Alex came over and beat Silent Hill 3. Considering we played 2 over a decade ago and 1 I think two or four years ago, my memory is a bit fuzzy for comparisons but I don't think I'm far off. Alex knew the first two installments very well and finished them easily, but even though he was less acquainted with 3, he still managed to beat it in about four hours. So that should give you an indication on how short it is. Not that Silent Hill games are lengthy, but I feel this was a bit of a rushed installment.

Let me elaborate. By no means is 3 a bad game, but it lacks the complexity and nuance of its predecessors. Here's an example. Upon entering the hospital, the protagonist Heather can find a note with a doll from a dude named Stanley Coleman, and throughout the level more notes will reveal his obsession with her and that he's watching her movements. Eventually the player can learn the boss of this level killed Coleman and you can actually find his body in the morgue, making choking noises. The whole situation is creepy because we're currently in a hellscape where there shouldn't be any cognitant people, yet Coleman was able to observe the player unnoticed. Yes, that's Silent Hill-esque, but that's where that subplot ends. He never comes up again, and honestly when Alex played he never completed Coleman's storyline and I had to learn a lot of what I typed here from watching a youtube video. I think if this took place in 1 or 2, Coleman would be interwoven much better into the general plot instead of being this one-off event.

That's just one example but the whole game feels like that. Considering there's only one ending (yeah, OK, there's the aliens and such, but only one canon ending), it really limits the player to a linear path, whereas in even the PS1 game you had many different choices with how to handle the situation as Harry Mason. I think the developers were leaning more on trying to create that weird Silent Hill ambiance without the substance that would make me question the myself and the situation. Another example is noise. All of the games use it to frighten the player, but 3 really oversaturated it to the point it was no longer useful to discern if there are enemies in the area, nor did it scare me as much.

However there were some really great aspects to the game. Heather herself is actually an amazing protagonist. Yeah, OK, for some reason she was a shittier fighter than Mason or James Sunderland, but in terms of personality she's great. One criticism I'd give the previous games—even the much-beloved Silent Hill 2—is the conversations were stilted and unnatural. Maybe it was 90s and early 2000s terrible translations and voice acting, but whenever there was a cutscene sometimes I could no longer suspend disbelief. If I found myself in this nightmare world with demons, and I stumbled upon one seemingly normal person, I would not be entertaining whatever random tangents this person wants to talk about. I'd just be hyping over and over that we need to stick together and figure a battleplan to survive. Heather leans more heavily towards my instinct, and her conversations often follow the themes of who the hell are you, what the hell is going on, and if you're responsible for this get away from me. Also whoever animated her face deserves all the accolades. This game out in 2003 and we played with the original disc in my PS2, and holy shit I think her expressions look better than some modern games today twenty years later. I can easily perceive every single one of her emotions from skepticism to fear to anger... It's all there.

Alex told me this is the last of the original development team and afterward it goes downhill, so probably this is the last Silent Hill for me. I'm glad he was able to play for me because it was truly delight even though I hated every single moment of it.