Strawberry Loft

Some of the tougher questions in life include: What do you want for dinner? How much longer? What do you want to be when you grow up? I still feel like I don’t know where my life is going career-wise. I’ve thought to myself after sending another resume into the void that working in a small family-owned store would be fulfilling. That train of thought leads to wishing I had my future picked out for me. A family-run store that I was meant to inherit sounds easier to take on. I think sometimes I like that kind of direction. If I were in that situation, I’d probably resent it, wanting to do something else with my future instead of following the path laid out for me. Shimizu Hinako’s future was planned out for her, and she resented what she saw. She decided to fight against the way of the world, and the world fought back. Recently I dove into the horrifying fog of Silent Hill F.

Silent Hill F was a highly anticipated title for me. The trailer with the woman’s face peeling away had me hooked. It promised to be a fresh take on the spooky, foggy world I’ve come to enjoy, and I think it delivered. It’s been a while since Silent Hill has had a female protagonist, and Hinako stands out with her metal pipe, earning her a meme and solid reputation in people’s minds. Much like Heather Mason, she’s not a soft protagonist and always has a plan to move forward no matter the terror that tries to stall her. I think the Silent Hill Hinako must face is meaner than the Silent Hills we’ve seen in the past. Instead of being put on trial to admit her wrongs, this version of Silent Hill wants to take pieces of Hinako from herself and make her submissive. This is the first time in the series, I think, we’ve seen the other world quietly break someone’s psyche instead of having them scream in agony as they come to terms with their inner demons. It’s a soft suffering that Hinako didn’t create for herself; it was thrust upon her.

The player’s introduction to Hinako is her storming out of her home after an argument with her father. As players we take immediate control and head down an already foggy mountain. Silent Hill F doesn’t give you a soft introduction before the chaos starts, as monsters attack Hinako and her friends as soon as she gets to town. The first monster and big bad initiates a chase scene that had me yelling to please not die so soon, and I made it by sneaking Hinako through a small cut-through in the streets.

The maps and environments in Silent Hill F feel very intricate, with twisting backstreets of rooms that connect to each other in various ways in the other world. I think in the other world—this game, Silent Hill—it feels like a representation of Hinako’s inner turmoil and messy emotions. She’s a teen being told to take on an adult task with no other choice. I used the map in this game maybe more than in any game I’ve ever played trying to figure out where I was. They also really liked using maze puzzles in the other world that had me take a step back a few times. Utilizing the map did allow me to see all of the small changes as the story progressed. Hinako is a bit of an artist, hand-drawing the map and drawing out what she discovers in each section of the map. I found it helpful to help me remember what rooms I was finding items for to complete puzzles. The drawings are done in dark black ink and etched in a creepy sketch style. Sometimes she uses splashes of red, as that is the color theme for the game. Hinako also draws character portraits for the biographies in her notebook. Her family and friends have their pictures changed throughout the game, starting with bright smiles that are scratched out and replaced with horrifying depictions of them in complete despair. Everyone except for the fox man that haunts Hinako is the real foe of our story.

Tsuneki Kotoyuki is portrayed as a man in a fox mask adorned in traditional robes. At first, he acts like Hinako’s guide through the unsafe other world. The façade is quickly dropped after Hinako travels back and forth between the overworld and the other world a few times. Tsuneki Kotoyuki starts to slowly chip away at Hinako’s mind and spirit, and we, the players, see the two different sides of Hinako splitting. The independent Hinako in town, who despite the horrors keeps pushing through, and the Hinako in the other world, who’s become more subservient. It all starts when Tsuneki Kotoyuki tells Hinako that the pool of a shrine contains water, but she sees lava. He keeps insisting on it being water, and eventually that’s how she sees it too. It felt like he was testing to see if he could manipulate her. Hinako drinks it, and it burns her, with lava falling from her mouth as she chokes.

Going deeper into the other world palace, Hinako must cut ties with her friends at the insistence of Kotoyuki, and at this point I felt the shift in Hinako, noting it in the way her voice sounded dreamier. As if she wasn’t fully aware. Cutting ties with her friends by killing them in the other world was destroying the ties to her old life. It felt like a representation of isolating herself; she would have no one to fall back on and rely on Kotoyuiki. I felt the worst for Sakuko, whose fate was to die alone in the dark. Sakuko was lonely and found friendship and happiness in Hinako; it felt horrible leaving her behind. Rinko, I felt less bad about; she was jealous of Hinako’s friendship with Shu because she had a crush on him, and Rinko knew Shu had romantic feelings towards Hinako. It’s revealed in a classroom note that Rinko was always cruel to Hinako behind her back, and I would cut ties with her too. I maybe wouldn’t have dunked her into lava, though.

While playing the game, I felt for some reason I felt like I should have had the option to dispose of my friends or not and was kind of surprised when Hinako would just pull the lever, deciding their fate. Hanako also agrees to mutilate herself, and seeing such a strong character faced with this choice, I again expected to be able to choose, but there weren’t any prompts. I think I play too many choice-based games, but it added to my feelings of Hanako being hypnotized into this submission. The rooms that Kotoyuki leads Hinako into for each ritual are filled with intense incense smoke that I assume is the culprit of her hypnotic states. Each ritual has Hinako giving up pieces of herself willingly; she cuts off her arm to replace it with a fox arm, and she gets a part of her face cut off to don a fox mask like Kotoyuki. The worst thing for me was watching Hinako get branded with his seal, having it seared into her flesh. In that moment it’s like she became his property. Having Hinako willingly agree to give up pieces of herself in front of Kotoyuki and him praising her for being so strong, I could feel the control he had over her. I believe he felt pride in breaking her down to be his wife.

Kitsune no Yomeiri, or The Fox Wedding, is a little bit of fun folklore that explains why the game developers went with a fox motif for Kotoyuki. “Kitsune no Yomeiri” means to receive a bride, which is what happens to Hinako; she’s going to be given away in an arranged marriage. I wonder if Hinako’s parents married because it was previously arranged and she’s afraid of being in the same situation as her mother. A loveless, violent marriage where she’s abused. Fox weddings include ghostly lights and large processions, which we see after Hinako gives up each piece of herself for Kotoyuki in the other world palace before the official ceremony. Fox weddings are also said to be shrouded under the cover of sun showers when they hold these wedding processions. This made me wonder if the iconic Silent Hill fog could be tied to hiding the wedding. Through my bit of research, I couldn’t find any specific mention of fog in any folklore about foxes. I thought the game having extra cultural layers was neat. It’s also worth noting that in other prefectures there are Kitsune no Soshiki, which translates to a fox funeral. In another context that works for the story, referring to the death of who Hinako was.

My biggest complaint with Silent Hill F is one that I’ve seen thrown around, so I know it won’t be a shock. It’s combat, but specifically in the overworld. I thought the boss fights were fun, especially Rinko’s monster form. In the overworld, though, I felt like I couldn’t grasp how close I had to be for my attacks to register as an actual hit on a monster. Hinako felt very slow, especially against the mannequins with knives. I often felt trapped in close quarters and unable to dodge attacks. The game said you could run away from enemies, but I felt like they wouldn’t stop chasing me no matter how far I got. I’d end up with like four monsters tailing me, and then I’d be sure to die. On top of all that, monsters never really die in the overworld, respawning in the same areas before you leave. It made extra exploring in some areas seem unappealing.

Silent Hill F goes beyond the horrors of fighting mutated monster versions of childhood friends and takes it to the next level of fear as always. Hitting on the psychological terror of losing yourself, becoming a shell with no sense of independence. A puppet waiting for its strings to be pulled. I screamed a lot while playing this game; the mannequin monsters speeding around the corner with knives got me every time. I was more uncomfortable squirming in my seat watching Hinako rip pieces of her flesh off to be acceptable to a man she never loved. Following the path expected of her by her family. Even with the quirky combat, I recommend Silent Hill F for any old fans and new ones who want to dive in. It’s a different side of Silent Hill with a protagonist that isn’t being forced to reconcile with past sins but fights against fears of the future. I saw there was a difficulty patch, so now is an even better time to play it if you were considering it; I recommend it. I think I might try this new combat mode.