My first encounter with Silent Hill was the film adaptation. I was out on a date and the weather took a turn for the worst, so we ended up seeing whatever was showing next. While a lot of people dislike the adaptation, I have a soft spot for it for a number of reasons. Aesthetically, it’s an incredible realisation of a very particular visual style. The soundtrack is wonderful, thanks to the involvement of Akira Yamaoka. Overall it’s a pretty average horror flick, but it egged me on to finally playing the games that I always saw being put on a pedestal.

I struggled through the first game, but loved the puzzles. I’d played jumpy horror games by that point, but something with psychological horror was very confronting. The original Silent Hill is years ahead of its time in terms of atmosphere and immersion, and to be released within a year of Metal Gear Solid is quite a feat – I’m surprised Konami didn’t see the merit in pushing the envelope with its designs after the mid-2000s. Shock, horror – Silent Hill 2 didn’t really grab me at first. I enjoyed it, but there was something lacking in the protagonist. James was dull, empty and emotionless – for good reason, obviously. But I enjoyed the games, so I tracked down an old copy of Silent Hill 3 for $15 and away I went.

We have Harry and James, about as exciting as wallpaper. Then we have Heather Mason. One of the only accurately portrayed teenage girls in gaming before Ashley in Trace Memory or Ellie in The Last of Us. As someone just coming out of my teens, I instantly felt a connection with Heather that I hadn’t felt with a protagonist before. It wasn’t a power fantasy, or even a case of ‘wow, this character is SO COOL’– I shared common emotions, because I could see where the writers were coming from. She got angry, she questioned why she was heading off on this journey, hell…she even feels remorse for the ‘monsters’ she kills. But it’s not just Heather – Vincent, Claudia, Douglas – they all have personalities that shine through in their design and animation quirks. Vincent has a lazy eye and Claudia has no eyebrows. They’re small details that create a sense of discomfort when you see them interact with Heather. She dyes her hair, and you can tell she doesn’t sleep well. It’s these kinds of details that were lost in subsequent instalments that I miss the most about Silent Hill.

Silent Hill 3 is ultimately a less polished game than its predecessor, the development cycle is probably to blame in that regard. Over time I began to understand the intention of the underlying, decaying sickness of Silent Hill 2’s more subtle approach to horror. Whereas I initially brushed it off for not being visceral enough, when looking at the entire series as a whole. But as a game that focuses on very feminine fears, Silent Hill 3 is incredibly important. Heather carries a switch blade, and keeps a stun gun in a clothes drawer at home even before she crosses over to the Otherworld. In-game text reveals that Harry has placed emphasis on being able to defend herself and that she should be prepared. After the nightmare prologue, she awakes in an empty shopping mall and is followed by an unfamiliar and suspicious older man. She questions him when he tries to follow her into the bathroom, she’s immediately defensive and it’s very easy to empathise with that as a woman.

Oh, and the real kicker is that she’s a seventeen year old who is impregnated with a demonic God. Of all the things that terrify teenage girls, I’d probably say pregnancy is the scariest thing that could happen after abuse. Probably doesn’t help that in Silent Hill 3, Heather doesn’t even know about it until Claudia tells her, so it’s entirely without her consent. Occasionally when Heather dies in-game, the angel Valtiel will appear and drag Heather off screen to resurrect her. Her sole purpose is to be the incubator for The Order’s God. I’m still scared of it and I’m in my mid-twenties. The idea of puberty as an unnatural change is a very real fear that teenage girls have, that is very rarely covered in movies (Carrie is a stand out example) with a shred of dignity – let alone gaming. It was a brave move for 2003, and it’s disappointing that there hasn’t been something with a similar tone since.

In the mental institution Brookhaven Hospital, you can come across a series of notes and presents from a patient named Stanley. His creepy fascination with Heather culminates in a puzzle (found only on the hard puzzle mode) where he’s written a poem about how much he loves her as he disfigures her face, correlating to the numbers on a keypad. The letters and the poem in particular are incredibly unsettling in their tone, especially when you consider them to have been written by a psychopath. As someone who has experienced stalking first hand, I can definitely understand Heather’s disgust at his advances from the shadows as she progresses through the hospital.

Silent Hill 3 is the game where I found it started taking a lot more direct references from horror films, and jump scares started to become norm. This isn’t necessarily bad for a game that maintains a constant high tension for hours on end until you pass through the Otherworld to the Fog world to begin the process again. I’ve become quite desensitised to horror games over the years, but I maintain that getting locked in the mirror room in the Otherworld Brookhaven Hospital is the most terrified I’ve been in any game. At first it’s a little uncomfortable, but then your reflection stops moving. It was brilliantly executed, and you had no way of predicting it would happen unless you had paid close attention to Heather’s aversion for her reflection. She mentions it in the shopping mall bathroom, her bathroom mirror at home is covered too. Silent Hill manifests a visitor’s fears into tangible objects, forcing the player to overcome them to succeed. As in previous Silent Hill titles, each room has its own story and objects are used to create symbolism and context for the player. The broken, tipped over wheelchairs that are scattered throughout the game are there to remind Heather of her hospitalisation as Alessa, and the image itself is taken from the 2001 film Session 9. While fans are more likely to jump to Jacob’s Ladder for direct references to Silent Hill as a whole (I’m one of those people too, don’t worry­), Session 9 has more in common with Silent Hill 3 when you consider the audio tapes and the split personalities of the patients. It’s not to say that the series only takes influence from these two films, but they are the two most notable at that stage. Trying to find all the film references in Silent Hill would take weeks.

The Silent Hill soundtracks have always been a favourite of mine, and Akira Yamaoka is extremely talented for the vast range of genres he can produce. Hey, my 26,000+ plays on Last.fm can’t be wrong. Each soundtrack really stands out on its own. The original Silent Hill’s soundtrack is a terrifying, relentless metal grating hell ride. I don’t think Team Silent had a threshold for how scary sound design (or game design at that point) should be before something becomes almost unplayable. Silent Hill 2’s soundtrack is hauntingly melodic at parts, and twisted in others – a vast improvement in atmosphere. Silent Hill 3’s soundtrack, however, has an almost otherworldly trip-hop influence that is just pretty much the best thing ever. It feels like you’re in a dream, and definitely gives the out-of-body feeling that Heather experiences constantly.

Could it be that Silent Hill 3 wasn’t as popular as its predecessor because the female-centric nature of the narrative and themes didn’t ‘gel’ well with the perceived male audience? I know more women that have played Silent Hill than men, perhaps due to the stronger emotional ties you have to the every-man protagonists. The usual response I get is ‘Silent Hill isn’t scary, have you seen Slenderman though?’ and I lose a little respect for them. Silent Hill is not necessarily meant to be an fun experience, it’s meant to make you uncomfortable and empathise with the characters. That in itself is entertaining. If you can stomach it, of course.

Also here’s some boring admin stuff! Did you know you can now like Total Recollection on Facebook? Go spread the word and maybe I can keep ranting about Konami titles for eternity! Or you could give me suggestions of what to write about after the final retrospective next week!