Silent Hill Homecoming needs a sequel bad

[blackglass657]

Game sufers so badly from do not tell the entire story. Why Alex thinks he is a soldier, do not explain order, do not explain Joshua, do not explain Pyramid head , damn this game is so bad at do not tell the entire story that it becomes a comedy. There was a script for the homecoming trilogy and then konami just released one game and don't even really care about that. Thats just great. This game need a sequel that will be like original with original script ideas from the trilogy and explaining all of those homecoming unexplained storyline.

[leftshoe18]

You know, of all the problems that Homecoming had, I never felt like character backstory was one of them. I think we learn enough about the characters and everything for the story that is being told. Having a sequel that further explores the background of this game is unnecessary.

Here's what I gathered about your list of things that need explanation from the game itself:

Alex thinks he's a soldier because he has a psychotic break after the death of his brother.
The chapter of the Order in this game is an offshoot from the main cult that separated decades ago to form Shepherd's Glen. They sacrifice children of the founding families to keep the evils of the area at bay.
I don't understand what you want explained about Joshua.
Pyramid Head is Adam's monster that fills the punisher role in a similar way to the Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2 filling that role for James.

That's plenty of explanation for those elements of the story.

[The Adversary]

>There was a script for the homecoming trilogy and then konami just released one game and don't even really care about that.<
Gonna have to provide some sources for that.

[Chris Sunderland]

>There was a script for the homecoming trilogy and then konami just released one game and don't even really care about that.<
Gonna have to provide some sources for that.

I think it's in that SHV video I posted on here if I remember right. The post should be a couple down. I heard it too somewhere and I think it's from a former Double Helix dev. I can't be too sure because I wasn't interested in Homecoming sequels but how SHV became Homecoming.

As far as a Homecoming sequel *shudders*. No disrespect OP, but I think I'd rather the series got dormant than get anything like Homecoming. I'm not gonna post my 33 page anti-Homecoming manifesto on here again but I think of all the western SH games it's the one that misses the mark the most. I'm currently replaying it and I'm having trouble thinking of anything I actually like about it.

[blackglass657]

If Homecoming sequel will be done right in the same style, atmosphere and will answer a lot of untold storyline, like explain characters, explain Pyramid Head, explain why Alex thinks he is a soldier, explain Joshua and Order.

If sequel done right Silent Hill Homecoming will be damn great and wouldn't feel like a funny joke, a comedy anymore.

[Chris Sunderland]

If Homecoming sequel will be done right in the same style, athmosfere and answear a lot of untold storyline, like characters, explain pyramid head, explain why Alex thinks he is a soldier, explain joshua and order.

If sequel done right Silent Hill Homecoming will be damn great and wouldn't feel like a funny joke, a comedy anymore.

It's unnecessary though. Why not just make better games that don't have anything to do with Homecoming. A lot of the stuff you mentioned is already explained as well, it's just not good.

[MrMeow]

Didn’t they advertise the combat as being updated from the original 4 games because Alex was a soldier? Yet he only thought he was one so that reason makes no sense?

[Burning Man]

>There was a script for the homecoming trilogy and then konami just released one game and don't even really care about that.<
Gonna have to provide some sources for that.

https://shshatteredmemories.com/2012/03 ... mm-hulett/

The Man himself - Tomm Hulett - confirmed this at the 5:11 mark.

[Chris Sunderland]

I couldn't imagine that dark timeline. I bet Capcom made sequels to DMC2 in it as well that played like DMC2....

[Lifetolifeless]

>There was a script for the homecoming trilogy and then konami just released one game and don't even really care about that.<
Gonna have to provide some sources for that.

I think it's in that SHV video I posted on here if I remember right. The post should be a couple down. I heard it too somewhere and I think it's from a former Double Helix dev. I can't be too sure because I wasn't interested in Homecoming sequels but how SHV became Homecoming.

As far as a Homecoming sequel *shudders*. No disrespect OP, but I think I'd rather the series got dormant than get anything like Homecoming. I'm not gonna post my 33 page anti-Homecoming manifesto on here again but I think of all the western SH games it's the one that misses the mark the most. I'm currently replaying it and I'm having trouble thinking of anything I actually like about it.

Certainly varies on personal sensibilities, but for me, I’ve actually come to appreciate a few things about it over the years. I find the atmosphere (fog implementation, post effects, and lighting model) to be the most effective in the series. Unexpectedly, I really dig their implementation of over-the-shoulder camera perspective and character once I acclimate from the initial shock. Lastly, I find the soundtrack to be sensational. It’s genuinely my favorite soundtrack in the series, and it’s in regular rotation while I’m working.

It’s a clunky game that I beat on plenty back in release, but I’ve found a lot to love.

[Jonipoon]

Didn’t they advertise the combat as being updated from the original 4 games because Alex was a soldier? Yet he only thought he was one so that reason makes no sense?

Never thought it would come to this, but I will be using a quote from the film Shallow Hal to explain something from Silent Hill:
The brain sees what the heart wants it to feel.

So, simply put, Alex is great at combat because he imagines himself to be. It's not really the first time that the power of the town has let peoples inner desires and wishes come true.

[Chris Sunderland]

>There was a script for the homecoming trilogy and then konami just released one game and don't even really care about that.<
Gonna have to provide some sources for that.

I think it's in that SHV video I posted on here if I remember right. The post should be a couple down. I heard it too somewhere and I think it's from a former Double Helix dev. I can't be too sure because I wasn't interested in Homecoming sequels but how SHV became Homecoming.

As far as a Homecoming sequel *shudders*. No disrespect OP, but I think I'd rather the series got dormant than get anything like Homecoming. I'm not gonna post my 33 page anti-Homecoming manifesto on here again but I think of all the western SH games it's the one that misses the mark the most. I'm currently replaying it and I'm having trouble thinking of anything I actually like about it.

Certainly varies on personal sensibilities, but for me, I’ve actually come to appreciate a few things about it over the years. I find the atmosphere (fog implementation, post effects, and lighting model) to be the most effective in the series. Unexpectedly, I really dig their implementation of over-the-shoulder camera perspective and character once I acclimate from the initial shock. Lastly, I find the soundtrack to be sensational. It’s genuinely my favorite soundtrack in the series, and it’s in regular rotation while I’m working.

It’s a clunky game that I beat on plenty back in release, but I’ve found a lot to love.

Soundtrack is great, but it's the one true thing left from Team Silent. Fog effects are nice for a PS3 game, yet they are worse than the past games, to me. They are fine though. The camera is fine until you get into combat, but it's combat makes me wish for Harry Masons 800 pound analog stick esque combat. The actual moment to moment camera is fine. It's practically what's still common in horror gaming today, if a lil out dated.

I recently replayed it hoping I could appreciate it more with my older, wiser eyes and I feel all my misgivings and complaints are only 10 fold after replaying it. It's number 1 offence is it's boring, dull, life less environments. Has to have some of the worst locations in the series. A great horror game setting has to have a lived in vibe. Spencer Mansion, The Apartments, The Ishumura, etc. Homecoming is just empty husks of environments with nearly no environmental storytelling, no unique items that give life to the world. It's a massive downgrade even to SH1, a PS1 game, which I came to appreciate even more on a recent run.

The combat is bad, not in a functional way like past games, but it's bad because it doesn't work the way it's supposed too. Your dodges are useless, everything but the knife is too slow, QTEs everywhere. I could go on but I have other things I want to bitch about.
The game has no soul or idenity. You can say SH4 is mediocre, but as a concept, it's fantastic. It's wholly unique and is brilliant on that alone. SH3/Origins are directly connected to SH1 and Origins has a weak story but I can appreciate the great story/characters(of 3) and the great puzzles and environments that all have some character to them, the atmosphere is on point in both titles as well. SH:H doesn't know what it is. One moment it's trying to be the SH:Movie the Game, SH2 but not good or SH1:TNG.Sometimes its even Resident Evil like in the police station. It's a broken collage of uninspired direction on top of the other uninspired things. Everytime the game almost feels like a sliver of a Silent Hill game, it throws some atmosphere wrecking bullshit at you.

Now I'm not saying anyone's wrong for enjoying Homecoming. I'm just venting my personal vendetta against it. To my mind Silent Homecoming is the worst that the series has ever been, Book of Memories not with standing.

[Burning Man]

I think the problems in Homecoming are fixable. They're more like mechanical problems than anything wrong with its foundation. If Konami gave the green light to remake the game with today's technology to the right team, I think it could do wonders. It's just too bad that the industry only looks at once popular games to remake than to give unfavorable games a second chance.

[leftshoe18]

The reason they don't give bad games a second chance is because nobody would buy the remake.

[Lifetolifeless]

That’s certainly a factor, but not a foregone conclusion. There’s just too much risk in having to start from a sentiment deficit rather than surplus.

[Chris Sunderland]

I think the problems in Homecoming are fixable. They're more like mechanical problems than anything wrong with its foundation. If Konami gave the green light to remake the game with today's technology to the right team, I think it could do wonders. It's just too bad that the industry only looks at once popular games to remake than to give unfavorable games a second chance.

I disagree, Homecoming is an okay mediocre game at best, but a very poor take on Silent Hill. Even if you fix the clunkiness your just left with a very average product. You can fix combat, facial animations yada but fixing the games art direction, storyline and just basic generic nature is a lot harder. Now Downpour might be an interesting game to see reworked. Origins with a better put together story could be very decent. SH4 reimagined by the right development team might rival the best horror games. Homecoming might rival Cold Fear or some other decent but forgettable horror game. Now if you take Homecomings basic premise and rework all the fan wanking and uninspired bits out of it, Mabe. However...

That’s certainly a factor, but not a foregone conclusion. There’s just too much risk in having to start from a sentiment deficit rather than surplus.

^^This and taking a mid game and making reimagining it only works if a decent amount of people want to see it's potential realized and it to be worth the investment. Code Veronica from Resident Evil is a good example of a game that has potential and the fan base to buy it if it had a glow up. SH4, which I think is way above average in most cases, has a lot of potential to be reimagined into something interesting. It works the same in movies. The best remakes are good movies that are reimagined into something objectively better. Look at Scarface or The Thing.

[Arsonist]

Homecoming is a complete story. Clumsy, with too much going on, and time wasted on characters who literally don't have anything going on, but complete.

Why Alex thinks he is a soldier

Because despite hating him, he craves for his father's approval, and thinks that's what his dad would want him to be. It's a fantasy he retreated into after his trauma.

do not explain order

Not much to explain. The founders left the Order, but feared it and its power, so they compromised with the child sacrifice ritual. Once their ritual failed due to Adam, Margaret and her followers tried to make it all better by rectifying their founders "mistake" and going full Order, converting everyone they can, inquisition style, and killing those they cannot.

do not explain Joshua

What's to explain? He died.

do not explain Pyramid head

It's just fanservice. But if I wanted to strain myself out of cynicism, and put on a very generous theory hat on, I'd say that PH is an image of Order's executioner. We see a painting of him in SH3 among the "many gods and angels", and the painting James sees in SH2 could be something that exists in the real world as well. If we take that as fact, then he is a manifestation of Order's justice, hunting Adam specifically for ruining the ritual by sending Alex away instead of sacrificing him. Not unlike how the manifestations of dead children haunt their parents. They have their lives on their conscience, and Adam has the whole town.

[Chris Sunderland]

Arsonist, do you have the image of Pyramid Head in SH3? I think I remember what your talking about and I'm pretty sure it's not Pyramid Head but I'd love to be proven wrong. There is a picture of him in Origins. If this,

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/silen ... 0418202900

this is the picture, that's not Pyramid Head. It does has a similar look but I'm pretty sure it's been disproven as him. Now if I'm wrong, I'm wrong please prove me wrong.

^^This and taking a mid game and making reimagining it only works if a decent amount of people want to see it's potential realized and it to be worth the investment. Code Veronica from Resident Evil is a good example of a game that has potential and the fan base to buy it if it had a glow up. SH4, which I think is way above average in most cases, has a lot of potential to be reimagined into something interesting. It works the same in movies. The best remakes are good movies that are reimagined into something objectively better. Look at Scarface or The Thing

.

This is a great point I'm can't remember if I brought up with remakes. Games usually have to be bonafide classics or games that maybe don't hold up, but have great ideas that could and should be expanded on like SH4 and CVX, two great examples. There has to be something there.

[The Adversary]

^ That link doesn't work so I'm assuming everyone is talking about the fourth painting, "Creation."

While the low-res, in-game version of it appears to show Pyramid Head on the left side, it's actually (probably) a cloaked figure.

Masahiro Ito was not responsible for the six myth paintings — and I forget who was — so it's unclear what the intent was.

[Arsonist]

All the images I can find are extremely low-res, but you get a good look at (presumably) him in this video:
https://youtu.be/3qkqeECXTqQ?si=yi9Oc00jBK4A7vOu&t=140
To me it looks like a human face in a transparent pyramid head shaped contraption, holding his or hers arm at the tip of it.
It's probably just an easter egg, but whatever. People have stretched harder before. It's been a long time since I've been in the fandom, but there have been theories aplenty about why some monsters get reused. Them representing minor Order deities, the archetype theory, them being people who got stuck in the otherworld and got reshaped by it, them being dead people in a purgatory state getting cleansed through suffering for reincarnation or heaven... basically take your pick. The executioner figure IS a part of the Order however. We see a photo of a man with a red hoods in SH2, Jimmy Stone from SH4 was one, and SH3 gives us a sort of a guide on the correct ways to preform human sacrifices. So PH shaped deity existing in the Order's mythos does not seem like a huge leap. Not that I'm implying that either James or Adam got stalked by an actual god mind you. I'm more in the manifestation camp.