Stepping into Silent Hill f feels both hauntingly familiar and entirely alien. While the series has always been known for its psychological depth and storytelling, this one introduces a suite of new systems. Some of those may feel overwhelming as the corruption begins to spread.
Whether you are a veteran of the fog-shrouded streets or a newcomer trying to survive Hinako’s nightmare, understanding how these mechanics function could well be the difference between life, and a grisly end.
To help you navigate the beautiful, botanical horror of Silent Hill f, we’ve put together some essential tips, many of which will help you survive your descent into the madness.
And if you want to know more about the game prior to your first playthrough, check out our full Silent Hill f review.
1. Sanity Does Not Affect Story
In Silent Hill f one of the earliest introduced mechanics is Sanity and if you know anything about previous Silent Hill games, they have a tendency to add secret mechanics that influence the game endings. Usually these are tied to how people play the game, like how in Silent Hill 2, managing your health can influence the endings.
So a system as ominously named as your “Sanity” meter, reasonably may throw up some red flags. Thankfully, it does not influence the ending you receive, which is great because it can be a vital part of combat encounters.
Sanity is used to perform special attacks in combat and can make countering easy, so if you were worried about using it too much and accidentally locking yourself into a bad ending, you can throw away those fears.
2. You’ve Got to Focus
Focus is a mechanic that is tied directly to the sanity meter. As just mentioned it is used to perform some special attacks in combat and makes countering easier. When you focus, Hinako will stand still and charge up a focus meter which is a highlight circle that appears next to her health bar. Once full, it can be used to perform a strong attack against enemies. But this actually isn’t the best use of focus.
Where focus really helps is that it will slow down time and give a prominent audio cue when enemies are about to make an attack that can be countered. This makes countering much easier, especially on fast moving enemies and bosses. Not only that, but it is still possible to dodge while focusing, which means you aren’t helpless while focusing either.
Later in the game when heavy weapons are introduced, focusing will put Hinako into a defensive stance, and she can tank several hits while waiting for the counter prompt to appear. It’s an incredibly useful mechanic that takes some time to learn but is invaluable, especially on higher difficulties.
3. Play Your First Run However You Want
As a follow-up to that, the first ending of Silent Hill f is predetermined. There are multiple endings, but those can only be pursued after playing through the game the first time. There’s no need to worry about accidentally missing some obscure area, or failing to do something at a crucial junction on your first run through the game.
The story plays out as intended and only in New Game+ will your actions affect how the story ends. This means you can enjoy the terror of your first play through without stressing that you are messing up the story.
4. Learning to Counter and Perfect Dodge Is Essential
When the mechanic is first introduced, Silent Hill f does let you know that countering makes fights easier, but it can’t be overstated enough how much this actually matters. Countering helps conserve weapon durability and will stun enemies allowing for follow-up attacks. These follow-up attacks also do increased damage while enemies are stunned, which further saves on weapon durability.
Countering an enemy while it is next to another enemy can also cause both to be hit and stunned with a single attack. This can drastically turn the tide of a fight in your favor. So make sure you practice and learn the counter system. The game doesn’t penalize deaths or use of continues, so you can spend some time practicing counters near one of the shrines you save at.
On top of that, perfect dodges can also be used to instantly recover stamina, which is essential on higher difficulties. Large groups can attack rapidly and stamina will deplete rapidly. Spamming dodge may work for the first couple of attacks, but you will quickly find yourself in trouble if you needlessly use it.
5. Cowards Live to Fight Another Day
You can run past many enemies in the game without any penalty. Enemies don’t directly give you experience, they eat up weapon durability, and they give up on the chase surprisingly quickly. While it can be stressful to search new areas with a swarm of mannequins following you, there are plenty of spaces that you can just rush through without engaging with them.
Dodge past an enemy and then run without looking back, and there’s a good chance you’ll actually get away with it.
6. Heavy Weapons to Stun, Light Weapons to Attack
There are different classes of weapon in Silent Hill f. Weapons like lead pipes and baseball bats are middle of the road items that can stun, but also swing quickly. Larger weapons like the axe and sledgehammer are slow moving, but their heavy attack is almost a guaranteed stun on enemies – assuming it lands. And then there are light bladed weapons like the sickle and kitchen knife that attack quickly, but won’t do much to stop an enemy from hitting back.
If you are struggling with boss fights, try seeing if you can stun them with a heavy weapon or counter, and then quickly swap to a light weapon like a knife or sickle. These can do massive damage to stunned enemies and learning to swap between them during combat encounters can make a world of difference.
7. Enshrine What You Can
Silent Hill f’s level up system is done via shrines throughout the world. At these shrines, you can offer up collectables to the gods which rewards Hinako with faith. After the opening chapters, faith can be used to upgrade health, sanity, stamina, and increase omamori slots – which are equippable items that provide some kind of boon.
Different items reward with varying amounts of faith. Standard items like bandages and tool kits for repairing weapons can’t be enshrined, but there are other food items that restore health and sanity that can be. Offer up as many of these as you can on your first play through, especially if you plan on replaying on a higher difficulty, so you can maximize your stats for your second run through the game.
Hinako’s faith and upgrades will all carry over to New Game+, so planning ahead can make things much easier.
8. Silent Hill f is Meant for Multiple Playthroughs
After beating the game the first time there are two huge quality of life features that are revealed for subsequent playthroughs. The first, is that the game directly tells you what needs to be done to unlock the alternative endings for the game. So you don’t need to fumble around the world looking for obscure hints to get an idea of what to do.
The second is that there will be new cutscenes and content, but the game warns you if you are going to skip any new cutscenes. During cutscenes instead of just saying “skip cutscene” it mentions in the skip prompt that you would be skipping new cutscene content. While it’s not an especially long game by modern standards, your first playthrough will probably be around 8-10 hours.
That time can be significantly cut down during second and third playthroughs. Repeated cutscenes are easy to identify and puzzles are a lot easier to play through – or even skip entirely – once you’ve beaten the game once.
9. There are Many Missable Achievements
While Silent Hill f is meant to be played through multiple times, there are several missable achievements. Many of these are tied to boss fights and encounters throughout the game. Several of these achievements are also tied to game difficulty settings, as well as how well you do in certain combat encounters. Which means regardless of what you do, it will take several plays to 100 percent the achievement list.
Again, the best way to handle this is to play the first time blind, and then on the second playthrough you can use multiple saves to complete many of the additional achievements.
Frankly, surviving the terrors of Silent Hill f is as much about patience as it is about reflexes. Yet by mastering the combat and utilising shrines, you will find the oppressive atmosphere much more manageable.
What you should remember though is that your first journey is just the beginning; the game is designed to be played multiple times, with its secrets and varied endings waiting in New Game+.
Take your time and enjoy the story – the true horror is only just getting started.
If you have any further tips, tricks or Silent Hill f thoughts, let us know about them in the comments section below.
Should you not yet have played Silent Hill f, you’ll find the game available on Xbox Series X|S via the Xbox Store.
