I feel SH3's biggest weakness isq that it is a sequel. I feel that everything about Heather and her personal journey through Silent Hill would have been better if it hadn't been bogged down by forcibly tying it to the first game. I like the connection, overall, and feel the callbacks are nice, but it would probably have been better if the connections were looser and the game actually explored feminine horror more. The themes kinda die halfway through when it becomes a straightup revenge plot - and yeah, the lore dumps kinda slow the game to a crawl. It's kind of a clear contrast between SH2 and SH3, as in SH2 you had to walk down a very long, boring path until you actually reached the town, but that made it feel that much more isolating and hard to go back, while in SH3 you get three entire dungeons or so outside of Silent Hill and that just makes it feel... kinda detached from everything? You're literally just going back home and nothing is weird aside from this weird detective (who is potentially half-naked) and no-eyebrows lady.

Honestly, this only reminds me how unfair it is that this game is considered the "last good Silent Hill" while Silent Hill 4 is treated as a franchise killer. This game feels like a rush job in so many aspects (the areas of Silent Hill you visit are just retreads of the second game's areas - not even the first game's which would have been more thematically appropriate) and aside from the very fresh take on the protagonist, honestly doesn't feel like it really adds much to the general Silent Hill themes. And I was never really scared throughout this game, tbh. The Room, on the other hand, had pretty great pacing from the start (slowed down a bit later with the dungeon retreads) and has an actually interesting departure from the format, as well as some unsettling scares that genuinely got to me.

No hate for SH3. I just want justive for SH4.