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silent hill 2 diary

playthrough No. 1

- entry 9 angela

i've been thinking a lot about angela since finishing the game. her story makes me so sad.

it breaks my heart that she would feel so tortured by what she went through and the lengths she had to go to to free herself from the pain that she ended up in silent hill.


angela's knife

i don't blame angela for killing her abusers. she suffered a lifetime of pain, and a single moment of self defense.

- entry 8 ending and final thoughts (spoilers)

i led james to kill himself.

from the moment his involvement in mary's death became apparent early on i decided to play for the in water ending. his overwhelming guilt and self loathing for what he did are everywhere in this game. every breath he takes is tainted and he is weighed down by the consequences of his actions. james wanted punishment and i decided to help him get it.

i knew he had killed mary but i was surprised to see how he did it. i thought maybe one day they were fighting and he lost his cool, attacking her in an instant only to realize he had gone too far and actually killed her. a one time lapse of judgement brought about in a fit of rage. suffocation is physically more gentle, but emotionally?

i didn't want james to have a happy ending because he hates himself and i can't help but hate him too. i hate his entitlement over mary. i hate that he didn't visit her in the hospital when she was suffering. i hate that he saw what happened to HER as a curse on HIM and his life. i hate that he couldn't help but argue with mary any time he did visit her, that he didn't console her, that he didn't offer her assurance, that he didn't listen to her, that he grew to hate her for something she couldn't possibly control.

situations like these are so incredibly painful for everyone involved. i'm sure there's a lot of discourse about james amongst sh fans, but i don't particularly care to look into it. to me, he's a coward. he was a horrible husband who felt so trapped by his wife's illness that he acted out in desperation to free himself.



james knows he didn't do it for her. he tries to convince himself for a moment, but he can't, because he knows it's not true. she was so sad, she felt so alone, so abandoned, completely ugly and useless in the world and not even her husband could give her the love she desperately needed in her last moments. no wonder she just wanted to get it over with.

i'm not saying it's easy to care for a dying loved one, or that it doesn't completely take over one's life. i don't blame james for feeling all the things he felt. even the resentment towards having lost the trajectory of their shared life and possibility of having children. i also don't think it's completely his fault that mary would constanly lash out in anger. even if he had been kinder to her she would still have to battle with all the emotions that come with dying so slowly and painfully, and seeing the pain it inflicts on your loved ones.

i just think it is possible to offer so much more love and understanding...

when i put myself in james's shoes i hate him even more. i don't think i would be able to breathe if i knew the love of my life was alone in a hospital room, waiting to die. i couldn't bare to spend a single second without them while they were in pain. i'm sure there are people who would call me naive and say it's easier said than done cause reality is much harsher but i don't agree, at least for me. if i loved someone enough to marry them i could never bring myself to blame them for falling ill. i just couldn't. i would curse the world and blame the universe, i would become hateful and angry and resentful and wonder why me? but i could never blame my love.

when i think about james's selfishness i can't help but think of the AIDS crisis of the 80s. how many young gay people lived through this exact situation? their entire lives, robbed of them with a diagnosis. the amount of pain felt by an entire community, all the young queer people who had to hold their partners' hands, watching them become pail and frail... to james and mary this is an anomaly, because this kind of thing just isn't supposed to happen to young people. except it does. when i think about the real life people who had to go through that and then i hear a story like james's and husbands who emotionally check out when their wife is dying (even if murder isn't involved)... i find it really hard to have sympathy for the survivor.

i don't think you will end up in the same place as mary, james.

- entry 7

i got throught the hotel very quickly. i just happened to get lucky with the path i took cause every item i picked up became immediately useful, i didn't have to backtrack at all.


laura drew the cutest picture of a cat on the window!


this scene with maria hanging upside down next to pyramid heads is absolutely sickening.


mary?

i really loved the setting of the hotel. the final boss was incredible, what a design! i got the ending i wanted (in water) and i'm excited to play again some time, especially for the rebirth and dog endings.

- entry 6

after jumping down bottomless pit after bottomless pit james finds himself deep in the prison and i want to die. angela and eddie are there too. who cares.

words can't describe how much i HATED the prison labyrinth. the sounds were very scary which was cool but i just truly don't have the spacial awareness for shit like this.


this is MY personal hell.

running around trying to find my way through the sewer was absolutely miserable. the area was so bare and empty (classic prison) which made me feel like i was losing my mind. message recieved.


this is how i felt playing in this area.

the two seconds of conversation with maria were the only good part of this entire level. i'm so unbelievably excited to move onto another setting.

- entry 5

something tells me james never read the monkey's paw in high school. despite the general kill yourself and rot in hell vibes silent hill is putting out he is pushing through. he has a goal dammit, and i will help him see it through!


uh huh.


there's nothing like descending down a dark, dank hole.

even in the dark silent hill is beautiful. aside from all the death, destruction and monsters everywhere, it seems like a really nice place to live. on a nice, sunny day it would be the dream walkable city.

- entry 4

james, james... such a guilty conscience. he seems pretty tormented about not being the big strong man he needed to be to protect his wife. what exactly happened between them?

i got a good laugh at him promising laura he wouldn't yell at her and then immediately yelling LIAR!! also when maria insisted they find her he's like why do you even care? lol. oh james.


"...this is no time to be looking at a stupid poster."


i like the cute picture of a fridge he drew on the map.

the hospital puzzles were significantly easier than the apartment ones. i liked the setting a lot. i failed the box puzzle even though i knew the answers cause i didn't realize what it was and just pressed random buttons... oops. i probably would have failed anyway cause i couldn't remember which letter each answer corresponded to. oh well.

the bodies hanging from the ceiling that attack with their feet were great. the random sounds of a breaking window and a crying baby were so scary! it made me think of the p.t. sink baby.

i miss maria already. she was so demanding and condescending... i loved her.

- entry 3

i finally met maria! thank god. i really don't know how much longer i could go without a hot babe trailing behind me. she is nothing but rude and dismissive of james while actively trying to seduce him cause she looks exactly like his wife. and has her same name. and voice. nothing to unpack here.

i'm so in love with the overworld. sure, it's dilapidated and gross but the design is so beautiful! i can see how rosewater park was their special place, it's so gorgeous!

i'm curious about the art scene in silent hill. the murals around town are so lovely. were they done by just one local artist, or were there many?


my favorite art in the game so far. cute!



the music in the bowling alley and heaven's night is so good! i just wish they were bigger areas so i could listen for longer; maybe i'll keep a save for vibing purposes. i could just play the songs on youtube, but that's no fun.

- entry 2

easy is definitely WAY too easy. i have more ammo, health drinks and first aid kits than i know what to do with. i assume i'm gonna keep finding stuff and there's no point in being precious with it so i guess i'm just gonna be trigger happy. might as well. i'll definitely pick harder settings for sh3.

the riddles are fine so far, the coin and clock thing were simple enough to work out. i got stuck with the garbage chute cause i forgot i had picked up some canned juice and didn't realize i could use it there. i'll try to keep in mind that i need to test out everything in my inventory if i'm stuck again.

james is funny. he really just... doesn't think too much about what's going on.

james when he sees someone else in a room with blood covered walls and a corpse in the corner: oh word you're here too? you should leave, this place sucks. btw have you seen this pyramid thing? no? oh well. see ya!

- entry 1

this is my first time playing silent hill 2.

i don't own a ps2 so i'm playing it with the pcsx2 on my macbook using the joycons from my switch. it's not an ideal setup but it gets the job done. so far, most of my time has been spent remapping the buttons on the controllers and fixing graphics issues.

i have my game set to easy, and the riddles on normal. i think easy might actually be too easy, but whatever, i'm not playing the whole intro over. i suck at fighting so it's for the best. i've only just made it to the wood side apartments, so i'm still at the very beginning of the game. my thoughts so far:

the 3d camera is fucking insane to me. idk if i messed up when mapping the buttons or if it really just sucks, but i hate it, i'll just stick to 2d. i do really enjoy the fixed camera regardless. i love the reactive map. thank you for marking down everything so clearly james! i have awful spacial awareness so i'll be using the map a LOT.



speaking of james, i don't know him well enough yet to have an opinion on him. i did enjoy how quickly he told the woman at the cemetery that he doesn't give a fuck if silent hill is dangerous, and how he has almost no reaction to the town being crawling with monsters.

i'm in love with the look of this game. the graphics and textures are so beautiful, i wish i could be playing on a crt to experience them at their ultimate potential.

the music is also so striking and beautiful. the eerie mechanical droning in the background reminds me of eraserhead. i can't wait to hear more of the soundtrack!