Silent Hill 4: The Room Review

The first half is genuinely inspired. Your apartment is the save room, viewed in first person, and it is the only safe place in the game until it starts corrupting around you, with sounds through the walls and objects that move between visits. Watching your own sanctuary become hostile is a better idea than anything the series had tried since the second game, and the subway and forest worlds have a grubby specificity.

Then the design gives out. The second half sends you back through every world you already cleared, this time escorting a companion who takes damage you cannot prevent and who slows the pace to nothing. Ghosts cannot be killed, only pinned, and the inventory limit turns exploration into a courier problem. Combat was never good in this series and here it is worse, with a charged swing you will miss constantly. Walter Sullivan is a strong antagonist and the story is worth reaching. Half of a great game, and the half that works is unforgettable.