Silent Hill: The Short Message Is About Sudoku | Castle Super Beast 255 Clip

[@Gh0stWh33l]

"Did you know about the Japanese practice of Honerable Suicide" Has the same energy as "Did you know about Martin Luther King?"

[@makeitthrough_]

Have you heard of the high elves?

[@RufusM]

Have you ever had the desire to write your initials in wet cement?

[@reidianceva2409]

"The strongest animals do not form groups" Lions, wolves, HUMANS have entered the chat.

[@User5770]

Hippos, notorious for being the most dangerous land animals in terms of people killed per year, also live in groups. Whoever wrote that line has no idea what they were saying. They probably just thought it sounded strong and edgy.

[@dwoll8337]

Elephants, whales, hippos, sauropod dinosaurs, bison

[@User5770]

Yeah whoever wrote this either had no idea what they were talking about or they wrote it without thinking because they thought it sounded tough and edgy. We could spend all day listing extraordinarily dangerous animals, some of them apex predators in their environments, that live in groups.

[@PersephoneStars]

​@@dwoll8337I was laughing about Bison being M. Bison but then I remember that Shadaloo and even the 4 kings of Shadaloo exist. So, yeah. That's a wrong quote from wherever you want to look at it.

[@johnrivers3813]

Yeah but what about lone wolves though? Those are toughest amongst them -I'm joking-

[@carlosfred8673]

I heard a ‘Silent Hill Fog‘ descended on a small town in Japan but a bunch of teenagers and a bear stopped it.

[@lokidokey7586]

"I am a Silence. The true Hill."

[@kekula69]

@@lokidokey7586 the true bobby hill

[@Vampireinarm1]

The real silent hill was the bears we met along the way

[@cottonmouthaudio5041]

Woolie hit Pat with the judgment cut.

[@Mr.Faust3]

Woolie madden: SLAY ALL

[@Grimshuck]

Woolie Madden: YOU SHALL DIE

[@pileofsmiles]

Vsync off

[@aynektheevil3217]

That’s the team power of a green.

[@wednesdaygeckok.7899]

Woolie Madden: You will not forget this Devils power

[@notbulger]

Woolie: *un-sheaths and sheaths katana* Pat: What the fuck?

[@NucleaRaptor]

*teleports behind you* nothin personnel kid

[@Maxisamo1]

N-NANDA???

[@megamike15]

the fog escapeing gives me "every town has an elm street." vibes.

[@egg2520]

Dun dun dunnnnn 😱

[@redaffix7320]

Unironically would be cooler if they discuss and focus on the idea that the fog of the town is expanding, rather than just teleporting to other places. Especially would love it if they showed the difference between what people who don't have some deep darkness and everything seems normal, or people that are and the fog of SH begins to show them a mirror of their darkness. Make it about multiple characters, but change how the entire aesthetic of environment's looks. Do a town of a couple hundred or even thousand people (racoon city or some shit), but maybe only ~10 to 20% of the town experiences "weird phenomenon," some becoming fatal. And because of the fact that it's abstract and warped, you can just have some leftover cultists, leading to the main character(s) learning about Silent Hill being the core of it. Then you have an excuse to see Silent Hill again, but it's more twisted than it was in 1/2/3. With multiple characters they could also explore both the remaining cult, maybe some sort of conflict within the cult, some politics based around greed/envy/pride/sloth/etc, and explore each of them through maybe 3 characters, one of which being driven in discovering why everything is happening, one that's suffering from the more extreme personal SH, and then a character in the middle that affects the 2 other characters while still dealing with the manifestations of their sins/regrets/dark urges. Let all 3 be playable based on progress and set pieces in the story. Literally call it Silent Hill: Chimera. One character is a stoic killer with potentially noble intentions (lion), one is a character who's selfish and manipulative, but their mind is warped through their past, making them believe they're in the right (Snake), and then the last is a character grappling with their faith, struggling to reconcile past experiences or actions, teetering on being nihilistic, atheistic, or theistic looking for some sort of forgiveness, salvation, or justification (Goat *or* Lamb).

[@TheDrLeviathan]

It feels more like Cloverfield/Fringe multiverse stuff. I say this bc the logo for the Tagrouto corporation showed up in Ascension, and Ascension is a Bad Robot product. Which terrifies me. Seriously, if I see one Slusho in any of this new Silent Hill crap...

[@temporalTechnologist]

god that could have been so good.

[@FailingDuke64]

What actually happened is yes it’s expanding, but the grandma being a potential witch/cult member is a loose thread that they can expand or build through

[@WeaponOfMyDestructio]

What if the real horror experience is suffering being a Silent Hill fan.

[@Kango234]

I mean it is a neverending nightmare at this point.

[@zaneseibert]

Silent Hill at this point holds the title "franchise with the longest running draught of quality yet people still care." The only W it's had in the past 14 years was a demo for a game that got cancelled.

[@justinl8791]

@@Kango234 Yeah, a 20 year waking nightmare perpetrated first by assholes who like to pull levers & now by dumbshit idiots who like to write stories about dumbass baby ghosts running into walls.

[@blakkerr]

Perhaps the real horror was the friends we made along the way.

[@Dracobyte]

The myth of Sysiphus incarnated!

[@RarestShadow]

I had a lot of issues taking the notes with mean things written on them seriously because every time I saw one that said "You're a nobody," I kept thinking about Parking Lot Kingdom Hearts

[@RicochetForce]

“Dual Wield!” - UFO Pants

[@RarestShadow]

@@RicochetForce "Don't hit the camera man"

[@Comkill117]

“You’re a fool Sora.” (Puts on hood and walks away)

[@thecaptain6520]

"I can't kill you you're a part of me"

[@theqreem8587]

That JC Penny parking lot needs to be a national monument

[@ShintoArt]

It's ironic that Short Message seems to be banking on the "How do you do fellow relatable zoomer kids? Doesn't social media make you want to commit sudoku?!" when one the most loved Silent Hill games is about a middle aged man grieving over his dead wife. Even more ironic is that many people played Silent Hill 2 when they were young adults and still loved it, so clearly "relatability" wasn't really a factor back then.

[@Gojiro7]

I'm with woolie where the topic matter can very much work, but like you and Pat state, its being done by very out of touch people who don't get this thing their doing or what Silent Hill has been before which didn't need age relatability to work. What could have worked about this really needed to be done by a young indie dev who actually knows how life in the social media world can bring the weight of the world on your shoulders over nothing, but you'll never get that out of a game dev studio thats seen the crush of industry game development and DEFINITELY not get that out of Konami of all places

[@johnrivers3813]

"These middle aged man problems are out of my scope and I cannot relate." So what? I don't relate to A LOT of experiences people go through but it doesn't mean I can't at least feel sympathy.

[@johnrivers3813]

The more I think about this the less it makes sense to me. Last of Us I is by far one of my favorite video games and I played that game as a 20 year old woman in college with no kids of my own and I bawled my eyes out after watching that opening scene. I don't have to see myself in another character to feel or connect with them on a personal level. All they have to do is present themselves as authentic people and it's really easy to see their perspective and to understand their emotions.

[@alexgofo.]

i get the point you're making here, but it's also noteworthy that james is 29 and not really middle aged, lol

[@johnrivers3813]

@@alexgofo. well I never played Silent hill 2 so 🤷‍♀️

[@Mr.Faust3]

Personally my favorite silent hill is the pachinko game where James goes all raiden on pyramid head

[@lifeiscrap103]

HIT THE LEVER!

[@wednesdaygeckok.7899]

THERE WILL BE BLOOD SHED THE MAN IN THE MIRROR, PYRAMID HEAD

[@chillhour6155]

And yells *it's trauma time*

[@MrFox-ox2ze]

RULES OF TRAUMA!!!!!

[@Maiden.less.]

Whoever made this game thinks Tuition in Germany costs as much as in the US. Anitas Situation sucks cause she cannot afford the good College. Universities in Germany are almost free. We don't have School Lockers. This is based on a Japanese Person watching Glee and thinking Germany is the same.

[@venomoussocks1017]

Damn. Free tuition for university? That's rad. It also begs the question as to why the game takes place in Germany if they don't do anything with the setting. Take Silent Hill 2 for example. The very decayed suburban Americana is crucial for the story and a lot of the background lore and buildings would make less sense in another setting.

[@Maiden.less.]

@@venomoussocks1017 there's no general fees for state universities in most states anymore, just for private schools I think . Prior to that the fee was...500€ per semester

[@venomoussocks1017]

@@Maiden.less. I stand by what I said previously. That's a hell of a deal compared to North America.

[@RasmusKudahl]

Here in Denmark we get paid to study. I hope that becomes the norm all over the world, but that might be a bit too optimistic. @@venomoussocks1017

[@temporalTechnologist]

you know that's like the first thing i noticed about the game that seemed off to me. She's in germany and can't afford university?? The writers were just making up problems where they could have used something more realistic, like the cost of therapy or tuition in the US. But they went with a country with one of the best social programs in the world... interesting. Japan is weirdly obsessed with Germany. I find a lot of writers use it as a replacement for the US because they apply so much US stuff to it.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

This game has its moments, but it feels like there're two different writers making different stories. One is Silent Hill, the other is a teens high school art project

[@drdiabetes7469]

Konami (a bunch of 50 yr old dudes) hired a bunch of 20 yr old zoomers to write it, and then said "yes fellow kids, this is scawey and beautiful write"

[@kyuboxincubox7556]

"The girl who wants to end her life walked off the ledge, Woolie. And by that I mean she walked off the ledge and back onto the rooftop to safety, what's so difficult to understand about this?" You couldn't word this more poorly if you planned it.

[@DoveAlexa]

Pat explaining things is just... what's worst than first draft? Actively pisses me off and I feel so bad for Woolie.

[@PikaPenny17]

@@DoveAlexa Drunken bar napkin writing is worse than first draft.

[@goldenboy9748]

I assume it’s the silent hill not allowing her to kill herself.

[@GrayD_Fox]

I figured that's what he meant but then he said something that made it seem like she did walk off the roof

[@vvoid8416]

When pat said "Went to the place where teenagers kill themselves and killed herself" for a moment I thought he meant like a Futurama suicide booth and just went "ah yes, Germany"

[@MrFox-ox2ze]

Mmmm the iphone factory roof

[@theqreem8587]

Silent Hill may be the most relatable horror experience ever because I too feel depressed thinking about it and never for the reasons it intends to anymore

[@diegomedina9637]

Pat *IS* 100% right. Worse thing to ever happen to Silent Hill was Silent Hill 2.

[@simonstewart2514]

Please explain

[@HalfAluminumChemist]

@@simonstewart2514 Because SH2 set a high standard that Konami is unwilling/unable to live up to. its not just that most other Silent Hill games are bad, its that they have to be constantly compared to one of the greatest horror games ever made.

[@GilliamYaeger]

@@simonstewart2514 Because every game in the franchise wants to be Silent Hill 2 (and fails at it really, REALLY badly) as opposed to 1, 3 and 4 which wanted to be their own thing about the cult.

[@Comkill117]

@@simonstewart2514Every game since other than SH3, 4, and kinda Shattered Memories have all been bad rehashes of SH2. They’re always a morally dubious protagonist with a connection to someone who died and are seeking some form of redemption, usually the twist being they directly or indirectly caused the other character’s death. They also all put way more emphasis on the horror coming from the protagonist’s psyche. But they always miss the other elements of 2 that made it work, instead feeling like a bad copy.

[@ExaltedUriel]

​@@GilliamYaegerExactly, the word that Pat used, "rote", really sums it up. All the games that try to "one-up" SH2 fail miserably because you just can't pull the same trick twice. SH2 wasn't the first thing ever to do the "the real monsters are the ones inside your head" thing, even SH1 took elements from Jacob's Ladder, but it was the first to do it so effectively so trying to do it again, and again, and again, not only lessens the impact but just makes you go "I think I'll just replay Silent Hill 2 again".

[@zaneseibert]

Silent Hill out here writing about suicide with the tact of Neil Breen.

[@vivil2533]

Persona 3 is more subtle about its theme, and you litteraly put a gun to your head every time you use your persona.

[@Loffeleif]

I fucking WISH Neil Breen wrote this, at least it would be entertaining.

[@zaneseibert]

​​@@LoffeleifI'd love to find out how Breen makes Silent Hill connected to a government/corporate conspiracy. XD

[@Dracobyte]

Who is Neil Breen?

[@Loffeleif]

@@Dracobyte he's a "so bad it's good" director, but unlike Tommy Wiseau, Breen still isn't self aware, and his films are entertaining as hell for it

[@ice_queen9]

if pat and woolie and reggie wrote a Silent Hill game, the fog would descend and wherever you are would become Toronto

[@NucleaRaptor]

I'd take actual Silent Hill over T*ronto.

[@ChargeQM]

To-wrong-to

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

the monsters would just be the dregs of society who fake sounding hood

[@CipherMask]

Anita was clearly thinking about Yujiro Hanma when she made that statement.

[@nackskott12]

If Anita had sex for 2 days and got a powerful aura while her dad looked on with pride, maybe she wouldn't have had to go to the game end building

[@Loffeleif]

The S in Silent Hill stands for Silent Hill

[@magnolt]

Silent Hill Ilent Hill

[@NucleaRaptor]

What did Ito-san mean by this?

[@Comkill117]

Idk, at this point it’s looking more like it stands for Selection for Societal Sanity.

[@GrayD_Fox]

The S in Silent Hill stands for Sham

[@DJVevyVevs]

Silent Hills was going to have the title formatted like this: *S* ilent Hill *S* (shaped like a 5) l i l l i e H n t t n H e i l l i l *S* lliH tneli *S*

[@polygonvvitch]

Maya, how could you commit suicide? I cannot believe you commited suicide.

[@williampounds5191]

"The strongest animals don't form groups" meanwhile humans crush every other animal on the planet to the point of banality explicitly due to our social nature.

[@matehiqu9905]

you don't even have to use humans as an example, like all of the most successful hunters in the wild are pack hunters and if that's not enough some of the biggest animals like Elephants are social as well

[@TheRogueWolf]

I feel like Konami itself has become Silent Hill, creating warped mockeries of things we're familiar with, completely bereft of understanding of how they actually function or what they really mean.

[@SonikkuXenoHearts3587]

When I’m listening to pat explain this game one quote comes to mind And it’s from one of the characters of always sunny saying “Suicide is badass”

[@TheBasedGreeg]

Short Message was so cursed and ham fisted man. The monster design was cool, but holy shit. The protagonist literally breaks down sobbing as she clutches her phone, and wonders why she’s losing followers on Twitter. That’s not how teens work in real life. In real life, generally the person is already depressed, has low self esteem, etc. But then the low follower count can reinforce these feelings to contribute to an overall oppressive mood of isolation. It’s a factor that brings them down further. In the game, she just breaks down crying because of the follower count…

[@Homodemon]

Not to mention that we see the kinds of photos she's been posting on her Twittergram and they're just, two photos of her model on a dimly lit space looking like shit and all she can think is about people going "WHY AREN'T YOU JUST POSTING PORN???? WE NEED SEXY PHOTOS!!!"

[@Homodemon]

Not to mention we sort of see her posts on twitter and her shitty selfies looking like she hasn't bathed in days and god that's just the kind of angst a 13 year old on fucking myspace taking pictures with their Nokia phone would cry over...

[@battlion507]

I feel that Konami basically made Bloober team top brass for not only Silent Hill 2, but also took their storytelling playbook and festered it into all of their products. Just Trauma Tourism that'd make THE CELL seem tame in comparison.

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

Dear fucking god... I think we need to just ban Silent Hill from ever explicitly saying anything, including the devs saying things in interviews, and any monster concept art that has notes about what they represent needs to be edited to remove those notes before being released to the public... These people can't be trusted with explicit messaging, we need to force them to work exclusively with subtext.

[@TheSagaOfGregGetsRekt]

The whole Silent Hill Phenomenon thing especially hurts me, cuz I've had a cached Silent Hill TTRPG idea for years about there being multiple Silent Hill sister cities named "Silent Hill" (a la the multiple Rochesters that exist across the USA), founded by former residents of the town who moved across the nation, and is what I headcanoned the Silent Hills concept as...and Konami just went and shat all over that.

[@muovikallo]

LTG-based horror games

[@RobdeliaYT]

“Slender but you get chased through the snow by LowTierGod and his covenant” sounds like a sick horror game I’d play that. They better keep his gold cloak tho.

[@nackskott12]

This is the first LowTier type game, Kojima would be proud (That's a lie, no he wouldn't)

[@vivil2533]

Im surprised i havent heard more jokes about Silent hill the short massage and persona 3 reload comig out back to back. Which ones more subtle about its message, the one where you litteraly put a gun to your head every battle, or the silent hill game.

[@Kektus1]

The answer is neither.

[@dreamcatcherpone]

To be fair, the subtler one has 30x more hours to ease into it

[@TheMilhouseExperience]

@@Kektus1The answer isn’t in Reload though?!

[@Dragonsmana]

*Matt:* Woolie, you're playing two games about androids right now. Which do you think will be more subtle, the one with gigantic slap-able asses, or this? *-Detroit Become Human LP*

[@krodmandoon3479]

​@@TheMilhouseExperience But eventually it *will* be for $19.95 + tax + tip + service fee + digital rental license

[@Egalia_1]

When the game started giving definitions for Japanese words about death I lost my mind

[@Vanity0666]

that's when you realize why Death Stranding is Death Stranding, and why Death Stranding is written like that.

[@IANGEL101I]

Why its it written like that?​@@Vanity0666

[@Homodemon]

Funniest shit is that the game is set on Germany and at best the girl that goes on and on about Cherry Blossoms is vaguely asian with a completely European sounding name

[@Vanity0666]

@@Homodemon it used to be set in britain but they must have changed it once they realized people don't take the word "minger" seriously as an insult

[@zule10000]

I get CRAZY Dream vibes from the whole "the loneliest creatures are the strongest" bit, like holy shit what a poorly educated take. Who authorized letting this out the door of KONAMI?!

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

It's shocking how many pieces of media I've seen recently that managed to screw up their story/arc/message about mental health so poorly that the interpretation viewers walked away with was "Wait, dud the show just suggest that suicide is the answer?"

[@Samuelrt5]

Probably the same people that fired Hideo Kojumbo.

[@krodmandoon3479]

Dream as in the stupid mask Minecraft guy?

[@powerfist1340]

@@RipOffProductionsLLC Man RWBY really did a number on the writing practices of this generation.

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

@@powerfist1340 RWBY is a symptom, not a cause.

[@TheGunboat]

IT’S TRAUMA!!!

[@johnrivers3813]

TRAUMA BAD!

[@Loffeleif]

It's as if a boardroom looked at algorithmically successful Tiktok horror videos for zoomers, and made the least subtle game on Earth accordingly.

[@WTFisTingispingis]

Subtext is for cowards, I guess!

[@rat8294]

Yeah I'm so sad because my fellow zoomers don't like actual in depth idea and just want it said at them

[@jackcoleman1784]

So basically Konami? That's Konami. That's what Konami *does* . This game is everything everyone expected it to be.

[@guysome7469]

All I heard in my head was the Danny DeVito quote. You know the one.

[@digitalbooklett9357]

I agree with Pat that the Reach Out message is super fumbled; especially when our main character refusual to share Maya's letter (a cry for their mutual friend to escape their shitty lives that are causing them to self harm) is rewarded after she admits it with Shopping and a friendship she actively destroyed another person's life over to maintain. Our main character does not tell her friend what was in it, only that she kept the letter from her, and doesnt admit to anyone except herself that she started the rumors and that her only way to repent was to jump (after doing the same thing for lesser reasons twice before this point) Like its just summed up as our MC getting everything she want with little repense. And the reach out message didnt even help any of the other characters featured It feels like just a bunch of PTSD backgrounds put together in a walking sim as an explanation for taking ones life, but doesnt really say anything else other than "actual professionals are there to help if you call" but also actively shows our MC denying her medication but doesnt address that further, either A short message indeed.

[@boanoah6362]

Which is funny because if they had included the medication as a mechanic to make the other world turn back to normal it would've had more impact than anything else in the game.

[@AceKuper]

"Our main character does not tell her friend what was in it, only that she kept the letter from her" . I think it's actually worse than that. People bring up that she Anita told Amelie about Maya's letter. But in reality of the ending i don't think she did it, since she admitted that during one of the loops. You can argue that part of unreality loop was real, but at best it's kinda made poorly. Same with the ending. "Let's go shopping" message is clunky not only because "Women be shopping". Anita literally was directly talking on the phone with Amelie, hanged up, went to kill herself despite the talk, got a message that pretty much was "lets' talk" and decide to no t kill herself. So maybe even the Amelie call was a fake one during a nightmare loop and message instantly after was real, so ti stopped here. But even if that's the case or not the case it's still a jarring sequence of events back to back.

[@_Jay_Maker_]

The real horror was the friends we made along the way.

[@godzillainspace5922]

the real horror was the friends we made along the gay.

[@alldayagain]

Much like I felt with the Assassin's Creed series, anytime I hear "a new Silent Hill game", I just feel a pit in my stomach grow larger 😮‍💨😓

[@johnrivers3813]

You might wanna get that checked out, that sounds like a tumor

[@alldayagain]

@johnrivers3813 it's a tumor, inscribed on each Nanoengstrom of this cursed prison of flesh and bone. As I hunt and hunger for games, I finally catch my prey, only to discover I have no hands to play them with. I look up the the sky and shake the nubs which once were my wrists in impudent rage and shout "QUIIIIINT!!!" for i know I have finally been forsaken.

[@Bert_Bertsson]

​@@alldayagaingoddammit AM!

[@alldayagain]

@@Bert_Bertsson (perfect, all that dumb effort wasn't for nothing 😅)

[@Acratess]

A bad Silent Hill game comes out “Stand up Pat. Did you forget? The reason why you’re here”

[@MysteriousJojo]

Those chase sequences were the worst part for me, complete sensory overload from the visuals (harsh red lighting, the notes flapping on the walls, repetitive rooms) to the HORRIBLE garbled glitching sounds coming from the controller trying as hard as they can to give you a migraine, to the monster constantly teleporting in front of you and making you start the whole thing again. I was actually getting tired after every sequence because they just got worse and worse, I finally cracked and looked up a walkthrough for that final chase because I was completely mentally exhausted and just wanted the game to end. At least it was free???

[@thornjerryjerry2778]

Slogging through that last chase was so rough. It's one of those things where i'm left wondering if ANYBODY found it fun? Literally ever single time it cuts to the door and reveals there's still more chains it was like "fucks sake there's more?".

[@Makr0ss]

I think it could've been better if Anita was just mute the whole game, and you only get to know about her thoughts when she wipes out her phone and text people, perhaps with that cool trick ADIOS did, things she wants to say but can't bring herself to, maybe even showing things like writing an awful text and deleting it. It also needed better scares, maybe related to various forms of suicide attempts. I genuinely thought we were going to get something like that when Maya asks you to come "join" her. They even show you Anita's wrists scars at some point, in a dank bathroom, could've been the place for something fucky: turning the scars into writing in her forearm compelling you to do it, or something coming out of an open wound that latches onto a blade and you have to mash your way out of it or something like that.

[@WertzMS]

antisuicide qte sounds like the most tone deaf way you could possibly deal with this topic conceivable perfect for konami

[@Vanity0666]

@@WertzMS anita can only speak through a selection of downloaded LINE stickers including unlockables from Ascension

[@leithaziz2716]

I'm not a horror fan in general, and don't know much about Silent Hill, but I uhh...feel this current movement by Konami to push forward new SH projects hasn't left people happy.

[@diegomedina9637]

Trust me they've not been happy since Silent Hill 2 which is funny because there are at least 3 really good ones past 2.

[@ultraspinalki11]

SH3, SH on the Wii (forgot the name). I'd say SH4 is enjoyable as well. Were those three the ones you had in mind?

[@elviejodann6544]

​@@ultraspinalki11 Honorable mention to Origins for being the worst SH that, at least, still is a SH game.

[@JF-vz1ju]

Silent Hill is dead.

[@sunkeyavad6528]

And here I was hoping this was actually about Sudoku. That would have been weird and interesting for a horror game. Like wtf, if they can make this work they're actual geniuses.

[@LordQuadros]

I think part of what made P.T. work was doing more with less. So much was obfuscated, even up until the ending, the fact that it was even a Silent Hill thing. Now, I don't know if Kojima could keep the mysterious aspects of it going for a full game, given his history of explaining as much as he possibly can (God, I hope Peele knows where to put his foot down for OD). In any case, Konami clearly didn't get the message, short or otherwise

[@Walmbat]

Can't wait for Woolie to hear about Silent Hill Ascension from SEW. EDIT: Also, if you think about it, Anita's experience is just a more active version of The Happening.

[@Benzodrewd]

Just want to point out in the leaked images the protag doesn’t have glasses and her hair is constantly clipping through them in game, which leads me to believe it was a last minute decision to make her look more “outcasted.”

[@DoveAlexa]

Easy improvements on the game would include the twist being that Maya is fine and Anita is just constantly in a loop of committing suicide in this building and also not making Anita a monster. I would even go as far as making Anita 'Dead All Along'. Make it that she didn't fix anything with her death and she needs to symbolically undo the shit she did to Maya (not by erasing them, but by admitting to them and being sorry), and/or confront some real plausible trauma or be stuck there forever. Also, it should really take place in a setting where she and Maya interacted in life across their friendship. Bonus points for the 'suicide is cool' cutscenes getting reconned gradually into Maya not saying anything like that at all at the end when Anita is done fixing her crimes.

[@Shotgun_Gospel]

"The strongest creatures don't need anyone" -a creature that's free food on its own but struggles to not annihilate the earth by accident when it groups up

[@Riddimensaur]

Pat's brain blast that Silent Hills is plural, and the game would've likely had multiple different Silent Hills to explore just makes me more pissed off at Konami.

[@Andrew_TS]

Wasn't sure if this was about suing a side or filling out math puzzles, or both were simultaneously true. I've comfortably accepted Silent Hill never being good again. Give us Silent Hill Kart already or at least Krazy Racers 2 on Switch with Pyramid Head.

[@ShotgunGabe]

13:17 low tier god would be proud of pat.

[@magicianstuff]

Love Pat starting off by trying to talk about everything but the story 😂 Half-expected him to start talking about the music or art

[@MisterTTG]

"she steps off the edge and falls down" was not the clearest way Pat coulda told this story, I don't hlame Woolie for getting confused

[@dreamcatcherpone]

I prefer Judgement-cut pat

[@robinaabinor8771]

Maaaaan... I'm replaying Death Stranding again, and I just saw the shower scare... A Kojima/Del Toro-made Silent Hill would have been awesome.

[@mattrossini1755]

Man February has really has really been the month of games showing the wide gambit of suicide for some reason.

[@gameboycolor47]

14:44 So at least it's got slightly better theming than Bloober Team's games

[@zedre7633]

Is there any other franchise that's tried this many times to make new entries after it's golden period and keeps failing every single time?

[@leithaziz2716]

If you're cynical enough you could say Sonic, but I dunno. It feels like some of those games (barring Generations which is an easy recommend) shouldn't be as divisive as they are for both fans and casuals. They always need more polish and it's a shame they always start off rough on release.

[@mrrdirty6198]

Halo is getting there. I know wars 2 was alright, but Jesus Christ they've been fumbling the bag for 10 years now.

[@Samm815]

Assassin's creed was really good.

[@AngryHomunculus]

oh that's what they mean by "sudoku"

[@ice_queen9]

it made me think of Zero Escape, where one of the games had a sudoku as the last puzzle

[@Homodemon]

Is an old meme where like, a weeb would completely misread and mispronounce the word Seppuku and say Sudoku instead

[@sphealingit222]

Oh hey the Anita/Maya dynamic is yoinked wholesale from Rule of Rose only 1. The game's not about suicide but systemic abuse/lord of the flies style social dynamics, and 2. The Anita equivalent is a villain who is trying to get the player, the Maya equivalent, into following her orders or just outrigjt dying, whichever comes first. This isn't like a plagiarism charge or anything, I think the dynamic here is just really similar

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

I wonder if the person who came up with the harakiri thing like...had any concept of what “face” means in that context

[@Hoonters-goona-Hoont]

Little PSA about C-PTSD. A crucial factor that differentiates it from "regular" PTSD is that the Trauma went on for a long time, repeated itself, or otherwise was damaging in such a way that the afflicted human's development and personality got affected on the identity level. And that's what causes all those secondary effects, moreso than it just remaining untreated. On the core, it's usually about the individual's sense of self, stafety and/or agency being annihilated. (Edit: *As opposed to PTSD that usually happens more as result of a car crash, natural disaster or school shooting and similar non-perpetual traumatic situations. Not invalidating any of those, just pointing it out, because the different types need wildly different treatment.)

[@ixandroid6085]

If Silent Hill can happen anywhere than I want to see it happen at Buc-ee's

[@SinnerBeta]

Silent Hill mist is now hunting people like Jaws or that evil fire.

[@zedc6072]

I think trying to do a story about being harassed and bullied and the challenge of not having a support network is a good angle for a psychological horror game, it would be nice to see one where at least one person in the writers room had any actual experience with being bullied. Like the actual bullying Anita faces teters on afterschool special tier stuff when meanwhile she organized targeted hate that got someone to *kill themself*. And she doesn't learn anything or get anything out of it! she gets what she wants!

[@werwolfnate]

Does anyone else's blood boil when writers start talking about a way of living or dying as beautiful? Because it always seems exclusively done by people that have never experienced life or death in the way they're aggrandising.

[@johnrivers3813]

"Girl shopping saves lives" [sponsored by malls]

[@Homodemon]

And they say capitalism doesn't help anybody!

[@johnrivers3813]

@@Homodemon "spending my life savings on brand name clothes has cured my depression"

[@Homodemon]

@@johnrivers3813 they don't call it Retail Therapy for nothing!

[@DoveAlexa]

Which is even scarier 'cause malls are now also dead!

[@Homodemon]

@@DoveAlexa Anita steps off from one silent hill liminal dimension into another "Oh no... t-then where am i going to go shopping now????" **cue her trapped in the first floor of the old shopping mall until she comes into terms with the concept of time advancing, old capitalistic models crumbling, and the discovery of new hobbies and pastimes that don't requiere spending money.... or she ends up jumping off the rooftop again**

[@boanoah6362]

I'm just really bored of Silent Hill being 'awful person forgets the awful things they did and have to confront their awful things via monsters'. Not that the cult is any better but come on, there has to be more to it than one trope.

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

Yeah, Silent Hill isn't cartoonishly exagerated exposure therapy, devs/writers need to stop treating it like it is...

[@jagehtso]

Man, Pat always gets hit doubly hard by all these hack frauds trying to do their own SH2, because he's not just a long time suffering fan of the franchise, he also has a background in psychology so he can smell the bullshit IMMEDIATELY.

[@steffanofumo]

I bet he’s close but it’s so hard for me to trust Pat synopsis of anything after watching the L.A Noir play-trough and him get out of it that… Cole Phelps was the most evil to ever evil, and having some wild interpretation of morality lol

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

“Yeah see ya later fucker” *Matt proceeds to shoot duck*

[@gameb9oy]

Always important to take everything pat and Woolie say with a grain of salt. For every oddly insightful interpretation of things happening in the gaming industry they gave, there are like 10 of them misinterpreting something a game was trying to say to them, and usually it’s not something the game is trying to make hard to tell

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

Did one of them not say, like verbatim “it was all coles fault”

[@TheRickyJZ]

@@UCannotDefeatMyShmeatI just watched the compilation yesterday. During the final flashback, Pat himself concludes that “the whole thing was Cole’s fault.”

[@clanofclams2720]

He is dead on correct

[@ShayneRawls]

I laughed so hard at the "still more followers than me" Part

[@sh1tlord438]

I’ve been excited for this conversation since I finished my short message.

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

42:29 basically the “jump on the table and break the monsters ai” moment

[@FrankBlarghHonk]

God, this game sounds like the antithesis of Persona 4, and that game helped me from committing suicide.

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

24:50 while not nothing, they’re wildly...mild insults. I wouldn’t be surprised if “poo head” was written on a note

[@wadespencer3623]

Woolie casually reminding us that Bojack Horseman did a better Silent Hill story than anybody actually working on Silent Hill. What the fuck.

[@patrickjohnson1649]

If there was a Silent Hill that needed a Dog Ending.

[@brachyzoid]

I'm not gonna defend the game since it's stupid but I will say "Teenager saying a wrong statement they believe in" is just a teenager thing. Not "the game is wrong" it's "the stupid edgy teenager is being a stupid edgy teenager"

[@hibiki8473]

They make it the first and last sentence of the game it's clearly trying to use that statement as a message that's literally a level 1 writing trick

[@artemis4534]

It's like a high school psa

[@oniwahoo719]

The only way i even know this game exists is from Pat's twitter thread and the podcast, but somehow, Pat has convinced me that he is wrong about it. I dont even like Silent Hill, but the way he talks about it just feels the exact same as when he told Woolie that everyone agreed with him about death stranding when Paige was on the sofa during his playthrough disagreeing with him.

[@SamuelPulkkinen-jp8ev]

Wait, Pat said the main character learned nothing, implying she didn't learn from getting the other girl killed, but one of the core reasons the main character was considering suicide WAS the guilt from the fact she caused the other girl to kill herself, right? I haven't played the game so obviously I'm on loose ground here.

[@sokumotanaka9271]

I literally thought this was the bloober team one till I looked it up and went "WAIT THEY'RE DIFFERENT TEAMS!?"

[@a.gravemistake3061]

Silent Hill fans: "For me, it's always like this."

[@rahjeel]

"The strongest are those who rely on their loneliness for the strongest can stand alone." Wtf who wrote the message and theme of this of this game? Sukuna??

[@lavenzavantas]

maybe the real Silent Hill is the friends we made along the way

[@Rikuo86]

Honestly the idea that Silent Hill needs Alyssa as a focal point for it's spooky shit else it tries to find other sad sacks in order to compensate, even going as far as to invade other towns whole continents away, would be a very interesting way to tie in the cult to the crucible of guilt stuff. Unfortunately, that's a cool idea and Konami is Konami.

[@attackofthecopyrightbots]

that was a good split

[@outlitplug]

OK I HAVE A SERIOUS GRIPE ABOUT TWO THINGS MENTION 1.The silent hill phenomenon -Pat made it sound way cooler than it actually was by saying random fog happens in the world and causes mystic shit to happen. WHAT IT ACTUALLY SAYS is COVID 19 has raised suicide rates and during these trying times a new phenomenon occurs where people claim to see fog on even a fair weather day and then loose conciseness shortly after. it’s named after silent hill because it’s similar to an incident reported there but it’s just all in your head vs fog just happens like it runs on THE MIST rules. 2.The chase sequence/slenderman gameplay sequence -PAT IS CORRECT THIS PART IS TRASH AS FUCK. That out of the way one part they did which would be neat was each thing you collect has a scene around it that did push the theme in a far more better way. THEN ITS ALL FUCKED UP BY THIS GOD AWFUL NEED TO HAVE UNNECESSARY MENTAL NARRATION FOR EACH ITEM KILLING THE TONE BESIDES THE FACT THAT YOUR IN A SLENDERMAN CHASE SEQUENCE SO WHY WOULD I WASTE MY TIME GIVING A FUCK ABOUT THE SUBTLY OF THEMES WHEN WE JUST HAM FIST IN THE MIDDLE OF A CHASE SEQUENCE WHILE THE COLOR RED IS BEAMING FROM UNDERNEATH THE FLOOR. I feel like you can’t really do both at the same time without it just being a mess. Maybe we can look at it as visual representation of what a mental breakdown could feel like or a panic attack. BUT that’s giving them way too much credit considering all the other obvious contradictions to its own theme covered by my two favorites. TL;DR Love you pat and woolie this game is a ham fisted contradiction but hey it was free

[@en4135]

My heart rate genuinely spikes when I think about The Medium that fucking game genuinely offends and infuriates me.

[@TheKnizzine]

Still hoping the SH2 remake is a RE4 clone with Leon in a wig.

[@X_Blake]

Welp. At least it was free and I beat it. It's no longer in my console anymore.

[@MOVGAMES.]

There was a GAME here. It's gone now.

[@justinl8791]

Correction: "Beat" it. It's BARELY a game.

[@SteelBallRun1890]

Pat's tackling of Short Message is a hit or miss, sometimes he embellishes stuff, and sometimes he thinks the game is lying when its straightforwards. But he's right about one thing, Silent Hill 2 is the biggest mistake of the series. Its the franchise's greatest gift, and terrible curse. To the point that I wish Silent Hill would just die. Stop wishing for new entries, because at this point its not just Konami's incompetence, fans are straight up Star Wars level and they're never gonna be happy with anything because every entry will just be compared to SH2 over and over again, and the company can't get away from doing SH2 over and over again because they know, and the fans know that if you think of Silent Hill, you think of what SH2 brought to the table. Which is "muh symbolic hell trauma".

[@Blarglesnarfe]

I adore these men.

[@issaboneman1127]

Where does it even say Anita started the witch rumor?

[@TristanB4]

It doesn't, Pat gets a bunch of basic stuff about the plot wrong here and ignores other things that kinda contradict his point about the game i.e. the other issues Maya is having that she talks about in her journal entries

[@issaboneman1127]

@@TristanB4 I mean I get it there's a lot of threads thrown at ya especially like with mayas pregnancy and stuff but seemed like he had an absurdly different take away. Like the quote intro and outro I don't think were what Anita ACTUALLY thinks it was more so a thought process that a lot of depressed people take thinking they have to shoulder everything alone.

[@Vanity0666]

The whole mist thing is why Kojima's PT was called Silent Hills because there is multiple

[@jled787]

Pat streamlined the plot, but to be more accurate for the 3 acts. Act 1 - Anita goes to the Suicide Building to meet with Maya, only to find out that Maya committed Harakiri months ago. She jumps from the roof of the building due to loneliness. Act 2 - Confused, Anita scours through the building until she remembers that its her fault that they started to bully Maya using the town legend about a Witch being the bringer of misfortune. Because Maya wanted to be friends with Amelie and not her. She reaches the roof and decides to jump due the need to end this looping nonsense. Act 3 - Confused why she's not unable to stay dead, she then remembers details about Maya's life until she remembers that Maya does actually consider her as a friend, that she's not invisible. It also goes through her reasoning for not sharing Amelie because of her horrible childhood and has to unlock memory fragments while being chased by the Cherry Blossom Monster. She reaches the Roof and wants to jump out of genuine guilt until the text from Amelie saying she wants to go shopping tomorrow and talk about Anita's problems.

[@theotherjared9824]

The game reminds me of the Rooster Teeth original series gen:LOCK. In that show, multiple characters commiting suicide not only defeats the villains, but they also get reborn with super powers.

[@NeoBoneGirl]

Even with how much Pat is dumping on it (and you have to always take Pat's dumps on this stuff with a grain of salt cuz yknow, Pat.) it still seems like this game is something that HAD some things, but didn't end up getting there in the end, which isn't great, but is also probably like the best a Silent Hill game has been in like the last decade as well, especially being free

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Yeah. There's definitely good stuff here, but the dialogue and character writing is weirdly lopsided in quality Games good when no one is verbally speaking, and the childhood trauma part is legitimately good, but it does miss the mark pretty clearly

[@AceKuper]

@@Dasaltwarrior "There's definitely good stuff here" i think think the issue is the "good stuff" can be almost solely be the actual real life message about suicide at the start. When the game actually tries to focus on it with it's writing it makes it worse. Even the childhood trauma is over the top and feels like an addition that's tacked on, even tho it could've been good. It's all a weird hodgepodge that's less than the sum of it's already wonky parts.

[@NeoBoneGirl]

@@Dasaltwarrior Like when Pat complains about how the MC complains about social media and likes and stuff I think it is probably executed not that well but I don't like. Hate the concept of it, especially since bad people being the MC in Silent Hill isn't exactly a new thing lol

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@NeoBoneGirl It 100% is the execution. What the game is going for isn't bad, the intent and message is fine. Just needed someone else to give it a once over in the writing process Oh, and a different voice director for the English dub. Its REAL rough

[@AceKuper]

@@Dasaltwarrior The problem with "what game going for isn't bad" is that almost everything can fall into that category and that means nothing. Execution is everything. Detroit Become human has some good parts and could've been great, Indigo Prophecy\Farenheit could've been a great mystery thriller, same with Heavy Rain. Gollum actually has some interesting going in the story. Even previous weak SIlent Hills are the same. It's not a jab against you, but "this has a nice idea" is the easiest thing to do and never actually means anything for the discussion of the quality.

[@NucleaRaptor]

Silent Hill: Life Is Strange :v

[@DavidEarle]

Two Silent Hill 4 mentions! LP when?

[@leonthesleepy]

Silent Hill: The Short Message makes 13 reasons Why look subtle lol