[h1] [b] [i] A fundamental misunderstanding of the Silent Hill’s essence, and broken beyond repair... [/i] [/b] [/h1]
[h1] [b] [i] ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ [/i] [/b] [/h1]
Silent Hill Homecoming is a game that consistently feels like it was a fanfiction written by an occasionally semi-competent team of developers who lacked the talent to produce a proper entry in the franchise, but desperately wanted to take a crack at it anyway. Which, of course, makes it all the more baffling that this ended up being an actual mainline Silent Hill game. While not always outright a bad game, Homecoming never strays away from making sure you know the designers had very little know-how of what made the series accrue a cult following.
[h1] [i] “I do love my son, Father. I love both my sons. But I had to make a choice, and the only way to live with that was to make sure my son never loved me. I had to make sure that he would never feel joy or compassion, all the things that make life worth living. You must understand, I was only trying to make things easier for him…. and for me.
And for this selfishness, I ask forgiveness.” [/i] [/h1]
Generally speaking, Homecoming is what you get when you assemble a team of passionate developers who harbor deep love and admiration for the source material but don’t really understand its overarching themes, symbols and meaning(s). Furthermore, the game suffers from the same affliction as the first Western Silent Hill game, Silent Hill Origins – every post-Team Silent developer seems to have been really obsessed with Silent Hill 2 and its approach to the story, and honestly? I get it. It was the most beloved entry in the series and one of the most influential game of all time, but its story was a good one-off, not something to be re-hashed over and over again. Yet here we are, fans of the original who wanted to make their own SH2 while possessing only a surface level understanding of it.
Homecoming could have worked - exchanging the usual "just a regular guy" archetype of a main protagonist for a soldiers, someone who is equipped to at least in part handle the horrors thrown at him by the titular town while also suffering from war-related afflictions (which would bring it close to one of the primary influences of the very first Silent Hill, Jacob's Ladder) has definitely served as an intriguing premise. Unfortunately, the execution falls completely flat, not in small part thanks to [spoiler] the fact that Alex Shephard is, at the end, just a regular guy who deluded himself into being one [/spoiler]. This hurts all the more because the beginning of the game is actually promising, featuring the signature gloomy and uneasy atmosphere, an excellent soundtrack, and some decent character interactions. I mean, the first time you visit Alex's home, you get the familiar tingles that only a Silent Hill game can deliver. However, the more you advance through the story, the more frustrating and mentally exhausting the whole experience becomes.
The game simply has too few redeeming factors and every pro comes with a sore con. A decent enemy variety is hampered by the fact that some of them have been imported straight from Silent Hill 2 and thus are completely out of place, captivating bosses are brought down by an abysmal combat system, interesting areas to explore clash with obnoxious progression and stupid puzzles, and a well-setup story takes a dive for the worst thanks to poor writing and inconsistent characters. This makes it difficult to praise any singular aspect of the game that has potential, because that potential largely remains unfulfilled and always comes with a negative and prominent asterisk. Add to that the fact that this is a shoddy PC port that simply doesn't work without copious fixes and even then you'd be lucky not to run into some kind of annoying issue and you've got and alright game at best that few would be hard-pressed to recommend going out of your way to so much as launch.
It really is disappointing to see that Homecoming is the only (older) Silent Hill game on Steam. While it is not necessarily the worst game out there, it definitely is the worst Silent Hill game...
[h2] [b] [u] Positives & Negatives [/u] [/b] [/h2]
[table]
[tr]
[th][b] [i] Positives [/i] [/b][/th]
[th][b] [i] Negatives [/i] [/b][/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]+ One thing Silent Hill game can never get wrong is soundtrack - Akira Yamaoka is a master of his craft[/td]
[td]- The game looked out-of-date graphically even at the time of its launch and aging has certainly not done it any favors[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]+ Intriguing story premise[/td]
[td]- Atrocious combat system, which is funny as Silent Hill has always had clunky and annoying combat, but never to this extent [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]+ The first 1-2 hours manage to evoke the proper Silent Hill-esque feelings and emotions[/td]
[td]- Utterly broken PC port that even community fixes could not patch together[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]+ Some of the multiple endings are actually interesting[/td]
[td]- Bad animations, both combat-related and facial[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]- Disappointing story and plot twist execution [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]- Boring and inconsistent characters, including the protagonist[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
