Hey again!
And no, I'm not a Silent Hill fanboy. But I used to be, about five years ago. At that point I played through all of them, tried to get all the endings, read a lot, etc. These days I'm not so hyped up about them, and have no problem seeing their flaws and shortcomings where they are. Which is probably why I haven't played Shattered Memories before now, and have yet to play Homecoming.
Then again, maybe there's a little bit of "fanboy" left in me since I still take interest in the series, hehe!
To say I don't "give a f" is pretty wrong. As I already stated, I really liked Dr. Kaufmann, and though I didn't express it very well in the first post, I also liked Dahlia's and Lisa's characters. I didn't like the implementation of the latter though, and I didn't like how they just used the original characters' names for reasons I've already explained. The revelation at the end of the game was very nice in my opinion, but the story itself was still only decent. The idea wasn't bad, but it was for the most part poorly executed.
SH1, SH3, and SH0/Origins are those directly connected with each other story wise. Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 4 also have pretty direct connections, despite not being direct sequels regarding the main stories. And SH4 has direct connection to SH1.
The cult is actually in SH2, too, though not by means of a cult member. Most direct example of that is Pyramid Head himself. Yes, he's a representation of James' guilt and feelings of wanting to be punished, but that representation has taken on the form of the cult's executioner(which is one legitimate reason to have it in Homecoming, though that was probably more about fan service than anything else). You also have pretty big references to the gods that the cult worships and their rituals, even more so if you also play the extra scenario that came with Restless Dreams/Inner Fears - but also in the main game.
As for the monsters - yes, variety is needed. Even zombie games has more variety than this. As for SH1, the enemies had different ways of attacking and different was of moving - and unlike in Shattered Memories, they actually attacked. They tried to hurt you. The naked men in Shattered Memories didn't. For a supposedly horror game, that's not very scary.
Yes, you might be right about that this might be a bit about ones personal understanding of a reimagining. In my opinion though, when the game could've easily had any title slapped onto it other than "Silent Hill", then it doesn't actually work well as a reimagining.
As for SH4, it's overall a good game. You have to revisit all the areas once though, which can be a bit boring. But there's a lot of nice things with it. It has perhaps the most creepy antagonist of the series, and as I mentioned earlier, som direct ties to SH2. But the reuse of areas in the game is what has bothered most people about the game, and with good reason. However, if you can get through that, it's a nice game.
Also, I just found out that the developers of Shattered Memories are the same developers who created SH0/Origins. Which, in my opinion, is the worst Silent Hill game made(not counting Homecoming as I haven't played that, nor counting spinoff games).
