Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions. It's multifaceted, complex and deep. Fright. Horror. Panic. Torpor. Hysterics. All these conditions are associated with fear. Some people try to get rid, of it, some try
to suppress it but people won't ever be able to overcome fear completely. One would think that fear doesn't bring nothing
but negative into our daily life as it is. But why are people so eager to feel it? There is some desire to challenge and test
your nerves, overcome and live through this fear. Yes, I've been to MANY horrible places, but
there's one that will remain in my mind forever. That's why we're here - to remember it. Remember about the most doomed place on the
Earth. Remember the fate of people who came to this
town once. To remember the whole story of the town of
Silent Hill. You must all know about the franchise called
Resident Evil. If not, you'll be able to get familiar with
it sometime later on this channel. This franchise started in 1996 and almost
reinvented the genre of horror games. So, Konami didn't want to allow Capcom to
reap the benefits of this new trend and the company decided to invent and create their
own horror game, aimed at a Western audience. In order to create such a game, Konami decided
to organize a unit of game developers called Team Silent, who are responsible for the first
four games in the series. This project will be further known as Silent
Hill. The development of the first part started
in 1996, although it was completed only in 1999. At that time Resident Evil already had two
complete games and they were about to complete the third one. Originally, Team Silent was created out of
people who had failed in their previous projects and intended to leave Konami, because their
vision ran counter to necessities and vision of Konami. And for a very long time, they didn’t know
what to start with but decided to try a more creative approach, despite the plan and demands
of Konami. They added to the game a lot of questionable
and contradicted elements making players come to their own conclusions and try to find the
true meaning of different things. But not all those screamers and monsters were
supposed to frighten gamers, but a really dark atmosphere surrounded by uncertainty
and the fear before it. After all, the whole concept of Silent Hill
is based on philosophical entities, parapsychological ideas, and fear of the unknown. After several years of development, Silent
Hill was presented to the public. In 1998 at the E3 exhibition there was a promo
video of a game which was warmly accepted by the audience. After that Konami believed in the success
of this project and added some extra budget for the production of the game. Several months before the release there was
a demo version announced and players could find it on the disc with the first part of
Metal Gear Solid game and at the end of January of 1999, Silent Hill hit the shelves. But before actual storytelling about this
game, I would like to introduce to you one of the most essential characters of all games
about Silent Hill - the town itself. It’s impossible to say for sure where Silent
Hill is situated, although a lot of things indicate the Maine state - the birthplace
of Stephen King and the place where a lot of Native Americans used to live long before
the events of the games. They called those lands “the place of silent
spirits". I would like to note, that I'm talking about
its situation in the gaming universe, not movies. These lands were famous for their mystical
power so people worshipped these lands as a sanctuary and performed a lot of rituals
there. Local tribes believed that the spirits of
dead forefathers do not disappear, but continue living in objects surrounding them. In order to perform their rituals they used
a special plant - White Claudia, that is very famous for its hallucinogenic characteristics. Although these facts may seem irrelevant,
we'll be able to see how they will affect future events. In the first part of the 17th century, the
British people started colonization of North America and those tribes had to leave their
land and afterward on this land, there was a town built and called Silent Hill. But it's only the smallest part of the dark
history of Silent Hill. A lot of horrible things happened in this
colony from that time until the events of the first game. Originally Silent Hill occupied a small territory
to the north of Toluca Lake and now this part of the city is called the old Silent Hill. This part of the city usually represents a
residential district with small private houses and some diners. Besides that, you will be able to find Balkan
church and Midwich elementary school there. But colonization didn't last long. At the beginning of the 18th century, people
started to die because of the terrible epidemic and the city was abandoned for about a hundred
years. In 1812 the war against the United Kingdom
started and Silent Hill was reoriented into prison colony but the disease never retreated. The city was attacked by another trouble - the
plague. Dozens of people died every day. In order to separate healthy people from infected
people on the south part of Toluca Lake, rather far from the main colony, there was Brookhaven
hospital built where a lot of people spent their last days. Sometime later this hospital was reconstructed
and turned into Asylum. After the end of the war, a lot of diggings
of coal were discovered there, which served the impulse for another colonization. Literally, after several years another War
started - this time it was civil war and one more time this town had to live through consequences
of this terrifying event. Not far from Brookhaven hospital there was
a camp for prisoners of war organized which afterward turned into a whole prison named
after the name of the lake on which Shore it was built. After the end of the war in commemoration
of victims of war, there was a Rosewater Park built where you can still find a monument
to Patrick Chester who died during the war along with his son. By the beginning of the 20th-century coal
pit and prison were closed - there were almost no places to work in town. After that time Silent Hill started to recover
and go away from its tragical roots, although it never succeeded. There was the decision to rebuild Silent Hill
into a health resort where you can find all sorts of locations and public places in order
to supply tourists of all necessary things. In front of the old silent hill, there was
a central district built where you could find a police station, central mall, and another
hospital called Alchemilla. On the southern part of Toluca Lake, there
was a resort zone with a Lakeside amusement park and Lakeview hotel. This city started to bloom but not for long. In 1918 while touring through the lake a small
steamboat called Little Baroness disappeared along with all passengers. In 1939 several more accidents happened and
afterward Silent Hill got a very bad reputation as a resort which is certainly fatal for a
health resort. After another 30 years in 1963, the mayor
and other city (???), civil servants died under murky circumstances. At this point, the prehistory of the town
of Silent Hill ends and we come closer to the events of the first game. Although until the actual beginning there
were 20 years left. Within this series of videos, I will try to
give an extremely detailed description of every aspect of the games which means that
I won't be able to avoid spoilers. I'd like to warn you about it in advance for
those who haven't played the specific part or all games although this franchise turned
20 this year. After analyzing the plot I will try to analyze
all events that happened within the game because a lot of things in Silent Hill are given through
references, hints, metaphors, symbolism and many other things. Common stories mostly have several layers
of narration and some events don't have specific meaning or treatment. The story started in 1983. Harry Mason - a writer 32 years old along
with his 7-year-old daughter Cheryl decides to go to Silent Hill. Along the way, they meet a policewoman Cybil
Bennett who is also heading to Silent Hill in order to investigate one drugs case but
none of them will manage to reach the point of their destination. At first, Cybil gets involved into a crash,
Harry gets distracted by this event and doesn't notice a little girl standing on the road
and only in the very end he tries to stop the car and eventually gets off the road,
hits the enclosure and passes out. After some time of being unconscious, he cannot
find his daughter who was sitting next to him and gets out of the car to find her. Having seen her silhouette, he goes to the
place where she was standing, but eventually, he'll find himself in a very horrifying scene
after heading into some dark street where the environment changes dramatically. From the city which was surrounded by thick
fog, it turns into a dark, gloomy, shabby hellhole with pieces of scattered human flesh,
with walls made of chain-link and rust all over the place. Harry sees a crucified man and literally after
that he gets attacked by little monsters and eventually gets killed by them. Right after that Harry wakes up on a bench
in a diner where Cybil has been waiting for him for some time. After a small talk between characters, Harry
decides to go find his daughter once again. Cybil gives him one of her guns and not long
after that Harry has a chance to use it. It
turns out that the town is full of monsters now and we’ll talk about them slightly later. He decides to start the investigation from
the place where he lost the trace of his daughter last time. Harry finds out that the dark and gloomy alley
never existed and he finds a torn piece of paper from his daughter's album with only
one phrase on it - "to school". Certainly, Harry decides to go there and after
entering this school he finds out that the building was abandoned a long time ago and
instead of happy schoolchildren he finds little monsters there. A not long time after the building transforms
into its dark version exposing rusty metal constructions in the building. Even more, monsters start attacking our unlucky
hero. After a long-running through classes and killing
the first boss, Harry finds himself in the boiler room where he was able to catch the
only glimpse of a dark-haired girl in a school uniform who vanishes only several seconds
afterward. After losing the trail of his daughter the
unlucky father gets out of the school and hears the peal of bells from the nearest church. Inside he meets a woman called Dahlia Gillespie. Messing with some religious rubbish she, without
any explanation, gives Harry a certain artifact called "Flauros", tells him to go to Alchemilla
Hospital and runs away. There is nothing else to do so our protagonist
lowers the bridge between old and new parts of Silent Hill heading to the hospital. There he meets a new character called dr. Michael Kaufmann who almost killed him misrecognizing
him with a monster. He doesn't understand what's going on there
either so all those creatures, snow and absence of people are also unexpected. After a short conversation, he goes away leaving
our protagonist one on one with infernal hospital along with staff and nurses infected by an
unknown parasite. After wandering through the hospital Harry
decides to go to the basement where he finds another secret hospital wing with patient’s
room. In one of those, a girl called Alessa spent
quite a long time there. It was the girl who appeared sometime earlier
in school uniform in the boiler room. Without having a clue what that wing was constructed
for, Harry goes to the main building of the hospital where he finds a terrified nurse
Lisa Garland. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a clue about
current events, about the basement and the little girl as well. After that Harry receives a terrible headache
attack passes out and comes around in the normal world seeing that crazy woman in front
of him from the church. She says that the whole town will be devoured
by darkness soon and only Harry can stop it. He must go to the secret church which is situated
in an antique shop and stop the devil from finishing the Samael seal, which by the way
Harry could find in the yard of Midwich elementary school. The woman disappears again and our hero doesn't
have any choice but to trust her and go to the pointed place. There he will be found by Cybil who can't
find a way to leave the town, but the main news is that she saw Cheryl along the way
to the lake. She tried to follow her but she got stuck
in the dead end and the girl just seemed to simply vanish. After finding the altar, Harry loses consciousness
and for a short period of time finds himself in a hospital where he'll have a conversation
with Lisa. This time she'll share much more information
with Harry. She'll tell us that Daliah's child died in
a fire several years ago and that sometime later there was a very popular cult in this
town which glorified black magic. After that our protagonist comes back to the
antique shop and decides to go to the place where Cybil saw his daughter. But first, he goes to the hospital to see
Lisa and find out how he can reach the point of destination bypassing the blocked road. Lisa remembers that not far from Midwich school
there was a waistline that will lead to the resort park of Silent Hill. After reaching this school Harry goes down
into the sewers and that was the place where a lot of gamers just quit playing. Without a map in the darkness among ever-present
monsters and tunnels that all looked the same, it was really hard to find the right path. But in the end, Harry manages to reach the
resort part of Silent Hill. Here a player will be able to find the first
side quest, which doesn't influence further walkthrough although it will be very important
for the ending. After entering the bar Harry discovers dr. Kaufmann who is struggling with a monster. After the fight, Harry picks up doctor's wallet
and, following the notes that he found, he goes from one point on the map to another,
finding more and more evidence that Kaufmann is a distributor of drugs based on White Claudia
in this town. After some time Harry finds a bottle with
some red liquid in it, but at this moment the doctor himself breaks into the room, takes
away the bottle and leaves the place. And although this part seems completely unnecessary,
later we'll be able to understand its true meaning. Our character continues his adventure and
reaches docks where he meets Cybil and Dahlia. In order to not let the town drown into chaos
completely, they decide to go and destroy Samael signs in town. Cybil goes to the amusement park and Harry
goes to the lighthouse. But after coming to the roof he realizes that
he didn't make it. Once again he sees the girl in school uniform
there. So, he decides to help Cybil and goes to the
amusement park as well, but unfortunately, he sees her being attacked and infected by
an unknown parasite like nurses in the hospital. Here goes another action area that will influence
further gameplay: you can either kill Cybil or, if you found the same liquid in the hospital
like the one that Kaufman took from you, you can split it on the parasite and Sybil will
stay alive, which will also influence the ending. After that, the snarl of mysteries will start
to slowly unravel. It turns out that Cheryl is not Harry's own
child he and his wife found her on the roadside. They haven't ever had their own children since
his wife had an incurable illness so they decided to take and raise that little girl. Then a player once again meets the unknown
girl in school uniform who in fact possesses some supernatural powers. Suddenly, the Flauros artifact that was given
to him by Dahlia activates in Harry's pocket and, as a result, this girl loses her power. At first, it seems like everything's over,
the demon that was terrifying the town has been defeated, but it was not to be. Gillespie hits the stage and it turns out
that the girl's name is Alessa and she is her own daughter. The one who supposedly died in the fire many
years ago. Harry was just her pawn that would allow her
to get closer to the girl and deaden her. After that, a miracle of teleportation happens
and a player finds himself in a patient room with Lisa. But technically it's not a hospital anymore,
it's a completely separated from reality parallel world. Suddenly Lisa understands that she, like the
other nurses, was infected by the parasite and is still alive only because she's figured
it out only recently. At this moment, very sad music starts playing,
a week stream of blood starts flowing up her face becoming stronger and stronger. She asks Harry not to leave her, she's trying
to go his way, begging for help... Unable to look at her like this Harry runs
out of the room and closes the door behind him. While wandering Harry finds Liza's diary where
he finds out that Lisa was appointed to barely alive Alessa after the fire, who stayed in
that basement patient's room. In order to keep Lisa silent about this, dr. Kaufmann makes her a White Claudia drug addict. After wandering in that alter the world, solving
puzzles and having some flashbacks Harry meets Dahlia again. Here we'll be given some light on what's been
happening in this place all this time. So, sit down my friend, and listen. Dahlia Gillespie was a votarist of a very
popular cult in Silent Hill and the purpose of her was to summon a fallen angel Samael
who this cult worships too. She conceived a child who was supposed to
become a vessel for a new God. The girl was called Alessa and from the very
birth, she possessed supernatural powers. Because of those children at school called
her a witch and bullied her. When Alessa turned seven her mother decided
to perform the summoning ritual. Dahlia sacrificed her own daughter concealing
it as an accident with fire. However, Alessa survived although all her
skin was burned and she had to endure terrible pain every second. The ritual failed and while it was being performed
the soul of the girl split into two parts. One part remained in that barely alive body
while another one reincarnated into a baby which Harry and his wife found on the roadside. So, seven years have passed...seven years
of suffering and now the second part of Alessa's soul comes back to the town and the ritual
can be finally completed. Parts of souls reunite and God appears. And further circumstances will go on depending
on the decisions which player made earlier. If a player completed the Kaufmann’s task,
the doctor suddenly appears, kills Dahlia and throws the bottle with red liquid at a
newly formed God. Because of that he transforms into his more
terrifying form and becomes much more dangerous. Otherwise, nothing of this happens and Dahlia
gets killed by the monster himself. This way or another final battle is about
to start. After that, a player will receive one of four
endings. The thing is that none of Silent Hill's endings
are actually announced, official. Depending on the decisions and actions that
WERE made or WERE NOT made a player would get the ending that he deserved. At least it was intended to be like this since
there is a direct continuation of the first part – Silent Hill 3. Every ending has its own right to exist and
you can't name even one of them 100% secondary so let's look a bit closer at each of them. There are four endings in the game and one
bonus ending. We'll talk about it separately. Let’s start with the worst one. If a player didn't complete that extra quest
and didn't manage to save policewoman then after victory Cheryl says goodbye to her father
and disappears with Alessa. Unable to overcome the loss of his daughter
Harry falls to his knees and the world around him starts to fall apart. It turns out that all that time he spent in
his car unconscious, perhaps almost dead, hallucinating. And all those things that happened were only
in his own head. But everything could go in a different way
if Cybil survived. Then she runs to a weakened Harry, raises
him up, slaps his face, that slightly brings him to life, and says that despite the fact
that his daughter was lost he must not forget about himself. He must live and never give up. Now we'll be able to get familiar with so-called
good endings. Before dying Alessa gives to Harry a newborn
child and tries to hold the overall destruction in order to help Harry along with a policewoman
(or without her, depending on whether she's alive or not) run away from that place. But dr. Kaufmann couldn't do it because literally
from nowhere Liza appears and prevents him from escaping. In the case, if Harry manages to survive with
Cybil the player will be able to see another video where they both stand holding a baby
which is exactly similar to the intro video of Harry and his wife. All in all, if we start talking about intro
video it was edited from the parts that a player will see through the game and parts
which a player will never see, that described moments about things that happened before
the crash. And the final credits were created out of
bloopers like in movies you must have definitely seen one like this. And, finally, the fifth ending. This is a comic ending trying to play itself
on absolute absurd. It's important to understand that players
will not be able to get this one after the first walkthrough since players won't have
a necessary tool in the inventory – the Channeling stone which will have to be used
in several specific places, but if you do this the game will end on the episode with
the lighthouse. From nowhere a whole army of alien ships will
appear and poor Harry will be kidnapped by them. This ending was performed like an interactive
comic book and by its style reminded collection cards from Mars Attacks but most people would
know more about it by the movie with the same name. The ending with aliens became a traditional
attribute of the series, along with some other game features. We'll start talking about them right now,
but before, let's look at the gameplay in general and its differences from its competitor
of that time - Resident Evil. First of all, it's all 3D. As long as Resident Evil still was using pre-rendered
2d backgrounds Silent Hill decided to follow the path of the three-dimensional image. And it's important to understand that at that
time 3D was just arising and being developed and that's why Silent Hill was definitely
superior to Resident Evil. Thanks to appropriate camera movements, a
proper stage and art direction the feeling of being followed by someone was definitely
one of the strongest for players. For example, this scene, that was used in
the Silent Hill movie as well shows us a so-called "Dutch angle". In filmmaking, this technique is used in order
to show something strange, disturbing and uncomfortable. The Powers of PlayStation 1were really limited
at that time so developers had to use a very popular at that time "fog effect", that limited
the view of a player and saving resources of the system. But in the end, this flaw was decided to turn
into a unique feature of this franchise as if the whole town was situated in a weird
foggy world. If we start discussing some concrete things
about gameplay then the most things have been rather standard: collect supplies, which may
help you to survive and collect different quests parts along with solving puzzles. Nevertheless, the game has nice little touches. For example, after a long run, Harry will
start panting or if Harry faces an obstacle while running, he’ll raise his hands up
front to soften the hit. Besides, Harry won’t be able to check the
map in a dark place and without working flashlight. The system of fighting was also not really
far from Resident Evil although in this case the accent has been given to melee fighting
rather than shooting. The number of knives, axes and metal pipes
was almost the same as fire weapons. A faithful companion of the main character
was a pocket radio that could start making loud screeching noise if a certain monster
was around. This thing also became a traditional feature
of Silent Hill along with already mentioned pocket flashlight and ending with aliens. Of course, we can't ignore the transformation
from a foggy phase into its dark version. At that time the number of monsters could
rise dramatically and the surrounding world would turn into a rusty nightmare, so the
very existence of the city itself was a huge difference from Resident Evil. In Resident Evil a player had big locations
consisting of small rooms like police station or laboratory. In Silent Hill we had the same, but between
those places, a player could and had to wander across the town. Besides, at that time it was not small at
all and this freedom, especially for a horror game, was never before seen. A player could go to the other end of the
map and enter a place which was not important and find, for example, some supplies. In this game the exploration of the environment
has come to a new level and even now in most horror games you'll rarely be able to see
such a thing. To say that Silent Hill had its own unique
atmosphere would be to say nothing and a very considerable part of it was achieved due to
brilliant sound design and background music. And now we'll talk about a very already famous
Japanese man - Akira Yamaoka. It wasn't his first project, but only after
Silent Hill, his name became more and more famous in the gaming and music spheres. He managed to create amazing ambient sounds
and music, which can either simply be played as background music or just brutally stick
into your brain. Because some of the sounds would make a player
subconsciously feel uncomfortable in the environment of the dark and rusty town of Silent Hill. This effect could be achieved by adding sounds
of some everyday objects along with musical instruments. Take, for example, the music from the battle
with the final boss. I can bet that was not the most pleasant music
you've ever heard. Like a nail scratching the glass, right? And it's not surprising actually, because
for this composition Yamaoka used the sound of a working dental drilling machine. A lot of people are afraid of dentists and
these sounds are associated with those doctors. That's why when we hear it, even without realizing,
those associations may work against us. Of course, this will not work on every person,
but the whole experimental approach of working with music makes appreciate the efforts. At first, only one CD version of the official
soundtrack was released with about 40 tracks on it. In 2004 another version was released - Silent
Hill Complete Soundtrack and contained about 70 additional tracks. A lot of things in this game were made for
a good reason, they represented different references, hints and many other symbolic
things. A lot of them were mentioned and described
by developers themselves in the book called "Lost Memories". Of course, there is a wide range of hints,
nuances, theories, notes, and thoughts of fans, who managed to find some additional
interpretations and connections between events and items, but I’ll be mostly referring
to more official resources. For example, monsters. Those are not just random creatures that dwell
in this town, they all were the reflection of Alessa's worries and fears who created
the alternative version of Silent Hill as well. We'll talk about the whole concept of the
other world in another video. The image of flying screaming creatures in
the city was inspired by the book of Arthur Conan Doyle "The lost world". The image of pteranodon described in the novel
provided basics for the monster. When the town transforms into its dark version
those monsters transform as well into “Night Flutters”, becoming more dangerous and having
a lump of worms instead of heads. Alessa didn't like worms at all, by the way. If we start talking about it, there are a
plethora of things based on different books and fairy tales. Take for example the three Keys for Eclipse. They are named after Dorothy's companions
in the tale The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Alessa has a copy of the book in her bedroom. Or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The four plates found for the Colored Plates
Puzzle are based on characters from the tale. As a child the girl was often afraid of barking
and out of those fears monsters called "groaners" and their dark forms “wormheads” were
created. But not only Conan Doyle's books were the
basis for monsters. From old fairy tales "mumblers" appeared - half
animals half-demons. And a giant lizard called “split head”. You can even read an article about it in one
of the books at school. This creature had double jaws and could kill
a player instantly. This was the first boss and this creature
lived in the school basement, and for a good reason. When Alessa was at school she was always afraid
of the sound of the boiler in the basement and she thought that a huge lizard from fairy
tales lived there. So, it's not surprising that when Harry turns
the boiler on and meets this boss the same sound is heard. *the sound of snarl* A great number of different creatures had
resemblance with insects. That's all because Alessa didn't like them,
she was afraid of them. So a player could meet giant cockroaches,
worms and even hardly recognizable grasshoppers. Of course, the appearance of those creatures
could have even more deep and complicated meaning, but as I have already said, we'll
be operating mostly facts, leaving the guesswork for fans, and only sometimes paying attention
to the most possible of them. The only insects Alessa wasn’t afraid of
were butterflies. In her room, Harry could find the collection
of those winged creatures. That's why the second and the third bosses
looked like ones. At first, Harry met a giant slug “twinfeeler”. After his victory and some wandering around
the city he meets that boss but in its second form which had resemblance with a giant moth
and probably evolved from that slug – “floatstinger”. In 2018 a certain modder Roocker666 found
unused monsters’ textures in the game. According to them in early concepts of the
first game, Alessa was supposed to have fear of more animals such as butterflies, frogs,
monkeys, snakes, chickens, and even ostriches and stingrays. Now, let's move from biological fears to social. As I have already said Alessa, because of
her supernatural powers, was not liked by classmates. They called her bad names, offended and physically
assaulted her. That's how a "grey child" appeared - a small
creature with a knife laughing like a child and catching on Harry's legs. The image of those creatures was so much like
little children that it failed to pass Censorship committee twice and in the PAL version of
the game they were simply erased and more neutral “mumblers” replaced them. Besides those children, Harry could find barely
seen shadows that were wandering around the halls and falling down after some running. A player couldn’t harm them and they didn't
harm Harry too. So they could be found in the PAL version
of the game. All in all, those were revived memories of
Alessa herself. Rare and whining sobbing was proof. Besides, they could really frighten a player
sometime. “Invisible Demon Children” or “Shadow
crawlers” how some people call them were more dangerous – those were the incarnations
of girls aggression towards her classmates, who were also barely visible but didn't miss
the chance to attack Harry. And they could actually be killed and they
weren't erased from PAL version of the game for some reason. From a childish theme, we'll talk about adult
theme because she also had a lot of problems with adults as well. And jumping “Rompers” is a very vivid
example of that. They represented cult members who did some...well...different
things to her. Even their attack confirms this theory - they
attacked by jumping on top of the player preventing him from standing up, suppressing ones will
by the weight of their authority. Nurses and doctors who treated Alessa also
served the cult in full obedience like puppets controlled by a puppeteer - they obeyed its
will. That's why they have that parasite on their
backs that controls their whole body. And the final boss at last. Everything is really simple with the image
of Incubator. This is the idea about how God should look
like in the mind of Alessa - a very innocent and bright creature. And this monster is a different story also
called Samael, also called Baphomet. But the resemblance with the last one is only
visual. Probably this is how Dahlia imagined God she
was loyal to. If you dig a little bit deeper you'll find
out that Baphomet's roots go to the times of the Knights of the temple, who supposedly
worshipped him at their secret meetings. At least Inquisition accused them of that. Nowadays the image of Baphomet is an official
symbol of Satan's Church acting since 1966. Also, you can trace one more connection. In mythology Incubus was a male analog to
the succubus and many times there were imagined as demons that looked like goats, Incubus
desired sexual connections with women and according to different legends could impregnate
a woman extending their race and generation. This may clearly interlink with Dahlias desire
to revive God using her daughter for impregnation. I can also mention that Incubus tried to possess
women while they were unconscious or while sleeping for example. Perhaps all those years in coma Alessa was
struggling within Incubus. This much you can tell only about the final
boss and believe me, the further we'll go through Silent Hill franchise, the more of
those symbolic connections we'll be able to find. Although you shouldn't accept all this in
good faith. As I've already said in the beginning, developers
didn't explain all aspects of the game on purpose, so the players could fill in the
blanks of different elements and find hidden meanings themselves. Besides all this, there were a lot of references
to horror movies and many other widely or not spread things. Many times developers were inspired by writings
of Stephen King and film adaptations. A lot of movies could be added to this list
like The Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist and many other things. To make a list of them would take a long time
but I think it's necessary to name the most famous of them. A lot of things can be told from characters
names. Let's start with the name Harry Mason. At first, the developers wanted to call him
Humbert Mason by combining the name of the real actor James Mason and one of his roles
professor Humbert from Lolita by Kubrick. But Humbert didn't sound well enough so they
decided to call the main character Harry. Cheryl from the beginning was about to be
called Dolores - one more reference to Lolita. Dolores Haze. But this idea was rejected after all. Cybil Bennett has a more interesting story. Her last name references to the real police
officer who committed a murder. Although her name couldn't be found in the
Lost Memories book the name was probably Lawrencia Ann Bembenek who killed the wife of her ex-husband. Her first name she got from a model Sibyl
Buck and actress Sybil Danning. But let's return to references from the movies. Here we again we have various combinations
of names. Lisa Garland - her name was borrowed from
Tisa Ferrow from the movie called Zombie, and her last name she got from Judy Garland
who played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Dr. Michael Kaufmann is also a combination
of names Michael Hertz and Lloyd Kaufman creators of horror movies of B category. And finally, the Gillespie family. Alessa at first was called Asia just like
a daughter of one horror movies director Dario Argento, but just like Humbert's name, it
was corrected. Alessa's appearance could be inspired by the
film The Legend of Hell House and its character, medium Florence Tanner. Among other features, their hairstyles also
look similar: long hair tied with a ponytail that looks short if seen from a certain point. Richard Matheson is also credited as an inspiration
of the series, and a street, Matheson Street, is named after him. Dahlia's name according to the Lost Memories
book got her name because of the wife's name of the same director. (ex-wife) Daria Nicolodi. Developers didn't forget about famous horror
writers and named a lot of streets of Silent Hill in honor to them. Robert Bloch the creator of Psycho. Richard Bachman one of the pseudonyms of Stephen
King. Richard Matheson who wrote I am Legend and
the Incredible Shrinking Man. Several years ago he died at the age of 87. Ray Bradbury who unfortunately also died several
years ago. James L. Roy who wrote a series of books L.A.
Quartet including one of his most famous novels The Black Dahlia based on the actual crime
where the actress Elizabeth Shore was killed. There was a movie actually based on this crime
scene and in the game LA Noire, a lot of Investigations referred to this incident. Besides referring to some famous people there
were a lot of references to famous brands as well. Such as 7-eleven, Shell petrol station, Federal
Express, Jim Beam bourbon, Pepsi and to Konami itself. I think it'll take a long time to specify
all of them but I think there is no reason to burden you with these details. I would like just to point out how much thought
developers put into the creation of this game. And these are only the most obvious references. If we start talking about fan theories, even
though they may be completely reasonable, this video would last indecently long. Okay, wake up already! Some of the players may know that after passing
the game till the end a player could get some game bonuses such as costumes or weapons. I've already told you about the secret ending
with aliens but I haven't told you that after that you'll get a hyper blaster. This weapon was rather powerful and didn't
require any ammo. There was also an alternative way to get it
- you just had to be a happy owner of KONAMI's light gun. Also while playing the game for the second
time, a player could find a chainsaw or a rocket drill. But none of those could work without fuel
so you had to find a canister at first. Both those weapons were extremely powerful
and quite inconvenient at the same time. Finding katana was actually quite a challenge. A player had to end the game twice and get
one of the good endings for the first time and one of the bad endings for the second
time. Also after ending the game, a player could
find a special menu where he could adjust some gameplay elements. Auto aim, the color of blood, constant running,
etc. Also, some special features included the ability
to carry more ammo and to change the camera angle, which allowed to replay the game almost
like the first-person shooter. After finishing the game a player received
his rating judging by a player's actions. There were 10 big stars which consisted of
10 smaller stars. All in all 100. Want to know how to get them all? Listen then. You had to end the game at Hard difficulty
level meaning it had to be a player's minimum 5th game. While playing a player had to get the most
positive ending, save game only twice through the game and resuming the game only once. A player had to finish all this within an
hour and a half after collecting 150 items and killing a hundred monsters with a gun
and a hundred monsters with a melee weapon. Without using a shotgun or bonus weapons. So, how is that for you? I won't be surprised though if someone could
do it on their own without any cheat codes and all that stuff. When PlayStation was released players had
A LOT of free time. PlayStation 1 was the only platform where
the game was released officially. There were only versions for different regions
and budget editions. But now thanks to backward compatibility players
are able to buy and play this game on PlayStation 3 and PS Vita. Of course, I'm not mentioning different emulators
for other platforms because those ports are not official. So, that was the first Silent Hill - an ambitious
horror game. While trying to be a competitor to Resident
Evil managed to create its own unique setting stretching forward to mysticism, psychological
logic, scaring players, not with horrible creatures and screamers, but the atmosphere
of an abandoned city where visual and sound played huge roles. If you take the plot of Silent Hill in general
and try to estimate it can hardly be called outstanding. A story about a certain cult that wanted to
revive their God is still different from an evil corporation with their deadly virus though,
just admit it! But the presentation and production of the
game made players watch the development with affairs. The first part was critically acclaimed by
the majority of players, so there was no surprise that developers started to create a sequel. But developers came to a rather risky decision
to refuse from a fully featured continuation and write a completely new story that would
be connected with a previous part only by the actual place the town of Silent Hill. But we'll talk about this one next time. Thank you very much for your attention. If you enjoyed this video, please, leave like,
leave a comment and subscribe if you still haven't done this yet. See you in several weeks!
