I have been a Silent Hill fan all of my life, and I have just recently completed my project of replaying and recording every single game in the franchise (well, except for Silent Hill: Book of Memories, since my PlayStation Vita broke years ago). That said, for as much as I absolutely adore Bloober Team's recent remake of the game, I'm not a fan who thinks Silent Hill 2 is the only vision that the series can emulate to be successful. I don't even think that you absolutely have to stick to the literal setting of Silent Hill, Maine, to tell a proper Silent Hill story.

All of this is to say that, for as much as the post-Silent Hill 4 releases have made fans understandably cautious, I have been eagerly awaiting NeoBards singular interpretation of the franchise ever since Silent Hill f was announced at the big franchise revival event a few years ago. It was evident from the very first trailer that the period setting, so deeply rooted in Japanese history and culture, would blend well with the gooey, rotting aesthetic that this new game was aiming for. The fact that the legendary Ryukishi07 was behind the story only made it easier to dare to hope that Silent Hill might well and truly be back.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have all of those hopes vindicated. Silent Hill f isn't just another good Silent Hill game, though I would have gladly settled for that, if only to prove that SH2 being great wasn't just a fluke. No, I would go so far as to say that Silent Hill f is the best game that the franchise has delivered since the original Silent Hill 2 set the standard over twenty years ago.

The most important task that a horror game needs to accomplish is that it is scary. To be more specific, a psychological horror game like Silent Hill f needs to establish a constant sense of mounting dread and fear that is rooted in getting inside the protagonist's head. From the moment you begin the 10-12 hour campaign, Silent Hill f does an incredible job of crafting a truly scary and deeply sad story that speaks to the specific kinds of fears and struggles that a teenage girl like Hinako would experience in the specific time and place in which she has grown up. This is accomplished on two different but equally important fronts: The script and NeoBard's incredible environmental design.

I wouldn't dare spoil any of the story's biggest twists and turns, which hit hard and often, but I can say that Hinako is easily the most sympathetic and well-developed protagonist that the franchise has yet seen. Yes, that includes James Sunderland. This is because Ryukishi07 is clearly drawing from his background as a writer of lengthy, literary visual novels and telling a story that feels much more like a horror book than a horror film. Past games took a less-is-more approach to developing their characters and the setting of the town, taking influence from the dreamy and ambiguous films of David Lynch and Adrian Lyne. In Silent Hill f, Hinako is made to feel like a real and painfully relatable person, first and foremost, and her constantly expanding personal journal makes the connection between her psyche and the monsters prowling Ebisugaoka much more explicit than fans might expect.

This is a good thing, in my opinion, considering that this game is viscerally and pointedly dedicated to making us feel Hinako's fear. This doesn't just apply to the chilling jumpscares and spooky labyrinths that she deals with throughout the game. We feel the fear she has of her father, the fear she has of the friends she does not trust or understand, and the fear she has over losing her identity and her future to a society where neither matters very much if you have the poor luck to be born a woman. The story is bolstered by wonderfully directed cutscenes and excellent voice acting, both in English and Japanese. Akira Yamaoka is back to lend his signature sound to the game's score and effects, along with new composers Kensuke Inage, dai, and xaki (more collaborators from past Ryukishi07 games). Their work is quite successful, which is vital given how important sound and music have been to Silent Hill's identity.

None of this is to say that the game gets too cerebral or political to be effectively terrifying. In fact, just the opposite is true. The focus on deep characterization and overt symbolism is perfectly complemented by the environmental design and survival-horror gameplay that NeoBards Entertainment has crafted. Played on the PS5 in Quality Mode, as I did, every nook and cranny of Ebisugaoka is jam-packed with detail and storytelling flourishes that make it feel like just as memorable a setting as that sleepy little New England resort town. Whether you're looking for the dozens of notes and collectibles that explicitly flesh out the lore or simply soaking in the gorgeous and unsettling scenery, exploring the worlds of Silent Hill f is deeply satisfying.

This is especially true whenever you encounter one of the game's surprisingly engaging puzzles. It's been years since a Silent Hill game has delivered a brain teaser that actually felt integrated into the setting while still nailing that dreamlike logic that the series has always prioritized. Silent Hill f nails this facet of the formula, too. One of the extended puzzle setpieces, involving a seemingly endless field of fog and mangled scarecrow corpses, is not only a great puzzle, but probably one of the scariest sequences of the entire franchise. It literally kept me from falling asleep after I finished it.

Outside of exploration, world design, and puzzles, the other key element of the survival horror schema that Silent Hill f has to tackle is combat. This is definitely the part of the game that has sparked the most controversy, both leading up to its release and in the weeks following its premiere. In short, Hinako being a Japanese girl living in the 1960s isn't the only thing that sets her apart from every other hero in the franchise; she can also kick monster ass like nobody's business. The combat in Silent Hill f hasn't gone to Resident Evil 4 lengths of transforming into an all-out action experience, nor has it become “The Dark Souls of the Franchise,” regardless of what you might have heard. Yes, Hinako has shoulder-button mapped melee attacks that are reliant on a stamina bar and supplemented by dodging and counter-attack skills, and the girl is much more eager to rip and tear at the hideous ghouls she encounters compared to past protagonists, but this is still a Silent Hill game at its core.

If anything, the increased emphasis on combat is just another way the game uses its mechanics to communicate Hinako's psychological conflicts, which I love. What I don't love, though, is just how focused on mandatory combat sequences the campaign can get, especially in its later chapters. On the one hand, I think a major flaw of previous Silent Hill titles is that combat was so optional that you could outright run past almost every monster that wasn't a boss, even at the end of the game. Not exactly scary. In Silent Hill f though, you end up getting stuck in a lot of monster arenas that give you no other choice but to keep wailing on gloopy meat blobs until the path opens up. While the combat does have a fair amount of depth thanks to the breakable weapons and inclusion of equipable omamori abilities, it is never a mechanic that can carry the game on its own, and I found myself wishing that the game had scaled back on the fights by the time I completed my first run of the story.

Speaking of which, one aspect of Silent Hill f that I think cements it as a truly exemplary entry in this series is the way that Ryukishi07 and NeoBards Entertainment have created an experience that literally demands to be unpacked across multiple playthroughs. Players familiar with Ryukishi07's Higurashi and Umineko visual novels likely won't be surprised to learn this, but it is vital information for anyone who is used to the different Silent Hill endings being simple cutscenes that offer an alternative conclusion to an ambiguous plot. New Game Plus runs don't just allow you to carry over your upgraded abilities and saved resources. You can expect entirely new cutscenes, sidequests, and story-shattering revelations throughout the entire campaign. I do not think it is an understatement to say that playing through Silent Hill f multiple times is fundamental to experiencing everything this game is trying to convey with Hinako's dark and grueling journey through the fog.

In case it wasn't already obvious, Silent Hill f didn't just live up to the measured expectations of a longtime fan scarred by Konami's mishandling of the franchise. It blew every one of my expectations away and delivered a psychological-horror experience that stands tall amongst the genre greats. It is a brutal, bloody, angry, and staggeringly empathetic journey into one young woman's personal hell. This game will cling to the darkest corners of my nightmares for a very long time to come.