happy halloween please ignore my teeth
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Silent Hill 2 Haunts Me
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hello. if you're new here, welcome. if you're returning, i've missed you.
i've seen a few comments taking about maria and tbh i understand why there might be some critique – i haven't played born from a wish so i honestly probably havent had the full story in regards to her
that said, i dont want this video to be regarded as an objective analysis of silent hill 2. just my thoughts about it when i played it for the first time
the general reception to this video has been incredibly positive and i am SO thankful to those of you who have been positive. i make these videos for me, not for any financial gain, so reading people be lovely about the things i do is genuinely so affirming.
see you soon friends x
I've watched this video four times now 😂 it's so good. That creepy story about the one lane road in the beginning was perfection.
What song did you use as the background in the beginning?
I first knew about this game end of junior high (15+yrs ago). At that time , I concluded that James did not actually love Mary. 5 years after I watched my father deteriorate and die because of a terminal disease and I couldn’t do anything about it. During his final days we often fought and I had trouble facing his deteriorating state. I still have vivid dreams now where he returns home recovered and everything is ok again. I finally understood the despair that James and Mary faced, and how well this despair is summarized by Mary’s words to James when he confessed to hating her at the end:
“If that were true James, then why do you look so sad?”
—
What is haunting about this game is this sense of claustrophobic despair and Iurking creepiness-the messages in blood, the notes from the Brookhaven Hospital patients, the elevator quiz show and newspapers about Walter Sullivan, the graves with James, Eddie, and Angela’s names, etc. Just reading walkthroughs make me stay up at night.
Nice video. Played this game on release in 2001. I was 15. Back then the monsters were scary, now the mature themes and subject matter of the game make it scary
I fully get the "people must be using nostalgia glasses when they talk about X" feeling. Glad you tried SH2 though and seemed to enjoy it. Such a good game. If you're willing to go back in time I would highly recommend Silent Hill 4 and Project Zero/Fatal Frame (Xbox version, for better controls and lighting over the PS2 version). Project Zero still haunts me all these years later.
When you get a closer look the black butterflies are Rorschach blots.
Excellent narrative depicting and describing the world of Silent Hill 2. I played it on release date and it is still one of my favorite games to this day. From Silent Hill 1 to 4, they're all great. Maybe Silent Hill 3 is my favorite. Of course they don't rely much on jump scares. True psychological horror games. If I have to nitpick, you didn't give any credits to the haunting soundtracks and music done by the legendary Akira Yamaoka and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn which greatly contribute to the world of Silent Hill.
Monika's theme caught me off guard
I'm just gonna leave this here… Red. Butterfly. Imprisonment, Cage.Impailment.
Silent Hill is the only good horror I saw in my entire life. Hollywood and other games are just pathetic. Maybe Penumbra or Amnesia are not bad horrors but SH stuck in my head for almost 20years. I sleep with a soundtrack pretty often. When my life sucks SH world became something relaxing and quite pleasant place to escape in my head… In my pyramid head…
All the human faces are the same in this game. Just wider or skinnier, barely altered, and on different bodies, different hair…
Silent hill sux I hate this shert franchise
Played it finally for the first time a few years ago and the relentless dread yet curiosity of this world still haunts me. Never quite escaped into a world with that feeling before. Silent hill 2 is most definitely a masterpiece
The biggest screw up that people have with number 2 is that Pyramid Head isn't actually trying to hurt the main character, he's pushing him forward. The path to the stairwell clears after a piss easy fight with him. The pushing James off when he could have easily stabbed him. The murder of Maria, a distraction. The times when he I'd chasing you, its to keep you going in the intended direction. The closet scene, Pyramid Head probably knows James is in there, yet just leaves.
Silent Hill 2 is so overrated.
Hope to see more videos 😊
There is such a strange feeling of dread behind the experience of going down all those staircases and holes and emerging on the ground level like nothing happened. That whole sequence of going further and further down and sideways hallways followed by just walking right outside absolutely melted my brain the first time I played this.
I've only just found you but I subscribed straight away, You have such a calming but chilling voice, I could listen to you talk for hours. I always was scared of silent hill, even though I knew there was no jump scares…it just always gives you this dread feeling especially in the buildings, could never explain it but you did it for me 🙂
I'm obsessed by it and the other silent hills, I'd buy a console just to play it
It haunts me too
Your supposed to embody james he is average hes not super perceptive hes wracked with trauma.
The world takes shape as james' trauma the waterlogged walls the growing mold of stagnation the empty apts suggesting families living regular lives. You get lost and have a hard time understanding the environment you start to feel james' frustration where is Mary? Then there is the set pieces like the hole in the wall scene the dead man watching tv the elevator game show the silent hill historical society the gallows and then when you reach the peak of james dissociative delusions and fears you have to face them jumping down not one not two but three holes "plunging deeper into his psyche" down there are bodies countless others who have failed to make it as far as james the noise in that whole is nothing short of depravity realized then when you take the final plunge you find a graveyard with everyone you knows grave further you find Maria… But its more like Mary or maria pretending to be Mary she invites him for the final showdown the place in her restless dreams but first you have to organize these revelations in the labrynth where angela eddy and james are wondering haunted by their nightmares eddies murders angelas been raped and james wants to commit suicide like the other criminals he sees hanging finally making it out you cross the lake reflecting and pursuing the light eventually making it to the getaway there you find doors that lead to the wrong places themes of classic fairy tales as if this place was maries idealic princess getaway you finally trudge through the moldy hallways finding a buzzing melancholy rumbling … James finally confronts his repressed trauma and finally moves to the conclusion taking mary and commiting suicide.
Through the journey you are james you feel his frustration not sure where to go feeling angry at hard puzzles you still dont quite understand the meaning to and the vague directions your wife presents on top of this dynamic the nostalgia and liminality of silent hill brings you emotionally in the environment and setting you feel you know this place it looks familiar and the fact its largely empty scares you.
This game was the first game to truly create a liminal space that embodies a japanese interpretation of the decay of america the devs physically visited america researching the slow collapse of america and the empty tourist towns… thats why you feel that energy that nostalgia and that fear that were all lost and wandering in a decaying country trying to repress our trauma just like james… silent hill 2 is a positive game questioning whether we should stay lost in nostalgia and memories and trauma or face those demons and move on like our loved ones would want.
Also mary is real.. the letter that invites james to silent hill… is the very same letter that mary reads in the end scene.
The letter changes throughout the game first is her inviting him and then turning blank in the labyrinth eventually when james faces the truth he reads her letter at the end after saying good bye to her soul on the bed.
Maybe I'll eat my words but I'm not excited about Bloober Team working on SH2. I have yet to play any of their games that give me confidence that they have what it takes to make a slow burn, haunting experience NOT filled with jump scares. Crossing fingers I'm wrong though.
YOU ARE A GREAT WRITER!!! SILENT HILL HAUNTS ME TOO
the historical society is the scariest place imo in SH2
Man, this was so well done. Excellent video!
Wanna really know why this game has legendary status? It's not because it's uneasy, it's because of the meaning. I'm gonna give you an example. Maria has a butterfly tattoo. We all know what that means. Isn't it strange you find a putrid hole in a dingy appartment building next to a bed in an apartment filled with butterflies? What does James do? Well he goes shoving his hand in it knowing it's wrong. While looking for his sick wife. That's what he thinks about … That's what Maria is to him, everything represents James. That's why all characters are indifferent. It takes some time to realise that the bad person in this game is actually James.
Amazing story telling. Great silent hill description. I always struggled to put into words what this game made me feel when playing it. Its suspense at its finest
"I am skeptical of games that are masterpieces if they are old, their influence then does not mean it is worth to play by todays standards."
This video is pretty good but wow you are foolish to believe something like this. I hope this game has made you reconsider your strange mentality.
It haunts me that theres no easy way to play it on modern hardware.
When Maria said it’s morbin time and then shit in my face I got chills down mine spine. Truly a silent hill moment