Nintendo Switch Retrospective: A Week Before Launch of the Switch 2

Introduction

Well, the Nintendo Switch is less than a week away from being put on my shelf to collect dust forever. I mostly kid, but the Nintendo Switch 2 is less than a week away, and is more or less exactly what I wanted from a Switch follow up, i.e. a more powerful Switch 1. A straight upgraded replacement. Part of my desire for just a more powerful Switch is that I love the original Switch. I got it on launch day and have spent the past 8 years since 2017 and using the thing for hundreds of hours. It may just be my favorite console ever. So I thought I would briefly use this space to reflect on my time with the Nintendo Switch, what I liked about it, what I didn’t like, and what my hopes are for the Switch 2’s lifespan. 

My Experiences with the Original Switch

When Nintendo revealed the thing in its first trailer back in 2016, showing people in their mid 20s having rooftop parties gawking at Super Mario Odyssey, I immediately called bullshit on the thing having the smooth versatility that was advertised. I just didn’t believe that the thing would seamlessly go from playing on a TV to playing games in the palm of your hands, as they said it would. Lo and behold, when March 2017 rolled around, I indeed was gawking at how seamless it was. In my mid-teens and not from a rooftop party like Nintendo suggested, but you get the idea. When the Switch released and my mom was able to grab a last unit from a Target on launch day, I remember racing home to play it after school. 

What the Switch excels at, and what its imitators struggle at, is versatility. There are tons of people out there who probably never take the thing off the TV, and there are probably even more people who only play it portably. Hell, they made a whole console version where you can only play it portably with the Switch Lite. Some games are just TV games, and some are handheld. Some games benefit from the pickup and play style that portability offers, and some games deserve that big-screen experience. Nintendo found a gimmick that worked. It’s nice to have a console I can play anywhere, is light and easy to use, uses the same cable to charge as my phone, and I can slot it into my friends’ Switches to play our different game libraries.  

I loved playing longer RPGs like Persona 5 Strikers, Disco Elysium, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, or games that felt more natural to play in segments like platformers in handheld mode. I was happy to travel across the country or to Europe with the ability to still play these incredible games just as I would at home in the downtime before bed. The versatility of the Switch, with its controllers disconnecting from the system and being able to create two controllers, did wonders for long sessions playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Clubhouse games, Duck Game, Ultimate Chicken Horse, and so many other games that I could play with my friends on a TV. The Switch was a console you could play anywhere, whenever, and with whoever. Even with imitators like the Steam Deck, that versatility is just not there. To me, it feels like an ultimate gaming machine.

First Party Games 

The Switch launched with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game I put over 100 hours into and really loved. But it's certainly not the only game I put over one hundred hours into or played multiple times. Breath of the Wild was the best indication of the quality for this generation of first-party games on the Switch. Super Mario Odyssey, F-Zero 99, Metroid Dread, Pikmin 4, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, etc. are all games that are some of, if not the, best games in their respective franchises. In an era where PlayStation and Xbox are struggling to put out games on their consoles that aren’t remakes, and games period, there being as good of an output on the Nintendo Switch as there has been is pretty incredible. And there was never too much of a massive drought between games either, there was something to play every few months at least. Part of that is that the high sales of the Switch and its games have meant Nintendo can relax on crunch and budget constraints. It was reported that Super Mario Bros. Wonder had no deadline for a solid chunk of its development time because the development team was encouraged to take as much time as it needed to experiment with any ideas it deemed fun enough to work on, which in turn gave us one of the best 2D Mario games ever. 

I also appreciate Nintendo has been throwing a bone to franchises nobody actually gives a shit about. Another Code, Endless Ocean, Advance Wars, etc., have all gotten remakes or flat-out brand-new games during the Switch era. Not to say those games are everyone’s cup of tea, but it is nice to see some variety among the Switch’s library, and I am sure somebody lost their minds during a Nintendo Direct when they announced remakes for Famicom Detective Club. The surprisingly high sales of the Switch mean Nintendo can take more risks in games that maybe people wouldn’t have considered giving a shot. This also means we get games solely featuring Princess Peach, a Bayonetta origin game, or whatever the fuck Nintendo was on about selling cardboard sheets to everyone. 

The two glaring exceptions to the overall great quality of first-party Switch games are somehow Pokémon and sports games. It’s rare for a mainline Pokémon game to receive less than an 80 on Metacritic, but Pokémon seems to have managed it with the two mainline gens (not counting Legends: Arceus) out on the console. Part of the problem comes from time and experience. Pokémon has been an almost entirely smaller-scale handheld experience that is now on a home console with a fan base that rightfully demands it evolves past where it has been since its inception. Additionally, the games’ developers have pumped out an obscene number of Pokémon games. Legends Arceus and Scarlet & Violet are two massive games that both released in the same year. Not to say that those games are even terrible because they are still Pokémon games with new ideas fans have wanted for a while, it’s just some of the most obvious lack in quality for first-party games on the Switch and I hope that changes in the future. 

As for sports games, perhaps the most obvious lack of quality comes from Nintendo’s casual offerings. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Mario Tennis, Mario Party, or Wii Sports was ever the best Nintendo has ever had to offer, but what happened here? What will usually happen with this generation is Nintendo will release a casual game with minimal content and then add free downloadable content months later. Switch Sports, a semi-sequel to Wii Sports, launched with six sports to play. Three of them were Volleyball, Tennis, and Badminton, so not too much variety there. A lot of people, rightfully, felt the content was lacking in quantity, and what was there was just too similar to each other. To address this, Nintendo added Golf to the collection eight months after the game was released, despite it being included with the original Wii Sports, and Basketball was added over two years after the game launched. The idea is that the online modes will give people theoretically infinite content because you can play with whoever and whenever, and then by the time you’re getting bored, new content will be added. What actually happens, however, is you just get bored pretty easily because there isn’t a lot there at launch, so you put the games down and never pick them back up again. Look not to say that these games aren’t fun enough, but at full price and with the internet full of people screaming on Twitter and Youtube, “YES BRING BACK MARIO STRIKERS” when it releases with less content than any of the previous games, it’s an absurd standout in an otherwise strong library.  

Ports/Remakes/Remasters

My earlier comments on Nintendo’s new games was not to say Nintendo never indulged in filling up their release schedule with ports or remakes just to turn around a quick profit. About 25% of their output was remakes/ports (23 out of 92 first-party games). Generally, I think these remakes have been good, but they do speak to both one of the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the Switch. 

On the one hand, I appreciate having so many old games on this system. This was the first way I played Katamari Damacy, and the first way I finished games like Metroid Prime. Putting games I already own on a portable device is enough of a draw to make me double-dip and purchase again. Playing the Metal Gear Solid games, Batman: Arkham City, or Super Mario Galaxy on a portable device was wonderful. I was so used to playing Super Mario Galaxy on my little CRT in my room as a kid or at friend’s houses and now it’s in HD in the palm of my hands. That’s still really cool, and another great example of the versatility of the Switch that I mentioned previously. I loved playing Super Mario 3D World on a big TV with my friends and I enjoyed playing Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze on my couch on the small screen while unwinding after school. Coupled with the game libraries included with the subscription service, allowing me to play games for the NES, Super Nintendo, N64, Gameboy/Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and Sega Genesis, (with the ability to play them with friends online I might add) and the third party collections then so much of the Switch library is classic games. I think this is great because so many new people could play games they might have been able to due to the rising price of classic games or just flat out unavailability. Many of these games were the best versions to play, and I still kind of want every game ever on the Switch.

On the other hand, early on, there was a lot of hoopla about the remakes and ports the Switch was getting, and while I think the discourse around it was partially overblown, I will say that the Nintendo Switch has less of an identity outside of old games. Furthermore, the pricing on these old games is bizarre. The aforementioned Donkey Kong game got a re-release on WiiU for 20 dollars a piece and was resold on Switch for 60. Price increases like that simply because Nintendo can and everyone will eat it up anyways sucks. Additionally, New third-party games like Resident Evil 8, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, etc., never came to the Switch because of how underpowered the console was so the only third-party games that could come to Switch were from older generations and shit a lot of people already owned/played. 

Hardware

Look at the end of the day, the Nintendo Switch launched in 2017 with the power of a 2015 tablet, or roughly in between that of an Xbox 360 and PS4, and lasted for 8 years.  It’s no secret that the Switch is underpowered. It is nice that tons of third-party games come over to the Switch, even if it’s kind of a downgraded version, but it is less than an ideal compromise. Look at Batman: Arkham Knight on the Switch, and you see a hilarious comparison between PS4 and Switch at how low-res the textures are on Switch. Not to say games cannot look good on Switch, but those are primarily Nintendo games and, as such, have more stylized graphics. The hyper-realistic graphics of Next-Gen games do not gel well with the Switch, and many of them just straight up never came out on Switch. Games like Metroid Prime and Luigi's Mansion 3 do look quite good, so it is not like the Switch cannot make good-looking games or high-performance games with some graphical compromises. It can.

However, whether or not someone wants to compromise is a matter of preference. The Witcher 3 runs well but at a low definition resolution on Switch, and if that’s okay with you because the Switch is all you have or you want The Witcher 3 on the go, then the Switch version is a welcome addition to your collection. But if you want to play in HD and without worry of performance dips, then you can if you have a PS4 or PC. Again, the Switch gives you options, but the high-end games are just not on the console, and the middling ones, you gotta roll the dice if the Switch version is gonna run well or look good. Nier Automata and Doom are PS4 games that look and run well. Stray does not. Even some ports of PS2 games (games that are 20 years old, mind you) are at a disadvantage on Switch, which at some point just feels embarrassing. It wasn’t that uncommon to see frame rate dips or crusty textures in Switch games, even from Nintendo themselves or from small indie games that just weren’t optimized for the thing. Again, not to say that no games ran or looked good, many did, and this isn’t to say that games with issues like Disco Elysium were unenjoyable on the platform, that game is one of my favorites after my first playthrough on Switch, but this is all notable and something I'd like to see less of with the Switch 2.

Hardware specs of Nintendo consoles measured in Gamecubes

Hopes for the Switch 2

So when the rumours of a Switch 2 were swirling, I really just wanted a better Switch. I wanted to play newer games on the Switch 2, and I wanted them and older games to look and run alright. Because I do love the Switch. All its ideas of a hybrid system made for both single-player experiences and multiplayer ones, with controls that could mimic most games, are still good ideas. Thus, I don’t really want to transition to a new infrastructure all over again, but it is time for an upgrade. That does seem to be what we’re getting. The Nintendo Switch 2 seems to be as powerful as the current generation Xbox Series S, if not maybe more so, but not as powerful as the PS5. What does that actually look like? Well CyberPunk 2077 looks as good as it does on the PS5, but at 40fps instead of 60. Again, compromise, but not a compromise I feel would really weigh me down, and I may not even notice. And Street Fighter 6 looks roughly as good as it does on other consoles as well. This does mean that most games should come over and be in a perfectly playable state. Will that happen? No idea. It’s clear with less RAM than the current Xbox Series S (one GB less, but still), and the fact that it’s still portable means that some compromises will have to be made here and there. But I hope these compromises are minor enough that I won’t really notice or care, actual performance issues are rare, and games just don’t straight up skip the Switch 2. Nintendo hasn’t been a hardware company since 2000 and the fact that they partnered with Nvidia so closely to make exclusive chips does bode well, but this some work will be needed to bring games over and I hope the Switch 2 does well enough to keep getting these games and the work required to bring them over. Overall, though, I’m excited to get more of the experiences I loved so much on Switch.

Speaking of hardware, the Switch 1’s controllers do the job pretty well. The Pro Controller is one of the best-feeling controllers I’ve ever held. The same can’t be said for the Joy-Cons, as they may be a bit small, though the larger Switch 2 will likely fix this. But what I’m really worried about is drift. This isn’t an issue unique to the Switch, but it was extreme on the Switch 1. Stick drift is when the controller registers you putting in a direction when you’re not. Something to do with the internal sensors getting worn down or gross, but it means that trying to run in a game will cause random hard jolts to the right/left, making some games straight up unplayable. I’ve had one set of Joy-Cons and a Pro Controller become unusable after drift set in. While not all of my friends who used their Switch frequently have experienced stick drift, most of them have and some for multiple controllers. The controllers can be fixed, though not easily, and they can be replaced but replacing them is fucking expensive. So much crap is jammed into these controllers and while I appreciate that adds to the versatility of them, motion controls for Wii games and so on, that also makes them expensive as shit and having to replace controllers multiple times is annoying and costly. This may be even more so on the Switch 2 with mouse mode, which will certainly make FPS, DS, and strategy games more enjoyable, but more tech will increase the price, and with tariffs, these controllers are more expensive than ever before. There has been no confirmation yet whether the Switch 2 will have drift issues or if they've worked out a fix for them, but it's something greatly concerning. 

Speaking of tariffs, the Switch 2 is expensive, games especially. A console costing 450 dollars, I can kind of excuse as typical enough for the industry, but the games costing 70-80 dollars now are extreme. It sucked a lot of the excitement for me. Especially considering that this is still something that should be enjoyed by children, and no child can afford 80 dollars for Mario Kart.

Concluding Thoughts

    I loved the original Nintendo Switch, warts and all. I know I dogged on some bad games, but the solution was to just not play them. And it’s not like the output wasn’t massive either so I had nothing to play. I didn’t even mention Nintendo supporting indie games through partnerships and showcases to get some of the best games of the generation, like Binding of Isaac, SpiritFarer, Disco Elysium, Duck Game, CupHead, etc., made by some guy in a basement filling the Switch library. Though maybe Nintendo was too open now that the eshop chugs like shit when opening and is filled with AI generated slop, but I digress. The Switch has become one of my favorite consoles, and all of the problems I mentioned could be fixed. The Switch 2 could have developers put care into ports and Sports/Pokemon games, the controllers could have less of a chance at drift, and tariffs could lift, or the Switch 2 could struggle for a bit, so prices may go down. To find out if any of these things happen, I plan on tracking the Switch 2’s lifecycle every year to see how the generation is coming along and how I feel about the thing. So tune back in in 2 weeks for a brief summary of how I experienced its launch, where I can discuss whether the Switch 2 is as promising as it is in my hands as it is in well-rehearsed trailers.  

Switch 2 Joke Concept from u/Calm_Cattle3212 on Reddit

Battle of the Remakes: Silent Hill 2

  

        So we’re finally at the release of the Silent Hill 2 Remake and the end of my belated battle of the remakes posts. Now that I have played it to the end and given it a week to marinate, I’d like to sit here and answer some frequently asked questions about the remake. But before that, a few disclaimers. (1) I’m a huge fan of the original, it's one of my favorite games ever. Not to say I think it’s perfect, it is not, but anything I will say will be from the perspective of a fan. (2) Spoilers abound to talk about any and all changes to the characters and story, but I will try and be conservative about it. (3) Opinions on the remake have been moderately varied so your mileage will vary, (4) this will be a long review, and (5) I'm not really gonna talk about the anti-woke psychos on the internet engaging with this game or the unhinged fanbase but I look forward to seeing them all in hell. With that out of the way...

Is it good?

Yes. On its own merits, the remake tells a good story and tells it well, it looks great, sounds great, plays great, and so forth. The team at Bloober should all feel proud of themselves. I enjoyed playing it and would recommend it to others. Silent Hill 2 (2024) is worth your time and money, especially on a sale. 

Is it better than the original?

Probably not, no. Silent Hill 2 (2001) is a masterpiece that, while flawed, is a phenomenal exploration of psychological horror that has yet to be matched in the medium. The remake gets decidedly close though. The same point I gave to the remake of Resident Evil 4 I give here. For every change that I like, there’s a change I dislike so it's about the same in quality overall. That sounds deflating but making something as good as one of the best games of all time is not nothing. It is actually an achievement worthy of celebration. While the two versions are not interchangeable I will question which I play in the future when I have a desire to experience Silent Hill 2 again. Although, Silent Hill 2 (2001) was a tent pole title and standard for horror moving forward and that historical importance can not really happen twice, especially in just modernizing the old game. Speaking of which…

Is it soulless? 

Look, pal. I do not know how you use this word to refer to games or art in general, but I am going to define how I’m going refer to it here. A game is typically referred to as soulless if it’s a cash grab or has little to no “care” in it. As for the former, I get the argument, and not just because I made it last year. Developer Bloober team and publisher Konami needed this game to change their reputation so it was something that needed to make money and do well to turn public perception around. Cranking out a remake of one of the famed games of the PS2 era and modernizing it to a state of homogeneity with other 9th-generation AAA titles seems like a soulless way to do that rather than go all in on a new vision. Then again, such a situation kind of necessitates a substantial amount of care and for what it’s worth Bloober team has put a shit ton of care into this game. For all their buzzword-filled sentiments in trailers about how the game is “true to the original but modernized” there’s clearly a deep love of the original with enough care to make this a good release. It has not been half-assed in the slightest. Except for some stutters on PC because of the Unreal Engine, it’s a game polished to a mirror shine. So while I can hear the argument, I cannot say full-heartedly that Silent Hill 2R is a soulless product. Bloober has also been, for the most part, pretty intelligent with what to change and what to keep the same. Speaking of… 

Has the story changed?
Not in any substantive way. Every story beat is the same and some of the game’s cutscenes are word for word the exact same. I think the lead writer, Andrzej Madrzak, showed a tremendous amount of restraint in his edits. Really the biggest difference is that they’re all a little bit longer and some lines are re-worded and extended. Likewise, some new cutscenes are added and I typically found them to be kind of unnecessary. Not to say that they were bad just doesn’t really make Silent Hill 2 better. Of the three new scenes, I thought the scene with Angela in the park was good, the one with Maria in a different park was pointless, but the big one I liked was the new scene in Heaven’s Night. Having more skilled actors and with more advanced technology, the characters can convey more nuance even in their faces. In the aforementioned scene, Luke Roberts’ James Sunderland conveys a complicated history with alcohol solely with silence and his face which I greatly enjoyed. Those smaller changes like that scene, James’ building more rapport with Laura, and breaking down crying in one of the endings all felt like smart changes. Maybe not needed, but smart.

I will say that I generally like the endings more here than before. More naturalistic conversations and more content for the optional endings felt less game-y and did serve to genuinely move me. For example, the original James confronting Maria at the end of the game says “It’s time to end this nightmare” in a really stilted way that even in a game full of stilted deliveries that work, this one just goes a little too far. It feels like House of the Dead where the final boss would awkwardly announce “This is the final battle!” In the new one, James has a more determined, but pleading tone and says "This has to stop."

On the other hand, a majority of the more naturalistic line delivery in the 2024 version isn’t better but isn’t worse than the old game’s psychotically wooden delivery. This delivery in the original was because most of the actors were just the first white people to walk into Konami’s Japanese headquarters for auditions. Maybe not the way it should have been done, but it did give the game’s dialogue a surreal quality that generally, but not always, worked in the game’s favor when even the people you meet isolate you. Not to say there was no craftsmanship in the original actors. There was. By the end of the original game, Mary/Maria’s actor has shown a crazy amount of range and emotion that doesn’t really survive the remake. Speaking of…

Do the updates to the characters and their new actors work?

For the most part. Opinions will vary on the actors because none of them are bad, they’re just a different take and performance from the original actors. That said, I think Salóme Gunnarsdóttir’s interpretation is the one that genuinely loses something in the transition. Salóme Gunnarsdóttir nails Maria’s detached and flat delivery but still manages a convincingly seductive tone with that, but what she lacks is the venom the original had that made her feel like something malevolent. Without this or the bouncing between Mary and Maria’s voices that Monica Horgan managed in the original, I cannot help but feel like a layer of complexity has been lost. I don’t share these sentiments about the rest of the cast, for the most part. Scott Haining’s Eddie may come off as too sinister from too early, but I generally like the new versions of Angela, Laura, and Salóme Gunnarsdóttir’s Mary. Those takes are different, but maybe not better or worse. 

Which brings us to Luke Robert’s James Sunderland. Luke Roberts is phenomenal. I was very quickly won over by the amount of work he puts in with his face and motion capture as well as his voice. But his James is a different character than Guy Cihi’s original take. Guy Cihi’s James was awkward and distant to the point where there was clearly something wrong with him, which is good. You get the vibe that maybe he had given up on his life already. Luke Roberts’ James is naturalistic but always looks like he’s on the verge of crying, which I liked. Gives off the vibe of a guy who has one thing left to keep him going. Relatedly, Luke Roberts does cry in one of the endings which I don’t know if Guy Cihi could do as convincingly. Then again I don’t think Luke Roberts could land some of the delivery of some of James' lines that even he sounds like he doesn’t believe. I like them both equally and couldn’t pick a favorite.

Recent remakes tend to minimize the soundtrack, does this game do that?

No. The game’s soundtrack is still there and beautifully remixed by Akira Yamaoka. It may be a little quieter and there are undoubtedly mods that put the original tracks with their original volume back in. But the soundtrack is necessary to get the atmosphere across so it couldn’t have been altered as heavily. Speaking of… 

Does the atmosphere survive?

To an extent. The sound design in the remake is superb as is the visual design. The town feels abandoned, gross, diseased, and there’s always something visually or audibly interesting going on to break the silence. Whether it be whispers in the apartment buildings that are just soft enough that you can’t be sure they’re really there or the tight sheets wrapped around buildings in the dark of night, there’s always something to unnerve you. More than these things being scary, these design choices make the game feel claustrophobic and drowning. The original had this sense of atmosphere too and it made it unique among the horror landscape. But the original also carried with it a more isolated vibe where you felt truly alone that doesn’t quite make the transition. 

The original felt more detached. The abandoned town was watching over you from a distance and waiting for the player to explore all of its horrors where even the land itself was diseased. Now, the vibe the game gives off is a town that’s a bit more hostile. Part of that is the new action-oriented camera. Perhaps a more pointed example of this tone shift is towards the end of sections where you’re exploring the city streets. When it’s time to move on into a building, a harsh wind will blow, with shit flying everywhere, and in one section a horde of monsters emerges from the fog. This feels far more hostile. The town is actively trying to push you and attack you for daring to think otherwise. Maybe this vibe isn’t worse because the panic of the weather change and increase in monsters is still scary just in a different way from the druggy and detached vibe the “””liminal””” atmosphere of the original accomplished. Just empty bloodied streets with the distant noises of monsters. Monsters that by the way are more hostile now and will attack more aggressively. Speaking of…

Has the combat gone too far into pure action?

Silent Hill 2’s lead, James Sunderland, is just some asshole. He’s not a military super soldier, or a grizzled scavenger, or whatever. He’s an office clerk. I don’t think the guy has ever even seen a gun before. So we accepted that when combat in the original was kind of shitty it served dual purposes. A) it made sense context-wise B) It helped the sense of vulnerability. But don’t let it be said that the original’s combat was perfect, it wasn’t. As I said, it was kind of shitty. Primarily because nothing you ever hit had weight to it and bashing a thing with a stick with no feedback was both lame and boring. Not to mention the point-blank shooting fight with Eddie. Here, combat is a lot more of a Resident Evil affair with much of the same controls and third-person camera of the recent RE remakes. I found the combat to be enjoyable and visceral without it feeling like a power fantasy. I never had enough bullets to mow anything down in my playthrough and every swing from James Sunderland of a melee weapon made it seem like he was gonna pass out with the way he was screaming as he did it. James still is just some asshole.

Boss fight of the original Silent Hill 2 where you enjoy a brief point-blank standoff

The camera is the biggest point of difference between the original, which had a more distant angle than the third-person standard one in the remake. Look, I agree with the sentiment that the farther-back camera helped with the atmosphere, as I mentioned above, but I never loved the original camera. I always thought it was serviceable but fucking unwieldy in so many areas and required me to manually fix it by holding down a shoulder button. There are some good camera angles the original gives the player but I don’t think any of the shots from the original. 

 The restraint Bloober’s combat designers showed with the commitment to the original game’s weapons selection and enemy variety is commendable. Even if they can do more attacks now. The gameplay of Silent Hill 2 (2024) strikes the perfect balance where it isn’t clunky and frustrating without ever going into pure action-power fantasy. The boss fights too are pretty intense and fit the horror theme. However, the combat doesn’t work in the few sections where more than 3 enemies are thrown at you at once. The prison especially was ridiculously packed with mannequin enemies. By the time it was over the floor was covered in the fucking things and I couldn’t help but remark how absurd that was. That many enemies threaten to become more annoying than scary, and while I never found it to cross that line it would not be hard to imagine it doing so for others. On the other hand, I get you need more combat to fill in the space between these larger areas. Speaking of… 

I heard the game is double the length. Does the game feel bloated? 

I would not go so far as to say the game is bloated or overly padded. That said, this more than any point here will depend on your tolerance, but for me, I thought it was fine. There are more rooms to explore and sections are longer, but it is spread out enough that no one area feels like a chore (maybe except for the hospital). The bigger areas gave me two feelings that might be bad for any game that wasn’t in the horror genre; (1) when I enter a place I feel overwhelmed by its size, and (2) by the time I was wrapping up I felt a panicky “I gotta get out of here” kind of vibe. This also meant that I was relieved to leave the area, which I felt helped the pacing immensely.

Not to say these additions were necessary. Silent Hill 2 did not need more rooms to explore or longer hallways. The most succinct way I can put it is with the soundtrack. When James meets Maria for the first time, the song in the 2001 game is titled “Null Moon.” In the 2024 version, this track is called “Beneath the Null Moon.” No, those two extra words do not ruin the song or the game, but whats the fucking point? The entire game feels like that. Any new content is not needed and I can’t say the game is better or worse but there sure is more of it.  

How do you feel about Bloober handling Remakes of Silent Hill 1, 3, and 4? Any last thoughts on the recent crop of Remakes?

Now, when the question comes up of which game they should remake next, Silent Hill 1, 3, or 4? My answer is probably none of them, but 4 would be fine. Interest in the series has been revitalized. congratulations. But, you can just re-release the originals at this point without having to go through this whole hoopla again. Part of my reason for saying that is that 1 and 3 are more subject to change because of their less rabid fanbases, so the careful process of remaking 2 might not be repeated. But more importantly, I would prefer a new horror game learning the lessons of Silent Hill (2024) rather than just another Silent Hill game. If companies keep focusing their resources on remakes then less go into brand-new experiences and the new instant-classics will be fewer and farther between.

I also think there’s a lot of value in putting the originals on modern platforms. If that’s even what people want. These remakes do not justify aversion to porting/emulating the original due to laziness/fear either from the developer/player. Then again, even if a game is in its original form, original resolution and all, and gets an official release on Steam, a lot of people do not want it. Metal Gear Solid was released on Steam with the original resolution and aspect ratio last year, but with a strategy guide and soundtrack, for 15-20 bucks. Half the negative reviews for one of the greatest games of all time and one of the most important for the evolution of the art form are just “It’s the original PlayStation game. No changes. Thumbs down.” But that’s game preservation! That’s what we want!

The OG game being sold in 2023, much to the chagrin of idiots

My other reason for not wanting more remakes is that these games all look and play the same. Silent Hill 2 (2001) and Resident Evil 4 (2005) are both important horror games of the sixth generation but are nothing alike. The 2023/2024 versions, however, have the same 3rd person ranged combat with a stun mechanic by shooting for the knee which can be used for a follow-up close-range attack, using the same controls, the same sections of squeezing through walls, parts where you push things to a painted ledge that point you in the right direction, and so forth. These things are also present in a million other games. Final Fantasy VII, God of War, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Guardians of the Galaxy, and so on to infinity. 20 years ago these games did or would have had extremely different gameplay and art styles. In the 2020s, these games all have the same art style with a fair amount of mechanics shared between them. Remakes and new games have managed a state of bland hegemony. I don’t want every old thing I liked to be uniform to every other fucking AAA 70-dollar game I play. Not only is this antithetical to the preservation of game history. Not only does it make once unique games blander. But it is also more selective than just porting the games or having them on an official emulator. 

Resident Evil 4 (2023)

Nintendo, for example, has put several Gamecube games on the Switch in HD like Pikmin 1 + 2, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Metroid Prime, etc., and some third-party developers have done this as well. Some people prefer this to just dumping them on the NSO emulator but not me. While I appreciate a lot of these games are getting put into widescreen with resolution bumps, and some even more touch-ups, this is inevitably going to exclude some Gamecube games never coming over. The original Animal Crossing, for instance, is a good game and some people prefer it to the newer games but Animal Crossing: New Horizons just with less stuff and meaner villagers is not going to be a good enough sell to justify a 20 dollars HD re-release. This goes for most Gamecube Mario Party, Mario Sports, Wario Ware, etc. games that have newer versions that seemingly replace the older ones for most people despite the fact that those old games have an immense amount of value. Silent Hill 4: The Room has good ideas but is bad, should it be dumped into the dustbin of history because a remake wouldn't turn a profit?

Relatedly, any game that gets remade should be one with good ideas but is kind of bad, or a game that would be good were it not for one glaring issue. I don’t mind the Dead Rising remaster/remake because the original’s survivor AI was bad and really ruined the game for me. Fixing that doesn’t fundamentally change the game. Silent Hill 4: The Room has some good ideas about a ghost serial killer who really wants your apartment, but is bad. Taking that good idea, getting rid of most everything else, and giving it another go would be welcomed because it would be so different to practically constitute a new game and I wouldn't care about the homogeneity as much when applied to a game that sucked. Both old games should still be available but I wouldn’t mind either of these remakes in particular. 

Should I play this game? (summary)

Whether it is your first time with Silent Hill 2 or you’re a hardcore fan, I do think there is something worth seeing and playing in the remake. As a hardcore fan, I am happy this exists. I like having a remix of a favorite game even as a novelty. It is also nice to see so many new people trying a Silent Hill game. It’s fun and it's scary, it’s moving, depressing, and exhausting. Silent Hill 2 (2024) is what any good horror game should be, and while I don’t think it is better than the original, there’s no shame in being about as good as one of the best games ever released. While I like some of the changes more and some less than the original, on its own merits, Silent Hill 2 is nothing short of a phenomenal video game that I think would be worth people's time and money. Flaws and all, this shit rules. But with that said, I don’t want Silent Hill 2 to be one and done. I want new great horror games with these bigger budgets that use this as a jumping-off point to build weird new ideas that horrify and excite me. I don’t want the older Silent Hill games to be brought up to modern hegemony, even if all the positive things said in this review remain true. 

5/5

Oh This shit Rules