Game EXP: Silent Hill, Blasphemous, & Heroes of the Monkey Tavern (PSP & NS)

Silent Hill
Systems: PlayStation, PlayStation Portable
Release Date: February 23, 1999
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Team Silent

Play Time: Unknown

[The Reason:  Well, there are two reasons why this particular article languished, and that is because I actually started it back before we moved over from TwoBoysAndTheirBlog in a partially written state.  The second reason was that I did not really know how to approach this game and to talk about it.  I apparently did not do everything I needed to do thereby not seeing everything in the game, or at least a lot of story elements and so I felt that my experience in Silent Hill was very limited.  I also found that I was frequently comparing the game to the 2006 film.  So let us just gloss over all of the dynasty talk regarding this first game in the franchise and jump right into it.]

I picked up Silent Hill back when it was still available on the PSP through Sony's PSN store; sadly that is no longer the case.  I had wanted to play the original Silent Hill for some time and this seemed like the most feasible way of getting to play this wonderful granddaddy of a survival horror video game from 1999 and unless Konami decides to rerelease this game in some format, this might be the only way I could play it without emulation.  I had previously dabbled a bit with Silent Hill Origins on the PSP, but I gave up after just under two hours; I plan on restarting that game though eventually.  But we're here to talk about the first iteration of the Silent Hill franchise.

Apologies for the poor picture quality.  My other camera cheated on me with my phone.

For the most part I enjoyed Silent Hill, although I was pretty confused on a number of points, most of all why Harry and Cheryl were visiting the town of Silent Hill in the first place.  I did feel that a lot of the time I was simply running from one creature or another while outside and not really able to take in any of the sites to get a feel for the town.  I could not say how much environmental storytelling was going on and I am certain that I missed a lot because when I finished the game, I was notified that I had reached the "Bad Ending."  This apparently meant that everyone was dead at the end of the game.

Assuming that my PSP survives the next decade, I would like to return to the game to play through it again, unless it gets remade or HDified in a way that preserves the experience of visual limiting fog and running away from nearly everything on the screen.  Maybe if the Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team is received well, Konami will give them a chance on the first Silent Hill.  Or maybe give it to another studio who are adept in retro-style survival horror games.

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Blasphemous

Systems: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Linus, Mac OS, Nintendo Switch

Release Date: September 10, 2019

Publisher: Team17

Developer: The Game Kitchen

Time Spent: 31H 30M

[The Reason:  I actually had a fair amount written about Blasphemous that I kept adding to, reworking, editing, and ultimately not being happy with.  When I stopped, I was about halfway through everything I had written, roughly 900 words, before I actually got to talking about playing the game.  There were ramblings about the Kickstarter, what I had heard about the game along with supporting articles/websites, and different builds and patches for the game before I even started playing.  I also got caught up in the world and the lore trying to find all of the correct names and terminology for things so I at least sounded like I knew what I was talking about.  And then, once I actually got to writing about the game, I found myself writing what was turning out to be a very unhelpful and poorly planned out walkthrough]. I would like to think that I am 100% the target audience for Blasphemous.]

I grew up Catholic, but around the age of 20, I decided that the frequency that I was not going to church on Sundays (mainly due to college marching band trips), that I was feeling that I was not missing something from my life.  So I have a bit of a background in Catholicism and Christianity but do not even think of trying to quiz me on Bible lore or character arcs because even while attending catechism, I could not tell you who was begetting whom or what the significance of the mustard seed was.  As a kid, my favorite story in the Bible, and the handful of Bible-lite books I had growing up was the story of the beheading of John the Baptist, mainly because more often than not, there was an artistic depiction of John the Baptist's head on a plate.  Jump ahead to my high school years when I discovered the heavy tome of paintings by Hieronymous Bosch at my Grandma's house and I was very much captivated.  I think it was around this time too that I read The Inferno and loved how creative the book was with the various punishments for the different types of sins.  I got a lot of Bosch and Dante vibes from Blasphemous.

So Blasphemous played a lot like a 2D side-scrolling Dark Souls with different levels of customization.  Instead of different types of weapons, you had Sword Hearts and rosary beads as accessories that could modify your damage given and received, health recovery, movement speed, spells, etc.  Depending on how many rosary beads you had found, and which beads you had equipped could greatly affect your own experience playing the game.  Additionally, there have been several overhauls of the game since its initial release, altering the map, voice acting, color palettes, enemy placement, difficulties, and a lot of other changes.  This made talking about my own experience playing difficult in that I felt that I would have to talk about specific versions of the game being played and what I had equipped while going through specific areas, which would often change depending on what types of obstacles I faced.

There were also a lot of included DLC expansions that were pre-installed in the Switch version that expanded different areas of the maps and often included option bosses.  While I did explore as much as I could and even though I did complete Miriam's challenge, I do not think I took out any of the additional bosses as I found them to be discouragingly difficult.  I probably could have played around with what rosary beads and Mea Culpa Hearts I had equipped to find the best combination (or just looked it up online), but I eventually gave up on them to just go and beat the game.  Overall, there were plenty of times that I felt underskilled and overpowered just making my way through areas taking as little damage as possible, but just like Dark Souls, it was all about actual out-of-game experience that made me a better player and better able to enjoy the game.

So yes, Blasphemous was a fun, albeit very difficult at times game, with an amazing sense of hypocritical religious lore baked into the world that I devoured while not always fully understanding.  the music was great too, but you likely already knew that.  And now there is Blasphemous 2, which I am obviously excited about; but I may need to read a lore retrospective.

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Heroes of the Monkey Tavern

Systems: Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch*

Release Date: September 26, 20216

Publisher: Monkey Stories

Developer: Monkey Stories

Time Spent: Unknown

[The Reason: I honestly am not 100% certain why I never published this article.  I think part of it was that I had accidentally deleted or lost a lot of the screenshots I took apart from the two that I have included below and I just got kind of lost in trying to figure out what to write.  So I have decided to include, almost in full everything I had previously written, but since we already did a First Impressions article, I think you kind of get the gist of this game and if it would be something up your alley, or down your dungeon, or up your tower. . .moving on.]

It's been [years since] I finished Heroes of the Monkey Tavern.  If you are unfamiliar with Heroes of the Monkey Tavern, I would recommend reading the First Impressions article we posted at the beginning of the year, which contains most of the pertinent information about the game, graphics, controls, and musings during half of my first playthrough.  In the end, I traveled up 10 floors of an oddly designed tower to face the final boss and be showered in gold coins.

By the time I finished, I admit that I still had not mastered accidentally having characters drink their health or mana potions when my thumb accidentally grazed the left Joy-Con joystick.  There were also times when fighting that I would accidentally hit the wrong left or right shoulder button and rotate 90 degrees instead of selecting the next character.  There were several puzzles that involved spikes, fire, or both that I would probably still be stuck at if I had not lucked out and immediately saved right after making it out of the room alive (before having to head back through the same room.)

*I just wanted to mention that since I bought the game and last played it (2019 I think), the game has been delisted on the Nintendo eShop and I could find no explanation as to why.  It is still available on Steam though.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Bow Down to the Infernal Lord