Silent colina 4 follows Henry Townshend- What an awful last name- an average man who is living a pretty good life inside an Ashfield apartment, until he starts having strange dreams. But most importantly, he can’t leave his room, due to his door being chained up from the inside of his apartment. Eventually, he starts finding a hole in his apartment, which grows bigger and bigger with each passing day. Whenever he goes inside, he finds himself in a completely different world, ranging from subways, to forests, to prisons, to a city area, to his apartment halls, and a hospital. Along the way, he meets other people who seem to just up and die eventually with numbers carved into their bodies. And it seems that one of Henry’s neighbors, Eileen, is also in danger of being caught in this, and Henry has to find a way to get her out safely while also trying to survive both the world inside the hole and try to not die inside his own apartment when it slowly starts to become possessed por evil spirits. Sounds simple enough.
The first problem with this game is Henry himself. First off, his terrible, just awful last name. What a mish-mash that is. But seriously, the problem with Henry is that he isn’t interesting. He isn’t as memorable as James or Heather. He’s just an awkward loser for a majority of the game. He’s got no serious backstory, no issues, no nothing. I thought the apartment and the hole that you use to peak on Eileen would point to him being a shut-in or something, but no. He’s just locked in there por circumstance. He’s a perfectly fine and mentally healthy individual. And that’s not the best thing for a Silent colina game. It doesn’t help that Henry rarely talks. Sometimes, when he meets a new character, he may not say a word to them. Oh, and speaking of these characters, wow, are a majority of them not interesting in the slightest. When compared to the smaller casts like in anterior games, you really see that they were on a time when making these characters. They tried to add some emotion to Cynthia’s character, the first one you run into, but it doesn’t help. After that, these characters end up dying before you know too much about them. Andrew ran an orphanage, Braintree hates kids, and…. Oh god, I don’t think the segundo guy even told us his name. How am I supposed to be invested in these characters when I know little to nothing about them before they bite the dust? But I’m gonna try my damndest to look at this game as it’s own thing and not compare it to other Silent colina games. Still doesn’t get me interested in these characters, though. They’re just nobodies that are here to give me a reason to explore these cursed areas. But, maybe the enemies are good… Right?
You know why I always prefer Silent colina 2’s enemy designs over any other Silent colina game. It had the decency to not add dog enemies. I always hate dog enemies in horror games. I get it, dog enemies are fast and can work, but most of the time, they don’t. Cerberus from Resident Evil work because they surprise you every time. In Silent Hill, not so much. And it doesn’t help when they have goddamn jaguar noises. The enemy sound design in this game is atrocious. Dog enemies that make jaguar noises when they leap at you. Creepy lagging creatures that sound like monkeys. The pipe wielding enemies sound like they’re burping when you hit them. And if you hit them on the stairs, get ready for some hilarious shit. It’s honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. The enemy design aren’t that great too. Most of them are just uninspired, and it just doesn’t ever look scary. I honestly can’t tell you how many times I had to run passed the enemies that made bee noises. The Ghosts are scary at first, what with their twitching, but after a while, they just start to get annoying. I’m not running from them because I’m terrified. I’m running because I’m just so tired of dealing with them and want to mover on. But I’d be lying if I said all of the enemies in this game weren’t scary. After all, there’s the Twin Victims. These enemies are so creepy, I actually gave enough of a shit to find out what their name is, unlike the others who I had no interest in doing. Just seeing these things point at you from down the hall, whispering, before they start running toward you. Now that’s scary. That I like. That’s a real good kind of fear. Thankfully, as much as I don’t like the enemy design in this game, they are not the only thing that makes Silent colina scary. What makes Silent colina really scary is the atmosphere.
Silent colina is never about killing as much enemies as you can. Something that Book of Memories either failed to notice or did notice and just didn’t care… I’m gonna go with the latter just because it makes Book of Memories look worse. Anyway, no, it’s about getting enveloped in the atmosphere, and this game certainly has its own atmosphere. Letting the quiet, foggy forest envelope you with the sound of ambience. The creepy clattering noises you hear when inside the prison. And Henry’s apartment… Oh boy. I can see why people would hate Henry’s apartment. I won’t lie, it can be pretty irritating, having to go back here to swap out an item you don’t need, while also just wanting to get to a save but can’t because the spot seguinte to it is currently being possessed. But no, I like Henry’s apartment, due to the feeling of total isolation, being closed off from the world. Everytime you look out the window, you can see people and cars, always moving, always going on with their lives, but you aren’t. You’re stuck in this hell and you can’t do anything except go inside the hole and just keep going. It really adds to the feeling of dread, and makes things much mais tense. And then they have the place get possessed. I don’t know how I feel about the apartment getting possessed. Part of me likes the subtle changes that make you lose your mind, but another part of me hates that these dumb ghosts come from the walls and tell you, “Sorry buddy, you can’t save your game because I’m here now. Come back when you have a Holy Candle”. I hate that. Just let me enjoy the isolation of my apartment in peace. Also, if you want the best ending, this is one of the two ways to get it, you have to exorcise a good portion of this apartment. What needs to be exorcised, I don’t know. The sink, the bed, the wall, the front door, the save point for the twentieth time in a row. If you want the best ending, you gotta do it. The hospital room, however, this is where it starts to feel like a true Silent colina game. Traps that psych you out thinking you’ll die, mysterious corpses that you can’t rightly see, a giant head of Eileen breathing heavily as it stares at you, and other disturbing looking things. It feels like some real effort was put into this. But, suddenly, Silent colina 4 remembers that it has to be Silent colina 4, and thus, we get introduced to Eileen.
Eileen is a… special kind of stupid. In writing, she’s fine. She doesn’t have much interesting about her. She’s just a normal girl who happens to be Henry’s neighbor in the apartment. Big deal. But in the game… Oh boy. From here on out, you have to escort Eileen for the rest of the game, until you go through every level again. That’s right, an escort mission in a Silent colina game. I know Silent colina 2 did it, but not of this level. Not a whole 50% of the game. And remember when I said that exorcising the apartment was one of the two ways to get the best ending? Well, Eileen is the other one. You have to make sure she doesn’t get to badly hurt throughout a large portion of the game. Yes, throughout the entire game. You have to avoid enemies, or attack them before she gets close to them. And with this, you have two choices. Leave Eileen unarmed and just run to the exit, leaving you both open to attacks, or give Eileen a weapon and have her always stumble towards an unkillable Ghost while she beats it and you wait at the exit while you both slowly lose health over time. I had to reset the game so many times because of how injured she would get. And it doesn’t help that it completely ruins the isolated feel that the apartment room does perfectly. I was real damn close to just giving up on trying to get an ending and just let her die in the game. Something that you should never feel in a game like this. Well, unless you like the bad endings, but whatever. Thankfully, it’s not all bad. There is the true enemy of Silent colina 4
I shit talked the enemies and monsters of this game enough, but I can give it some praise. It didn’t resort to using Pyramid Head, so at least it has some self-respect and confidence. Something every other Silent colina game failed to do. But instead, they use the interactions of Henry and the games main antagonist, Walter Sullivan. Sure, some people could see him as a try hard edgelord, trying way too hard to be scary and serious, but unlike the other antagonists like Dahlia or Claudia, Walter is a person who tries to get things done, rather than let God do all the work, he goes out and tries to do things on his own with the aid of The Order’s religion. Sullivan starts out as just your typical stranger in the world in the hole, and before you know it, he’s running at you, laughing like a madman, shooting at you and trying to hit you with a chainsaw as you run through the forest avoiding cachorros and Twin Victims. Just seeing him in the distance, with a gun aimed right at your face, is enough to make you jump and either run away and hope you get to the exit fast or run toward him and get some hits in just to stun him. Just seeing him barrel down the hallway in the apartment world is enough to freak me out. And that laugh he does will turn you in the other direction real fast. And it all boils down to a final boss fight that really shows that Silent colina is not a combat oriented franchise.
Silent colina 4 is a… unique game in the franchise… It’s got ideas… Some work… most don’t. Okay, so Silent colina 4: The Room, is not a perfect Silent colina game. It’s got problems. A majority of enemies are real bad, some of the characters are uninteresting, Eileen is one of the worst escorts I’ve seen, and a few other problems. But, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a good horror game. Maybe a good Silent colina game in some categories, but not much. But hell, in a world where Downpour, Homecoming… HD Collection… Book of Memories…. Silent colina Pachinko Machines… where those are allowed to exist, all I want is a good Silent colina game, and Silent colina 4 is pretty good. Flawed, but good. Take care.
Art by Deathding
