Silent Hill HD - Really that bad?

Ive been playing Silent Hill 1 for the first time, and loving it. I want to play the rest of the series once I finish this one, but there are some problems. One being that the PS2 original is way too expensive, and the other being that the HD Collection is said to be an awful port. Is the HD collection really that bad or is it fine for a newcomer to the series? I'm seeing it for pretty cheap on Amazon right now.

It's hard to describe what the HD collection would be like for a newcomer, but with how poor the graphics are, I think the best way to describe it is that it looks unfinished. The fog effects are so much worse, it feels like a build of the game that was several months out from release, and as a fan, the fog being worse really does bring the entire product down. You can see things you aren't meant to see, and the game's atmosphere just isn't nearly as oppressive. If you played Silent Hill 1, imagine that game, but you've got like 20-30 feet of extra visibility in the fog, and the fog might as well not exist in most cutscenes. I'd really just tell you to skip it.

Silent Hill 3 is in much, much better shape graphically, but doesn't have the option for the old voice acting. For Silent HIll 2, I think the old voice acting is more important because frankly, it's weird, and it kinda suits the game better than the more professional VO of the new voices. There's a point at which VO can sound so professional that it takes you out of the experience because it feels too artificial and the new voices for the HD Collection reach that point for me. With 3 the difference isn't quite as stark, but I do think Heather (the protagonist of 3) seems more like an actual teenage girl in the original VO.

Overall, if you really wanted to, Silent Hill 3 is probably fine to play through in the HD Collection, but I'd absolutely skip 2 because it's a very compromised experience. Overall I'd recommend either finding a copy of the original games on PS2/Xbox, or tracking down a PC copy since there's been a lot of great modding work to get that version up to snuff.

Also, even among the console releases, there's no ideal version of Silent Hill 2. PS2 has better audio, but Xbox runs at a higher resolution. For me, I notice the graphics more than the audio. I believe the modders are trying to integrate it all into the PC version, but I'm not sure where it's at right now, and I'm not sure if PC is an option for you.

The HD collection version of 2 specifically is kind of like...I guess the best comparison I can think of is playing a PC game on the lowest settings on a PC that doesn't quite meet the minimum specs. The gameplay itself is fine, but there are some pretty severe graphical (and weirdly also audio) issues. Like Brackstone said, 3 is mostly fine in the HD collection but I would only play that version of 2 if you just can't get your hands on any other version. I think the best version of 2 at this point probably is the recently fan patched PC version, but unfortunately there is no LEGAL way to acquire the pc port anymore as it was never released as a digital download.

The HD collection is an objectively bad product. IIRC, Abby played it once during a playdate and was unable to get very far. They messed up the lighting so bad that she was unable to see anything even with max brightness settings, and that's just one of the problems with them.

Sorry to say, but I'd recommend you either look up some not completely legal options or skip these games entirely. As Panfoot said, there are patches available for the PC versions of those games. You can also try out the ps2 emulator PCSX2, but it can be tricky to get games to run well in it, or without some weird graphical hiccups.

If the choice is either bad port of Silent Hill 2 or no Silent Hill 2, you pick bad port of Silent Hill 2. They patched the PS3 version a couple times so it's not quite as bad as it was but avoid the 360 ver. cuz I believe they decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Avoid the 360 version of Silent Hill HD Collection. It's riddled with bugs, and achievements popping drop it into single frames per minute territory. I had to turn off my 360 to stop the air raid siren screeching when I first popped an achievement in Silent Hill 2 and never went back because it was borderline unplayable at the best of times.

The PS3 version did get patched, and it is "better". If you can't get a hold of the PC versions and the fan patches, it's probably the better way to play the games.