To best summarise the remake before I really get into what I enjoy about the game overall, I can say that in a lot of aspects, compared to the original, the remake does a fantastic job in capturing the atmosphere of the original game. Definitely a different way to experience the game even when you know the story in detail but still retaining all the horror aspects that made the second entry so beloved by pretty much everyone who tried it on the PS2. Why I'm starting off like this is because this game really had everyone sceptical and for good reason with it being developed by Bloober team who haven't had a great track record with horror games prior while Konami themselves before the release of the remake were absolutely NOT doing the franchise much justice since Silent Hill Ascension (the mobile streaming game) was still fresh on the mind, so expectations were not great. It didn't help that in order to drum up hype they released a combat trailer which wasn't the ideal type of trailer anyone would expect from SH2 which isn't a combat focused game, the video had a high amount of dislikes as well with the irony being that the combat was pretty good all in all being great for speedruns as the enemies attacks are built around how the dodging works. I'm just thankful Konami and Bloober proved everyone wrong. I personally didn't have much attachment to whether or not it'd do well since SH1+3 together are my favourite, but I have a new appreciation for 2 after the remake.

On to the Positives

When it comes to the story what more is there to say really? At this point is well known by those who love or are familiar with the franchise whether SH2 is your favourite game out of the catalogue. How it translates into the remake honestly might just be an improvement from the original apart from maybe a few cutscenes as James expressions in my opinion can sometimes feel awkward however Angela was my favourite touch up of all the characters. Additional lines were added in to allow for dialogue to feel somewhat natural amongst everyone and the structure of the game seems to have been optimised between cutscenes so, the flow of the actual gameplay is much better in general.

When it comes to the combat? It feels solid, not perfect but good for over the shoulder perspective, you definitely at times can get overwhelmed but once you learn how to listen for audio queues and watch for animations you can find that the combat is much easier to manage, actually. Dodging can even cancel some actions before the animation finishes so it can be used to bail you out from getting hit when you overcommit to an attack, don't be shy to use the dodge while using and aiming your gun too.

The art direction of this game is amazing, both the environment and sound design, just loved playing through the game at night in the dark for the full experience because wow it does a great job at building tension and making you uncomfortable much more than the original, the environment and small details as well as the sounds adding to the horror in precise ways that had me spending a lot of time just taking it all in and looking around the set pieces. What I noticed too that I enjoyed was despite being over the shoulder for the remake the use of light did make it feel like playing on the PS2 again since the light source follows the camera. When entering dark / cramped rooms moving the camera around to check every corner just to feel safe and not being sure sometimes if shadows you just saw where monsters or a figment of your imagination. It feels so deliberate and by design and I love it! Almost always has you moving at walking speed just out of caution because of how unnerving everything gets.

So when it comes to the negatives

I mentioned the combat was okay, and yeah it does get easy to manage after learning how animation cancels work, but it also can get buggy. For as claustrophobic as the game wants you to feel at times fighting in cramped spaces does risk you getting caught on a LOT of weird and awkward objects in the game. I've got stuck in just the plain wall at times, and it does feel like the game could have fixed a few of these bugs post release as well. Stomping is SO WEIRD?? It's difficult to get a read on if you can stomp or not so a lot of times you end up swinging at nothing or trying to stomp a monster like several feet away from you because your camera happened to align it's so odd.

Performance of this game has no reason being choppy sometimes and listen, while I can appreciate that the visual fidelity DID help with the atmosphere and I concede that the "fog technology" did actually wow me and added to the vibe of the game the reason I still feel practically everyone should be able to run this on high settings is because of what the fog and the dark initially did to help with the performance which was to obscure the draw distance so that the game could run better. From my understanding when in the town everything is rendered too and it being on Unreal Engine with its stutter issues doesn't help either. Like yeah my game was running on 60 FPS and mostly wasn't an issue through my play through, but it's still an aspect of the game that irks me in general.

Overall I definitely recommend the game to even anyone who hasn't tried Silent Hill or has no intention of playing the original but is interested in what the remake is like because the core experience is translated well for a modern audience when it comes to the game performance issues and bugs aside. I hope Konami and Bloober does the same with SH1 when it comes since currently it was announced that the remake game is now in development. Definitely get the SH2 Remake game on sale as well, the price is already pretty good for how amazing the game is, but it often goes on sale for even lower and is practically a steal when it does. A shame there's no point shop items though.