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- Screenshot of Silent Hill f, Courtesy of Konami via YouTube

Silent Hill f Brings Up the Series’ 26 Year Old Debate – Can Combat Be So Bad It’s Good?

Originally posted on Total Apex Gaming
By Nicole Azucena | Last updated Oct 4, 2025 9:34 PM ET

Silent Hill f has seen major success within its first week of launch. It scored pretty high on the Metacritic scale at a whopping 87. It sold over 1 million copies within the first 4 days of release, and has gained praise and notoriety from gamers and critics alike, potentially a contender for Game of the Year 2025. Since its release, Silent Hill f has revived the series’ 26-year-old debate: can combat be so bad it’s good? Here’s what people have to say about it.

Silent Hill f Combat System

The combat system of Silent Hill f had divided fans of the series, due to its difficulty and the way players felt it did not feel like a Silent Hill game. The combat of the game is a dodge-and-parry system, where dodging enemy attacks is a key factor when fighting enemies. It allows you to counter with heavy attacks, do more damage if you do a perfect dodge, and lets you kill enemies faster and swifter.

This is the main reason people have compared the game to Dark Souls. Yes, it definitely seems souls-like. This has caused people to call the combat system annoying, even more so than the clumsy combat in Silent Hill 1 and 2. But there’s much more to Silent Hill f than its difficult combat system.

Can Combat Be So Bad It’s Good?

Screenshot of Silent Hill f, Courtesy of Konami via YouTube

The criticism sparked the 26-year-old debate of the series: Can combat be so bad it’s good? The point of a clumsy style of combat, and why it works so well in a Silent Hill game, is that you are literally playing as regular people who stumble upon a nightmare they cannot escape from. These characters shouldn’t be good at combat, which is the opposite of souls-like games. There are so many pros and cons of the game that make this such a difficult question to answer.

Pros:

Hinako’s movements are amateurish.
Attacks are heavy and slow.
Her recovery from attacks is also very slow.
If Hinako is hurt, your movement is severely reduced.
The dodge mechanics are also super amateurish, which shows just how inexperienced Hinako is at combat.

Cons:

The ability to perfect dodge and perfect counter enemies kind of defeats the purpose of amateur movements, and works against playing as a terrified teen girl trapped in her own version of hell.
Focus mode grants Hinako supernatural concentration to be able to do an unstoppable charged attack, again defeating the purpose of playing as a girl battling inner and outer demons.
The consequences of using up and recovering your stamina are pretty harsh. Unstrategically using your stamina can be the difference between mastery gameplay and being stuck in your own little version of hell, just like Hinako.
Evading enemies is also incredibly difficult, given the narrow spaces you are subject to.

It really depends on who you ask. I will defend Silent Hill f to my last breath, but I can also admit difficulty and flaws when I see them. The game leaned too heavily on balancing both sides of the coin; it sort of lost itself the further you went into the game. However, Silent Hill f is still such a solid game. Playing it myself, I was incredibly immersed in the game and thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of it, despite its flaws. So to answer the question, yes, combat can definitely be so bad it’s good, at least for me.

This article first appeared on Total Apex Gaming and was syndicated with permission.

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