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Better without Alessa?

Posted: 02 Mar 2010
by DistantJ
Just something I was thinking about,

Travis' story is strong enough to stand on it's own, and the majority of the game's enemies and bosses all come from his own psyche, not Alessa. I always admired how this one merged the Silent Hill 1/3 'occult' world with the Silent Hill 2 'subconscious' world but I recently started to think, does Alessa's story even need to be there? Obviously it couldn't be called Origins, but I found most of the weaker ideas in the game to be the ones linking it to SH1 - particularly the demon boss etc.

Could this have been "Silent Hill 2.5"? Would you have liked it better if it was?

Posted: 03 Mar 2010
by Ryoshockwave
I liked how Travis saved Alessa in the beginning. I also liked how you run into other characters like Lisa, Kaufmann and Dahlia throughout the game. The only times Alessa sort of "bothered" me was when she kept appearing to Travis without too much reason. But I guess if she didn't, then he wouldn't have been as curious to continue exploring Silent Hill. At least until his own personal story kicks in.

So overall, I like how the story dealt with familiar characters/settings/plot stuff from the first game (making it a true prequel), but also with Travis's own personal demons.

Posted: 03 Mar 2010
by angelofROOM302
^^
I agree with everything. You said it how I would perfectly. LOL!

Honestly, I felt the whole Alessa thing was kind of weird.
Especially that her grapics looked horrible and she looked like a bubble head. LOL!
Travis' story is honestly good enough to stand on it's own. Climax could have done an amazing job with that, it's just that one of my favorite parts (The Theatre) wouldn't make much sense then. It is a bit interesting that Travis meets these people that have no relation to his personal story and are doing their own thing without his nosy self popping in at akward moments, and we still do get to explore Travis' own world. I really do think that Climox could pull off a good story that isn't based off any of the original characters, kind of like Silent Hill 2, or The Room. :)

Posted: 03 Mar 2010
by DistantJ
This is true, the Theatre and all of the stuff from The Tempest was all from Alessa, right? I loved that part of the game, particularly the giant mirror and scenery at the end.

Posted: 03 Mar 2010
by LittleRed
I sort of liked Alessa's story tied in with Travis'.
I think Travis could kind of relate to Alessa, what with both of their relationships to their mothers. I dig the parallels.

However, I was not fond of how she was portrayed as kinda freaky and evil, or even kind of omnipotent.

Posted: 03 Mar 2010
by Restoration01
I loved Travis' story; I demand a re-imagination for his story! :mrgreen:

Posted: 03 Mar 2010
by SHF
i think alessa could of been less present. It was annoying, and repetitive the way she kept appearing with the flauros, and the siren everytime travis defeated a boss. The beginning was fine with him saving her from the burning house, and her touching the mirrors in the hospital. But i felt disconnected playing it, because it seemed to focus on her too much, and not enough on travis.

Posted: 04 Mar 2010
by Ryoshockwave
helldescent wrote:i think alessa could of been less present. It was annoying, and repetitive the way she kept appearing with the flauros, and the siren everytime travis defeated a boss. The beginning was fine with him saving her from the burning house, and her touching the mirrors in the hospital.
I agree with this, too.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by KiramidHead
My main issue with the overall game is that they called it Origins, which deserves a greater focus on Alessa, instead of some random guy who stumbles upon her story. But to be fair, Travis did have a strong enough story to warrant its own game. And I have to agree that Artaud Theater was awesome.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by DistantJ
They only called it 0rigins for us in the west though didn't they? I think it was Silent Hill Zer0 in Japan, which does no more than set it's position in the timeline.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by KiramidHead
Do western developers hate numbering sequels or something? Every outsourced SH we've gotten has a subtitle instead of a number.

Back on topic: I had forgotten about it being called Zero in Japan. However, I prefer the title Original Sin which they played around with for a while.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by Ryoshockwave
Maybe they believe their own games don't follow the overall story/canon of the original 1-4 series, so they don't bother numbering them anymore. With the exception of 0rigins, but that has a number in the name...

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by AuraTwilight
SH4 had a subtitle called "The Room", so it's that game's fault, if anything.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by Ryoshockwave
Or, perhaps, it was Silent Hill 2's fault with it's "Restless Dreams" XBox version.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by HaleyTrapp
No. They HAD to put Alessa in Origins. They were telling about what happened before SH1 and what happened to Alessa, and how she was burned.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010
by DistantJ
KiramidHead wrote:Do western developers hate numbering sequels or something? Every outsourced SH we've gotten has a subtitle instead of a number.

Back on topic: I had forgotten about it being called Zero in Japan. However, I prefer the title Original Sin which they played around with for a while.
It's a simple answer. Having a number, say, 5 in the title of something, implies to newcomers that they may need to have played/seen 1, 2, 3 and 4 to fully appreciate it. Sticking a subtitle in place of a number implies that it can also stand alone as it's own entity, where previous entries can be seen as backstory rather than continuity etc. If you want people to buy your product/see your movie, you want them to do it ASAP, not after the couple of months it will take to go through all of it's predecessors. It's a way of bringing people back or luring new people in to a series which has started to fizzle out, especially when the previous entries in the series' quality erodes away with time and get harder and harder for people to go back to. This way it's a new game/movie for the new generation, and a sequel for the previous generation; everybody wins.

Sometimes it can work the other way, though, for example Resident Evil: Code: Veronica and anything after that getting moderate success, when a game entitled Resident Evil 4 shows up, the people who enjoyed the first three back when they had a PSone are suddenly far more interested. It just depends on how the series is going I guess.

Personally I prefer the subtitle method because it gives something it's own space and treats it like it's its own entity.

Posted: 06 Mar 2010
by KiramidHead
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I do draw the line when a movie series comes to about five movies. Friday the 13th going up to part eight before subtitles kicked in, Nightmare on Elm St going to five, that sort of thing gets annoying. Even the Rocky series gave up on numbers.

Posted: 06 Mar 2010
by DistantJ
Yeah, I mean, for example, how many people would have seen Halloween H20 if it was actually called Halloween 7? And if Jason Goes to Hell was named Friday the 13th Part 9 it would be pretty much a disgrace to a series which is already pretty convoluted, heh. "Oh by the way the serial killer at the summer camp was a demon slug from hell all along"

If Rocky Balboa was called Rocky 6 how many people would have skipped it because they hadn't yet seen the previous 5? Ironically here in Europe we had a reversal of that with Live Free or Die Hard where it was renamed to Die Hard 4.0, but it seems here anybody and everybody loves and has seen the Die Hard series so naming it 4 links it more directly bringing those people back. I guess it depends on the nature of the film and whether the bigger audience is in existing fans or newcomers.

Posted: 06 Mar 2010
by KiramidHead
Lol Die Hard 4. You just made me think of Bruce Willis riding the fighter jet.

Re: Better without Alessa?

Posted: 07 Aug 2010
by mr. mason
despite alessalooking like a young travis in a wig i liked her in the game. travis helped her so she helped him with his emotional baggage weather he wanted to or not.