything. It looked amazing. Does anyone find it fascinating that the character designs and face details of Silent Hill 2,3 and 4 look better than the character faces from Silent Hill Homecoming and Downpour?
I was SO disappointed in downpour 😞 Was so excited for a silent hill game after so long and it turned out to be awful
Shows that the Team Silent games were games with high production values made by a talented team. Shingo Yuri usually gets singular credit for how good the faces ar. He deserve some credit for being the lead character modeler on SH2&3 (he's at KojiPro now and worked on Death Stranding). But the character model/facial motion team also included Sachiko Sugawara and Minako Asano.
On SH4 the character model lead was Chieko Ogura, with the three from 2-3 returning, and Naomi Hara and Tomoko Mori joining the team.
I remember being young teenager playing through this with one of my friends and we are smart enough to buy the strategy guide but stupid enough that when we read if you took the doll it led to more hauntings we deliberately chose it because he wanted to see The hauntings
Oh man, I bought SH4 for $100 (a steal if I may say so) and played and finished it in 4 days and even though I was warned not to accept the dolls, I did anyway cause you know, curiosity lol. What a nightmare! I actually bought the strategy guide a few days after too 😂
27:41 Funny enough that 'peep hole' thing for cells was also used by a lot of early Aslyumn and Psychiatric prisons. People would refer to it as the "eye of god" so when it became light out, the light would shine a beam into the cell, invoking the feeling that 'god was always watching'.
I always want God to watch over me so that I can sense his protection.
Walter is a fantastic SH "villain", especially when you deep dive the lore and realize he's just as much a victim as his, victims. He is potentially even possessed by Valtiel himself due to what the Cult did to him as a child... So his murders may not even be entirely his fault.
I like to imagine that “Walter” in full is just the child. And Valtiel is controlling him through empty promises. That’s why he’s able to transcend into a ghost immediately after killing himself and (probably) putting his own body up in the walls. I love the game a lot with how open yet developed Walter is :)
The real reason Waltuh does it is because he was circumcised
@@theonlybilge oh no not again
But... Was he circumcised? Lolnotsorry
I don't think he's possessed, he was just heavily indoctrinated and after finding out that his parents abandoned him, he sought to right that injustice by carrying out the holy mother ritual. I think the knowledge that you'd been abandoned as soon as you were born would fuck anyone up.
One thing I noticed was missed in the video is that the spinning 'blades' in Walter's boss fight was designed to look like a high-ranking Angel in their undisguised form, often described as 'biblically accurate'. Along with receiving the Metatron tablet earlier in the game, Metatron being the chief of the angels, this is certainly not a coincidence but I don't know enough about symbolism or silent hill to tell you what it could mean.
I might be able to help! One interpretation I see, sometimes, is that "Light is Not Good" and "God is Evil" (if you are familiar with those ideas)
TVTropes, as usual, goes into deeper detail, as usual, haha.
My favorite part about silent hill analyses is trying to figure out how much was intentional psychological design, or just shitty implementation. Like the ringing phone. Is it supposed to be full volume to disorient the player and emphasize confusion and being lost, or did someone just fuck up the sound mixing?
Might be a David Lynch moment. In twin peaks, there's a subtle scene that came from a mistake. One of the camera guys said "We gotta redo the shoot, one of the crew members was in the mirror."
This crew member was a serious, scraggly looking fella, who couldn't have possibly been in the reflection in said shot. Lynch saw it and said "That's perfect, that's exactly what we need!" And wrote the crew member in as the main antagonist, lol.
A director may have heard the unintentionally loud ringing and said "fuck it, that was jarring and scary, keep it in!"
@@skinnysnorlax1876 ever since i watched twin peaks like 2 weeks ago i've not stopped seeing people talk about it lol
@@roachdoggjr155 I have only seen bits and pieces, but I like the other Lynch stuff I have seen, so I looked up a lot of videos on him. The guy is pretty great, haha.
But it seems like twin peaks is having a bit of a resurgence
I would think probably a bit of laziness that went a long way. You'd probably have to put different triggers in each section you can hear the ringing in to play it at different volumes, and that would be if you didn't want it to dynamically get louder down the hallway, which I imagine would be an even harder thing to do just for a phone puzzle.
Or maybe they implemented that dynamic volume and thought it was too easy to find the phone, so they made the volume static and loud in all rooms.
It's bad sound design. They also used stock audio, it really grates my ears. They went the fast and dirty route because they were also developing SH3 at the same time and didn't have as much time or power for anything better.
The amount of work this man puts into his vids for games i haven't had the honour to see and hear about
I second this, had this man not made that bully video or previous silent hill videos, i wouldn’t have bothered to look up/figure out the story telling in either games
45:50 this was one of the times where Harry having a lack of commentary actually made a scene better. Just walking in on that giant twitching abomination and neither Harry nor Eileen react to it while I'm feeling really disturbed... it reminds me how Harry could see the bloody handprints on the wall that nobody else seemed to be able to.
I think you meant Henry
is it a good game to play? i never played any of the SH games before but this game doesn't look that scaryer and looks ok but I play games on my phone.
@@aliceramdom.sit's the hardest game of the series and yes,it is scary. Forget about phone games
2004. For a whole trimester in middle school I finished class at 2.30 on Fridays. I would come home around 3 and I remember my dad playing SH4 and I'd sit behind him in the living room to follow the story while doing my homework. The air was warm, the sun was shining softly. Good ol times, man.
That comment really painted a picture, damn I miss those days. Some beautiful memories back in the early-mid 2000s. Here’s to many more to come! 🙂
Some of the bedroom hauntings were _legit_ terrifying.
I really liked the room for its oddness and claustrophobia. That odd feeling of being in the same place for a long time but I was terrible at the combat
The burping noise I think is meant to replicate something called 'rattling' which is the term for the noise you hear when someone is close to passing away naturally. As their body stops doing basic functions, the swallow reflex is one of those things that stops, so as a result the saliva sits in the throat and as air passes over it it makes a rattling noise that sounds similar to this burp. The only difference is it is a lot quicker as a rattle would be as long as a shallow breath, other than that... this is pretty much what it sounds like
Silent 4 is by far my favorite installment of the series. For me, it is the one that stays with me most, especially being single and living alone when it first came out. The idea of being trapped inside, having hauntings and other horrors while being unable to escape or even contact the outside world is by far the most realistic Silent Hill nightmare and always keeps me coming back for more.m
Silent Hill 4 is and always will be incredible. I actually found this one to be the scariest.
"Or maybe it's just a gross worm." I love this. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a gross worm is just a gross worm.
When is a cigar not a cigar? When it is Bob Cigar?
@@kenhammscousin4716 when I eat them they are food and not cigars
They just wanted to put a giant dick monster in the game after all it's not a silent hill game if there isn't sexually disturbing imagery
For what it offers to the conversation about Henry's character, I remember a discussion in another video about this game. Specifically, it was about the Hikikomori vibes you get off of not only his isolated situation, but his behavior. The situation of being locked in his room and only able to interact with his neighbours and the general public in voyeuristic ways is imposed on him, yes, but creates an experience I imagine is very alike a hikikomori's social isolation if not clinical agoraphobia. Even the claustrophobic feeling of "no going back" you get when crawling through the hole that takes you out of the apartment, must echo the anxiety someone like that would feel when leaving their home for necessary trips. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's explicitly a statement about Henry or Walter's character, but it certainly layers those feelings on the whole experience.
One of the most powerful mechanisms in the gameplay is that many of the voyeuristic activities are elective and part of a narrow range of things that you can do in any apartment. "I might as well check the peephole again" is a sensation I got a couple times through my play of the game. The motivation is part investigative since there might be something important and SH games sometimes reward or punish repetitive/compulsive actions; part feeling that there is more life and action going on the other side and that one-way interaction is the best social reprieve you can get from your own thoughts in that stale apartment; and it of course teases any unwholesome reasons we, as players, may have for doing so. This last one, and the discomfort it brings, only works because the game doesn't force the player to; we have no excuse for lingering at the hole to Eileen's bedroom with a feelings-tangle of wanting to reach out, needing to progress the story, guilty for invading her private space, and wondering whether doing so will get us the good or bad ending.
It gets to the point that it feels slightly rewarding to go to the peephole at the door and see something completely mundane. I can imagine that a severely lonely person in an apartment building may do the same check on their peephole just for those little easter eggs of social contact.
I love talking about this game.
These Littl' buggas cause me a massive headache. I almost went sixes and sevens dealing with them. I'll have to venture back into this game during Halloween to see if I can run it again. Happy gaming Lad!
This may be weird, but this has become my comfort video. I work from home at a desk job and the quiet bothers me. I stick on this video, about a game special to me, and can work away!
I really enjoy your content! I look forward to more videos and if you ever come back to Silent Hill for more videos 😊
Me too
I still love the ghosts in this game. They've got that Jacob's Ladder twitchy head thing, all are unique and the way they go through walls is way cooler than how it usually is. Like, it almost looks kind of like it hurts for them to do so and is scarier than the normal "used the no-clip code" of the traditional ghost.
Finally someone else love the ghosts i thought i was the only one, they are super easy to evade i dont get why everyone think they are annoying, nemesis and mr x ( re 2 remake) are way more dangerous than them
@@slaviclad9705 They can be annoying in small corridors and stuff but it was never enough to make me dislike the twitchy, gooey, drippy, really-upsetting-sounding nightmares. I'd pay to see, like, a Ghost Adventures episode where they get _actual_ proof of ghosts and it's one of _these_ things.
the ghosts are the best part of that game. The backtracking is the worst
@@groovesan the backtracking is usually not fun in Silent Hill because the threat level is really not there on repeated trips. Trip through a Resident Evil game you may have to pass through zombie dogs; or hunters, or something that may hit you. Hit the Silent Hill monsters rather easily, or they are usually easy to bypass, making your second trip down the hall kinda meh, still a great franchise.
@@slaviclad9705 I honestly have a bit of an issue with them cause they float into you very silly looking.
Wanted to add a correction, the giant body at the end boss fight that you use the umbilical chord on is Walter's true body existing in that world, its basically a representation of his corpse twisted in the beam you find in your storage room
cord.
@@username.not.known2473 context changing addition there
@@rocksylvannia9398 Moving into a whole different territory.
Despite its deviation from the typical Silent Hill formula, it is still one of the best horror games i have played. Two of the most unsettling things I've ever experienced in a video game were from this game: one was the giant Eileen head; the other was the first time i saw a twin victim, just standing there, menacingly (pointing at me)
IT'S JUST STANDING THERE. MENACINGLY!😂
18:10
i also like that henry tries to comfort her, by telling her it is just a dream.
The Twin victims has always been my absolute favorite Silent Hill enemy, and I always mention them when the games come up, but usually people look at me like they don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It's good to know that I didn't make them up!
As a long suffering agoraphobe. I think not only does Henry probably have social anxiety. He straight up has agoraphobia. In my totally unprofessional opinion anyhow lol. I think that's why I connected with the game so hard when I played it. And why it freaked me out so bad too. A classic in my books!
What's agoraphobia?
@@liquidanimations3397 Literally, it means "marketplace fear" but colloquially, it means "fear of public places" or "fear of the outdoors".
Now, it's not just "oh, I don't like going outside" it's debilitating and intense.
For me, many years ago, it was so bad I, actually-factually, did not leave my appartment for just over two years. It was bad.
And just when I started to deal with it all better, and not "freak out" every time I went outside... covid struck and it massively reset my progress.
These days, it's bad but not to where I can't leave.
One night at a time...
How are you doing these days, SpookyHelmet?
@@RedSpade37 with my agoraphobia? Not very well, but I'm trying every day. Thank you for asking 🖤
@@spookyhelmet I'm in the same boat. Sadly, it's a "rock & hard place" situation, due to who I'm currently living with, and it's very unfortunate.
I hope things don't get too overwhelming for you, and I hope the same for myself.
I always loved the hauntings in the apartment, especially the crying child in the closet since I always interpreted that as not Walter, but Henry. This is just my take on things, but I kinda get some Autism Spectrum Disorder vibes from Henry. He's not very expressive, his body language is reserved, he's soft spoken, and he's very empathetic of everyone he meets before they're killed. Combined with the crying child haunting in the closet, I get the impression that Henry was abused as a child and hid in his closet whenever he was in trouble, and likely had to attend therapy and find a new support circle to help him get out of that abusive home life.
I admit, I may be biased since I empathize with Henry and have experienced moments like that in my life, but Henry seems like someone that Walter saw a piece of himself in and chose him as the final sacrifice, thinking that his final kill to reunite with his mother would be to end the suffering of someone who also had a shitty childhood. Again, I could just be projecting, but that kinda stuff is what I like about psychological horror like Silent Hill.
That's actually something I hadn't thought about and I've read all the wikis on the back stories and meaning in these games. I do believe how they made Henry was more than just bad writing considering everyone had their personalities and was way more talkative and he was just kind of taking it all in which I can relate, I would not know how to process any of what was going on either. I don't know why he got so much shit, he's clearly a good guy who really wants to help the people around him but is unable to. So what if he's not a big talker. He was the polar opposite to how heather behaved adding more diversity to the games and honestly I love them both. 3 and 4 are still my favorite in the series
Your f*rry profile pic makes me think it's more leaning toward projection than anything.
I think the point of teleporting illogically into the dream is the fact you never start a dream at the beginning, it’s always partway through with the “story” going along from there
Synthiaoso
I remember being in high-school and I had already beat the first three silent hill games. A friend of mine said they had a demo for silent hill the room. After playing the demo I had to rent it.....I was poor lol after renting it and beating it. I saved up some money and bought the game, I loved it. I was surprised when I heard people didn't like it. I felt It was a breath of fresh air from the same formula of the first 3 games.
Sorry but onw question, what fo you mean by fresh air? I look at it and it looks like it plays exactly the same as the other games. 🤔
@vicentegeonix have you played the first 4 silent hill games? The first 3 felt like the same shit just a different story and different main character but same type of game play. The fourth you started off locked in your apartment. It felt like the first time they tried something new while keeping some of what made the first 3 games enjoyable. If you havnt played it I don't want to go into full detail, it's just a breath of fresh air lol
@@malicedraven7658 considering the 4 games have like shitty identical type of gameplay calling it fresh air is kind of a stretch. Hahaha. But i see what you mean.
@@vicentegeonix 4 definitely has different mechanics than the first 3 so it’s definitely a breath of fresh air. No tank controls, more combat based, limited inventory space…etc
@@daskrunkly3213 limited inventory space isnnot something good, and you can deactivate the tank control in 2 what the hell are you talking about.
R.I.P. Team Silent. The best Silent Hill devs. Even Kojima would've had a difficult time making a great full game, although the demo was pretty awesome. "The Room" was somewhat of a letdown but I do enjoy the atmosphere and superb design of several levels. Plus some characters were legit creepy the first time encountering them.
The funny part is that PT is more like "the room" than any other silent hill game.
One thing I remember discovering when I played this (one of my favourites of the series): A fully charged attack is almost completely invincible. Knowing this, I was able to get through that escalator far easier than most. Full charge a swing, then use it on one of the wall monsters. You deal massive damage, and utterly ignore its attacks.
The 21 Sacraments Ending is supposed to be used on a person to birth god. Instead, Walter uses it on "The Room* causing *_IT_* to become possessed.
Man I remember playing a demo of this game with my cousin I was 10 he was 8 we had no idea what Silent Hill even was and when that first ghost came out of the wall I legit had nightmares for days. This game is freaky as hell!
Same here!! I got mine from the game play magazines they listed gta cheat codes in along with upcoming games. I miss the ps2 Era so much ❤
The premise of The Room is soooo good! It was eerie and unsettleing even before going into Silent Hill. I saw my brother play this game and definetly remember it very fondly as something that made me want to leave the door open and lights on for a long time. What a good game!
The room has some of the best creature design in the series. Not to mention the entire prison level is a concentrated panic attack.
If deformed monkey men and burping nurses and annoying tall stationary mushroom things is scary to you then you and I have very different definitions of the word “horror.” To each their own though.
Just the audio of the game is nightmare fuel.
@@lhays117 hey man I'm just saying the 2 headed doll monster from the prison is IMO the single most striking monster design in the series. Every time I encounter those things I crap my pants a little
In your opinion
The hauntings doll woulda been the perfect way to add a joke ending. If you take it the first time it works like normal but if you takebit again it causes the joke ending like right before the 2nd apartment area
How do you make a Netherite Tool?
I'm so glad I am not the only person who remembers the trailer for this game. At the time the trailer came out I was a little kid with Game Informer and I remember the magazine hyping this series I had never played before. As such I went to the website and downloaded the trailer and remember being thoroughly spooked... So spooked I managed to save up money from doing chores and work around the neighborhood to buy a used copy of Silent Hill 2 and 3. Due to the trailer, I am now here watching TotallyPointless hour long videos. Thanks for that trip down memory lane, your videos have been fantastic!
Ever since you unexpectedly started making game content it’s been some of my favorite game retrospectives on UA-cam period. You always make great points, you’re funny, and even though they’re lengthy it never feels like you drag.
The room was an experience i loved it it made me so anxious and scared, probably the last game that did so, to this day i'm afraid to get back to it.
Same bro. Same.
Never played it but I do remember getting nightmares seeing footage of the girl's face taking up a particular room and the fact that the safe house becomes increasingly more possessed as the game continues. I'll definitely never touch this game because of the stress factor
You need to play more games then
@@lewispooper3138 i play the right amount, horror games mostly rely on cheap jumpscares the sense of dread that silenthill managed to make in that room was pretty unique, but if you recommend something i'm all ears.
@@janambro8919 visage
A detail I really like is that Walter's dad's hair looks a lot like Adult Walter's hair. Theres something poetic to be said there about the cycle of abuse, but I'm not a good enough writer for it.
Being claustrophobic, this was easily the most stressful and terrifying Silent Hill for me.
I absolutely loved Silent Hill 4 The Room! I don't even care if it wasn't exactly a "traditional silent hill" game. This game was terrifying and still to this day, besides silent hill PT, the scariest game I've ever played. Don't get me wrong, the earlier silent hill games were amazing too but this was the first one I had played and will always have a special place in my heart.
The ogs are great but SH4 is undeniably scarier
This has to be my favorite one by far, mainly because of the whole horror and disturbing aspect. Not many games can reach this level of disturbing horror your seeing right now. That's what I liked most about OG silent hill, it was way scarier as compared to the ones today.
God this game is so brilliant. The part with the phone ringing in the apartment world is genius because it fills the player with anxiety, especially with the doll and all the ghosts hunting you. I remember being so relieved when I finally found the phone in room 202.
I feel like a person who doesn't care truly must be a high individual
I think my biggest problem at the time was figuring out when to go back and forth to the room. At the time (maybe I'd have an easier time now), I would get frustrated trying to advance only to find out I had to leave to get the next part
Silent hill 1-4 are honestly amazing I remember when 4 came out half my friends hated it and the other half loved it.
your small quips where you state how easily things could have been solved in so many scenarios made me hit the sub button. Im over here working on my work and suddenly burst out laughing at these dry little remarks with no break in voice. I love it.
Great video as always. That medallion @ 54:32 is actually The Halo of the Sun. You can tell because it has the triple moons inside of the circle (the past, future, and present). The Seal of Metatron has a triangle drawn inside of the circle on it.
I remember hearing a guy talk about how the makers of Silent Hill games after Silent Hill 2 were so desperate to recapture the magic of that games big twist about the protagonist. How Konami was desperate to repeat the success of Silent Hill 2. I'm not saying that is entirely wrong. I just sometimes wonder if the fanbase is even more obsessed with Silent Hill 2. As a total outsider looking in, that's just how it looks to me sometimes. No feelings on if anybody is right or wrong to obsess over that game or not. I just kinda started thinking about that cuz of this game's mixed reception compared to Silent Hill 2's.
To be fair SH2 is an actual masterpiece. I know the word gets thrown around a lot these days but I genuinely think it's one of the best video games ever. So yeah, it was a blessing and a curse for the franchise, because when you peak early that means you can only go down, even if that "down" is overall higher than your average video jame.
never understood the silent hill hype as a kid or an adult mainly cuz i hated how clunky it was i didnt get into survival horror until it got more smooth clunk wise. so to me sure its a good twist but like theres others maybe better twists they could use. i honestly only found the joke endings fun cuz ya dont see that anymore.
@@emulation2369 How exactly SH2 breaks the canon? Just because there's no cult in there like 1 and 3? I don't get it
@@yunjin909 Because it doesn't expand on the lore in the first game, instead favoring a new protagonist and his unpredictable mental issues. It started a bad trend for the Silent Hill series where people started to want fucked up protagonists in a world meant to torture them poetically instead of a series where helpless people try to fight unknowable creatures and those that would bring them.
@@shaynehughes6645 Honestly this ''trend" started only with the western Silent Hill games, I still don't see how it's a bad thing, I just wish they didn't try to be exactly like 2, but still the cult storyline was never that interesting for me personally
Little correction, theres two areas that are in Silent Hill, Forest and Water Tower. They're both mentioned in SH3 Hospital magazine, The water tower sits in the middle of the lake.
Always found its themes of isolation and loneliness to be very appealing for a psychological horror game. Definitely not the worst of the series.