I’ve tried to find Japanese horror games from the PS2 era that has this same feel, but I can’t :(
Some quick facts:
The VAs for Siren were British, so every Japanese person had a posh accent and didn’t pronounce Japanese words so well
Siren 2’s main setting, Yamijima Island, was inspired by an actual Japanese Island, Hashima island. The Island was an industrial hub for coal mining and was known for forced labor involving Korean and Chinese slaves.
Both games used facial scans from multiple angles to create the uncanny, and horrifying, expressions of the various protagonists and enemies
The Siren games are really unique in my opinion. There was such a lot of effort put into the environment alone that always makes me come back. I never finished one though.
The only games that felt a bit similar to me were the Project Zero games. I even like them a bit more because you are much more able to take the environments in.
I love the games except that I needed to follow guides to actually finish them, but I’m generally shit at horror games so that tracks.
My partner at the time we’d take turns every mission for the first game, good memories. Bonkers ending.
These games were written by the writer for Silent Hill. So if you havent played the original first or second games, those will most likely be most similar.
Maybe Kuon? FromSoft developed game, and a horror game on PS2, but its not got the same unique feeling to it. Just a Japanese PS2 horror game.
I’ve played Kuon. The story line and horror was great, but the combat was very clunky and I felt like the storyline was too vague, if you didn’t pay very close attention. I really didn’t notice the big plot twist until I played through a second time and paid VERY close attention to who was being dragged into the red chest, when, and by who, lol.
I see “clunky” used to critique true Survival Horror combat a lot. I think this comes from a misunderstanding about the genre: the developers are trying to disincentivize you to engage in combat.
Its a big part of the game design of Survival Horror that is important: getting into combat should be a lost resort action, not a preference. How do you do that? Make combat feel bad. If the combat is fun and feels fluid, the player will want to engage in combat. But that goes against the entire point of Survival Horror. The peak, most optimal way to play should be to avoid any combat that is not mandatory to beat the game. This is because Survival Horror relies on the player constantly having to choose: Do I risk losing health and ammo in this fight, or can I avoid the fight and go around the enemy? Will I need to come back again, and if so, will I be able to make the same choice again?
So when someone tells me combat in a true Survival Horror game feels clunky, that is exactly what it is supposed to feel like. Otherwise the game will become an Action Shooter, like Resident Evil, Silent Hill Remake, Dino Crisis 2 and 3, etc.
Kuon’s story is just the result of poor localization, honestly. The Japanese audience could understand it much better. Us English speakers didn’t even get all the puzzles translated.
I can see that, but honestly, Kuon is just slow and clunky. Deliberately, yes, but way past the point where it can be enjoyed by anyone but the most hardcore fans. The developers overdid it. It’s one of the main reason why the game wasn’t well recieved. To avoid combat you have to play the game the slowest way possible, while the movement is already slow to begin with. At some point the decisions you make in the game are less driven by aspects of the game’s world, but by how much of your own time you want to invest.
When I played it back in the day, I really wanted to like it but just couldn’t, because I felt like the game tried its best to waste my time.
Never played the ps2 games of them only the ps3 :D
I think i know what i gonna do tonight.
Also: how about fatal frame? Not a forbidden siren but fighting ghosts with a camera was more scary than expected.
All the games are pretty good, but do get gimmicky after the 3rd one. The storylines, and story telling are pretty solid (!), each game builds on the camera based combat and uses, but the plots do get out there. The overall themes of abuse (mostly of women and children), loneliness, filial responsibility over self preservation (and the rejection of it), helplessness, and star-crossed relationships are pretty consistent. Depressing and fun.
Aww, man. I saw this post and was immediately excited, thinking that these games were being remade or re-released on a modern system, only to find that no, it is merely a post rightfully dedicated to how good these games were.
I don’t want these to be re-made tbh.
Siren: Blood Curse, on PS3, is the closest to a remake of the first one and it missed the mark. The timeline was taken out, the random, episodic, chaotic, feel was entirely ruined (Bloodcurse was linear and an episodic release). Combat was a lot better, the actual gameplay was easier (sightjacking was vastly improved along with stealth mechanics), but the game was too linear, the plot was fed to you, the characters were far too annoying and forgettable, and storyline westernized, too obvious, and overly dramatic.
The original two games gave the player the context of the game as it happened from the POV of the characters (mostly). This was great because you were constantly kept in the dark and confused as to why one character you played has turned into a flying Shibito and is now trying to blow your head off. You didn’t really piece together the whole story until you completed every characters 1st and 2nd mission goals, read all the files, and used a bit of common sense (not really complicated, Siren 2 was a bit more confusing with the dueling Gods thing).
I did like the cast change to show that the Siren curse affects different people with the misfortune of stumbling upon the village (the overly emotional dilemmas and drama between the characters was too western and annoying), but the execution was just lazy. If the core mechanics, plot devices, pace, and story telling style were kept, along with the improvements to combat and sightjacking, then it would have been a great game, much better than the first (the British accents still send me).