A major zen for Silent Hill f players came raining from Konami, and trust me, this one hits differently. The official Silent Hill account dropped a downright foreboding message about resource scarcity and choose your battles: all survival horror aficionados have it ingrained in their souls to actually give such fodder with a punt-the-pants-leg advice. But that line about danger lurking around each corner kept me going…well, that is Silent Hill, so to speak.
So, what’s being said about Silent Hill f’s combat? On their own, Konami advises: choose your battles wisely! You cannot be just swinging your weapon at every aberrant thing that moves. Resources are limited; weapons lose their durability and sometimes your only choice is to run. But players have been, so to speak, having strong feelings as to what exactly is going on in the game.
The gaming public, a start on combat mechanics, appear to be the first to point out hard flaws. One player named JKTFO1 mentioned the hit stop or hit lag animation during combat and described it as “garbage,” hoping that the developers would add an option to toggle it; “Why do we have to deal with this stutter every time we hit an enemy? It really makes the combat feel clunky, which is pretty irritating.”
Another huge sore point is weapon durability. From Kembonews: “I don’t like weapons breaking; besides, they don’t last very long.” Given that they are not wrong: being in a survival horror game where your only means of defense against these nightmare creatures is a pipe that breaks after three or so enemies, that’s terrifying. FumeGaming69 came to the defense of the weapon-breaking mechanic, saying that “it is definitely a necessary layer to add in a survival horror game with melee weapons,” but then admitted, “Not having ranged combat really hurts this game.” An entire Silent Hill game with no guns? That’s… Odd.
The argument between Kembonews and FumeGaming69 really started to heat up over the special weapons. Kembonews fought back saying that “the special weapons you unlock by meeting certain requirements also break, which doesn’t make sense. You put in all that effort to get them, and in the end, they’re not worth it.” So you go through all this trouble to unlock some legendary weapon, and it’s gonna break just as fast as the entry-level stuff? That’s just a slap on the face for our time.
The conversation gets even more interesting as SPLY__ shoots a jab at Konami’s “choose your battles wisely” by stating, “the majority of the second half of the game is forced combat encounters where you are required to kill the enemies to progress.” So, uh… you are telling us to be strategic when we fight but then force us in one fight after another? Hypocrisy at its best.
Players are bemoaning the variety of the weapons. Wick says there are basically 3 different weapons whose names change depending on the location of the user; currently, they’re at Shimuzu Resident and doubt there will be more weapon types later. For a pure melee combat game, that’s very limited indeed. You’d think there’d be more variety just to keep things interesting.
Which is funny since some players are hitting a brick wall with puzzles. Nilla confesses, “Currently stuck at the cake box puzzle at the school,” and hasn’t played since. We’ve all been there, and there’s that one puzzle that just gets in your way for a little while.
The discourse about the somewhat strange combat system of Silent Hill f literally goes in all kinds of directions. Some like la_yumu think “the system battle is good,” while others such as Saviors4Negan are calling it “terrible combat bro” and saying, “it’s always better to run.” But then BlueBettaBear dives into a great narrative angle by explaining how the main character, Hinako, “struggles with running away the entire game,” and therefore “it makes sense that at the end of the game, when Hinako is ready to face things head on, you stay and fight.” So, does that mean the combat system actually mirrors the character’s journey? Now, that’s some deep analysis.
Then there are those loyalists like Bubbles57659 who scream, “You say this like I don’t have a fcking naginata and a bloodborne arm in the other world.” That’s fair vibes. When you’re all equipped, you want to keep using your weapons and just stop worrying about them breaking every minute.
Speaking about issues, the tech stuff is a problem! Chalkfist asked when “the PS5 Pro version” would be patched to give you the choice between PSSR and TSR, complaining that “the image should not be strobing and pulsing.” While SLClayton straight-up asked, “You fixed the PS5 Pro version yet?” So, yeah, as always, performance problems keep creeping in.
In the end, it seems Silent Hill f is sowing serious division among the community. CyberpunkEddie had declared that “Silent Hill 2 and short messages is better and is a fact,” while calling f “lacking” and saying “the controls suked.” But you’ve got players like couldnthinkawun praising the graphics on their PS Pro.
Clearly, Konami experimented with Silent Hill f combat system- resource management, strategic engagements, and death of the ordinary survival horror tone of being underpowered and overwhelmed. But whether it really works in the practical sense…that’s the argument players are having all over social media. Weapon durability, very few sorts of weapons, and forced combat engagements late into the game-all in all, quite a controversial experience.
But one thing is for sure. When Konami says choose your battles wisely in Silent Hill f, it’s no joke. Whether you are fighting monsters or just fighting with the game’s mechanics, you are definitely in for one hell of a battle.
