Kazetenshi’s Weblog

Have you ever wondered, deep down, about the horrors that is hidden beneath the innocent-looking sheath that is everyday life? The experience of waking up from a horrible, yet really clear nightmare…drenched in your own sweat, and the goosebumps that accompany the bone-chillingly breeze from the window you’ve left open for the night…yet how gentle it is, it carries along the sounds of faint screaming coming from outside your own home…a mob of disfigured, macabre-looking villagers gathering at your neighbor’s.

As you discreetly watch through the worn-down blinds, confused, you see them dragging your neighbor out of her house…and into the growing restless crowd…you try to calm yourself down, yet both your heart and your mind is racing…as you want to get the hell out and try to help…but you know you cannot go against an angry mob yourself…

“What is going on?”
“What did she do?”
“…Am I in trouble…am I next??”

The crowd separates into two groups down the middle, as a masked man, distinctively carrying a large sword, or axe emerges…and all of a sudden, the scattered shouting becomes a well-unified chant of a language you never heard of. Tension and unsettlement begins to sink in your body, as it weighs you down…your breathing becoming shallower as you try to move your body…the sense of danger rises…yet the thoughts of the slightest movement would give away your hideout…that same thought cements you to where you are kneeling on your bed. Curiosity in itself can be a double-edged sword.

As the menacing crowd begins to calm down, concentrating on the chanting…a couple of the villagers forces your neighbor to kneel down in front of the masked man…after a few moments of uneasy silence…the sounds of screaming and wailing breaks the relatively peaceful night; the red moon contributing to the grotesque occasion…as the masked man begins to mercilessly hack away. But you never looked, for the moment that your neighbor kneeled down, subdued, you know his fate is sealed. Quickly you sprang out of your bedroom and through your back door, running away from the muffled screams, the begs of mercy, being drowned out with the chanting…as you try to make it to safety…anywhere…

Your stamina chips away each bare footstep, until you grow fatigued…yet you don’t stop. If you did, “they” would find you, and you would share the same fate as your neighbor. Taking refuge within a decrepit school, you take a few needed deep breaths. You are far away from your house…and “them”…yet the growing uneasiness never rests. As you look out of the second story classroom window, instead on concentrating if anyone noticed your desperate escape…the sea nearby glows an unsettling crimson red. As you sit down beside the teacher’s desk, trying to control your nervous shaking…hugging, rocking yourself, you try to piece together what happened…

A remote, isolated village…
Crazed Villagers…
Strange chanting…
A masked man…
Murder…

You lived mainly alone; none of the villagers are aware of your presence, aside from your neighbor…who gives you groceries each week. Then you remember, that she warned you the villagers are strongly Xenophobic. Did they find out?? Blankly looking at the old, rotten wooden floor, the sounds of a nearby Civil Defense Siren cuts the eerie silence in half. You wish that you were back in bed, not waking up from that nightmare…because what you woke up from, that terrible past in your head, is the only safe haven you will ever feel.

I’m actually pretty new to the whole Siren series. Although I was aware of the first title that came out in America, I didn’t pay much attention due to some of the people of the forums saying it pretty much sucked due to the voice acting and clumsy controls. I question that, due to the original Silent Hill and Resident Evil had all those, yet it still was damn sweet! So, right now I’m hunting for a new copy of the game, ignoring all the nay-sayers. What I want is the experience, and I really don’t mind the controls or VA as long is it immerses me into a state of desperation to survive. Hell, it could seem that the clumsy controls are maybe made on purpose, since the survivors in the game are basically ordinary citizens that never had any combat training or even use any guns aside from hunting (I’m looking at you, Resident Evil.)

That’s why I like Silent Hill. The incentive of an everyday person being caught in a situation that defies reality and shatters the perception of reality. While Silent Hill focuses on Psychological Horror, Siren looks like it focuses more on the aspect of traditional Japanese Horror.

Before those familiar with the Silent Hill series label this as a Japanese version of SH, the Siren series was created by the director of the original SH PS1 game. So Hanuda (Siren 1’s main setting; an isolated, mountainous village), is pretty similar to it’s Haunted American Town counterpart (Decrepit Surroundings, Dense Fog, and yes, even the Civil Defense Siren which NEVER stops getting old, or creepy).  And dare I say it, the new adaptation of Siren (dubbed Siren New Translation ) and its setting, the town of Hanuda, actually looks and feels scarier than Silent Hill itself. I mean, I’m still psyched to see what The Collective, an American Development team, will bring to Silent Hill V…but as of lately, due to the current dry well of SHV media, and the civil war of outsourcing the Silent Hill series, Siren definitely looks like a good alternative. And it actually scares the living hell out of me just by looking at the Debut Trailer.

Give me a ticket to Hanuda, I can’t wait to import this title (if it isn’t coming to the US), and happily buy a PS3 just for this game.

Current List of Places to Visit (WARNING: Links potentially contain Spoilers to its respective series. Do not read IF you plan on following said series.):

1. Hinamizawa
2. Silent Hill
3. Hanuda