GamesHorrorSilent Hill The Short MessageSilent Hill: The Short Message buries its most novel concept beneath layers of cringeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesHorrorSilent Hill The Short MessageSilent Hill: The Short Message buries its most novel concept beneath layers of cringeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Konami)
Hell is a teenage girl, or that’s whatSilent Hill: The Short Messagewould have you believe. Subtle as a brick to the nose,Konami’s compact horror game-slash-walking simulator foregoes any metaphorical flair in favor of simply screaming its themes in your face repeatedly. It’s as if the writers picked five or six of the most traumatic things they could possibly imagine happening to a young woman and condensed them into a single video game experience. I stifled more laughs than I did screams, though, because I’ve never seen such delicate matters handled with so clumsy a touch.
Warning: spoilers ahead for Silent Hill: The Short Message, as well as explorations of the game’s sensitive themes, including suicide
Killing joke
(Image credit: Konami)
“There might be a future to Silent Hill”(Image credit: Konami)Here’s what GR+’s Leon Hurley thinks of Konami’s shadow-dropped morsel of terror in ourSilent Hill: The Short Message review.
“There might be a future to Silent Hill”
(Image credit: Konami)Here’s what GR+’s Leon Hurley thinks of Konami’s shadow-dropped morsel of terror in ourSilent Hill: The Short Message review.
(Image credit: Konami)
Here’s what GR+’s Leon Hurley thinks of Konami’s shadow-dropped morsel of terror in ourSilent Hill: The Short Message review.
I laugh out loud as Anita’s closing monologue reveals that she was meant to be 18 years old this whole time. I’m not sure if anyone at developer HexaDrive has ever met a late-teenage girl, let alone spoken to one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if not.
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Wasted potential
(Image credit: Konami)
The very concept of The Short Message feels wasted on itself.
The very concept of The Short Message feels wasted on itself.
I’ll be honest: I loathe this game, but there are many themes I do resonate with in Silent Hill: The Short Message. Interacting with various items as I explore the Villa, I learn about its setting in the economically downtrodden town of Kettenstadt. These moments are when I begin to see what makes this a Silent Hill game.
Coming from a Japanese publisher, Konami effectively evokes a sense of physical as well as emotional displacement in The Short Message. Kettenstadt is in Germany, two of our characters appear to be Japanese, and they all talk to each other in English. It definitely makes me stop to reconsider what I think is happening and where it might all be taking place, including whether or not it even matters. The Villa therefore becomes a liminal space that sits between worlds, between cultures – much like the three central characters we get to know there.
Beneath all the jarring J-drama of it all, the most fascinating element of The Short Message to me is the concept of a “beautiful death” and how it breaks cultural boundaries. It feels like HexaDrive is breaking the fourth wall to address their assumedly Western audience, explaining the cultural roots of Maya’s romantic view of suicide and how ancient Japanese practices like hari-kiri have framed the nation’s perception of it. Not that western literature is any less guilty of turning suicide into an aesthetic statement; ever since Shakespeare’s lovesick Ophelia drowned herself in a fit of ‘madness’, stories lauding praise and respect upon dead women who were misunderstood in life can be found everywhere. Maya is the martyred Ophelia in this story, her value hinged on an unattainable legacy that she fears can only be achieved in death. The Short Message literally spells out its most fascinating and relevant idea– that in this cross-cultural context of life, death, and legacy, “the life they value is not biological but social” – and refuses to run with it for long enough.
There’s more to Silent Hill than Pyramid Head. Check out thebest Silent Hill gamesfrom across the legendary series.
TOPICSKonami
TOPICS
CATEGORIESPS5PlatformsPlayStation
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