Is Downpour scary?

[NanayaShiki]

Seems like criticism of the monster design is pretty universal, I haven't seen a single person compliment them... it's really disappointing how lazy the designs are. Monsters aren't everything, a lot of different things contribute to atmosphere, but... I feel like good designs really do add to the atmosphere of the game, and bad designs can take away from it.

As ridiculous as their concept is, I kinda liked the design of the Doll monster. I had no problems with the Screamers or Prisoners either, in terms of design. Weeping Bats felt like it was something right out of Homecoming, though.

[KiramidHead]

Seems like criticism of the monster design is pretty universal, I haven't seen a single person compliment them... it's really disappointing how lazy the designs are. Monsters aren't everything, a lot of different things contribute to atmosphere, but... I feel like good designs really do add to the atmosphere of the game, and bad designs can take away from it.

None of the designs are lazy, exactly. They just aren't as good as previous ones. And honestly, most of them are better than most of SH4's designs. The annoying bugs and those toad stool thingies were stupid. And did we really need more dogs? The monkeys were just silly. About the only monster that stood out in SH4 was the Twin Victim. The real problem with Downpour's monsters is the lack of variety, with only 4 types, one of which has two varieties.

As ridiculous as their concept is, I kinda liked the design of the Doll monster. I had no problems with the Screamers or Prisoners either, in terms of design. Weeping Bats felt like it was something right out of Homecoming, though.

The weeping bats did look a bit like the needlers, but were nowhere near as annoying.

[Number 7]

The only monster designs that I didn't like were the Prisoners and their bigger brothers. Plus, I thought the Boogeyman was a little too Resident Evil. But the Barbie Dolls were disturbing as hell, the Screamers grew on me, the Weeping Bats were somewhere in the middle (except for the one's covered in blood. They looked old-school SH disturbing). Of course this is all from someone who finds the giant talking monocle face scary.

[Silent Fantasy]

the face was very cheesy to me and didnt seem to have any relevence withen the story whatsoever. i didnt like it.

[Harlequin]

the face was very cheesy to me and didnt seem to have any relevence withen the story whatsoever. i didnt like it.

Totally agreed. I didn't even realize there was a face there at first until I noticed something moving. People have been finding symbolic reasons for it but honestly I don't see any. I think it was just a moment that they put in to try and freak you out.

[NanayaShiki]

The weeping bats did look a bit like the needlers, but were nowhere near as annoying.

Actually, they looked more like Lurkers' top mixed with Schism bottom to me. Maybe a bit lankier. But honestly that humanoid skin-colored type of monster will probably always remind me of Homecoming now, even if it's unfair that it is. Thankfully there was only one of those type here in Downpour.

It's a bit sad this topic has come down to "monster designs", though. Honestly, the monsters and their designs always seemed to me to be one of the smaller aspects of SH's "scary" factor. Isn't it more about atmosphere and story? I think Downpour had both of those down, for the most part.

Of course this is all from someone who finds the giant talking monocle face scary.

You enjoyed the ride, Number 7!

[Tillerman]

About the only monster that stood out in SH4 was the Twin Victim. The real problem with Downpour's monsters is the lack of variety, with only 4 types, one of which has two varieties.

Yeah, but the Twin Victim is such a fantastic design that it kind of makes up for the other ones.

But I agree with you about lack of variety, in fact that seems to be a huge shortcoming of many horror games. Look at games like Amnesia... 2 monster designs, that's it. Shattered Memories took the problem to it's extreme by having only 1 monster, and Downpour only marginally improves on that. But even the Silent Hill games with the most variety have entire sections with 1 or 2 monsters cut and pasted many times over. It always feels like there's room for more variety, and yet modern developers seem to want to go in the opposite direction. It really aggravates me, to be honest.

It seems like a no-brainer... one of the ways a horror game can actually be scary is to constantly be throwing new dangers at the player so that they never know what to expect. I think the ideal would be something like Shadow of the Colossus, where every monster encounter is unique, so that the player is never allowed to get used to them. Of course, that's hard to do, and I don't expect developers to come up with 100 different monster designs, but they could at least try a little harder. Silent Hill 1 had somewhere around 10 designs, shouldn't each game in the series *at least* have that many? (And yes, this is a criticism I have of the revered SH2 as well.)

It's a bit sad this topic has come down to "monster designs", though. Honestly, the monsters and their designs always seemed to me to be one of the smaller aspects of SH's "scary" factor. Isn't it more about atmosphere and story? I think Downpour had both of those down, for the most part.

I agree that the focus shouldn't just be on the monsters, and the most important thing is atmosphere. However, I think that monster design plays a non-trivial role in creating that atmosphere. The early Silent Hill games have incredible atmosphere and I think the monster designs do play a role in that, along with many other things of course.

[Skele]

The game scared me a few of times. The first time i ran into the weeping bat i got freaked out, and there was a good jump scare really early in the game that made me say "man, what the fuck!?" the other one was in devil's pit, but i don't want to say when/where cos i don't want to spoil things for folks.

as far as the monster designs... they're awful.

[EmilietheStrange]

The game was tense. For example, throughout the whole mine level, I kept expected to be ambushed. Since there were sections of that level where you can't see more than 2 feet in front of you, it kept me on my toes.

As for jump scares, there were a few that got me. The first was when I released the first caged blue bird near the police station. As I stepped off the porch, about 3 screamers came out of no where and attacked me. The second happened in the normal version of the prison. I was walking along when part of the walkway collapsed a bit, making a loud noise as it did so.

[clips]

Even if the monster designs are lacking, they could've been outright scary if the had the right mannerisms or that disturbing factor. The atmosphere of the game is great...it's when the monsters come onto the scene is when the actual tension drops. Why are these supernatural creatures dodging and blocking my attacks?

The prisoners were fighting me like a boxer..not like a disturbed creature from the otherworld...their attacks should've been in trying to tear me apart...not punching and kicking me..they might as well have been normal humans in monster suits...same goes for the screamer...i didn't the scream attacks, but the dodging and blocking really took away any disturbing factor these creatures might've had thru their actions alone.

I was more afraid of the atmosphere itself than of the monsters...the creepy environments and dark corridors of this game are the spotlight in terms of the games scare and creepy factor....

[Tillerman]

^ I think that's a really excellent point about monster behavior. It's probably an even bigger reason why people don't like the monster designs.

Still, I think it's to this game's credit that people are praising the atmosphere despite those problems. If Vatra does get to do another Silent Hill, I hope they'll learn from their mistakes.

[supperhater]

Agreed, if the monsters had more erratic/twitchy/unpredictable movements and less blocking and casually strolling towards you, they could have been way more effective. Also, if they sounded more 'fucked up' and disturbing, the prisoner minions had the most generic sounding 'grunts' I have heard from a Silent Hill monster, I think they would be lame monsters even in a game like RE, let alone Silent Hill. If they made some unnatural sounding weird garbled noises like monsters in the old games they probably would have been way scarier, the noises they did make could not be more generic and dull. The way they approached and attacked was equally uninteresting, and often ridiculous. Double axe handles are not scary. I loved the dolls though, including the sounds they made which felt alot more in line with Silent Hill.

The only time the prisoner minions were remotely disturbing to me was in a short cutscene

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near the end of the game where they were on a leash that the prison juggernaut was holding

but since I'd seen them 100 times in the game before that, it was still only mildly unsettling. I didn't feel like they needed to be used earlier in the game like on the town streets for example, would have made more sense to leave them for the appropriate area. I think their designs had potential with the forced smile thing but they ended up being up there with the very worst SH monster designs I can recall.

Oh and I did find the game scary in a way, but not to the level of the originals, where you genuinely feel scared and disturbed and the feeling sticks with you for a while after playing. With Downpour, I tended to feel fairly tense alot of the time, especially playing on hard when low on health and not wanting to die, but it wasn't that feeling from the old games where you need to take a break from playing after a while as it's too unsettling. It's probably more in line with SH2's atmosphere than 1-3's more overt sense of dread. I thought some of the jump scares were okay, but stuff like a flock of crows flying past out of nowhere was really unnecessary and does nothing but lower the amount of tension that would have otherwise been built up had stupid shit like that not happened.
Despite the negatives mentioned in this post though I should reiterate I love the game and right now I consider it my 3rd fav in the series after the first two. I can't imagine how good another Vatra developed game could be if they fixed all of the glaring (but for the most part, minor) issues of Downpour and built on all of the amazing stuff they did right.

[Biccard]

Is Downpour scary? In my opinion, YES!!!! I have never been this scared playing Silent Hill before I think! I have nog compleged it yet, but it's extremely scary so far! The atmosphere, the monsters, themusic. And I gotta say, they really nailed it, about making the player feel that you never know what's coming around the corner! I absolutely love Downpour but it's really scary and the story seems very good although I don't know much yet. I'm pnly in the Library/archive. Not sure how far in the game that is. Is it still only the begin ing, or halfways, or...?

[KiramidHead]

Is Downpour scary? In my opinion, YES!!!! I have never been this scared playing Silent Hill before I think! I have nog compleged it yet, but it's extremely scary so far! The atmosphere, the monsters, themusic. And I gotta say, they really nailed it, about making the player feel that you never know what's coming around the corner! I absolutely love Downpour but it's really scary and the story seems very good although I don't know much yet. I'm pnly in the Library/archive. Not sure how far in the game that is. Is it still only the begin ing, or halfways, or...?

Time wise, it depends on how many side quests you've been doing. In terms of the main story, the end of that building is roughly the half way point.

[KingCrimson]

The thought crossed my mind today that Vatra basically took the most superficial elements from the series' history and tried to make them somehow fresh again:

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The Bogeyman from Homecoming wearing the miner's outfit from the movies, that awful monster from the early screenshots of Origins crawling on the ceiling like Valtiel, the overused wheelchair props (that made sense in SH3 as a nod to Alessa), sepia-toned flashbacks of a boy on the floor playing with toys, ghosts climbing out of the walls a la The Room, mannequins coming to life and attacking the player, breakable found melee weapons, a goofy glowing pink thing chasing the player through hallways, a butchy female cop, and a protagonist who kinda-sorta-maybe has amnesia.

And then they added in new content that had absolutely no relationship to the series thus far:

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Waterslide sequences, an Indiana Jones minecart ride, memorizing the patterns of sliding spikes like I'm playing a Mario game, well-lit environments full of enormous set pieces, gorgeous foliage shimmering in the sunset, and police cars apparently driven by monsters.

The game did a lot of things right, but the jarring dissonance created by putting Silent Hill's most tired cliches alongside utterly bizarre new content felt alienating, not to mention a tiny bit condescending. But at least it was scary at times.

[Yuki]

The thought crossed my mind today that Vatra basically took the most superficial elements from the series' history and tried to make them somehow fresh again:

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The Bogeyman from Homecoming wearing the miner's outfit from the movies, that awful monster from the early screenshots of Origins crawling on the ceiling like Valtiel, the overused wheelchair props (that made sense in SH3 as a nod to Alessa), sepia-toned flashbacks of a boy on the floor playing with toys, ghosts climbing out of the walls a la The Room, mannequins coming to life and attacking the player, breakable found melee weapons, a goofy glowing pink thing chasing the player through hallways, a butchy female cop, and a protagonist who kinda-sorta-maybe has amnesia.

And then they added in new content that had absolutely no relationship to the series thus far:

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Waterslide sequences, an Indiana Jones minecart ride, memorizing the patterns of sliding spikes like I'm playing a Mario game, well-lit environments full of enormous set pieces, gorgeous foliage shimmering in the sunset, and police cars apparently driven by monsters.

The game did a lot of things right, but the jarring dissonance created by putting Silent Hill's most tired cliches alongside utterly bizarre new content felt alienating, not to mention a tiny bit condescending. But at least it was scary at times.

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Wheelchairs make sense given the context of this game as well. Not to mention the wall-monsters are vastly different from the ones from SH4, and Murphy does not have amnesia. Also, where else have mannequins chased players...?

And the police cars weren't driven by monsters; they were a manifestation of Murphy being paranoid about getting caught by the cops again, and when he IS caught, in come monsters (because otherwise there'd be no consequence of it).

[Munchy]

It's funny, because this game so far has had some brilliant moments

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The general spacing between enemies and the freaky Escher Otherworld segments

and some stupid ones

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How is monsters driving a fucking patrol car even remotely scary OR subtle? Really guys???

. Overall, so far it's got most of the weirdness I like and expect from the games, but there are still some things that make me think Konami still doesn't quite get what made the old ones special.

[KingCrimson]

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Wheelchairs make sense given the context of this game as well. Not to mention the wall-monsters are vastly different from the ones from SH4, and Murphy does not have amnesia. Also, where else have mannequins chased players...?

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The whole reason wheelchairs make sense in this game is because they designed it that way to reference past games, which is a little cheap in my opinion. The game would've worked just as well, if not better, without them (Frank could have been represented by a hospital cot with IVs or something). I was talking about the gramophone sidequest regarding wall ghosts. If Murphy kills Frank, as in one of the endings, he has amnesia. Same goes for the possibility he stayed at the orphanage. Mannequins were an iconic enemy in Silent Hill 2.

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And the police cars weren't driven by monsters; they were a manifestation of Murphy being paranoid about getting caught by the cops again, and when he IS caught, in come monsters (because otherwise there'd be no consequence of it).

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I realize that concept, but its execution creates the apparent impression of monsters piled into a car, which is hilarious. Again, any number of consequences could've been added, or references to cop cars made less concrete. I am only saying the way it was handled was goofy and a departure from the tone of past games.

[Biccard]

To me, Downpour brings the Silent Hill series back to life!
Hey, quick question. If I've missed some sidequests, can I go back and do them before the game ends? I really want to get every bit of the story! Also, can someone provide a guide/list of Side quest locations and how to do them? I've done one: All Points Bulletin

[Bogeyman]

To me, Downpour brings the Silent Hill series back to life!
Hey, quick question. If I've missed some sidequests, can I go back and do them before the game ends? I really want to get every bit of the story! Also, can someone provide a guide/list of Side quest locations and how to do them? I've done one: All Points Bulletin

As long as you stay in Silent Hill you can do all the side-quests available in the game (except Digging up the past if it's your first playthrough).Keep in mind though that towards the end of the game there is a point of no return.I'll write that in spoiler tags just in case.

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At some point you have to leave Silent Hill using a boat at the docks and then there's no going back.You also lose all your items and equipments.

As for the side-quests guide,here you go.
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/foru ... ost4943266