Silent Hill: Homecoming will not be released in Japan, Konami's official Web site has announced. The Silent Hill sequel, developed by American studio Double Helix and released in North America on September 30, 2008. Now, a year later, Konami has quietly announced that the expected Japanese version has been "suspended."
"Please look forward to future titles in the series," is all Konami can say in lieu of an actual explanation. This is the first update to the Japanese Homecoming site since November of 2008.
Frankly, I'm not surprised. Homecoming was bloody awful and perhaps the worst console-based Silent Hill game ever made. Yes, even worse than The Room, which happened to have its high points despite what everyone else thinks. If I were a Japanese Silent Hill fan, I'd consider myself very lucky that I dodged a bullet with this thoroughly dickless game.
Will Silent Hill ever be good again, I wonder?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
5:40 PM on 09.10.2009
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I wasn't impressed with any of the Silent Hill sequels. If the Silent Hill remake doesn't turn out good, they probably should just retire the series.
Actually.....it's such a bad game that I owned it for less than 24 hours before selling it and taking a $5 hit on it. I mean, who DOESN"T let people invert the damn camera? $5 PSN games have these options! I kept running into the damn walls and aiming at the roof/floor.
too soon.
No, they just have to be good.
It completely missed the point and Climax should have gotten the job instead. SH: Origins wasn't amazing but at least they had at least 3 people who knew what the hell they were doing. Oh and I liked The Room for a good list of reasons...so..um...there.
Homecoming just seemed like a huge fan game, with some interesting combat. It was like Silent Hill meets Saw or Hostel, without all that general creepy buildup that made Silent Hill so terrifying.
Oh well. *Goes back to playing Silent Hill 2 and 3*
Homecoming was... a far less earnest work I admit. I don't think Japan is really missing out either. Still, I enjoyed a lot of the Otherworld designs (especially the weird hospital/refinery otherworld) and Scarlet was a damned awesome and creepy boss. So while it wasn't a waste of time, it was the first Silent Hill game I played that truly left me feeling unsatisfied (didn't play Origins).
And yet Destructoid reviewed this game and gave it an Editor's Choice Award with a 9.0. A must buy.
Weird, huh?
But it was still an awesome game.
And Silent Hill will never be good again....not as long as it's being developed by anyone other than Team Silent. Especially not if it's being done by a WESTERN developer. J-Horror, even J-horror aiming to be western, has never, will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, blahblahblah be good in the hands of someone not from the east. It's not racist. It's a theory that just keeps becoming more of a fact with each iteration.
Heck, I tried to enjoy Origins. I was put off from the beginning by the lack of the traditional theme song (hey, those first four games had incredibly moving opening tracks). Next up was the obviously different character design. I had fallen in love with the style of the series, and this...wasn't Silent Hill anymore.
Onto the gameplay...the combat was -too- easy, the power ups only appearing when you needed them was annoying. The monsters themselves seemed more like bad mutations than something meant to terrify me. And then...and then came the Pyramid Head clone.
The Pyramid Head clone killed it for me. I haven't touched the game since seeing him. None of the other games copied each other up to that point, sure there were similiar monsters (well, the nurses in 3 being the same as 2 was kind of annoying, but forgivable). This was the first time the series blatently ripped itself off, and in the most uninspiring way.
When I heard of another Silent Hill coming out, I started feeling better, but then I found out it wasn't being made in it's country of origin. Konami had whored out it's IP to yet another Western Game team. Already, I pretty much stopped caring, a bitter taste still left over from my brief stumblings through SHOrigins (wth is it with most americans needing to have everything explained to them, anyway? Why come up with SH's origins? Part of the charm was not knowing what the f was going on).
The nurses being carbon-copied from the movie sealed that deal. If I end up accidently paying 50 cents for it, like I did Gun for the PS2 (heheh...cashier rang up the stick of gum TWICE), I might try it. There are other things that will keep me from playing it (the emphasis on combat...that's what God Of War's for, dur.), but I'm not interested in playing something that's just more fanfiction.
Sorry for the rant. I hate what Konami's done to the only game series that's ever sucked me in completely.
But it was still an awesome game.
And Silent Hill will never be good again....not as long as it's being developed by anyone other than Team Silent. Especially not if it's being done by a WESTERN developer. J-Horror, even J-horror aiming to be western, has never, will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, blahblahblah be good in the hands of someone not from the east. It's not racist. It's a theory that just keeps becoming more of a fact with each iteration.
Heck, I tried to enjoy Origins. I was put off from the beginning by the lack of the traditional theme song (hey, those first four games had incredibly moving opening tracks). Next up was the obviously different character design. I had fallen in love with the style of the series, and this...wasn't Silent Hill anymore.
Onto the gameplay...the combat was -too- easy, the power ups only appearing when you needed them was annoying. The monsters themselves seemed more like bad mutations than something meant to terrify me. And then...and then came the Pyramid Head clone.
The Pyramid Head clone killed it for me. I haven't touched the game since seeing him. None of the other games copied each other up to that point, sure there were similiar monsters (well, the nurses in 3 being the same as 2 was kind of annoying, but forgivable). This was the first time the series blatently ripped itself off, and in the most uninspiring way.
When I heard of another Silent Hill coming out, I started feeling better, but then I found out it wasn't being made in it's country of origin. Konami had whored out it's IP to yet another Western Game team. Already, I pretty much stopped caring, a bitter taste still left over from my brief stumblings through SHOrigins (wth is it with most americans needing to have everything explained to them, anyway? Why come up with SH's origins? Part of the charm was not knowing what the f was going on).
The nurses being carbon-copied from the movie sealed that deal. If I end up accidently paying 50 cents for it, like I did Gun for the PS2 (heheh...cashier rang up the stick of gum TWICE), I might try it. There are other things that will keep me from playing it (the emphasis on combat...that's what God Of War's for, dur.), but I'm not interested in playing something that's just more fanfiction.
Sorry for the rant. I hate what Konami's done to the only game series that's ever sucked me in completely.
Homecoming was a great game. It wasn't as creepy as the first Silent Hill, but NONE of the SH sequels has been as creepy, so I hardly count that against it. The gameplay balance was well done, and they really played up the "survival" aspect of the game, something that's been sorely missing from most "Survival/Horror" games lately. Overall, the only thing really -bad- about Homecoming was their blatant misuse of the Pyramid Head character, but I never thought he was anything special anyway so honestly I didn't care that much.
As a fan of the Team Silent era, I think the disappointment comes from a lack of substance and that the games attracted people that liked the subtlety and the contrived nature of its plot.
Every SH game after The Room, including the movie, has felt more like a carcass trying to pantomime what Team Silent created, regardless of the iteration.
Either way, nothing as good as Silent Hill should reach part five. Nothing gets to part five being good. Homecoming, while a competent game, it unnecessarily carries the Silent Hill tag.
Well put...makes me feel like even more of an arse for posting such a long rant, having my point summed up in a couple of sentences C_C