The PS Vita’s forgotten Silent Hill game deserves a revival

One of my favorite franchises is the Tales series, and in 2014, when Bandai Namco announced that the Vita-exclusive Tales of Hearts R was being translated into English, I went out and bought Sony’s handheld with my hard-earned college job money. Like any good gamer trying to justify their purchase, I started seeking out more Vita-exclusive games. That actually introduced me to many other franchises that I never would have otherwise tried.

Persona 4 Golden was my first Persona game, Uncharted: Golden Abyss was my first Uncharted game, and Killzone: Mercenary was my first Killzone game. These entries fulfilled the Vita’s promise of bringing console-level gaming to a handheld. However, others weren’t as successful.

The Vita-exclusive Silent Hill: Book of Memories was released in 2012 and received mediocre reviews at the time. It was criticized for not being either a good Silent Hill game, or even a good dungeon crawler. I always knew about the Silent Hill series, but had never played any of its games. After all, I was a toddler and early adolescent during its glory years in the 2000s.

• After cameoing in Astro Bot, these games deserve to be on PS5
• Silent Hill 2 remake: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more
• Silent Hill creator’s new game Slitterhead prioritizes action over scares

So when I got my Vita, I dove into the Silent Hill series. Yes, the action-focused Silent Hill: Book of Memories was my first Silent Hill game. Now coming off the heels of Silent Hill 2’s excellent remake, I’m left reminiscing about an underappreciated game that deserves to be remembered too.

Reading time

Even though I hadn’t played a Silent Hill game before, I knew that it was a horror series, but I was surprised when I booted Book of Memories up and didn’t find it scary at all. After creating my character and watching the intro cutscene of a guy delivering a strange book to him, I was immediately thrust into a tutorial where I learned how to bash the guts out