Forbidden Siren franchise

H

Hovis!

Vampire Ninja
I confess that I haven't ever played the first Forbidden Siren game, but I'm currently ten "missions" into the second game.

Its the closest Survival Horror game in look and feel I've played since the first Silent Hill title way back in 1999 on the PSOne.

The guy who worked on the first Silent Hill game is meant to been in charge of the two Forbidden Siren games, right?

Its a very, very creepy game, be there no doubt about that. As soon as I heard the opening title music I knew this was going to be quite tense (considering I played it in pitch-black with headphones on!). I thought when you play as the soldier it reminded me of the excellent South Korean film R-Point. I also like the sight-jacking technique. Its quite disturbing when you sight-jack someone/thing and there close to where you are.

Early impressions are good for this.

Whether it'll give the Project Zero (aka Fatal Frame) franchise & Silent Hill franchise a run for their money remains to be seen (I won't incude the Resident Evil franchise here because its type of horror is very different). :D
 
Forbidden Siren is one of those series of games i don't think will meet up to Project Zero or Silent Hill, but will still be none the less a good couple of games, though i am yet to actually play them. Mind you i think i have a go at them soon enough since horror games are one of my more favourite genre's for games.
 
I usually pass on these types of games, the Silent Hills and Resident Evil style of games have never really appealed to me, I love the idea of survival horror but for some reason can never get myself to part with money for them.

It might be that they are too scary for me
 
I just had one hell of a decent session playing Forbidden Siren 2 and I honestly believe that it does stand a chance to hold its own against the other premiere survival horror franchises on the market!

What's impressed me most about it is the variety of expereinces it seems to offer. I mean, there's one character I've played as who's partially blind so when you control him everything is blurred and indistinct. Luckily he has a guide dog with him who you "sight-jack" and you look through the eyes of the dog to navigate. Its also creepy when you sight-jack a zombie-thing while you're hiding and they breeze past the door you're behind.

I won't spoil it though, but my session ended on an INCREDIBLE cut scene that by itself will make me play to the end. Things are beginning to get grim and surreal, needless to say.

Having said that, it does have its problems. Companion AI is amongst the worst I've come across (it says a lot that the Dog AI is considerably more useful than some of the humans who follow you around). Also, though the visuals are strong, they lack colour (though to be fair that's the point).

Special praise must go towards the digitised animated photographic faces they used for the characters. In the cut scenes you can't really tell the difference between them and real Japanese people. Even the in-game faces are very, very strong.

I'll post more as I progress, but after that last, AMAZING cut scene, I'm very excited to see what's to come next!
 
I've been looking forward to playing these, particularly as I'd noticed many promo copies of Siren 2 on ebay.

Just before Chrimbo I managed to secure one for.. just under £4. As soon as I can use my PS2 again I hope to be tucking in, this topic is whetting my apetite.
 
I'm quite far in now (don't worry, no plot spoilers from me mind - I'm still only just piecing the narrative together myself thanks to the interesting way the story unfods) and the game has defieneltly surprised me in its content.

I defienetly feel the game is better than I expected it to be (I did expect it to be good, but not as good as this!).

Its great that it has the original Japanese voice acting with english subtitles included. I like choice like that!
 
I just wanted to say that now I'm nearing journey's end for this game (twenty plus hours), if anyone is after a survival horror video game this is easily, as far as I'm concerned, on par with the best of them.

Alongside Killer7 this rates as one of the most underrated and best games from the last twelve months for the PS2. :)
 
I did it. I finally completed it and I'm well chuffed!

Turned out to be a much better game than I expected, and was very generous in it's length too. I was surprised with the quality of the "boss" battles near the end of the game too. They were the icing on the cake.

I'm glad I took the time out to track this one down.
 
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