Silent Hill: Shattered Memories [Wii/PSP]

[Shozuki]

kool! didnt have much time to play this on Wii. Will grab this for PSP. Is it on US PSN?

[Dogg Thang]

Yep. It's up now.

[MrKirov]

Any word on the PS2 version of this? Im tempted to import but nowhere seems to have any reviews?

[abigsmurf]

Just playing through the PSP version.

Fairly impressed. The graphics are among the best on the console. Biggest problem is that the frame rate plummets on the ice sections anf the colours are slightly muddier (notable on the 'colour in your parents bit). Also have the issue with the torch not lighting objects you're too close too but thats a minor quibble. The analogue nub and face buttons work really well.

Game is great though much better than I was expecting when it was first announced.

[Dogg Thang]

I got totally shafted out of an ending. Or at least some of it. The ending began and then the screen went black with the grain effect still going while a music track played. And then looped. Again and again. Eventually, I realised nothing else was going to happen but pressing the start button gave me the option to 'skip cut scene'. It was the only way to get past it. Then credits rolled and it gave me the option to save and then did the same thing after that only this time no button would respond.

Pants.

I had to reboot the game and, when I started it, it started from the beginning again. No idea if it recognises that I had completed it. Is there a way it logs that? Do anything like mementos carry over (they didn't for me)?

As for why I saved after skipping an ending, well, I hadn't been saving the game. I didn't think there was a need. There was no danger and I just used the PSP sleep function. So I would have to play through most of it anyway.

Oh well... that's frustrating.

But that aside, I absolutely loved this. The atmosphere was fantastic, the story came together really well and I adored the confusion and the paranoia. I really felt for Harry as I played through and got attached to him as a character in a way I hadn't done since James in SH2. A hellish journey across town to find his daughter.

And I loved that

->Open Spoiler<-

there was none of the cult/demon crap that came with some of the other SH games. This felt far more real, like SH2. Just about things that people do.

In fact, the only thing I didn't like (aside from getting shafted out of an ending) was the chase stuff. The first one was full of panic and I did get a kick out of it. Once. I think what killed it for me was when I realised that there was no real consequence for not making it through. They're short enough to go through again. So I didn't feel the danger and yet found the running around in circles annoying.

And, maybe odd for what was once a survival horror game, I don't think the game needed them. The exploration sections (which are most of the game) turned Silent Hill into a relaxed yet creepy adventure game. And, for me, it worked that way. I didn't miss the combat. I didn't miss the oppression of SH1. I didn't miss the danger.

This is a whole different game to SH1 and, after the series had (in my opinion) gone a bit stale, this offers something very different and, personally, I'm so glad it does. It was a real pleasant surprise almost all the way through.

And I'm definitely going to play through it again to see what changes and if I can get an actual ending.

[abigsmurf]

Finished it now. Game crashed about 20 seconds before the ending which was a bummer (had a nearby save though)

The twist at the end was brilliant (massive spoilers)

->Open Spoiler<-

It was actually Cheryl in the chair, refusing to accept that her father died or was getting a divorce and pretending she had a loving, father

Not sure if that's the 'main' ending or if there are other different outcomes. Would be interesting to see how the game differs in the way it plays out. Some of the psychological tests were subtle some were clear in how they'd affect things.

Overall good game. Perhaps not as scary as it could be, the nighmare bits were more of a chore than scary and there wasn't a huge amount of freaky moments. Very creative and a worthy re-invention of a franchise that has been plagued recently by substandard immitations of previous games.

[Dogg Thang]

That's two of us then with crashes at the end so word to all the PSP peeps - save regularly.

I played through it again yesterday (around a working day - it really is a short game) and loved it again. What I loved were differences based on the profiling and play.

Like even right towards the start -

->Open Spoiler<-

Cybill looked totally different, looking far more like a real cop and not having the glasses. No beer bottles lying around and the sexy pictures that were in my first play through were nowhere to be found - for a while. Sometimes the changes have real impact with rooms looking completely different or having to go through different locations. And so much of the dialogue changes.

A little later, I even got a different arrangement of the 'Always On My Mind' performance.

I absolutely adore that feature. I can't think of the last time I wanted to play through a game again as soon as I finished it and now I want to do it again today.

I managed to get an ending this time, which was nice. And a great ending it was too. Ending SPOILERS -

->Open Spoiler<-

Yes, Cheryl being in the chair is the main event but it seems how she handles the even is different as my first bit when Harry comes in was different on my first playthrough. What I didn't get the first time due to the crash was the bit where Cheryl leaves the clinic and we get the home movies.

Apparently these can be quite different. It's funny that my game began all pure with no sexy imagery as that slowly but surely began to change (not sure what I did for that to happen) and, by the end, there was more sex imagery than there had been in the first play. And, as a result, at the end I got a home movie with Harry, Michelle and Lisa - the dirty dog. Answered my question on how Michelle fits into all this.

Yeah, I still have some criticisms on the game but, generally, I love this. Such a great kick in the pants in the series and, since SH2, it's the first one that's given me loads to think about. Most importantly to consider for me, can this fit with the previous games in any way?

[abigsmurf]

Is a bit hard to link it to previous games on the face of it but when you think about it there are lots of parallels. Obviously the names and Silent Hill but there's the shift between 'regular' and 'nightmare' versions of the town, a focus on the mind of the central character in the theming and events, exploring an empty town.

It's very different but at the same time it's just a bit too heavily influenced by Silent Hill for it to get away with being an independent franchise (if they renamed everything). If it had just been called 'Shattered memories' people would've called it a rip off

[Family Fry]

Someone did write a cool theory on GAF that made it tie into SH 1&3 using this story as main influence, this spoiler will include SH and Shattered Memories spoilers/endings.
Basically

->Open Spoiler<-

Imagine this game has become SH2 in trilogy. In SH1 Harry has crashed and died, everything in SH1 is a denial of his death, you are not able to get over his death. SH2 becomes Shattered Memories, in this Dr Kaufman mentions your previous therapy didn't work (SH1) and via the end of this you are able to put your memorie back together and get the truth, harry died in the original crash and you have to come to terms with it. Now we move on to SH3, Cheryl is still trying to cope with her fathers death and comes up with a reason to go back to Silent Hill by blaming the town for her fathers death, as he is supposedly killed by the town which he is still living in (cause he died there originally)

Was a nice in-depth theory and I'm certainly not doing it justice by summarising it.

[Dogg Thang]

I'd be thinking along slightly similar lines, though I'm not quite sure SH3 fits in there. MAJOR SPOILERS for SH1-3 and Shattered Memories ahoy -

->Open Spoiler<-

Isn't the Heather/Cheryl we meet in SH3 considerably younger than the Cheryl in SM? So SM should be after SH3, shouldn't it?

The big thing for me in Silent Hill is how it was opened up in SH2. James was completely going through his own hell, seemingly created just for him and the relevence of which was only revealed at the end. You could interpret the whole game as having happened in his head, the only thing pointing elsewhere being that he met other people going through their own completely different experiences. Whether totally in his head or a manifestation created from his head, SH2 basically said that every single element of Silent Hill was open to being a psychological creation.

This is backed up by the bad ending of SH1 where we see that Harry is still dead in his car.

In Shattered Memories, the main theme seems to be a denial of what is real. And what is real here is far less glamourous or interesting than the created - Harry is just a bloke who died in a crash, end of story.

That's similar to SH2 with James. The reality, though tragic, is a blunt slap in the face compared with this elaborate journey through Silent Hill.

And then take SH1. What sounds more likely, more real - that Harry died in a car crash? Or that a town was taken over by an evil cult using drugs and they summoned a demon, burning a child and then that child was reborn again?

It is accepted by many that SH1's story tells stuff that actually happened and that the Otherworld seen in most SH games was created by Alessa. I think that's backed up by somewhat official sources.

As soon as I got to the end of SH2, that didn't sit right with me. It's more likely that it comes down to poor writing but SH1 stinks of bull**** and that can be interpreted in the game world. A drug, White Claudia, that becomes a big thing out of nowhere when Harry seems to get paranoid about drugs? See how that plays out in the game. It feels like a creation of paranoia. Harry recognises things all over the place. One that stuck in my head was a child's story about a lizard. When you see it, Harry remembers it from his childhood and then, soon after, encounters a manifestation of that lizard.

Harry had read that book. We don't ever know that Alessa or anyone else read it. But we do know Harry had read it.

It always seemed to me that the Otherworld in SH1 was created from Harry's mind. Not anyone elses. And there's no reason why that wouldn't include the cult, Dahlia and even Alessa. There may never have been an Alessa.

That carries on into SH3. It stinks of bull**** too. Harry dies and his daughter barely reacts. She becomes some sort of action hero. Someone completely white called Claudia is invented out of nowhere. An adversary just as the drug, White Claudia, was an adversary. Seemingly created by the same paranoia.

At least, I would hope so because SH3 played out like an episode of Buffy on the surface. It was juvenile. Unless none of it happened. Or very little.

Just like Shattered Memories.

If you start from Shattered Memories and work backwards, it feels like it makes more sense. Dahlia, the estranged wife, becomes some cult leader in the first game willing to sacrifice her own daughter and tries to stop Harry, the beloved father. If we take it that the break-up occurred not long before the car crash, the craziness of SH1 could be attributed to Harry's own thoughts.

But it's hard to see how SH3 fits in there.

Unless they are all Cheryl's interpretations. That sort of works. If you take it that SH1 is an early recreation from her mind. Dahlia, the wicked witch. Cheryl/Alessa, the hard done by victim who is adopted and doesn't really belong to her parents. The fairly childish visions of cults and drug paranoia.

There's one problem but I'll get to that...

Then on to SH3, an older teenage Cheryl has created this other story. Harry dies but she is strong, like she's trying to fool herself into thinking she has come to terms with it. The rest of SH3 is pretty teenagery anyway with the cults/Vincent/malls etc. It also fits with the time in Cheryl's life that is referenced in Shattered Memories - where she was shoplifting in the mall.

By her mid-twenties, she has dropped the cult fantasies and is more grounded. The same elements exist but are interpreted differently. Lisa doesn't turn out to be a monster, for example, she dies of pills (still has that drug paranoia and still trying to kill off one of Daddy's playthings) - notice the blood trails are the same in SH1 and SM when Lisa dies. Different interpretations of all the same things she was going through in SH1.

The problem for me in there is Kaufmann. He plays such a big role in SH1 and yet Cheryl has just met him in Shattered Memories. That doesn't fit. It seems to be the hole in that theory from GAF too, along with the ages in SH3/SM.

I don't know. It's fun to theorise though and I'm always looking for something to back up my view that SH1 was not Alessa's creation, but Harry's (or indeed Cheryl's created from her vision of Harry).

I've been going for a third play today. Even more differences this time -

->Open Spoiler<-

Met Cybill at a whole different point and in yet another different outfit. More new dialogue.

I absolutely love this profiling feature.

[Family Fry]

Very nicely written. Think the way shattered memories pans out has to be commended, Climax really added a new spin on the series that can be interpreted into the older games. So sad to hear US wii version sold around 50,000 copies hopefully PS2/PSP gives it a total boost and Euro release in March gives it time to breathe.
Was impressed with my second playthrough, especially straight after the first you really do notice the changes, even the nightmare creatures change shapes too.
Not done 3rd play yet, was happy to hear there is a UFO ending hidden in game too although I'm gonna try and find it without a guide.

[abigsmurf]

Yeah, this deserves to be a big seller although it could be a slow burner, SH games are often impulse buys. I'm hoping the PSP port will make for bigger sales.

Anyone hear Climax slating Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space extraction? Basically called them relics of an older generation of games and it shouldn't be surprising they didn't sell well. SH SM hasn't sold well but it's done far better than Dead Space.

[mattfabb]

I have been playing this and I dont like it as much as SH1-2-3. I know its a good game, but just not as good as those. the SH games for me where always formulaic in execution but so compelling, this one introduces a lot of changes but I get distracted by the fiddliness of it rather than being immersed in its world.

Just an opinion, maybe I should finish it first before criticizing.

[Dogg Thang]

Just finished my third playthrough and I think I really love this game. I'm very tempted now to get the Wii version to play this with the improved graphics.

[egparadigm]

Finished my first playthrough of this. I'd be quite positive about this game if it weren't for the interminable nightmare sections.

I think the game does need slightly more up-tempo moments to punctuate the meat, but they're so confusing. All the corridors and areas look similar enough and you can't look at the map because you're being chased and jumped on constantly. The first couple of times it was OK, but the more often they popped up the more impatient I got. If they wanted these sections to be a little less irritating, they could have made them more linear.

The rest of the game is quite intriguing; very David Lynch. Just about enough interest to keep you playing. Really like the way the 'psychology' aspect works and interested to see the differences in a second playthrough. Already met the Cop again –

->Open Spoiler<-

the lower-cut top makes her look both unprofessional and less attractive.

A cautious recommendation, then.

Never played a Silent Hill game before. Is this quite a good representation of the series as a whole, or quite different?