Ranking the Silent Hill Games from Worst to Best

Introduction - That town I see in restless dreams

Growing up as a 1990s kid was a pretty cool time. We got to see technology grow and develop at such a rate that we saw so much. From the 8-bit days of the NES through to 3D technology with PlayStation, and even further beyond that as time went by. However, the choices we had back then weren't all that great. A lot of early "Horror" games were either kid-friendly ports of established horror IPs like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and other properties produced by the "rainbow of death" known as LJN. Meanwhile, in Japan, they got things like Sweet Home, the inspiration for Resident Evil.

Then came the time of the PlayStation. The 3D era that came about because of this little grey CD-reading console brought about a change in how horror was presented. With this new technology, developers were able to create entire worlds with more effects, better sound design, and a lot more blood. Gone were kid-friendly adaptations of horror movies, and in their place grew the exciting new genre of Survival Horror. Of course, it was 1996's Resident Evil that broke the mold and gave us one of the best horror games made at the time, spawning a genre and franchise that is popular to this day.

But as Horror and Survival Horror grew in popularity, it was a very action-heavy or zombie-focused area. Then along came Konami, creating Team Silent, who was tasked with making a new game... Except Team Silent had no idea what they were doing for a long time, even with complete freedom when it came to what they wanted to make. Eventually, Team Silent decided to go into the "fear of the unknown" and use psychological horror as the template for their new game: A game that made the location the star of the game, using sound and atmosphere to create tension and horror. Thus Silent Hill was born.

10. Silent Hill: Book of Memories (2012) - PlayStation Vita

Starting things off is Silent Hill: Book of Memories. This game was a huge departure from the traditional third-person Silent Hill games, going for a more isometric Diablo-style look and feel to tell its story. For the first time in Silent Hill history, the story didn't revolve around a person who stumbled into the town and goes through hell and more to seek redemption, atonement, etc. Silent Hill: Book of Memories gives the player their own choice from five character classes and goes on from there.

You, the player, get the mysterious "Book of Memories" for your birthday, a book that outlines your whole life. As Silent Hill: Book of Memories progresses, you try to change your own life for the better. The more you alter your own life, the darker and more troubling the outcomes become. You end up fighting a Guardian, who is the representation of someone else's life you have altered through the book, leading to you wanting to find your own Guardian to end the nightmare once and for all.

The thing with Silent Hill: Book of Memories is that it is such a bold departure from the series norm that it becomes annoying to play through. The PlayStation Vita is a decently powerful console that could have handled a normal third-person Silent Hill game with ease, especially since we got 2 PlayStation Portable games in that style previously. The other thing that puts Silent Hill: Book of Memories low on the list is that the story itself doesn't really feel very much like Silent Hill. Tales of redemption and looking at what you have done is what makes Silent Hill a great series, by making this a money-paw version of wish fulfillment isn't something that is all that exciting. When I originally owned Silent Hill: Book of Memories, I played it through once (Not 6 times to unlock all the endings) and sold the game right away, feeling like I wasted time and money on something that just wasn't Silent Hill at all.

9. Silent Hill: The Arcade (2007) - Arcade

Silent Hill can be many things, but if you thought that Silent Hill: Book of Memories was a vast departure from the Silent Hill norm, then let me introduce you to Silent Hill: The Arcade. Silent Hill: The Arcade is an on-rails-shooter Arcade game, that focuses more on action than horror of any kind.

The story of Silent Hill: The Arcade is pretty basic. You play as one of two characters who work together to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of the Little Baroness, a ship that disappeared off the coast from Silent Hill 75 years ago. As either Eric or Tina, you make your way through a "best of" Silent Hill & Silent Hill 2 locations as you try and solve the mystery and find Jesse, a girl who is running around Silent Hill too. Along the way, you fight weird mold men, dogs, nurses, and more Silent Hill favorites with the occasional fight against Pyramid Head as a "Boss" monster.

I was lucky to find this game in a local Arcade (remember when those were a thing?) that had quite a few import cabinets since Silent Hill: The Arcade had more of a Japan-only release than it did an international release.  While I'm no slouch when it comes to Arcade shooters, Silent Hill: The Arcade served as a very boring coin-muncher. I dropped almost $20 into this thing and barely made it halfway through the game, leaving me to find a long-play video on YouTube to see how it ended. Silent Hill: The Arcade had no horror, no suspense, and nothing really related to Silent Hill overall.

8. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2010) - Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2

There's not really much to say about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories as it relates to the overall Silent Hill experience. What started out as a whole new game in the Silent Hill series, Konami wanted something that celebrated Silent Hill's 10th anniversary, so things got changed to include the original story of Silent Hill. The psychological aspect, newly delivered as a therapy session that Harry Mason was having, would be implemented as a way to have an ever-evolving gameplay mechanic where players' answers during the sessions would impact the gameplay over time.

The story of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories doesn't quite mirror the story of Silent Hill, but instead retells the basics of the story: Harry searching for his daughter Cheryl through the town of Silent Hill while making changes based on choices the player makes throughout the game. The biggest change in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is Dhalia, who goes from being an older cult leader to more of a younger Maria-style love interest for Harry. Cybil is still in the game and helps Harry along the way, but most of the time Harry is isolated in the Nightmare world and is chased by a creature with no way to defend himself.

My experience with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories comes mostly from the PlayStation 2 port of the game since I didn't own a Nintendo Wii when the game first came out. It wasn't till more recently that I was able to play the Wii version for the first time. Between the two, the Wii version seems more impactful and enjoyable version. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a good game, but from the outset, you can tell that the game was created with a bit too much company oversight, with the result being a game where you can see that it was meant to be something way different than what the end sub of the game ended up being.

7. Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004) - PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC

After 3 very successful games through 2 generations of consoles, you'd excuse Konami for wanting to keep the ball rolling with as many games as possible to keep the Silent Hill franchise going and the cash pouring in. However, Silent Hill 4: The Room began to show that Team Silent wanted to take the series in a different direction. Silent Hill 4: The Room was a very different game than the ones that came before it, trying to make the player understand that in the world of Silent Hill, no location is a safe place.

The story behind Silent Hill 4: The Room is a simple one. You play as Henry Townshend, a random guy who discovers that his apartment in Ashford, a location outside of Silent Hill, is locked down and he cannot exit. After finding a hole in his bathroom, Henry makes his way into a nightmare world where he learns about the murders by Walter Sullivan, a man who has some afterlife ideas and plans for Henry and his apartment. After completing the ritual of the 21 Sacraments, Walter's plans come to fruition with only Henry being the only one who can stop everything and save some of the other people in the apartment building.

I know a lot of people blame the "American Development Era" of Silent Hill for the "downfall" of the franchise, I personally see this game as the beginning of the end for the popular era of the Silent Hill games. The first-person nature of the apartment sections of Silent Hill 4: The Room does its intended job of making the location feel unsafe, but at the same time the controls are so stilted and stiff that it becomes more off-putting than terrifying. Silent Hill 4: The Room is also the game that brought the degradation of weapons into the franchise, something that really made the weapons feel underpowered and pretty useless. I understand Team Silent's want and desire to move the series in a different direction, but why break what wasn't broken?

6. Silent Hill: Downpour (2012) - PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

While Silent Hill: Downpour is seen as the end of the "American Development Era" of the Silent Hill games, and pretty much the end of the franchise with Konami not releasing any other mainline console Silent Hill games after this one, canceling the possible brilliant Silent Hills and its teaser demo P.T. in favor of releasing things like Silent Hill PachiSlot trilogy of machines (Silent Hill, Silent Hill: Escape, & Silent Hill: Return). Silent Hill: Downpour isn't exactly one of the worst games in the franchise, but it was one that suffered at the hands of a company that saw more profit in Pachinko machines rather than video games.

Silent Hill: Downpour tells the tail of criminal Murphy Pendleton, who escapes his prison transport after an accident and enters the town of Silent Hill where he is met with creatures attacking him at every turn. Silent Hill: Downpour follows a two-story narrative, where we learn through flashbacks about Murphy and what he has done, and is asked to do, while he attempts to find his way out of Silent Hill in order to complete the task that was given to him while in prison. Depending on the ending, Murphy completes his escape, gets forgiven, turns into a monster himself, or is killed. Not many happy endings for a criminal.

Silent Hill: Downpour suffers from the fanbase wanting everything to be like Silent Hill 2, which surprisingly Silent Hill: Downpour actually delivers. Silent Hill: Downpour is a stand-alone game in the series with no ties to anything but the town itself being a location of judgment. Everything you do in Silent Hill: Downpour is creepy and it works with the psychological scare nature of the series but is just more in-your-face about what might happen than other entries. Silent Hill: Downpour gets a lot of flack from fans as boring and derivative, and I do agree to a point, but by this time I was getting personally burnt out on Silent Hill games and found it hard to get into this one as much as I did the others.

5. Silent Hill: Homecoming (2008) - PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC

A kind of side story in the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hill: Homecoming is one of the stronger entries from the "American Development Era" of the series. Taking a lot of inspiration from the Silent Hill movie at the time, Silent Hill: Homecoming does a good job of keeping things very true to the series in the terms of tropes while crafting a unique story for itself and making sure that the tension and spirit of Silent Hill are there for all to play.

Set in the town of Shepherd's Glen, Alex awakens after a nightmare about his brother, Josh. Alex journey's to the town to find that many children have been missing for years and that his family has something to do with all of it. During the events of Silent Hill: Homecoming, Alex discovers the truth about his brother's disappearance and how it has everything to do with The Order, the cult that tried to bring about their god in Silent Hill. Through many twists and turns, Alex finds out a lot about himself, his past, and where he is to go from here.

Ok, I'm going to be a little bit biased here. While Silent Hill: Homecoming is probably the strongest one from that particular development era, when it got released in Australia it was banned from sale due to "impact violence and excessive blood effects". The objectionable scenes included various body parts being drilled into, as well as the bisection of a character by an enemy. So the version I originally bought was the watered-down version. It took many years before I was able to get a copy of the game imported and past customs in order to play what the developers originally intended.

4. Silent Hill Origins (2007) - PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2

The beginning of the "American Development Era" for Silent Hill didn't get off to a good start with Silent Hill Origins with Climax Group going in a few different directions with their vision of the game, before shutting up shop with their LA studio and moving things over to their UK studio. When this happened, Silent Hill Origins was rewritten within a week from being a Horror/Comedy game into a straight horror game that used previous games as inspiration for both the gameplay and plot. Silent Hill Origins was also the first game to be published on PlayStation Portable, showing the power of the handheld console before getting a PlayStation 2 port almost a year later.

Silent Hill Origins is a prequel to the original Silent Hill, set several years before the events of the first game. In this game, we see truck driver Travis Grady save Alyssa from a burning building and protect her while encountering a lot of the characters from Silent Hill. Travis encounters The Order, Dhalia, Michael Kaufmann, and Lisa, all of who are taking place in the ritual to bring The Order's God into this world. Trevor is able to stop the ritual, setting into action the separation of Alyssa's soul which becomes Cheryl, a baby that is found by Harry Mason outside of Silent Hill.

While many fans will call Silent Hill Origins the beginning of the end of the franchise, I found it to be one of the series' better entries. Using pre-established lore in order to create a genuine Silent Hill experience to help a developer learn what it is to create the psychological horror which makes Silent Hill so good. Given that Silent Hill Origins was created for a handheld console, the game plays exceptionally well and is a great experience if you can get past that this is not a Team Silent game.

3. Silent Hill 3 (2003) - PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PC, Xbox 360

After the spectacular Silent Hill 2, Team Silent wanted to move the game forward in a different direction, with that game becoming Silent Hill 4: The Room. However, at the time, Konami wanted to have another game available around the same time as Silent Hill 2 to give consumers a few choices in what game moved the series into the future. Team Silent agreed with the idea and began making another new Silent Hill game as an on-rails-shooter, done in the same vein as Biohazard: Gun Survivor (Resident Evil: Survivor in the West), just to give the game a different feel. Due to slow sales of Silent Hill 2 (Yes, it wasn't an instant classic), Team Silent abandoned the game and made a direct sequel to Silent Hill, hoping it would bring the fans back and increase sales.

Since Silent Hill 3 is the direct sequel to Silent Hill, we get the story of Heather Morris, the daughter of Harry Mason from the first game. After Heather is confronted by Claudia, a member of The Order, and Douglas Cartland, a detective who is looking into the events of Silent Hill; Heather is brought into the world of nightmares and occult that we know from the original title. After finding her father murdered in his apartment, Heather heads into the town of Silent Hill to confront Claudia and stop the rebirth of The Order's god once again, discovering along the way that she is the reincarnation of Alyssa.

After playing Silent Hill 2, it was very interesting to go back to the original game's plot for the third installment. Silent Hill 2 created a world where anything or anyone could get involved in the world that Silent Hill creates and its the town that is the real focus, instead, we get a very simple discovery and acceptance story that I'm only just now realizing that the Resident Evil Village DLC "Shadows of Rose" recently did. Heather spends a lot of time learning about her history and then moves into doing what her father did in the first game. It was a good experience, but looking back it could have been so much different.

2. Silent Hill (1999) - PlayStation

The development of Silent Hill comes from Team Silent, a group created by Konami to make a video game... But there was no direction given to the team at all, with the freedom to do whatever was given, something that is not usually done in Japanese offices. Eventually, Director Keiichiro Toyama created the game's scenario, while programmer Hiroyuki Owaku wrote the text for the riddles, forming the basis of the psychological horror template that created Silent Hill. Artist Takayoshi Sato corrected inconsistencies in the plot, and designed the game's cast of characters, making his way through the ranks as a young developer. While Sato didn't get much credit for the game, he did contribute a lot to the development of Silent Hill, from 3D modeling to cutscene creation and rendering, and fixing a lot of the game while living on site. The result was one of the most amazing horror games ever made.

Silent Hill is the story of Harry Mason, who gets into an accident while driving through the country. When he wakes up, he notices his daughter, Cheryl, has gone missing. Harry makes his way into the town of Silent Hill in order to find his daughter, but ends up being dragged into a plot revolving around the occult, nightmare creatures, and revelations that will change his life forever.

To say that Silent Hill influenced me is an understatement. I can still remember sitting in my room playing the game on my PlayStation while having music, any music, on my radio next to me in order to keep me going without being frightened into not playing the game. Silent Hill played with my mind like it was designed to, and that fear took me weeks in order to get through it with the use of a slowly printed walkthrough that I did at school during the early days of GameFAQs, later replaced with a GamePro magazine walkthrough. Even now, I still put the game on to remind myself that horror is more than jump scares.

1. Silent Hill 2 (2001) - PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, PC

Given the success of the first game, of course, there would be a second. After getting next to no credit for his contributions to the first Silent Hill, Takayoshi Sato moved into the creative and directive head of the second game. From here, Sato created the basic plot of Silent Hill 2 and would oversee its creation from start to finish. Konami would bring in 30 more people to join Team Silent to help them create a masterpiece game to sell to the masses who wanted more from the psychological horror game. Using the power of the PlayStation 2, Team Silent could do more with the plot and the atmosphere that would create Silent Hill 2, with deeper psychological experiences being the focus of the story.

Silent Hill 2 brings in protagonist James Sunderland, who has arrived in Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife... Who died 3 years ago. Thinking there might be a chance that his wife is still alive, James goes to Silent Hill to find her. Along the way, he meets a few different people who represent different says of death and trauma, one of them is Maria, who looks exactly like James' late wife and could be the one who sent the letter. The deeper James goes into Silent Hill, the more confronting the things he sees and experiences, leading to revelations about himself that he may not like.

Yeah, there is no shock that this is the game that is going to be number one. Given the recent announcement of the remake that is underway, not giving Silent Hill 2 the top spot would be stupid. Even back in the day, Silent Hill 2 was a masterpiece to the people who played the first game. The departure of Harry Mason as the protagonist was welcome, leading to theories that the town itself is the star in each game. While it would be years before I would get my hands on the extra content that was released on Xbox like "Born from a Wish" till sometime in the last decade, Silent Hill 2 still gives me the creeps as it did back in the day, and that's saying something.