I know I might sound like I am complaining or hating, but please understand I am a huge fan of Silent Hill and want this to be successful, but I also want it to be faithful. No spoiler warnings, its a remake of a 20+ year old game.
There are a lot of things changed that didn't need to be. Like they changed stuff purely for the sake of changing it, when it was completely fine in the original as is.
They made the fog thicker in some places than the original and thinner than the original in others.
Quicktime events still exist. Actual war crime.
You can take damage and be interrupted when interacting with items, objects, puzzles, the map, and notes, which is awful and needs to be patched to fix it. That type of gameplay mechanic is not suitable for this kind of game. Its Silent Hill, not Dark Souls.
Still wish they gave us a fixed camera option, but I can at least know that modders will 100% fix that blunder.
Don't like the changes to the Pyramid Head intro scene, also don't like that you now meet Eddit before PH and James no longer asks about whether Eddie saw the "Red Pyramid Thing." And actually, I don't like that they changed the dialogue at all. The original dialogue was fine and easy to understand. It didn't need to change, and is another example to me of changing it just for the sake of changing it.
Angela's voice actor is easily the worst in the game. The actress might be okay and maybe the direction was bad, but she just sounds flat and wooden in the remake, which by comparison in the original Angela had a "rollercoaster" type of voice direction, she was quite animated compared to James. The remake just makes her sound like she doesn't care at all about anything, which is how James should sound, but whatever. Her intro scene in the cemetary is her best acted scene, and it only gets worse from there.
Don't like how Angela acts with the mirror scene. In the original when she turns the knife on James her pose shows fear, like she is cowering away from James. Given this character's backstory, that is completely understandable and expected. But in the remake for some reason she holds the knife out like a combat trained Navy Seal or some greaser from Michael Jackson's BAD music video when they show the knife duel. And the cry of "no" doesn't really sound like a cry of fear, more like disciplining a child when they take cookies from the cookie jar.
Avoiding enemies, the best strategy of the original and the entire point of survival horror as a genre, is pretty much impossible in the remake. In the original you were only required to fight the Flesh Lips, Abstract Daddy (boss), and Maria. You never even actually had to fight Pyramid Head, you just waited it out and he left on his own. But now I can't seem to avoid enemies like I could before. Mostly pacifist runs will not be likely doable anymore.
I havent played too much beyond this yet.
I like the graphics. Not crazy about the controls/camera. One note about the graphics- the fog not rendering in the puddle reflections on the ground is really distracting.
Don't like how they made Eddie look, I much prefer his original design. James is okay, glad they fixed him.
The music is hit and miss for me, unlike the original. Some iconic tracks are too different IMO and lose that charm the original had.
PC performance is bad. Just like every other Bloober game, not only is it difficult to maintain 60 fps (needing DLSS and other options on just for 1080p), but even if you can hit 60 fps the game stutters anyway. Sometimes stuttering in a spot that moments ago did not stutter, it doesn't seem to have any reliable pattern to it and is unavoidable. About the same as all of Bloobers other games, which is a real shame.
Monster designs are okay but they all seem to have a strange eggshell sheen on them where they were more shiny/wet looking in the original. Especially the Mannequins.
"We dont have yellow paint, we have white paint" is kinda annoying but at least thematic I guess.