[h1] POST TRAUMA POSTMORTEM [/h1]
I hate simply repeating what other reviewers have already said, but a truth is a truth: The Silent Hill force is strong with Post Trauma during the opening strains. It's got all the gloom and weirdness. It's got the flickering fluorescent lights that only half-illuminate the abandoned settings—a cavernous subway, an aging parochial school, a hospital in need of a good sanitizing. It's got troubled characters who reveal half-truths but leave you in the dark on purpose—these are probably not very good people, but you just don't know for sure. It's got Batman-like twisted, fixed camera angles that make you grind your teeth in worry as your character disappears into shadow at the end of the hallway (before the next camera angle kicks in). All good.
But as the game progresses, it incrementally loses that mojo. Slowly, that anxiety-inducing Silent Hill melancholy seeps away, drip by drip, leaving behind only bland darkness (and a good deal of confusion). And by the time the credits roll, Post Trauma reveals that it's simply a subpar Silent Hill wannabe.
I distinctly remember when the Post Trauma reveal trailer hit in 2022. The song used in that trailer, "VIII //. lumière" by VYKS, was so drowning in Silent Hill depresso-vibes that it stopped me cold in my tracks. The trailer showed wacky, tilted fixed camera angles, and a portly dude with gray, shoulder-length hair and a fat butt poured into a pair of cheap Lee jeans, trundling about a dimly lit, blood-soaked subway, and I thought: "Okay, this ain't another Leon Kennedy lookalike. I can get on board with this." And the game immediately went onto my wishlist.
(Sadly, that heart-wrenching song is not on the OST nor in the game, which is a missed opportunity, but whatever.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJKj5Br9JnQ
I'm generally a cautious Steam consumer, and I never buy games on release day (and preordering, to me, is like a bad joke). But I broke my own policy and added Post Trauma to my library the day it came out...especially considering its reasonable $13 price tag.
As usual, it took me over a year to get around to playing it, and...sadly, when all is said and done, it's just another indie that really deserves that nonexistent sideways "meh" thumb. But since the game works as intended and tries its mightiest (though ultimately fails) to hit those moody Silent Hill lows, I can't dismiss it entirely. In fact, I'm interested to see if Red Soul Games gives this genre another try.
As promised from that very first trailer, Roman, our protagonist, has a pronounced, couch-comfy derriere, and his pained, wrinkled face works well as an antidote to so many beautiful people in video games. It's a bold choice. Veteran actor Togo Igawa, who provides Roman's gravelly voice, seems appropriately confused, sometimes sputtering half-English, half-Japanese phrases here and there. Likewise, the voice acting for other characters—one of which is a wonderfully designed giant-spider-lady with mile-long black hair—is exceptionally well done. Mid-game, Roman joins up with a snarky preteen who is mute and communicates through an AI voice app on her phone (which, in a genius move, saves on having to do lip syncing for that character); honestly, it's an interesting "team" setup overall.
And the game looks like a million bucks (mostly). For my playthrough on my OLED super ultrawide (5120x1440), I injected Universal Unreal Engine Unlocker into the game which forced it to render properly at the 32:9 aspect ratio. I also disabled film grain which made the game pop visually for me. I was very happy with it.
But then, as the initial Silent Hill vibes vanish, you realize the game doesn't have much of anything beyond visuals to offer. Ranged and melee combat is clunky, and that's fine. But the problem is that it's practically absent. You encounter only a handful of enemies intermittently, and only one foe at a time—but for the majority of Post Trauma's runtime, you are waddling up and down empty hallways with a useless gun or hammer in your hand. This is when that anxiety-tinged excitement you initially feel when booting up the game starts to drain away.
Likewise, the puzzles are simply serviceable at best, and in some instances they feel like they have been...I want to say, bolted onto the game?...without really feeling integrated into the narrative or the environments.
And another cardinal sin: The game is far too easy on standard difficulty. I kept Roman alive the entire playthrough without much effort. And in my case, there were some glitches I encountered that actually made the game easier, weirdly enough: 1) On some of the slightly more involved puzzles, once I figured them out in my head and then went to place whatever pieces in the correct order (several puzzles take this form, like where you have to put pegs into corresponding holes or even just choosing the correct numbers on a dial), I'd get halfway through the procedure, and suddenly the puzzle would just be complete! It was almost like the puzzles were auto-completing themselves. It surprised me every time. 2) I knew, for absolute certain, that I had zero ammo in my inventory (especially after a boss battle). But lo and behold, after a save, when I'd arm my pistol for the heck of it and hit reload, suddenly there would be 5 bullets in the chamber, always the same number of bullets every single time. Infinite ammo without cheats! I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this ended up making the relatively easy fights even easier. Oops.
And like almost every single review I've read, I finished the game scratching my head wondering exactly what story I just played through. When it comes to narrative, I don't mind lack of clarity to some degree, especially in psychological horror games where you can endlessly theorize online about stuff. But Post Trauma crosses the line; too much is obfuscated. Characters make references to people or events that have not been fully explained. They seem to know each other from previous encounters that we, as players, have no exposure to. And then, suddenly, you find yourself playing a different character who has not been properly introduced—and in a different perspective when the game suddenly changes to first person without rhyme or reason. I don't mind variety, but in this case it's disorienting. The Silent Hill games never made me feel this way. In the end, the basics of a Silent Hill plot and the motivations of its characters are clear...or clear enough.
But here, either something was lost in translation or something was cut in development. Or (and this is my homebrew theory) the dark deeds (what really happened prior to the start of the game) is papered over because the game directors lost their courage and decided (or were told) to not truly name the evil that has been committed by our protagonist, which is why he's landed in hell. It's almost like someone in power—maybe the publisher?—intervened and told the developers to dial it back because outright naming the evil deed committed by Roman might hit a little too close to real events—which might negatively affect ratings or be seen as crass. That's pure speculation on my part. Regardless, in the end, our pudgy dude Roman barely hints at a monumental misdeed he committed while experiencing a dark time in his life, but he never fully fesses up. He never really faces himself. In other words, though he seems to escape his fate in the end (according to the good ending I got, anyway), his character remains largely unresolved. And that's somewhat unsatisfying. Worse, we players end up guessing at crucial plot points.
TLDR: If you play Post Trauma, get your head-scratching finger ready coz you're gonna need it.
Anyway, to sum up: Old, portly train engineer in fat-butt jeans and who needs a haircut and has a shady past is a fun, disruptive design choice. But it's just not enough to make a great game.
