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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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telly:
Lots of Silent Hill going on in this year's challenge! Love it!  :)

kamikazekeeg:
29 - Five Night's At Freddy's 2 (PC 2014) - DROPPED - My anger to beat the last night might bring back before the month is out, but I've dropped this for now, because this game is ass, and it's entirely because of ONE thing.  The Withered's.  They pop up randomly, forcing you to quickly bring up a Freddy mask to cover up, but the timing window is something like...a second? Maybe less? So any hesitation from bringing your mask up leads to immediate death.  It's absurdly tight, which is weird, because all of the other characters have some leeway from the feel of it. 

If I die from Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, Foxy, Mangle, or get screwed by Balloon Boy, it's my fault, I missed the audio cue or wasn't watching the vents well enough.  The problem as things ramp up and I keep flipping to the music box and back, I start to lose a tiny bit of focus, which in some ways helps, because I'm just trying to grab glimpses of possible characters, I don't need to actively see Foxy, I just need to vaguely see his orange shape while being more focused on the vents when I swivel to look.  That's when I'm in the process of bringing the tablet down, going to a vent light, and then being hit by a Withered, but I was in the process of moving, and by the time I swing to the mask, it's over.  It's so frustrating and not fun. 

I've seen some guide stuff that you need to start bringing up the mask immediately after dropping the tablet no matter what, even if there's no clear threat just to predict an appearance, which is meant meant more for the bonus, harder night, but I'm already meta gaming/micro-managing the game down to the tightest it can be, that anymore just isn't fun, it's such a badly designed game because of this timing, and honestly, despite liking the idea, worst than the first game.  You really don't use the cameras at all once you learn what you need to do other than use the music box, but you aren't using it to look in that room, just to wind up the music box.  I really hate that Scott never updated this at any point to make it a more reasonable experience.  A half second update to this window would make the game not great, but tolerable.

I poked abit at FNAF 3 because I was mad at FNAF 2, but not sure I'll play it.  They made the cameras look terrible and have super annoying audio, making it almost unplayable to me.  It's really not good and I think it might have some annoying mechanics to it, not 100% sure on it.  My run through the original FNAF games is not going well lol

kashell:

--- Quote from: telly on October 13, 2025, 04:26:45 pm ---Lots of Silent Hill going on in this year's challenge! Love it!  :)

--- End quote ---

Same. I'm glad to see it!

dhaabi:
61. Silent Hill f || PlayStation 5 || 10.03.2025



For nearly three full years, I've been curious to know what sort of direction the Silent Hill franchise would take with its first original and premium entry since 2012 after having largely been dormant for over a decade. Fortunately, Silent Hill f's release comes at a time that's perfect for someone like me who's only just recently completed every previous main installment.

First, it's critical to discuss f's identity. Of course, the game's most overt difference from the games before it is its 1960s Japan setting. And while this itself is a rather stark change, it is not the change I consider to be most significant. Instead, that change would be that the game is set in a town that is the protagonist's home. No, it's not some unfamiliar place or a home she's revisiting after having long been away from it, and it's not a town with any connection to Silent Hill either. And while the town of Ebisugaoka is certainly not Silent Hill, the game establishes connections between the two: coal mines, a town that's segregated from the city by bridge, a fog-laden mountain landscape that even covers the lower foothills, and religious beliefs steeped in folklore that contrasts the beliefs held by The Order. Despite the major shift in setting, there is more that's similar between the two towns than meets the eye. On a more fundamental level, why the psychological horrors that are to be experienced by Hinako exist in such a way is best explained by the game preceding f that many will assuredly overlook and not play, that being Silent Hill: The Short Experience.

To be forthright, f's writing is arguably the most transparent among its peers. Observant players will find hints to this theme all throughout the game whether it be through narrative, monster design and behavior, or environmental storytelling. However, this is not to suggest that I'm critical of the value it provides. Above all else, f's story revolves around gender roles. As the protagonist, Hinako as a young woman dares to question and defy societal gender expectations. She is called, or thought to be called, a traitor on numerous occasions even by her peers. And throughout her nightmarish journey, she grapples with what womanhood is exactly and what it means to sacrifice one's self for the patriarchal order. Despite her aversion to what's commonly accepted, she finds herself not only experiencing but submitting to what she's been avoiding all this time but on an unparalleled level that only psychological terrors can unleash. And since this thought does relate to writing, I'll bring attention to the game's endings. Or, rather, how they're earned. For some reason, the developers found it best for an incomplete ending to the narrative be experienced for all first completed playthroughs. To earn more fulfilling ones, subsequent playthroughs are required while simultaneously completing certain requirement goals.

Visually, the game looks fine and is not something I take issue with. In the game's opening hours especially, meandering through this small mountain town with its rising and lowering elevation and the small spaces between its clustered homes is enjoyable. It's a town that was designed far before urban planning regulations were enforced, so city design has an organic presentation and sense of space. At all points throughout the game, it's visually expressed as a forlorn, failing town that's seen better days long ago since before the war. I especially enjoyed the details in smaller environmental assets such as broken-down household appliances and alcohol bottles littering the perimeter of homes. And by contrast, f's otherworld environment takes on the setting of an ancient shrine. It's not particularly scary as it omits much of the surface-level horror elements with its visual design, but it does utilize darkness and often more intense combat sequences to help promote a greater sense of vulnerability.

Regarding the game's combat, I feel as if my opinion toward it is skewed largely because of the combat difficulty setting I elected to choose at the start. On the day of the game's release prior to any patch updates, what is traditionally considered the "Hard" difficulty setting was referred to as Balanced; in time, this was changed. Despite the lower level Story difficulty option even mentioning that it is the "traditional Silent Hill difficulty," I dismissed it due to its placement among options and chose Balanced. However, Story difficulty certainly should be the option most players choose as the game directs, as what was once named Balanced mode is anything but. With that said, it is difficult to properly assess my thoughts based on this fault since even at this moment, I've not seen how combat is like for the Story-focused experience.

Nevertheless, I believe I can still make judgment toward the game's combat. With how it's designed, the game's combat feel far too complicated for a survival horror game. Throughout general play, players must manage several different elements beyond straightforward attacks that include a Focus meter which doubly serves as the blocking function when certain weapon types are equipped, a Sanity meter that coincides with the Focus meter while also acting as a form of health, weapon durability depletion, and the window of opportunity to successfully evade and even parry enemy attacks. To say that there's no shortage of systems to monitor is an understatement, and combat's design makes the game far more action-focused than it needs to be. There's no merit in declaring that combat is objectively good or bad because it's neither of the two but instead mixed. Although, I will mention that the complex systems do add something toward elevating the sense of being vulnerable against the monsters awaiting you and, in a sense, do instill a greater emphasis on survival. Having first played through the game on a higher difficulty setting than is intended for a more tailored experience, what I can say from such position is that combat on Hard difficulty absolutely requires players to be well-versed in combat's design or overly patient upon failed attempt after failed attempt. Ignoring or being ignorant of any one individual combat element to the larger system will unquestionably make one's play experience more strenuous. And of course, despite it not always being possible or the best means of action, evading enemies altogether is (sometimes) a possibility.

And still, there is more relating to combat worth discussing. Unlike the majority of previous series titles, f restricts players with a limited inventory capacity, albeit one that can be upgraded over time through various means. Interestingly, the amount of items able to be stacked atop one another in one slot is also finite. For instance, acquiring more than three bandages will carry over to a second slot that allows for a combined total of six. As a result, players are routinely needing to parse through their inventory to see what's truly needed and what can be discarded. However, fully discarding items isn't actually what's done. Instead, items may be offered to shrine in return for Faith points which act as a form of currency. Also at these shrines, these points may be redeemed for stat upgrades or equippable charms gained randomly akin to gachapon. Needless to say, there is a lot of moving parts to combat and play style. Meanwhile, I'll also mention the visual effects that are present throughout combat. Enemies light up prior to when they may be counterattacked. A whooshing animation plays in slow motion upon the impact of a successful heavy attack. Like previously mentioned, these aspects diminish the presented horror elements. And while this last aspect is an outlier to the aforementioned, it's definitely worth mentioning that, arguably for the better, f is a game that's fully reliant on melee combat: there are no guns or other ranged weapons at the player's disposal. But I won't deny that combat feels overtly foreign as a result of some creative decisions toward the end of the game where battle gameplay evolves.

I'll preface this final section that, like with most things, horror is subjective. With that understanding, I consider f as a game that does not induce much fear. In fact, it may be the least scary game in the franchise—it's certainly a contender, anyway. Part of this is due to the game's emphasis on combat, whereas another part is that Japanese horror is far more subdued than western horror. However, I actually was anticipating this reduced fear prior to playing based on the latter which, to me personally, is not that scary despite myself still enjoying Japanese horror. But there are other factors at play too, such as the first boss having a specific attack with the corresponding "dodge this!" scripted dialogue. While psychological horror is still a hallmark of f, I feel as if much of the horror passed to players is translated through disgust and unease through body horror imagery that's, to be fair, also usually present within the series. But I feel as if it's taken to a slightly more intense level in this installment.

Throughout my time playing, my opinion of Silent Hill f transformed from being mildly disappointed to mildly satisfied. There are certain design choices I perhaps would have more greatly preferred to be opposite to what was finalized, but the game ultimately exists as a worthy entry in the series—a full-fledged entry that's the first of its kind in thirteen years. If this sort of quality continues, then there are good things to expect from the franchise going forward. At this point, I'm being more a backseat spectator to a second playthrough to reach a more satisfying conclusion, though I'm sure there will be times when I do play for myself. And as I've mentioned before elsewhere, I do believe that, in this moment, f now exists as the franchise's most divisive game entry.

dhaabi:

--- Quote from: telly on October 13, 2025, 04:26:45 pm ---Lots of Silent Hill going on in this year's challenge! Love it!  :)

--- End quote ---

And it keeps on going.

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