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On September 25, Konami released Silent Hill f, the newest title in their long-running survival horror franchise and the first entirely new game in the franchise in thirteen years. This title moves the franchise from its previous American setting and instead takes place in Japan. The game’s big selling point, of course, is that Ryukishi07 from 07th Expansion and writer of the critically acclaimed Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni would be helming the story, giving the game an entirely different feel from previous titles and pulling in a potential new fanbase. Is this title a successfully told horror story, and will fans of Ryukishi’s prior works be satisfied with it? Let’s break the game down piece by piece and find out.
Taking place in another country entirely, players will be exploring a town other than Silent Hill for the first time in franchise history. Instead, this title takes place in the rural Japanese town of Ebisugaoka. This makes for a lovely change of pace as the game takes full advantage of this setting for setpieces.
Players will go from traversing through tight alleyways, walking through farmland, and even trekking up a mountain during their playthrough. Even though the setting has been completely reinvented, the exploration of the town still feels like Silent Hill as the player finds that nearly every home is locked, and the only signs of life are notes and the occasional character who only appears during cutscenes.
The town of the game may not be Silent Hill, but the experience of walking through it, only barely avoiding monsters trying to kill you as you make it to the one area you can actually enter, feels much more in line with how the town was in those original games than the almost open-world sidequest-ified Silent Hill scene in the recent Silent Hill 2 Remake.
The atmosphere of Ebisugaoka itself is also immaculate. Seeing the town go from empty and desolate as the dark fog rolls in to almost hostile looking as the red flowers bloom after every major plot point makes the player feel equal parts curious and afraid of the situation that Hinako has been thrust into.
Of course, the player has the ability to fight against these horrors just like in prior Silent Hill titles. Hinako may not have access to guns like Harry Mason, but she is a master of using steel pipes, baseball bats, and even sledgehammers. Even as she is screaming her head off, Hinako is always ready to fight back.
The game features a stamina meter that will go down as the player runs or attacks, but they can immediately refill it if they perform a perfect dodge. There is also a focus meter, which briefly slows down time so the player can parry enemy attacks for massive damage.
While enjoyable, one does have to question why the game’s combat system has these features. The dissonance between Hinako’s actions and portrayal as a scared young girl and her ability to perform a triple tiger drop sword counter on enemies is palpable. However, this is also a dissonance that has always existed in the survival horror genre. It’s just particularly noticeable when a game has stamina meters and slowdown like this one.
The combat being as action-focused as it is, thankfully, doesn’t take much away from the game’s fear factor, as being surprised by an enemy waiting for you around the corner or the tension of knowing how few healing items you have on hand is still effective even if Hinako is capable of bashing a few heads in.
Silent Hill f’s gameplay loop can best be described as going back to basics. The game is very linear as the player merely makes their way from setpiece to setpiece, solving only a few puzzles along the way. There isn’t really a way to get lost in these areas either, as the areas aren’t structured like those seen in Silent Hill 2 and 3, having very little in the way of rusted doors or locked rooms you need to remember the location of.
Though there is one exception to this near the end of the game, where an area is seemingly intentionally designed like a Silent Hill dungeon, but aside from that, the gameplay of the title is very basic. Though this also makes it a great title for newcomers to the survival horror genre, as there isn’t much they’ll need to get a grasp on.
Overall, I would say that the gameplay experience of Silent Hill f is quite enjoyable, time that feels like a return of the classic Survival Horror genre. Those who have experience with the Fatal Frame games or Silent Hill 3 in particular will feel quite at home playing this title.
Now that we have gone over the gameplay, it is time to discuss the story of this title. Because one of the major advertising points of Silent Hill f was how it would be a story of feminism written by Ryukishi07, the author of the When They Cry franchise, we must discuss these themes and how it compares to his other works.
While I will attempt to be as spoiler-free as possible in this section of the review, some details must be mentioned. If you would like to go into Silent Hill f as blind as possible, now would be a good place to stop reading.
Ryukishi’s history as a social worker has always come across in his writing. He is a man with many opinions on child abuse, the systems that allow it to happen, and the extreme actions someone under the pressure of said abuse can take as a means of escape.
All of these themes are present in Silent Hill f. Hinako’s life with her parents and the tragedy that can come from a patriarchy that believes the best relationship a child could have with them is one of constructed fear is a major motivation for the events and monsters in the game. She is far from the only one in town to be going through these issues as well. Her friends are going through similar issues as well, which are only fully elaborated on via the notes players can find throughout the world.
One series of notes in particular about two parents who learn their child has been diagnosed with autism and instead of giving them the support they need, choose to chastise them as they demand they ‘act normal’ will hit close to home for a lot of players.
The game’s biggest and most central theme throughout the story is, of course, around women’s gender roles in society and examines them through the lens of 1960s Japan. However, the setting is merely window dressing as the messages told through the story are still relevant to today’s society.
The game doesn’t portray these messages in a subtle manner either. Everywhere the player looks, they’ll find beer advertisements that objectify women or magazines that talk about how to be a real Showa man who is better at sports than women. The town’s monsters will take the form of predators who lick the faces of women and become enraged when pushed or literal birthing mechanisms whose autonomy has been taken away from them.
Those last monsters in particular are a very interesting case, as while most enemies in Silent Hill f can be avoided if the player runs away, you must fight them as the path forward will not open unless you confront them. This feels like a very intentional metaphor for how, even if Hinako were to avoid most of life’s predators, the fact that society sees her and women in general as mere birthing devices is an unavoidable reality.
This theme bleeds from the cutscenes and enemy designs directly into the gameplay too, as throughout the game, Hinako’s appearance will slowly change and become more monstrous as she is molded into a perfect, obedient bride. While these changes take the form of gameplay upgrades one cannot help but take note of the tragedy that comes with it and how by the end of the game, Hinako’s very face is obscured by the society that creates these rules.
None of this is told in a particularly subtle way; characters speak about the game’s themes repeatedly at length. Almost as if it has been intentionally written this way to avoid bad-faith misinterpretation. The game may not have the subtlety of prior Silent Hill games, but the series’ heart of using horrific imagery to tell a message like that is still on full display.
Fans of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni will immediately be able to spot many similarities between Silent Hill f and Ryukishi’s prior works. The setting of the game being a very similar town to Himanizawa almost primes you to expect at least some resemblance between them. These can come in the form of small easter eggs, such as writing the player can find on the chalkboard in the school, to larger parallels in the story’s themes.
Of course, for every reference and plot beat reminiscent of Higurashi, the game knows exactly where to take a different direction and subvert expectations created by Ryukishi’s previous work. The character of Sakuko, in particular, has a few aspects that seem to play into and subvert what one would expect from a similar character in Higurashi.
While these Higurashi parallels are fun to notice and point out, it is worth noting that at no point do they ever detract from Silent Hill f as an individual experience. They are mostly kept to either a background level or merely an examination of how Ryukishi can reuse particular story beats in a lot of his works.
Overall, I found the story of Silent Hill f to be very emotional and almost personal. The themes it handles are heavy and should only be experienced when you are in a proper headspace. If you are a fan of Ryukishi’s prior works or horror story allegories in general, then please consider picking up Silent Hill f and experience it for yourself.
Silent Hill f
Bottom Line
Silent Hill f tells a very heartfelt story about abuse and feminism through the lens of the classic Survival Horror franchise. The title is very different from previous Silent Hill games but any fan of the franchise or horror in general will enjoy this title.
