An old guide has a question and answer session which explains some background. Really funny that fans would debate shit for years when these Japanese guides were quite direct with this info.I'll be dumping a few pages.
>>11329593Ran through Google image's new translator.
>>11329594confirms a common fan theory that Maria can't be seen by Laura at all since Laura doesn't see any monsters.
>>11329598
>>11329605
>>11329616It mangles things a bit, but they cite David Lynch's Lost Highway and Jacob's Ladder, which people had picked up upon for years. Several monsters and designs were lifted right from Jacob's ladder.
>>11329623
>>11329632
>>11329638
>>11329632I always thought it was an allusion to this.
>>11329593>Really funny that fans would debate shit for years when these Japanese guides were quite direct with this info.Who wrote it? Was it Owako or anyone else from Team Silent?
>>11329684It's one of the several Konami Official Guidebooks, which were published by Konami directly. They don't explain exactly how they are made, but it's believed it's based on notes and with guidance with developers. Also, the latter section is a Question and Answer section with developers, but doesn't name them specifically. I think it's several people and jumps between them. The details also lines up with what most fans have pieced together anyways, so it's not like it's saying anything controversial. The guides also document more minor behavior and details fans don't talk about. Nice to see how much damage enemies inflict for instance.
>>11329593Great thread OP. leddit BTFO. No longer have to rely on Itos revisionism
There's two scanners doing most of this, BigManJapan on archive who is from Russia, and another unnamed scanner whose scans show up on manga download sites. The list of Silent Hill scanned guides:>Silent Hill Perfect Guide - Konami>Silent Hill Perfect Navigation - Famitsu >Silent Hill Offiical Guidebook - Konami>Silent Hill 2 Official Guide - Konami>Silent Hill 2 Official Complete Strategy & World Guide - Konami>Silent Hill Fastest Guide - Konami>Silent Hill Play Novel - Konami >Silent Hill 4 The Room Official Guide - Konami>Silent Hill 3 Official Complete Strategy Guide* - KonamiThe book is divided in two, with half being a SH3 walkthrough, and the reverse half called "Book of Lost Memories", which is a full breakdown of the entire series and answers fan questions. This has been scanend and posted online for a long time. Believe it or not there's actually MORE official Japanese books not scanned.
>>11329803Here Google translate might be misleading, where it says "points". I think it's a unit of time measurement. Minutes?
>>11329729>Great thread OP. leddit BTFO. No longer have to rely on Itos revisionismIto was monster designer, and truthfully the sources suggest that all team members had at least some input in the story, characters, and setting, so he's not a nobody but he's also not Mr. Silent Hill 2 like he implies. Plus with 23 years, people's opinions will shift, and people will come up with new interpretations of their own past works. As of Sh2: The town has 30,000 people and is located in the north east of USA.
>>11329729Speaking of, this is Owaku the game's main writer answering questions. Some highlights:>the location is north-eastern USA>the timeline is 70's or 80's >they intentionally left out details so players can fill in the details
>>11329857Note the side-bar is not direct developer interview, but the guidebook writer. Imamura was the game's producer.
>>11329862
>>11329865
>>11329868
>>11329872
>>11329875
>>11329885
>>11329887
>>11329890
>>11329891
>>11329893These are from another book, the Official guide.
>>11329898This answers some questions:1. PH boss fight really has absurd HP at 20K. That is 40 rifle rounds. 2. It takes an hour for them to suicide on hard. I played hard once, and knew they would suicide but kept playing and thought my game was bugged. 3. On hard Mary has the same health.
>>11329598Bloober didn’t get the memo on this. Mary and Laura have a direct confrontation in the remake. This always bugged me when I saw it in the pre release
>>11329837I realise this, but an overwhelming majority of SH2 fans dont seem to and its turning me into a h8r
>>11329616>Angela was the seductressdoes seductress mean something else in japanese, or did she seduce her father and kill him for lulz?
>>11330905It might be the idea that, when it comes to SA, the victim is often accused of being temptress
>>11330184They didn’t get the memo on a lot of things. Ito talks about how puramid head intentionally has the same build as James, to highlight how similar they are. You also get the knife itself to highlight this. Meanwhile remake makes Pyramid Head muscular and cool. It’s what fans want Ph to look like, not what the game showed it originally.
>>11330610>I realise this, but an overwhelming majority of SH2 fans dont seem to and its turning me into a h8rIto is falling into the same trap that others like John Romero, or Keiji Inafune, have fallen in, where they push themselves in the limelight and bask in praise from fans for something that was a team effort. The guidebook interview places Ito in the right place: where he talks endlessly about his monster designs and his thoughts into them. That's what he, as the monster designer should be. But it also interviews the director, human character designer, writer, producer, and others. However, on twitter he's presenting himself as the authoritative voice on Silent Hill 2, when it's fundamentally not the case. Like, he's trying to say the "In the Water" ending is the best ending, and fits the story the most. He can say that as a player, but his view and mine are actually equal on that. The game's open ended structure means any ending can be their favorite.
>>11331307Or put it another way, all players have the same starting point, then their actions determine the ending. Thus there's no best ending, just the one they chose. If Ito likes In the Water the most, and feels it fits the story, then fine. I find Leave the best, since it fits Mary's last wishes in her letter to James where she implores him to keep living and to rebuild his life. I feel it's a betrayal of Mary to kill himself and to ignore her last wishes. Thus the story has a somewhat optimistic tone and ending. So my view and Ito's view as players are the same, even though he was involved in the game.
There’s so much to read through im too lazy to read but does it say anything about why he doesn’t have a visible erection if the whole plot of the game is him being horny?
>>11331307I think it’s because Konami are trying to canonise the in water ending. If you played the short message the entire game is a loop. In the remake there are items/places that are shown to be dejavu moments from the original game, so you could say the remake is actually a sequel to the original game as James keeps getting stuck in a loop and has to keep reliving the town over and over again via the in water ending. It sucks, but makes sense. Ito is a fraud who should stick to drawing pictures instead of pushing his made up ideas for silent hill that were not actually there. >>11331408Yes. He is the cum and silent hill is the erection and Mary is the balls.
>>11331545>It sucks, but makes sense. Ito is a fraud who should stick to drawing pictures instead of pushing his made up ideas for silent hill that were not actually there.He also says Mary was in the backseat of the car but nothing in the game or any of the original Japanese guidebooks say anything about that. Maybe the devs said that behind the scenes, who knows? But it sounds like Ito just made it up because it makes sense to him. Which is fine, but this is then considered a "canon" event from fans who see Ito as Mr. Silent Hill 2. He made the monsters, which is great because he did a good job, but that's it. >remake loopI don't know, I think the game is just trying to setup that there's multiple endings and that you should play the game again to get them.
I'm just impressed how much effort went into making these gamesSH1 also has a ton of occult/alchemical references that flew under the radaralso>lisa got "knocked out">kauffman fell asleep>harry got knocked out in the crash>presumably so did cybil when her bike crashed>"The changes between fog world and dark world occur because there is a cycle in the world of Alessa's nightmares which envelops the town. In the same way that a person normally repeats REM sleep and non-REM sleep in regular cycles while he or she is sleeping, when the nightmare world approaches a deeper darkness (sleep), a phenomenon occurs in which light is almost completely taken away and the world shifts into an even deeper nightmare as the cycle shifts again">the final boss is called Incubus, a demon of lust which attacks women in their nightmares
>>11331545>Note: In his 2020 tweet Masahiro Ito denied that the wheelchair in this scene was a reference to Session 9. In fact, he never watched the film. According to him, the wheelchairs in Silent Hill 3 were rather a metaphor for Heather's birth and a reference to Silent Hill 1 ending with Dahlia, Alessa and a mysterious figure sitting in the wheelchair.https://www.silenthillmemories.net/sh3/unlockables_secrets_en.htm#Session_9_ReferencesAnother example of Ito making himself the authoritative voice of the series. Do you think maybe it's possible that Ito didn't see Session 9, but other dev team members did? Ito is inserting his own opinion and analysis, and implying it's authoritative.
>>11331578I think Konami have made him the head silent hill guy and he’s just doing whatever he wants even if it’s not actually what the original developers intended. Outside of him and akira nobody really talks or cares about silent hill from the og dev team
>>11331591Yes, it's sad and I know those two are the ones who stuck around. But I think Ito is just addicted to twitter attention and is trying to market himself since the same situation happened with past people like John Romero. But he's talking authoritatively on issues he likely just wasn't around for or wouldn't know. Would he be there for every person building a level who snuck in some Session 9 references? So he's just talking out of his ass. That's why these old Japanese guidebooks are WAY more authoritative and interesting.
Book of lost Memories basically explained everything and it has been fan translated. It's interesting to compare the Google translate of the orgiginal JP to the fan translation.
>>11332290
>if you kick them when they're down it counts as melee fighting not shootingDumb. It takes so many bullets to kill a downed enemy versus just a single kick. I guess they expected people to keep shooting and that's why you get so much ammo? But kicking is so much more efficient!
>>11330184>>11331189And there's also this part >>11329890 where Imamura specifically talks about the number of enemies and weapons available decreasing to allow the player to immerse better in worldview, the complete opposite design the remake rammed in with a full playthrough pushing you through nearly 500 enemies throughout the adventure.
>>11329857>they intentionally left out details so players can fill in the detailsYet people won't ever shut up about what's 'canon' and what's not. It's a gay sucks gay world we live in
>>11333734That's just people not knowing how to read or watch anything anymore because they're expected to be spoonfed from the last 10 years.
