Silent Hill f Review: A Masterpiece Held Hostage by Its Own Combat

Let's get this out of the way right now: Silent Hill f is a must-play for any horror fan. It's also one of the most frustrating games I have ever loved. Developer Neobards has crafted a beautiful, harrowing, and brilliant experience that is constantly being held back by its own worst instincts. It’s a game I wanted to throw out the window one minute and nominate for Game of the Year the next.

Let's get this out of the way right now: Silent Hill f is a must-play for any horror fan. It's also one of the most frustrating games I have ever loved. Developer Neobards has crafted a beautiful, harrowing, and brilliant experience that is constantly being held back by its own worst instincts. It’s a game I wanted to throw out the window one minute and nominate for Game of the Year the next.

This isn't the foggy American town we know. The developers took a massive risk, setting their story in 1960s rural Japan, and it paid off spectacularly. The result is a game that feels both deeply respectful of the series' psychological roots and refreshingly, terrifyingly new.

Welcome to Ebisugaoka, Japan

The game's setting is a masterpiece. The fictional village of Ebisugaoka is a stunningly realized slice of 1960s Japan, a place of serene beauty being choked by a creeping, unnatural bloom of red flowers and veiny tendrils. Every detail, from the muddy rice fields you slosh through to the ramune soda bottles you find, grounds you in a world that feels both real and deeply wrong. The Japanese folklore isn't just window dressing; it's woven into the very fabric of the game's horror and its most clever puzzles.

The Monsters in the Mist

The creature design is, without exaggeration, some of the best in the entire series. These aren't just zombies with different hats. They are grotesque, deeply symbolic manifestations of the story's themes. You've got mannequin-like dolls that skitter out from behind corners, twisted scarecrows that move like Weeping Angels whenever you turn your back, and truly disgusting, slack-mawed beasts covered in bulbous bellies that give birth to smaller demons in the middle of a fight. They are repulsive, creative, and will haunt your fucking dreams.

The Sound of Suffering

And the sound. My god, the sound. Akira Yamaoka returns to compose, and the soundtrack is a perfect blend of hauntingly beautiful melodies and the screeching, industrial dread that is synonymous with the series. But it's the ambient audio that truly sells the horror. The game is often quiet, letting the tension build until a sudden, unidentifiable noise from just out of sight makes you jump out of your skin. Play this with headphones, in the dark, or don't bother playing it at all.

The Story of Hinako Shimizu

For the first time in what feels like forever, we have a protagonist with a pulse. Hinako Shimizu is a high school student trapped in a life of abuse, and her trauma feels real and painfully resonant. She’s not a blank slate; she’s a stubborn, strong, and vulnerable character you genuinely come to care for, making the stakes feel incredibly high. You want to save her.

The story itself is an utterly absorbing, mature dive into themes of abuse, societal pressure, and trauma. But the real genius is how it plays you like a fiddle. For hours, I thought I had it all figured out, that I was two steps ahead of a predictable plot. I was wrong. The final act hits you with a twist so powerful and so clever that it re-contextualizes every single thing you’ve seen. It’s a devastating gut punch that left me staring at the credits in stunned silence, feeling like I'd been thoroughly outplayed.

A Puzzling Return to Form

Thankfully, one area where the game absolutely nails the classic formula is its puzzles. They are a brilliant return to the series' roots, complex, clever, and often requiring you to actually use your brain. With their own difficulty setting, you can tailor the challenge to your liking. They are a welcome break from the action and are beautifully integrated into the storytelling. One standout sequence involving scattered calendar pages has you jumping through time in Hinako's family home, piecing together her fractured past. It's brilliant.

The Unavoidable War Over Combat

And now, we have to talk about the combat. This is the bitter pill you have to swallow. It’s a strictly melee affair, with breakable weapons, a stingy stamina bar, and a sanity meter. At first, the clunkiness feels right. You're a terrified schoolgirl, not a warrior. Every swing is desperate.

But the tension quickly devolves into pure, unadulterated annoyance. The stamina bar depletes in a heartbeat, leaving you wheezing and helpless. Your attacks clang uselessly against walls while enemies hit you right through them. The lock-on system is unreliable, and the dodge often feels unresponsive. It's a mess.

The biggest sin is that the combat is pointless. It’s all risk, no reward. Enemies are just damage sponges that break your weapons and drain your health. They don't drop anything useful. Fighting is a net loss, which encourages you to simply run past everything. This tactic works surprisingly often, but it turns tense horror sequences into goofy chase scenes, shattering the atmosphere.

Then, in a baffling move, the game gives you an indestructible magic spear and a super-powered "beast mode" in its otherworld sections, turning you into an overpowered demigod. It's a jarring shift that feels like it belongs in a different game entirely, completely killing the survival horror vibe.

The Second Tour of Hell (New Game+)

I have to mention the New Game+ here, because it's essential to the full experience. This isn't just a simple replay. NG+ adds entirely new interiors to explore, new documents that provide crucial context to the story, altered cutscenes, and even a couple of new boss fights. It’s clear the developers intended for you to play through the game at least twice to get the whole picture.

The Verdict

I am exhausted. My feelings on this game are a goddamn mess. On one hand, the story, atmosphere, puzzles, and art direction are a 10/10, a true masterpiece of the horror genre. On the other hand, the core combat system is a 4/10 at best, a tedious, frustrating, and poorly designed slog that constantly gets in the way.

It's a game that is brilliant in spite of a huge chunk of its gameplay. The highs are so incredibly high that they make the frustrating lows worth enduring. It’s a bold, flawed, and absolutely essential step forward for the series. You just need to be prepared to suffer for its art.

Score: 7.8/10 A masterpiece of horror storytelling, trapped in the body of a clunky action game.