Silent Hill f questions what's real and who's a friend. But its story of a teenage girl losing her sanity in 1960s Japan is muddled. — NeoBards Entertainment
The fog-enveloped rice paddy disorients. A grim, porcelain-faced scarecrow comes to life, attacking with a scythe. A former friend, now a fanged demon, chews on your face.
Such is the tortured world of Hinako, a seifuku-wearing Japanese teenager ensnared in the mentally and physically abusive tale that is Silent Hill f, the franchise’s first mainline entry since 2012. Here, a bullying fog and creeping plants, from their crimson blossoms to their maroon roots, are deadly.
In the fictional town of Ebisugaoka, you’re immersed not only in 1960s Japan but also in a story that’s partly about human strife and partly about folkloric, religious myths. The save points are little temples for prayer. There are also temizu cleansing rituals, but these ones go awry.
Mysteriously, almost everyone in town has gone missing, a common series thread. Yet despite the pervasive danger of monsters, residents must have taken time to lock their homes before running away. Since many of the town’s structures are not explorable, it’s next to impossible to learn more early on.
While engaged with enemies, Hinako is often on the edge of losing her sanity, represented by blooming flowers on her health bar. Sometimes, after she is injured, she enters a nightmare world called the Dark Shrine, which is full of artwork featuring wolves, as well as a man in a wolf mask who leads her through its shadowy environs. Occasionally, her childhood doll appears to tell her not to trust the masked man.
The most substantial fiends in Silent Hill f are almost as difficult to defeat as those in Elden Ring, a more modern addition to a series that previously leaned on puzzle-solving. What remains is the lack of brutal weapons with which to battle. For hours, you have only a pipe to fight off the life-size porcelain dolls who are also teeth-gnashing flesh-eaters.
You’ll find occasional bandages, red pills and candy to revive your health. But never too many. There’s no better terror than that of dying by ghoul.
As you solve brain-melting puzzles, Silent Hill f properly questions what’s real and what’s not, what’s alive and what’s dead, who’s a friend and who’s an enemy. But there are issues of balance in a narrative mashup that tries too hard to be multifaceted.
The writer of this young woman’s sanity story sometimes doesn’t know if he wants the narrative to be about abuse by parents, friends and religious entities or more lighthearted teenage fare like the TV series Riverdale (whose scares were never at the level of Koji Suzuki’s Ring novels).
At one point in Silent Hill f, it becomes clear that one of Hinako’s acquaintances doesn’t like that she seems closer to her friend Shu, who also serves as a guide to places of potential refuge – and eeriness. In an off-the-rails moment, the acquaintance pushes Hinako down the stairs.
Shu helps revive Hinako, and they continue to solve the mystery of an unseen fog monster, a big blob with a big sword and partially naked dolls with smaller ones. There’s no wit, though, and not even an abiding creepiness that feels original. Similar monsters have appeared in many other games.
An immersive level of detail is often lacking. Although Hinako is sliced many times by enemies, it is not until after the fall down the stairs that her outfit appears dirtied and ripped. I kept seeing the same beer bottles, washing machines and radios wherever I went in the foggy town. The wooden boxes and bookcases throughout the Dark Shrine look identical. When Hinako, who is portrayed as an intelligent young woman, strikes an enemy, she frequently wonders, Is it really dead? They come back, often. Yet the developers have her ask this so many times.
If the narrative unfolded more deftly with more salient detail, perhaps this story – and the overall ambience – would be more credible. There’s a hint of an alcoholic father’s rage at the game’s beginning. Then everyone is gone from the town, monsters try to cut you up and that story is left aside. The plot turns to mean friends who whisper trash as Hinako absorbs the insults. There’s also a twist that’s deducible from the opening hours.
Several good things are worth noting, like Akira Yamaoka’s grinding, sometimes industrial soundtrack and Suzie Yeung’s acting as Hinako, especially passionate during the finale. But for all its folkloric influences, Silent Hill f is just not that scary. – ©2025 The New York Times Company
(Silent Hill f was reviewed on the PlayStation 5. It is also available on the PC and Xbox Series X|S.)
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
