There are some horror games you can finish in a couple of days of intense play; they almost invite that sort of frenzied consumption. But there are others that need to be savoured, and sometimes even suffered. Silent Hill f is in the latter category, which is why our review is somewhat delayed. This slowburn descent into psychological horror is set in 1960s Japan, but it also has pertinent things to say about the modern era and the tendrils of misogyny crawling out of the basement of the culture wars.
Lead character Hinako Shimizu is a school girl in the small conservative town of Ebisugaoka. Her father is a bully who treats his wife like a servant and his daughter like an inconvenience, and her best friend is Shu, a boy who may harbour deeper feelings for her – much to the frustration of another friend Rinko, who has a serious crush on him. It reads like a teen drama, which in a way it is, until an apocalyptic supernatural fog descends on the town and almost everyone goes missing.
