079: A Brief Visit To Silent Hill — The SoraRabbit Hole

Welcome back to Halloween at the SoraRabbit Hole! As you all should expect, we’re visiting Silent Hill again! This has been an annual tradition since the beginning of this blog and I have no intention of stopping it… as long as I have games left to play. If you’ve missed any of the previous posts, they’re listed here:

This is a very well-crafted game. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

This year I had a plan. I was finally going to play Silent Hill Origins, a game I’d mentioned wanting to cover for the last few years. I had overcome my technical issues and was all set to experience an older entry in the franchise that I hadn’t gotten around to playing even though I’ve had it downloaded on my PlayStation Vita almost since I bought it. But then things happened.

More specifically, the Silent Hill 2 Remake was released when I wasn’t expecting it. I admit, my work load on the blog had made me a bit negligent in keeping up on Silent Hill news. (I’d even missed the Silent Hill Transmission this time around.) So I knew that I would have to pivot and cover that game instead. But then I thought, I have had another Silent Hill game downloaded on my PS5 since the beginning of 2024 and I had a solid week to wait for Silent Hill 2… so viola. You get double the Silent Hill this year!

So this time around, we’re here to talk about Silent Hill: The Short Message. At first this was meant to be a brief Video Game post, but I ended up having more to talk about than I thought I would. And I do have a few other Silent Hill-related things to touch on at the end, so I decided to make this a regular post instead. Besides, all my other Silent Hill posts have been on the main blog, so it fits better here.

Trigger warnings and important information. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Trigger Warnings: As expected in a Silent Hill game there are elements that may trigger you, depending on your experiences. While I will use care and gloss over much of it, discussing the plot does involve touching on some of these subjects. So be warned that this game and post involve references to bullying, self-harm, child abuse, familial trauma, possible hints to incest, and suicidal thoughts and actions.

I fully understand if you need to bow out, please use your own discretion. With all that said, if you’re still with me, let’s talk about the game!

Title screen. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Silent Hill: The Short Message was released as a free download in 2024 for the PlayStation 5 by Konami Digital Entertainment and HexaDrive. This game serves as a reintroduction to the series after a very long break with no new playable games. (Silent Hill Downpour was released in 2012.) (Of course, Silent Hill: Ascension was released the year before, but the jury is still out on if that counts due to its unusual format.) While many games were mentioned in the first Silent Hill Transmission in 2022 (the Silent Hill 2 Remake, Ascension, Townfall, and Silent Hill f) this one was not revealed. It came as a surprise to many, myself included.

This game is mainly told in first-person view and there is no combat. The game takes roughly 1.5 to 2 hours to complete. (It took a little longer for me, but I’ll get to why later.) As it’s such a short game, I will lay out the full story and interject my gameplay experiences and thoughts as we go. Obviously, full spoilers follow.

I love the graphics. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

The game begins with a brief shot of a memorial covered with flowers. Then the main character Anita awakens in a dingy and run-down room after being texted to meet her friend Maya. The setting is Kettenstadt, Germany, a small town struggling financially after several failed attempts to rebuild and expand. As Anita explores, we learn that she’s in a building called the Villa, which is a condemned apartment building that teenagers like to hang out in. It’s also a gathering spot for graffiti artists.

The art in this is awesome. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Anita’s friend Maya is one of these artists. She goes by the handle C.B. which is short for Cherry Blossom. In intermittent flashbacks during the game we see Maya through Anita’s eyes, a confident, artistic young woman who uses troubled girls as her subjects, striving to show beauty in their hidden feelings and pain. A recurring motif in her murals are flowers growing from their scars.

Some of the plot comes through in texts. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Anita has come to the Villa in search of her friend after a strange text she received from Maya asking to meet her there. As she continues looking, she also receives worried texts from her best friend Amelie, who appears to be recovering from a bout of depression or some other sadness. These texts arrive at various points in the game, giving insight into their friendship and Anita’s personality.

Short messages. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

It isn’t long before the Villa proves to be more than it appears. Every way out is blocked, seeming to herd Anita along one path. Doors creak open, seemingly on their own to show her where to go next.

In one room, she encounters walls adorned with countless sticky notes bearing insults. Here we learn that the town has an inordinately high rate of child abuse and teenage suicide. In fact, that is one of the reasons the Villa is so popular. Sadly, many kids end their lives jumping from the roof of the complex.

Yeah, regardless of where we actually are, this is officially Silent Hill. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

In a bathroom that is meant to resemble Anita’s we get a fraught flashback of her screaming at her mother. We see scars on Anita’s arm and a bathtub full of blood. The implications here are clear. Through these scenes, Anita’s comments, and more texts with Amelie, we learn that Anita is very troubled. She suffers from depression, is on medication, distrusts therapy, and is disillusioned with the adults in her life. She is dissatisfied with her situation and negative about herself. We also get references to hospitalized classmates. Amelie says they’re sorry and Anita says they deserved it. (I’m going to tell you right here, what happened to them and why is not made clear at all. These classmates are not mentioned again.)

One of the chase scenes. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Walking through a door begins the first of many chase scenes. Anita’s phone glitches out and static plays through it. She starts to panic and breathe faster. In a hallway she runs into a mysterious creature that appears to be female but with cherry blossom leaves covering her face. She moves strangely, shaking her head and staggering quickly towards Anita. Her name is not mentioned in the game, but she was officially given the name Sakura Head by Konami. If she gets too close, she grabs Anita and kills her with bare-handed blunt force trauma.

So obviously you have to run away. The trick is to circle around the hallway through the side doors and exit through the door where you first encounter her. Since she follows you, the way is clear after circling around. Past that is a staircase that leads to the next area.

Ohh, charms. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

As Anita continues her journey, she attempts to get in touch with Maya but gets no response. She worries that Maya may kill herself and is desperate to find her in time.

So many cool images in this game. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Through another flashback we see Maya talking about cherry blossoms. (These flashbacks are always in first person like the rest of the game, showing Maya through Anita’s view.) She talks about how cherry blossoms are beautiful when they bloom and still beautiful as they fall. They bloom beautiful, they fall beautiful. She wants to be like that.

Through more texts with Amelie, she suggests college, art classes. Anita has low confidence, though. She is an artist too, but can’t stop comparing herself with Maya. Maya has more followers online, her art and photos get more attention. Anita sees the cruel internet comments she received as sticky notes.

I liked this shot. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Anita finally reaches Maya’s studio, which is a bigger room within the Villa. There is an unfinished mural on the wall and on a different wall a big mural showing branches and blossoms growing from a girl’s scars. Maya’s sketchbook is there, too, showing the inspirations for her murals.

Twist! (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

And then the bombshell. Amelie calls Anita and mentions that Maya killed herself a few weeks ago, which Anita doesn’t remember. (Although it does explain the memorial in the very beginning.) If she’s dead, then who’s been texting her? Who called her here and why? Amelie is worried about her friend, but Anita is still focused on finding Maya. She gets more texts where Maya simply says to “find it” and refuses to answer any questions. She just keeps repeating her vague demand.

Sakura Head. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

When leaving the studio there is another chase scene that is actually pretty terrifying. Sakura Head marches on and you must evade her through a maze of doors and hallways as the phone glitches and sticky notes fall from the walls. I actually died once here, unlike the first chase. After dying, Anita wakes up in her previous location— in this case, Maya’s studio. On my second try, I evaded Sakura Head and ended up on the roof.

Yikes. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

On the roof of the villa, Anita thinks about how Maya committed suicide. She decides that in that way, at least, she can be like her more talented, more popular friend. She steps from the roof and we see the impact through her eyes, her phone shattering on the ground. (Note that the trigger warning screen plays again each time this sort of thing happens as well as when you boot up the game.) We see Maya’s memorial again covered in flowers, but this time we see her photo sitting on it in a frame.

Creepy. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Anita awakens back in the same place she started, in a room in the Villa, looking at a drawing of a hole in the wall. The hole is bigger now. She’s confused as to how she’s still alive, but doesn’t have much time to consider it. Maya texts again, telling her to “find it”. She also states that Anita can’t leave until she finds whatever it is.

This second trek is darker. Anita’s phone battery dies and so there’s less light guiding you. Also Maya’s paintings are covered up with other graffiti. We see a book that talks about the negative effect social media has on teenagers. There are more hurtful messages painted on the walls. Her phone comes back to life and she sees that Maya also had negative comments on her posts… another clue that Anita’s perceptions could be skewed.

Amelie’s texts come in again, identical to the earlier texts, showing Anita is in a loop. There’s another flashback to Maya, talking about a book she read where the author killed themselves while they was young. She recommended Anita read it and Anita wrote a letter in response with her feelings on the book. Maya liked that, saying that she writes her thoughts out very well and she would like to read more. (Later this scene is thrown into question.)

In one room, we find a notebook where the writer angrily ranted about someone stealing their only friend and their art is horrible. Hmm…

During the trek we see other pieces of writing. A diary entry presumably by Amelie that talks about problems with her brother. Her brother moved back in and she is uncomfortable with the way he looks at her. She doesn’t want to be alone with him. The entries also reference her parents fighting. In the same apartment, you find a newspaper article revealing a high school student killed herself because she was not able to go to college due to troubles at home. This was a bit confusing, but it’s not Amelie… probably one of their classmates or showing Anita’s fear that Amelie may turn out that way. It’s not really explained. I just assume the diary is Amelie’s because the paper said the suicide victim had no diary and Anita commented that she knew Amelie hated how her brother looked at her. The fact that Amelie is still alive and still able to go to college makes me think these entries don’t belong to her.

This is incredible. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

After a time, Anita enters the hallway of her high school. Phantom classmates line the hall made of black smoke. They yell insults and throw things as you pass. It’s a really well-done sequence. At the end of the hall, Anita says “Maya’s not a freak, she’s my friend!“ Was she seeing things through Maya’s eyes?

Her again? (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

After this a new chase scene happens where the glitching and static is worse and there are blinking eyes on the sticky notes.

Maya texts more but won’t give any details about what Anita is supposed to be finding. Back at the studio the unfinished painting is now finished and the girl is clearly Amelie. We see a flashback where they all met. Anita and Amelie came across Maya in her studio. Maya immediately took to Amelie, grabbing her hands and saying she’s cute. Anita ruefully says that Maya only cared about Amelie and she was invisible. So it seems she was the one who wrote the hateful journal entry. Her feelings about Maya are proving to be more complex than we thought in the beginning.

Somehow this is creepier than the hallways. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Next Anita comes to the school library. Whenever we see a normal setting, it’s jarring. Here we get a flash to a very different kind of Maya. She’s sitting alone, looking at a notebook with words like “crybaby” and “freak” scrawled on it. She turns and offers a book. She seems shy, timid, sad. Certainly not as confident or outspoken as she was in the other flashbacks. Maya says that she wrote her impressions about the book in a letter and asks her to read it when she gets home.

I think that this is a different book and letter from the earlier flashback, but the plot is unclear on this point. Also it’s worth noting that it’s possible it was Amelie and Maya writing to each other and Anita just remembered it like it was her. It’s getting hard to tell what’s real and what’s Anita’s flawed perceptions. I’ll get back to that.

Exploring the library we see a book about a witch in the 1930s who was trying to help the town to be prosperous. She was Japanese and clairvoyant. She committed suicide in 1947 by jumping off the roof of the hospital and it was suspected to be murder. The economic downswing and decline in birthrate happened after this, and the townspeople claimed she had cursed them.

Searching the library, you find that Book 2 in a series called “I Still Wait For You” is missing. This is the book from the most recent flashback. Anita suspects it’s in Maya’s locker.

Hmm, I’m sure there’s nothing lurking in there. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Through this, Amelie continues texting, trying to get Anita to go shopping with her. Anita declines saying she doesn’t want to be around people and nothing looks good on her. Amelie is worried when Anita stops responding and starts thinking about Maya again. Anita mentions that Maya was bullied in school. Amelie says she knows and wonders why she didn’t confide in her… maybe she didn’t actually see her as a friend. Maya doesn’t respond in text but out loud says “That’s not true!”

Past a hallway covered in black handprints, Anita returns to the school hallway. The book is not in Maya’s locker. (Which is trashed, by the way.) Anita’s locker is locked and she suspects it’s because there’s something in there she doesn’t want to see. The book is found in Amelie’s locker but there’s no letter.

The next twist. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

The puzzle to open Anita’s locker was actually pretty clever. “LIAR” was written on Maya’s desk (parked in the center of the hall) with each letter in a different color. These colors correspond to the order of the numbers you find in matching colors around the hallway. It took me a few minutes to get it, but it was definitely a classic Silent Hill-style puzzle. The solution is easy once you make the leap in logic it takes to find the clues.

Inside was just what you may expect… I had figured it out by this point. Anita had taken the letter out of the book before Amelie could see it. Maya’s letter talked about how she wanted to live like a cherry blossom, beautiful and dignified for a single moment, knowing it won’t last. She talks about a boy she met who made her feel different and gave her hope. She thought he could help her find a new her but people didn’t understand and kept them apart and took him away. People who can’t achieve beauty seek comfort in others, fear them. hate them, tear them down. She wishes she and Amelie could run away together.

Anita is going through some stuff. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Anita has a mini-breakdown here, saying that she didn’t realize Maya was asking for help. She just wanted to take her down a bit. She was jealous, saw her as more popular, more talented, prettier. Maya was taking her best friend from her too. Anita saw herself as invisible, Maya only noticed Amelie. She didn’t know Maya would kill herself. She feels she was the cause.

There is longer chase here where the distortion is the worst yet. The trick here again was to lure Sakura Head away from the door you want to go through, loop around and keep going. It took a couple of tries, but I managed it without too much trouble.

Anita finds the end goal. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Finally at the exit, Anita is back on the roof and at Maya’s memorial. There’s a lovely mural of angelic girls flying off into the distance. Anita calls Amelie and admits what she did. She says that it’s her fault Maya is dead. Her mother was right, she said, she should never have been born. Amelie tries to get her to calm down, but Anita doesn’t listen and jumps from the roof again.

Home, sweet home. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

She awakens one more time at the start, the drawing of the hole bigger. This time she sees her own body lying next to her. Again Maya texts and tells her to “find it”. Wandering back through the Villa, finding every exit blocked, we finally find a concrete link to Silent Hill in the form of a newspaper article. It talks about the “Silent Hill Phenomenon” where those in states of high stress and psychological instability see a fog that causes uncertainty and sensory illusions. Nice… so not only is this known by the wider public, but it’s been identified and named. Now I’m very curious about what the town of Silent Hill looks like in current day.

Anita comes upon her own living room in the apartment where she grew up. (It’s not stated for sure, but it’s doubtful that it was the Villa, unless it was abandoned after she became a teenager.) There is an awesome effect here where every loop through the apartment shows it becoming more and more run down, littered with alcohol bottles and pill bottles, the corners stacked high with garbage. With each pass, Anita seems to shrink, like she’s regressing to childhood. The counters are higher and the camera is closer to the floor. During these walks through the apartment, inspecting things makes Anita relive hearing her mother’s angry words.

We get diary entries that tell the story of her mother, identified in a letter as Krysta Planert. She had two kids, Anita and her unnamed younger brother. Their father left her and she started seeing someone new. Her kids didn’t like him and she was afraid they’d stress him out and he’d leave her too. She started seeing him as her last chance for happiness. She started locking the kids in their closet to give him peace when he would visit or when she would go out for dates with him. She started spending more time out and stopped cleaning up. Child Welfare was called and she grew more bitter and isolated, hating her children and life. There was also a vague, disturbing reference to something going on in the closet that she’s ignoring. The next letter from Child Welfare shows that she made no actions and the kids are about to be taken away.

With each pass the refrigerator is more bloody, as well. (Note that a bloody refrigerator was a recurring image throughout the game.) The trek ends at the closet where flies are circling. Inside are a few toys and blankets and drawings. The wall shows the same hand-drawn hole as you see on each awakening. Inside is a newspaper article that tells of a young boy being found dead, stuffed in a refrigerator. This was discovered after his sister ran to the next door neighbor’s to call the police and report her mother for neglect. The mother confessed and was arrested. We learn from the date that this all happened ten years before.

Wow. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

The mistreatment was a cycle. Krysta’s mother also mistreated her as she was growing up. She saw Anita as a burden, a curse on her womb from her own mother. Anita realizes that she’s cursed now, too. She is back to normal size and finally free to leave.

This was about the best shot I could get of Sakura Head attacking Anita. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

And now starts the toughest chase in the game. In this part, the hall is covered with photos of Maya and Amelie. You have to avoid Sakura Head while seeking out five specific photos lying around the course. Each one gives a memory of Maya saying something sweet: liking the letter that was written for her, enjoying the picture that was drawn, things like that. Once picked up, each photo dissolves a chain on the door to Maya’s studio which is marked “C.B.”. You can see this on the screen of Anita’s phone for a moment before it starts glitching again. The area is a massive maze and Sakura Head is always close behind, so there’s little room for error.

I can’t say anything nice about this part after struggling for over an hour. Even my positivity has limits. I eventually had to abandon my attempts and go to bed for the night, picking it up again in the morning. This chase took me so many tries that it became frustrating and I had to look up a walkthrough to help me chart my course. I still ended up finding my own path once I knew where all the photos were. I took turn by turn notes and memorized the path until I managed to do it properly. Once the final photo is picked up, the distortion stops and Sakura Head disappears for the last time.

Memories of childhood. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

After finally escaping this hell, Anita finds herself back in Maya’s studio. A last diary entry talks about her greatest work, a painting of the girls who jumped from the roof of the Villa. Once she completes it, she considers it perfect, her crowning achievement. But she worries about what’s next. Will she have to struggle to top it? Is it even in her to come up with something better? Will the fame and praise be enough to keep the sadness and despair away? She wonders if she should just end it now, go out on a high note. She wishes she had someone to talk to about this.

A newspaper article shows that Maya killed herself six months before, less than a month after the painting was finished. Anita has been trapped in her guilt this entire time. She begs for Maya to forgive her, to finally let her die. She noticed the sketch book had fallen and thumbs through it, seeing new sketches of a boy. At the end is a drawing in Maya’s usual style of Anita.

After this, Anita emerges into a shadowy corridor lit by candles. She sees images from her childhood, toys, drawings. Anita has to face that she first took up art to gain her mother’s approval. In happier times, her mother had liked her drawings and encouraged her. At the end of the corridor is Maya’s sketchbook and Anita finally realizes that Maya did notice her and loved her, as evidenced by the drawing. She wasn’t invisible after all.

Almost to the end. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

With this revelation, Anita is finally allowed the leave the Villa. She’s on the roof again, though, and it’s scattered with the insulting notes on scraps of paper. She has come to the realization that she was loved and no matter what anyone said to her she never listened. All she could hear were her mom’s words and impressions of her, and all the insults others threw at her.

This is what makes me think that maybe that first letter actually was written by Anita… the photos that you pick up seem to be the lost memories of her and Maya, showing that they really were friends and Anita just forgot or chose to ignore it due to her own insecurities.

Anita calls Amelie again and apologizes to her for everything. She says that now she has to apologize to Maya too.

Daybreak. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

She is just about to jump when Amelie’s words finally get through to her. She talks her down and Anita chooses life. In a gust of wind, Anita is knocked back to a sprawled position and all the notes blow away like cherry blossoms. The final mural is behind her.

The end credits roll and we get some audio of Amelie talking about how she’s finally leaving town for college and Anita is coming with her.

More chases. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

So that was the story. As for the game itself, I thought it was beautifully designed. I loved the graphics and the character work. Although there is no inventory and no combat, it’s still very clearly a Silent Hill game. While it didn’t take place in Silent Hill itself, the themes and aesthetic fit in with the franchise. (And the Villa that Anita was in was obviously Otherworld.) (Oh, and also we now know that in the universe of the games, the outside world has become aware of Silent Hill, which is intriguing.) There are lots of creepy incidental sounds like you get in all Silent Hill games. Creaking doors, crying, humming, laughter. It has a creepy ambiance, which has to make up for a lot of the lost tension by excluding combat. With the reliance on running from danger, the focus on the phone, and the plot hinging on misremembered events and buried memories, it reminded me a lot of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

It occurs to me that the absence of combat and the stress on evading Sakura Head is a reflection of how Anita is running from her trauma and guilt.

I love the design of Sakura Head and that it was impossible to see her very clearly, which added to her creepy factor. The fantastic graphics were really a high point of this… I had trouble at times with telling if the characters (especially Maya) were real or game models. Their mouths didn’t move perfectly, but that was likely because they were speaking Japanese in the original. (Of course the characters themselves would be speaking German in the story.) There was excellent use of vibration and sound through the controller. The little details were not missed, like the light reflection on the phone, Anita’s oily skin, the way the cherry blossoms moved on the monster… many little details like that.

I enjoyed how the phone replaced both the traditional tools of Silent Hill: the flashlight and the radio. I can appreciate how the game managed to take the feel and sensations of Silent Hill and project them onto a new setting and town. This means Silent Hill can be anywhere now. (Silent Hill f will be set in a Japanese village in the 60s, for instance.) I liked Anita as a character… she was conflicted yet determined.

Now for downsides, I really didn’t like the chase scenes. Sure, the first one was cool and I did like the cacophony from the phone and the glitching that happened during the chases. But the gameplay in the chases themselves was repetitive and really took more memory than skill. The bulk of the game itself was repetitive, as you kept retreading the same areas with slight changes. And the way the game dealt with its themes really depends on the player’s perceptions and experiences. There were a few plot threads that never really got proper elaboration and seemed unfinished. (Specifically: the boy Maya referenced, the suicide article in what seemed to be Amelie’s home, the writers of the letters, and the hospitalized classmates.) The walking pace is slow and there’s no way to speed it up. The gameplay doesn’t have much variety.

Relatable. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

But enough downsides. Time for the analysis. Story-wise, there was a lot going on here. Anita was an unreliable narrator due to her own perceptions. As the game goes on, you see more of how things were different from how she perceived them. Maya’s depression and the signs that she was struggling, the way she transposed herself with Amelie in their friendship. The way she idealized Maya’s life and art. You have to wonder how much of what you saw actually happened that way. Who actually recommended the book? Who wrote the first letter with their feelings on the book? The two flashbacks show very different angles on it and it’s still unclear to me.

This game dealt with a lot of serious themes that most of us, not just teenagers, deal with in today’s society. One of the most central was the ever-present specter of social media and how it affects our self worth and opinion of ourselves. This is represented by Anita’s struggle to get more likes and followers, and also by the blinking eyes adorning the hallways in the later game. The desire to be noticed… to be seen… is one that almost all of us have felt at one time or another. For Anita, this was her life, her prison. She was made to feel worthless, to feel like a curse by her mother, so she sought the validation she craved elsewhere.

Yeah, maybe let’s not go through the “it’s all your fault” door. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Which brings us to the theme of family trauma. Much of what we become starts at home, with our parents. For good or bad. This game kept returning to the looming presence and impact of family. Anita’s mom saw her and her brother as a burden, a curse, something dragging her down and keeping her from love and enjoying life. The mysterious diary girl’s family (Amelie?) was supportive but had the inadvertent affect of putting more pressure on her than she could take. She was driven to make them proud, to fulfill her potential for them. Not to mention the references to her creepy brother… the result of his presence made her want to rush to get away from home, which should have been her safe haven. While Maya’s parents were not mentioned, it’s safe to assume they’re the ones who moved her to Germany where she felt uncomfortable and out of place. And possibly kept her apart from the boy she loved. The only normal locations in the game were at school… the hallway, the library. Even the locations that were the character’s homes were run down and grimy, transported to the Villa. But was school really a safe, normal place?

The theme of bullying was important too. The kids at school, the anonymous posters online, and Anita herself, who proved to be a bully in her own way against Maya, who she asserted through much of the game to be her friend. It’s said that bullies lash out due to their own problems, but the end result of the bullying is more the issue here. The insults on post-it notes that clutter Anita’s hellscape, the faceless smoke monsters of her peers laughing and making rude comments, and the worst of all— an act of jealousy preventing a troubled and lonely girl from finding the help and support she needed.

Oooo… (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Which brings us to the biggest and most central theme… suicide. This is a common issue with teenagers and is especially widespread in Japan. (While set in Germany, this game was predominantly created by Japanese game devs.) This final act is sadly romanticized in media, making it seem like a tantalizing and obvious exit for those going through continual torment in life. Many children of the town had ended their lives, enough that it was considered an epidemic. The game implies that bullying and family strife were major causes, but there could be a deeper supernatural issue here… the curse set on the town by a woman who only wanted to help. But is that real, or just an excuse to absolve the adults of their parts in the deaths? The other themes are inextricably tied to this one, of course… social media making it possible to mask their pain while opening them up to ridicule and bullying. Problems with the family… and the safe haven of home not being so safe after all… all of this making it seem like the only out could be at the top of the apartment complex.

Maya had a different take on it. She was also suffering from loneliness and bullying, but she also justified her suicide as the way to preserve her legacy… to make her always be remembered as a lovely cherry blossom, blooming beautiful and staying beautiful even while falling. It also gave her an out to stop trying, to stop struggling. She had created what she felt was her ultimate work, and ending it now meant she would never have to attempt to top that work… or risk artistic decline if and when she failed. Most creative types could empathize with this fear, although few would take it to such an extreme. Would she have if she’d had Amelie to talk with? We’ll never know, and that’s the core of Anita’s self-imposed hell.

Not sure why her eye is red, but it’s neat. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

While some may be conflicted on how well The Short Message handled its dark and serious themes, there can be no doubt that the developers felt it was important to get this message out there. The delivery of the message was a bit blunt, but it was there and it was important. The devs did this with amazing graphics, mixed gameplay, and a glossy, beautiful package… all for free. It remains to be seen how it will stack up against the upcoming Silent Hill entries, but I enjoyed my time with Anita, Amelie, and Maya. (And, of course, Sakura Head!)

I can see this game not being to every gamer’s tastes, but I loved it. It reminded me of Gone Home, a beautiful and touching game that I really want to revisit. (Maybe I’ll cover it here in its own post!) I loved everything about this game except for the photo scavenger hunt. And while the chases (especially the last one) frustrated me, they were genuinely upsetting and had my heart racing, so they were effective in their own way.

I cannot recommend this game for everyone, as the scavenger hunt is disproportionately difficult and the game’s plot may trigger some. But the message is an important one and I truly hope it helps some players. It’s short, so it’s not much of a time investment, it’s free, and it could be good for fans of the series and horror game genre. It’s a genuinely jarring and effective game that I will remember.

The imagery has stuck with me long after I finished it. (Especially the final scene with the sticky notes blowing away on the rooftop.) The messages and themes have given me a lot to think about. While the frustrating chase scenes took up way too much time and were inordinately difficult, the puzzles were challenging enough and the rest of the gameplay simple. The little tidbits of lore and ties to Silent Hill even in a new locale were nice. I feel like this was a fun and thought-provoking diversion as I waited impatiently to reunite with James and Maria in the Silent Hill 2 Remake. Silent Hill: The Short Message is doomed to be overshadowed by that juggernaut of a game, but it was a nice gift from the town and those who look after it for us.

Maya’s masterpiece. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

So that was Silent Hill: The Short Message. Like I mentioned earlier, that wasn’t all we got of Silent Hill in the past 12 years since the last installments. In 2023 up until earlier in 2024 there was Silent Hill Ascension, which was a curious and unusual entry into the series. This was more a visual novel than a game… a mobile entry that combined cutscenes, viewer interaction, and micro transactions into a story that unfolded a minute or so at a time from start to finish. It wasn’t so much touted as a game as an “interactive media experience”. The clips ran from 7 to 5 days a week and were typically about 1-2 minutes long, although the first episode was significantly longer. The viewer interaction involved voting on character decisions, which would change the direction of the story and canon.

I was, at first, excited for this but I ended up only watching the first portion of the first episode. The nonstop release schedule and the horrible technical problems plaguing it upon launch kept me from logging in and keeping up with it. My initial experience was poor, with a lot of lagging and locking up altogether. When it came time to vote, the flood of users made it crash on me. It did not play well with my aging iPad. It worked a bit better on my phone, but I really didn’t want to watch something like this on a tiny screen. So that and the sheer amount of content with it being a daily obligation, made me sour on the whole experience and I never got around to watching the rest of it. The reviews I’ve seen were pretty poor, so that didn’t help. I also hated the whole microtransactional slant to it. I also kind of doubt the validity of the viewer voting aspect to it… with the hectic release schedule, how would they have time to tally everything and create the cut scenes in time? Seems to me it would be easier (but highly unethical) to tout it as viewer interaction but actually have the entire thing done before launch. But that’s just me being suspicious and jaded. I don’t know the ins and outs, and like I said, I mostly gave this one a skip.

Of course Silent Hill has also had numerous comic book titles from IDW and two theatrical movie adaptations. I have gone through all of those and enjoyed them. The comics were a bit lackluster, but some of the art was okay. The stories were forgettable and didn’t add much to the lore of the town. (Besides, they were not canon.) The movies were a whole lot of fun, taking unique angles to adapt and retell the events of Parts 1 and 3 respectively to the big screen. A third movie entitled Return to Silent Hill is in the works and will adapt Part 2.

So, with this entry, I find the future of Silent Hill to be very hopeful. (The missteps of Ascension aside.) Next up should be Silent Hill Townfall and Silent Hill f. I’m looking forward to learning more about both of them, but I feel like they won’t be out next year, so I should be able to finally do my post on Silent Hill: Origins. But of course, the Silent Hill 2 Remake is next, and that post should be out on Halloween, granted I finish it in time. I probably won’t cover the other media I mentioned (Ascension, the movies, the comic books) in detail unless it’s requested. Otherwise I will just continue to focus on the mainline entries of the game series, one per year until I’m caught up.

I did enjoy Silent Hill: The Short Message despite its downsides… the graphics were amazing and the story was good. Even the confusing parts. I felt a little rushed playing this since I wanted to get through it to start Silent Hill 2 Remake on my weekend. Even though it was so short, I wasn’t able to get it done in two play sessions thanks to the chase scene at the end messing me up. I barely got through it in time the next morning before work! Also I had trouble getting screenshots because my capture device is slowly dying and decided it didn’t want to play nice with my PS5. If I had it running for too long, it would shut off my TV and crash the recording, corrupting the file. Oh well, I got through it and have good memories of the game.

Another nice image. (Credit: Konami Digital Entertainment, HexaDrive)

Thank you all so much in joining me for the first of two trips into Silent Hill for this Halloween season! I appreciate your continued support and promise to keep improving and bringing you entertaining content as we continue down this path. I’ll be back very soon with more Halloween posts! Until then, take care of your mental health, reach out to those you love who may be struggling, and know that there are those out there who see you, even when it feels like you’re invisible.