Resident Evil spearheaded the success of survival horror on consoles. Before it, horror themed games were mostly point and click puzzle titles on the PC and saw releases on the Phillips CD-I and Panasonic 3DO. Resident Evil had a lot of jump scares, but the lore and the tone teetered on goofy in the original game. Some of that has to do with the incredibly cheesy voice acting. Then came Konami's Silent Hill in 1999, a completely different kind of beast from a narrative perspective.

Despite playing JRPGs throughout my entire gaming tenure, I never really cared about stories in video games. I feel they exist to give the characters IN the game incentive, but seldom are they a motivator for me to keep playing most action or platform games. Silent Hill, however, always had a very fascinating and surreal lore to it that bears similarities to what presented in Jacob's Ladder. The world itself, which aspects of Silent Hill can be interpretation of the protagonist's damaged psyche or inner complex, has taken different manifestations in future entries. The desolate atmosphere and unsettling tone with its empty small town with only a few inhabitants determining if they're alive, dead, or stuck in a constant state of nonbeing.

In the story, Harry Mason is searching for his missing adopted daughter Cheryl after they were separated following a car accident. When a girl wanders in the middle of the road, Harry veers off to avoid her and crashes. Waking up, he heads towards the fog-covered town and soon encounters bizarre occurrences. The fact that there's so little going on once I get to anything resembling civilization and there's no activity put me at unease almost immediately. Maps and weapons can be acquired, but like Resident Evil, it's wiser to conserve as much of your resources as possible. Silent Hill is a very minimalist game at its core, it mostly focuses on solving puzzles to proceed further. It shares that in common with Capcom's series, but the similarities end there.

Visually, Silent Hill is decent for its time. While polygons from this era will never be able to escape that blocky look, I will give credit to games that were fully rendered. The camera is on a wire for some areas, but also does some fixed shots for some really cool artsy looks. The character models have pretty primitive detail, same with the monsters you encounter. Though with Silent Hill's creatures, I think it works, because they're already indistinguishable abominations, making them even harder to decipher counts as an improvement. The rendered sequences I've always liked. 

The music in Silent Hill is a stroke of genius. Akira Yamaoka composed an incredibly rustic and chilling soundtrack that's incredibly memorable. It's reported that he was inspired by Angelo Badalamenti, the composer for movies like Mulholland Drive and the series Twin Peaks. The scores aren't so much catchy as they are abrasive and avant garde. Yamaoka said he didn't watch the game's cut sequences when producing, so it's impressive that while not watching it had no influence, it gels well and brings Silent Hill's haunting permeance to fruition. 

Also, the voice acting is pretty well done for this time period. Whereas the aforementioned Resident Evil had cartoonishly bad voice acting that lives in infamy, the performances in Silent Hill are pretty decent. The delivery may be hokey on a couple of lines, but the script doesn't lend itself to unintentional comedy most of the time. In a bit of irony, especially regarding unintentional comedy, it was fascinating to know that Harry Mason was voiced by Michael Guinn, who was Dracula in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, who has become a fantastic meme.

The controls. Oh boy, this game has aged. Resident Evil's tank controls may have been archaic, but navigating Harry around feels like you're guiding a broken unicycle. His walk cycle is very sluggish and it feels like he takes a moment to get started. I'd almost say it practically is Resi's tank controls, just done from an over-the-shoulder perspective. Aiming is a little bit of a pain, but because Harry isn't a combatant of any kind, his experience with a handgun should be more than questionable. It's a nice touch from a direction standpoint, I can appreciate that.

The idea of a survival horror game is to instill a sense of helplessness in the player, as nobody is likely scared of a video game, but rather you can simulate that by incorporating elements beyond their control. I believe this is why Harry has a purposefully clunky control layout. However, I can't make excuses for it, it can be rotten try and revisit this. 

Is the original Silent Hill worth playing today? The story is very engaging and covers quite a bit of disturbing topics. Dahlia Gillispie ranks as one of the most sinister villains in video games (to the point that the movie actually made me mad with the changes they made to her), Harry Mason is a protagonist that I really root for. He's a normal man with no powers thrust into this twisted world, and is driven to help save himself and his daughter, as well as those he befriends along the way.

The controls really make it a hard sell, unless you're willing to overcome the draconian play style. That's why I prefer Shattered Memories on the Wii, it's a remake of the first game that I find really fascinating, even if a lot of the frightening elements are significantly different. Perhaps those rumblings of Konami tinkering with a new Silent Hill could be a refining of the OG, if not a new entry altogether.