Silent Hill: The Short Message Review - "Worth Checking Out" | Screen Rant

The best Silent Hill since 2014. Silent Hill: The Short Message is a free, first-person horror game that explores themes of self-harm, suicide, and abuse.

[Failcube]

Well, it's free at least!

[TallDarknWavy]

Yeah, free garbage with the cringiest writing ever with no subtlety whatsoever.
It assumes that teen girls commit suicide because they get called names and don't get as much likes and followers on social media as others. It's basically a woke idiot's version of explaining the suicide problem with teen girls.
The problem stems far deeper than that, as these are all surface level problems that literally everyone deals with, yet we don't all commit suicide.

[Profchaos]

Imo 8 is a bit high 3 is far to low I'd call it a 6 there's some decent things to explore here and good story elements but overall it's silent hill in name alone and it's really far to teen drama for me to really get into it.

It's really nice visually though which is what primarily kept me playing for the 2 hours.

The last chase sequence though is total BS of you quit there I get it

[crazyCoconuts]

Dude i think that's exactly where i quit last night and deleted the game. They started having things you can pick up and comment on WHILE being chased and after dying like 10 times without knowing where to go I had enough.

[Profchaos]

I had one more go at that part last night and managed to find 5 pictures to unlock the door and the end result probably wasn't worth it

[GhostScholar]

The reviews are all over the place for this.

[repsahj]

I tried it last night. And it's far from 3/10 or even a 5. I believe this reviewer score of 8. But for me, I give it a 7. It's a free game; we should not give it a score.

[1nsomniac]

Scoring this an 8 or a 7 does nothing but prove how ridiculous peoples ideas of a 1-10 rating scale are..

[crazyCoconuts]

I always wonder how much price (free in this case) does/should go into a rating. Good arguments on both sides of that I think, but you never know what the reviewer is thinking just by looking at the number.

[repsahj]

The game was intense! I'm on my fourth run, and the maze becomes ridiculously hard when the monster is chasing you.

[repsahj]

third run.

-fixed!

[DarXyde]

The disparity in review scores says, to me, it is being evaluated differently—if I had to guess, the higher scores are mindful of its F2P status; the low scores are not. It makes me think of The Order: 1886 a bit; I thought it was pretty decent, but I also got it on sale. If I paid $60 for it, I think I'd be furious.

Anyway, for Short Message, I've yet to try it. Frankly not that interested and I simply haven't trusted Konami in ages. But that said, I will give it go eventually and it's free, so at worst it costs me a few hours of my life. I've wasted worse with bad friends/relationships, so a few hours isn't going to hurt.

An update on Silent Hill f would be nice. Game has the potential to be absolutely horrifying.

[Profchaos]

I think the review scores also reflect the content of the game some reviewers are immediately on the back foot in this day and age and there's no redemption for the product in their eyes

[jznrpg]

I keep forgetting about this since I’m playing some really good games right now but I’ll download it here in a little bit.

Occasionally I see reviews of games that get lesser scores and I actually end up enjoying them but sometimes they are right so I have to see for myself. It doesn’t cost anything so I may as well check it out for a little bit at least.

[Sonic1881]

I don't see Obscure_Observer in the comment section for this review score 😕 He only comments on the bad review score 🤔

[X-23]

I can't believe this is getting high reviews. It's a 3 or a 4. It's so not a Silent Hill game imo. I tried it for 3 hours and attempted to stick to it and give it the benefit of the doubt, but I got to the part after the chase after the school locker puzzle (the big reveal) and was caught *sigh* by the trauma monster and decided to stop.
I have so much I could say about this idea that this was somehow the Format for the Silent Hill experience to me that seems to be the problem with the latest Silent Hill titles after Team Silent was gone, but I'm not even going to go there.
I am going to say this instead, you can not run on your own with a button which means the game forces you to go at your own pace, in my play time the only other thing you could do was zoom in pressing R3, the way you walk feels like you're treaking through mud, the narrative regardless of the subject matter is very poorly written, it's immersion breaking and unbelievable if you're trying to portray how teen's are hostile to one another and mental abusve from a parent a lot of it is so tone death, you put up a crisis line disclaimer once when the game boots up, once when you start a new game and another when a certain event in game takes place...why...one time was enough and mental health isn't this large taboo that needs to be delicately touched upon in the gaming space and if it was I can't help but feel as if the way it's being handled in this particular game is almost a little insulting.

Speaking of insulting towards the audience it's also got this oddity about it when it delivers segments of it's story to your there's a document somewhere near you that basically tells you the exact type of issue Anita is referencing in a round about way in her dialogue like it doesn't respect the players ability to piece together certain aspects. For example you enter a room that mirrors her old living room maybe notes pasted on the wall with bad comments on them, she reads them some of them are directed towards her by an older woman's voice she says her mother was nice she loved me you can examine a note on the table that speaks about "Child Abuse" you walk into a dirty bathroom where she hears her mom blaming her for something gets ready to cut her wrist and it fades to black.
Another instance is the reveal she is jealous of someone's Followers and Likes on Social Media compared to her own, after the scene ends note on the tablet about "Teens, Social Media, Social Anxiety".

It's like like someone wanted to make a semi-horror based Life is Strange and Konami told them they can use the Silent Hill license to do it. That is not a knock on Life is Strange by the way, that game was great. I could see the Short Message being given even a 5 out of 10 if I'm honest, but for me it's a 4 max simplly because the game is almost about as far from Silent Hill as you can get. I know gaming is supposed to be subjective, but nah we can't just go running around giving games like this a 8 out of 10. Yes it's free, but this is supposed to be a game that is supposedly revitalizing Silent Hill as a brand.

[TwoPicklesGood]

Solid 5 at best imo