Video Game Review: Konami’s Silent Hill F Stands for Fear

Shimizu Hinako—the player character—facing a monster, an Ayakakashi, in a distressed hallway filled with red spider-lillies and dirt. (PHOTO CREDIT: KONAMI DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT.)

BY: CARESSE LIANG / STAFF WRITER

This article contains spoilers of a recently released game. If you wish to experience the game for yourself without any spoilers, please come back after playing.

The fear of the blood tends to create fear for the flesh. 

After much anticipation, Konami Entertainment’s new entry into the Silent Hill franchise has finally been released to the public. Set away from fictional Silent Hill, Maine, Konami introduces the game as a “story of impossible decisions, of the beauty in terror, and terror from beauty.”

Set in 1960s Japan, this psychological horror game follows Hinako Shimizu, a teenager living in a small town named Ebisugaoka, and her journey through a mysterious fog filled with treacherous, terrifying monsters. 

Tied down by the societal expectations of femininity, this world reflects her personal struggles in reclaiming her autonomy and deciding what is best for her future after her sister is  married off.

I had been anticipating this game for months, and splurged right after it came out on Steam. After completing the game in just around 12 hours,  I found it to be thoroughly scary and satisfying.

The game follows three main parts of Hinako: her sanity, her health, and her stamina. Like every horror game from the past, each area is accompanied by certain supplies and weapons that assist Hinako—ranging from Red Capsules that regenerate health to a steel pipe that breaks after slight use. Likewise, there are specific lore-related items that indicate the true ending for Hinako’s story and the people around her.

The combat system is similar to the previous installments of Silent Hill, being that the protagonist is new to fighting monsters for the first time. I think the clunkiness of combat made the game more terrifying and nerve-wracking—to the point where I had to restart several times.

Hinako holding a lantern, after receiving it from Fox Mask. (PHOTO PROVIDED BY CARESSE LIANG)

Over the course of the game, players experience both the horrors of Ebisugaoka and another realm, the Dark Shrine—locations that contain the malicious and demonic counterparts of her and her friends. She meets with two important—albeit suspicious — charactersShu Iwai, her childhood friend, and Kotoyuki Tsuneki, a man dressed in white robes and donned in a fox mask. 

At the start of the game, I found it to be uncomfortable to be around them—as they were both fairly suspicious and open towards Hinako. It was not until I completed the game that I realized they were both manipulating and harming her in order to make her marry one of them.

With each of the two, Hinako splits into two opposing personalities: her human form, who wants to remain childlike and free, while her fox form falls through with the conditions in her arranged marriage. The two men both prove to be of some use, as they only appear during cutscenes and not actual combat. However, these two have ties to each of the five endings that this game has to offer. 

The centerpiece of the Dark Shrine. (PHOTO CREDIT: KONAMI DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT.)

Out of all five endings, there is only one determined and four independent ones; the first playthrough always guarantees the “Coming Home to Roost” ending, while the others are all up to the choices of the player over the course of the second run of the game. 

The “Coming Home to Roost” ending is obtained after Hinako defeats her fox counterpart, but succumbs to the psychological effects of the Red Capsules and murders multiple people while attending her own wedding. 

The four others: “Fox’s Wedding,” “The Fox Wets its Tail,” “Ebisugaoka in Silence,” and the non-canonical “UFO” ending, are all determined by the Red Capsules, obtaining certain items, and doing specific steps. 

They are all outcomes of what could be Hinako’s fate, but only one of them is the true and otherwise presumed, canonical ending: “Ebisugaoka in Silence.” While I personally did not get this ending—it is extremely time-consuming and requires players to play the game three times—this ending concludes the tragedies within Hinako’s story, and opens her heart with the freedom to choose her future. 

This review of Silent Hill F offers a small preview of the beauty within the entanglements of the game. As a fan of the franchise, I think this spinoff proved itself to be a great diversion away from Maine. The lore, the weapons, and the characters all brought a satisfying game experience that continues to send shivers down my spine. Truly, I found true bliss within the terror of flesh.

Overall rating: 9.7/10