This article originally ran under a different banner/website in November of 2020 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
HEAR YE!!! HEAR YE!!! After playing through Amnesia Rebirth, I, the Video Game Doomsayer, have a yearning for some truly unique horror experiences. As I sort through my Steam library, I was hit with the notation that so many horror games are pitch black mazes with monsters looking for cheap jump scares. As much as I still love Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the imitators it has spawned have me weary. After the disappointing sequel Amnesia Rebirth, I can’t spend another Halloween fumbling around in the dark. Thankfully, the necromancers at Good Old Games have risen the lost Silent Hill 4: The Room to life. I imagine them in a dark tower using the lightning striking across the sky to zombify the corpse of Silent Hill 4. Cackling knowing that most Silent Hill fans are crying for Silent Hill 2 or 3 to be brought to life over Silent Hill 4, the black sheep of the series. With the last few nights left in October, what better time to try out Silent Hill 4: The Room.
So this is a story all about how Henry Townshend’s life got flipped upside down as he’s been locked into his apartment for several days. He awakens one day to see the door to the apartment has been chained shut from the inside, causing him to be trapped for days. My first thought when seeing the door to Henry’s apartment covered in chains was adoration for how seriously he was taking the quarantine. However, it slowly becomes clear the events leading up to Henry’s entrapment are supernatural as a hole appears on his bathroom wall. Having grown tired of the quarantine restrictions, Henry does what we would all do with a mystic hole in our bathroom walls: climb through it.
The hole leads Henry to some familiar places outside his apartment, like the subway and neighborhood surrounding him, but naturally, something is off. These locations are drenched in rust and flesh. Lumbering flesh-covered monsters roam the halls. Characters you meet and interact with almost have a detached sense of the world to them. As if they weren’t seeing the same monstrosities as you were. One character off-handedly mentions that she and Henry are just in a dream of hers and could almost see what she means. Unfortunately, this detached dreamer ends up dead in this dark dream and Henry awakens to find her dead in real life. Determined that these deaths are connected with his door being locked, Henry continues to venture to these nightmares to piece together the mystery.
Right off the bat, there are some unique ideas that I haven’t seen other games try to imitate. Throughout the blizzard nightmare worlds Henry visits, various holes allow you to return to your room. While safe in your apartment, your health naturally restores, you can place items in storage and the camera switches to a first-person mode to help it feel like a cozy familiar home. Once you venture out of your apartment, the camera switches to a third person that follows Henry around as if it was a monster stalking him. Much like the fixed cameras in the older Resident Evil games, the camera will fix itself in certain locations in various rooms and will only move to follow you around. Some hallways might have the camera fixated above you as you walk down the hall; slowly starting to pan back as you approach a corner, hindering your field of view. Combining twisting turning camera angles with the dingy rust and decaying flesh covering the walls, and the eerie groans that echo through these nightmares, and you get environments more adept at making me uneasy than any of the pitch-black caves in Amnesia Rebirth.
While the environment is effective at creating dread, the monsters inhabiting these worlds don’t always invoke the same emotion. The zombie dogs and apes work well to complement the decay fleshy nature of many of the environments, and the Twin monsters are perfect Japanese-style monsters. Unfortunately, the rest of the monster designs kinda falls flat. The giant moths that attack you aren’t scary. They could almost be mistaken for bats if not for the constant buzzing. The nurse monsters have this melting flesh look that is ruined by the fact that they burp when you hit them. How can I be scared of that, it is more humorous than eerie. Finally, we have ghosts. Much like the moths, these enemies are more annoying than scary. You are capable of knocking these enemies to the ground, but unlike every other enemy, you cannot stomp on them to finish them off. Meaning it is more efficient to just try and dodge out of the way of their grabs. Unfortunately, this can be near impossible in some of the cramped spaces within Silent Hill 4. I recall one time, I had to attach a train lever in the cabin of a subway train. A ghost followed me into the tight space and effectively was able to stun lock me. I couldn’t run past her as she blocked the entrance. I couldn’t stop her from grabbing me and draining my health. She was able to take me from almost full health to death with almost no retaliation. All I could do is look on with annoyance.
When the enemy isn’t stun-locking you into a corner, you can engage with them in combat; mainly revolving around melee combat. You will frequently find items such as pipes, golf clubs, and baseball bats, you can use to swing at enemies. Now Henry isn’t exactly a melee powerhouse; he looks like he has to put all his might into swinging a mere golf club. You can also find guns, but ammo is limited, meaning you have to pick moments to use guns carefully. As you can probably imagine, the combat is a bit sticky and cumbersome, but I was never frustrated with it. Clearly, Silent Hill 4 is not trying to be Dark Souls, and I almost applaud them for not smoothing out the rough edges of the combat.
If Silent Hill 4 is a slouch in the combat department, it certainly makes up for it with its puzzles. Many of the puzzles within this game are used to progress the story forward, like unlocking rooms or trading items for keys. Some of the puzzles range from being able to cleverly find the solution to frustrating resorting to a walkthrough. I know the Silent Hill series has been known for complex puzzles, but it always feels disheartening to be forced to use a walkthrough. I think back to the fog puzzle in the forest world. I receive a key to unlock a door, but anytime I try to get to the door, I get locked into a Lost Forest loop. I eventually caved and consulted a walkthrough. The solution made me feel incredibly stupid and scratching my head at the same time. I walked away saying how I was supposed to figure that out. Frankly, I don’t think these puzzles are a deal breaker but be prepared to have a walkthrough on hand.
Lastly, I must talk about the second half of the game. Silent Hill 4 commits one of the biggest sins known to gamers. It is a vile and heinous attack that some might not forgive. The second half of Silent Hill 4 is an escort quest. Naturally, horrors of escort quests from World of Warcraft are flooding into your mind as we speak. Well, my loyal followers, I am here to tell you this escort quest … is not as bad as some of those early Wow escort quests. Henry discovers one of his neighbors had survived her attack in the nightmare realm and he is determined to rescue her. Henry and his neighbor must dig deeper into previously visited nightmares to dive further into the mystery. A lot of the previous levels are used efficiently as puzzles form around where you can take your new escort. For example, since she is injured, she can’t climb certain ladders, resulting in the need to find alternate routes for her. Silent Hill 4 is fairly clever in how it creates new puzzles with older environments, and as a result, I am willing to forgive this sin. However, the fact the neighbor is running around in heels is quite dumb. You have a spare set of shoes in your room Henry, why can’t you lend them to her?
Despite the many, many flaws baked deep into Silent Hill 4: The Room, I can’t deny I am weirdly hypothesized by it. Maybe after wandering through so many dark hallways with the saddest of flashlights have broken my spirits to the point where I am willing to forgive anything with an original idea. I do feel as if I am a moth drawn to the light of something unique in the nature of Silent Hill 4: The Room. It certainly captures the dread that the series has been known for and the story has completely arrested my imagination since seeing it appear on GOG. Yes, many of the gameplay components are unpolished, but I don’t believe them to be a deal-breaker. As I prepare this speech for all of you, MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS, I frequently found myself stopping to sneak a few minutes with Silent Hill 4. If that is not a ringing endorsement, then I don’t know what is.
