Silent Hill Origins is the fifth installment in the Silent Hill series, while also being a prequel to the previous four games. It takes place seven years before the first Silent Hill, and is intended to explain the backstory of the mysterious town, and how it became the way it is. It was the first Silent Hill title for the Playstation Portable and the last for the Playstation 2. It was developed by the American Climax Studios instead of Konami’s Team Silent. Origins originally had similar gameplay to that of Resident Evil 4, using the game’s over-the-shoulder camera angle and featuring more action. This was later changed, and the game’s gameplay remained the same as the first three Silent Hill episodes, pleasing all observers, who found the Resident Evil 4 style gameplay not scary enough.

For newcomers, let’s take a brief look at what Silent Hill is all about. Silent Hill debuted in 1999 and gave gamers something they never quite experienced before. Unlike it’s most prominent rival, Resident Evil, Silent Hill took a different approach to the survival horror genre. Silent Hill was psychological horror. It didn’t rely on jump-out scares and lack of ammo (there wasn’t much, but it was a lot more than in Resident Evil) to make the player scared. Instead, Silent Hill created an atmosphere that was uncomfortable. Not only was it extremely gory, but the game also tried to confuse the player as much as possible. Many things didn’t make sense, and that confusion led to the player feeling as if everything was out of his control. Opposed to Resident Evil, where the player was still somewhat in control, and the world around him was realistic (except for the enemies of course), Silent Hill felt as if a normal person suddenly found himself in a hellish nightmare. The game was truly dark, in every sense in the word. Without a flashlight, you couldn’t see anything in the dark and the storyline was both great, original, dark and downright insane. The music only added to the experience, Akira Yamaoka’s soundtrack contained many tracks which were just random, unintelligible, and – most importantly – frightening noises. The game was a masterpiece, everything was well thought out. The gameplay, the areas to explore, the story…pretty much everything. It was one of the first games where you truly needed to think to understand the story completely, and even then, you might not have been right.

After that exposition, you’re probably asking: “Does Origins live up to that?” Well, read on and find out!

You play as Travis Grady, a lonely trucker with a troubled past.

It is said so on the back of the game’s box, which is a small flaw, I think. Anyone who’s played a previous Silent Hill game (particularly Silent Hill 2) could easily realise his past would have some significance. It gave a bit away a little early, but at least the story was easier to understand.

Moving on, let me tell the basic story in hopes of making you interested. Travis arrives in Silent Hill while possibly delivering something to another town. He sees a figure stepping in front of his truck and collapsing, forcing Travis to quickly stop. He gets out of his vehicle to investigate, only to find no one there. He notices a girl’s face in his rear view mirror, which startles him, but as he turns around, he notices that no one is behind him. The girl then appears in front of him and runs off into the fog. Travis, wondering what’s going on, and wanting to know if the girl is alright, chases after her. He comes across a burning house and goes inside, rescuing a badly burned young child. Once outside, Travis loses consciousness, and wakes up in the center of Silent Hill. Wondering what happened to the child, he grabs a map from the information board near him, and heads off to the nearest hospital.

The story is like a mix between Silent Hill 1 and 2. It uses the same style of storytelling. We get most of the information from notes and cutscenes, but paying attention to the characters’ looks, mannerism and speech can also give away information of the story and the characters’ background. Reading between the lines and examining things from a symbolic perspective also reveals a lot of interesting facts. The game was meant to be a prequel, and it doesn’t disappoint: while at first we’ll find ourselves wondering how the game connects to Silent Hill 1, by the end of the game, everything will come together and become clear to us. Most of the NPC characters Travis meets also appear in Silent Hill 1, revealing more about them and how they are related to the mysterious events that happen in the town. Silent Hill Origins ends up being a good prequel, it connects well enough to Silent Hill 1, but also manages to keep Travis’ own story going, without either getting in the way of the other. It could explain a bit more about Silent Hill, what we get to know is satisfactory, however I felt a little disappointed that there wasn’t more to learn about the town. Also, Origins seems to rely on Silent Hill 2′s plot way too much. The plot of the two games are similar and follow a similar pattern of the protagonist going through a kind of self-discovery. The game even has a monster that has a similar role to Silent Hill 2′s Pyramid Head. In short, the story has originality, but it doesn’t dare to try new ideas and viewpoints, unlike Silent Hill 2 or Silent Hill 4. Still, the game, just like it’s predecessors is a master of interactive story telling, requiring the player to use his mind to “decipher” the true meaning of the plot.

Let’s take a look at the first thing we see once we hit New Game in the main menu, in other words, the graphics. The graphics in terms of quality are quite good, especially for the PSP. On the PS2, the character models were updated, but the graphics are not all that impressive. Still, even on the PS2, the graphics are comparable to previous Silent Hill games, so there isn’t a noticeable drop in quality. The flashlight effects look particularly good, better than in any previous Silent Hill title. As for the graphical style, I have to say, it’s perfect. Climax Studios managed to recreate Silent Hill perfectly in terms of graphics. The environment is just as dark, foggy and atmospheric as in any Silent Hill game, and while this isn’t that big of an achievement – darkness and fog are not hard to create – it still counts very much, because the atmosphere is a big part of the Silent Hill experience. Silent Hill’s trademark “static filter” or “noise filter” makes it’s return as well, smoothing the graphics and making the game darker. For those who don’t know, this is an effect similar to a TV emitting static, only transparent.

Next up is the sound. The sound and particularly the music has played a major role in Silent Hill’s success as a franchise. Akira Yamaoka, the composer of the music has always delivered quality soundtracks for each game, and it’s no different in Origins. Akira Yamaoka, despite the change of developers, decided to create the soundtrack for this game as well and it shows. The music is just as good as any previous Silent Hill game. The game has atmospheric melodies, depressing songs, along with Silent Hill’s trademark feature: music that makes you feel scared. Origins’ soundtrack also has songs which are composed of random noises, gears turning, metal objects clashing, unidentifiable life forms making weird noises and many more similarly unsettling sound effects. These in conjunction with the believable voice acting and the realistic, quality sound effects (such as the lonely sound of steps taken on an old floorboard) add up to an immersive, and frightening experience.

The controls of the game are similar to those of Silent Hill 4. Travis is controlled with the analog stick, while the directional buttons are for quickly switching weapons. This feature was implemented due to the breakable nature of weapons. The game features fully 3D controls just like Silent Hill 4 instead of the tank-like controls of the first three games. Also, unlike in Silent Hill 2 and 3, the player can’t switch between the fully 3D and the original control styles. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of preference, however the 3D controls do have problems when the player transfers from one fixed camera angle section to another. The controls can’t be altered either in any way. In every other aspect the controls and the button layout are basically the same as those in Silent Hill 3. The controls work quite well with the game, and the only problem I had, was the inability to move the camera. Unlike in Silent Hill 3 – where the camera could be moved to a certain extent when the camera angle wasn’t fixed – the only thing you can do with the camera is pan it behind Travis at the push of a button.

The game, unlike it’s predecessors, doesn’t offer any difficulty levels. However, there is nothing to be afraid of in this case. The difficulty is very well balanced. It’s isn’t too easy, but it isn’t too hard either. What it is, is challenging. It requires the player to pay attention to the game, building suspense in the process. At the same time, it doesn’t become frustrating or unfair. As long as the player pays attention, and does what he’s supposed to do he’ll be fine. He won’t become overly confident, but he’ll manage to get through the game. Climax Studios was kind enough to put a “tips” section into the game for newcomers and those who are not familiar with the new functions. A nice gesture, not an interactive way of explaining things, but it’s actually better that way as it doesn’t get in the way of the game. Silent Hill just isn’t one of those games where in-game tutorials would work, in any form. These aspects, combined with the controls make the game perfectly playable. The game is easy to control, while also being perfect in terms of difficulty. There really isn’t anything that would make the player give up playing the game. Apart from the occasional control troubles with the 3D controls in areas with fixed camera angles, the player won’t face any problems with controlling Travis. Thanks to the balanced difficulty, the player won’t find himself getting bored or overly frustrated either.

The lenght of the game is not too bad. One playthrough is generally 5-10 hours long, which is good enough for the genre, and luckily the developers put in a decent number unlockable things as well. As in any Silent Hill game, there are multiple endings to achieve, depending on how many enemies Travis kills. Mimicking Silent Hill 3′s system the game has a good and a bad ending, with Travis having to kill a lot of enemies to achieve the bad ending. There is also a traditional UFO ending, which can only be obtained after the player beats the game once. There are unlockable extra options just like in previous games, allowing alteration of blood color and other small gameplay related things. Climax Studios also included the new accolades system. Accolades are basically achievements, if the player meets certain conditions, he’ll receive the accolade along with a new costume. Some accolades also give Travis new weapons.

I think it’s time to delve deeper into the game. The gameplay for one returns to the roots of the series. As we know, Silent Hill 4 was a departure from the classic gameplay and turned out worse than the previous game partly because of it. Origins returns to the roots, and plays very similarly to the first two Silent Hill titles. The town itself is once again explorable to a greater extent (unlike in Silent Hill 3 and 4) and most of the areas Travis explores haven’t been seen before in previous games. This also contradicts the original Silent Hill’s layout as the Origins-exclusive “business district” never existed in Silent Hill 1, but not to the extent where it’s unacceptable. As Travis, we’ll get to visit four major areas not counting the town itself. These are three new places: a sanitarium, a theater and a motel. The fourth establishment we’ll get to visit is Alchemilla Hospital, which also appeared in Silent Hill 1. By adding this area, Climax Studios is keeping with the tradition of the series: every Silent Hill game so far had a hospital to explore.

The essence of Origins is the same as the previous Silent Hill games. You play in third-person perspective, with occasional areas that feature fixed camera angles. This sometimes conflicts with the 3D control system, e.g. you are pressing up to go forward, but then the camera switches to show Travis from the front and you need to start pressing down to move, despite going in the same direction. Ironically, the tank-like control system many people put down would’ve been perfect for these areas. The main goal of the game is to survive the bizarre events and find out who or what is behind the strange happenings in the town.

Silent Hill Origins features the same gameplay elements as the first three Silent Hill games. You go around the town and some bigger buildings, collecting information and maps, solving puzzles and riddles and fighting or running from monsters as needed. You collect various key items, weapons and healing items as you go, which are the key to your survival, thus it is a good idea to pick up everything you can. Ammo and healing items – as expected from a survival horror game – are scarce and should be saved up as much as possible. A big difference from previous games is the inclusion of a large amount of melee weapons. Origins features all kinds of melee “weapons”: knives, swords, TVs, wooden planks to name a few. All of these are breakable, in fact some of them are actually one hit weapons (mostly heavier objects, e.g. TVs, toasters), which often deal more damage than normal weapons.

As usual, the game doesn’t feature any heads-up display or minimap on the screen. The only function similar to these is the screen’s edges throbbing red when Travis is low on health. The game is extremely dark, in fact Travis can hardly see anything indoors. The traditional flashlight is used to compensate for this. It’s beam is weak, only illuminating a few feet, which helps the player, but still keeps the game scary. Because of the weakness of the flashlight, the player will have to keep paying attention to the game and the enemies sounds if he doesn’t want to be surprised. Another traditional item, the radio is used to keep the player informed of enemies being nearby – when it emits static (and it doesn’t emit anything else) a monster is nearby. This may seem unnecessary, and while I do think it might sound like it’s some kind of radar that ruins the fear, it’s not. It doesn’t give away the enemy’s position, and when you hear it’s sound, you’ll without a doubt equip a weapon immediately and begin to walk slowly across the room searching for the beast, hoping to find him before it finds you. Then when you least expect it, it will come up from behind you and make you desperately press the attack buttons to kill him before he kills you. Pretty soon, you’ll be out of ammo and it will be down on the ground, and as your heartbeat returns to normal, you breath a sigh of relief…only to notice the static sound still emitting because it’s still alive! You’ll quickly press the attack button to finish it off on the ground, and hope you won’t run into any more of them in the current room.

Speaking of shooting, let’s take a look at the combat system. It’s a bit different from previous games. As I’ve said before, Travis will find a lot of melee weapons scattered around. These will all break once they reach their limit, with some weapons being one-shot weapons. The firearms are a different story, as Travis can use them as long as he has ammo. The game has a “grapple system” which is basically Origins’ variant of the currently popular Quick Time Events. Some monsters will grapple onto Travis, and if the player can successfully input the displayed button combination, Travis can avoid taking damage.

The only big flaw I found with the gameplay is the mirror world system. As in all previous Silent Hill games, Silent Hill’s town has two variants: a normal world, where everything is fairly normal, (except for the appearance of the monsters and the fog) and the hellish “Otherworld”. In Origins, Travis can shift between these worlds by touching mirrors. This adds a new twist to the puzzles, with the player being required to shift between worlds to solve puzzles and get past obstacles. Since the two worlds are related, everything that happens in one of them also happens in the other. This means sometimes Travis will have to do something in the Otherworld to gain access to an item in the normal world. This works very well, and doesn’t obstruct the gameplay with needless backtracking thanks to the clever placement of mirrors and even fits with the story, but at the same time, takes away some of the fear factor. Being able to freely enter the Otherworld is not as scary as suddenly being engulfed in it, and unlike previous games, it doesn’t feel like the town itself is an enemy, playing mercilessly with our unlucky hero’s life. Still, this can be forgiven, because it works so well.

The Final Word
Overall, Silent Hill Origins may not be a masterpiece – or a game that will be remembered as a classic, but what it does, it does good. The game isn’t as original and memorable as the first two games in the series, but it still manages to recreate the same atmosphere and gameplay, as well as deliver the same chilling experience as it’s predecessors. It’s nostalgic, with some new elements added – and is ultimately a title worth playing for Silent Hill and survival horror fans alike.

- MonsterVine Rating: Good

Final Fantasy XII was the last Final Fantasy title to be released on the Playstation 2, was considered by some to be the final goodbye from Square-Enix to the PS2 era (as the Playstation 3 was due for release later on that year), and told (or attempted to, I should say) a story reminiscent of an approach that gamers had not seen since Final Fantasy Tactics. With many delays that brought about a 5 year development cycle, far greater than any Final Fantasy title before it, is this Ivalice adventure truly a masterpiece of the genre, or has the long-haul caused this Square RPG’s reservoir to run dry?

So let’s get to it. You play as Vaan, an androgynous-looking orphan from Rabanastre who dreams of becoming a Sky Pirate. Our energetic Michael Jackson soon finds himself caught up in a series of conflicts when he, against his friend Penelo’s advice, infiltrates the Rabanastre Palace during a celebratory dinner for the newly appointed Consul and comes upon the Goddess magicite. He soon runs into Sky Pirate Balthier and his viera accomplice, Fran, who happen to have been searching for the same thing. After the dinner party is crashed by the invasion of the Resistance force, Vaan, Balthier and Fran work together to escape amidst the chaos when they encounter the leader of the Resistance, Princess Ashe. After a large turn of events, including an escape from imprisonment with the help of Ashe’s loyal Knight, Basch, Vaan and his friend Penelo journey together with the Resistance to help liberate Ashe’s oppressed homeland of Dalmasca and reclaim her place as its Queen.

Final Fantasy XII’s story is surely one of particular minority among its predecessors. While elements of mythology do exist in the structure of the games plot such as summons, nethicite, and the ambiguous, all-knowing-all-seeing Occuria, in the end, FFXII is all about people–or was supposed to be, but I’ll get into that shortly. It was refreshing to play a game without an apocalyptic premise or a conflict that ended up having its hero battle a divine being to the death. XII kept a large political focus and told a story about nations at war. Considering how often Square presents us with games that always boil down to defeating/destroying holy deities, deciding to humanize XII’s story by bringing it back down to earth where we can relate to the conflict more readily was a fantastic idea. It is regrettable that even after all was said and done, it remained to be just that, an idea.

Perhaps one could blame this on the fact that the game went through several directors during that 5 year development cycle, and that the conflicting visions of several different people convoluted the storytelling as horribly as it did, but it goes without saying that the storytelling of FFXII is a mess. It starts off beautifully with a steady introduction of all the main characters that will eventually make up your permanent party of fighters throughout the game, but the longer the game progresses, the further away from sense the story starts to travel. Cutscenes in the game are beautifully crafted, showing top-notch talent in both voice-acting and cinematography, but beyond that, there isn’t much cohesion between the game’s many intriguing elements, almost as if each director just added on their piece of the puzzle without once considering consolidating the work of his predecessors. As a result, despite the stellar quality of the cutscenes, there is a significantly less number of them which I can only imagine it was due to each director being unable to create fluidity between them.

As if to try to make up for this deficit, you spend most of your time navigating long dungeons that take several hours to complete. I wouldn’t consider FFXII a level-grinder by any means, but because of the amount of enemies you face as you travel through each area, and the length of time you need to invest to reach the end, you will gain quite a few levels regardless of it was your intention or not. Now this is where one can debate whether or not FFXII is a ‘long RPG’, but to answer that it really depends on what criteria you’re considering. My first run-through took a good 40 hours (and I’ll have you know I made every effort to make sure every monster in every dungeon on the field met their demise at the tip of my bladed steel), but the journey itself felt short–and in all honesty, it probably was. Cutscenes were isolated and not proportionate to the amount of hours you spend actually playing the game. Out of the 40 hours I clocked in, I can confidently argue that less than 1/7 of that was from the actual storytelling (about 6 hours of cutscenes, not all of which involved plot advancement/character development). There reached a point where the game structured itself in a way where you’d go for long hours in a dungeon, only to have a few cutscenes that were not always particularly important to the plot, then thrust into another dungeon for several more hours. Finally, you get to the notorious 90+ floor level dungeon, only to find there are a few cutscenes left and that the story was already nearing its end, even though you felt nothing really happened. Consequently, FFXII felt incomplete and definitely fell below the standards of more usually comprehensive storylines that Square usually produces. With such a sociopolitical focus, which definitely presented much potential that could have been utilized, these opportunities were simply ignored or left to rot.

Now because the storytelling suffered from the aimless direction, naturally so too did the characterization. FFXII has quite possibly the most stagnant group of characters I’ve ever seen in a FF title. It’s amazing that the characters Square decided to highlight remained static and unchanging, yet the ones that did show promise were either shoved aside or were just killed off early. Despite being the game’s main protagonist, there remains to be anything particularly compelling about Vaan and his reason for being on the journey that unfolds. There are a few points where the story begins to lure you in a direction that you think will delve further into Vaan’s development as the story progresses, but many of these attempts came to an abrupt end or simply did not follow through to completion. Perhaps this is yet another product of the messy collaboration between the many directors who took on this project. In terms of characterization, instead of improving the genre with some breathtaking characters, you have the systematic destruction of any character that was remotely interesting to watch and would’ve provided some riveting character dynamic. Anyone that brought passion and more meaning to the word ‘justice’ and dedicated themselves to their cause just seemed to be tossed aside at the first opportunity. True, this couldn’t be said about Ashe’s clear dedication to liberate her homeland from the Empire, but the story constantly ridding itself of any charismatic characters that would’ve drove the theme home makes Ashe’s objective feel cheap and insincere, provoking thoughts like ‘she’s the heroine, of course she’s gonna have to get her way’ instead of making you truly feel the struggle she was going through.

Though disheartening, Square-Enix delivers in other respects at least with stunning graphics that will probably be remembered as the best there ever was on the Playstation 2. This comes as no surprise considering how late in the PS2′s life cycle it was before the game finally found its way onto store shelves. And of course, with the exceptional voice-over performances of all the major characters, FFXII is a visual treat for any gamer who expects such graphical prowess from a Square title; FFXII is no exception.

The gameplay of Final Fantasy XII is mostly done in real-time with seamless map-to-battle transitions, but do not make the mistake of believing those that say FFXII’s battle system is ‘new and revolutionary’ to the genre. It goes without saying that FFXII’s battle system is the first of its kind out of the ‘offline’ titles of FF, and its application certainly didn’t ruin the enjoyability of the game (although some claim the opposite), but its core elements are frighteningly identical to the battle system used in Final Fantasy XI, which has been around since mid-2002. In FFXII, you are able to control your party members’ movements in real-time, but there is no standard attack button that allows you to strike at enemies at your whim. Instead, attacking is automatically done for you when you unsheathe your weapon and get within range of your target. Delays between attacks are determined by a three-digit number that is associated with the weapon your character is currently using. Smaller and/or one-handed weapons will typically have attack delays substantially less than bigger, two-handed weapons. In other words, you can control character’s movements in real-time, but your attacks are handled on an independent timer that isn’t in your control. Guess what? This is exactly how Final Fantasy XI’s battle system works as well.

Many of you are probably thinking “But what about Gambits? And Quickenings? I’m pretty sure those are both exclusive to XII’s system.” It is true that Gambits and Quickenings are unique mechanics to XII’s battle system, however there are noticeable equivalents that these two can be compared to in XI’s system. The reason for the discrepancy is because XII must create a system that serves a one-player experience. XI being an MMORPG, all party members are controlled by humans, and therefore it is possible for elaborate teamwork to exist since every party member can behave intelligently and change strategies on the fly. The Gambit system was basically XII’s replacement to fill in for this lack of human support. Gambits are sets of preset behaviours to mimic certain roles or strategies that you, the player, want your other party members to follow. This ‘role-assigning’ is by no means a new inclusion that never existed before XII, but the level of customization that XII’s gambit system allows you to do is certainly a first. But again, this still far from being as elaborate or as effective as XI’s system due to human ingenuity.

Quickenings similarly act the same way as Skillchains do in XI. Skillchains are damage bonuses that occur when players unleash specific weapon skill combinations in a specific order (based on element) within a specific time interval (weapon skills need to be used 1-2 seconds after each other, no earlier, no later). This consecutive use of skills is similar to the Quickenings system, except it’s been streamlined to pressing specific buttons as quickly as you can to keep the chain going with very little consideration for delicate time delays or a specificity in combinations at the level XI forces players to take into account. Again, this doesn’t make the battle system in XII bad, but it’s certainly not as unique or revolutionary as many reviewing sites have claimed it to be. I hardly consider XII’s battle system to be unique and innovative when it’s essentially a mimicry of a system that has been around since 2002. Hell, I laughed when I realized the sprites for the Mandragoras were exactly the same!

(FFXI Mandragora vs FFXII Mandragora)

Licenses is the other major aspect of the battle system of XII, and I don’t think I need to remind anyone of its resemblance to the Sphere Grid from X. But this is one comparison I won’t berate since in all honesty, it functioned fairly well and provided for quite some combination in how you set up your characters. With the License grid (which looks a lot like a chess board), you can create an entire party of sword n’ shielders, or mix things up with a main tank, ranged fighters and main healer; the possibilities are endless. This is probably the most fun part of FFXII and I have no doubt that most of the enjoyment that people claim to have gotten from XII stems from this flexible amount of customization. And with the notorious Yiazmat present in the game, level-grinders are certainly well-rewarded for their efforts.

So in the end, Final Fantasy XII–while totally undeserving of many game of year awards it received after it was released–is not a complete failure. It retains a solid battle system, excellent voice-acting and gorgeous cutscenes with top-end graphics that we’d expect from industry giant, Square-Enix. It’s just a shame that for an RPG, where story and characterization are pivotal to the game’s success, Final Fantasy XII delivers on the extras while failing to provide the fundamentals. On an aesthetic and mechanical level, it’s certainly a step forward as XII becomes the most customizable FF title to date (perhaps maybe second to FF:Tactics), but for those looking to see Square-Enix raise the bar in the art of storytelling, I regret to inform you this was certainly not up to par.

Final Fantasy XII takes an approach that could have easily made itself the best in the franchise, but with so much potential to be realized by far too many minds, its creativity mercilessly collapses in on itself.

- MonsterVine Rating: Average