Silent Hill F compared to Soulslike subgenre over nightmarish boss fight that took a “full hour” to beat

Silent Hill F is one of the most anticipated games of the year. The developer has teased it is restoring the series’ “lost essence of Japanese horror,” and the main actress has said the game is so traumatising she felt her “own sanity slipping” while performing. Now people have actually gotten their hands on the game via previews, and, in a surprising comparison, Silent Hill F has been compared to the Soulslike subgenre because of certain mechanics and a nightmarish boss fight that took a “full hour” to beat.

Silent Hill F compared to Soulslike subgenre

Game Informer have shared their preview of Silent Hill F. We won’t share details about the story and the specifics of what happened during the preview, expect for a boss fight and gameplay mechanics.

In the preview, Game Informer said Silent Hill F “has shades” of the FromSoftware Soulslike subgenre because of a stamina system. While largely complementary of the gameplay and melee, the stamina system was criticised because “it takes about a second and a half before it begins to refill, which feels like an eternity because it’s just long enough to be vulnerable to successive attacks from the much-faster enemies”.

In addition, enemies are really fast, and Game Informer’s Marcus Stewart “often died simply from lacking the energy to flee after dodging two or three attacks in a row”. What makes this worse is that it conflicts with the context of how “Hinako describes herself in her journal as being a former track and field athlete, so you’d think she’d have better conditioning”.

Alongside the stamina system, Game Informer encountered “One big, almost Souls-esque boss fight”. This was said to be “an absolute nightmare because of the stamina limitation”. Issues came from the delayed regeneration of stamina not being able to keep up with the monster’s relentless attacks that require constant dodging. Not only that, but the monster kept disappearing and reappearing, needing to be chased around the arena.

Marcus Stewart said they “spent a full hour on this [boss] fight,” which shows just how challenging it was, with Stewart further claiming they “wasn’t alone”. According to Game Informer, others at the preview “shared similar frustrations,” so Stewart is hoping the stamina is “reworked for launch”.

In addition to the Soulslike subgenre, Game Informer compared the melee of Silent Hill F to the heavily underrated Silent Hill The Room. This is because there are no guns, and you can only use “close-range weapons such as pipes, bats, and knives”. These “Weapons also degrade and break with use, and you can only equip three at a time”.

Check out Game Informer’s preview for more details and impressions about Silent Hill F.

In other horror gaming news, the release date for Bloober Team’s Cronos The New Dawn has been announced.