As a Silent Hill 2 fan, hearing that Konami has completely changed a game widely known as lightning-in-a-bottle tier perfection, is not something I am happy to hear.
Okamoto says that they are aiming to prove to gamers that they (Konami) are capable of delivering a high-quality Silent Hill game, and how the company is serious about renewing the franchise.
Yeah, because all of Konami’s previous attempts with any development studio other than Team Silent did so well…
I’m not really a fan of the series – or jumpscare horror in general – and I still had the same reaction.
I totally get looking back at a game and saying “we can improve on it”. But I’d think that it’d make way more sense to ship both the original format and optionally permit for an “enhanced mode” with things that the new developers think can improve the thing.
Enemy placements shouldn’t be a whole lot of data, so I can’t imagine that there’s a storage constraint issue. Music shouldn’t be large either, not by modern standards.
And they own the IP, so it’s not like it costs to develop it.
It’s not unreasonable that what one person views as an improvement, another might view as making the thing worse. Think of Han shot first or the like.
Some may want to enjoy the nostalgia of the original experience.
Microsoft had later releases of Halo that were graphically-enhanced permit switching in-game between the new and old graphics, which I think was a neat way to handle things, though obviously not all improvements are amenable to that kind of toggling.
Sometimes an attempt to improve something just clearly makes it worse. Nobody takes a piece of media that’s a huge success and makes a sequel with the idea of making it worse. But…there are still lots of games and movies out there that have a next entrant in the series be pretty clearly worse, even though the people making the next game had the benefit of hindsight, often better technology, and such.
Silent Hill 2 is anything but jumpscare horror. Infact, it made me irrationally angry when the Legs got an added jumpscare sound when it gets up in the apartment room where you get the flashlight. Thats a Bloober thing, and they think that in order for something to be scary it needs a jumpscare sound. Like, Silent Hill 2 isn’t even really that scary, Its unsettling and anxiety inducing but not outright scary. Adding in jumpscares only serves as a cheap way to make someone jump, and actually undermines the emotion Silent Hill 2 tries to evoke in the player.
Some of the rooms have completely changed layout for no real reason. Lots of things have been changed for no reason, really. Like character designs, voice acting style, etc.
I agree with you and its something I have been saying from the beginning:
Silent Hill 2 remake, or any remake for that matter, should either release with a port of the original bundled with the game, or be developed as a 1:1 recreation with any changes put forth as an optional mode. Some games might call this like “Original Mode” and “Remix Mode” etc. This way everyone is happy. Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence kinda did this with its “I like Metal Gear X!” question, which can change how the camera works (either the new mode or the classic mode) and some other stuff.
Konami is basically replacing the original with this one, they’re not making it easy to access the original version. Because of this, the version theyre releasing is essentially a retcon. And players who love the original will absolutely not be happy about that, myself included. To me, its like they know the new version is worse than the original, so they purposefully make it really hard for players to directly compare it to the original version.
Yes I know. But they could at a bare minimum port the HD Collection, and fix up its remaining issues. Or bundle up a PS2 emulator and just emulate the original PS2 release like theyre doing with the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection. Its literally so low effort its sad at this point.
As a Silent Hill 2 fan, hearing that Konami has completely changed a game widely known as lightning-in-a-bottle tier perfection, is not something I am happy to hear.
Yeah, because all of Konami’s previous attempts with any development studio other than Team Silent did so well…
I’m not really a fan of the series – or jumpscare horror in general – and I still had the same reaction.
I totally get looking back at a game and saying “we can improve on it”. But I’d think that it’d make way more sense to ship both the original format and optionally permit for an “enhanced mode” with things that the new developers think can improve the thing.
Enemy placements shouldn’t be a whole lot of data, so I can’t imagine that there’s a storage constraint issue. Music shouldn’t be large either, not by modern standards.
And they own the IP, so it’s not like it costs to develop it.
It’s not unreasonable that what one person views as an improvement, another might view as making the thing worse. Think of Han shot first or the like.
Some may want to enjoy the nostalgia of the original experience.
Microsoft had later releases of Halo that were graphically-enhanced permit switching in-game between the new and old graphics, which I think was a neat way to handle things, though obviously not all improvements are amenable to that kind of toggling.
Sometimes an attempt to improve something just clearly makes it worse. Nobody takes a piece of media that’s a huge success and makes a sequel with the idea of making it worse. But…there are still lots of games and movies out there that have a next entrant in the series be pretty clearly worse, even though the people making the next game had the benefit of hindsight, often better technology, and such.
Silent Hill 2 is anything but jumpscare horror. Infact, it made me irrationally angry when the Legs got an added jumpscare sound when it gets up in the apartment room where you get the flashlight. Thats a Bloober thing, and they think that in order for something to be scary it needs a jumpscare sound. Like, Silent Hill 2 isn’t even really that scary, Its unsettling and anxiety inducing but not outright scary. Adding in jumpscares only serves as a cheap way to make someone jump, and actually undermines the emotion Silent Hill 2 tries to evoke in the player.
Some of the rooms have completely changed layout for no real reason. Lots of things have been changed for no reason, really. Like character designs, voice acting style, etc.
I agree with you and its something I have been saying from the beginning:
Silent Hill 2 remake, or any remake for that matter, should either release with a port of the original bundled with the game, or be developed as a 1:1 recreation with any changes put forth as an optional mode. Some games might call this like “Original Mode” and “Remix Mode” etc. This way everyone is happy. Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence kinda did this with its “I like Metal Gear X!” question, which can change how the camera works (either the new mode or the classic mode) and some other stuff.
Konami is basically replacing the original with this one, they’re not making it easy to access the original version. Because of this, the version theyre releasing is essentially a retcon. And players who love the original will absolutely not be happy about that, myself included. To me, its like they know the new version is worse than the original, so they purposefully make it really hard for players to directly compare it to the original version.
A port of the original can’t be added because SH2 original source code was lost by Konami: https://gamingbolt.com/konami-lost-the-source-code-for-silent-hill-2-and-3-resulting-in-hd-collections-poor-quality
Yes I know. But they could at a bare minimum port the HD Collection, and fix up its remaining issues. Or bundle up a PS2 emulator and just emulate the original PS2 release like theyre doing with the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection. Its literally so low effort its sad at this point.
Good thing SH is absolutely not “jumpscare horror.”