"Simplistic to the MAX!"

This is a review for Play Novel: Silent Hill for the GBA. I am a HUGE Silent Hill fan and when you have beaten all 3 Silent Games currently available at the time (Silent Hill 4: The Room is coming out in September of 2004), I decided to see how well this conversion of the original Silent Hill came to the GBA. It was.....okay.

Graphics: (7) The reason this gets a decently high score is the fact that it was able to get some ACTUAL FMV into this game. I was surprised to find the opening sequence is about ten seconds of FMV which is A LOT for a GBA game made in 2001. There is about 30 seconds or less total FMV throughout both games of Cybil and Harry, which is awesome! Everything else though is sadly....still pictures of places from the Playstation version.

Sound: (5) Decompressed from the Playstation version to fit on the GBA cartridge. And it isn't even half bad, though it is just a bunch of blips and beeps that try to mimic the sound of Silent Hill on the PS. Nothing special is here. What I liked the most is the opening scene, they played the music beautifully.

Game Play: (5) By no means to I read Japanese, so I have no understanding of what is going on in this game. There is about four puzzles in this game spanning both Harry and Cybil. It is a text novel so you have to pick up to three different choices, all in Japanese, though I winged it and picked random ones, you can't go wrong with any choice, but there are multiple endings, and I think I got both bad endings for both characters. Oh well, maybe someone here will put up a translation guide, but I doubt it.

Storyline (If any): (3) I can't read Japanese text, I have only a basic understanding of what is going on since I played the Playstaion Silent Hill. What saved this from getting a one, was the fact that I got to play as Cybil and showed me a couple scenes that were really cool, though I don't know what were happening in them.

Summary: (5) If you are a hardcore Silent Hill fan like I am, you will give this game a decent try. Considering this is Japan only, and has no chance of a Europe of American release. So start boning up on Japanese if you want to understand this game! One more thing, this game is the SHORTEST game I have ever played, took me 15 minutes to beat both scenarios. Though you can try to replay and get the digital trading cards, but they aren't worth it if you don't understand Japanese.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/04