I've just finished all five endings of Silent Hill F, and wanted to share my reflections as someone who has played SH2R, SH3 and SH4. The main criticism I want to address is how SHf is "not Silent Hill" enough. To be fair, this was my first reaction as well after finishing the first ending of the game (basic plot), which left me feeling... deeply unsatisfied. Was that it? A >!drug-induced red wedding massacre? !<Now I know many players left it at that, walked away, and called foul on SHf. And I do think that is a valid criticism of the game design; that it does not make it enticing enough for players to want to go through the game again (NG+) and AGAIN (NG++) in order to get the full picture. Maybe it was simply my desire to scratch that itch of the lore-gap left by the first ending (or to collect all the Omamoris). Here I lay out my argument for why SHf meets the bar of being the latest canon entry to the main line Silent Hill series.

Silent Hill is about the Otherworld

First off, I reckon the developers deserve credit for taking the creative leap to bring Silent Hill into a totally different culture and context with SHf, while trying to stay true to form. The oversimplistic arguments that "Silent Hill games need to be based in the town of Silent Hill" are an imaginary constraint. I won't rehash the arguments made by YouTubers like Max Derrat on how SHf connects back to the lore with >!White Claudia and Aglaophotisis being a key-driver of the plot!<. Basically, this means that the reach of Silent Hill can now extend into any place and time imaginable, an angle that was first explored in SH4 and now played out more fully with SHf. In terms of the take of SHf on the Otherworld, though I do find it somewhat lacking, I'd argue that >!the darker manifestations of characters revealing their "true selves" in the Dark Shrine world, as well as the text-based journal entries that delve into their states of mind while having that inner world seep into the game environ !<are the markers of what constitutes the Otherworld of Silent Hill.

Silent Hill is about facing trauma (and resolution... sometimes)

My first reaction after finishing my first playthrough of SHf was, WTF? Was that all? Then sitting with my doubts for a while before diving back in to find resolution. And again, I would say that it's a valid criticism of the game's design, that it's a big ask to EXPECT players to play through the game multiple times (albeit with faster pacing and character stats progression) to grasp the full narrative. The devs took a risk, and I'd speculate that they factored in the obsessive nature of this fanbase as a variable in putting together a rather unique game structure that departs from more linear-based storytelling. And yes, the game is pretty on-the-nose about it, but the inner struggles that Hinako faces >!(as embodied by the black sparrow/fox Hinako and white sparrow/Shimizu Hinako) are deeply relatable themes (conformity vs. an inner child Puer Aeternus-side)!<. Pretty key information gets revealed with >!the Ebisugaoka in Silence ending around how the characters had been getting played by darker forces present!<, manipulating and distorting their lives. To me it harkens back to SH3 with >!the confrontation between Dark Alessa and Heather, complete with a cult-like clan operating in the background.!<SHf takes a coming-of-age story and allows all its traumatic underpinnings to play out with accompanying disturbing aesthetics and in the details that are gradually revealed about the characters' dynamics. Though the supporting characters' storylines don't quite get fleshed out (pun intended) to the degree that I would have liked, I'd argue this keeps the focus on the most important dynamic present in the game; >!the relationship between Hinako's dual selves and the conflict within. !<

Silent Hill is about ALL endings being canon

As the art director of SIlent Hill, Masahiro Ito has said, "All of the endings are canon." When it comes to Silent Hill, the point is the ambiguity and how every ending is valid. Silent Hill f leans into this in a big way, stringing the endings together as a hard requirement to form a coherent narrative (>!"Ebisugaoka in Silence" ending requires a minimum of 2 endings in order to be unlocked in NG++, and is now often referred to as the True Ending online!<). Now that I've played through the endings, while I still feel that ambiguity in my mind over how the ending leaves the main character (>!is Hinako at peace? Still stuck in the fog world? Back in the real world?!<), I do feel the character arc has been satisfactorily resolved; the inner conflict has been brought to light and played out. Without this, to me it would have failed to meet the bar of being a Silent Hill game.

So keep in mind, given we're still in the early days of the reception of Silent Hill f, my main pushback here is that if the critic is basing their review on only one playthrough of Silent Hill f, I'd argue then that their take on the story is at best incomplete, and at worst, redundant. It would be like finishing SH2 >!and getting the Maria ending, and thinking the game is only about that while saying it's terrible because James never learns!<. You won't be wrong for saying that, but you're also missing the bigger picture.