Silent Hill 2 Review

Expectations were low for good reasons, and the result is a careful, respectful reconstruction that gets the important thing right: it does not explain itself. James is still an unreliable narrator, the endings still turn on how you treat yourself while playing, and the letter still means what it always meant. The camera moved to over the shoulder, which changes the feel of the town from something observed to something you are inside, and the fog is now a volumetric effect rather than a hardware workaround yet still reads as oppressive.

Combat is functional now rather than deliberately awful, which is the most debated change, since some of the original's helplessness came from bad controls. Enemy encounters are also more frequent and the game is roughly twice as long, which stretches some middle sections of the apartments and the hospital past their welcome. Yamaoka returned for the score. It is not a replacement for the original and it does not pretend to be. It is a genuinely faithful translation.