Silent Hill 2 review: faithful remake understands the assignment
Silent Hill 2 MSRP $70.00 Score Details Pros
- Detailed characters and world
- Fantastic sound design
- Strong puzzles
- Redesigned boss fights
- Original story is still impactful
- Padded with backtracking
- Combat gets old
After hours spent hiding from twisted nurses, I’m finally ready to escape Silent Hill 2’s Brookhaven Hospital. I frantically search for a front door key in the lobby, but I find one final doctor’s note first. The journal entry ruminates on an illness that’s taken over the small town, one that’s left its victims lost beyond the borders of reality. The medical world is on the hunt for a cure, but this doctor questions if it’s really a sickness at all. Sure, their patients are lost in a world within their head, but they seem at peace there — happy, even.
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“So why, I ask myself, why in the name of healing him must we drag him painfully into the world of our own reality?” the writer wonders.
That’s always been the key to Silent Hill 2’s horror, and it’s carefully preserved in Bloober Team’s faithful remake. The PlayStation 2 classic is filled with creepy monsters that will stalk anyone unwise enough to enter the town of Silent Hill, but that’s not the source of its fear. The real scary part is what lies outside of the city limits: a harsh world where monsters roam free on two legs instead of hiding in the shadows. Maybe it’s safer in the fog.
While it may be an unnecessary project, Silent Hill 2’s remake keeps the original’s haunting essence intact by staying true to its unsettling atmosphere, off-kilter tone, and uncomfortable moments. It’s a respectful revisit that only veers off course when it tries a little too hard to add pounds onto a sleek horror game. Even with some extra weight, the tortured story told here is every bit as harrowing
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