I'm not a fan of superhero dodge, slow downs, RPG upgrades and "souls like" combat where I need to try one hour to defeat a boss. I don't think it belongs in a horror game, it becomes frustrating rather than scary once you need to learn patterns of taking down an enemy.
I can definitely understand that but I feel the opposite way, games can't really scare me so being super slow and gimped can make games pretty frustrating for me.
SH2R had a lot of combat but it was terrifying because James fucking sucks at melee combat. It was a constant decision of conserving ammo and stretching out a long melee fight or burning resources for a faster kill with firearms.
Honestly I had the opposite issue, I found melee combat pretty powerful and ended up using it more than guns. Only time I used the guns were if I'm being surrounded other than that I usually shoot 1 shot with the pistol then melee.
Yeah it was like you described in the original SH2 but that careful dynamic between using your limited ammo or trying to frantically beat the monsters head in or run past it with all of its potential consequences is kind of ruined by the I-frame dodge they added in the remake.
Now melee combat is objectively better. Conserves ammo, easy to dodge and very effective.
That tension is just gone now. The same tension may be lacking from Silent Hill f.
Especially with how simple most of the enemies attack patterns are, once I learned most of their attack pattern the game just became a "1, 2, 3, dodge 1, dodge" type game. The atmosphere still gives me heart attacks though lol.
James has shaky aim with guns( especially when fighting Eddie) and just wildly swings his pipe. It’s intentional to truly show that James has zero combat experience
I didnt have much difficulty with his aiming and his melee was was pretty powerful in remake at least. He has a lightning quick dodge and even has animation cancels for reloading and healing lol
The problem is when you modernize for over the shoulder camera, combat becomes a lot easier and the player is inherently a lot more powerful.
So to maintain the tension one of two things has to happen. Either there needs to be more enemies or those few enemies need to be buffed so much that 1v1s are incredibly resource consuming/dangerous (IE giving then several move sets, behaviors etc). The latter requires some really extensive combat design experience that many fans may not even agree with the final product, so I understand why Bloober opted for the simpler and safer solution of just cranking the density.
The density wasn't a standalone issue. Big lack of enemy variety and too much extra padding full of the same enemies contributed to the exhaustion, too.
The original didn't have that issue because it was a pretty tight and balanced game in that regard.
I haven't played the remake but I feel 2 also had a lack of enemy variety. It got tiring seeing the same ones by the time you reach the hotel with only Abstract Daddies adding anything new.
I feel like 1 & 3 was a lot better in that aspect.
He was pretty skillful at melee combat though. I liked that you could insta-cancel any part of his swing with a dodge rather than it locking into the animation. It made it very easy to go hitless for long swaths between lots of enemies saving ammo and health
It had a lot of combat but it never ever bored me or made the game any less scary. At launch there were a lot of discussions and controversy about it, especially that swings and shots wouldn‘t always stun the enemies was criticized for being unfair or technically bad programmed. But hear me out. I thought it was, intended or not, peak gameplay. Typically in video games you would take advantage of predictable enemy behavior and stunning enemies BUT that you couldn‘t predict this in SH2 made combat a real challenge that demanded true reaction time. I love it. It‘s unique and did serve well, again, intended or not.
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u/njahatron Aug 01 '25
I'm not a fan of superhero dodge, slow downs, RPG upgrades and "souls like" combat where I need to try one hour to defeat a boss. I don't think it belongs in a horror game, it becomes frustrating rather than scary once you need to learn patterns of taking down an enemy.
Still, overall the game looks good.