izigame.me

A black sheep in the entry of the Western Silent Hill releases. For much of the good the game does, it takes two steps back in other places.
The game itself is rather clunky, which is honestly to be expected of a Silent Hill entry, as the traversal nor combat are ever the main focus. Silent Hill is meant to be digested as a both, horrific yet cultish-ly-whimsical experience. Admittedly, this entry is one of the more gory, more slasher-esq entries, sparing no expense by featuring some of the franchises more gruesome body horror to date. Homecoming has three rather big things going for it, two of those being its creature designs with the previously mentioned 'body horror' Homecoming is ripe with. Arguably, Homecoming has some of the best boss designs IN THE FRANCHISE.
The latter in the same vain of design being the Otherworld. It's choice of reddish/brown/orange tones paired with the heavy, grime-y, rusty industrial foundation, paired with some clever sound design tricks and the like, Homecoming's Otherworld feels much more heavy ambiance-wise, while also looking neglected yet inhabited.
On the topic of sound design, and the final real strong-sturdy bone this game has is in its music. Akira Yamaoka is known for the kind of work he's done, and his style is virtually unmatched, even deified by some, with how it's moved not just this franchise, but franchises Yamaoka has had involvement in with his various musical arrangements. If you want it in short; Homecoming's soundtrack is immaculate. It's some of the best music in the entire franchise, with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn's vocals tying it all together to create music that's never left my mind even after a decade and some change.
What causes Homecoming to be seen as a 'black sheep' to me is its attempts to be seen as a more defined entry, rather than a spin-off, making constant nods and attempts to tie in characters from previous titles into itself, and going further by having an incredibly lackluster story. The twist is delivered like a weightless punch, and too many of the supporting cast seem to not want to take this game seriously, causing some rather stilted, nearly bordering uncanny or strange line deliveries.
Alright, onto the actual port of the game, being what actually holds this game back on PC at least;
It's ABYSMALLY BAD.
I had to patch my copy of the game using a patch from 'unknownproject', which luckily makes the game playable at least, but not fully remedying it of some issues, such as textures being messed up, certain audio like voice acting to play in only one ear, and the occasional crash. This game crashed three times over the course of an almost six hour playthrough patched, I can't imagine how far you'd get un-patched. I also still kept to playing the game in 1200x800, as I feared it may be more crash happy if I pushed the resolution too far.
On the topic of ports, which is where I'll conclude my ramblings, I really hope someday they refurbish this port officially. As of writing this review on October 2nd, 2024, there is now only TWO Silent Hill entries available on Steam, the other being the remake of Silent Hill 2 set to debut days after this review. The only other 'official' entry being on GOG, being Silent Hill 4. I hope that Konami maybe tries to bring forward the ports of other Silent Hill entries, both the Team Silent and Western entries, and works with a studio that can actually get it right.
Otherwise, Silent Hill Homecoming has all kinds of lovely eye-candy and ear-candy, but feels very heavy-handed, and falls very short due to its shortcomings. Play this game on a console, it's backwards compatible via the Xbox One, and that's probably the best way to even experience the game. I dunno how this game would handle being emulated.