Recent reviews by SirGumpleDumpert

PLAY IT. Any fan of survival horror owes it to themselves to play this game. The game itself is fantastic and the ending is so rewarding... and painful.

Going from Silent Hill F to this game felt like going from soggy bread to perfect sourdough.

TL;DR This is one of the most annoying and tedious games I have ever played. Had to force myself to finish this one.

Story:
I'm new to the Silent Hill franchise (only played SH2 remake, this... unfortunately..., and a tiny bit of SH3), so while I can acknowledge and honestly agree with the feelings of those who feel that the originals have been heavily ret-conned here, I'll also admit I was more open to the alternate setting than most, because I don't have that connection to the originals that many have. However, while the thematic IDEAS here are compelling, the execution is squandered on boring characters IMO. I did not feel anything CLOSE to the emotional connection I felt with James, Mary, Angela, Maria, Eddie, and Laura from SH2. I could not really describe the actual personalities of Hinako, Shu, or the annoying whiny girl (forgetting her name) because almost all of their dialogue is relegated to exposition and constantly reminding you about the "message" of the story. Sure, Hinako wants to be free and independent from the patriarchy, BUT THAT IS IT! There is nothing else to her character to make me actually care about her hopes and dreams (if she even has any, the game didn't explore it almost AT ALL). The other characters are basically there to add to Hinako's backstory, because none of them really have any personality or history other than being "Hinako's childhood best friend" or "Hinako's friend who dies in the first 15 minutes" or "annoying whiny girl (again don't even remember her name) who is only there specifically to create a love triangle and constantly be a thorn in the side to Hinako". I WANTED TO LIKE THIS. Again, the IDEAS here are compelling, and the middle section where Hinako gives herself up to Fox Mask is striking, shocking, haunting, and compelling in a vacuum. Unfortunately, the star of said section is Hinako, who I do not really care about at all. Ultimately, none of this would be a huge issue if the gameplay was somewhat fun... BUTTT!

Gameplay:
I, like many others, was intrigued by the idea of a survival horror game with only melee weapons. But, the execution here starts off kind of fun, and then it slowly devolves into tedious boredom. I'm not going to claim this game is a full soulslike, as it lacks many significant elements of those games, but the COMBAT absolutely is soulslike. The problem is all the little annoying mechanics that add up to constantly be a pain in the ass (and not in a fun RE1 remake type way): hitstop that slows the game to a crawl every time you hit an enemy, complemented by a dodge that launches you from Canada all the way to the great ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wall of China, an abundance of different healing items that are mostly useless because of the limited inventory, limiting my ability to actually give a ♥♥♥♥ about exploring all the rooms, a grand total of TWO inside areas that are far too short lived and uninteresting, and the oversight that actual soulslike games have dozens of unique enemy types and bosses, while this game hardly has any. Also, this game's attempt to enforce resource scarcity is squandered on the fact that you can't accidently waste ammo, and it provides you with more than enough weapons and durability items to keep an arsenal of weapons going. This game's tone/atmosphere/story are completely at odds with its gameplay and the two do not complement each other at all. I know there were people who were critical of SH2 and its bloated levels (which I somewhat agree with) but at least that game was only shoot, light attack, dodge, and heal (with only 2 healing items instead of 7 billion). To anyone who wants to say that I'm just whining because the combat was too hard, consider that I have over 1,000 hours in Elden Ring alone, over 1,500 in all the FromSoft souls games, and I have died COUNTLESS times in those games and never thought it was an issue. This game does not feel tense or scary at all, it just feels like a big 13 hour long list of CHORES.

Ultimately, just play the originals, or SH2 remake, or honestly... anything else. You won't be missing much. And you won't have to constantly be annoyed by Rinko.

If you liked elden ring you will also like this

this is the game of all time
best fromsoft game without a doubt
put bloodborne on pc

this game broke down my soul

A thumbs up, but barely. If you are a fan of the series and want to play them all, chances are you won’t totally hate this. But it has some a lot of the worst areas and bosses of the series, more so than dark souls 1 or 3. Good souls game, but also mindnumbingly infuriating at times, and not in a fun way.

Maybe the best price:good game ratio that exists on the planet. I would have payed 60$ to play this.

The first game but better

This game is way more fun than it has any right being