Quick Review:
Atmosphere: Horrible (compliment)
Story: Go in blind
Gameplay: Slow, tense, occasionally frustrating
Graphics: Beautifully miserable
Sound: Headphones highly recommended
First person: Works way better than I expected
Most Silent Hill thing: The monster is never the whole problem
Resident Evil usually scares me by giving me something horrible and then telling me to run from it. Townfall is often scarier when nothing is chasing me at all.
I’d walk into some miserable little room in St. Amelia, see the remains of somebody’s completely normal life, hear something weird through the CRTV and immediately want to be absolutely anywhere else. And when the story eventually starts explaining why a place feels wrong, the explanation ends up being worse than whatever I’d imagined.
The switch to first person is a pretty huge change for Silent Hill, and I wasn’t totally sold on it going in, but it really works. Being up close and personal with every little detail of St. Amelia is... intense. Abandoned homes and hospital rooms already feel wrong, well before the game gives you a reason why. Even the silence rarely feels properly Silent™.
The CRTV makes that tension even worse. Static, strange signals and scraps of information turn exploration into a constant question of whether something's really there or it's all in your head. I actually think I like it better than the basic radio from previous games.
Enemy encounters mostly get the balance right. Combat is limited and risky, and stealth gives you enough ways to observe, distract and slip past threats so fighting rarely feels like an obligation.
The more scripted pursuit sequences are… shakier. When you’re repeating the same section and figuring out where the game wants you to go, all that juicy tension starts to fade into frustrating trial and error. It’s a relatively small problem, but it stands out when the quieter, dare I say Silent™, horror around it works so much better.
And then the story is where all that dread really starts to pay off. I won’t get into specifics, because Townfall is much better when you slowly work out why St. Amelia feels the way it does. But usually, the answer is more upsetting than whatever monster happens to be nearby.
That’s also why the Resident Evil comparison only goes so far. I love being chased by some giant horrible thing as much as the next person, but Townfall sticks with me most when it gives me time to think about what I’ve just seen.
The monsters are scary, but the stuff underneath is so, so much worse.