If you've been following the lead-up to Silent Hill f's release, then you've probably heard some not-so-great things about its combat. I'll concede that the first few enemy encounters can feel bad, rusty-old-knife-getting-sunk-into-your-shoulder bad. But it does get better, especially once you realise that you can just ignore most of the monsters you come across.
I'm something of a magpie and a hoarder in survival horror games, which means that I collect every single item I come across and then never want to use them. So my solution to this has always been to rely on being as sneaky as possible and perfecting the art of the dodge. And just like most survival games, it works a charm: I found every single note, letter, item, and omamori in Silent Hill f, and I hardly killed a thing.
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One of the benefits of Silent Hill f being a third-person horror game is that you can play corners; I used this to check corners and alleyways before I walked around or past them. Not only did this save me from getting jumped by knife-wielding mannequins, but it also meant I could see when an enemy was approaching and then wait until it went past to make a move to the next location.
The monsters in Silent Hill f really aren't that smart, and they have pretty short lines of sight when it comes to pursuing you. If you decide to equip the Clam omamori, which will be the first charm you buy from the Shrine shop, then their line of sight will get even shorter, meaning turning a corner will be enough to permanently get them off your tail.
There were even moments when I passed a bunch of enemies and then ran a few paces down the street, only to look back and realise [[link]] that they had all lost interest in me. You can outpace most of the monsters, so my advice is to go on the run. The only enemies that are worth fighting are the Glowing Monsters in Ebisugaoka and the faceless Shackled Monster in the Dark Shrine, as both of these can catch up to you.
There will be areas in which you have to fight a bunch of monsters to unlock the next part, but these aren't massively common, and the game will give you plenty of items before and after these sections to help
you.
Instead of focusing on fighting, scan the map for helpful information and items that will make you stronger. You can sell items in every Shrine for faith, which is the currency in Silent Hill f that can allow you to buy omamori from the shop or upgrade your health, sanity, stamina, and carry number for omamori, although you'll need an ema for upgrades as well.
Getting more omamori is a must. Here are some of the best ones to help you survive the latter stages of the game:
- Clam - Decreases enemy line of sight.
- Whale - You can't be interrupted by a hit while healing.
- Crow - Slightly restores health after each enemy defeated.
- Spider - Greatly decreases weapon durability consumption for light attacks.
- Suzuran - Perfect dodges become easier to perform.
- Goat - Take less damage when facing multiple enemies.
- Dolphin - Increase max sanity after a perfect dodge.
- Owl - decreases sanity consumption while using Focus.
- Sakura - Boosts health-restoring items and omamori.
- Tanuki - Turns physical damage into sanity damage.
After the first couple of runs, I had maxed out my sanity, health, and stamina and also had upgraded to five omamori slots. I focused on making my weapons stronger with the Spider omamori and using less sanity consumption when using the focus ability with the Owl omamori. This meant that I ended up finishing the next three endings with the same starting knife each time, and I had so much stamina that dodging and fighting enemies became ridiculously easy.
But even after I was finished with my upgrades, I still didn't seek out fights because that's just not how you're meant to explore Silent Hill f. If I decided to fight every single enemy I saw, I would still be on my second playthrough. So my advice for anyone entering Ebisugaoka for the first time would be to keep your head down, move methodically through each area, and use save points and line of sight to your advantage; you'll have far fewer issues playing like this.