Original Silent Hill 2

[Deleted member 280263]

Well, the PS3 HD remaster

So I've started this after missing it years ago despite having it, I never played more than a few seconds...

Now before I say this, I often to this day still replay older games, recently I went on a mad RE rampage, that consisted of all the remakes, then CVX on PS2, the RE3N on PS1 followed by Dino Crisis, so I'm in no way ignorant to the classics and a modern day snob...

However, I cannot see the hype behind this original Silent hill 2, I choose to play with the original voice acting, which people raved about and critacised the remake for not being as good as - like HOW? This is budget at best? Coming from RE which is cheesy but was better acting/delivery (ignoring RE1 haha!) I'm just shocked how bad this is, I mean this existed in an era such as MGS2, one of the most polished, and beautiful looking, sounding, and playing games? Under the same publisher?

I really wanted to do this as I've just replayed the remake, and was looking forward to some more retro, but I strongly believe RE absolutely owns the old school when it comes to horror, and I was now of the opposite opinion after SH2R - as I love the RE remakes, but they are silly, and cheesy, which yes is why we love them, but SH2R is actually adult, disturbing, offensive, shocking, upsetting, jumpy etc, so if you're going for an actual 'horror' experience, then SH2R beats it, as I'd imagine it will continue to do so with SHF and SH1R...

So I don't think this is rose tinted glasses what so ever, I just think people must have been holding onto the good bits of the original version of SH2 for dear life? Versus a consistently good game such as CVX? Also the pop in is so bad, again I don't see how, when I can room around for ages outside in CVX and MGS etc of the same era?

Is it worth me pushing through more, I'm only about half an hour in, but it just seems in reality, that what I've red is lies? I really wanted to play it, and compare the two, as this was always highly rated, and just enjoy it as a seperate experience, as they claim there is so many good bits, but they just appear to be poorly done/rushed from cutscenes I've seen online?
I was hoping for a forgotten jem that I should have done back in the day, just like CVX was recently for me.

Sorry for the rant, just wondering what retro gamers think/was it 'that good' at the time? Does the remake beat it in your opinion?

Discuss

 

[JoeBoi]

Part of the issue is playing the HD collection version as your first impression. The original PS2 version had better survival horror vibes through thicker fog and not being able to see what was up ahead, which isn't great in the HD version. If you liked the remake, this has differences and for the time was an amazing physiological survival horror game, it holds up well enough today that people still play and speedrun the game.

I thought the remake was done very well, we've been spoilt with good remakes from RE and now SH, it might make it difficult to go back to some of the older games, especially if you didn't play them way back when.

If you have a PC look at getting the 'Enhanced Edition' version, as this has so many fixes and improvements over the original and HD collection. It is arguably the best way to play Silent Hill 2 now days.

Other than that, it might be worth checking out some others from the series Silent Hill 1 & 3 were great and worth checking out.

 

[Deleted member 280263]

Part of the issue is playing the HD collection version as your first impression. The original PS2 version had better survival horror vibes through thicker fog and not being able to see what was up ahead, which isn't great in the HD version. If you liked the remake, this has differences and for the time was an amazing physiological survival horror game, it holds up well enough today that people still play and speedrun the game.

I thought the remake was done very well, we've been spoilt with good remakes from RE and now SH, it might make it difficult to go back to some of the older games, especially if you didn't play them way back when.

If you have a PC look at getting the 'Enhanced Edition' version, as this has so many fixes and improvements over the original and HD collection. It is arguably the best way to play Silent Hill 2 now days.

Other than that, it might be worth checking out some others from the series Silent Hill 1 & 3 were great and worth checking out.

I did have the Xbox version back in the 2000's, but only play it for less than half hour, the draw distance was worse than the PS3 HD remaster - the first thing I did when the HD remaster annoyed me, was look up the PS2 version upscaled on Youtube, and it looked like it would have annoyed me more, I just wanted to play the best possible version of the original, hence trying the HD remaster.

MGS2/3 HD remaster collection, is a perfect example on the PS3 (then ported to Steam) of how to future proof and preserve a classic without ruining it. So I was genuinely shocked how poor SH2 HD is

I'm not being a snob what so ever - I know you're not accusng me, but I wanted to make that clear to anyone reading this, as aforementioned, I've recently replayed RE3 Nemesis and Dino Crisis on the PS1, CVX PS2, and adored all 3. I'm always jumping between retro and modern games, with ease So it really has messed with my head that this feels so poor to play in every aspect?
I've never gone back to an original game and then changed my mind and considered it rubbish. I often play the original MGS along with the brilliant Gamecube remake that uses MGS2's engine.

I can't get over how bad the voice acting is with SH2, despite all this praise it's always given? People are very quick to critacise the HD remaster's 'alternative' voices and insist you don't use them? They also are brutal about the remakes voices - which I thought were near cinema perfect? As overall cutscene and atmosphere.
I struggle to see how Konami of all people, failed so badly with voice acting, considering how great Metal Gear Solid 1/2's voice talent is? SH2 just comes across like some random budget studio made it/rushed it, and had no care for realism, like how silly RE1 is.

I genuinely was so excited to play this to see which did it better, how faithful the remake was to the original, and wether they missed anything out on the remake, ala bits of RE3 Nemesis were missed out in RE3R, but in general I just wanted to squeeze out some more SH2 gameplay, I played some of SH3 on the PS3 remaster, at the beginning of the year - so well after completed SH2R on release last year, and loved SH3, so again, what went wrong with 2 lol.