Is Silent Hill 2 Remake fantastic BECAUSE of fan backlash, or in spite of it?

[Jonipoon]

> Silent Hill: The Short Message was developed in-house and didn't recieve much fanfare if I recall

I love how people trashed on TSM at first, and then when the same people realized that some developers from Team Silent were involved they tried to make up excuses and explanations. Hypocrisy at its finest.

[jdnation]

Would definitely have to disagree with that assessment.

I think the Silent Hill 2 remake was a success in no small part because of Ito and Yamaoka's input to be sure. Just as much is owed to the people at Bloober however, and it's a little disrespectful to take that away from them after they've single handedly made everyone eat their words. The scenario writers, the environmental designers, voice actors, voice direction, accessibility designers...etc - all a group of dedicated artisans that are near the peak of their craft after a string of very hit and miss titles. People who've no doubt learned and grown from the experience and can use this win to potentially chart a new path forward.

Ito and Yamaoka consulted on the creature design and music arrangement for this game respectively - but guess what... they also consulted on the titles that at best left the fanbase split, too. And if reports are to be believed, Bloober resisted changes suggested by Ito and Yamaoka because they wanted this to be as slavishly faithful to the original as they could make it while putting their own imprint on it.

And their gamble paid off.

Clearly, the takeaway from all of this shouldn't be " here's why only Japanese people can do Silent Hill properly" (Silent Hill: The Short Message was developed in-house and didn't recieve much fanfare if I recall), but "here's what is possible when a stable group of individuals are able to just sit there and work away at something without overbearing corporate middlemanagers breathing down their necks and underfunding their projects" (given that Silent Hill Downpour was made on the same budget as Silent Hill 2).

I'd like to see Yamaoka and Ito be involved in future projects too, but I'm not going to pretend there wasn't a good while back there where even they were spinning their wheels a bit.

You could be right, but as of now there is not much to base that prediction on.

We have several titles independently made by Bloober, whose stories and direction are mixed at best.

And we have one remake, where the consensus leans that they have done a good job improving a story that was already a classic.

That they had the good sense to push back against changes that were too far in their estimation by the original creators, is a good thing, in so far as we as fans and they themselves as fans naturally want to preserve what we love. The original creators, like the majority of artists, are always over-critical of their own work, and tend to obsess over the flaws and things they wish they could've done better or differently during the process. So it is natural for them to want to keep polishing a diamond, and for fans of the original to prevent them from changing things. Art history and film is rife with debates and commentary over preservation, re-edits, various cuts, remasters, remakes etc.

Do I believe that Bloober can do a great job remaking SH 1, 3 and 4? Absolutely. They have proven themselves.

Do I believe Bloober can do an original SH project on their own? I have reservations, but I'm not opposed to it, any more than I am opposed to NoCode, or Climax or Vatra trying again or any new studio, Western or Eastern. I am always optimistic.

But I'd be even more optimistic if the same formula of success for SH2 Remake was maintained - Japanese creative leads working with Bloober and a good collaborative feedback loop between them on a new entry.

Bloober as fans of the original games GET what fans love and want to see in a Remake that the original creators may not understand. It's ironic, but it is true.

On an original title? This is new territory. There is nothing to compare it to. Bloober may play it safe on their own by imitating what has been done too strictly, but the original Japanese creators are more daring and desirable to not simply repeat themselves. That they wanted to change SH2 too much demonstrates that. To me this feels like an opportunity to go wild with a proper sequel. F seems to already be going there.

So with the track record we're working with so far, I stand by my assessment. Remakes? Yes! New entry with the same Japanese leads? Yes! Yes! New entry on their own? Sure... I guess; I'm very willing to be surprised!

[Disrupticon]

I can certainly understand some trepidations based on their previous track record if the remake hadn't turned out as good as it had, but even the content warnings before The Medium and the SH2 remake show that there was room and a desire for them to grow and improve with their presentation of the kinds of subjects they touch upon.

It's not out of line to say they've have a little more to prove when it comes to creating their own original story, but I think they've earned the benefit of the doubt, and on the pure horror side of things I believe they've more than shown they're capable. SH2R is a harrowing front-to-back experience and I like to think I don't rattle easily these days anymore.

As selfishly as I'd like to see them remake 1, 3, and 4 first (The Room being the game I feel would benefit the most from a reimagining), I'd at least be intrigued to see their take on the series with an original title.

[ginjajacob]

Despite it, mostly. Though there was some feedback they took into account, they were smart not to tale any and all feedback into account. And of course there's the feedback from QA testing, internal company feedback, feedback from Ito and Yamaoka...etc.

One thing I like about the remake is that it's put to bed the lie that the series needs to be exclusively in Japanese hands to produce a successful entry. The consensus I've seen around this remake is that it's even MORE intimidating, unnerving and morose than its predecessor.

I don't know about that... The Japanese side and its original creators were heavily involved. And I don't think anyone was opposed to the idea of Japanese creatives working with Western tech for a decade now. While Bloober has done a good job here, it's a remake of a game where the story is largely intact with a facelift, versus the higher criticism against their original IP.

Frankly, I would love for both sides to collaborate again on an entirely new original Silent Hill title. Story, and concept and art direction from Japan, and Bloober handling the active development. Naturally, Bloober can also be involved in feedback during the creative phase, but the final call will come from the Japanese leads, and by those, I mean Ito, Yamaoka, Okamoto and anyone else at Konami.

Would definitely have to disagree with that assessment.

I think the Silent Hill 2 remake was a success in no small part because of Ito and Yamaoka's input to be sure. Just as much is owed to the people at Bloober however, and it's a little disrespectful to take that away from them after they've single handedly made everyone eat their words. The scenario writers, the environmental designers, voice actors, voice direction, accessibility designers...etc - all a group of dedicated artisans that are near the peak of their craft after a string of very hit and miss titles. People who've no doubt learned and grown from the experience and can use this win to potentially chart a new path forward.

Ito and Yamaoka consulted on the creature design and music arrangement for this game respectively - but guess what... they also consulted on the titles that at best left the fanbase split, too. And if reports are to be believed, Bloober resisted changes suggested by Ito and Yamaoka because they wanted this to be as slavishly faithful to the original as they could make it while putting their own imprint on it.

And their gamble paid off.

Clearly, the takeaway from all of this shouldn't be " here's why only Japanese people can do Silent Hill properly" (Silent Hill: The Short Message was developed in-house and didn't recieve much fanfare if I recall), but "here's what is possible when a stable group of individuals are able to just sit there and work away at something without overbearing corporate middlemanagers breathing down their necks and underfunding their projects" (given that Silent Hill Downpour was made on the same budget as Silent Hill 2).

I'd like to see Yamaoka and Ito be involved in future projects too, but I'm not going to pretend there wasn't a good while back there where even they were spinning their wheels a bit.

I agree with this, previously I was outspoken about how I think a decent silent hill game could have only been made by the original team, or a Japanese team. Blooper absolutely nailed this, and I agree with the reports they was building up to this, medium via previous work, Even the new endings feel as though they would have fit in originally. Furthermore, they defiantly listened to the feedback from fans and trailer reaction. ala James appearance and his reaction to Maria getting "killed" by Pyramid head in the trailer vs the final game. A good change as the fall to the ground was always overly dramatic.

[Utherworld]

I believe this remake is fantastic because Bloober understands Silent Hill. But....
They were given the chance to refine this game, time to cook. This fanbase is particularity hard to please.

I mean, we got 3 FANTASTIC games right off the bat. Those are some mighty large shoes to fill.

Bloober understand the source material and was given the time to refine things. The finer details for this fanbase are huge.

Bloober took the essence of what this game was, and made all of us 'feel" as we did when we 1st played the game again.

The additions they made did not mechanically break the games emersion, it added to it.

That was the smartest thing they did.

[DinoNerd89]

According to this, we will be getting new games, since Konami is having an incredible quarter, with record high profit metrics.

https://simulationdaily.com/news/konami ... q2-fy2025/

[Utherworld]

According to this, we will be getting new games, since Konami is having an incredible quarter, with record high profit metrics.

https://simulationdaily.com/news/konami ... q2-fy2025/

It all comes down to $$$.....

[phantomess]

Bloober clearly cared about making an amazing game that did SH2 justice. They've been saying that since day one (when it was announced), and I believed them. I was hyped for this game ever since we learned about it in the SH transmission. They even brought back some original team members. I don't know how so many people were NOT hyped. I also thought it looked great from all the trailers.

Sure, some unimportant changes to character designs may have resulted from people's bitching. But it was always going to be a great game.

[Caim]

I finally beat it yesterday and man oh man, I had a really good time with it. Apparently 20 hours of gameplay is enough to make me take an entire month with it, partly because I'm older now and don't have as much time for gaming. Still: very, very pleased with it as a whole. I'll be playing the OG and the remake for many years to come, I reckon.

Only thing I didn't like is that you don't get to actually use the Great Knife as a weapon, which I kind of expected due to the way weapons were actively switched during gameplay.

Still a 9/10, easily.

[Utherworld]

I finally beat it yesterday and man oh man, I had a really good time with it. Apparently 20 hours of gameplay is enough to make me take an entire month with it, partly because I'm older now and don't have as much time for gaming. Still: very, very pleased with it as a whole. I'll be playing the OG and the remake for many years to come, I reckon.

Only thing I didn't like is that you don't get to actually use the Great Knife as a weapon, which I kind of expected due to the way weapons were actively switched during gameplay.

Still a 9/10, easily.

I said the same thing, not being able to use the Great knife was a bummer...

[Droo]

Having James swinging the Great Knife around would break the realism of the game.

[The Adversary]

I doubt he was gonna make it up that ladder with that thing, that's for sure.

[jdnation]

A fair compromise could've been to give him a scaled down great knife as a cleaver melee weapon.

[Caim]

It seems that with the chainsaw in the remake, once you get the plank, you can still equip the chainsaw by doing so in your inventory. I guess that could have been a way of circumventing the whole quick-switching of firearms and melee weapons for the Great Knife. Still, not a big deal. They let you drag it through the phantom-limbs hallway as a nice little nod. Outside of the whole bouncing the Great Knife off of the wall trick during the duo Pyramid Head fight on hard mode in the OG, I hardly used it anyway.

Oh, and part of me was wondering if we were going to get a Great Spear instead after the duo PH fight in the remake... sigh. A man can dream!

[DinoNerd89]

Having James swinging the Great Knife around would break the realism of the game.

Imagine how popular he would be around birthdays and holidays though, being the designated cake/turkey slicer...