Sta.sh
PART 1:
Brace yer selves, this is a long one!
Even since really learning of it a little more than a year ago, and remembering experiences my Older brother had playing the sequel, I've spent countless days and nights learning everything about the Silent Hill Franchise. I've read every fan site, looked at every wiki and wikia article, studied monsters and mythos, entertained theories, watched reviews, seen complete playthrough's of every games (some of them twice by different players) and even bridged together my own concepts and ideas.
And the Irony of all this, is that after a year and a half of soaking all this information up, I now know more about the entire franchise than most players of it...without every touching a single game for myself.
Sure I've emulated the first game a bit myself, but only to see how it played on my own.
I'm so obsessed with this series now, you can ask me anything about it and I can tell you it all. And all without ever really playing any of the games.
I also know why fans of the original 4 games hate all the newer games. I kept thinking it was nostalgia or them being too much like the typical "OLD IS BETTER NYEH!" But now after so much study of it I realise exactly why..
Sparing you all the boring story and long widned explanation I'll sum it up right here: The first 4 games adhear to an overall story and a set of concepts within that story, follow the rules of it's universe and lore, and stay within it's structure. All games since then, made by american companies, (4 of them so far) do not. And infact their creators are all of the shared opinion that the original four games were flawed, their story was weak, and their idea of how everything works as far as the story and the reasoning behind the Silent Hill isn't important enough for them to follow in their own games.
The creator of the game just before the one that came out recently, even said in an interview that he "Hated the original games idea of a Cult and their dealings with an evil god they worship." and he set out first of all to avoid it completely.
That's like if an american company took on mario Bros, and decided the idea of a mushroom kingdom and all these creatures within there are stupid and Mario should be an entirely different thing all together...if you're going to go that far, then change the game and the characters entirely and just make your own game XD
that's the hilarious thing here, is that all these other games? They aren't TERRIBLE games...But they'd have done better if they just made their own thing and just said they were inspired by Silent Hill.
PART 2:
In fact, i'll use the movies "Ring" and "The Ring" As a good example here. By themselves, both are good movies. Both use symbolism, both are clever tales, both have interesting concepts and ideas.
Where they differ is in culture. You'll notice something right away that American's do with things. if American idol or The office shows anything, it's that they see potential in a smaller, more modest product of other countries, and dream bigger. Dream more money, more effects. they cater to an audience that are just there for the graphics.
In the end, both Ring and The Ring are about a stupid idea of a little girl crawling out of your TV. But the American version stopped there and played to the stephen king-esque "Take one fear people have and stay with that." (Trucks, Clowns, Spiders, Planes) But the japanese version went further to explain why it used that, why she has powers after death, why she is what she is. And it wasn't afraid to add magic type ideas to a horror movie.
But Americans are raised on Friday the 13th and Halloween. They're used to Hollywood monsters with no real rhyme or reason, just endless supernatural slaughter of stupid teenagers. And so The Ring, while still having symbolic things and "making you think" moments, sticks to the Hollywood fashion of keeping the girl as just "A special girl" Because the general audience isn't going to care WHY. They just know "SHE'S A FREAKY GIRL THAT CRAWLS OUT OF A TV!"
So back on Silent Hill, it's the same thing. The Japanese games made by Team Silent detailed how the city was founded upon an Indian sacred place that held mystical powers, but that years later, a cult that worshiped an evil Jewish God played with demonic rituals and powers, thus corrupting what was once a spiritual power, into a nightmare. And that trying to resurrect their God backfired on them because they didn't count on their subject, a young girl, not wanting to go along with it. Her desperate attempt to stop their evil work caused a number of things to occur. Such as splitting her spirit into two people, and subjecting her body to the worst nightmares imaginable, nightmares that alter infected the town of Silent Hill, and twisted it into the horrible place it is today.
Saving you the rest of the stories, that alone there, a corrupted spiritual power, and nightmares reflecting on a town, are all great. and most of the cult dealings is based on real cult beliefs and attempts.
When american companies took over, Their director's wanted to avoid all the things with the cult, and simply make the town just a horror movie location. Sure their games had symbolism and deep plots. But they left the whole point behind, because they were short-sighted and didn't realize the things they so strongly wanted to avoid were what the series was BASED on.
Another comparison, this is like taking the story of the Little mermaid, and saying "I didn't care for the whole mermaid thing, I want to make it about a race of bird people instead, and the girl dreams of becoming human." While this isn't a bad idea either, can you still even call it "The little Mermaid" after that? Just cause it's familiar?
So yeah. that's how the new Silent Hill games are. They aren't BAD ideas themselves, but they also aren't related. You can see the inspiration, but...yeah you get the idea.
So yah, another long spat form me. It's funny how people think.
Euphoric 
