Silent Hill Book of Memories Review!

Story

The story in Silent Hill: Book of Memories revolves around a character that receives a Mysterious Book for his birthday sent from Silent Hill delivered by an uncanny Mail Man, he soon finds out that everything he’s done so far in life can be found written in the book. As he starts trying to write down in it to try and change things, he begins to have nightmares in which he is placed inside a puzzle that he must solve in order to survive. Book of Memories’ story is a bit confusing and to actually understand it all you must collect all Broadcasts and Notes which contain bits and pieces of the Story. The game is not related to any of the previous Silent Hill games.

Gameplay

Silent Hill: Book of Memories’ gameplay is your classic Dungeon-crawler and it is Addictively Fun. The game has a basic levelling system with simple STR, DEX, VIT, AGI, MND and INT stats to increase as you level up, accessories may also be purchased from the in-game shop. In Silent Hill: Book of Memories you play though ‘Zones’ that are small mazes that you fight your way through to find all the puzzle parts in order to proceed to the next zone and progress through the story. The Game has over 100 zones that will give over 50 Hours of Gameplay. Initially you are given a Flash light to explore and find all the loot and treasures hidden within the world; the flashlight set-up, however, sort of throws off the scary feel to it.

Design

The game does not have set characters, and it allows players to design their own. However the game does not contain much character personalisation capabilities as it only offers 5 different options within each category. The game has a large verity of weapons going anywhere from knives and baseball bats to chainsaws and burning swords. The game doesn’t really take much advantage of the PS Vita’s Features however.

The Multiplayer is where the real fun comes in. Multiplayer in SH:BoM is similar to the single-player campaign with one little twist, you take zones on in groups of 4 players and dead characters respawn at the start of the map; unlike the story mode where you have to restart the whole zone

Presentation

Silent Hill: Book of Memories surpasses other Vita games by having a very nice lighting effect. Characters and monster Models look pretty nice, the game’s texturing and animation works are also done pretty well, the environment visuals a very nicely done. The thing that puts the game down in presentation is the background music; it gets very repetitive.

Overall

Despite the lack of story and “oh my god I almost pissed myself” moments, Silent Hill: Book of Memories is an addictive dungeon-crawler that will have you on the edge of your seat for many hours and features some great multiplayer action.

If you’re a player that ignores story for good gameplay, then Silent Hill: Book of Memories is one game you definitely have to play.

 

Score: 7.5

Reviewed by: Sora Yahya