[Harry]

Originally posted by Redpyramidhead

I think the "shallowness" and loss of depth people speak of is actually possibly not a mistake. The depth you find is in the hidden messages to be found from the disgusting imagery and why she interprets these things in this way. I'm hoping more answers will come as I go along. I haven't gotten that far really. I've been busy. Is this the story about a girl who is discovering her own personality's depth all of a sudden? Something that is seemingly so rare? I think this happens to a lot of people when they hit adolescense who haven't already. I have a theory too:

Spoiler: show

Claudia is her future self

A certain soundtrack song kind of gave me that impression beofer I even started playing the game.

So far, I am quite impressed with the game. Truthfully, I did not expect this game to be able to top SH2 so I am less dissappointed than some and I am able to enjoy it for what it is. I have no doubt that a Silent Hill4 will be made at some point so there is that to look forward to for those who don't like this installment, but I feel this really is a masterpeice in its own right.

_RED_ stuff

Well, I guess I can add nothing more than what I said in the review, but I can say that the things you talked about, while sub-themes that can be accepted within a broad interpretation of the game, become secondary elements once you've surpassed the first half of the game, when you discover that the characters are all more "real" than in preceding installments, and less symbolic figures.

The most interesting and courageous theme, as I wrote in the review, stands probably in the fact that the sense of disgust is, for the first time in a video game, connected to woman's sexuality. Like in the preceding installment, the experience is always seen through the eyes of main character; and it’s true that the game can also be seen as a “story about a girl who is discovering her own personality's depth all of a sudden”, or more generally as the story of an average consumer girl who is discovering for the first time true pain and suffering.

This said, for me it’s evident the developers didn't have the time to create a tissue as cohesive as in the previous game, and it's even more evident that the game lacks too often a solid direction to successfully portray its themes. It’s also difficult not to see how, for the first time in the series, the game really inherits something from Resident Evil (and in the many interviews, the new director didn’t deny the fact he wanted to put more pure action, like we see in American horror B-movies), without being able to be as well balanced (gameplay-wise) as Capcom’s games; the preceding Silent Hill games were a fierce opposition to Capcom’s way of intending the genre.