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I would love to start a discussion thread about Downpour. I love reading about alternate endings and monster/town symbolism after I complete a SH game. I inevitably have questions about some things in the game that I didnt quite pick up on while playing through.Well, I just finished the game and got the B, 'Truth and Justice' Ending. Id like to hear what other endings people have gotten and what they all mean. Ive watched all of the endings on youtube, but didnt quite understand a couple of them:/. Namely the 'Reversal' and 'Special' endings (Im sure that the special ending is similar to the dog ending in SH2, a 'just cause' ending.).My questions are this: What was the symbolism for DJ Rick and the mailman? Were they simply other characters trapped in the Silent Hill world?
For more help on Silent Hill Downpour, read our Endings, Side-Quests and Mysteries Locations Guide. Following are the solutions to the story-related and side-quests puzzles you will come across in.
The mailman never really acknowledges the horror of the town like DJ Rick does. I didnt quite understand the symbolism of the Red Mist (or whatever its called). To me, I guess it meant that Murphy was trying to always run from the redness which symbolised his life in prison that he was trying to escape (not really sure on that one, just guessing).
Any thoughts? Also, my ending almost made it seem like the whole thing was a 'dream' It ended with Murphy and Officer Cunningham next to the bus crash. Since they both acknowledged where they were, I know it wasnt a dream, but it was a bit different than the other SH games.Anyone have any thoughts or other discussion points? I personally loved the game. I know it got a lot of hate early on, but I got it saturday night, and couldnt put it down all weekend.
I think my final finishing time was just under 8 hrs, but i didnt do just a whole lot of exploring or sidequests. I don't know if symbolism and Silent Hill Downpour necessarilly go hand in hand for everything about it.While it's obvious that they are trying to win over the Silent Hill 2 crowd by pushing a 'This is a lot deeper than everyone thinks' type of theme, there is far less going on in this than SH2.Lets not compare this to Silent Hill 2 and instead. Lets compare it to Silent Hill 1 and 4 because those are the onse I feel that this game most closely resembles in a sense. I will explain.In SH1 the creatures didn't so much symbolize things about Harry himself but they were just creatures that were there like any horror game. There was a dog because it's a dog, there was a strange pterodactyle because it was there. The ghosts in the school, the nurses in the hospital, the worm in the sand, etc. The creatures were there because it fit the setting.
Not because it represented something about the characters inner turmoil. It was there because that was what happened.In Silent Hill 4 you run into ghosts that were murdered, twisted monkey creatures, dogs, wandering twisted creatures, strange baby headed things. The creatures in 4 are absolutely representative of. Nothing other than the man who had been murdering people, at most. The creatures really just fit in with the setting and the overall story. It wasn't something of 'Henry has masturbation issues, so he see's a lot of big tittied penis monsters just walking around that spit acid.' Which brings me to Downpour.
Downpour is American made and I don't think they quite got it when it came to creatures being representative and not literal. The creatures felt more in place with games like Gears of war (I admit I thought the screamer witch women were pretty cool the first time I saw them.
Then they were annoying)There are pretty much 4 enemies in Downpour. Cave Creatures that crawl on ceilings, male and female screamers (they are basically the same, don't deny it), the doll girls (the best and most SH like of the creatures), and the juggernauts that appear in the end of the game.They are so straight forward and unappealing in terms of what they are. They aren't scary to look at, in fact they all seem rather straight forward and mean little more than 'He's a guy from prison so he's gonna fight guys that look like they are from prison and crazy ladies. And cave creatures.'
What's the meaning behind the red ball besides giving a break in the few puzzles that are in the game that are pathetic? It's maybe a representation of guilt? But really it doesn't make any damn sense because he doesn't feel guilty for killing the child molester, he feels guilty for the good cop dying. They make it really apparent that he just doesn't give a fuck about killing the man that killed his kid but feels far worse for failing to help the cop.The endings and of the 3 that I got from one playthrough on my first playthrough there is the one where you kill her, let her live and let her kill you.
The best by far is where you let her kill you. That was the one ending that got me excited.Overall we need to give Silent Hill back to the japanese and stop making them. They seem to understand survival horror better than Americans.Edit: Forgot to mention DJ Ricks and the Mailman. I don't know what either of them mean honestly.
It's obvious that Ricks knew something about the town and I liked the idea that if you were to be a part of the town you had to play a role and just act it through. The Mailman has a moment where he's obviously knowing what's going on but he won't do anything about it. They are representatives of the town I guess. They play along with the town and the town allows them to live. It's not until Ricks breaks character that the town has no need for him and I suppose the town will find a replacement. I agree that the homecoming monsters were pretty good and attained the Silent Hill feel, but the movie actually probably is the closes to the original games in monster design considering they just copied and pasted them. Come to think of it I think homecoming got a few ideas from the movie.As for this game I had mixed feels about the monster design.
Generally I got the impression that these monsters were actually making homages to previous Silent Hill titles. With how they acted and were sort of designed.Screamers: I deferentially saw influence from shattered memories in these. How they'll attempt to tackle you. And their feminine qualities. But after that they are more of something from a grudge movie rather than typical silent hill. However I found them to be the creepiest monsters and the rare few that didn't get on nerve.Weeping Bats: I actually found these things to be similar to homecomings monster design. However that may be due to it's pinkish skin tone.
Their shape and form some what remind me of (or what I like to dub 'rapers').Wall Spatters: +Aristocrat: very much similar to one of Silent Hill 4s bosses.,Boogeyman + Void: Both represented revenge, one being the ugly desire and the other being the physical manifestation and form of how we see those. I think we can all agree that these two were meant to be much like pyramid head.
Judgement characters that punish us for our desires.The Wheelman: I compare this much to the final bosses of SH2 and SH3. It's very similar to Mary/Maria in that it's guilt reformed and shaped to be perceived by Murphy. But the design somewhat reminds me of God from SH3.The Prisoners/Juggernauts: I honestly have nothing. I don't know if Downpour would have been better off as an entirely different title altogether. If it was called say, 'Pendleton.' Then I would be talking about it as a great Silent Hill knock off or something. I think the inclusion of the QTE's, the sliding down slides, running away from a giant red orb, all of this broke form of Silent Hill.If anything there were moments that they missed to give the player a solid jump scare.
Prime example, the door transition. As the player opens a door the camera zooms into the door as the player opens it and nothing happens. I expected something to burst and scream.
Completely wasted. In fact it broke reason of why they did that. Whenever they had a moment where the camera was locked, suddenly the controls went retarded. Whenever the player had to shimmy across a board (all the numerous times) They were pointless and not tense or anything, just irritating and reminded me of playing Tony Hawk.Downpour just has a lot of missed opprotunities, especially with there being no real final boss battle. Wheelman was just an advanced QTE.
I dont think that the door opening scene was wasted at all. It added to the suspense because you didnt know what was beyond the door. However, the SH games rely on psychological suspense and creepiness rather than the jump-out-and-scare-you creepiness that you see in other games and movies.
They rely on you being confused, and not knowing what is around the corner - that is enough to get the player scared/unnerved, not having things jump out at you from behind a door. I think having something NOT jump out at you was more along the lines of a SH game. Yeah but the problem was that they did have a lot of jump scares if that's your point your making.
Which kind of throws this whole game off balance. When you're walking along about to power on the generator after being in the diner.
Jumped on by a creature from behind.When you're walking through the creepy house side quest, you grab an item. Creepy doll attacks you.If they wanted to keep the game at least consistent with it's style it actually should have kept the jump scares coming, maybe even came up with a system where it was randomized and monsters were random.
Something to keep the players from knowing what was coming up. As it is once you play the game once, the opening of the door doesn't unnerve the player, it just makes for a very bad transition that throws the camera out of wack occasionally.
I agree with you about the monsters. I would have liked to see a bit more variety in them. I will say that the fights were a bit more intense, especially with the male screamers and juggernauts. Since they just flailed their arms in no real rhythm, you couldnt 'sneak' in a hit between blows. This set it apart from past silent hill battles, but I guess it comes with the new age of gameplay - people wanting more intense fights. I wasnt turned off by the combat though, I found myself running away from a lot of fights because they werent necessary, or I didnt have a good weapon in hand. This gave a bit more suspense to the game in my opinion.
However, this wasnt quite as 'Silent Hill-y' as past games. It was a bit disappointing that basically all of the monsters were of human form - screamers, m and f versions, the dolls, and the juggernauts. Even the hanging bat creatures had arms/legs/heads kind of like humans.
Where in past games, you had the pterodactyls, no-face nurses, the daddy/table creature from 2, the spitters from 2, the insane cancers from 3, etc. While all have human qualities, the ones in downpour seemed more like crazy people from the Condemned games rather than monsters. Again, just a small gripe, but it didnt kill the game for me.SH2 is the only past game ive played through more than once, but I might give this one another go just to unlock more quests or explore more.
I didn't feel that the fights were tense. I felt they were annoying for some reason. At first I couldn't figure out what it was. I was playing and have only played on Hard so this is my experience btw.They block WAY too much and the best weapon, really the only weapon I used in the entire game was the double axe and the nail gun. When they eventually give you a shotgun by the end of the game, I only used it on the juggernauts.
Which half of them when you run into them you can treat them batman arkham city where they charge, you move out of the way and shoot them in the back.The hanging bat creature has a vagina face btw.Now that you mention they look like they belong in condemned then you're right. They look like they should all be in that game and not this one. I think the two creature's, the bad and the doll were okay ish. But really the bat moved too much like a big human. At first I was like 'Oh cool. It's a big guy?'
And it moves like a human.Being able to identify what you're looking at removes any fear from the situation. In fact it makes it less scary because you know it's potentially human and it has human qualities. Humans have faults and errors and we make mistakes all the time. Monsters don't make mistakes. They just destroy whatever is in front of them for the sake of destruction. That's why this game is the least scary of all the silent hills.ON the other hand, I did have a scary moment but it was weird because it was a glitch so.
This might not count as anything more than that.When wandering the original town on Hard/Hard (before you use the hook to pull down the ladder and meet the mail-man the second time) I spent a while actually not knowing where the hell to go or what to do. Checking every door, etc. I stopped killing the monsters. Well they weren't de-spawning so they were only duplicating more and more and more.
The game somehow got to a point where I would run into the subway for safety and if you stand just within the limits of the subway stairs they won't attack you. Upon doing so and just standing there and looking, I had somehow manifested upwards of 20 to 30 or so of these creatures just all standing and staring at me. Mostly it was the male screamers just watching, overlapping and clipping into one another, scattered about, occasionally you could see a female screamer standing in the distance of the fog.I ran into the subway, and then came out thinking that the 'save' would reset it. Instead I kept duplicating more and more until it was like a zombie horde.I didn't take a picture of it but I'm sure I can duplicate this glitch.Basically it renders a section unplayable. Half the creatures don't even move and maybe one or two take action.
It seems like the game just completely loses its mind when it's made so many creatures.So that was my scary moment. Regarding the monsters in SH1These were actually manifestations of Alessa/Cheryl's anxieties and fears.Dogs - Alessa disliked and feared dogs as a childNurses - From Alessa's hospital stayPterodactyle - One of Alessa's favorite books was 'A Lost World'and so forth and so on. None of Harry's fears or issues are really addressed since the town was basically manifesting off Alessa.
I'm pretty sure there's a wiki out there that goes into more detail regarding which monsters symbolize what.In regards to the Mailman, yes, the town is using him as a motivator to get Murphy to where he needs to be to confront his guilt. I believe he originally appeared in a comic tie-in taking place in the 1800s (don't quote me on the exact date). I don't know if Rick's was real or not, but it could honestly go either way. I was happy to get ending A and enjoyed a relatively happy ending (everyone's done with revenge).
As for understanding the reversal ending (and the game as a whole) you need to get that a major theme in the story of downpour is revenge. It solves nothing but to bring you into a living hell. The reversal ending shows the all encompassing nature of revenge. It was a lesson that Murphy had to learn, and by killing him, it puts Cunningham in his shoes (literally) for her to experience the same thing.As for everything else, it's complicated. What silent hill is isn't entirely clear.
That explains why it can end almost as if it was a dream. There is a portion that is entirely psychological to it (or at least there used to be, in 2 and 3) where it would manifest your personal demons as real. Each time someone makes a new silent hill game they make their own interpretation of it. But it always seems to be related to the personal hell of the protagonist. For example my interpretation of the red light is him being consumed by revenge (or I should say Silent Hill's physical manifestation of revenge).
The entire game is him coming to terms with the consequences of his revenge (no matter how it ended he starts by getting revenge and always has some part in the death of Frank). What Silent Hill does is make your psychological demons physical things that can kill you, but if you overcome them there's a chance you escape. It's like its own separate dimension that has control over your demons and can make them real, but rejects you when they're gone.The other characters were real, but didn't you notice how the nun and mailman dodged Murphy's questions? It has something to do with the 'rules' DJ Rick brought up, and by 'breaking character' (a possible 'rule' I guess) he was killed. You could argue that the other characters are tools of the town for the purpose of the punishment process it takes on the protagonists. They know this, and also know that they die if they don't act accordingly.
It's part of this interpretation of Silent Hill.Word of advice: do the sidequests. Some of them weren't too interesting, but the ones that were more than made up for it (I don't want to spoil them). Gotcha, that makes more sense about the characters playing their 'role'. I am also happy to get the ending I got.
The only 'not moral' choice I made was to taunt Sater in the beginning. I guess I was in kind of a bad mood, and well, he was drink and allegedly killed 8 kids so.But I got a nice feeling of closure to it, so I was happy with the outcome.I think I completed 2 of the sidequests. One was the spreading ashes of the woman in the lake (cant remember the other one atm). It was kinda neat, but didnt really add much to the total story.
Do you have any hints as to which ones to go for? (without spoiling them lol). I opened up several, but didnt finish them all. Note by when I say attempt I mean I loaded up an old save.First attempt I ended up with the reversal ending because I was hoping she would eventually stop and realize I wasn't a monster.Second attempt I ended up with ending A, I figured if she's going to try to kill me I might as well defend myself.The Mail Man I think much like Laura from 2 he was clean of 'sin,' innocent if you will. So instead of seeing monsters he just saw an opportunity. That or he didn't exist and was a manifestation to point Murphy in a few directions.DJ Rick Considering you find multiple notes in the prison that were written by him (or a man with the same name), I would say he was also on that bus and got out alive. He probably was also working out his own personal demons.As for the enemies I would need to think about that, I'll post again later when I'm not tired.
(Stayed up until 1:45 AM to just beat this game and watch the two endings.).
As the end of of December 2018, The franchise has sold over units since it first launched in 1999.2006, The total sales of the series of four works were. Silent Hill Silent Hill 2 Silent Hill 3 Silent Hill 4: The RoomTotal sales are copies at the end of December 2009 worldwide.Total sales are copies at the end of December 2010 worldwide.
Silent Hill: Origins Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Silent Hill: HomecomingTotal sales are copies at the end of December 2012 worldwide. Silent Hill: Downpour Silent Hill: Book of Memories Silent Hill HD Collection2015, The total sales of the series is 8.8 million.As the end of of December 2018, The franchise has sold over units since it first launched in 1999.Note, only the Konami knows all the reliable information. All these figures are from the official reports of the Konami.From this data it is possible to know approximately how many physical copies were sold each separately worldwide at the time of release. Did not see a similar topic. I propose to discuss. The best selling games remain 1 and 2. I'm a fan of both Resi and SH.
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