Back again for our regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both. Outside of gaming, I’ve had an utterly boring week, which is the way I like it, but I did also have the option of literally watching paint dry if needed! Which might explain everything I’m about to get into… Just don’t tell my wife! Anyway, apart from having to cancel my long-standing Silent Hill f preorder on Amazon and place another with them the night before release day so bizarrely it would actually arrive on release day and not two days later, I’ve got nothing else to report, so let’s dive in to that and plenty more besides! 

Late as I was to the party, I’ve now played the PlayStation 2 version of Ico enough times (and written a very deep-dive) to properly cement it in my top twenty games of all time. Only ever dabbled with the 2011 PS3 remaster though, so while I had a gap between big games before Silent Hill f arrived this week, it seemed like a nice way to fill it! Definitely was too, even if a bit of the magic was lost in all that polish… It’s still minimalist 3D action-platforming adventure with maximum immersion though, as “different” boy (called Ico) meets princess girl while they’re both locked up in a castle, which they then try to escape together, in the face of environmental obstacles, puzzles and her evil mother’s terrifying magical minions. Whether the PS2 original or here, the gameplay is sublime – simple and logical but, in combination with the deceptively intense narrative, it’s emotionally draining, frequently almost physically exhausting, and utterly wonderful all at once! Controls are certainly more fluid here, which most of the time does allow you to appreciate all of that a bit more too, although I think this can be at the expense of precision when required, especially for the more heavy-fingered like me! The huge boost in resolution and draw-distance further enhances the vertigo-inducing sense of scale of the original, as well as your sense of place, but this is where I think that magic I just mentioned takes the biggest hit, with the typically clinical PS3 graphical sheen constantly at odds with being uber-atmospheric. I’m not sure either soundtrack or sound effects are much different, but the latter especially did seem clearer. The only other thing that reallly stood out were the shadow-enemies being far more energetic and a bit more intelligent too, unlike your companion, unfortunately, who seems as slow on the uptake as she is off the mark! Did I enjoy every second regardless though? Yes! Even if it is without doubt going to be the PS2 version next time, although there’s plenty of New Game Plus features to be found, so we’ll see! By the way, sorry for the rubbish photo of my rubbish TV above – did my best!

As was the case with Ico a while back, discovering a new old absolute favourite has always been my Holy Grail with this hobby, but although Konami’s Snatcher is hardly new to me, messing around with the Japanese version on the PC-Engine Mini using my phone camera for live translation is hardly “discovery” either! Which is why I’ve been meaning to play what I guess is the definitive Western release from 1994 on the Sega Mega-CD ever since, but as you’ve no doubt already guessed, it was totally worth the wait! This is, of course, Hideo Kojima’s cult graphic adventure set in the Blade Runner-inspired surrounds of Neo Kobe City, a neon-drenched dystopia where you play an amnesiac agent investigating a series of murders committed by vampire-like humanoid robots (but definitely not Terminators!) called Snatchers. I know point-and-click adventures evolved from the old text adventures, but this has a vibe somewhere right in the middle, with these gorgeously atmospheric, minimally animated pixel-art scenes, supplemented by comic-book style character presentation mixing text and voice-acting to convey the wonderfully cinematic interactive narrative. This is driven by very intuitive and surprisingly adaptive menu-based commands, as well as the occasional first-person shootout, which is a simple but effective distraction. It’s all about the storytelling though, which is immersive,  fast-paced, hard to put down, and I reckon is about as sophisticated (and coherent) as Kojima has ever got in this regard, although his other, er, quirks are all present and correct! Just like the sumptuous, almost alt-Castlevania-like soundtrack… Sparkling renditions of Jingle Bells aside! That this even exists is curious, given the ongoing demise of the platform by the time it arrived (which wasn’t exactly widespread to begin with), but has proven to be welcome all the same, not only coming fully translated for the first (and only) time, but the final act is more fleshed-out than previously too, and although there is a bit of censorship and some graphical downgrades compared to the later (Japan-only) PlayStation and Saturn ports, I’m sure support for Konami’s “Justifier” gun controller more than makes up for it! Seriously though, this game had me hooked from start to finish, and I loved the sights, the sounds, the way it plays and everywhere it takes you, making it yet another case of very glad I finally got there!

I’m almost as familiar with the titular Silent Hill as I am the town I grew up in (although there are plenty of similarities), so despite being a mega-fan of the series, I was hesitant about Silent Hill f, and its move to the remote mountain town of Ebisugaoka in 1960s Japan… And then the fog descended, and I found myself totally lost in its twisted streets, abandoned except for an unknown creeping menace, and it was very quickly terrifying and utterly beautiful all at once, and I knew I was home! It really is beautiful too (especially when things go Otherworld-ly), and although my many visits to Japan are far more recent than this setting, it looks pretty authentic to me. No question it’s authentically Silent Hill though, with its Japanese folklore-inspired puzzles, not massively elegant melee(-only) combat, and wildly grotesque monsters! Gets typically nasty as well, as you play a seemingly unremarkable local teenager, Shimizu Hinako, navigating the equally grotesque remnants of her past, facing impossible decisions, and generally trying to survive a constantly tense and unsettling but immersive and ultimately enjoyable narrative, complete with trademark multiple endings! Multiple ways to play too (which I’m doing on Xbox Series X), with both puzzles and combat on adjustable difficulties, and the latter being particularly welcome because, lack of refinement aside, it gets pretty brutal regardless! It all plays well though, introducing clever survival-horror elements in place of more traditional ones, and likewise it weaves in elements of Japanese psychological horror to fantastic effect. The contrasting visual and sound designs as you veer between the “regular” Fog World and the intermittent Otherworld are also used to fantastic effect, including the soundtrack, which is everything you’d have high expectations for from a Silent Hill game, and with plenty of local flavour too. And somehow I think that last sentence more or less summarises my thoughts on the rest of the game! It’s frightening, unnerving and troubling, but so atmospheric and such a good (horrible!) time, and it’s just so Silent Hill. Even if it isn’t!

Just realised that’s quite the selection of big-hitters this week! I somehow managed to finish the recent Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound too, which I covered here a few weeks ago, and apart from a couple of rough checkpoints, continued to be so much fun. Amazing how Hollow Knight: Silksong gives you new perspective on how hard a hard 2D platformer actually is too! I’m about twenty hours deep in that now but have mostly taken a break this week because it’s killing me! Anyway, that will do us here for this time. Do check back on Wednesday though, when we’ll be into the start of the new month, meaning we’re heading back exactly 40 years again for the very latest in video gaming with Retro Rewind: October 1985 in Computer & Video Games, straight from the pages of the original magazine! Hopefully see you then! 

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