YMMV / Silent Hill: Downpour

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• Awesome Music: While composer Akira Yamaoka’s presence is sorely missed after his departure from the series, his successor, Daniel Licht, does a damn good job at continuing where he left off. Intro Perk Walk in particular manages to create a new, atmospheric sound that fits right at home with past tracks. It’s slow and simplistic.
  • The game's intro song, done by none other than Korn!
• Base-Breaking Character: The Bogeyman. Detractors, most notably The Real Silent Hill Experience feel that he's yet another rip-off of Pyramid Head in the vein of the Butcher from Origins to cash in on Pyramid Head's Wolverine Publicity, with the concept, "a big monster with a heavy weapon who represents the player's hidden psychosis," being too similar to Pyramid Head. Others felt that he was a much more original character with a different meaning in the plot and that while he's similar to Pyramid Head he's not an outright rip-off like The Butcher.
• Best Level Ever: The final moment of gameplay involves Murphy, transformed into the Bogeyman, chasing Anne through the prison. All those Weeping Bats, Juggernauts, and other nasties that got in your way? Flatten them.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: All the people Murphy meets in the town are either bound there due to their own sins or are a manifestation of Murphy's guilt. Except for the homeless guy found in the subway, who asks for a candy bar, a coat, and a fishing rod as part of a sidequest, before opening up the glitchy subway doors and falling asleep/dying as part of a sidequest.
• Broken Base: This being a Silent Hill game it was inevitable. But a big sticking point for many is how Murphy's past changes depending on the ending, with fans arguing back and forth if this was an exciting concept or just sloppy writing.
• Catharsis Factor: While killing Napier initially can be horrifying, after playing the game and learning what he did, it becomes much more fun to dish out the Cruel and Unusual Death.
• Complete Monster: Patrick Napier is a convicted, revolting child molester. Kidnapping the young Charlie Pendleton to rape and drown—his crime destroying the life of Charlie's father Murphy—Napier is arrested after assaulting and killing another little boy.
• Contested Sequel: With this having been the last official Silent Hill game in the series for awhile, it had split the fanbase down on whether or not it’s another bad attempt to produce a Silent Hill game with too many technical problems and a lousy plot, a flawed, but a satisfying game that brought the series back to survival horror over action horror and had an engaging story comparable to the early Team Silent games, or a So Okay, It's Average survival horror game that doesn’t feel like it belongs in the series.
• Critical Backlash: Downpour was savaged by fans upon release due to it releasing in an Obvious Beta state. The game itself was somewhat of a Creator Killer with its developers going under within a year of release. However, after a patch was released, many of its performance issues were fixed, but by then the damage was done. When people started to look back upon it and play it in its improved state, a few liked what they saw, and felt that, while not as scary as it could've been, the game developers actually understood the concept of Silent Hill quite well. The game isn't without its flaws that couldn't be patched, but it's seen as somewhat of an underrated Silent Hill title in The New '20s. The fact it didn't rely overly on pandering to the past Silent Hill games outside of a deliberate sidequest also helped.
• Critical Dissonance: Critics weren't kind to this game mainly due to technical issues and gameplay frustrations, but it got a rather positive fan reception thanks to putting the emphasis back on survival instead of combat and a storyline that was more reminiscent of the older Team Silent entries without feeling rehashed.
• Disappointing Last Level: Overlook Prison increases the focus on combat and One-Hit Kill death traps, eschewing the atmosphere of the former stages rather severely. It also introduces a new enemy type who hits harder than any other enemy in the game and runs faster than Murphy, thwarting attempts to escape from it, which is otherwise a central strategy in the game. Finally, the level starts by removing all the player's items and weapons, which makes many of the sidequest rewards (high-power one-time weapons) feel pointless.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: A common criticism of the game is how clunky the gameplay could be. Enemies could still damage you even if you block their attacks, the lock-on mechanic had a habit of just flat out not working, the actual melee combat is unwieldy and often imprecise, the open-ended setting was easy to get lost in (not helped by the game encouraging exploration), and the puzzles were found to be too confusing even for veteran fans. The story, however, was praised for its more gloomy atmosphere and feeling closer to the original Team Silent era ^note The first four games. without rehashing any specific plot threads.
• Fan Nickname:
  • A couple of monsters developed some fan nicknames before their real ones were revealed. We have a platinum blond monster with a plastic sheen to it; this one is called Barbie (Real name: Doll). Another one is a monster that is able to speak to Murphy, though always with a snide tone. Because of its monocle and somewhat snooty appearance, it was labeled Aristocrat (Real name: Monocle Man).
  • The Doll is also prone to being called Lady Gaga. The resemblance between the Screamers and Skrillex have not gone unnoticed either.
  • Cop!Murphy, as seen in the "Reversal" ending, is referred to as "Copcake" by some.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Without the sidequests, the game will only last 4-5 hours. And the sidequests really only pad out the length due to the difficulty or trawling around the map looking for random items.
• Jerkass Woobie: In her grief, Carol blames and abandons Murphy for not being able to protect their son Charlie from the pedophile murderer Napier, but this is still understandable because of the crushing grief she must've felt over it, possibly being just as devastated as Murphy.
• Moral Event Horizon: Sewell beating up Frank Coleridge in the game's Good endings and Murphy drowning his own son in the "Execution" ending.
• Narm:
  • Some of the sidequests, especially since it's almost unheard of to have something heartwarming happen in a Silent Hill game. Notable ones include scattering a woman's ashes on her favorite bench by the lake and returning stolen items to the residents of an apartment block. Entering the old war vet's apartment triggers stock gunfire and explosion noises to clue the player in on what item needs to be returned (a war medal). Returning the item makes a heroic wartime march theme play. The player will either smile happily or stifle a laugh.
  • The flashback to when Murphy discovers his son's murder. While his reaction is understandably heartbreaking, the stiff facial animation, while he's crying out Charlie's name, makes it unintentionally funny.
• Nightmare Retardant: A couple of moments:
  • The otherwise very spooky "Gramophone" sidequest ending with the banished spirit giving a "YURRRAAAAGGGH" Stock Scream.
  • One that can happen at random: a grotesque Weeping Bat falling down from the sky would be a heck of a lot scarier if its skin texture had finished loading yet, and if it looked less like an anorexic clown and more like a bat. There's also their goofy vaudeville-esqe walk animation.
  • The appearance of the Void that chases Murphy in the Otherworld for some players. The concept is frightening, but the Void itself looks like an unfinished explosion graphic. It doesn't really help that it doesn't have a visible effect on the environment other than certain objects despite supposedly being an all-consuming black hole.
  • The majority of the game's enemies have been criticized as being bland compared to previous Silent Hill games, most looking like ordinary humans in halloween makeup, or in Bogeyman's case "just a guy in a costume", which is exactly what Pyramid Head's design had been trying to avoid.
  Bogleech: A "monster" can't just be a person who never washes their hair.
• Player Punch: Discovering just what happened to Frank.
• One-Scene Wonder: Monocle Man, who's basically a High-Class Glass Eldritch Abomination, a giant draped face with a monocle (or, rather, a giant spotlight with the appearance of a monocle) in its left eye. He is encountered at the climax of the cavern train ride whose only words are asking if the player enjoyed the hellish ride. He only appears once in the entire game, but there is no doubt his image will always stick in the minds of the players. He was apparently originally planned to be a boss encounter, but this was cut.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • The surprise loading-screen hints seem specifically designed for this purpose; Say you have a girlfriend and suddenly the game says "She's lying to you". Maybe you have a guilty conscience and suddenly "Everyone knows what you've done" or "Was it worth it?" pops up. Or if the game has got you hiding under a blanket biting your nails: "Are you sure you're alone?" "It's in the room with you. You just can't see it..." The best one of them all: "STOP DOING THAT." That's guaranteed to make you jump no matter what.
  • The walkie-talkie sometimes emits static even when there aren't any enemies around. In some cases they may show up (ie. if you open the back of the van in the Centennial Building garage), but most of the time nothing happens... most of the time.
  • The subway system is a safe haven from monsters and allows Murphy to travel quickly and unscathed below the town, but still has a very unsettling feel to it. However, should you use the system to return to Hillside? There's a Doll waiting for you! Not so safe, after all...
• Realism-Induced Horror: Sewell stands out for having nothing supernatural about him yet having integral ties to the story with his Dirty Cop schemes. While distant from the gameplay story, his shady dealings with prisoners and willingness to be violent himself can hit close to home for when a dirty cop makes the news.
• Signature Scene: The train ride, but ESPECIALLY the ending. Crosses back to One-Scene Wonder.
  Monocle Man: Did you enjoy the ride, Murphy?
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The fact that Murphy's past is multiple-choice actually detracts from some of the drama to many fans. The story makes a good deal more internal sense if Murphy did kill Napier but also fulfilled his obligation to Sewell by crippling Frank Coleridge. That gives Murphy's actions genuine weight and a reason for Anne Cunningham to want to kill him. As such, it's entirely possible for Murphy to be only guilty of assaulting Napier with a deadly weapon.
• Win Back the Crowd: Somewhat. While the base remains as broken as ever, the general fan reception towards Downpour became more positive in the years following its release, thanks to a patch fixing most of the game's technical issues. You won't see too many Silent Hill fans completely dismissing the game these days, as they did at launch.
• The Woobie: Murphy and Anne Cunningham when you find out why she is chasing after Murphy.

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