As a huge Silent Hill 2 fan, I more or less agree with this score. I'd give the game a 7/10, maybe 7.5. Its not an awful game at all, more or less good (ignoring the awful PC performance) but its not the masterpiece the original is.
Well as I said, it is my opinion and I have the self-control to be able to play and enjoy gacha games without being financially irresponsible. When I pull for a character in a gacha game, for example, I just skip the animation to go directly to the results. Not only is it faster but it also bypasses the "anticipation building" that the animation and sound effects create. I am glad you have learned for yourself how to have better mental health, but I am saying for me its not about MTX, its more about competition or competitive style games.
Don't get me wrong, I still play competitive games. I love me some Battlefield 4, Forza Motorsport, Dead By Daylight (when the people I play against decide to not be serial harrassers), and others. Its just that I try to view it differently. Again, its only a video game and at the end of the day, I am not going to die over anything in the game, winning or losing or whatever. It can sometimes make me feel bad when I have a long losing streak or if I get harrassed, but when that happens I just turn off that game for a week or two and play something else. I don't have to go to the extreme of uninstalling, but I can understand that some do and that's totally fine.
Well the issue is that some people confuse a want for a need.
Wanting characters is great but the problem comes from being disappointed that you didn't get what you want as fast as you thought you should. The true method of playing a gacha game is like running a marathon, its not a race and you take it slow. Play in your free time, down time, whatever. I don't play those games as my main game, just as a side game. Sometimes I miss a day for the login or a special event or even a character that I really wanted but at the end of the day, its just a video game and I am not going to die without that thing or character I wanted. If I get it, its simply a bonus to the joy I get from playing the game already. I don't play a game long if I don't have fun with it at least more than when I don't.
Some people don't have self control, and I am not saying that the games are not monetized in a predatory way. But I view it no different from actual gachapon: capsule toys. You know, like a gumball machine, but the little plastic ball that has a random small toy or stickers inside. You pay, turn the knob, and you always win something, you just don't know what. To me, I dont consider that the same as gambling like with a slot machine. That's just my opinion, and I sure I am in the minority with that, and with my overall attitude towards gacha games in general.
I don't think its so much the microtransactions as it is games with a highly competitive spirit. PvP games in particular. I don't find myself having any negative feelings after playing a game like Zenless Zone Zero or Goddess of Victory NIKKE, but after about two matches of Dead by Daylight, a game with a notoriously toxic playerbase, I definitely feel worse than before I play, particularly if the matches do not go well for me.
Im the kind of player that doesn't spend money unless I feel like something provides me value. Ive played ZZZ since release and haven't spent a single cent, and NIKKE since its release and only spent $25 total. I have enough self-control to handle those games and can spot bad value in games like gacha games pretty fast. So for me it isn't really about microtransactions, its definitely about competition with other players, and interactions with them. Playing a game of DBD, winning, and then having everyone (usually TTV streamers) call you names in chat or on their stream and report/mercilessly harrass you ( for winning in a video game, mind you) is a completly different level of toxic that I doubt many would be able to properly handle long term.
Its why I pretty much never recommend DBD to people.
They couldn't even pay me to play Concord.
I hope this is like Morbius, and comes back only to another monumental flop. This game is already so far in the hole at $400 million I dont see how them spending more money on it to develop it more will ever make a profit. They would have to put the most egregious loot box gacha monetization ever known to man to even try, there is no chance it ever makes money.
As a Silent Hill fan myself, just wait until you find out how much people are demanding for games like Kuon and Panzer Dragoon Saga (USA).
100% just emulate them. Used sales do not give the original developers or publishers money anyway, so they couldn't argue about "lost sales" (stupid term BTW) anyways.
Plus, disks succumb to disk rot eventually, people are starting to see it happening with laser disks. Cartridges go bad, etc. It can be nice to have a physical copy, but only get them for ones that are affordable and need the physical as part of the experience. Steel Battalion, for example, requires the 40 button, 3 joystick, 3 footpedal controller as part of the experience.
I know I might sound like I am complaining or hating, but please understand I am a huge fan of Silent Hill and want this to be successful, but I also want it to be faithful. No spoiler warnings, its a remake of a 20+ year old game.
There are a lot of things changed that didn't need to be. Like they changed stuff purely for the sake of changing it, when it was completely fine in the original as is.
They made the fog thicker in some places than the original and thinner than the original in others.
Quicktime events still exist. Actual war crime.
You can take damage and be interrupted when interacting with items, objects, puzzles, the map, and notes, which is awful and needs to be patched to fix it. That type of gameplay mechanic is not suitable for this kind of game. Its Silent Hill, not Dark Souls.
Still wish they gave us a fixed camera option, but I can at least know that modders will 100% fix that blunder.
Don't like the changes to the Pyramid Head intro scene, also don't like that you now meet Eddit before PH and James no longer asks about whether Eddie saw the "Red Pyramid Thing." And actually, I don't like that they changed the dialogue at all. The original dialogue was fine and easy to understand. It didn't need to change, and is another example to me of changing it just for the sake of changing it.
Angela's voice actor is easily the worst in the game. The actress might be okay and maybe the direction was bad, but she just sounds flat and wooden in the remake, which by comparison in the original Angela had a "rollercoaster" type of voice direction, she was quite animated compared to James. The remake just makes her sound like she doesn't care at all about anything, which is how James should sound, but whatever. Her intro scene in the cemetary is her best acted scene, and it only gets worse from there.
Don't like how Angela acts with the mirror scene. In the original when she turns the knife on James her pose shows fear, like she is cowering away from James. Given this character's backstory, that is completely understandable and expected. But in the remake for some reason she holds the knife out like a combat trained Navy Seal or some greaser from Michael Jackson's BAD music video when they show the knife duel. And the cry of "no" doesn't really sound like a cry of fear, more like disciplining a child when they take cookies from the cookie jar.
Avoiding enemies, the best strategy of the original and the entire point of survival horror as a genre, is pretty much impossible in the remake. In the original you were only required to fight the Flesh Lips, Abstract Daddy (boss), and Maria. You never even actually had to fight Pyramid Head, you just waited it out and he left on his own. But now I can't seem to avoid enemies like I could before. Mostly pacifist runs will not be likely doable anymore.
I havent played too much beyond this yet.
I like the graphics. Not crazy about the controls/camera. One note about the graphics- the fog not rendering in the puddle reflections on the ground is really distracting.
Don't like how they made Eddie look, I much prefer his original design. James is okay, glad they fixed him.
The music is hit and miss for me, unlike the original. Some iconic tracks are too different IMO and lose that charm the original had.
PC performance is bad. Just like every other Bloober game, not only is it difficult to maintain 60 fps (needing DLSS and other options on just for 1080p), but even if you can hit 60 fps the game stutters anyway. Sometimes stuttering in a spot that moments ago did not stutter, it doesn't seem to have any reliable pattern to it and is unavoidable. About the same as all of Bloobers other games, which is a real shame.
Monster designs are okay but they all seem to have a strange eggshell sheen on them where they were more shiny/wet looking in the original. Especially the Mannequins.
"We dont have yellow paint, we have white paint" is kinda annoying but at least thematic I guess.
This dwarf punches rock to mine it, mad respect.
Bungie did not have gaming veterans when they made Halo. They had worked on small stuff like a rip off of Pong for Macs, Marathon, Myth and the like. That'd be kinda like saying an indie team are game veterans because they released one successful game. Plus they only had like 50-100 people that made Halo CE.
Compare that with 343s like 500+, thats massively embarrassing.
Just make a good one. 343/halo studios just seems to hate the original Halos. Fire all those people and bring in people that love the originals and you already have a way higher chance of getting something successful.
I hope he wins but it isn't looking good.
If its got Denuvo then I am not buying it.
Not like I was going to buy it anyway, but still.