7 Things I DON'T Want to See in the 'Silent Hill 2' Remake

My opinions of Konami are lower than ever since the abominable release of Silent Hill: Ascension. Seriously, if your plan was to create a manifestation of an anti-capitalist gamer's worst fear, then mission fucking accomplished. You couldn't leave the IP alone, could you? Nope, you dug up its corpse, cut it up, and sold the pieces to whatever game developer would deal with you. I thought the Silent Hill brand being adapted to a fucking Pachinko machine was rock-bottom, but apparently you managed to dig through bedrock and survive Earth's molten core.

I can't help but have an ounce of glimmering hope for the Silent Hill 2 remake, because it would amazing if it could be adapted to modern hardware. Well, adapted to modern hardware in a way that ISN'T the awful HD Collection. But the game developer in charge of the remake, Bloober Team, have their fair share of controversy. While the team certainly has capable developers in terms of graphics, their storywriting is atrocious. It is acceptable to admit defeat and admit that you aren't as skilled in writing as you are in game design. That's why you hire professional storywriters.

So, I'm going to list 7 things I don't want to see in the Silent Hill 2 remake, because this game is too precious to fuck up. And this series has enough fuck-ups.

7. Limited Inventory

You pick up a lot of questionable stuff in Silent Hill games, especially for its bizarre moon-logic puzzles. Things like moonstones, chocolate milk, golf clubs, and random cartons of canned juice. That's not to mention the ridiculous amount of keys acquired throughout the game. Having a limited inventory would not make the game scarier, just more tedious. Silent Hill games do not have Resident Evil safe room caches to dump stuff off (with the exception of Silent Hill 4: The Room.) Just because Capcom did it doesn't mean you should, Konami. I know you want to join the Cool Kids Club, but they don't want to eat lunch with you.

The inventory in Silent Hill 2 is manipulated by events in the game later on, so making the inventory limited wouldn't make sense. Checking certain items within the inventory also influences the ending. So for God's sake, leave the inventory alone.

6. Autosave

This is probably a contentious one, because save points are archaic. They were a necessary evil of the PS2 era because consoles didn't save data on the system, requiring use of memory cards. But I always found the inclusion of save points in Silent Hill appealingly surreal. It's kind of like the character and the player are checking in with each other. The save point music is also pleasant and serves as a momentary respite from the tension. But if you get rid of the red squares in Silent Hill 2, then what the hell does the 9 red square grid mean? I always thought it was representative of all the areas you had to go to get to the end.

The Resident Evil remakes still had the typewriter save system, so maybe I'm making a fuss over nothing. Silent Hill games tend to make the save points diegetic. Harry in SH1 writes on a notepad to save his progress, saying that his notes might help someone in a similar situation. You read those notes as Heather in SH3 and her save points sometimes come with flavor text describing how the Halo of the Sun is familiar and hurts her head to think about. Then the Western Silent Hills just copied SH3's save points, though Downpour didn't even have save points.

Look, just let me have my save points, okay?

5. Combat Improvements

SH2's combat system sucks. But it's supposed to suck. James is not Chris "Punch Boulders" Redfield - he's an office clerk (according to the game manual.) James is a sad widow in a delusional fugue state desperately searching for his dead wife. Killing the monsters is entirely optional and can be literally interpreted as "fighting his demons." And he's not shooting his demons with a AK-47, he's using whatever the environment's giving him. Before the first Lying Figure attacks, James snaps off a wooden plank from a construction fence to bash its brains (does it have brains?) in.

I've read that Bloober Team was improving the combat, which has me nervous for one reason I'll get to in the rest of this list. Silent Hill 2 is supposed to be a psychological survival horror, not a damn third-person shooter. Considering that one of the monsters isn't even killable, I question the reason for an overhaul.

4. Story Changes

For the Old God's sake, Bloober Team. DO NOT MESS WITH THE STORY. Please, for the love of Valtiel, chloroform your coked-up story writer and shove them in a closet, because they do not need to add or subtract anything from the story. Some remakes like to take artistic license approaches in modernizing the original games, like Final Fantasy 7. This is not a game to do that for.

I'm concerned that they are going to answer questions of the lore that did not have cohesive answers to begin with. Much of Silent Hill lore is purposefully ambiguous to inspire individual introspection. And in regard to Angela's story, please PLEASE just be faithful to the original. Bloober Team does not have a good track record regarding stories with heavy subject matter like sexual assault. I'm already terrified of what the Pyramid Head/mannequin assault scene is going to look like in the remake. If I see Pyramid's Head pyramid phallus, I'm going to be fucking pissed. Just because rating systems are more lenient these days doesn't mean it should be taken as a challenge.

3. Multiplayer

You people who like interaction with other people already have a multiplayer Silent Hill - it's Dead by Daylight with its Silent Hill DLC. Multiplayer does not work for Silent Hill like it does for Resident Evil. Silent Hill 2 is a game meant to be lonely, desperate, and desolate. If I sound like a hoity-toity Silent Hill purist, I'm sorry, but Konami have tried a multiplayer Silent Hill. It was Book of Memories on a completely forgettable handheld console. What was it called? The PS Vista? The Vital? The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Console?

But with multiplayer being mentioned, we have to talk about...

2. Microtransactions

I was too young to play Silent Hill 2 on launch and my parents had the audacity to actually pay attention to game ratings. I wouldn't hear about Silent Hill until my late teens and discovering it was like finding gold. What I didn't know is that Silent Hill 2 first released without the UFO ending and the Born From a Wish sub-scenario. These would be included in future copies of the game.

Nowadays, DLC is a blatant cash grab. Remember buying Horse Armor DLC for Elder Scrolls: Oblivion? You know, that game that didn't HAVE HORSE COMBAT?! Or the infamously most downvoted comment on Reddit having EA try to defend Star Wars Battlefront 2 for locking DARTH VADER until you've played 40 hours into the game? And don't get me started on the Sims. Hey, you want to pay 40 bucks for this Katy Perry DLC for the Sims 3 that has a bunch of ugly cupcake-themed clothes?

Sorry, that went on a tangent. My point is, PLEASE. DON'T. PUT. MICROTRANSACTIONS. IN. SILENT. HILL. 2. Konami have already beaten the desiccated viscera of the Silent Hill IP's horse corpse with Ascension and turned it into a fucking MEME. Can you have just a little self-respect? Just a little?

1. Regenerating Health

The Silent Hill Health Drinks are iconic. That little bottle with a plus sign makes me sigh with relief upon seeing it. And the pick-up noise! The doo-DOO! Oh, I love love LOVE the pick-up noise!

Ahem. Getting fangirl-y over sound effects over here.

Regenerating health is a mechanic I've always hated. Yeah, just wait a minute. I've been shot in the face. Just give me five minutes to MAGICALLY HEAL and turn my grayed-out HUD back to color. It's even worse when they add a blood-splatter effect. Don't you hate it when you get shot in the knee and your eyeballs start bleeding for no reason?

Yeah, so maybe it's gross to drink health drinks found in the Otherworld Silent Hill. Silent Hill doesn't really follow rules of logic. Hell, you have James sticking his hand down toilets, jumping down holes, and shooting unkillable Pyramid Headed monsters. But he's also not in his right mind.

Did you like this article? Why not give it a heart? Is there something you wouldn't or would like to see in the remake? Tell me below!