I really enjoyed playing the original Silent Hill is one of the best horror game ever made for PS1. It's has impressive psychological horror style, deadly graphic imagery with full of scary enemies and bloody environment, disturbing ambient soundtrack, excellent story written, and dramatic gameplay with great combat and puzzles that made the game so awesome in late 90's gaming. It's a shame that I won't able to play rest of the sequels like SH 2, 3 and 4 because I don't have the PS2 or original Xbox, but I heard a lot of good things about these games. Unfortunately Konami did later butchered the later silent hill games like HD collection, Homecoming and Downpour for the PS3 and X360 and then later Konami made a terrible decision by cancelling new Silent Hill game, after the 2014's P.T demo had received much praise for the atmospheres, visuals and gameplay until in Spring 2015, Konami decided to remove the P.T demo from the PS Store after the cancellation of Silent Hills development, which is a huge middle finger to the fans of the series, so that means I won't have a chance to download and play P.T Demo after I've bought my PS4 on last year Summer. F*** YOU KONAMI, JUST STOP KILLING YOUR OWN FRANCHISE!!!!!!
Okay, enough my rage quit, my apologies, let's start my game review right now. My thoughts on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is actually pretty decent Survival Horror game for the Wii console. The game was quite looked different from the 1999's original game, which the developer team wanted to make a different approach of the game. It has same premise as the first installment, but with the different plot and retains same characters along with new ones. It has pretty good story and characters, impressive visuals, outstanding soundtrack and of course the gameplay plays great, but it does shares with some flaws, such as frustrating chase sequences, short single player length and the atmosphere is not nearly looked scary as the 1999's original, but it's still looked okay so far because it has some of the good moments in this game. So far, it's still pretty impressive game for the Wii titles and without go further do, let's talk about the game's overall.
Presentation
The story takes place in American town of Silent Hill, it's starts off with Harry Mason is driving to the town with his Daughter named Cheryl Mason for vacation, until he ends up having car accident and loses consciousness. When he finally woke up in town, he realises that his daughter is missing, so he starts to set out to find her in town.
The story is similar to the 1999's original, but the plot of the game seems to be sound different, as the game begins with a psychotherapy session conducted by Dr. Kaufmann, which acts as a frame story for Harry's quest and of course the game has a many variation of the cutscene depending what scenario you'll end up with and the multiple endings does adds the nice replay value that keeps the story so refreshing. So far, the story in the whole game is quite well done that really puts much effort to make it sounds pretty decent. The characters in the whole game are quite pretty good in the game because the developer teams wanted to make the characters in the game acted more realistic than the rest in 1999's original, so it's makes the whole characters becoming more interesting.
I also liked the part where the town have shifted to different dimension between real life and nightmare. The game's atmospheres is still pretty not that bad for the use of static noise, enemies design choices and the setting of the game style, but it wasn't sounds scary as the 1999's original version, which has slightly better enemies creatures, darker horror elements, and creepy ambient sounds which I liked the original more better, but at least this game is still has a great moments to enjoy the story presentation.
Overall, It has stunning storyplot, decent characters, and replay values.
Gameplay
The game divides with two different settings, so you start off with the psychological test with the Dr Kaufmann to complete with the questionnaires and other activities, which alters the gameplay aspects in the second setting, such as available areas. In the second setting, you take control of Harry Mason to find his daughter in the snowy town.
You get to use some of the equipment, such as flashlight which is used for darker area and the smartphone are used for map location to find where you supposed to go during the exploration, taking photograph, checking voicemails and text message, and making phone calls are quite useful for finding clues and puzzle solving. Unlike the original game, the combat gameplay is pretty absent in this game instead your character can only run, hide, and knocking down object to block the enemy's path which is not that bad thing as long the game focused on the different horror style than just the common survival horror that uses the combat gameplay.
The controls are played great with the Wii remote and nunchunk controller. The Wii remote worked really well when using the flashlight, which you can point anywhere in different direction, but you can also turn the flashlight off when you're not in the darker area. You can interact the smaller objects to find the key to unlock the door and you can also collecting the mementos which is quite cool to collect stuff in the game. Controlling the character works pretty fine with the nunchunk controller, so your character has ability to run around and climbing over the fences which is pretty basic for character's movement.
I'm finding the chase sequences are quite hard is because finding a way to escape from the nightmare dimension takes sometime to get used too, but I find the enemies are quite annoying which is becoming quite difficult to push them away. Sometimes the places can be too confusing when attempting to escape, which took you awhile to find a right area instead of heading a same wrong places. I really liked the puzzle solving in the game especially with finding clues makes the game challenging and enjoyable to play that keeps the game fully playable.
Overall, it has impressive controls, good exploration levels, and decent puzzle solving.
Graphics
The graphics looked pretty great for the Wii titles. I really liked the looks of the level environment with fully covered snow and wracked places town in the real life dimension and the icy area in nightmare dimension is fully crystal and dark which looked great in the setting of the level design that fits the mood of the game. The special effects are looked amazing with snow particles flying down and the realistic looking water are looking so damn impressive in the levels. The character's design are looked quite outstanding for the whole game with great use of animations. It tends to be looked a lot better than the PS2 and PSP counterpart is due to Wii's quality graphics has lot more cleaner look that made the whole game looked absolutely marvellous for the overall graphics.
Overall, it's by far the best looking graphics for the Wii's titles with excellent level environment, amazing special effects and outstanding character's design.
Music and Sounds
The game really has a great soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka, who did composed the previous Silent Hill game, did a great job on the music. It has haunting soundtrack that fits very well for the horror genre and the sound effects are quite sounds great with the static noises and the phone calls conversation on the Wii remote's speaker which sounds pretty cool. The voice acting fits very well on every characters, but I find the enemy's voice and ghost's stock scream are sounds pretty weak compared with the 1999's original version are slightly sounds better in my opinion.
Overall it has great music, good sound effects and decent voice acting for characters.
Special Features
It has collectables mementos, but it's lacks unlockable features.
Advantages
Excellent story
Great characters
Decent gameplay
Outstanding graphics
Great soundtrack
Nice replay values
Disadvantages
Short single player length
Frustrating chase sequences
It wasn't scary as the 1999's original game
Lacks unlockable features
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - Stunning storyplot, decent characters, and replay values.
Gameplay 7.5/10 - Impressive controls, good exploration levels, and decent puzzle solving.
Graphics 8.8/10 - Excellent level environment, amazing special effects and outstanding character's design.
Music and Sounds 8.7/10 - Great music, good sound effects and decent voice acting for characters.
Special Features 3/10 - Collectable mementos, but has no unlockable features.
Overall 7.9/10 - So far, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is definitely a good game for Wii titles. I'm impressed with the story, replay values, visuals, soundtrack and of course the overall gameplay that made the game enjoyable to play, but even though the single player feels kinda too short, the chase sequences can be annoying to get used with, and they could have done something better with the overall atmosphere, but still it's a decent reboot to the original.
Overall, this game is definitely for those who are the fan of the series or got into with survival horror genre will able to enjoy it.
In my second opinion, I liked the Shattered Memories, but I definitely prefer the original Silent Hill for PS1 a lot better.
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