Written on January 21, 2025

Last year, a remake of Silent Hill 2 was released. As a pretty big fan of the original, I was extremely skeptical. But after about two hours of playing the game, I was unexpectedly and pleasantly surprised by the remake. It wasn't until I got further into the game that I started to question my previous assessment.

Overall, the game builds on the original without being too reliant on it. There are a few cutscenes added, changed, or removed and while almost all of the areas are recognizable, you go through them in a completely different way, which I love. It takes a completely different route than its predecessor.

I remember thinking that I would be able to breeze through it without any problems, since I know the original pretty much by heart. Boy, was I wrong. The game does this best in the first few hours of gameplay.

I had some issues with a few of the gameplay mechanics, but none were bad enough to warrant serious complaints. To be fair, the original had its quirks too. What the original does well, however, is tell its story. So how does the remake compare?

I think the remake tells Eddie's story a little better than the original and makes him a slightly more melancholic character. Angela's story is told beautifully and so is James' story. Although I think removing the headphones scene was a mistake.

What I think the game gets wrong the most is how much priority it gives to combat. The combat is much more prominent and distracting. It almost completely overwhelms the story, or at least the feeling of the story.

In the original, combat was almost an afterthought, but in the remake it's fleshed out and given a much more central place in the gameplay. It's almost impossible to feel or think about the story when you're constantly being bombarded by enemies that are, admittedly, pretty tough and increasingly difficult to fight.

It's not until the very end of the game, when James has watched the videotape, that the game finally gives you the space to catch your breath and let yourself wander around for a while to actually feel something other than tension. It finally gives you the space to think about what just happened.

Even when key scenes from the original return, they don't have the same impact, as you have to immediately refocus on the combat just before and immediately after them.

The game doesn't give you enough opportunity to catch your breath and reflect on what you just experienced. The story is retold well enough, but the remake won't leave you as unsettled as the original. What makes Silent Hill 2 so great for me isn't the horror elements themselves, but the silence in between.