Silent Hill PS1 Review

Survival horror was born on the PlayStation during the mid 90s and you had a multitude of games that were developed during that time with all high-profile developers wanting to set their mark not just in the genre but in the games industry as a whole as the popularity of this theme and type of game was beyond anything that had ever been seen before. 

Looking back before even the early days of the PlayStation you had games such as alone in the dark and even in the FPS shooter genre with doom that became an iconic legend within the games industry that also helped to inspire many of the scary elements of games that you know and see today. 

But it was really when the PlayStation came to be the Power House of the games industry is when the survival horror genre really kicked up into its own gear and it really took off with the first Resident Evil game as it was the first really of its kind even though it took much inspiration from the likes of alone in the dark and other games that had come before it but it was the one game that helped to pretty much solidify survival horror as its own genre and everything else that came after that just pretty much expanded beyond that ideal. 

But Resident Evil was at its peak the true sense of survival horror in every sense of the word so it left with loads of other developers trying to figure out their own ideas and iterations to not only compete with the success of Resident Evil but to try and even move beyond the realm of what that game originally offered. 

And while there were many attempts to compete in the genre you had titles such as D, there was also the iconic Parasite Eve series which in its own right is an iconic classic as it helped to combine many different elements of both survival horror and even RPG based systems and mechanics to create a series of games that you didn't think would have been possible back at the time but it proved that combining different elements would actually work. Even with later entries you had games that were often overlooked such as Overblood even though while not being as considered as popular also helped to influence the franchise and even the survival horror genre even further beyond what was possible. 

As each iteration game and entry that come into the genre all added something different and all that it's something unique that helped the entirety of the survival horror genres to expand way beyond what was thought possible after the release of Resident Evil. Even when we look at titles such as nightmare creatures while on paper would look like just your average style 3D beat em up would become so much more as it would also utilize survival horror elements and to many you would think that wouldn't even work, mixing survival horror which beat em up style mechanics but it was one of the very few games that managed to achieve all of those elements and aspects and it is one of the main reasons why you see a lot of games being made today such as likes of bloodborne, elden ring, dark souls, demon souls. 

Many of these original survival horror games inspired the current generation of games even a lot of Indie developers have risen to be inspired to create their own versions of PS1 style games using low poly aesthetics to create their own visions of what they consider to be the ultimate survival horror experience. 

As back in those days survival horror games used in the old 32-bit style graphics and low polygon style is considered by many to be among the scariest visions of games ever released so when we do take a look at all of those unique entries in the series there was a multitude of different ones. 

There is one title that really does stand out among all of the rest of them, even from my own personal perspective I consider in my own personal opinion as Resident Evil to be my personal favorite game of all time and the reason why that is is because it was one of the first games that I'd ever played on the PlayStation originally but it was also the first true 3D horror game that it ever played and the fact is that it offered something that I had never seen before and the fact is that it was for me the early entry point into 3D gaming just completely blew my mind back then. 

And it only heightened that with its future sequels but even at the time I didn't think that there was anything that was possible that potentially even compete let alone beat it even though I had played many other games. 

But that would all change in 1999 with the release of Silent Hill, a game that would be developed by team silent, a group under Konami with its director kochiro Toyama who originally took inspiration from horror games back in the early days such as his doctor hauzer that originally saw a release on the Panasonic 3DO and that plays very like the original alone in the dark. 

That game helped him to inspire the events of what would proceed with horror games later in the future and with Silent Hill came about what is considered by many to be not only the best but also the most mature survival horror game ever seen on the PlayStation for a multitude of different reasons. 

It is also arguably the scariest game to ever be seen on the console as well even when I look back at the multitude of different games like even though the Resident Evil series is hands down one of the scariest series of games but it focused a lot more on jump scares whereas Silent Hill focused on more psychological horror. 

There were other types of games that also utilize different effects even when we go back to like the mid 90s with games like doom and even like alien trilogy that utilize different types of atmospheric effects to create an unnerving sense of tension when you're playing games because you couldn't really see what was happening until you got close to it. 

Silent Hill also used similar elements but what it did was it used fog to mask a lot of the environments in the game and it was the first game of its kind to utilize many of those different aspects to a point that it created something that had never been witnessed in a game before, something that was so terrifying and unnerving that even other games that had come before it had never been able to match it. 

It was also one of the very few survival horror games to be fully rendered in full 3d and when you look at the graphics compared to even other survival horror games like even Resident Evil that used 3D characters but fixed camera perspectives and 2D style pre-rendered backgrounds although while they were really cool in their own right, Silent Hill just gave a sense of tension that no other game could really compare to. 

When you look at the limited color palettes of the textures that were being used when you had the use of the fog, the Shadows, the lighting and even like the snowy kind of effects that would appear when you were outside running around the dark alleyways and city streets, it just left such a presence that no other game has ever really matched since that no other game could even compare to at the time. 

Just the graphical presence alone was so much to unnerve the players as every room and environment you entered when you were playing just give you a different type of feeling and even with the graphics it's just it unnerved so much that you felt like everything around you was alive like even the ground beneath you and the walls. It just felt like everything was moving around and it just made you feel so uneasy like compared to other games that many people have played over the years nothing would have really prepared you for Silent Hill in all honesty. 

It just was on a completely different level as the game would utilize more psychological elements, it was one of the defining games that really got into the player's mind it really freaked you out psychologically to a point that there were often times myself included where you got to certain points in the game and it made you feel so uneasy that you stopped playing the game and would refuse the play it for any period of time because it just made you feel scared. 

It was the first true game that really did make you feel frightened and terrified when you're playing and that is why when you look at even future games even after the first game's release the game itself was only bettered by its excellent sequel Silent Hill 2 that ended up being released on the PlayStation 2 and that is considered probably to be the definitive survival horror game and easily one of the best survival horror games of all time. 

Even when we look at the modern era of gaming, it's easy to see where many of the low poly style games but even modern iterations with far better graphics have taken their inspiration from and they've all taken inspiration from both Silent Hill and Resident Evil because when we look at it from an outside perspective those two franchises alone even regardless of all the other really notable franchises in the genre they're the two biggest ones out there and anyone that thinks of survival horror will always relate to either Resident Evil or Silent Hill or in most cases even both. 

Because of the presence that they made the player feel because of the presence they left and the experience left to the player, no other games in history had ever managed to capture such a feat where you can make the player feel so unnerved as you played. 

The psychological elements used in the game were groundbreaking and mind-blowing for the time and while survival horror games especially in the early days weren't known for their excellent voice acting, if anything the acting was very low quality but that was also one of the defining aspects because of that type of acting. It also helped to influence the character charm and style of these iconic games. 

So when we look at the Silent Hill series in general the game itself has spawned multiple different sequels with loads of different spin-offs over the years which the incredible sequel that is Silent Hill 2 that was released a few years later and then Silent Hill 3 which is actually a direct sequel to the original Silent Hill where you play as Harry Mason's daughter Cheryl/Heather who revisits Silent Hill and the game would also get a reimagining later on in 2009 with Silent Hill shattered Memories. 

The game would also be featured in a visual novel and also have a film iteration of the original game itself. 

The game would also spawn a number of different sequels with likes to Silent Hill 4 the room, Silent Hill Homecoming among many others but it was the first essentially four games in the franchise that are considered to be the best in series but primarily the very first two are considered the top of the list in terms of the greatest survival horror games of all time. 

So with the plot of the game it follows the story of harry mason and traveling to silent hill on a vacation with his adopted daughter Cheryl and upon arriving they are involved in a car crash that leaves harry waking up only to find the Cheryl has disappeared so he sets out to try and find out where she is and to try and make sure that she's safe but to quickly find out that the events in the town have quickly become overrun with some sort of demonic entity or event that's happening where monsters are appearing at random and the city or the town itself was cut off from the outside world so there's no way in and no way out. 

So it's up to Harry to not only survive but to find his daughter, to save her but also to find out the events of what's happening in the town that's causing all of these events to happen. 

Later on in the story harry finds out that his daughter is somehow involved and she has a direct influence on the events that's going on in the town so it's even more apparent that harry must save his daughter at all costs. 

He will also come across multiple different characters throughout the story that will also help him along his journey that will also influence the different aspects of the game's plot and that even leads back to the major storyline arcs in the game as the game in general has five different endings. 

It has four story based endings but then it has one kind of more fun based ending towards the end where harry ends up being abducted by aliens but that's more of a joke type plot but all of the other endings all have some influence on the story which a bad ending and a bad plus ending then there's two good endings with good and good plus. 

There's so much replay ability and unlockable features in the game where you can unlock different weapons and different features but the game just offers so much in terms of its value and even its atmosphere that every time you play it it offers up something different and unique to the player because something that would have happened in your initial playthrough at the start won't be the same the second time you play it when you're going for a different ending because you have different interactions with different characters, you'll unlock different areas that you haven't been able to explore before and you'll have to find other areas again to progress a story in a different direction. 

There's so many different ways in which to play the game that all adds to the suspense and terror that is offered which again just expands the experience and the playability of the game. 

That is why it is considered to be one of the most influential games and one of the best survival horror games of all time, not just for those reasons but due to the suspense and fear that it gave the player. It just is a phenomenal game overall. 

Within recent years Silent Hill Series has hit a decline and as lain dormant since the a demo release back on the PS4 of the PT demo that was being developed by Hideo Kojima at the time before he left Konami and very little has been heard about the franchise ever since. 

But there has been rumors that they are working on revisiting the franchise maybe even reimagining it kind of like what they've done with Resident Evil franchise in recent years where they've produced remakes of the original games in the series to try and tie the elements of all of the game's story plots together in a more cohesive format. 

So you can only imagine that Konami would likely try to do the same thing with the Silent Hill franchise if at all possible. 

But regardless of whether that happens or not you cannot take away the suspense and terror filled atmosphere that is given with the experience that you would gain from the original Silent Hill game and for me personally even though I consider Resident Evil 1 to be my favorite game of all time it's hands down one of the scariest games I've ever played as it just presented an unnerving tension that at the time had never been seen before in any game. 

And it's easy to see why you know when you look at modern iterations of games when you go on various marketplaces like steam, itch.io where you can download demos of games that Indie developers and solo developers are working on and they take a lot of inspiration from a lot of these older games and if you have played any of them at all they're absolutely phenomenal. 

Some of them are fantastic games, now while a lot of them are only demos they haven't been developed into full games which is a pity you'd love to see them being developed because they have so much potential but you can see where they get their inspiration from. 

They've literally taken everything that was good about Silent Hill and managed to expand their own ideas onto it so it'll be interesting to see if a lot of those games get developed in the future but again it all boils back to this phenomenal game. 

Silent Hill itself brought survival horror into an entirely different era in terms of games development and what was possible as it was the first game to really develop a mature sense and tone within video games that's pushed the boundaries of what was even possible and what was even allowed back then because there was always certain elements within games in terms of violence and different themes that usually would be overlooked or that technically wouldn't be allowed. 

They'd always be stopped in its tracks but the development of Silent Hill pushed those boundaries to a point that it'd be almost became mainstream after that because it inspired so many different types of games even up to the current day. 

The modern games that we see now probably wouldn't never have existed in the way that they do only for the original Silent Hill game. 

That's how influential it is and even alongside of the Resident Evil series, they are among some of the most influential games ever created so I would love to know your thoughts on this all-time iconic classic that is silent Hiller. 

What are the experiences that you had with the game. Did you find it truly terrifying to play and unnerving like I did? 

Did it give you a real sense of unnerving tension and atmosphere that might have even forced you to stop playing and then have to try and revisit it later because that's just the way the game was able to make you feel even years later revisiting the game it still has that hold on you and very few games are ever able to do that. 

So I would love to know your thoughts on silent hill and whatever experiences or stories you have of the game so be sure to share it down in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to Silent Hill, you can check out the blog where we will be diving into the iconic elements of these classic video games and as always keep those gaming memories alive...