Remaking a classic is difficult. When a game has literally redefined genres, it can be even more difficult. Silent Hill 2 is arguably one of the most influential horror games to ever exist, and a massive portion of modern horror games owe their inspiration to the classic. It's understandable that there's a lot of pressure riding on Silent Hill 2's remake, which has to capture the feel of the original and create something that justifies a new experience. The result is a respectful — if incredibly safe — update that does a good job of offering a new way to experience a classic.

Silent Hill 2 follows the story of James Sunderland. He has traveled to the remote town of Silent Hill after he receives a letter from his wife that says she's waiting for him there. It's a bit unusual, considering she died three years prior. James ventures into town and discovers something is very wrong. The entire town is seemingly abandoned, covered by a mysterious fog, and bizarre creatures roam the streets. If James wants to find out the truth about his wife, he'll have to endure the town's bizarre threats.

Silent Hill 2 is largely a beat-for-beat remake of the original game, right down to using almost the exact same script. There are new endings and some changes that might mix things up a bit, but for the most part, it's basically the same thing, just sometimes presented in slightly different ways. Story-wise, it's more faithful to the original than almost any other remake I can think of, and it's a testament to Silent Hill 2's legacy that despite being oft-mimicked, the original story still carries a lot of weight.

I think Silent Hill 2 loses a bit of the atmosphere of the original. It's not too overwhelming, but I think it puts a higher priority on jump-scares and sudden jolts than the original, which loses some of the ominous atmosphere. However, it's also a change where I genuinely feel like it won't be noticeable unless you're a die-hard fan of the original game. Most of my criticisms were about preferring the original, not because the game had done wrong. If you're going into it without Silent Hill 2 for the PS2 on your brain, you'll probably be fine.

Silent Hill 2 follows the same Resident Evil-inspired tone of the original. You'll go from location to location, with each major space functioning like its own self-contained dungeon filled with monsters and puzzles. Each area has been redesigned almost entirely from the original game, but the bulk of the major points are still present and accounted for. If there was a memorable moment in the original game, you can bet it appears in some form in Silent Hill 2. (Yes, that includes a certain bizarre elevator sequence.)

Most of the puzzles are remixes of those found in the original game, from the grandfather clock to the rotating face cube. If you've never played the original, there's a series of rather obscure puzzles that must be solved to advance. Some of these require you to find items and solve riddles, and some are optional and grant you access to bonus items. As in the original game, there are also three potential difficulties: easy, medium and hard. The puzzles change by difficulty, which is a nice way to add replay value to the game.

The puzzles and area design seem to have more of an emphasis on realism in the remake, but not so much that it gets boring. The major areas are carefully designed to guide you from location to location, so you are at minimal risk of getting lost, but even if you get disoriented, the map is incredibly helpful. James will mark every item of note and most clues directly on the map. You can also specify how much help the game will give you, if you'd prefer a more old-school experience.

The combat in Silent Hill 2 has been adjusted over the original, largely in terms of giving you significantly greater mobility and flexibility. James now has a melee and ranged weapon equipped at all times. Melee can be used by tapping the fire button without aiming, while ranged is used while you aim and fire. This allows you to effortlessly swap between close- and far-range combat. Melee attacks are locked to a specific weapon (until New Game+, where you can find alternates), while ranged allows you to use a handgun, shotgun and rifle and swap between them with the d-pad. In essence, you have access to your entire arsenal at any time.

The actual combat almost seems like rock-paper-scissors, with each new weapon seeming to be custom-tailored to handle the newly introduced enemies. Things became a lot easier once I realized the game didn't want me to conserve ammo so much as mix and match, often introducing a new enemy right after I got a weapon that would work well on them. For example, the mannequins go down in only a couple of shots to a handgun and are introduced moments after you get one, while nurses are bowled over by a single shotgun blast. True to the original game, there are only a few different enemy types, and once you learn their weaknesses, it becomes much easier to take them down.

More of a significant change is the addition of a dodge button, which lets James move in any direction. Enemies are relatively fast, and large chunks of the game take place in corridors that are barely wide enough for one person. It's a very generous dodge, and enemies tend to have significant enough attack windows that it's easy to learn how to specialize against them.

I'm torn on the dodge button. In terms of making combat fun and accessible, it's an improvement, but it also comes at a significant cost to the feeling of fights. Combat feels a lot more arcadey, and in particular, it detracts from the scariness of something like Pyramid Head. Rather than trying to avoid his massive blade, you're just dodge-rolling into him like a Dark Souls boss.

The result is that the monsters feel less scary in Silent Hill 2's remake versus the original. The game strongly rewards you for min-maxing the combat against them, and James feels far more capable than the fumbling PS2-era version of the character. Whether this is a plus or minus will vary for each individual player, but I would've preferred that the developer make the enemies more threatening. Even after pushing the game up to Hard combat difficulty, it still lacked the bite it needed. By the time I reached the endgame, I had an overabundance of ammo and over 20 full healing items.

Silent Hill 2 also features a full graphical overhaul, with every single aspect being redone and redesigned. Similar to Dead Space's remake, it largely aims to be as similar as reasonably possible. Some areas look almost identical to the original game, and a lot of effort is put into retaining the feel of some of the most iconic locations. There are some elements I'm not fond of, such as Maria's redesign feeling too bland, but they're largely matters of taste rather than anything I can complain about. Likewise, the new voice acting is good. The original's disjointed performances are difficult to replicate, so the remake goes for something more standard, but it works well, and the actors do a great job with their characters. The soundtrack is as excellent as it ever was, and both classic and remixed songs do wonders for setting the mood and tone.

Overall, I think Silent Hill 2 feels more like a side-upgrade than a full upgrade to the original. It's incredibly faithful and respectful while it modernizes large chunks of the game, but some of those modernizations go a tad too far for my taste. Silent Hill 2 is largely successful at what it is trying to do, which is to present a version of the game that is more polished and modern. It doesn't eclipse the original version, but for anyone who didn't grow up playing PS2 games, this is the easiest version of the game to play.

Score: 8.0/10