I picked this up the other day because it's the Summer Drought Season, and man, this game impresses me. I love the atmosphere, the good mix of fight-or-flight in the combat, breakable weapons (which you can just chuck at an enemy and run like hell afterward), the side quests, puzzles, man. This game is definitely more than the sum of its parts. Game Progress says I'm about %50 through, doing all the side quests I can find, and I can safely say this is the best Silent Hill game I've played since Shattered Memories. Shit, I think this might be better than Shattered Memories.

I'm playing combat on Hard, Puzzles on Hard, and I'm still making a fair amount of progress. Monster encounters really depend on knowing when to fight and when to run, which the game makes pretty easy to tell (more than one enemy, fucking run). Anyone else want to share some love for this, it seems like, highly underrated game?

TL;DR - Patrick talked out his ass about Downpour.

I too am playing it at the moment. I bought it for the same reason that you did, the Summer drought makes me always want to buy older games and some that I wasn't ready to on day one. I was cringing while going through the first parts expecting it to be bad, but it really wasn't. The game is great and the best since SH4 in my opinion. The only thing that sucks is the framerate issues. They come up and suck the game for a few moments.

Basically the way it works is that if you want a great horror game, adventure game, a game where exploration is rewarded, get Downpour. If you are a SH fan, this is a given, just go buy it now. Put some money into Konami's coffers to show that we still want Silent Hill games. It's not a charity, the game just got really bad press. I almost avoided it entirely and it would have been a huge mistake.

Plusses, likeable and most human character that Silent Hill has ever had. Murphy says what you are thinking in situations and does not react like a robot in situations. When you get chased by monsters or something messed up happens, Murphy will scream and be like "what the fuck was that!?" His interactions with NPCs are also believable and gives him depth. So there is another reason to be interested, the game has good characters and a storyline that at least pulls you in more than 95% of games today. The combat is clumsy, but it's supposed to be. You are not Marcus Fenix, you are a regular guy who will miss hitting an enemy at times. The atmosphere also pulls you in very well. I was thinking that nothing could scare me then when you think a room is clean, a random enemy will jump on your back from behind. Also, for those who enjoyed the music and ambiance from Team Silent games (SH1-4), you'll love the audio here. It builds tension and then gets silent save for whispers or the wind. Then SH2 style, sometimes there will be random knocks and bumps on the wall just to freak you out.

I can't say enough. Gotta go back to it.

Opinions man... you like it, you like. Others don't.

I'm kind of exhausted with how much ''championing'' I've done for dear ole Downpour, so all I can be bothered to say about it is I agree. I was initially supremely pissed off with how Patrick outright says ''Don't buy this'' during the QL, but he's now at least played through it (I'm pretty sure he skipped all of the side-quests, though, which makes up a lot of the game's best attributes) and while he clearly still isn't a fan, he at least gave it more of a chance.

I still wish he could have indulged into why he disliked it so much. Especially considering that everytime he'd complain about Downpour (or Silent Hill in general), he'd then recommend people play through Siren Blood Curse of all games.

EDIT: I only just noticed that Patrick linked to an article, to I guess describe his own feelings, about why someone else thinks Downpour is ''clearly the worst Silent Hill game to date''. And I did read through it all, but uggggh.

@MadExponent said:

Put some money into Konami's coffers to show that we still want Silent Hill games.

I would love to do this! if only i wasn't so sure they'd misinterpret my contribution as "i still want you to weakly attempt to recapture something that peaked a decade ago and use its name due to marketing purposes and a lack of creativity".

So I have only played it a little. Could you tell me if they actually use the mythos of SH1 or 3 then I mean that The Order is there and that they are more or less a satanic cult and wanna summon him, and if he has amnesia then realized  it at the end plus someone  conveniently died?
 
Because if its that then I really don't want to play it.. I actually only wanted to check it out a little to see if the first 20min or so where a hock for me. And it was not. Plus I am an old silent hill fan and in the opinion that only members of team silent could make a silent hill game good. 
 
So I did not like Shattered Memories because it actually had nothing to do with the Silent hill 1mythos and it had less exploration then the first ones. with only some few diffrent monster designes in it plus the whole change dark world change  to point out that its a diffrent dimmension, while it is not. 

I personally did not enjoy Downpour. Gave up on it 3 hours in. Loved Shattered Memories though.

Even though the gameplay was complete shit, I have to say that the game at least tried. I mean, the concepts behind it, particularly the ending, was actually pretty sweet.

Also the enemy design was garbage.

It had cool concepts, but the execution was all off.

I finally finished it and its indeed not a bad game. I don't think it's the best Silent Hill game or one of the best games period. But overall it was an enjoyable game to play. And to be honest in my view at least pretty true to the Silent Hill formula. I liked how they tried to introduce some interesting game play variation. Not all of it worked 100%, but A for effort and some of it gave the game some needed variation. The side quests where kind of lost on me, but that's more personal taste.