the FAITH games are so fucking cool. they're incredibly unique in basically every way... and very terrifying.
this video is LONG but it's a fantastic explanation of the unholy trinity.
something cool i learned from this is that airdorf, the creator of the game (solo dev btw), was actually a missionary and included a personal story from his mission in the game. i could always tell that FAITH was a game that was made by someone who actually had a lot of knowledge about Christianity and there was always a sort of reverence for it that could be felt, which can't be said for pretty much every other example of exorcist-horror out there.
My appreciation for Japanese women began when I was a young boy and was able to put the face to the voice of Simple and Clean for the first time. Utada Hikaru.
She's gorgeous and obviously has an amazing voice.
I remember listening to her music in the car with my family. A shitty little MP3 player full of YouTube rips, plugged in to one of those cassette to AUX converters.
This is one of my favorites. It popped up on shuffle and I hadn't heard it for a while. That's what prompted this little retrospective xD
Silent Hill 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I didn't play it back in the day, but I played it for the first time 4-ish years ago and was hooked. It's not hard for a modern audience to understand, and if it is, then part of me thinks that they don't deserve it. It's not dated nearly as bad as anyone thinks, just because it has fixed cameras or something like that. If anything, its old age lends to its eerie, uncanny atmosphere. It's like a warm blanket that's smothering you, and it smells like melancholic nostalgia.
If SH2 Remake has RE2 Remake controls/gameplay, it will be an instant failure in my book. I really do not know how they could even hope to "modernize" the gameplay without losing its essence.
I'm not worried about the story or music. I'm a little worried about the graphics, because part of the horror of the old SH games is how they are old and a little bit dreamy. That can still be done with newer graphics, though.
I am worried about the voice acting. A big part of why SH2 left such a big impact on me was the voice acting. There is a reason why nobody likes the remaster VA. The original VA is just so, "normal" for lack of a better word, that it makes everything hit that much harder. The more professional the VA sounds, the less personal the game becomes, and that's a big part of SH2's oddly comforting horror.
I'm mostly worried about the gameplay. Getting rid of fixed camera angles completely is going to ruin some scenes, and the team will need to find a way to still make them impactful. Imagine a remake of your favorite movie, and it just follows the main character's backside around the entire time. There's the pacing too, which even something as simple as another couple enemies could disrupt. If Pyramid Head is more actively chasing you around like a Mr. X type character, it's going to ruin the pacing completely.
SH2 is just dripping with intent, and messing with that is going to get really dicey. There is perhaps an equal or comparable amount of soul seeping into the project, resulting in unintentional yet perfect aspects of the game that only make it better with age.
I know they have a couple people from "Team Silent" working with them (which is I believe the art director, composer, and producer?), but the thing about Team Silent is that everybody pulled their weight. It was a really small team and they had soul that can't just be simply replicated. Even if it were the exact same team, people change over time. Silent Hill 2 is a perfect time capsule of the team's ambition and heart, and as the player it's something you can really feel.
In my opinion, there is no way that this remake will be better than the original. I don't doubt it will be really good, just not the same. Thankfully, the original game will always exist, but it's a shame that this will be many players' first experience with SH2 instead of the way it was originally crafted.
This is to say nothing of Bloober. I am not a huge fan of their games, I'll be honest. They have amazing ideas, but painfully mediocre execution. With a bit more direction and a game to base everything on already, I think they'll do a much better job with it.
mainly post about music and games, and share art from artists i like.
obviously i don't condone any sort of abuse/exploitation irl, go fuck yourself.
currently learning japanese.