Your Feelings on the Current State of the Silent Hill series?

[randomwab]

OK, so i've been kind of thinking over this the past few weeks and since there are a few Silent Hill fans on the board, I wanted to know how you felt about this.

So, the last Silent Hill game was The Room, released 2004. That was the last game to hold the title, and it was the last game Team Silent worked on.

Since then, Silent Hill has, to say the least, gone main stream. I will not go into that dirty piece of ass that was the Silent Hill movie, however, it did throw the series into the spotlight of many gamers and film go'ers a like.

Through this, we have not seen a Silent Hill title. Origins was supposed to, at first, tie in with the DVD release of the movie on DVD, however, due to trouble with the developers, it has been recieving constant delays since it was announced.

Silent Hill Origins had been given to a non-Konami studio. Within Silent Hill, this has never been done (Even Silent Hill: Play Novel was done in-house, although not by Team Silent). Although the game is beginning to shape up to being a true Silent Hill title, it has had a truely troubled development with game design bouncing back and forward.

However, Silent Hill V is also being developed by an American developer, The Collective, part of Foundation 9 Entertainment. Several screens and a teaser has been released about the game and the screens have not been well met by the community.

Now this is my point. Silent Hill was a very niche title for Konami. Howeverm since the movie, Konami has handled everything to do with the series pretty carelessly. They've been giving the games to outside developers (Silent Hill Origins, Silent Hill V) and spamming out ass constantly (Silent Hill comics, Silent Hill Experience) while the second movie has been announced to be in pre-production.

Everyone believed, myself included, that Team Silent would come back swinging with Silent Hill 5 after there 3 year silence. However, 5 is being thrown to a shitty fucking developer, with there previous games here, which really worries me. Team Silent themselves have, as I mentioned, been silent since 04, except Yamaoka, the series' composer (who has released an album and who was heavily involved with the movie, as well as creating 15 tracks for Silent Hill Origins and scoring Silent Hill V), Ito, the series' monster designer (Who has worked on a Japanese only Silent Hill Digital Graphic Novel for cell phones) and Owaku, the writer for Silent Hill 2, 3 and 4 and a programmer on all games (Who has also worked on the Japanese Silent Hill Digital Graphic Novel). Of these three, only Yamaoka has been vocal about the series to the press, saying several times that the next game was looking to return to the Silent Hill 2 style, and that they were attempting to make a scary game based in day light (though come to think of it, he didn't specify which team has been developing this game).

So yeah, rant over, current Silent Hill = complete suck. Discuss.

(I'm in work, bored and wanted to rant)

[BLSR1]

Compare the Silent Hill movie to other videogame movies like doom, bloodrayne, and resident evil and it's not bad. I liked it and it's one of my favorite movies up there with Evil Dead II and Nightmare before christmas

The comics have a uniqe art style and are pretty good

Once again I bring up the idea that if the movie is exactly like the game it will be boring if you've seen the game before, but if it's too different like the resident evil movies... it just sucks
Silent Hill is the best movie videogame adaptation since Super Mario Bros. which sucked ass

[Scream]

SH movie was good. But yeah I agree with you about SH5, doesn't make any sense to me. But that is the world of business for you.

[Rombie]

Team Silent technically hasn't been Team Silent since SH2. Team Silent is the crew that made the first two, and basically the main creative team of both titles consisted of 6 specific people - Keiichiro Toyama (who directed Silent Hill 1 and left during early production of SH2 to work with Sony), Akihiro Imamura (main programmer on 1 and producer on 2), Takayoshi Sato (character designer for 1 and 2, now working at EA in the US), Masahiro Ito (enemy designer who I believe has left Konami to do his own art thing), Gozo Kitao (producer on SH1 and exec producer on SH2 who I have no idea what he's doing now), and the publicly outspoken head of the team these days - Akira Yamaoka.

The group that made 3 was crippled to just Yamaoka, Kitao, Ito, and Imamura who had mostly a new crew creating the game for them. 4's only realy link to the original team was two of those original six who weren't even really hands on anymore (Imamura and Yamaoka - both with production and exec/associate producer roles, with just the music being basically put through the motions by Yamaoka, and the games production was handled by an entirely different team at Konami because it had started as a different project.

Looking at the history each title has continued to removed them from actual development into cushy management roles, so it's not surprising SH5 isn't even being made at Konami anymore. The only person I believe who had a fully hands on role into SH4 that worked on previous titles from the Team Silent era was Masashi Tsuboyama, who went from background designer on SH1 and SH2 to creating the art design and monsters in Ito's absence for "The Room".

SH3 was a technical masterpiece, but it's story forced a lot of the ideas about what made the first two so good (mostly in it's ambiguity) out the window. As we know, SH4 wasn't supposed to be a SH game and it shows. I finished the game but I hardly felt that compelled to complete the title... the ghosts idea especially frustrated me because it isn't like anything else in the series, and the limited item and item box thing frustrated me also.

Origins, while looking better now than it's original build is still very iffy - rehashing the idea there is more to the SH story that we knew and perhaps ruining what is left that is special about the plot of the first game.

The arcade title is a poor idea and looks exceptionally crap to boot - who plays House of the Dead-esq games these days anyway - Sega certainly knows that for sure, so why not take a page from their book and stop thinking it's a good idea.

And while I understand Konami is kinda forced to find someone to make SH5 I find it difficult to believe that they don't have an internal team who want to or can pay enough money to get some of the people involved in the earlier teams to come make a proper title in the series within the company. Yes, some are working at EA, others at Sony... just bribe people for crying out loud. LOL

What has been shown looks very bland and uninspired, as if they're making a "Silent Hill by numbers" cookie cutter title because of the requirements set by the series and Konami itself.

It's looking unlikely a sequel will be made to the movie by the same people as well, which is a shame because the passion in creating a visual experience crafted by the game is the best feature of the first film and managed to outweigh a large amount of the problems with the film - and that's likely to be lost when someone else takes it over. There will be a sequel I'm sure of that though.

The series is looking fairly stale at this point, and I'm very upset that the series - which even after SH3 I held in a somewhat better regard than the Resident Evil series - has very quickly and very horribly gone off the rails.

[randomwab]

I agree with Rombie in saying that within the visual department, the Silent Hill movie was a masterpiece. It really captured the look and feel of the games perfectly. It was the story that I didn't like, and not in this fanboy-esque "ZOMG HARRY'S GONE WTF !11!!oner!" (although I don't buy his reason for changing Harry). My main problem with the Silent Hill film is the fact that they changed there inital idea to make a Silent Hill 2 film so they could explain why Silent Hill is what it is, which neither the movie nor the first game did. Infact, it is still unknown why Silent Hill has these powers, and within the official canon of the series, the earliest mention of the town tells that even then it had powers.

And I dislike how they changed the story. The original Silent Hill story was fine and could have easily been moved over to film with little change, yet they made the Silent Hill Otherworld a crowded mess, about preventing the coming of Samael instead of bringing home to life.

Rombie, I knew Sato left Konami after Silent Hill 2, however, I was not aware of just how broken up Team Silent had become. In light of this information, it's sad that we may never see another title in the series with the original creative force.

I do agree though that I don't know how Konami wasn't able to muster a good team to work on a Silent Hill game, especially when it's a numbered console entry into the series.

However, I am looking forward to Silent Hill Origins, it seems pretty faithful to the series, and despite the changes, I can't complain seeing as it's the brightest thing in the series' future.

[rewak]

F*****g disgraceful, to put it simply.

Reasons -

SH4, i'm sorry did you say ghosts? And i have to do everything again whilst protecting someone? No thanks
Upcoming SH games NOT being made by Team Silent/Konami
SH Arcade, that's just too damn low
SH Movie, while it was pretty good, i'm still waiting on a proper DVD version
SH Movie 2, no writer, no director, no nothing
Cell phone + PSP comics, simply lame

[Dot50Cal]

I came pretty late to the series, so I'm not sure how valuable my opinion is. What I've seen thus far in screenshots for SH5 has me pretty disappointed. I was expecting something better in the graphics department from such a highly valued franchise.

[Rombie]

I just realized the irony of what I said about the movie and a possible sequel is actually applicable to the current state of the series as well, because the further the original creative team is become detached and the teams Konami put's in place work on it, it's began losing more and more of it's style.

Toyama's leaving didn't seem to dent how Silent Hill went in his departure, but having looked at his work with Sony (Siren/Siren 2) shows how much in a way he was involved in aspects of the entire series. He left his mark as the director of the first game.

Sato left Japan for good and moved to Konami US... while also attempting to expand Sato Works in the US related to his work with SH2 which he had also done in the US. According to interviews with him, when Konami was wanting pitches for the next Silent Hill (3 at the time) he had an idea and some rough work done by his own SatoWorks team that he'd begun fleshing out (independent of "Team Silent") which was pitched and rejected - technically this was the first breakdown of the "core group" that made SH2. After this he left Konami and went and worked at EA on Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, but since then he hasn't done anything fully public. His website (satoworks.com) hasn't been updated since September 2006, but if you look at his resume he's been working on something very big and unannounced for a "next gen" platform for EA. It also has some gallery images and sketches of stuff made for Silent Hill.

Ito's a weird one. I was very surprised to find him not in charge of design again after how much of an impact his work had on the first three games, but even after the company was working on 4 he was still working on some of the graphic novels, spin off's, and assisting with the design elements in the film. He still is even now to a degree, as well as working on artworks for other companies (and if his IMDb info is correct, he's also writing/written a couple of scripts for things). His website (www.geocities.jp/nobu_hill/), like Sato's, isn't updated often, but is really worth checking out. More designs and artworks you've never seen, and probably wouldn't be allowed into the games.

Gozo Kitao, as I mentioned earlier, seems to have almost gone without much trace. Most credits don't list him for any other Konami game post 2004 with his last credit as DDR Ultramix 2... and I can't find anything else. Either he's moved up, out, or on.

Reason I know all this is I got involved in a debate on when "Team Silent" broke down - I say Sato was the real catalyst in the actual breakdown, and also the same point of time... because he stated that Konami was already open to an outside 3rd party making a new SH title(!). But some say it was post SH3 because the main group managed to move through and get to make the game for Konami in the end.

There is no way that the main core of SH2 will ever be the same, but I find it hard to believe that they can't have Ito, Imamura, Akira, and Owaku at least, and maybe even try and bribe Toyama to come back. Having those four or five be the main core with the programmers who worked on 2 and 3 would make an exceptionally awesome new game. Oh well... one can dream.

[Scream]

Thanks Rombie, thanks a lot. Now the cutest girl at work thinks I'm into pyramid heads.

Lol just kidding, but maybe you should put a NSFW sign in there. ;)

[Dot50Cal]

Hahaha

[Borman]

You guys have to remember that The Room didnt start as a Silent Hill title, and while it happened relatively early, I think it was obvious that it wasnt what The Room was really about.

And be open to new teams, American teams can produce some nice games. Will it be different? Sure. But I doubt it will be any more different then the huge jump from RE3 to RE4.

[randomwab]

You guys have to remember that The Room didnt start as a Silent Hill title, and while it happened relatively early, I think it was obvious that it wasnt what The Room was really about.

And be open to new teams, American teams can produce some nice games. Will it be different? Sure. But I doubt it will be any more different then the huge jump from RE3 to RE4.

We mentioned it earlier in the thread, did we not? Maybe it was the Favourite Moment thread.

And i'm all for other teams working on games, it's just it's very rare that they turn out good. Tomb Raider Legend/Anniversary is a good example of something that worked well compared to, say, Code Veronica or the Gun Survivor games to Capcoms Resident games.

It doesn't help seeing the past titles from the developer making the Silent Hill title with a number, and seeing how much trouble Climax have had with Origins.

[Borman]

Just have faith, I think itll turn our different but fine, and if were lucky, great. Silent Hill always had issues so I'm glad they are trying something different

[Rombie]

Thanks Rombie, thanks a lot. Now the cutest girl at work thinks I'm into pyramid heads.

Lol just kidding, but maybe you should put a NSFW sign in there. ;)

What, and ruin the fun of it all? :p heh

[Krispy]

You would be lying to yourself to say Silent Hill was a masterpiece of cinema ;). Often people make the argument that a movie adaptation should not follow the game since it would be boring for the audience who played the game (presumably the majority of viewers) or some such none sense. I would then retort that it is a worst scenario when they decide to change pieces of the plot to create a more generic experience even if it is deviate.

The Silent Hill games seem to be ailing from a lack of visionaries. Now, I'm no expert on Team Silent or even Konami for that matter -- certainly a title like that would go to Rombie -- but it seems to me that Konami is finding it hard to generate an original psychological thriller. Resident Evil has it a bit better if anything simply because everyone knows how a work of zombie fiction should play out. Its an atmosphere commonly seen in books, cinema, and now games. On the other hand, Silent Hill is a franchise that requires a much more in depth look into human psyche and terror to fit the bill. Its this quality that has been lost or, in more figurative words, filtered out of the original template until you get what tickles the masses. Crazy shit going on in a creepy town, all else is subject to the cutting room floor.