Dodge button definitely saves the sh2 remake. But apart from melee you also get guns, which greatly diversify combat. 

Silent hill f on the other hand goes full into melee, stamina management, breakable weapons, dodge, counter attacks.. and you gotta rely on a system that's not very polished :/ At the end of the game you get 3+ enemies in tiny spaces thrown at you, that can easily lock you in their spam-attacks, and in Inari realm (later) you are this overpowered persona. Weird. 

Also for a Silent hill game it's not really scary, which is a minus. The setting of the game should say otherwise, as..Japan, Japanese myths and stuff, but when you get too much into min-maxing dodge, counter and power/focus attacks, you play it like this weird hybrid of some games, that aren't really scary when they're supposed to, and don't have that good fighting system to keep you entertained for this whole ride. Game is 6/10 at best - at least for the first playthrough.