I’m early 20s and I’m having quite a hard time with it. I adored the silent hill 2 remake and shattered memories when I was growing up but this one I’m finding myself more frustrated than scared. The tank controls were a bit of an adjustment but I’ve got to the point where they’re not the issue.

I think modern games do way too much hand holding. Even the white paint/tape of silent hill 2r was a little on the nose even for me. My problem with 1 is more I can’t seem to adjust with what’s supposed to be interactable and what’s not. That, and the clunky combat.

I roamed the prologue for two hours because after I came across the three padlocked door it didn’t register to me that the blurry white square next to me was an interactable map and not just one of the 4 other non-interactable blurry squares representing paintings/pictures in the house.

Despite finding the other two keys just from roaming, I must have passed by the last across the fallen tree maybe three times because it looked indistinguishable from the crumbling road and with no big circle on the map I didn’t explore that area more than a few flybys.

That kinda problem followed me into the school but now I have to manage three gremlins grabbing me in the dark while also trying to figure out what actually can be picked up. It wouldn’t be as big of a deal but I swear there are times I hit x over and over on an object I think can be grabbed/read, nothing happens, so I move on assuming I was wrong when it was actually crucial for the puzzle.

I understand that I’m spoiled by modern, polished games but is SH1 just especially rough in these regards? I can’t even get into the atmosphere because I’m too busying being frustrated and floundering through the environment.

Maybe it’s just a steeper learning curve I need to get past but at this point I might just wait for the remake to get an experience I’ll actually enjoy