Bangledeschler

Oct 2022 Part 2 - Non-Steam

Dino Crisis 2
PSX
Remember that survival horror dinosaur game known as Dino Crisis? Yeah, the one where you REALLY were not meant to find the dinosaurs and had to flee to survive? Well throw all that mumbo jumbo out the window because Dino Crisis 2 is basically an arcade shooter complete with combo score bonuses and waves after waves of dinosaurs to mow down with your weapons. It even has several on-rail shooter sections. Don’t get me wrong, real fun game. However, having lost all sense of survival horror not only makes me understand why the series is basically dead in the water, but also question why so many survival horror fans even want a series remake (me having been one of them until now).
Like many capcom sequels at the time, you now have two protagonists (our returning Regina and a new character Dylan) each one you control during certain segments and each one having access to different weapons. It does feel as though Dylan is not quite given the same amount of love as all of his weapons are far worse in both firepower and capacity making his segments worse and worse as you progress.
Again, the actual gameplay is fun. Trying to get a higher combo without getting hit rewards you in extinction points which you can use to buy more weapons, ammo, upgrades, etc. Since there is a shop system, there is no longer a crafting system which can be seen as both good and bad considering how hard it was to juggle inventory in the previous installment. Lastly, the puzzles are far more dumbed down to the point that most puzzles are literally whack a series of buttons in a limited amount of time or “find part insert part”.

Spooky Rating? 1 out of 10 Dino Skeletons
Recommend? Yes. Despite the withdraw from survival horror, this is a very fun game in itself.

Resident Evil: Director’s Cut
PSX
I’ve been looking forward to getting to this considering my love for the Remake. Getting to finally experience the original cheesy survival horror was a fantastic experience and loved every moment of it (well almost). Loved the live action intro and poorly delivered lines throughout. They just might be the greatest charms of the game. The gameplay is fairly standard classic survival horror, but it does miss out on the Remakes Crimson Heads and Lisa Trevor encounters. The greatest enemy, however, is the Hunters. Between their invincibility frames upon getting up and their ability to insta-kill you in that time make them more than a deadly foe but a frustrating one as well. Puzzles felt pretty easy. My only other grief is that there is a secret choice system that isn’t quite clear especially for an older game. It felt all too easy to slip in the bad ending where you skip out on the final boss entirely.

Spooky Rating? 2 out of 10 Skeletons
Recommend? Yes. Though the remake does everything better than the original it is still great to experience it.

Silent Hill: Origins
PSP
Prequel to the original that doesn’t add too much. We do get to see some of the original cast younger and kind of what they were doing, but every interaction felt quite inconsequential. The main character, in particular, feels so odd that they are encountering any of this at all. Especially since they were just a truck driver passing through and basically had no reason to investigate anything. This game now introduces item durability which means far more item pickups. This creates an absolute pain in the butt to sift through your inventory as you may end up with a seemingly endless supply of weapons if you play more passively. Bosses are also quite unenjoyable even by survival horror standards.

Spooky Rating? 3 out of 10 Skeletons
Recommend? Meh, it’s not terrible but it doesn’t add much to the series and obviously continues the downhill trend right into Book of Memories.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories
PS Vita
If you expected a survival horror experience, then you would be sorely mistaken. Though I encourage series to branch out into different genres, a SH dungeon crawler just doesn’t quite fit. Continuing the trend from Origins we see a return of item durability as you go into block after block of rooms searching for supplies and challenges. There is a shop and though you can find money randomly, you will also want to sell weapons you nearly used up. This very quickly becomes taxing as you have such a limited storage space (even when you are able to eventually max it out). This means a great deal of your gameplay will be juggling nearly broken weapons with new ones until you can find the shop. You will then walk back and forth across the level, picking up and selling creating an excess bloating of time. On top of buying supplies, you can also purchase abilities that can assist in combat, charms that can be equipped to enhance stats, as well as cosmetics.
Triggering enough battle events and collecting all key items you can face the end of level puzzle. Easily the biggest disappointment are the puzzles. They always consist of the same format. Organize a series of idols based on color/brightness in a certain direction based on a few keywords you find in notes which only seem to come in a limited number of variations. Most enemies are okay enough to deal with, but it is highly integral to your survival that you learn what weapons are effective. However a select few enemies also depending on the size and shape of room can make some experiences more torture than others. Traps are another important thing to watchout throughout the room. Though, they do not show up until you trigger them with some delay to their effects. Some traps can help you depending on your light to blood affinity which is affected by the enemies type when they are killed. This can sometimes be changed if you use a specific ability before killing them to swap them. After every 3 floors you face a boss of each world. The bosses, for the most part, are alright (aside form the water level) though you may have to grind a previous level to stock up on health and weapons.
There is a slight story told through notes and activated tvs, but since it revolves around your blank slate create-a-character it never feels like there is much lore or importance to it. There is no “end” to the game. After x floors you do face a final boss which triggers an ending depending on files found and affinity, but after that it is floor after floor of grind.

Spooky Rating? 0 out of 10 Skeletons
Recommend? No. Though a SH dungeon crawler isn’t necessarily out of the question. This game does not deliver well due to poor gameplay, lack of intriguing plot, and reliance on multiplayer to enhance the experience.

Silentrets

Silent Hill games are my favourite games. I want to get ps games too, i could find just SH origins game on pc.

Bangledeschler

Unfortunately, it is very hard to find SH games on PC that isn’t the emulator route. I love the series, but a lot of the later games seem to fall off. Let’s hope the recent announcements exceed expectations.

Silentrets

I hope.