I just finished my third playthrough of Silent Hill f, and I need to vent. I’m exhausted. Not in a good way, but in that “Oh my god, not this hallway again” kind of way.
Actually, the story was really good. It reveals through its narrative the deep sense of self-destruction and powerlessness in resistance experienced by women in traditional marriages. Ryukishi07 crafted a narrative exploring gender roles, agency, and identity with surprising depth. The problem is something else. This game shouldn’t be a survival horror game. It should be a visual novel.
Silent Hill f: Same scenes in multiple playthroughs
Here’s the issue: Silent Hill f’s narrative structure requires players to pass multiple games so that they could see the complete story. However, repetitive play negatively impacts the overall experience. You fight the same enemies in the same places, just to unlock small bits of new story.
Compare this to NieR: Automata, which gives you completely different gameplay and perspectives each time. Silent Hill f does offer different endings and bosses, but 90% of each playthrough is the same fight and exploration.
Source: Nier Automata Wiki (Fextralife).
By my second run, I wasn’t scared anymore. The game relies on the same scare tactics repeatedly, and they lose their impact. I knew exactly where every enemy spawned. As Tericho says in his video After 40 Hours I Have Extremely Mixed Feelings About Silent Hill f:
“There are five enemies in the entire game. And you’re going to be fighting the same five enemies all game… they just look slightly different, but they behave exactly the same… I’ve just done my third run… It’s particularly the forced parts where you have to fight them that I eye roll every single time now.”
– Tericho
The “horror” became a checklist: dodge left, hit twice, move on. When you’re optimizing combat patterns instead of feeling dread, the horror game has failed.
Repeatedly killing the same monster (Source: Steam Community)
In my opinion, this narrative would work perfectly as a visual novel. Games like The House in Fata Morgana or Zero Escape deliver complex mysteries instead of over 30 hours of repetitive gameplay. When narrative replayability requires experiencing the same gameplay content multiple times, it often fails.
Each run needs a different experience in multiple playthroughs-games. Excessive repetition leads to players getting tired, and that’s exactly what happened to me. By the third ending, I just want to skip flights to reach the next scene.
Silent Hill f has a story worth experiencing, but the game design is bad. Without the repetitive fight, this could be great. If you’re a hardcore Silent Hill fan, maybe push through. But honestly, I feel like this game wasted an amazing story.
Sources:
Silent Hill Memories (image): https://www.silenthillmemories.net/shf/screenshots_en.htm
Steam (image): https://steamcommunity.com/app/2947440/screenshots/
Nier Automata Wiki (images): https://nierautomata.wiki.fextralife.com/Walkthrough
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8W3LEMf1ZM
Guan QiuYu 
REN Ren 
VickyWu