@Elliptica @LittleTom yeah it'll probably work for some people and not for others, I can tell. If I got In Water for my first SH2 ending I probably wouldn't have been that interested in playing it again either lol so I get it.

@beardalaxy @Elliptica A shitload of the plot (silent hill f) is told through new bits and notes that are only available in ng+ playthroughs as far as I can tell. LIke a LOT of it is in notes, not just the new endings.

@LittleTom @beardalaxy That's horrible. The game literally makes no sense on a first play through then. I was wondering if I missed something.

I recently played through Marathon, a 90s shooter made by Bungie. The entire story is accessible on a first playthrough, though you are not likely to find it because they are hidden away as secrets, usually requiring special tricks to reach them, and the instruction on how to perform these tricks are themselves hidden on the second to last level.

However, on a first play-through the story is easy enough to follow: you are a security officer defending a colony ship from Aliens. One of the ships AI has gone insane, so it's up to you to try and stop both to save the ship and it's crew. There is the hint of a bigger conspiracy at play, leaving questions for the player, but nothing that makes the story incomprehensible.

The game is "fun", so you might replay it, and ultimately encounter the secrets, filling in the gaps the story has. At the same time, it never spells anything out. For example, the fact that you are a robot can be inferred by context (one terminal mentions that someone smuggled 10 "battleroids" on board the colony ship, and at the ending monologue it is mentioned that 9 battleroids fought against the aliens on a nearby planet that you had just happened to be leaving when the game starts), but it's never explicitly spelled out for the player, and the gap between those hints are great enough for the player to not make the connection unless they were taking notes.

This is the right way to do it.

@Elliptica @LittleTom it's definitely a fake out ending on the first playthrough. The main themes of the game are present in every playthrough though and I liked that aspect. You don't actually get the true ending until your 3rd playthrough lol so yeah it is a little bit much to be honest.

@LittleTom @Elliptica I just watched the cutscenes and I'll be doing another playthrough soon, but I was able to mostly piece it together through those alone tbh. The journal entries I'm guessing just add a lot of context and cement things.

@beardalaxy @Elliptica @LittleTom Yes I actually watched an interesting video on how they determine which ending you get in Silent Hill 2. It seems the water one is the hardest to get your first time unless you know what you are doing. Thank you friend.

@bebe @Elliptica @LittleTom unfortunately that's not how it is in the remake, they kind of butchered that. I loosely followed what you do in the original game to get Leave and still got In Water which was really disappointing because I hate that ending.

@beardalaxy @Elliptica @LittleTom Yes it seems the remake changed a lot of things unnecessarily. Thank you friend.

@bebe @beardalaxy @Elliptica IMO it's a lot worse then original in pretty much every way.