4.5/5 ★ – DanteHR's review of SILENT HILL 2.

It seems that the wait is over.. The remake of one of the best and most emblematic Survival-Horror games has arrived and delivers much more than we expected. Although I have most of them remained skeptical when Konami announced that the remake would be made by "Bloober Team", (The Medium, Layers of Fear). However, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that they managed to deliver one of them the best experiences of the respective genre in recent times, eclipsed only by the remake of another legendary game from 2005, "Resident Evil 4 Remake". Personally, I haven't played the original, but after the experience I had with this game, I will definitely try the whole series.. although I was disappointed by Silent Hill: The Short Message, which was launched this year at the end of January. The game starts exactly like the original, being a remake, it was to be expected... however, it is commendable that the studio managed to keep the atmosphere for which the original was so loved and unique. In addition to this, I knew from the start that the game is based on a much more horror theme than the other Survival-Horror games released in the last period, not only from the atmosphere, but also from the sound. When it comes to the gameplay, it is much different than the original, the gameplay being based on the modern Resident Evil games that we all love, a major improvement if i can say so.. however, it doesn't feel as good as Resident Evil 2/3/4 Remake. He has a ton of problems when it comes to movement and the weight of the shots, 99% of the time, it feels like punching a punching bag, rather than a human monster. Otherwise, I didn't have any big problems with the combat, the gunplay felt okay, the variety of enemies and the weapons were also very acceptable, the only confusion I had was with the bosses, really, they were emblematic, but that's about where the praise stops, otherwise, they were just basic enemies with more life and a similar design. I would also like to talk a little about the puzzles that the game offered us.. you can choose the difficulty from the beginning for the puzzles, you have 3 difficulties in total (easy, medium, hard). I went on the easiest difficulty only because I'm not a person who thinks that much in a video game (and who prefers action) .. At first, I was really confused, I had the experience from the Resident Evil series, but the puzzles seemed much more complicated, you had to put everything together just to solve a single puzzle, which takes you to another puzzle and by solving that puzzle, you manage to have an item for another advanced puzzle. Fun fact, I'm writing this review so late just because I couldn't spend more than 2 hours a day playing the game, I had nasty migraines because of the nerves caused by the respective puzzles, I had to use guides for certain puzzles. We have reached the best category where the game shines all the time.. GRAPHICS. It's the first thing you notice when you enter it, it looks exceptionally good, the textures are great and are very high quality, the animations are top notch and especially the ambient light + reflections, they all look unreal good, sometimes, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen at how good everything looks. Although many people complain about Unreal Engine 5, especially since we had so many broken games at launch, optimization made dust just because of the "engine", but the true nature was that the developers are much too lazy to optimize the game properly... and they focus on AI upscaling, or who knows, maybe it's nVidia, AMD tricks?? I suppose that we won't find out too soon.. Finally, leaving that aside, the premise was that, although the engine takes so much hate and is considered "broken", I can't say anything else, except that it does miracles.. Black Myth: Wukong and Silent Hill 2 Remake are the examples I can give to any believer of the theory of the broken engine and everything. Another category in which the game shines is probably the category of sound and music. I can honestly say that Silent Hill 2 Remake has one of the best soundtracks I ever heard through my career in this industry. The story of the novel is so scary that every step taken by another entity makes you cringe. The sounds of gunfire, of tools, locks, and even the creaking of the floor are top notch. They seem so real and all the time it makes you have an amalgam of negative emotions, fear, despair...etc, you got it. Leaving the sound, i can praise the music as much, maybe even more.. they kept the same composer and you can see that the man still hasn't lost his talent, for the most part, they are the same songs as in the original game, but remastered. Amplified to be suitable for modern gaming. The story in Silent Hill 2 is probably one of the best stories ever written in gaming, not only do you have such good characters, but the emotion and twists and turns make the game a masterpiece that doesn't get old, now with the remake, the story is exactly the same, only... with much better graphics and a soundtrack, the emotions are even more intense. Storywise, all the remake adds are 2 new endings, in addition to the 6 that the original game had. In short (in case there are people who don't have the slightest idea about how to eat the game), our main character is a man named "James", who lost his wife a few years ago. James receives a mysterious letter from a person who claims to be his wife, Mary.. in the letter, she says that she misses him very much and is waiting for him in their special place, namely the town of "Silent Hill", where the name of the series comes from. Arriving there, James realizes that the place is not the same as it was many years ago, but loving it so much, he decides to he stays in that cursed city to see his wife again. The twists and turns are what what make the game even more special, considering that it is more of a psychological horror. I leave it to you to discover the story. With decent gameplay, amazing graphics and an Oscar-worthy soundtrack, the remake of Silent Hill 2 is not far from perfection! Indeed, it is not at the level of Resident Evil 4 Remake, but it feels like a great start for Konami and Bloober Team, especially after the Short Message disappointment we got this year. The game is a PS5 and PC exclusive, it probably won't ever make it on XBOX, however, it is one of the only games this year that I recommend everyone (especially horror fans) to play even if it is at Full Price. How good was this title, I put all my confidence in the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3, which i will review next year when the game will release. 9/10 Made by DanteHR