There’s a secret alt ending where James goes to Japan and gets addicted to pachinko machine, later revealing that the letter Mary sent were actually divorce papers.
"James walking in an otherwise normal town looking like a Psycho" is one of my favorite interpretations along with what Vincent says to Heather in SH3 to freak her out
@@el-duderino975 that’s honestly one of my favorite moments in any Silent Hill because Heather immediately reacts with horror and Vincent’s “just joking” is so ambiguous. But Vincent’s not a reliable narrator himself so…
@@jamescollinge5043 The only time I think that’s confirmed is in the Silent Hill movie, but not totally sure. In SH3, Heather’s jumping between the totally normal mall and the Otherworld, but she’s moving through the same corresponding physical space, so there has to be some connection to reality.
i saw someone ask Masahiro Ito about the motivation to put the 'dog endging' in the game recently and its actually such a good point; the dog ending is only being accessable after a couple playthroughs and some super specific routing, basically something you'd only get if you were super invested and spending a lot of time with this very intense and sad game. I think because of the nature of cryptic shit in games, people naturally assume that all this action needed to get the dog ending is to hide it, but it sounds like the very silly, tension relife of the dog ending is basically to help stop people who are spending a lot of time in the world of silent hill 2 from being too depressed, and thats why the designers love it, because its a way to respect the players mental health, and give them a chance to see something fun and maybe put the game down for a bit.
It's no surprise that the dog ending is the dev's favorites, because it's the one little moment of genuine fun in a game that breaks you down on an individual level. It really shows that while the devs were working hard making this game as ominous and depressing as they could, but they are still human and wanted to hide a little something just to give you a laugh while you're going through your third or fourth run.
That’s honestly so much more thoughtful and considerate than I ever would have began to imagine. I just thought it was some funny shit they wanted to toss in.
I heard that from Guy Cihi, James' VA. At first he didn't want to do the dog ending because it's too silly, but then the devs told him that this is a reward for the players who're really dedicated in exploring the game. So he agreed to do it.
I always love hearing Pat talk about Silent Hill. You can tell it’s a true love of his and it definitely helped spark my interest in the series when they first played Silent Hill 2 back in the day.
If I’m not mistaken, and this is going to sound super parasocial, but I believe he went to school for psychology, yeah? It would make sense that he’d resonate so much with this series. I love psychology as well.
Woolie asking Pat to talk about the symbology of Silent Hill and Pat having to admit that "if you had asked me ten years ago I would've had this off the top of my head" felt like an old wise sage calling on the old texts he read so long ago to help the new upstart. And considering what he says here sounds consistent with what he said during the LP from what I remember, he's still got it!
@@StarkMaximum Yeah, I thought he actually did really well in explaining the monsters even here; the only thing he seems to struggle with is the link of Pyramid Head to James, but even that's an easy one - James and Mary were meant to have holidayed in Silent Hill previously, so it's likely they visited the prison and the historical society and saw the old illustration of the 'executioner'; even if James doesn't remember that specifically, chances are that Silent Hill took that symbol of punishment and death that James would have in his subconcious and used it for the torment James felt he deserved.
SBFP and its post-breakup spinoffs have actually done a lot to direct me towards some series that I absolutely love nowadays, chief among them the Yakuza series, but also titles like EDF and a slew of fighting games.
I think rebirth is a great ending because it's In Water but worse. It's past "My wife is dead, I can't go on." and goes into "My wife is dead, I can't go on, and my time here has fucked me up, so let's go get Valtiel and Zor-Arkoth and Satan and make a mockery of nature and play God." "Forgive me for waking you."
Thinking about it, it feels obvious that pat would get “in water” because of his mind goblins. Since he would horde healing items and only use them when critically damaged.
It was obvious to me by the time he reached the apartments. It was especially weird to me because he was spending them willy-nilly in SH1. I guess Woolie just course-corrected so hard that the main character committed suicide.
@@hassanico9999 as an anime watcher, I think the only time he took healing seriously was right before PH yeeted him off the roof of the hospital, which sets your health next to death anyway. Even then he wasn't topped off.
Something else I appreciate is that neither James nor Mary were wrong in how they felt about their situation, but they were wrong in how they handled it. Mary was sick and dying, she had every right to be miserable and depressed, but taking it out on James didn't help anything, and James was suffering just as much having to watch his wife slowly dying and not being able to do anything to help or comfort her, but that didn't give him the right to kill her. But then again, James isn't just some black and white villain, what he did he did out of motivation, he did it because he loved her, he did it because he pitied her and what he thought was hate was really just grief. It's like what Woolie said, no one was at fault here, it was just a horrible horrible hand that James and Mary were dealt.
@@li-limandragon9287 Oh, I know. It’s just that kneejerk look of deep annoyance that gets me. He was literally just about to take a sip of his drink when he heard that and was immediately like, “Naw, fuck that, I gotta clear this up.”
I don't think it's fan-lore Woolie. Monica Taylor Horgan (Mary's VA) did one take and started to cry (you can hear her voice crack in certain spots). They liked it and kept it.
She’s fantastic, best VA in the franchise with Heather Morris from SH3 being a close second. It’s especially notable since Japanese devs often give poor voice direction to the English VAs.
One of my favorite things about Silent Hill 2 is how malicious the town is towards people who feel guilty. In the prison, you get tablets to place on a gallows to "repent for 3 sins." The Gluttonous Pig is in the room with Eddie, and is obviously about him. The Oppressor is in the jail cell James gets locked in, and represents him for obvious reasons. Angela's is much more cruel than either of theirs. Her tablet is found in a shower and is called Tablet of Seductress.
Yeah Angela’s one is terrible. But what I like about it, is that all three tablets could relate just to James alone, he is the Gluttonous Pig who wants sex while he’s wife is dying, he is The Oppressor for killing Mary and the Seductress is tied to Maria who is tied to James as figment of his repressed desires brought to life.
@@li-limandragon9287 Alternatively, these could be how James semi-consciously sees them and himself, and the force behind the town is effectively calling him out for having the same kind of dehumanizing, judgmental mentality about them and himself that ultimately dooms Eddie, Angela, and possibly James himself depending on what ending you get. Mind you, I don't think any of these interpretations are wrong nor mutually excusive. Silent Hill 2 is very much a game that invites you to come to your own conclusions and leaves the answers up in the air for you to decide upon for the most powerful experience.
@@WoobooRidesAgain I think it's actually how those whose relationships with the subjects send them to Silent Hill see them. Those who Eddie bragged about killing, after they made fun of him, saw him as gluttonous, unmotivated and merely subsisting. Mary, at least in her poorer health, saw James as someone who saw her as impeding in him living his life, while she was stuck in bed. And Angela's family saw her as the one responsible for their own respective gazing upon her. If you think of the tablets as representing tombstones, it makes some sense: who would write the epitaphs?
The quotes about the Silent Hill movie recasting Harry Mason as a woman is so weird, because they tried to spin it in a pop-feminism way. A direct quote I read from one of the actresses that made my eyes pop out of my skull was “this movie has a feminist angle to it, because the men live in reality and the women live exclusively in fantasy.” That one is featured on the Wikipedia page for the movie sourced from the Making Of. I actually couldn't believe what I was reading. You could tell me that came from a staunch misogynist and I'd believe you.
Yeah the fantasy of getting your skin ripped off and killed by barb wire while the men named Sean Bean sit comfortably outside in reality. Real empowering. God such a bullshit reason to swap Harry for a rando woman, is Leon the Professional too feminine because he looks after a little girl for most of the movie? Goddamn Gans.
Remember when they were talking about David Cage on a podcast a loooooong while back, back before the channel broke up, and they equated his rambling non-answers about the subject of race and discrimination in regards to Detroit: Become Human as, effectively, the bullshit an art student gives their teacher when they're asked what their work means and they have absolutely no idea? This very much strikes me as exactly that kind of from-the-depths-of-my-ass response where whoever said it clearly has no idea how to respond to a question about a decision with next to no thought put into it.
The funny thing about that is that the movie tried to do a "role reversal" kind of thing to the game, but the game was ALREADY a role reversal to begin with. Mothers are usually depicted in media as the ones who care for their children the most. The first game reversed this by putting Harry into the "mother role" by having him go through hell to find his daughter. The movie ended up being more cliché, so to speak, for reversing the reversal.
I remember in an interview back then that change was done because they believed a woman would be more believable than a man desperately looking for their child.
The second Silent Hill movie, among other mistakes, broke the primary rule of modern cinema: "A Sean Bean that is introduced in the first act, dies in the third"
The second movie is more enjoyable for me because it’s so fucking batshit insane it’s hilarious, the first one is too much up its own ass thinking it can replicate and improve upon SH1 while as at least the second one knows its trash but runs with it.
9:50 There is a specification that Ito stated on twitter some years back. While the act against the Mannequins was not sexual in nature, it was meant to be erotic in appearance. Which is likely why the misconception continues to come up.
I always interpreted that as Silent Hill making a morbid mockery of the sexual act to torture James' psyche. Both times that happen, when you enter the room, you are assaulted with situations that feel sexual, but on a second glance, these horrible monsters are just contorting and shaking in what barely resembles something erotic on the bare surface.
In that viewpoint, it makes a ton of sense. If you put James in PH's position, then you could consider both perspectives of the incident with the mannequins as 1. James' desire to maintain a physical relationship, while his wife is ill; and 2. James' attempt to remove his sick wife from the equation, and find someone who matches how he saw her when she was healthy; she's in the way of him living the life he thinks he wants.
To add to Pat's point at 10:56 about this game's themes being hidden in plain sight, the very first thing you see when you hit 'New Game' in SH2 is James looking at himself in the mirror. The game literally opens on James reflecting. It's hilariously on the nose but it never comes across that way.
OH MY FUCKING GOD, I never realized that! Shitshitshit! This game is so good that not even once, the thought crossed my mind, what a goddamn masterpiece. I'm always excited to learn new things in the games that I love, and SH2 is no exception.
@Sean Walash Another thing people have discovered about that scene upon brightening it up, James’s eyes are looking right at the camera. Whether it was intentional or not, it’s creepy as hell.
This is also the reason behind why the save menu is a reflection of James' face because the entire journey is Silent Hill (the town) asking him to reflect on himself and accept his guilt
There's also the easter egg where if you crank up the brightness during that scene, you can see James is actually looking at the camera, as in directly at the player, during that scene and not at his reflection. Between that and the dialogue James has when you find the first save point, I've always interpreted it to mean that James is somewhat aware he's in a game and that he's not in control of his own fate.
I haven’t seen a game have a letter as emotionally devastating as Mary’s until Disco Elysium with the “ex-somethings” letter to the detective, just every line is another gut punch, another twist of the knife.
Woolie's face at the "a man playing this character would be too effeminate" is why i watch these clips even if i listened to the podcast prior, it's comedy gold
Reminds me of the director of Welcome to Raccoon City being like “We’re gonna make the cast real characters”, if you don’t like or understand the source material and think you can improve it with your ego, you shouldn’t be making the adaptation in first place. Castlevania or Arcane didn’t treat the games they’re based on like something that’s wrong or broken and needs be fixed/corrected.
I was worried that he went straight to SH2 after 1. Theyre both such different games that i was scared the complete slow burn of 2 would hit a bit less hard coming off of the pacing of the first game, and 3 drives that pacing straight through the roof compared to the second game. So im glad theres gonna be time between if it ever happens
I think it's good that he's not going directly to 3. I think SH3 is one of the best horror games in history, with a lot of great and unique moments, but if you come at it hot after SH2, it can be overshadowed and even feel a bit underwhelming. I don't mind waiting as long as he comes back to it eventually.
I've always wondered whether Silent Hill is abandoned, or if the protagonists are swinging weapons at seemingly nothing in front of the locals, who are like "Oh look, another White Claudia addict".
I imagine lots of young people just left as Lisa says in SH1, and the town slowly fell under the sway of the cult until there was no-one left, and by the time 2 and later 3 roll around it's abandoned.
It’s implied that Silent hill isn’t abandoned, the thing is we never see the base line reality Silent Hill where normal people walk around, we only see the “fog world” version where characters are pulled into, it’s should be something like base/fog/otherworld.
@@steffanofumo I mean James starts off in a pitstop restroom. For all we know when he pulled over, the sun was out and there were other cars too, but as soon as we get control and go outside-well y'know.
Me too actually, I don't have 'proper play instincts' like they do so I never hoarded and I didn't think about the knife as a puzzle solution. This means that I found out about In Water way later, which was interesting bc it felt appropriate. On that note - let me tell you about my RE2 remake playthrough where I used so much ammo that I did some of the parking garage area with two knives, 3 grenades, and 3 pistol bullets!
As a father now being roughly the same age as Harry Mason, I have newfound respect for his character. I was a 12 year old shitkid when I finished the 1st game and watching Woolie play it really makes me happy that it still holds up pretty well. Silent Hill 2 is consistently a game that haunted me even as a 15 year old playing it for the first time, and each decade I find something new and unnerving about the game. Like how unheroic and just lethargic James is throughout the game.
"There was a Hole here, It's gone now." has haunted me for decades now. A mystery with no real answer, and although simple, still felt grossly unsettling to me.
Y’know, I would’ve loved if Pat was involved in the let’s play, but only for his reaction with Woolie and Reggie. I love Pat and all, but this game is his expertise *and* he would’ve handhold too much
An interesting detail about the Great Knife is that if you look closely near the base of the blade, there is a circular slot for something to connect to it. That's because the blade isn't a knife, but half of a giant pair of scissors, with Pyramid Head having one half while James gets the other half (with the blade being surrounded by scissors when James receives it). Masahiro Ito stated this was to represent James and Pyramid Head's connection and that the blade James gets was supposed to have a unique model, but they ran out of time to make the second "knife."
Great clip but the genderswap for the movie is worse than just "that's gay bro" they specifically stated its because fathers don't care about they're children like this. They said he was to nurturing and caring too be seen as a man. Which is laughably stupid because Harry Mason is classic positive masculinity. Maybe that's what confused the studio suits a man not sexually assaulting women and taking care of his children is just an alien concept to them. Also Pat I'm sorry Jacob's Ladder was released in 1990 Unless your suggesting time travel is involved your wrong about it taking inspiration from Silent Hill.
@@AspiringDevil Gans strikes me as the type of guy who thinks a male characters tripping over himself looking for his child is pathetic. It’s such a nonsensical view, the father with no agency for his child isn’t masculine he’s a douchebag or a robot.
I will play devil advocate here. If that's actually what he meant then Maybe what he tried to say could be similar to a scenario like the one in that zombie movie(27 days I think?), where like his sense of self preservation would take the best of him as soon he sees a pterodactyl flying through the window, while a woman with her maternal instincts would be passionately more inclined to kept going
@@ricardomiles2957 maybe but that also inherently conflicts with the character. Generally it's a bad idea to have someone who doesn't understand a protagonist character to adapt them. Also this isn't an apocalypse scenario and regardless paternal instinct is strong in majority of people. There is data on the matter so, I still think his perspective on normal fathers is warped. But I'll play devil's advocate too. I've seen it thrown around, but not confirmed that the swap was a producer/studio decision and the director was just the guy they throughout to justify it in interviews. While this unconfirmed it is well known post new age of Hollywood, studios are desperate to hide they're actual decisions, because no producer or executive wants to be known for saying yes or no.
I'm a James apologist. I feel like too many people get the ending and they sort of stop trying to analyze James. It's like, "Oh, so he's an asshole. Okay." And you know, sorta? He's kind of an asshole. But he's no more an asshole then many other people would be in his horrible situation. I just find James fascinating. Also, I don't think James cheated on Mary. I think the sexual aspects of his personal monsters is more to do with him feeling shame about still having sexual desires while his wife is sick and incapable of fulfilling them. Just another thing to feel guilty about, another thing to hate himself over. And to compare James with Harry I would definitely agree with Harry being a much more heroic character, but we must remember that Harry is a widower like James. And like James he was likely deeply in love with his wife. Cheryl is the girl he raised with his wife and his last connection to her, Harry might not have much else to live for other than Cheryl. Harry is not suicidal like James, but he might be motivated to take suicidal risks to rescue the only person in his life that is important to him.
It's been like 20 years since I played SH2, but didn't James mercy kill his wife? He didn't just mercilessly end her life, it was something she wanted if I remember correctly.
@@JameboHayabusa It's complicated, it was ultimately the merciful thing to do but you can interpret it as not being done out of the goodness of his heart
@@JameboHayabusa Depends on the way its perceived. If you get the In Water ending, there's dialogue added where James admits part of him hated Mary for what they were going through. So him killing her could be read as more for his benefit.
@@JameboHayabusa She wanted to die, so it was a mercy kill, and she did not want to die, so it was not. He wanted her to not suffer anymore, so it was, and he wanted himself to not suffer her anymore, so it was not. It's complicated.
Maria's letter at the end of the game is the single thing in any media that makes me burst into tears on command. I have played this game multiple times, I know the endings, I know this game, I've seen it multiple times and no matter how much I know it's coming, the last line immediately pierces my heart and I sob. I cannot stop it.
She’s absolutely killer. Her performance as Maria also really demonstrates her range and what she’s able to add to a character. Her performance in the jail cell scene, in particular, is so unnerving, tense, and nuanced that I’m quite honestly not sure why she isn’t talked about more, especially given how often people talk about the voice acting in this game. Like, she’s so damn good that one could easily cite her as proof that the perceived quality of the game’s other performances was no accident.
@@li-limandragon9287 Eh, I’d actually affirm that the acting in TLOU 2 is good, or at least far from mediocre. It’s the shallow narrative, even shallower message, and blatant emotional manipulation of the audience from within that narrative that makes that game so horribly overrated.
@@SoaringLettuce YES. It’s so subtly threatening that it legitimately gives me chills sometimes. And the immediate snap back into playing into James’ hidden desires, too, only a moment later, how she’s so menacingly trying to toy with him and tempt him, maintaining that same tense energy while doubling down on the sultry facade, I mean Jesus. She deserves so much more shine. It’s sincerely one of the great, unsung video game VA performances of that era, I think.
The one thing that doesn't gel with me in the Leave ending is that the last time we saw Laura, James told her he killed Mary and she stormed off saying "I hate you", so watching her leave with the man who murdered her hospital friend is kinda odd.
personally i've always found the In Water ending to be kind of off-base. while SH2 is of course exceedingly dark, one way or the other James almost always makes his peace with Mary and learns to stop punishing himself. the way In Water is framed it feels to me like he conquers his guilt, finds forgiveness, and then climactically... realizes his beloved wife is still dead and kills himself out of simple grief and bereavement, the same as if he had never done either of those things or even gone to Silent Hill at all. i mean that's certainly sad and it's the most *emotional* ending, but i've always found people who describe it as the most appropriate one to be kind of discounting the last hour or so of the game. in both In Water and Leave it goes out of its way to show James overcoming his central conflicts, it's just what he does in the vacuum afterwards that changes. at that point he can easily go either way, but some people describe the whole game as obviously pointing towards his suicide, and i've never understood that.
Love the playthroughs, Woolie. I hope you can play SH3 and 4, eventually. Part of me just misses having Woolie and Pat sit down and playthrough stuff together. The reactions to different playstyles and choices, the discussions about game elements and story, the triumphs and pitfalls, the encouragement and shit-talking...I hope you can put out at least one more playthrough together.
I really love the uncertainty of his voice once we get the context of the whole game; as has been pointed out before, Mary's body may just be in the back of his car in the parking lot, so god knows what's going through his mind.
The rebirth ending is creepy as fuck. Its like that isle of the dead painting. Very occult. I am glad I got the leave ending first, in the water is just too much.
I played Silent Hill 2 for the first time at 14 or 15, and I got the In Water ending, and it left me in tears; the letter itself is sad enough, but then hearing Mary ask James to "live for himself now" knowing he just killed himself is unbearable, it's like he accidentally threw away her last wish for him
I’m of the minority that really likes the Maria ending the best, I couldn’t even tell you why I like it so much compared to the others. Something about the music and the delivery of James last line “You’d better do something about that cough…” it all just feels so dreamlike and sinister and it gives me goosebumps every time I see it.
@@justalittlerest The way James says that makes me feel like this isn't the first time this has happened, the low intonation and barely any emotion to it, makes me shiver
The reading of Mary's Letter never fails to make me tear up every time I hear it. It just feels so real. Like it's not the product of a video game story.
Harry is heroic, to almost a movie level of heroism. James is a person. Deeply flawed, in pain and just trying to figure out wtf is going on. Which makes him a far better protagonist.
It’s why I’ve always preferred Iron Man or Spider-Man to Captain America. Yes Cap is a morally infallible person and selfless, but Tony and Spidey not being that and completely capable of fucking up frequently like the rest of us makes them 1000x more interesting heroes. I want to see characters learn and acknowledge their faults, not just hold others to account for not holding up to high a moral standard like Cap does. Harry is a better man, but James is a better character.
I wish we could've had Pat there for Woolie's playthroughs both because it feels weird to me for Woolie to be going through Pat games like Silent Hill 1 and 2 and the Yakuza games without him there and to see Pat probably lose his mind over Woolie playing games so differently than he did.
17:40 i don't know what's sadder, this, or the fact that if you count the pachinko game THAT likely broke the trend love woolies reaction to being told SH3 has a parry system
27:03 The funny thing about this situation is it's completely redundant. You find the can of light bulbs one room over from where you need to use the light bulb so you can see a keyhole. There was no reason for them not to just let you use the key on the door.
Pat's love for Silent Hill and the playthrough of Silent Hill 2 on the SBFP Channel is what got me into the series in the first place, so I'm super happy to hear him talk about it again.
Silent Hill game team: incredibly nuanced understanding of many difficult relationships between women and men, and children and parents Silent Hill movie team: I thought about this story so deeply that I had an epiphany... actually no man can be like Harry Mason!
@@AspiringDevil That would make movies like Ransom and Taken homoerotic masterpieces. I think it’s just Gans himself who stupidly thinks Harry’s role was too feminine and probably prefers women in life threatening horror situations anyway, The guy sounds like a hack to be honest.
@@li-limandragon9287 his names been on some decent projects like the Willard Remake so he's not a total hack, but yeah its hard to believe he was giving his all to the Silent Hill film and bizzaro decisions like the genderswap are what imo cancels out the fan service.l
@@AspiringDevil It's just like the Welcome to Raccoon City director pointlessly changing up the cast's personalities to "make them real characters". It's the ego thinking you can improve upon the source material that really ticks me off.
I am so fucking happy that you played through this and enjoyed - that ending has haunted me for 20 years. From the video in the room to the ending... my god. I always see the "in water" as the canon ending, but that's just me. This was my absolute favorite game of all time until Bloodborne dropped, but it's still #2, almost like #1b to Bloodborne's #1a. Side note: the scene with the fiery stairs at the end - just perfect. So fucking good.
Yeah, I've said before that Angela's final scene is utterly heartbreaking in terms of what the character is going through and then underscoring what we as players expect to be able to do for someone we care for; they basically know that we would probably want to save Angela and then taunt us over that. We can't even really save James, nevermind her.
18:00 Apparently the guy who directed the first movie is directing a new Silent Hill movie. I don't expect much from it but I hope it will at least be stupidly entertaining. 19:54 If he ever plays Silent Hill 3 he'll realize why casting Kit Harrington as Vincent was a catastrophically stupid idea. 20:46 Vincent isn't the main character in Silent Hill 3 or the second movie. He is a supporting character in both. Another little fun fact about the first movie. The guy who wrote the screen play went to prison for manslaughter after a drunk driving incident.
@@B0110CK5 There's been no word yet as to what exactly it's going to be. All he said was he was making another one. I don't know if it's going to be a sequel or a reboot or what .
@@li-limandragon9287 I haven't seen either of those movies but I'm familiar with the tone and style of both of them. I'd personally like to see a story taking place within the world of Silent Hill that isn't a direct adaptation. Something that continues the tone and theme without any of the direct events.
You know it's always interesting to hear discussions of the endings and seen different let's players get to different endings. I've personally always been more fond of leave ending over others, (Besides dog of course, nothing tops dog). But it's always just cool to hear different discussions of what ending people enjoy the most, or what they seem as fitting so to speak. Not many games have endings like this, the only other one i can off the top of my head think of is Spec ops the line. But in any case, will be happy to see the rest of the let's play as it's posted!
In early teenage years i think i found "in water" ending somewhat romantic in a morbid way (as a teenage might), sort of like Romeo and Juliet, not the actual thing, but the most common aura around it - oooh, both died, love, romantic. Since then i lost someone very dear to me, they were gone, and i was still there, and i had to somehow live since the alternative isn't much of an option. I very much prefer "leave" ending now. It's hopeful.
@@VadBlackwood Yeah, leave to me has always fit better as what i see the ending as. It's the ability to keep going, to keep moving, despite everything. Also, I'm sorry for your loss.
23:30 There's been a lot of speculation about Laura actually being a figment of the town. One of the reasons is how ridicolous the idea of her travelling there on her own. The other is that in official character bios she's the only character with no second name... like Maria. That said, the idea that she meets Eddy near the town and supposedly arrives with him before splitting up disproves this.
Remember with the letter how Pat was like this is the best voice acting in a video game (clearly his subjective opinion, but still), and Matt was like ehhhhh I wouldn’t say that (again, it was Pat’s OPINION). Yeah…Yeah I really wish it was Woolie and Pat who did that LP years ago.
I mean it's nearly impossible for me to go back to any old LP's or podcast episodes involving Matt because he was just always pissy and would always find a way to shift the conversation to be about himself while giving some of the worst takes imaginable. I mean I still remember when RE2 Remake came out and it was getting universal acclaim and Matt decided to try and be a contrarian on Twitter saying it wasn't that good and complaining about classic RE things like zombies being bullet sponges and the fact that he couldn't just murder everything he saw like it was fucking RE5 and 6 while saying the best versions of Claire and Jill were Umbrella Chronicles. He then deleted the tweets when everyone started telling him how shit these takes were only for him to recycle them a few months later into his review of the game...
@@Lonequacker Jill and Claire in the Wii games are just generically hot perfect waifus, at least Capcom had the balls to make them look realistic and not idealised in RE2make and RE3make. I do like Matt in spite of his problems but a lot his takes are dumb and wrong.
@@li-limandragon9287 out of everything you can "grade" in a video game, "realism" is definitely not of them. Not even simulators that doesn't gives a shit about video game shenanigans because there's always something that will be ignored for one reason or another
@@Lonequacker I miss 2011-2013 Matt. We thought he was acting dumb when he did stuff like throw the fire axe into that chasm back then, but it was worse than that. He thought he was acting dumb, and he wasn't.
@@ricardomiles2957 I mean “realism” the in sense Claire and Jill in the remakes don’t really look idealised mega hot HD CG women like say Tifa and Aerith in FF7 remake. They look like pretty attractive real world women rendered in realistic-looking CG, you still find people plenty of people who call them ugly or like Matt dislike them compared to Wii Lightgun games version where Jill and Claire might as well come from anime.
Silent hill 1 is basically random guy with no baggage (aside from being a widower) plus random policewoman gets involved in SH shenanigans, and it's fairly grounded, well, for a mystical horror story at least. And everything after that became super mystical and super unclear.
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Really? I remember it really fuzzy because I only played SH3 once and with super scuffed translation (English isn't my first language you see) like what, 18 years ago? So I don't really remember much of it aside from super hard puzzle in book shop, secret uzi silencer and "Do they look like monsters to you?"
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Problem is while I love SH3 it’s way of telling the lore of the Order is far from crystal clear and is very heavy handed in it approach. It also doesn’t help we don’t even see members of the cult that aren’t Claudia and Vincent, although I assume the monsters Heather sees are cult members. With SH1, so much of it was “What the fuck is going on” and it only became about the Order at the very end that it gets more of a free pass imo.
Leave always made the most sense narratively to me. I don't see why James would kill himself after having a big "I'm not letting you control me anymore" moment against the two Pyramid Heads and the Mary boss and kill himself afterwards when it's framed in a more triumphant 'facing your demons head-on' kind of tone. Makes more sense to me he'd try to atone by trying to give Laura a better life, much like Harry Mason before him. Silent Hill always had that underlying focus of forgiveness and redemption in all it's games after all.
I see James 'taking back control' from the town as him not willing to torture himself any more and accepting the truth about Maria. The town can't offer him what he wants - he tells Maria that 'she's not Mary', and he knows the only way to be with Mary - to be happy - is to end it. That's not accepting punishment, which is what Pyramid Head is, and it's not letting himself be tormented any more.
@@MrStath1986 I feel like the entire crux of Silent Hill 2 details a story on how you can't just ignore grief or try to fill the hole with other people or things. That happiness is something that relies on oneself rather than external elements and that you shouldn't tie your self-worth to the existence of others. Angela and Eddie couldn't overcome their trauma or impulses, they never truly had a 'choice' in their minds. I can buy into this idea you presented, but only as a way of making the ending even more grim to face your demons and willingly decide to end it all anyway. The question if this is fitting I guess depends on your perspective on Silent Hill. When taken as a whole, alongside Silent Hill 1 and 3 especially, I still feel like the games have an optimistic and hopeful message at the end of the day. That's what seperate Silent Hill a lot from the misery porn-type horror games of today. That idea that even fundamentally broken people, either mentally or from the circumstances of their birth, can find their own happiness. Hence why I like the idea of James eventually getting his own happy ending like Cheryl eventually did.
I was kinda hoping Woolie would jump into SH3 sooner than later, especially since this clip kinda tells that 3's connections to 1 & 2 helps discuss a lot of the topics covered here, especially if you want to bring up the movies of all things Still, loving the LPs and hoping for more in the future!
@@RipOffProductionsLLC I say 4’s story holds is on par with 2, 3 is awesome thanks to Heather but the Order and Alessa just aren’t that interesting in comparison imo.
woolie interprets the game taking the players actions as the players actions and seems to feel like he was tricked into the in water ending, when in reality the game is doing a very subtle trick playing with the players expectations and behaviors and translating what those behaviors would ACTUALLY mean onto james, not 'the character' but literally james in his head space. I don't know what devs were doing in the ps2 era to make these fucking phenominal leaps of game story telling tech but the same use of player confusion/action to punctuate moments was done in mgs3 when you have to kill the boss, and it's just I wish we had even an ounce of this writing talent on the ground level of development these days.
24:00 I wouldn't call anything from the town a figment of the town because that implies that they aren't real. I've seen a lot of people fall into the trap of assuming that the town is causing delusions or hallucinations. That's not the case. These are real flesh and blood beings that the town has manifested. Look at it like this. Alessa used her mental abilities to tap into the power of the town to create Cheryl as well as the newborn baby at the end of the first game. It's essentially the same thing that's happening in silent hell 2 only Alessa isn't creating them this time. 25:00 This is not what's happening at all. The same rules from the first game apply to Silent Hill 2. The town manifests realities based on peoples subconscious. This is why other people can see the monsters like when Harry saves Kaufman in the bar and why James can see Angela's personal nightmare in the fire. 27:26 In Silent Hill 1 the devil only showed up because Alessa believed in the teachings of the cult. Therefore the town manifested the devil out of her subconscious.
The very first ending I got was the Leave ending, and I think that was because the lack of immediate feedback about the character's health state made me rather paranoid from someone who is used to the sort of very visible character states of the Resident Evil series. I think all of us at one point or another had an "oh fuck" moment in our first playthroughs where we go to check our health and we were closer to death's door than we thought, or at least I see it happening a lot in first time playthroughs.
actually the reason for making harry into rose was stupider, it was because ganse didn't believe a man could love his daughter enough to want to save her from silent hill
I wonder if Woolie would ever try out Eternal Darkness, a different kind of survival horror to be sure, but still amazing in it's own right and honestly the most excited I had heard Pat be during the finale of a game. You get a bunch of Jeniffer Hale voicing the protagonist, some Eldritch bullshit, it's fantastic.
In Water is the most satisfying to me also because it include one extra line in the scene with Mary on the bed, where James admits that a part of him hated her. I don't believe that line is in the other endings, but BOY is that a real feeling
Man, I wish that I could experience SH2 blind, I made the mistake of watching videos on it beforehand, but I want to play it at least once. But I don’t know if I can do it authentically, since I know the twists, and I can’t say that I could get a Legitimate reaction
Better than when I first played SH2. I did play it blind, but I played it on PC. However, my laptop couldn't support dynamic lighting so when I turned the flashlight on all the textures vanished.
As someone who's struggled with mental health for so long with severe depression silent hill 2 was like a home I shouldn't feel welcomed to but felt natural to be in and there was no other experience I felt than with silent hill 2, I understood the rusted sadness
Laura tramped to silent hill in eddies van... She does not live there. You can see them in the intro sequence by his van. In a lot of Japanese Horror, the supernatural can be near omnipotent. I wouldnt be surprised if Maria is a real person. Its left ambigious and up to interpretation though. But in 1 we have seen life being created two times.
@@li-limandragon9287 doesn't really matter for the plot but the implication of Maria being once a real person creates this eerie possibility that anyone near the city could be turned in to a tool of torment with
11:20 a way better example of this is when you get the radio and Mary talks to him through it, albeit through static. The subtitles mess with you a bit but I implore you to look up the version without static, and then look at the scene where he finds the radio in the original with the static. Mary asks “Why did you kill me?” And that one line is still very clearly audible even with the static in the original. the subtitles just mess with you so you don’t really hear it because you’re trying to hear something else in your head. Try and compare the 2 and you’ll see. It was BALLSY of them to just drop that in in the first half hour of the game For reference, here’s the links. Here’s the uncensored nonstatic version of the line: th-cam.com/video/d5xY4EDvEgk/w-d-xo.html And the static version: th-cam.com/video/wcnPMoNDltk/w-d-xo.html it was RIGHT THERE. IN YOUR FACE. You just didn’t listen close enough
I can't buy Laura at all. Think about it. Think about how much time Laura must have spent with Mary to develop feelings of wanting to adopt her. Think about the time spent, the talks, the secret jokes... think about what happiness Laura must have brought to Mary. And Mary Never Mentions Laura At All To James? Not once? I know it's Canon. I know I can go to the wiki right now and read about her exploits with Mary. But doesn't that ring false for anyone else? Laura being a construct makes a hell of a lot more sense than a real, living person that just happens to show up in impossible moments given that she's supposed to be walking around the real Silent Hill.
The town can make monsters an distort reality so a can of light bulbs isn't that weird. Heck I like to think the town made that pizza for Eddie an left it there for him. It sounds goofy yeah but the town can pull items an areas from different times an places
Pyramid Head with the Liyng Figure is far more explicit than the Mannequins. Obviously sexual. Pretty much proven that PH's model has James unter the mask. The executioner emulates those he executes.
The Pyramid Head itself alludes to James being blind to the truth, he’s like PH an unstoppable entity that keeps fighting and moving forward. Once James accepts what he’s done, Pyramid Head dies. Memory of Alessia is to Heather what Pyramid Head is to James.
I was so looking foward to this conversation, it was great guys, thank you truly. I wouldn't mind if it was like 6 hours long though just saying, can't have enough of SH2.
I feel [In Water] is the least appropriate "real" ending. My reasoning being almost solely based on the circumstances James receives Mary's Letter. It's the catalyst that sends him to Silent Hill. He received it after killing Mary, but he never got the catharsis the player gets. Instead, it sent him into full-on denial. He kills his wife, reads the letter that details their relationship and how difficult is was for them, but the words are hollow because James killed her. At the endgame, James receives Mary's Letter again, except this time it's in earnest. The Mary giving him the letter says "You've killed me, and you're suffering for it", giving him some form of redemption. That resolution is what James needed to hear to get on with life, not end it.
Yes but James doesn’t really have a life beyond Mary, do remember Maria the manifestation from the town of James’s desire to find new love to satisfy himself has Mary’s face. He will always love Mary even at his worst and without her life has no point for him. Rebirth genuinely feels the most appropriate to me, James will literally do anything to see Mary again so he’ll call upon the dark gods of the town to resurrect her. In Water just better fits the tone of the rest of the game. Pyramid Head was designed with In Water in mind and Pyramid Head exits the game killing himself.
Years ago, I've read a blogger's translated official Japanese novelizations of Silent Hill 1 and Silent Hill 2, and the Silent Hill 2 novel offered interesting insight into James' thoughts during the events of the game, how he reacted to every monster and message he found. For example, what sticks out in my memory of the translated novelization is that James had no qualms about killing the Lying Figure monsters in self defense, but whenever he was forced to attack and kill the Bubblehead Nurses, he always felt guilty about doing it because he assumed the nurse monsters are actually normal human women that ended up getting deformed by some kind of disease, and that killing them is actually an act of mercy towards them, but later he realized his rationalizations is a lie meant to hide something from himself.
As far as Silent hill movies go I think they can easily work if handled well, Like Pat admits the first one has its moments. A detail I love is in the first movie the monsters are played by professional dancers who can shift and contort their bodies in ways that feel unnatural. I think SIlent Hill 4 the room could work as a movie.
Would love to watch a LP of either of you guys playing Darkwood! It has serious Silent Hill vibes, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I beat it a year ago.
Also to be fair, the Incubus at the end of Silent Hill is a psychic manifestation of Alessa's view of the cult's god. Dahlia wanted to control that "God" because she knew all the cult nonsense was just that, nonsense. But when you focus that belief system into a psychic...
Sorry if someone else had said this aparently the monologue was done in one take and she had just flewn into japan on a red-eye and was super tired and it just came out super authentic. Also id argue that her voice actor did the best job on all her lines for the entire game!! Angella’s voice actor redeems herself in silent hill 3 tho
Isn't that kinda what the fan made patches do though? Besides, I think 2's art direction was very carefully designed around exactly how blurry/low res/ low poly the textures and models would be, take advantage of tje brain's gap filling powers.
@@MrStath1986 yeah, the only think I'd want "fixed" in SH2 or 3 is the shadows not being that exact, they seem to only be cast by the main body and not stuff like hair, and are noticeably blockier then the person casting them.
I still think In Water fits the best thematically. What you guys say near the end about Harry being a hero and James not being that, yeah, that. He doesn’t deserve that happy ending in any way, shape, or form, and I’d argue it’s even a bit thematically tone deaf. James has finally realized what he has done and is now ready to punish himself for what he has done, which is why the 2 Pyramid Heads stop attacking him and kill themselves, he’s accepted the guilt and is willing to punish himself now. In the leave ending its like what the fuck because people are like “he learned his lesson and should be allowed to go and live a normal life like Mary wanted” what fucking lesson dude? Don’t kill your terminally ill wife? He’s still like…an irredeemable murderer and all around bad person, and once he finally realized that he should just be..let go scott free? All is forgiven? Laura doesn’t mind? I think context wise the In Water ending makes most sense, then the Maria ending (which is the roughest one because it’s just showing that James is a cold uncaring person that’s willing to do it all again just for some eye candy) then the Leave ending. An actual happy ending for James considering the context of the game is just kinda something I’ve always found dumb, him now just going somewhere and have a happy life and adopt Laura after all that and Laura being okay with that despite the last scene of them together she’s actually mad about James killing Mary? Nahhhh man it’s just not it man. Also considering Masahiro Ito recently confirming Mary is in the trunk of his car at the very start of the game makes the whole “now we can finally be together” a lot stronger of a line. There’s also the graves in the yard in the prison and a bunch of other stuff that corroborates the In Water ending so much more than the Leave one. James was going to die there, whether he accepts what he did or not. Irredeemable. He knows it. Laura knows it. Hell, the evil force of the town knows it. I thought that was kind of the whole point of the ending sequence, basically the entire hotel. Sure, there’s empathetic sides to James’ reasoning, but if Angela has to die for a much less senseless killing for a MUCH more sympathetic reason then why would James get off clear as day? Shit just makes 0 sense. (For what it’s worth, the Maria ending is the most cutting but also the funniest, maybe next to the joke endings. James literally gives a giant middle finger fuck you to Silent Hill and just starts banging the weird silent hill monster manifestation version of his wife cuz she’s hot)
Yeah I agree 100% in water is the most thematically accurate and least ridiculous ending. Just because people aren't comfortable with grim realities in storytelling doesn't mean that it is somehow less valid because there's no redemption or satisfying conclusion. The logical thing to do would be to end it right then and there, especially considering the events leading up to/ symbolism throughout the game about other characters suffering and faded memories of what they've done. It's not a game about mental healing it's about grief and guilt and the horrors associated with them lol. Any other interpretation is ironically deluded as well imo.
25:20 I like to think that Silent Hill the normal town has a drug problem so people shambling around aren't uncommon at most they'll get an eye roll as people try to avoid them. Makes sense to me if we go with people who have troubled pasts turning to drugs is a common phenomena
There’s a secret alt ending where James goes to Japan and gets addicted to pachinko machine, later revealing that the letter Mary sent were actually divorce papers.
Underrated comment
Ah yes, the "Konami Ending"
Top self comment.
...well, I'm alone there now, at our 'special' place, waiting for you to HIT THE LEVER!
James struggling with his gambling addiction, manifesting in the monster, Jackpot Man.
"James walking in an otherwise normal town looking like a Psycho" is one of my favorite interpretations along with what Vincent says to Heather in SH3 to freak her out
You mean when he asks Heather "they look like monsters to you?" Right?
@@el-duderino975 that’s honestly one of my favorite moments in any Silent Hill because Heather immediately reacts with horror and Vincent’s “just joking” is so ambiguous. But Vincent’s not a reliable narrator himself so…
That's not what happens though, right? Don't people who enter the spooky Silent Hill disappear from the "real" world?
@@jamescollinge5043 The only time I think that’s confirmed is in the Silent Hill movie, but not totally sure. In SH3, Heather’s jumping between the totally normal mall and the Otherworld, but she’s moving through the same corresponding physical space, so there has to be some connection to reality.
@@conorgleeson2453 in SH4, James's father mentions that he disappeared and was last seen heading to the town
i saw someone ask Masahiro Ito about the motivation to put the 'dog endging' in the game recently and its actually such a good point; the dog ending is only being accessable after a couple playthroughs and some super specific routing, basically something you'd only get if you were super invested and spending a lot of time with this very intense and sad game. I think because of the nature of cryptic shit in games, people naturally assume that all this action needed to get the dog ending is to hide it, but it sounds like the very silly, tension relife of the dog ending is basically to help stop people who are spending a lot of time in the world of silent hill 2 from being too depressed, and thats why the designers love it, because its a way to respect the players mental health, and give them a chance to see something fun and maybe put the game down for a bit.
That's beautiful
It's no surprise that the dog ending is the dev's favorites, because it's the one little moment of genuine fun in a game that breaks you down on an individual level. It really shows that while the devs were working hard making this game as ominous and depressing as they could, but they are still human and wanted to hide a little something just to give you a laugh while you're going through your third or fourth run.
That’s honestly so much more thoughtful and considerate than I ever would have began to imagine. I just thought it was some funny shit they wanted to toss in.
I heard that from Guy Cihi, James' VA. At first he didn't want to do the dog ending because it's too silly, but then the devs told him that this is a reward for the players who're really dedicated in exploring the game. So he agreed to do it.
@@StarkMaximum I thought the in water ending was their favourite.
I always love hearing Pat talk about Silent Hill. You can tell it’s a true love of his and it definitely helped spark my interest in the series when they first played Silent Hill 2 back in the day.
We even got some patented Pat Crazy talk too.
Silent Hill 1 released 1999
Jacob's Ladder released 1990
Classic gnome of semi truth moment.
If I’m not mistaken, and this is going to sound super parasocial, but I believe he went to school for psychology, yeah? It would make sense that he’d resonate so much with this series. I love psychology as well.
Woolie asking Pat to talk about the symbology of Silent Hill and Pat having to admit that "if you had asked me ten years ago I would've had this off the top of my head" felt like an old wise sage calling on the old texts he read so long ago to help the new upstart. And considering what he says here sounds consistent with what he said during the LP from what I remember, he's still got it!
@@StarkMaximum Yeah, I thought he actually did really well in explaining the monsters even here; the only thing he seems to struggle with is the link of Pyramid Head to James, but even that's an easy one - James and Mary were meant to have holidayed in Silent Hill previously, so it's likely they visited the prison and the historical society and saw the old illustration of the 'executioner'; even if James doesn't remember that specifically, chances are that Silent Hill took that symbol of punishment and death that James would have in his subconcious and used it for the torment James felt he deserved.
SBFP and its post-breakup spinoffs have actually done a lot to direct me towards some series that I absolutely love nowadays, chief among them the Yakuza series, but also titles like EDF and a slew of fighting games.
I think rebirth is a great ending because it's In Water but worse.
It's past "My wife is dead, I can't go on." and goes into "My wife is dead, I can't go on, and my time here has fucked me up, so let's go get Valtiel and Zor-Arkoth and Satan and make a mockery of nature and play God."
"Forgive me for waking you."
"Forgive me for waking you" goes so hard in this context. Consider James killed her in the first place, kinda batshit that he's bringing her back
"...Darling...."
Thinking about it, it feels obvious that pat would get “in water” because of his mind goblins. Since he would horde healing items and only use them when critically damaged.
Woolie was worse about this, he was NEVER over 50% health the entire playthrough.
It was obvious to me by the time he reached the apartments. It was especially weird to me because he was spending them willy-nilly in SH1. I guess Woolie just course-corrected so hard that the main character committed suicide.
@@dispnin Course corrected into a fuckin lake.
"mind goblin" ending
@@hassanico9999 as an anime watcher, I think the only time he took healing seriously was right before PH yeeted him off the roof of the hospital, which sets your health next to death anyway. Even then he wasn't topped off.
Something else I appreciate is that neither James nor Mary were wrong in how they felt about their situation, but they were wrong in how they handled it. Mary was sick and dying, she had every right to be miserable and depressed, but taking it out on James didn't help anything, and James was suffering just as much having to watch his wife slowly dying and not being able to do anything to help or comfort her, but that didn't give him the right to kill her. But then again, James isn't just some black and white villain, what he did he did out of motivation, he did it because he loved her, he did it because he pitied her and what he thought was hate was really just grief. It's like what Woolie said, no one was at fault here, it was just a horrible horrible hand that James and Mary were dealt.
Pat’s face when Woolie suggests that people enjoyed the Silent Hill movies is priceless.
People enjoyed the Anderson RE films, for some just looking similar to the games (they’ve usually never played) is enough.
@@li-limandragon9287
Oh, I know. It’s just that kneejerk look of deep annoyance that gets me. He was literally just about to take a sip of his drink when he heard that and was immediately like, “Naw, fuck that, I gotta clear this up.”
time stamp: 18:00
That first one’s respectable. Not perfect, but it kept the soul of the series intact. I liked it for what it was.
@@conorgleeson2453
I wouldn’t disagree. I think we know which movie motivated Pat’s response.
I don't think it's fan-lore Woolie. Monica Taylor Horgan (Mary's VA) did one take and started to cry (you can hear her voice crack in certain spots). They liked it and kept it.
She’s fantastic, best VA in the franchise with Heather Morris from SH3 being a close second. It’s especially notable since Japanese devs often give poor voice direction to the English VAs.
One of my favorite things about Silent Hill 2 is how malicious the town is towards people who feel guilty. In the prison, you get tablets to place on a gallows to "repent for 3 sins." The Gluttonous Pig is in the room with Eddie, and is obviously about him. The Oppressor is in the jail cell James gets locked in, and represents him for obvious reasons. Angela's is much more cruel than either of theirs. Her tablet is found in a shower and is called Tablet of Seductress.
It just does not hold the fuck back. It's so brutal. Its spit on the grave, it's revolting and painful in a cerebral way.
Yeah Angela’s one is terrible.
But what I like about it, is that all three tablets could relate just to James alone, he is the Gluttonous Pig who wants sex while he’s wife is dying, he is The Oppressor for killing Mary and the Seductress is tied to Maria who is tied to James as figment of his repressed desires brought to life.
@@li-limandragon9287 Alternatively, these could be how James semi-consciously sees them and himself, and the force behind the town is effectively calling him out for having the same kind of dehumanizing, judgmental mentality about them and himself that ultimately dooms Eddie, Angela, and possibly James himself depending on what ending you get.
Mind you, I don't think any of these interpretations are wrong nor mutually excusive. Silent Hill 2 is very much a game that invites you to come to your own conclusions and leaves the answers up in the air for you to decide upon for the most powerful experience.
@@WoobooRidesAgain Yeah that too.
@@WoobooRidesAgain I think it's actually how those whose relationships with the subjects send them to Silent Hill see them. Those who Eddie bragged about killing, after they made fun of him, saw him as gluttonous, unmotivated and merely subsisting. Mary, at least in her poorer health, saw James as someone who saw her as impeding in him living his life, while she was stuck in bed. And Angela's family saw her as the one responsible for their own respective gazing upon her. If you think of the tablets as representing tombstones, it makes some sense: who would write the epitaphs?
The quotes about the Silent Hill movie recasting Harry Mason as a woman is so weird, because they tried to spin it in a pop-feminism way. A direct quote I read from one of the actresses that made my eyes pop out of my skull was “this movie has a feminist angle to it, because the men live in reality and the women live exclusively in fantasy.” That one is featured on the Wikipedia page for the movie sourced from the Making Of.
I actually couldn't believe what I was reading. You could tell me that came from a staunch misogynist and I'd believe you.
Yeah the fantasy of getting your skin ripped off and killed by barb wire while the men named Sean Bean sit comfortably outside in reality. Real empowering. God such a bullshit reason to swap Harry for a rando woman, is Leon the Professional too feminine because he looks after a little girl for most of the movie? Goddamn Gans.
Remember when they were talking about David Cage on a podcast a loooooong while back, back before the channel broke up, and they equated his rambling non-answers about the subject of race and discrimination in regards to Detroit: Become Human as, effectively, the bullshit an art student gives their teacher when they're asked what their work means and they have absolutely no idea?
This very much strikes me as exactly that kind of from-the-depths-of-my-ass response where whoever said it clearly has no idea how to respond to a question about a decision with next to no thought put into it.
The funny thing about that is that the movie tried to do a "role reversal" kind of thing to the game, but the game was ALREADY a role reversal to begin with. Mothers are usually depicted in media as the ones who care for their children the most. The first game reversed this by putting Harry into the "mother role" by having him go through hell to find his daughter. The movie ended up being more cliché, so to speak, for reversing the reversal.
I remember in an interview back then that change was done because they believed a woman would be more believable than a man desperately looking for their child.
@@dollarcoins So he’s never had kids I gather.
The second Silent Hill movie, among other mistakes, broke the primary rule of modern cinema: "A Sean Bean that is introduced in the first act, dies in the third"
The second movie is more enjoyable for me because it’s so fucking batshit insane it’s hilarious, the first one is too much up its own ass thinking it can replicate and improve upon SH1 while as at least the second one knows its trash but runs with it.
9:50 There is a specification that Ito stated on twitter some years back. While the act against the Mannequins was not sexual in nature, it was meant to be erotic in appearance. Which is likely why the misconception continues to come up.
I always interpreted that as Silent Hill making a morbid mockery of the sexual act to torture James' psyche. Both times that happen, when you enter the room, you are assaulted with situations that feel sexual, but on a second glance, these horrible monsters are just contorting and shaking in what barely resembles something erotic on the bare surface.
In that viewpoint, it makes a ton of sense. If you put James in PH's position, then you could consider both perspectives of the incident with the mannequins as 1. James' desire to maintain a physical relationship, while his wife is ill; and 2. James' attempt to remove his sick wife from the equation, and find someone who matches how he saw her when she was healthy; she's in the way of him living the life he thinks he wants.
To add to Pat's point at 10:56 about this game's themes being hidden in plain sight, the very first thing you see when you hit 'New Game' in SH2 is James looking at himself in the mirror. The game literally opens on James reflecting. It's hilariously on the nose but it never comes across that way.
OH MY FUCKING GOD, I never realized that! Shitshitshit!
This game is so good that not even once, the thought crossed my mind, what a goddamn masterpiece.
I'm always excited to learn new things in the games that I love, and SH2 is no exception.
When you pick up the radio, you can decifer Mary asking why he killed her.
@Sean Walash
Another thing people have discovered about that scene upon brightening it up, James’s eyes are looking right at the camera. Whether it was intentional or not, it’s creepy as hell.
This is also the reason behind why the save menu is a reflection of James' face because the entire journey is Silent Hill (the town) asking him to reflect on himself and accept his guilt
There's also the easter egg where if you crank up the brightness during that scene, you can see James is actually looking at the camera, as in directly at the player, during that scene and not at his reflection. Between that and the dialogue James has when you find the first save point, I've always interpreted it to mean that James is somewhat aware he's in a game and that he's not in control of his own fate.
I haven’t seen a game have a letter as emotionally devastating as Mary’s until Disco Elysium with the “ex-somethings” letter to the detective, just every line is another gut punch, another twist of the knife.
And it only gets worse if you find her phone number
Yeah that's about right. Both of those scenes are completely amazing.
No particular reason, but if you like devastating letters, you may like Signalis.
Woolie's face at the "a man playing this character would be too effeminate" is why i watch these clips even if i listened to the podcast prior, it's comedy gold
Reminds me of the director of Welcome to Raccoon City being like “We’re gonna make the cast real characters”, if you don’t like or understand the source material and think you can improve it with your ego, you shouldn’t be making the adaptation in first place.
Castlevania or Arcane didn’t treat the games they’re based on like something that’s wrong or broken and needs be fixed/corrected.
@@li-limandragon9287 EXACTLY.
I'm sad that Woolie isn't going straight to SH3, but i am glad that he's considering getting to it eventually
I was worried that he went straight to SH2 after 1. Theyre both such different games that i was scared the complete slow burn of 2 would hit a bit less hard coming off of the pacing of the first game, and 3 drives that pacing straight through the roof compared to the second game. So im glad theres gonna be time between if it ever happens
My only hope is that he remembers enough about SH1 to get the most out of the story in SH3.
I think it's good that he's not going directly to 3. I think SH3 is one of the best horror games in history, with a lot of great and unique moments, but if you come at it hot after SH2, it can be overshadowed and even feel a bit underwhelming. I don't mind waiting as long as he comes back to it eventually.
Good news friend!
@@Abdega indeed!
I've always wondered whether Silent Hill is abandoned, or if the protagonists are swinging weapons at seemingly nothing in front of the locals, who are like "Oh look, another White Claudia addict".
I imagine lots of young people just left as Lisa says in SH1, and the town slowly fell under the sway of the cult until there was no-one left, and by the time 2 and later 3 roll around it's abandoned.
Harry was supposed to be going on vacation in Silent Hill 1 so I can't imagine it's normally abandoned.
@@ironeleven True, and James and Mary were meant to have gone to the hotel, too.
It’s implied that Silent hill isn’t abandoned, the thing is we never see the base line reality Silent Hill where normal people walk around, we only see the “fog world” version where characters are pulled into, it’s should be something like base/fog/otherworld.
@@steffanofumo I mean James starts off in a pitstop restroom. For all we know when he pulled over, the sun was out and there were other cars too, but as soon as we get control and go outside-well y'know.
I always get the Leave Ending whenever I play the game normally, I got it twice before I knew what the ending conditions were.
Me too actually, I don't have 'proper play instincts' like they do so I never hoarded and I didn't think about the knife as a puzzle solution. This means that I found out about In Water way later, which was interesting bc it felt appropriate. On that note - let me tell you about my RE2 remake playthrough where I used so much ammo that I did some of the parking garage area with two knives, 3 grenades, and 3 pistol bullets!
As a father now being roughly the same age as Harry Mason, I have newfound respect for his character. I was a 12 year old shitkid when I finished the 1st game and watching Woolie play it really makes me happy that it still holds up pretty well.
Silent Hill 2 is consistently a game that haunted me even as a 15 year old playing it for the first time, and each decade I find something new and unnerving about the game. Like how unheroic and just lethargic James is throughout the game.
"There was a Hole here, It's gone now." has haunted me for decades now.
A mystery with no real answer, and although simple, still felt grossly unsettling to me.
@@ButcherGod There's also, "But you might be heading to a different place than Mary, James."
Y’know, I would’ve loved if Pat was involved in the let’s play, but only for his reaction with Woolie and Reggie. I love Pat and all, but this game is his expertise *and* he would’ve handhold too much
I think maybe having regular spoiler casts with Reggie Woolie and Pat would be great for games like Silent Hill.
Angela's knife is the key that unlocks kingdom hearts. ;)
"The Letter" is like an atomic bomb dropped directly onto your soul.
I wish a certain someone had sent me a letter like this.
It’s cool that Pyramid head only appears with the great knife once Angela gives James the knife.
An interesting detail about the Great Knife is that if you look closely near the base of the blade, there is a circular slot for something to connect to it. That's because the blade isn't a knife, but half of a giant pair of scissors, with Pyramid Head having one half while James gets the other half (with the blade being surrounded by scissors when James receives it).
Masahiro Ito stated this was to represent James and Pyramid Head's connection and that the blade James gets was supposed to have a unique model, but they ran out of time to make the second "knife."
18:12 lmao the look on Pat's face the instant the discussion of the movies starts
Great clip but the genderswap for the movie is worse than just "that's gay bro" they specifically stated its because fathers don't care about they're children like this. They said he was to nurturing and caring too be seen as a man.
Which is laughably stupid because Harry Mason is classic positive masculinity. Maybe that's what confused the studio suits a man not sexually assaulting women and taking care of his children is just an alien concept to them.
Also Pat I'm sorry Jacob's Ladder was released in 1990
Unless your suggesting time travel is involved your wrong about it taking inspiration from Silent Hill.
He might have been being facetious there at least
@@reallydontlikethem prefer to think of it as Pat's crazy talk powers activating.
@@AspiringDevil Gans strikes me as the type of guy who thinks a male characters tripping over himself looking for his child is pathetic. It’s such a nonsensical view, the father with no agency for his child isn’t masculine he’s a douchebag or a robot.
I will play devil advocate here. If that's actually what he meant then Maybe what he tried to say could be similar to a scenario like the one in that zombie movie(27 days I think?), where like his sense of self preservation would take the best of him as soon he sees a pterodactyl flying through the window, while a woman with her maternal instincts would be passionately more inclined to kept going
@@ricardomiles2957 maybe but that also inherently conflicts with the character. Generally it's a bad idea to have someone who doesn't understand a protagonist character to adapt them.
Also this isn't an apocalypse scenario and regardless paternal instinct is strong in majority of people. There is data on the matter so, I still think his perspective on normal fathers is warped.
But I'll play devil's advocate too.
I've seen it thrown around, but not confirmed that the swap was a producer/studio decision and the director was just the guy they throughout to justify it in interviews. While this unconfirmed it is well known post new age of Hollywood, studios are desperate to hide they're actual decisions, because no producer or executive wants to be known for saying yes or no.
I'm a James apologist. I feel like too many people get the ending and they sort of stop trying to analyze James. It's like, "Oh, so he's an asshole. Okay." And you know, sorta? He's kind of an asshole. But he's no more an asshole then many other people would be in his horrible situation. I just find James fascinating.
Also, I don't think James cheated on Mary. I think the sexual aspects of his personal monsters is more to do with him feeling shame about still having sexual desires while his wife is sick and incapable of fulfilling them. Just another thing to feel guilty about, another thing to hate himself over.
And to compare James with Harry I would definitely agree with Harry being a much more heroic character, but we must remember that Harry is a widower like James. And like James he was likely deeply in love with his wife. Cheryl is the girl he raised with his wife and his last connection to her, Harry might not have much else to live for other than Cheryl. Harry is not suicidal like James, but he might be motivated to take suicidal risks to rescue the only person in his life that is important to him.
It's been like 20 years since I played SH2, but didn't James mercy kill his wife? He didn't just mercilessly end her life, it was something she wanted if I remember correctly.
@@JameboHayabusa It's complicated, it was ultimately the merciful thing to do but you can interpret it as not being done out of the goodness of his heart
@@JameboHayabusa is it a mercy kill if there's no complete consent? Mercy to who? That's the point the game makes.
@@JameboHayabusa Depends on the way its perceived. If you get the In Water ending, there's dialogue added where James admits part of him hated Mary for what they were going through. So him killing her could be read as more for his benefit.
@@JameboHayabusa She wanted to die, so it was a mercy kill, and she did not want to die, so it was not. He wanted her to not suffer anymore, so it was, and he wanted himself to not suffer her anymore, so it was not. It's complicated.
Maria's letter at the end of the game is the single thing in any media that makes me burst into tears on command. I have played this game multiple times, I know the endings, I know this game, I've seen it multiple times and no matter how much I know it's coming, the last line immediately pierces my heart and I sob. I cannot stop it.
Monica Taylor Horgan should get a fucking Oscar for that letter read.
An Emmy at the very least.
Makes me mad that people shill the mediocre voice acting in games Last of Us 2 and ignore real stars like Monica.
She’s absolutely killer. Her performance as Maria also really demonstrates her range and what she’s able to add to a character. Her performance in the jail cell scene, in particular, is so unnerving, tense, and nuanced that I’m quite honestly not sure why she isn’t talked about more, especially given how often people talk about the voice acting in this game. Like, she’s so damn good that one could easily cite her as proof that the perceived quality of the game’s other performances was no accident.
@@li-limandragon9287
Eh, I’d actually affirm that the acting in TLOU 2 is good, or at least far from mediocre. It’s the shallow narrative, even shallower message, and blatant emotional manipulation of the audience from within that narrative that makes that game so horribly overrated.
@@BareBandSubscription how fast she goes into the super cold "I'm not your Mary" is amazing
@@SoaringLettuce
YES. It’s so subtly threatening that it legitimately gives me chills sometimes. And the immediate snap back into playing into James’ hidden desires, too, only a moment later, how she’s so menacingly trying to toy with him and tempt him, maintaining that same tense energy while doubling down on the sultry facade, I mean Jesus. She deserves so much more shine. It’s sincerely one of the great, unsung video game VA performances of that era, I think.
Leave is the best ending and canon to me, no matter what anyone says.
100% agree!
That's the most simple one but it doesn't really suit the game imo.
you plebian, everyone knows the dog ending is the most canonical and best one
I love that James presumably adopts Laura because Mary wanted to adopt her and keeps on living for Mary's sake.
The one thing that doesn't gel with me in the Leave ending is that the last time we saw Laura, James told her he killed Mary and she stormed off saying "I hate you", so watching her leave with the man who murdered her hospital friend is kinda odd.
personally i've always found the In Water ending to be kind of off-base. while SH2 is of course exceedingly dark, one way or the other James almost always makes his peace with Mary and learns to stop punishing himself. the way In Water is framed it feels to me like he conquers his guilt, finds forgiveness, and then climactically... realizes his beloved wife is still dead and kills himself out of simple grief and bereavement, the same as if he had never done either of those things or even gone to Silent Hill at all.
i mean that's certainly sad and it's the most *emotional* ending, but i've always found people who describe it as the most appropriate one to be kind of discounting the last hour or so of the game. in both In Water and Leave it goes out of its way to show James overcoming his central conflicts, it's just what he does in the vacuum afterwards that changes. at that point he can easily go either way, but some people describe the whole game as obviously pointing towards his suicide, and i've never understood that.
Love the playthroughs, Woolie. I hope you can play SH3 and 4, eventually.
Part of me just misses having Woolie and Pat sit down and playthrough stuff together. The reactions to different playstyles and choices, the discussions about game elements and story, the triumphs and pitfalls, the encouragement and shit-talking...I hope you can put out at least one more playthrough together.
While still not as good as that final letter read. At the very beginning just the way James says, "I got a letter" I think it is a terrific delivery
I really love the uncertainty of his voice once we get the context of the whole game; as has been pointed out before, Mary's body may just be in the back of his car in the parking lot, so god knows what's going through his mind.
That little opening monologue really sticks in the brain.
The rebirth ending is creepy as fuck. Its like that isle of the dead painting. Very occult. I am glad I got the leave ending first, in the water is just too much.
I played Silent Hill 2 for the first time at 14 or 15, and I got the In Water ending, and it left me in tears; the letter itself is sad enough, but then hearing Mary ask James to "live for himself now" knowing he just killed himself is unbearable, it's like he accidentally threw away her last wish for him
I’m of the minority that really likes the Maria ending the best, I couldn’t even tell you why I like it so much compared to the others. Something about the music and the delivery of James last line “You’d better do something about that cough…” it all just feels so dreamlike and sinister and it gives me goosebumps every time I see it.
@@justalittlerest The way James says that makes me feel like this isn't the first time this has happened, the low intonation and barely any emotion to it, makes me shiver
I love when Pat talks about Silent Hill, especially the ones he likes enjoys. As the conversation went on his face lit up.
The reading of Mary's Letter never fails to make me tear up every time I hear it. It just feels so real. Like it's not the product of a video game story.
Harry is heroic, to almost a movie level of heroism.
James is a person. Deeply flawed, in pain and just trying to figure out wtf is going on. Which makes him a far better protagonist.
It’s why I’ve always preferred Iron Man or Spider-Man to Captain America. Yes Cap is a morally infallible person and selfless, but Tony and Spidey not being that and completely capable of fucking up frequently like the rest of us makes them 1000x more interesting heroes. I want to see characters learn and acknowledge their faults, not just hold others to account for not holding up to high a moral standard like Cap does.
Harry is a better man, but James is a better character.
@@li-limandragon9287 Exactly.
I wish we could've had Pat there for Woolie's playthroughs both because it feels weird to me for Woolie to be going through Pat games like Silent Hill 1 and 2 and the Yakuza games without him there and to see Pat probably lose his mind over Woolie playing games so differently than he did.
17:40 i don't know what's sadder, this, or the fact that if you count the pachinko game THAT likely broke the trend
love woolies reaction to being told SH3 has a parry system
27:03 The funny thing about this situation is it's completely redundant. You find the can of light bulbs one room over from where you need to use the light bulb so you can see a keyhole. There was no reason for them not to just let you use the key on the door.
Pat's love for Silent Hill and the playthrough of Silent Hill 2 on the SBFP Channel is what got me into the series in the first place, so I'm super happy to hear him talk about it again.
Silent Hill game team: incredibly nuanced understanding of many difficult relationships between women and men, and children and parents
Silent Hill movie team: I thought about this story so deeply that I had an epiphany... actually no man can be like Harry Mason!
I feel like SH2 has been dissected to the point where I don't want the 2022 explanation of the ending anymore. I want the 2005 explanation.
Fellas, is it gay to love your daughter and fear for her and your life?
According to Hollywood
@@AspiringDevil That would make movies like Ransom and Taken homoerotic masterpieces. I think it’s just Gans himself who stupidly thinks Harry’s role was too feminine and probably prefers women in life threatening horror situations anyway,
The guy sounds like a hack to be honest.
@@li-limandragon9287 his names been on some decent projects like the Willard Remake so he's not a total hack, but yeah its hard to believe he was giving his all to the Silent Hill film and bizzaro decisions like the genderswap are what imo cancels out the fan service.l
Yes. Love and fear are gay. Real men go ooga booga monster go mashy mashy with wooden planky.
@@AspiringDevil It's just like the Welcome to Raccoon City director pointlessly changing up the cast's personalities to "make them real characters". It's the ego thinking you can improve upon the source material that really ticks me off.
I am so fucking happy that you played through this and enjoyed - that ending has haunted me for 20 years. From the video in the room to the ending... my god. I always see the "in water" as the canon ending, but that's just me. This was my absolute favorite game of all time until Bloodborne dropped, but it's still #2, almost like #1b to Bloodborne's #1a. Side note: the scene with the fiery stairs at the end - just perfect. So fucking good.
Yeah, I've said before that Angela's final scene is utterly heartbreaking in terms of what the character is going through and then underscoring what we as players expect to be able to do for someone we care for; they basically know that we would probably want to save Angela and then taunt us over that. We can't even really save James, nevermind her.
what's special about the Bloodborne ending?
_The Suffering_ is the best Silent Hill game to not carry the name. It really hits all the notes the series is famous for.
Now that's a conversation I wish I'd hear, but I don't think they cared much for that game when it came out.
From everything I've heard, The Machinist is also shockingly similar in tone and theme to SH2.
18:00
Apparently the guy who directed the first movie is directing a new Silent Hill movie. I don't expect much from it but I hope it will at least be stupidly entertaining.
19:54
If he ever plays Silent Hill 3 he'll realize why casting Kit Harrington as Vincent was a catastrophically stupid idea.
20:46
Vincent isn't the main character in Silent Hill 3 or the second movie. He is a supporting character in both.
Another little fun fact about the first movie. The guy who wrote the screen play went to prison for manslaughter after a drunk driving incident.
It has to be a sh2 adaptation then 0_0 unless we get a direct sequel to the 1st film
@@B0110CK5 There's been no word yet as to what exactly it's going to be. All he said was he was making another one. I don't know if it's going to be a sequel or a reboot or what .
@@B0110CK5 I think it's more likely that the next film would be an adaptation of 2 as the 2nd movie is already a botched version of 3/a direct sequel.
@@Brandon_Powell Honestly they should give Silent Hill to Darren Aronofsky the director of Black Swan or Alex Garland the director of Annihilation.
@@li-limandragon9287 I haven't seen either of those movies but I'm familiar with the tone and style of both of them. I'd personally like to see a story taking place within the world of Silent Hill that isn't a direct adaptation. Something that continues the tone and theme without any of the direct events.
You know it's always interesting to hear discussions of the endings and seen different let's players get to different endings. I've personally always been more fond of leave ending over others, (Besides dog of course, nothing tops dog). But it's always just cool to hear different discussions of what ending people enjoy the most, or what they seem as fitting so to speak. Not many games have endings like this, the only other one i can off the top of my head think of is Spec ops the line. But in any case, will be happy to see the rest of the let's play as it's posted!
In early teenage years i think i found "in water" ending somewhat romantic in a morbid way (as a teenage might), sort of like Romeo and Juliet, not the actual thing, but the most common aura around it - oooh, both died, love, romantic.
Since then i lost someone very dear to me, they were gone, and i was still there, and i had to somehow live since the alternative isn't much of an option. I very much prefer "leave" ending now. It's hopeful.
@@VadBlackwood Yeah, leave to me has always fit better as what i see the ending as. It's the ability to keep going, to keep moving, despite everything.
Also, I'm sorry for your loss.
23:30 There's been a lot of speculation about Laura actually being a figment of the town. One of the reasons is how ridicolous the idea of her travelling there on her own.
The other is that in official character bios she's the only character with no second name... like Maria.
That said, the idea that she meets Eddy near the town and supposedly arrives with him before splitting up disproves this.
Remember with the letter how Pat was like this is the best voice acting in a video game (clearly his subjective opinion, but still), and Matt was like ehhhhh I wouldn’t say that (again, it was Pat’s OPINION). Yeah…Yeah I really wish it was Woolie and Pat who did that LP years ago.
I mean it's nearly impossible for me to go back to any old LP's or podcast episodes involving Matt because he was just always pissy and would always find a way to shift the conversation to be about himself while giving some of the worst takes imaginable. I mean I still remember when RE2 Remake came out and it was getting universal acclaim and Matt decided to try and be a contrarian on Twitter saying it wasn't that good and complaining about classic RE things like zombies being bullet sponges and the fact that he couldn't just murder everything he saw like it was fucking RE5 and 6 while saying the best versions of Claire and Jill were Umbrella Chronicles. He then deleted the tweets when everyone started telling him how shit these takes were only for him to recycle them a few months later into his review of the game...
@@Lonequacker Jill and Claire in the Wii games are just generically hot perfect waifus, at least Capcom had the balls to make them look realistic and not idealised in RE2make and RE3make. I do like Matt in spite of his problems but a lot his takes are dumb and wrong.
@@li-limandragon9287 out of everything you can "grade" in a video game, "realism" is definitely not of them. Not even simulators that doesn't gives a shit about video game shenanigans because there's always something that will be ignored for one reason or another
@@Lonequacker I miss 2011-2013 Matt. We thought he was acting dumb when he did stuff like throw the fire axe into that chasm back then, but it was worse than that. He thought he was acting dumb, and he wasn't.
@@ricardomiles2957 I mean “realism” the in sense Claire and Jill in the remakes don’t really look idealised mega hot HD CG women like say Tifa and Aerith in FF7 remake. They look like pretty attractive real world women rendered in realistic-looking CG, you still find people plenty of people who call them ugly or like Matt dislike them compared to Wii Lightgun games version where Jill and Claire might as well come from anime.
That P.T comment hit me too damn hard
Silent hill 1 is basically random guy with no baggage (aside from being a widower) plus random policewoman gets involved in SH shenanigans, and it's fairly grounded, well, for a mystical horror story at least. And everything after that became super mystical and super unclear.
Eh, 3 is still pretty clear, being a more or less direct sequel and all. Hell, like the vast majority of SH1's lore comes from 3.
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Really? I remember it really fuzzy because I only played SH3 once and with super scuffed translation (English isn't my first language you see) like what, 18 years ago? So I don't really remember much of it aside from super hard puzzle in book shop, secret uzi silencer and "Do they look like monsters to you?"
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Problem is while I love SH3 it’s way of telling the lore of the Order is far from crystal clear and is very heavy handed in it approach. It also doesn’t help we don’t even see members of the cult that aren’t Claudia and Vincent, although I assume the monsters Heather sees are cult members.
With SH1, so much of it was “What the fuck is going on” and it only became about the Order at the very end that it gets more of a free pass imo.
Leave always made the most sense narratively to me. I don't see why James would kill himself after having a big "I'm not letting you control me anymore" moment against the two Pyramid Heads and the Mary boss and kill himself afterwards when it's framed in a more triumphant 'facing your demons head-on' kind of tone.
Makes more sense to me he'd try to atone by trying to give Laura a better life, much like Harry Mason before him. Silent Hill always had that underlying focus of forgiveness and redemption in all it's games after all.
I see James 'taking back control' from the town as him not willing to torture himself any more and accepting the truth about Maria. The town can't offer him what he wants - he tells Maria that 'she's not Mary', and he knows the only way to be with Mary - to be happy - is to end it. That's not accepting punishment, which is what Pyramid Head is, and it's not letting himself be tormented any more.
@@MrStath1986 I feel like the entire crux of Silent Hill 2 details a story on how you can't just ignore grief or try to fill the hole with other people or things. That happiness is something that relies on oneself rather than external elements and that you shouldn't tie your self-worth to the existence of others. Angela and Eddie couldn't overcome their trauma or impulses, they never truly had a 'choice' in their minds.
I can buy into this idea you presented, but only as a way of making the ending even more grim to face your demons and willingly decide to end it all anyway. The question if this is fitting I guess depends on your perspective on Silent Hill. When taken as a whole, alongside Silent Hill 1 and 3 especially, I still feel like the games have an optimistic and hopeful message at the end of the day.
That's what seperate Silent Hill a lot from the misery porn-type horror games of today. That idea that even fundamentally broken people, either mentally or from the circumstances of their birth, can find their own happiness. Hence why I like the idea of James eventually getting his own happy ending like Cheryl eventually did.
I was kinda hoping Woolie would jump into SH3 sooner than later, especially since this clip kinda tells that 3's connections to 1 & 2 helps discuss a lot of the topics covered here, especially if you want to bring up the movies of all things
Still, loving the LPs and hoping for more in the future!
Oh yeah, in my opinion 3 is 2's equal, if only in an apples and oranges way.
@@RipOffProductionsLLC I say 4’s story holds is on par with 2, 3 is awesome thanks to Heather but the Order and Alessa just aren’t that interesting in comparison imo.
Has he played 1? I feel like that's essential before touching 3
@@jamescollinge5043 yes, like he played it right before he played 2
woolie interprets the game taking the players actions as the players actions and seems to feel like he was tricked into the in water ending, when in reality the game is doing a very subtle trick playing with the players expectations and behaviors and translating what those behaviors would ACTUALLY mean onto james, not 'the character' but literally james in his head space. I don't know what devs were doing in the ps2 era to make these fucking phenominal leaps of game story telling tech but the same use of player confusion/action to punctuate moments was done in mgs3 when you have to kill the boss, and it's just I wish we had even an ounce of this writing talent on the ground level of development these days.
24:00
I wouldn't call anything from the town a figment of the town because that implies that they aren't real. I've seen a lot of people fall into the trap of assuming that the town is causing delusions or hallucinations. That's not the case. These are real flesh and blood beings that the town has manifested.
Look at it like this. Alessa used her mental abilities to tap into the power of the town to create Cheryl as well as the newborn baby at the end of the first game. It's essentially the same thing that's happening in silent hell 2 only Alessa isn't creating them this time.
25:00
This is not what's happening at all. The same rules from the first game apply to Silent Hill 2. The town manifests realities based on peoples subconscious. This is why other people can see the monsters like when Harry saves Kaufman in the bar and why James can see Angela's personal nightmare in the fire.
27:26
In Silent Hill 1 the devil only showed up because Alessa believed in the teachings of the cult. Therefore the town manifested the devil out of her subconscious.
Also the Silent Hill movie is one of the few, if not the only, movie that uses songs from the video game.
The first time I played SH2 I got the Leave ending and It's still my favourite.
I too, love when a game makes me feel like absolute shit. Just heartbroken and empty inside. I'm always down to have a good time having a bad time.
The very first ending I got was the Leave ending, and I think that was because the lack of immediate feedback about the character's health state made me rather paranoid from someone who is used to the sort of very visible character states of the Resident Evil series. I think all of us at one point or another had an "oh fuck" moment in our first playthroughs where we go to check our health and we were closer to death's door than we thought, or at least I see it happening a lot in first time playthroughs.
actually the reason for making harry into rose was stupider, it was because ganse didn't believe a man could love his daughter enough to want to save her from silent hill
I wonder if Woolie would ever try out Eternal Darkness, a different kind of survival horror to be sure, but still amazing in it's own right and honestly the most excited I had heard Pat be during the finale of a game.
You get a bunch of Jeniffer Hale voicing the protagonist, some Eldritch bullshit, it's fantastic.
In Water is the most satisfying to me also because it include one extra line in the scene with Mary on the bed, where James admits that a part of him hated her. I don't believe that line is in the other endings, but BOY is that a real feeling
James also says part of him hated Mary in the Leave ending; it's just worded slightly differently.
I hope woolie plays 3 atleast, he has to know what happens.
Man, I wish that I could experience SH2 blind, I made the mistake of watching videos on it beforehand, but I want to play it at least once. But I don’t know if I can do it authentically, since I know the twists, and I can’t say that I could get a Legitimate reaction
Better than when I first played SH2. I did play it blind, but I played it on PC. However, my laptop couldn't support dynamic lighting so when I turned the flashlight on all the textures vanished.
Authentic or not, the game is amazing and worth every second.
My Favorite line still to this day in Video Games that still hits every time I hear it " Monsters...? They look like monsters to you?"
As someone who's struggled with mental health for so long with severe depression silent hill 2 was like a home I shouldn't feel welcomed to but felt natural to be in and there was no other experience I felt than with silent hill 2, I understood the rusted sadness
Laura tramped to silent hill in eddies van... She does not live there. You can see them in the intro sequence by his van.
In a lot of Japanese Horror, the supernatural can be near omnipotent. I wouldnt be surprised if Maria is a real person. Its left ambigious and up to interpretation though. But in 1 we have seen life being created two times.
The Maria Born from a Wish side game implies she was once a different person but I much prefer the idea she was created out of whole cloth.
@@li-limandragon9287 doesn't really matter for the plot but the implication of Maria being once a real person creates this eerie possibility that anyone near the city could be turned in to a tool of torment with
@@ricardomiles2957 True.
11:20 a way better example of this is when you get the radio and Mary talks to him through it, albeit through static. The subtitles mess with you a bit but I implore you to look up the version without static, and then look at the scene where he finds the radio in the original with the static. Mary asks “Why did you kill me?” And that one line is still very clearly audible even with the static in the original. the subtitles just mess with you so you don’t really hear it because you’re trying to hear something else in your head. Try and compare the 2 and you’ll see. It was BALLSY of them to just drop that in in the first half hour of the game
For reference, here’s the links.
Here’s the uncensored nonstatic version of the line: th-cam.com/video/d5xY4EDvEgk/w-d-xo.html
And the static version:
th-cam.com/video/wcnPMoNDltk/w-d-xo.html
it was RIGHT THERE. IN YOUR FACE. You just didn’t listen close enough
LMAO Zangief has to be held with two hands now
I can't buy Laura at all.
Think about it. Think about how much time Laura must have spent with Mary to develop feelings of wanting to adopt her.
Think about the time spent, the talks, the secret jokes... think about what happiness Laura must have brought to Mary.
And Mary Never Mentions Laura At All To James?
Not once? I know it's Canon. I know I can go to the wiki right now and read about her exploits with Mary. But doesn't that ring false for anyone else?
Laura being a construct makes a hell of a lot more sense than a real, living person that just happens to show up in impossible moments given that she's supposed to be walking around the real Silent Hill.
The OG Let's Play of SH2 with Matt is the Citizen Kane of Let's Plays!
The town can make monsters an distort reality so a can of light bulbs isn't that weird. Heck I like to think the town made that pizza for Eddie an left it there for him. It sounds goofy yeah but the town can pull items an areas from different times an places
Boxes full of ammunition, a old can opener and a box of pizza. What's the difference really
Pyramid Head with the Liyng Figure is far more explicit than the Mannequins. Obviously sexual. Pretty much proven that PH's model has James unter the mask. The executioner emulates those he executes.
The Pyramid Head itself alludes to James being blind to the truth, he’s like PH an unstoppable entity that keeps fighting and moving forward. Once James accepts what he’s done, Pyramid Head dies.
Memory of Alessia is to Heather what Pyramid Head is to James.
I do hope they end up playing SH3 because its a good ass game too. Some people even like it more than 2!
"PT had zero sales, thus continuing the trend!"
ahahaha, my soul hurts.
I was so looking foward to this conversation, it was great guys, thank you truly. I wouldn't mind if it was like 6 hours long though just saying, can't have enough of SH2.
I feel [In Water] is the least appropriate "real" ending.
My reasoning being almost solely based on the circumstances James receives Mary's Letter.
It's the catalyst that sends him to Silent Hill. He received it after killing Mary, but he never got the catharsis the player gets. Instead, it sent him into full-on denial.
He kills his wife, reads the letter that details their relationship and how difficult is was for them, but the words are hollow because James killed her.
At the endgame, James receives Mary's Letter again, except this time it's in earnest. The Mary giving him the letter says "You've killed me, and you're suffering for it", giving him some form of redemption. That resolution is what James needed to hear to get on with life, not end it.
Yes but James doesn’t really have a life beyond Mary, do remember Maria the manifestation from the town of James’s desire to find new love to satisfy himself has Mary’s face. He will always love Mary even at his worst and without her life has no point for him.
Rebirth genuinely feels the most appropriate to me, James will literally do anything to see Mary again so he’ll call upon the dark gods of the town to resurrect her.
In Water just better fits the tone of the rest of the game. Pyramid Head was designed with In Water in mind and Pyramid Head exits the game killing himself.
Years ago, I've read a blogger's translated official Japanese novelizations of Silent Hill 1 and Silent Hill 2, and the Silent Hill 2 novel offered interesting insight into James' thoughts during the events of the game, how he reacted to every monster and message he found. For example, what sticks out in my memory of the translated novelization is that James had no qualms about killing the Lying Figure monsters in self defense, but whenever he was forced to attack and kill the Bubblehead Nurses, he always felt guilty about doing it because he assumed the nurse monsters are actually normal human women that ended up getting deformed by some kind of disease, and that killing them is actually an act of mercy towards them, but later he realized his rationalizations is a lie meant to hide something from himself.
I never got how anybody was surprised by the "twist" of the 6th Sense.
aww bummer i was hoping he would do sh 3 and sh 4
I always figured pyramid head was meant to look like a pillow over a persons face (coming to a peak in the front, bending back towards the sides)
As far as Silent hill movies go I think they can easily work if handled well, Like Pat admits the first one has its moments. A detail I love is in the first movie the monsters are played by professional dancers who can shift and contort their bodies in ways that feel unnatural.
I think SIlent Hill 4 the room could work as a movie.
If we are directly lifting the dialog's syntax from sh2, we can trust M. Night Shyamalan to create a faithful adaption of the game.
Would love to watch a LP of either of you guys playing Darkwood! It has serious Silent Hill vibes, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I beat it a year ago.
The first ending I got was the Leave ending but I feel like the In Water ending is the most thematically appropriate.
The lakeside hotel is still burning.
Pat without a beard is the physical embodiment of a Silent Hill fan.
Which is weird because a fan is already physical as fuck.
Also to be fair, the Incubus at the end of Silent Hill is a psychic manifestation of Alessa's view of the cult's god. Dahlia wanted to control that "God" because she knew all the cult nonsense was just that, nonsense. But when you focus that belief system into a psychic...
Sorry if someone else had said this aparently the monologue was done in one take and she had just flewn into japan on a red-eye and was super tired and it just came out super authentic. Also id argue that her voice actor did the best job on all her lines for the entire game!! Angella’s voice actor redeems herself in silent hill 3 tho
The legs are the only thing he could see during...
Silent Hill 2 deserves a Destroy all humans style remake.
Nah, Konami'd fuck it up.
Isn't that kinda what the fan made patches do though?
Besides, I think 2's art direction was very carefully designed around exactly how blurry/low res/ low poly the textures and models would be, take advantage of tje brain's gap filling powers.
@@RipOffProductionsLLC This. This game and SH3 still look very, very good for their age, and not in the 'limitations of the console' kinda way as SH1.
@@MrStath1986 yeah, the only think I'd want "fixed" in SH2 or 3 is the shadows not being that exact, they seem to only be cast by the main body and not stuff like hair, and are noticeably blockier then the person casting them.
Pat looks like a talking egg
I would argue that to tell the silent hill 2 story in a movie… you don’t necessarily need to explain the town… toooo much
It’s more character driven than world driven is how I always saw it
It's not fair to compare the two also because sh2 came out first but there are similarities to MGS3 and sh2
I’m honestly suprised all the podcast isn’t just then talking about recent games woolies played
I still think In Water fits the best thematically. What you guys say near the end about Harry being a hero and James not being that, yeah, that. He doesn’t deserve that happy ending in any way, shape, or form, and I’d argue it’s even a bit thematically tone deaf. James has finally realized what he has done and is now ready to punish himself for what he has done, which is why the 2 Pyramid Heads stop attacking him and kill themselves, he’s accepted the guilt and is willing to punish himself now. In the leave ending its like what the fuck because people are like “he learned his lesson and should be allowed to go and live a normal life like Mary wanted” what fucking lesson dude? Don’t kill your terminally ill wife? He’s still like…an irredeemable murderer and all around bad person, and once he finally realized that he should just be..let go scott free? All is forgiven? Laura doesn’t mind?
I think context wise the In Water ending makes most sense, then the Maria ending (which is the roughest one because it’s just showing that James is a cold uncaring person that’s willing to do it all again just for some eye candy) then the Leave ending.
An actual happy ending for James considering the context of the game is just kinda something I’ve always found dumb, him now just going somewhere and have a happy life and adopt Laura after all that and Laura being okay with that despite the last scene of them together she’s actually mad about James killing Mary? Nahhhh man it’s just not it man. Also considering Masahiro Ito recently confirming Mary is in the trunk of his car at the very start of the game makes the whole “now we can finally be together” a lot stronger of a line.
There’s also the graves in the yard in the prison and a bunch of other stuff that corroborates the In Water ending so much more than the Leave one. James was going to die there, whether he accepts what he did or not. Irredeemable. He knows it. Laura knows it. Hell, the evil force of the town knows it. I thought that was kind of the whole point of the ending sequence, basically the entire hotel. Sure, there’s empathetic sides to James’ reasoning, but if Angela has to die for a much less senseless killing for a MUCH more sympathetic reason then why would James get off clear as day? Shit just makes 0 sense.
(For what it’s worth, the Maria ending is the most cutting but also the funniest, maybe next to the joke endings. James literally gives a giant middle finger fuck you to Silent Hill and just starts banging the weird silent hill monster manifestation version of his wife cuz she’s hot)
Yeah I agree 100% in water is the most thematically accurate and least ridiculous ending. Just because people aren't comfortable with grim realities in storytelling doesn't mean that it is somehow less valid because there's no redemption or satisfying conclusion. The logical thing to do would be to end it right then and there, especially considering the events leading up to/ symbolism throughout the game about other characters suffering and faded memories of what they've done. It's not a game about mental healing it's about grief and guilt and the horrors associated with them lol. Any other interpretation is ironically deluded as well imo.
I think its implied that the in water ending is james goes out on the boat to drown himself in the lake
25:20 I like to think that Silent Hill the normal town has a drug problem so people shambling around aren't uncommon at most they'll get an eye roll as people try to avoid them.
Makes sense to me if we go with people who have troubled pasts turning to drugs is a common phenomena
PAT WITH A BEARD IS SUCH A BETTER LOOK FOR HIM!