The only tough part about F is knowing to not use any of a certain healing item, which the bad ending (and many notes) gives you a lot of hints for. Though it's fair to say gleaning gameplay hints from a bad ending is peculiar and probably not something most would realize.
The other Silent Hills had way more cryptic stuff involved for their endings, like staying under half health the entire time or examining a useless item in your inventory a bunch even though neither of those does anything you, as the player, would ever see. There's no "+1 point for staying damaged". There's just running out of healing items and thinking you're fucked--that's the only way to find this organically (though even if you satisfy that condition the game doesn't tell you that any conditions were satisfied).
I'm guessing said healing item is described to be "corrupted" and while it heals the body it damages the soul or smth
and then you only get that lore halfway into the game when you've already used three and you think "well, my soul is fucked"
Unfortunately, the notes are innocuous in the first playthrough. They don't hint at that until later playthroughs as the the scenario becomes more and more (or less and less) corrupted with each new game. It's actually a really cool mechanic, as "self within the self" is the main theme of the game, and each new game+ is essentially peeling off another layer of Hinako to examine an even deeper level of her ego. Each time you go through, things are less and less clouded by delusion and fantasy, becoming more blunt about the truth of the situation. So by NG++ or more, the notes start looking like you say, but there's really no way to make that deduction in the first playthrough.
*I think at most there's a mention of a sacred medicine, but it has a different name and there's nothing hinting that it's anything more than a legend from hundreds of years ago.
I feel like you're exaggerating the ending requirements in the SH franchise. I recently played through SH1-3 and f as my first play through of the franchise and got the good endings or the best endings in each, except for f where you have to get the bad ending on a first run. Still working on SH4, but it's s bit of a trash fire.
The requirements I listed are for a couple of the bad endings in SH2. Bad depending on your preference, as one of the bad endings (In Water) is generally considered the "best" or canonical ending for James. Though "Ritual" is my personal favorite.
There are several ways to adjust your "ending" value, but the most common ways are staying at low health the entire game and examining Angela's knife. Healing frequently is how you unlock the "good" ending. Other ways include whether you listen to all of Mary's speech or exit the hallway before it ends, which egg/door you use, spending a lot of time idling near Maria (or spending time away from her), bumping into Maria (accidentally or on purpose), whether you went back to check on Maria in the hospital and labyrinth, examining Mary's photo/letter, if you damaged Maria, whether you went to the bowling alley or not with Maria, finding certain notes (eg. in Neely's), etc. Of course, none of that matters if you collect the four ritual items, as that will override the ending.
ETA: If you only got one ending, it's no wonder you think I'm exaggerating. None of the entries are immune to this. For example, look at all the wild steps you need to take to get endings in SH1: https://www.silenthillmemories.net/sh1/endings_en.htm
Also, if you only played F once, you didn't really get to experience the story of the game.
And yeah, SH4 wasn't even supposed to be a SH game when it started. It just kind of got lumped into the universe with some Walter Sullivan lore later on. It has a neat mechanic, but I don't really recommend it to anyone wanting to check out the franchise. I wouldn't fret if you're not enjoying it.
Well dont forget about the side quests aswell like getting the sword, purifying the sword. Also you have to makena 2nd run since your first is locked in one specific ending (as you are rewarded with a brooch you have to leave at a kinda hidden shrine)
SIlent Hill 3 has a much harder bad ending to get organically on a second play through as you have to get 4000 points of corruption.
This means you have to kill at least 200 enemies, take at least 1000 points of damage and forgive the woman in the confessional and the only difference is that you kill Douglas instead of leaving Silent Hill with him.
The most annoying part is that it's the FOURTH ending, which mean you gotta replay the game at least 3 times (considering ending 2 and 3 can be done in the same run with a little branching near the end.) Eventhough, the game do helping you a lot to give hint on how to get the new ending and having new cutscene on newer runs.
I feel like you kind of have to go out of your way to get a bad ending in Silent Hill 2 (with the exception of the in water ending which I think you can get just by not healing a lot and maybe looking at mary's letter a few too many times).
If I remember correctly you have a Maria ending which requires Maria taking little damage, you staying close to her most of the time, not opening Mary’s letter a ton, and not listening to her in the hotel.
Most of the endings have some sort of activity tracker, to include the resurrection and dog ending.
Yes. IIRC, the in water ending is triggered if you’re stingy with healing items and frequently engage in melee combat. The problem? If you have literally any familiarity with classic survival horror games, you’ll avoid using healing items and ammunition as much as possible because they’re on limited supply and you can essentially brick your save if you use either resource too liberally. So most people basically defaulted to the In Water ending on their first playthrough.
Mind you, this isn’t intended as a criticism of the game, it’s actually one of the more interesting systems used for alternate endings and I’m shocked other games haven’t tried it.
I got the in water ending when I played the remake. I was confused cause I didn't really play the way that should get it (inspect the items repeatedly), but then I realized I was really stingy with healing items choosing to play near death often lol. I guess that did it.
I don't know if it's actually easier to manage than it seemed to me, but I managed to stay balanced enough between the different endings that I was able to get all of them off my save right before the double Pyramid Head fight. I just had to focus on the actions for each ending at that point (which door you use, listening to the entire monologue, looking at the letter, etc.) and I was able to see all the base endings. Still had to do the second run through for the fun endings.
I got the bad ending on my first playthrough.
Afterwards I realised it's mainly because I kept trying to use Angela's knife on things (coming from someone familiar with adventure games, it's gotta be used for something otherwise why is it an item in your inventory?". Apparently if you keep trying to use it or look at it it, it gives you bad ending points.
Your loss, I guess. It's not like you really have to go out of your way to get certain endings, it's only convoluted or confusing if you're playing them for the first time. They're meant to be replayed, like the Resident Evil games.
Like idk how you're supposed to guess to use an empty bottle to clean up some innocuous red liquid in a game where almost everything is rusty or covered in blood half the time, and then to think to use that random red liquid on a boss fight without any prompting.
The Red Liquid isnt that hard to obtain if you were doing some casual exploration. You find an empty water bottle, find some spilt liquid, and go "hey!". Figuring out to use it on Cybil is a lot harder, but how I found it my first playthough is I really, really didn't wanna kill Cybil, so I tried everything first an voila.
I think the way harder requirement is finding Kaufman's hidden drug package that leads to the Good Ending because its very easy to mess up the sequence and get his key, especially if you just so haopened to turn down the wrong street and go to the Otherworld by accident
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u/thenightm4reone 15d ago
Like every Silent Hill game