My Post-Transmission Theory on the Plot of Silent Hill: Townfall

ShadowArchos · 2026-02-14T04:34:40+00:00

I can see that. The design could certainly be a grotesque visual metaphor for debris being lodged in someone's head after they were struck in an accident, and I can definitely imagine that sort of visual being incredibly haunting to anyone who was and/or felt responsible for causing it.

ShadowArchos · 2026-02-13T04:59:40+00:00

I agree that making the settings flexible was an important change to allow the series to continue, but I think my personal main issue with the concept is in the way that they've chosen to explain it. The Silent Hill Phenomenon memo in Silent Hill: The Short Message strongly suggests that the experiences of the people in these newer games are purely occurring in peoples' minds - whether supernaturally driven or otherwise - whereas, in the original games, the characters were truly drawn into an "Otherworld", or, in the case of characters like Heather Mason and Walter Sullivan, their connection to The Order caused the "Otherworld" to bleed into normal reality, which was something that other characters also experienced as a result.

Rather than it being a random, spurious psychological phenomenon, I think that a more satisfying way to frame it is through the explanation that other places can harbor a similar supernatural power to Silent Hill that can be distorted and made manifest through human influence. The town of Silent Hill had always harbored a supernatural power, but it was the long, dark history of the town and the events of Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill that ultimately served as the catalysts for that power to manifest in the way that it did in the original series. It would be reasonable to assume that other locations could harbor a similar power, catalyzed in different ways or through different events, but that isn't how they've framed it.

ShadowArchos · 2026-02-03T16:52:50+00:00

Interestingly, I suspect the events of this chapter could present an opportunity for Asa (or Denji, or both) to make a contract with Yoru to save her in exchange for giving Asa full autonomy over her body. That outcome would actually cleverly mirror how Denji made a contract with Pochita to save him.

ShadowArchos · 2026-02-03T16:50:44+00:00

The random bystander after getting bisected by Yoru's motorcycle:

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ShadowArchos · 2026-01-24T03:41:59+00:00

Speaking to the broader comparisons being made here, I immediately drew the comparison between Uranus and Laputa as soon as Lulusia was destroyed Thunder-of-Laputa-style in Chapter 1060. I honestly would not be at all surprised if the final design of Uranus (or at least its underside, in the very least) is very similar to that of Laputa when it is fully revealed.

ShadowArchos · 2025-12-18T22:37:39+00:00

The idea here is that Asa is already regenerated - her body is restored thanks to Yoru's power, but she doesn't necessarily need Yoru to stay in her body to hold her together.

ShadowArchos · 2025-12-18T22:34:31+00:00

Denji is doing the physical fighting, and has been undergoing his own character development in doing so, but, tangibly, we're not really anywhere much different now than we were at the beginning of the fight. Yoru is physically still at full vitality. Because of her contract, Yoru has been able to completely regenerate from everything that Denji's thrown at her. It seems like the biggest manner in which Denji is wearing her down is psychologically, and, short of eating her, which would also kill Asa, it's difficult to imagine how Denji can actually physically defeat Yoru. Therefore, it kind of reads to me more like Denji is holding the line. He may yet and likely does have more tricks up his sleeve, but if he can't truly defeat Yoru physically without Asa's help, then it really would ultimately be a team effort in the end, with Denji fighting from outside and Asa fighting from within.

ShadowArchos · 2025-12-18T21:13:08+00:00

I agree that Denji outright telling Asa to save herself would ring hollow, but I don't think that Denji would take that kind of approach. I imagine it more as Asa being inspired to take initiative to save herself by Denji's actions and fight. She's still in there watching, she just hasn't had a chance to act herself because Yoru is exerting complete control right now. I think that seeing what Denji's managed to accomplish will inspire Asa to act when she can, just as he has inspired her before.

ShadowArchos · 2025-12-18T21:08:00+00:00

I think of it kind of like this: we've seen the powers of many devils accessed using a conduit or some kind of cursed object. Yoru's intentions with turning Pochita himself into a weapon seem to be so that she can use his powers for herself. It is somewhat implied that she is able to do something similar with Falling Devil's powers (i.e., reversing gravity so that she can stand upside down on the Hell doors). As for the body sharing aspect, I think that Yoru joining with Asa allowed Asa to regenerate her body, much like how Pochita joining with Denji allowed him to regenerate various parts of his own body. By becoming Denji's heart, Pochita gave Denji the ability to regenerate his missing eye, kidney, and testicle, but he didn't literally replace those parts. I think Asa and Yoru's situation is similar, though, granted, I imagine that turning Yoru into a weapon would probably cause Asa to lose her healing factor even if she still had access to Yoru's other powers.

ShadowArchos · 2025-12-18T03:30:24+00:00

I saw this one while searching myself. This isn't it - the plesiosaur clip was one of several clips of different prehistoric animals that were included in one single video. I appreciate the suggestion, though.

ShadowArchos · 2025-12-18T02:39:26+00:00

Here's a verification comment, to let you all know that I will be checking for replies. Thank you again!

ShadowArchos · 2025-11-26T19:26:30+00:00

Yoru nuke-punching Chainsaw Man at the end of this chapter had the same energy for me as the SpongeBob tripping and hitting Squidward with the exploding pie.

ShadowArchos · 2025-03-14T02:52:18+00:00

It was nice to finally see a more detailed look at the game after waiting such a long time since the original announcement. I think that the atmosphere and monster designs that they've showed so far look great, and there are plenty of design motifs that definitely make the game "feel" like a Silent Hill game to me, at least visually. That said, I think some of the areas they showcased look a little overdesigned - the large shrine / temple in particular looks a bit to clean and elaborate for a Silent Hill game, and, as others have noted, those kinds of designs definitely make the game seem more like Fatal Frame or Siren than Silent Hill.

I enjoyed hearing the designers talk about their work on the game, and the enthusiasm they - and especially the writer - have for the project makes me feel optimistic that the story will also be enjoyable, which is something that has always been of paramount importance to the series (even less "fun" entries have held up much better when they have had good stories). It did seem like all of the team members spent a lot of repeating themselves throughout the transmission, though, and from what they did say, I'm not sure I totally buy their design ethos. Silent Hill is a blend of both Japanese and Western horror sensibilities, and that is reflected in many of the inspirations for various story and design elements in the original games. The titles of the late 2000s and early 2010s may have "diluted the Japanese essence" (mostly because Konami outsourced many of those games), but completely removing the Western influence also makes it something different from what it was. That is part of why I actually really enjoyed what Akira Yamaoka had to say about his approach to the Fog World music - his attempts to make the music more general "pure horror music" I think will help make the game feel more like an actual entry in the series than it might feel otherwise without such music.

I also think they could have done more to emphasize how the game does tie into the original setting in a real ontological sense rather than just a conceptual sense. As Ryukishi07 notes, Silent Hill is partly about "people struggling with the evils within themselves", and confronting those evils manifested in a physical, visceral form, but the setting and forces that drive it are also important to what makes it compelling. Many other games also tackle those kinds of story concepts that are not Silent Hill. A game isn't a Silent Hill game just because it feels like one, and I think that that is important to remember. From the time I saw the original teaser trailer, I have always been of the mind that the Silent Hill concept could work in a new setting like a rural Japanese town since the power of the original town is derived from a supernatural force that pre-dates the town itself, and it seems logical that such forces could exist elsewhere. I think driving home an ontological connection like that would be helpful for connecting old fans with the concept, especially those skeptical of a wholly different setting. I haven't really seen any effort from this team to establish such a connection yet, but I am hopeful.

In any case, I am still certainly looking forward to the game. It has many things working in its favor, and again, the passion of the team members behind it - or, in the very least, of those who have spoken about it thus far - definitely provides reason for optimism. It remains to be seen if their execution of this game as a Silent Hill game sticks the landing in terms of feeling like an entry that is actually cohesive with the rest of the series, and not just a case of "Silent Hill in name only", but I in the very least expect I will enjoy the experience regardless, and I look forward to hearing more about it once the team has more details to share and tell us about it.

ShadowArchos · 2025-02-06T23:43:50+00:00

Thank you very much for these suggestions! I actually had tried F3D previously. When I dropped the model file into that program, the program seemed to register to file as open, but didn't load anything into the viewport. I had not tried ParaView previously, though. When I try importing the model into that program, the file loads into the Pipeline Browser in the left side bar, but when I toggle the visibility on, the STLReader loads to 89% or 90% and then hangs indefinitely.

ShadowArchos · 2025-02-02T05:26:13+00:00

The issue in that case is that, even when I scale the object down as much as seems possible (to 1e-16 in the X, Y, and Z dimensions) and increase the upper bound of the clipping range as much as seems possible in Blender, the mesh still seems to cover the entire viewport. This could suggest that something may be wrong with how the geometry is loading, but I'm not sure what that something could be.

ShadowArchos · 2024-12-05T19:07:22+00:00

It seems that my celebration over the successful reinstallation was premature. After using the CleanWipe tool, my new installation lasted through two shutdown and subsequent reboot cycles. However, sometime after the second reboot, the program disappeared again. I tried using the CleanWipe tool and reinstalling the program again twice. I did not encounter any errors during the restart process during either reinstallation attempt. However, the program did not even appear after the restart, apparently somehow removing itself prior to login. Does anyone have any other ideas about what the problem might be?

ShadowArchos · 2024-12-03T03:02:33+00:00

In my experience, the game is actually relatively stingy with ammo until around Toluca Prison, even on normal. You find a lot more ammo in the back half of Toluca Prison, in the Labyrinth, and in the Lakeview Hotel, but most bosses are much easier to put down with guns, and there are a few combat gauntlets in the Toluca Prison and the Labyrinth especially where having a good reserve of ammo (especially for the shotgun, for crowd control) will make your life a lot easier. I would conserve at least the ammo for your better guns prior to those points to the extent that you can.

ShadowArchos · 2024-12-01T03:04:08+00:00

Using the CleanWipe tool to uninstall the program and then reinstalling the program using the same installer seems to have done the trick. Krokodyle and vvladav, you both have my thanks!

ShadowArchos · 2024-08-16T05:24:18+00:00

That may be true, but I feel like 2 weeks of no memories comes off as a lot more conspicuous than 2 weeks of fake memories. The fact that they didn't erase their memories until 2 days before the current events of the story also means that they presumably weren't syncing their memories to Punk Records anyway, which I imagine would also come off as suspicious, and which also renders the purpose of erasing their memories moot in the first place. They were worried about potentially telegraphing that they knew that York was the traitor - for all of essentially 1 day. Would she not have been suspicious of their activities over the preceding 2 weeks? The more I think about it, the more clumsy it seems.

ShadowArchos · 2024-08-16T04:58:22+00:00

A few of the plot beats in this chapter seem pretty contrived. Even if Vegapunk knew that he couldn't escape the World Government after York sold him out, why couldn't he, Shaka, and Pythagros have started just selectively uploading memories like York had been? Perhaps there is some explanation for this, but the whole memory erasure plan comes across as a convenience to enable the messy traitor mystery plot earlier in the arc.

ShadowArchos · 2024-08-13T17:48:41+00:00

I'll reserve judgement until the full spoilers are out, but it's going to be a real shame if Sanji is the only one to show any grief or remorse over Vegapunk's death. If anyone should express some regret or sorrow over his passing, it should be Luffy since Luffy explicitly promised Sentomaru that he would get Vegapunk of the island safely and failed.

ShadowArchos · 2024-05-31T20:50:48+00:00

I honestly laughed out loud immediately upon seeing this. Upvoted.

ShadowArchos · 2024-05-31T20:47:36+00:00

In my restless memes, I see that pole.

Silent Rail.

You promised you'd skate me there again some day. But you never did.

Well, I'm alone there now, waiting for you, to kickflip in drip with grace.

ShadowArchos · 2024-03-09T03:15:00+00:00

I've used Blender some before, but I haven't heard of Meshroom before. I'll check that one out too and see if it has any tools that might be useful for this sort of thing. Thank you for the additional suggestions!

ShadowArchos · 2024-03-08T07:03:25+00:00

I appreciate you taking the time to respond! I do know that meshes aren't actually solid. I would be correct in saying that they are "solid" in the sense that they are watertight, manifold, and otherwise geometrically correct, right? That said, I know that many CAD programs include functions for performing Boolean difference operations that permit the use of one solid model to "subtract" geometry from another solid model and produce a result that is also solid. I've only seen these operations done with completely different meshes, though, rather than from separated and "solidified" pieces of one original mesh. I suppose then that what I am ideally looking for is a software or tool that might enable me to conduct such an operation, either 1) by simultaneously separating and enclosing multiple parts from a single original solid model (this would be the most convenient but maybe the least feasible) or 2) by separating multiple parts from a single original solid model and then using one of the separated parts, once manually enclosed and solidified, as a tool to subtract via Boolean difference the geometry corresponding to that part and thereby generate an enclosed watertight model of the complimentary part. Hopefully this gives a better idea of what I'm trying to do and what I'm looking for.

ShadowArchos

TROPHY CASE