The Silent Hill series has been suffering a bit of an identity crisis for some time now. Following the disbandment of Team Silent at Konami, which developed the first four entries, outsourcing to different developers for newer entries has resulted in a series of strong games that don’t quite feel like they belong together.
However, despite once again featuring a unique setting and new gameplay mechanics, the overall feel of Silent Hill: Townfall seemed to be taking more inspiration from early Silent Hill games than games like Silent Hill f had. This, in combination with the emphasis on modern horror gameplay elements, gave me hope that the franchise was finally finding its footing again. As soon as I entered St. Amelia, I knew I was right.
Wasting no time, Townfall immediately kicks things off by introducing Simon, who, without explanation, has just washed up on the Scottish shores of St. Amelia Island with a medical wristband and an IV bag strapped to his arm. As Simon makes his way into town for answers, he quickly realizes the whole place is deserted, and there’s nothing but a dense fog coating what appears to be the remnants of a town that descended into chaos.
The first part of the game, fittingly named Simon, involves our hero wandering around the deserted town while searching for clues related to Zoe, the only person Simon seemingly has a connection to on the island, as well as avoiding enemies.
Since most things are blocked off until you’re meant to explore them for story reasons, this unfortunately led to a bit of early tedium where I felt like I was being repeatedly directed from point A to point B with nothing to see along the way. The desolate town should’ve added to the overall fear factor, but it just made everything seem empty rather than scary.
All that changed once Zoe was officially introduced. As many players suspected, yes, you will also play as Zoe during sequences of the game, and I actually found Zoe’s portion to be far more interesting. Zoe’s half of the story kicks off in the past, right as things started falling apart in St. Amelia, which meant the world still had some life to it.
The gameplay itself is more or less the same aside from the tool used to track enemies; however, Zoe’s internal struggle with feeling as though she failed everyone as a medical professional during a city-wide health crisis is far more compelling to follow than Simon’s generalized confusion about what’s going on.
The back-and-forth sequences between Simon and Zoe do eventually begin to mirror each other, and St. Amelia seems to change each time you swap perspectives, making passing through the same areas more interesting since you’re forced to take new paths and buildings suddenly look entirely different.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/silent-hill-townfall-review-simon-zoe/
