Killer7 SINdicate

I agree with your criticisms. The combat often spoils the mood and the fact there are any "respawns" at all is idiotic.

Yeah even with the enemy designs being very cool, they get repeated so often and they respawn so much they lose their luster pretty quickly.
What's funny to me is that the issue was already solved in the 90s. Not every single game needed combat. The original clock tower has a stalker enemy and learning how to evade it was a time-sensitive puzzle, as opposed to modern horror games where you sit in a corner for 20 minutes waiting for the scary thing to pass you by. Twilight Syndrome had no enemies at all, it was an adventure game with fail states.

Keichiro Toyama (The director of SH1 and the forbidden siren series) actually cited the Syndrome games as an inspiration, which is probably why the Siren games have a more unconventional approach to enemy encounters and I tend to like them a lot more overall. (One of the main characters of the original Siren was called Suda as a homage to Suda51.) Hell everything about the Siren games is unconventional, for some reason they manage to feel less "gamey" to me despite being separated in actual levels you pick from a menu, with side objectives and shit. (Not that being "gamey" is a bad thing in and of itself, but that's clearly not what Silent Hill was going for.)

I will say though that for me the vastness of the maps as a consequence combat design is a silver-lining. There's something about them I find pleasing. I suppose that's personal taste. I may have enjoyed tighter areas and camera more, but we will never know.

I don't mind it in levels that are actually well designed, like the Hotel in 2 (I'm just using that as an example since that's the one you played). However, each of these games has some area which is just a gray corridor that you walk through over and over again fighting enemies for an hour or so which completely stops the pacing. Even 2 had that, I think right after the historical society where you just walk through some samey underground corridors for ages.
IMO the game would be better served by being tighter and cutting out a lot of fat, but I blame that on gamers being braindead ape-like mongoloids who value their money in terms of playtime lol. (Hence why gaming finally transitioned into endless dopamine dealing machines with no beginning and no end, so I can stop caring about it altogether.)

The amount of monsters in Four is almost like an MMORPG. It's a shame because I find that game to be overall the most interesting in the series. I'd probably still rate it higher than Three.

I did find the premise of 4 to be very interesting and I really liked the apartment, it was just the cut off point for me in terms of how shitty gameplay was that I couldn't really bring myself to play it. I'll probably look up a playthrough at some point but I was busy doing other stuff (mostly actually working on the website).
It sure would be nice if some cuck faggot cracker honky who blinds me with his absolutely radiant whiteness would produce me that "don't lose your head" susie image so I could make the site map but that's asking too much I guess

I did not play any of the western ones except for Shattered Memories, which had an interesting premise at least. It wasn't that great overall though. I don't have much to say about it because I don't think there is much to say about it.

Presentation is good in the first act of Three but even then the writing doesn't really match. Characters are too loud and stupid. Whole thing can be played with magical girl outfit and there's no change in mood. Promo materials were misleading.

I don't mind the magical girl stuff since that's only in NG+. So it's meant to be some funny shit you use during replays to add some variety. I don't see a point in it though because that would require the games to be fun to play, which they aren't.

I guess my point is that the silent hill games are designed to be experiential/arthouse type games like Clock Tower or the D trilogy, but they have a bunch of shit in them that was incorporated thoughtlessly from the resident evil games which really kills my interest. Enemy encounters, unlockable weapons, unlockable costumes, all that shit is in RE because those were very gamey games that encouraged replayability to get better scores. Which would come from memorizing item locations, minimizing travel time, optimizing puzzle solutions & picking which enemies to fight, with which weapons and when in order to have enough ammo for boss fights. In that regard they are similar to the Metroid games, even though the gameplay style is completely different.
Silent Hill has all the elements of an RE game, picking up ammo, smashing a crowbar over an enemy, but makes every action overtly tedious and lacks the overall structure that makes those encounters worthwhile. Playing on hard combat mode I wasn't exactly speedrunning and yet I never ran out of ammo (except for the final boss of 1, so I actually ended up with the boss killing itself lol) and I had plenty of healing items till the final encounters. There's nothing to optimize really, so why even have it at all. The exploration and puzzles are good though. Deadly Premonition has the same issue with the retarded combat segment that were forced in by a producer, but to be fair they amount to far less of the overall playtime in that game than they do in Silent Hill, and D4 had done away with them entirely.

Never underestimate gamers.

What I dislike is how Silent Hill fans tend to describe SH as if they were reading an encyclopedia, or some real world scientific literature.



They always go on about the "mechanics" behind a spooky town being haunted which is completely retarded, because it's not happening in the real world. There are no fucking mechanics behind a town being haunted. That's where I feel the writing is at odds with the design, because a lot of the visuals and soundscapes are meant to be evocative in and of themselves, but noone who professes to love the series seems to pay attention to that because a bunch of talking heads just sit down and explain the plot to you. Even 2 which is the one that's unconnected to the whole cult conspiracy, all the psychological stuff is pretty much explained outright, while I think it would actually benefit from being more abstract and obtuse. Like after I see james suffocating his wife I don't also need a monologue of him explaining everything that happened in detail.

My main complaint about Three could also be applied to the others. Areas feel seperated into "levels" like it's Super Mario. This is a trapping like you said and I don't want to get too abstract in my criticism. Four is better in this regard. The retracing of steps, the routines and the constant returns to the room has a grounding effect and works harmoniously with the purgatory theme and overall mood. It's the same thing that makes F.S.R. work but then they ruin it by throwing Dodongos at you.

It's definitely more pronounced in 3 than it is in 1 and 2. The first two games have more segments where you walk through the city streets which help ground each labyrinth as an actual place within the town, while in 3 most transitions happen in cutscenes. For that reason I don't even feel like Heather's town is a believable place, I don't even remember what it was called lol. The mall level in particular bored me to tears.
It makes me think of how few games actually use a believable, lived in place as a setting. (Believable doesn't necessarily mean realistic.) The Yakuza and Shenmue games obviously are examples of it done on a high budget, but even your example of FSR is correct. The GHM Blood+ game also has a town setting which, while underutilized overall (mostly because they had to finish the game in 7 months, so they drop the investigative angle of the game pretty quickly and put you against a bunch of dodongos instead LOL! They even look like dodongos.) is very nice and moody and provides a good setting for the game. Just having it there and seeing it does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of establishing the setting of the story, which is then expanded upon in dialogue.

Santa Destroy from the original NMH would be a better realized version of that, since you can actually enter stores where you make small talk with people and what not, but I feel that having big glowing videogame hotspots almost ruins it. (Yes I understand they are there because Travis is a delusional retard who sees his life as a videogame.) It almost makes me wish that No More Heroes 3 was good because there's a lot of storytelling and atmosphere you can put in designing a location, but in 3 it really does feel like a unity asset flip where you get magically teleported to beta-testing arenas to fight gay aliens. You can almost see the design intentions that informed FSR, ONK and NMH1 if you squint your eyes and smoke crack, but none of the buildings do anything but provide a location for teleporters and random tchotchkes. You can't even buy shirts at the shirt store, you have to trade achievements with random aliens in random spots which are mostly gained by grinding said gay aliens.
Kurayami was probably going to be the next step in that kind of GHM design but I guess it was not meant to be.

I think the setting of Silent Hill overall is pretty well realized and probably my favourite part of all four games (though I agree with you that 3 is the least interesting one, because its locations could really be anywhere). I liked the games okay overall, I just think it's a shame they are bogged down by trashy gameplay and cheesy writing because I really liked everything else. I can see why people hold Yamaoka in such high regard for example, it's clear he either did not give a fuck while working at GHM or he was given no direction whatsoever because his soundtracks really fit every segment of every SH game he worked on, while they don't fit any of his GHM games at all. Shadows of the Damned is almost scored like a horror game lol.

Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:34 am I agree with your criticisms. The combat often spoils the mood and the fact there are any "respawns" at all is idiotic.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am Yeah even with the enemy designs being very cool, they get repeated so often and they respawn so much they lose their luster pretty quickly.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am Keichiro Toyama (The director of SH1 and the forbidden siren series) actually cited the Syndrome games as an inspiration, which is probably why the Siren games have a more unconventional approach to enemy encounters and I tend to like them a lot more overall. (One of the main characters of the original Siren was called Suda as a homage to Suda51.)

Very cool. Hadn't heard any of this before. I'm fond of Siren.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am However, each of these games has some area which is just a gray corridor that you walk through over and over again fighting enemies for an hour or so which completely stops the pacing. Even 2 had that, I think right after the historical society where you just walk through some samey underground corridors for ages.

These type of segments can have a good atmosphere if the player is left alone. I don't know if you made it to the water tower in Four, but that's a very nice area.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am It sure would be nice if some cuck faggot cracker honky who blinds me with his absolutely radiant whiteness would produce me that "don't lose your head" susie image so I could make the site map but that's asking too much I guess

They've probably been wandering in the woods, sleeping outdoors and chasing butterflies around like the white ape they are. Time to crack the whip.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am I did not play any of the western ones except for Shattered Memories, which had an interesting premise at least. It wasn't that great overall though. I don't have much to say about it because I don't think there is much to say about it.

I never had a Wii but I thought that looked pretty decent based on Hikikomori Media's review on Youtube.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am I don't mind the magical girl stuff since that's only in NG+. So it's meant to be some funny shit you use during replays to add some variety. I don't see a point in it though because that would require the games to be fun to play, which they aren't.

I don't mind it either. My point was that the whole game feels so flippant that it wouldn't be out of place even on an initial playthrough.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am I guess my point is that the silent hill games are designed to be experiential/arthouse type games like Clock Tower or the D trilogy, but they have a bunch of shit in them that was incorporated thoughtlessly from the resident evil games which really kills my interest.

I think they even have too much horror.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am The exploration and puzzles are good though. Deadly Premonition has the same issue with the retarded combat segment that were forced in by a producer, but to be fair they amount to far less of the overall playtime in that game than they do in Silent Hill, and D4 had done away with them entirely.

While I enjoy those segments for their comedy, it's a shame they're in there. Swery is talented and capable, but things like that have led to this misappreciation of him as some kind of buffoon to the point that he's accepted the character and allowed it to ruin his newer games.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am Even 2 which is the one that's unconnected to the whole cult conspiracy, all the psychological stuff is pretty much explained outright, while I think it would actually benefit from being more abstract and obtuse. Like after I see james suffocating his wife I don't also need a monologue of him explaining everything that happened in detail.

Two certainly "speaks down" to the player in this way. It's bothersome.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am Just having it there and seeing it does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of establishing the setting of the story, which is then expanded upon in dialogue.

F.S.R. remains the gold standard here, and it's the best part of the Yakuza games. Way of the Samurai series also comes to mind. I love the passage of time shown in the same setting.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am Kurayami was probably going to be the next step in that kind of GHM design but I guess it was not meant to be.

What's the matter? Don't prefer what you got instead?

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:26 am I can see why people hold Yamaoka in such high regard for example, it's clear he either did not give a fuck while working at GHM or he was given no direction whatsoever because his soundtracks really fit every segment of every SH game he worked on, while they don't fit any of his GHM games at all.

Maybe bad chemistry or something but misamanagement wouldn't surprise me.

I never had a Wii but I thought that looked pretty decent based on Hikikomori Media's review on Youtube.

It is decent, the premise is kind of interesting. It just ended up being pretty dull for me. Like the twist was fine and the set up for it was clever, but other than that the town is not as interesting as it was in the Japanese games (obviously) so the exploration is just kind of okay.

I don't mind it either. My point was that the whole game feels so flippant that it wouldn't be out of place even on an initial playthrough.

I get you. There is almost a level of self-parody to 3 which on one hand I thought was kind of funny, but on the other I have no clue why it was there. I don't even mean with the extra costumes, I mean with stuff like the haunted house and some of Heather's one liners.
I do think it wrapped up the story from 1 fine, even indirectly explaining shit like hoffman's drug trade (which made no sense to me as per why it would be included in 1 at all) but again, the writing is pretty dodgy all around.

While I enjoy those segments for their comedy, it's a shame they're in there. Swery is talented and capable, but things like that have led to this misappreciation of him as some kind of buffoon to the point that he's accepted the character and allowed it to ruin his newer games.

It's even worse than that, because the ports of the original DP were such dogshit that it's now known as a game where people "laugh at the glitches", so part 2 (which was already bad) never got fixed because it's "part of the charm". That's complete bullshit because the original DP on xbox360 had two (2) glitches, one of which you had to trigger intentionally and both of which were inconsequential. The game ran at a stable framerate too. Hell it even upscales to 4k if you play it on xbox one x lol.
The programmers at toybox are so fucking bad that DP2 on PC is made to run at 50hz. Not fps mind you, hertz. You have to trick the game in order to have it run at a modern refresh rate.

Way of the Samurai series also comes to mind. I love the passage of time shown in the same setting.

Yeah I forgot way of the samurai completely. I guess so did the rest of the world but I really liked it.

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:36 am It's even worse than that, because the ports of the original DP were such dogshit that it's now known as a game where people "laugh at the glitches", so part 2 (which was already bad) never got fixed because it's "part of the charm". That's complete bullshit because the original DP on xbox360 had two (2) glitches, one of which you had to trigger intentionally and both of which were inconsequential. The game ran at a stable framerate too. Hell it even upscales to 4k if you play it on xbox one x lol.
The programmers at toybox are so fucking bad that DP2 on PC is made to run at 50hz. Not fps mind you, hertz. You have to trick the game in order to have it run at a modern refresh rate.

Has there been any kind of fan restoration of the PC release?
I don't suppose there would be if what people are fans of is this weird vandalized version of the game.
It's absolutely confounding that the relationship with Toybox has continued.

Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:52 am

Xed51 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:36 am It's even worse than that, because the ports of the original DP were such dogshit that it's now known as a game where people "laugh at the glitches", so part 2 (which was already bad) never got fixed because it's "part of the charm". That's complete bullshit because the original DP on xbox360 had two (2) glitches, one of which you had to trigger intentionally and both of which were inconsequential. The game ran at a stable framerate too. Hell it even upscales to 4k if you play it on xbox one x lol.
The programmers at toybox are so fucking bad that DP2 on PC is made to run at 50hz. Not fps mind you, hertz. You have to trick the game in order to have it run at a modern refresh rate.

Has there been any kind of fan restoration of the PC release?
I don't suppose there would be if what people are fans of is this weird vandalized version of the game.
It's absolutely confounding that the relationship with Toybox has continued.

Supposedly there is one with DPfix, but for whatever reason it doesn't work for me at all. The game just crashes constantly. I actually prefer the 360 version regardless because of the color filters (which were removed from the director's cut to accomodate for 3d tvs, no I'm not even joking that was a feature in the ps3 version) and the better camera. The director's cut version (which is the ps3 port on which the pc port was based on) also has some new cutscenes which really fuck with the pacing of the game and are generally horrible, and also non-canon now that 2 came out.

Canon shmanon.
Still, it's been a while since I've played it. Which cutscenes are those?

Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:38 am Canon shmanon.
Still, it's been a while since I've played it. Which cutscenes are those?

The ones with old man Zach telling the story of the game to his granddaughter which are randomly inserted

Had completely forgotten those. A bizarre addition.

Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:08 pm Had completely forgotten those. A bizarre addition.

I never really liked them because they kill the pacing of the story. Sometimes a chapter will start with York in the red room, but in the re-release they add an apropos of nothing scene of him retelling the game to his granddaughter right before it. So is he telling her "And then I woke up in a spiritual space between realms where I had visions of my younger self, then I woke up"? The framing doesn't fit at all.
They removed them from the switch version but everything else (new camera, no color filters, a million more glitches, propensity to crashing) is the same as the director's cut version.

I actually got in trouble for recommending the original DP on the old forums back when it came out lol. I still think the original is an overall good game despite the forced combat sections. (Which again, in the overall economy of the playtime aren't even that many unless you're just speeding through the story.)
The level of interactivity you have with the town and characters hasn't been replicated in anything since, which is absurd when you consider that it was a low-budget title released at budget price. Each named NPC has a routine which changes depending on the episode and the weather, they each have different dialogue depending on where you meet them, when you meet them and the weather conditions, they interact with each other regardless of player input, and each of them has a little storyline that ties into the history of the town. You can even spy them from their windows and enter each of their houses.
I would even argue that most of the sidequest rewards are useful or fun to play around with, even though they're worth it in and of itself if you're into the writing of the game.

I also think the writing is good, or at the very least the character writing. It doesen't get enough credit because everyone just focuses on the funnier/goofier moments (which I don't mind either. Every derivative of Twin Peaks seems to selectively ignore that it had its own goofy moments as well.)

At its core the plot revolves around a psychological mindgame between York/Zach, George and Forrest Kaysen.

George is a broken man through the abuse he suffered in childhood who runs the town's BDSM underworld like a cult of personality by taking advantage of people who are even more insecure and feeble minded than he is (A transvestite gay man, random teenage girls) by prying them with drugs. Ultimately he was just manipulated by Kaysen whose purpose is to be an agent of chaos and spread the red seed through whichever means are more feasable in a specific era and location. (Which in present day rural america, would be undeground drug deals. During war time he just infiltrated the military to develop them into a chemical weapon, which is still seeped in the town's streets to this day and is ultimately what causes the supernatural apparitions to come out at night.)
George starts sacrificing his cult members one by one after being manipulated by Kaysen into thinking that the ritual would make him ascend to godhood, and with Thomas' help he impedes York's investigations while he goes through with the other murders.

That's what Kaysen's line, "Binding people with rules is a sign of small mindedness, and that's what George represented in life" is getting at. George's iron grip on the town, which he developed by being a lawman during the day and a drug kingpin during the night, is ultimately just a reflection of his own weakness of character, which Kaysen exploits successfully by reaching his goals without lifting a finger. George even cries like a bitch when he's turning into a super sayian 3 in his boss fight lol. "He's the one who gave me the wonderful present! He told me I would be divine!"
His banter with York is also very funny. "I chose her as my first sacrifice, so I could become divine!" "No George, you chose her as your first "victim" so you could become a "first degree murderer.""

Zach is also a broken man due to childhood trauma who chose to be a lawman, but instead of projecting his insecurities by asserting control onto the weak minded he developed a split personality in the strong and reliable York Morgan who acts as a filter between Zach and the world. Instead of succumbing to his own broken body and mind, Zach manages to tap into a higher level of spirituality through his connection with York, which is how he's ultimately able to solve the investigation through bullshit coincidences such as fishing out the files from the river. (It's actually not dissimilar to how Dale Cooper in TP3, after being rendered retarded by switching bodies with the tulpa Dougie Jones, immediately starts making life better for all those surrounding him by following hints left for him by the lodge spirits. It's hinting at higher forces at play, it's not actually bullshit.)
Zach, once presented with a repeat of his childhood trauma (His father being forced to kill his own wife in order to prevent the spread of evil. Which is to say that the sacrifices to the red seeds, are actually just impregnated with a red tree, further spreading the infection. Hence why the biggest number of them are found in the cemetery.) eventually gathers the strenght to come out of his York cocoon and confront Kaysen. In other words, Zach is able to hurt Kaysen because instead of commiserating himself (much like George did) his trauma became a gateway to a higher state of mind and existance.

Another thing I find interesting is how Mr. Stewart acts as a spiritual guide / shaman for Zach through the game. Stewart is actually George's father, and he failed in protecting George from his own insane wife. We later find out that he in turn was crippled by his father, which was made insane by the red seed gas in the 50s. (Stewart's father was the original Raincoat Killer from the 50s, the same legend that George exploits in present-time Greenvale.)
In other words, all the main players in the game are part of a cicle of abuse started by a spiritual evil that has no purpose other than to spread itself and weaken others. By acting out the roles of father and son, Stewart and Zach ultimately break this cicle of abuse through a spiritual connection to a higher plane.

There's some very good dialogue and acting in there too, specifically relating to the phrase "At times we must purge things from this world because they should not exist, even if it means losing someone that you love". The first time we hear that is when York is recounting the suicide-homicide of his parents, and recalls them as his father's last words before he killed his wife and himself. Stewart then quotes the line back at him, which is the one moment where York gets upset and responds "that doesen't justify murder!". I like that instead of questioning why or how Stewart would know about his past, he just has a gut reaction. When Zach is awakened, it is revealed that Xander (his dad) actually could not bring himself to kill his wife, who was consumed by the red tree in front of him. (Meaning that his sin is the same as Stewart's. Failing to kill a loved one, allowing evil to spread further and infect the next generation.) Zach is then forced into the same choice (killing Emily in order to spare her from being consumed by the tree), yet cannot bring himself to quote his father fully. (He says "extracted" instead of "purge".) He ultimately fails as well, so I guess in this instance Emily is the one breaking the cycle of abuse by killing herself, which in turn gives Zach enough conviction to face Kaysen even without his York persona. York, having fulfilled his role, becomes a guide to the afterlife to those who died. (Which apparently was a foregone conclusion, considering the painting in Stewart's house predicted this exact outcome.) By helping Zach, Stewart ultimately spares him the grief of growing into a regretful old man as he did. (Which happens in 2 regardless but whatever, I mean in the context of 1.)

There's this idea that the writing in DP is "so bad it's good" but I disagree. It is definitely a funny game, but I think the humor is as intentional as the drama. I think the problem with gamers is that they're so used to god awful dogshit writing that they can't even conceptualize something being sincere. I do think DP and D4 have legitimately good writing, they're not really "about" anything in the same sense that the older Suda games were (where you can approach them as not so subtle allegories of real world issues, and the philosophy behind them) but that doesn't make the writing bad. The plot construction of D4 was kind of impressive in and of itself considering that you can predict which plot twists were going to happen in the following titles just by analysing the only one they released.

What happened with Swery is similar to what happened with Suda, in that the biggest part of the fanbase latched on to very superficial elements of each's work, which in turn led producers to ask for those elements to be blown out of proportion and overshadow everything else. With Suda it would be the pop culture reference, violence and dirty jokes. With Swery I guess it would be the goofy animations, glitches and movie quotes I think? That's even worse because his first three games (Spy Fiction, DP and D4) were not glitchy at all lol. It's as if the entire appeal of Suda's games was decided upon the shitty PS3 port of No More Heroes or something.

Even spy fiction, which was the weakest game of the three, still had some good writing in there (I like how the double agent character is handled specifically) and some fun gameplay ideas I've not really seen expanded in anything else.

The tranny puzzle game he made still had some drama (although I can't really relate to it since I'm not a goth chick myself) but everything else that came after was just a bunch of retarded memes.
DP2 is especially egregious because it cut out everything that was good about the original, while expanding on its worse elements and tacking on an RPG system that everything else ties back to. Seriously, WTF? Noone remembers farming alligators to drop teeth to make 1/10th of a medallion that gives you a +1 in strenght from DP1. What everyone remembers is the exploration, investigation, cool locations and character interactions. DP2 barely has any interiors, barely has any additional dialogue (there's like ten lines in total), no alternate dialogue when meeting characters out of sequence, no memorable sidequests that tie into the overall history of the town, no different vehicles, and everything you do ties into the grinding RPG system that is only useful to get high scores in some god awful minigames and for the only three combat sequences in the game.
There are some parts of the story that I enjoyed, for example I liked most of what was going on with old man Zach, I liked Kaysen returning at the end (although his new voice actor almost ruins it), I liked that scarface from Spy Fiction showed up as the plantation owner, but overall it didn't really have any bite. It's just a bunch of shit happening, with Swery shoehorning in his fetish for transvestites once again by making the tranny villain a supergenious who managed to outsmart Kaysen (who is essentially an emissary of elder gods lol) by creating a situation in which kind hearted Patricia would inherit the massive wealth of the clarkson family while York would solve the case preventing the spread of the red seed at the same time making the world a better place all around. (All of this also relied on hurricane cathrina happening at the exact right time so I guess the tranny also puppeteered HAARP from behind the scenes.)
There is no psychological power play or mistery solving in this detective game whatsoever because the "villain" (who is not a villain at all and is in fact the smartest person to ever live, human or otherwise) has already won before the story started. So the only bit of drama to be invested in is Zach slowly going insane from a brain tumor and obsessing over a corpse that was never found, but that is also resolved with some bullshit macguffin with York showing up and magically curing Zach of his tumor which may or may not have been Forrest Kaysen himself. That makes no sense because in the original, York was just a persona that Zach created to shield himself from the world. Granted the game does hint at the fact that York eventually developed into his own soul living in the spiritual plane, but just being able to magically cure cancer with the power of love is a step too far. He's basically an angel now. The rest of the story is just a bunch of jokes and movie references and memes where York follows the instructions of a voodoo priest who has nothing to do with any of the events taking place. (???)

The Good Life was promising when it got announced since it seemed like a re-do of Deadly Premonition without the tacked on combat. In that you'd actually get to investigate a murder lol. (The biggest problem with 1 is that you can actually just beat the game by never engaging with detective work whatsoever and just driving from cutscene to cutscene, and from combat encounter to combat encounter. Granted that would be missing everything good about the game, but it was technically possible. Meanwhile the good life seemed like it would require you to engage with the world, just to progress with the story.)
Unfortunately from what I have seen TGL is also a bunch of dumb memes and grinding. I might be wrong considering I have not played it yet, but that's the impression I get from all the footage.

I don't understand if Swery thinks he's being clever by constantly peddling the idea that his games are shit on purpose because people like them that way, or if he drank himself into retardation. I definitely think he showed promise when DP and D4 released but I don't really give a shit what he does now.