Silent Hill

Silent Hill
Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Publisher: Konami Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: March 4, 1999 Released in US: January 31, 1999 Released in EU: August 1, 1999 This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a bugs page

To do: Midwich Elementary contains some unused rooms outside of the courtyard, and the Japanese demo contains more unfinished areas. There are also some other hidden images that have yet to be added here or on the prototype page.

Silent Hill features an everyman trying to find his daughter in a creepy-as-hell town. Of course, nothing can possibly go wrong. Right? Right?

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Bugs

Unused Enemies

TIM and ILM files for seven monsters are present on the disc, but unaccounted for at any point in the game. As no individual behaviours appear to have been programmed for these enemies, their movements may appear glitched when imported in-game via hacking, but they all have unique animations, meshes and textures. All of them appear to be deformed takes on real-world animals:

• "BTFY" - A butterfly with eye and teeth markings on its scales.
• *"EI" - Presumably intended to be a manta ray. The TIM textures for this enemy are not included with the rest of the enemies listed, instead being located in the "TEST" folder.
• "FRG" - A frog.
• "MKY" - A monkey with a bruised face and bloodied mouth.
• "OST" - A rather huge flesh-coloured creature vaguely resembling an ostrich.
• "SNK" - A snake with an unusually long, pointed tongue.

Additionally, there exists a 7th cut enemy, with the abbreviation of "CKN" in the files. As expected, the enemy itself resembles a (heavily contorted) chicken, with textures similar to that of a newborn fledgling. Intriguingly, the files for this monster are larger than for any normal enemy, including the 6 cut enemies listed above, implying it would've served as a boss of some sort.

Unused Images

International Track & Field Graphics

Some leftover graphics from International Track & Field.

"Coming Soon" text

On the Diner map is an unused event which displays a "TO BE CONTINUED" message, followed by "COMING SOON" text over a picture of Dahlia, before kicking the player back to the main menu. This may have been used on one of the various demo discs that had a playable SH1 demo.

To see this in-game, set the game state byte in memory (0xB9FC8 in the NTSC release) to the map-event state (value 10), and set the event-id field (0xA9A14 in NTSC) to 4. So far this event has only been seen on the Diner map, suggesting the demo was only made up of the first playable town-area of the game.

Hidden Doodles and Text

Some of the textures contain doodles or text.

• 

  Some faces. Notice the four smilies together at the bottom-right.

• 

  A sprite crossed out by hand.

• 

  Japanese writing for "It's a map."

• 

  A happy man.

• 

  Very faint text in the solid orange regions. The top one could be short for かんばん, Japanese for "sign" or "billboard." The bottom one is "S.ELL," probably short for S. Ellroy St.

• 

  Same as in the previous image, but with some extra scribbles.

Oddities

Bottomless Pits

In this game, the bottomless pits were intended to be death traps as in the later games in the series, but it's impossible to fall into any of the bottomless pits through normal gameplay. However, if you hack the game and force yourself into one of them, you will be instantly killed, regardless of health. This does not happen if you walk over them with Walk Through Walls cheat on, as you float, but only if your Z position is 32768.

Boat

The boat was meant to be a vehicle to reach the lighthouse, as evidenced by Harry looking at the steering wheel although it does nothing.

Car Engine

There's a car engine at the gas station that serves no purpose whatsoever.

Regional Differences

Altered Title Screen

The Japanese title letters have a yellow hue and a layer of splatters beneath and around them, both of which were removed in the US and European releases. The US version has a background image with the silhouette of a person standing on the drawbridge to Central Silent Hill while the Japanese and European versions opt for a simple black background.

US	Japan	Europe

Both the US and Japanese releases have the US and Japanese title screen images on the disc. The European version has the European and the Japanese title screen images on the disc.

Options

US	Japan	Europe

The Japanese version says "Key Config" instead of "Controller Config", has Japanese translations for all options and shows a semi-transparent box overlay behind the text.

The European version has a "Language" option to choose between English, German, French, Spanish and Italian screen text. It also shows a slightly different portion of the Harry render in the background.

Child Zombies

One of the enemies known as Grey Children only appear in the North American version. However in the European and Japanese versions, they're replaced by Mumblers. The reason for this is that the Grey Children seemed too much like real-life children.

Revisional Differences

Missing Newspaper Memo

To do: Still to be checked if Japanese Rev 1 has this bug.

There's a newspaper memo missing in both the US and the initial Japanese release. The cause is a bug resulting in incorrect flags being written to the memory and save game files in these versions. This was fixed in the European and Japanese Rev 2 releases of the game, allowing the memo to appear only there if certain conditions are met during a playthrough.

The bug in early releases, the conditions on which the newspaper memo appears and thus its general elusiveness led some to believe that it doesn't exist, can be found completely at random, or that it will show up only if the player has read all memos scattered throughout the game.

The memo reveals a little about Alessa's past and may be found on the table in the room to the right of the altar on stage 3F of "Nowhere" shortly before the end of the game. The room itself is an alternate version of Alchemilla Hospital's director's office and also holds the botanical reference book with the entry on White Claudia, found on the sideboard next to the door.

Just like the botanical reference book, the circumstances under which the newspaper memo can be read are dependent on reading specific memos earlier in the game. Unlike the botanical reference book which is always there but can only be read if the blackboard in the police station has been examined, the newspaper memo can either appear or not appear based on two earlier memos: first, you have to examine the incomplete newspaper in Alchemilla Hospital's medicine room from which an article is missing. Then you have to read the newspaper in Norman Young's motel office (as with the botanical reference book, this memo is always there but Harry will only read it if the earlier memo has been examined; it should be noted that you can read it in all versions of the game but only latter releases then write the correct flags to the memory and save game files).

If both of these memos have been read, the newspaper memo in "Nowhere" will appear in the aforementioned versions of the game. Harry's remark "This again...?" when finding the newspaper memo in the Japanese version makes its dependence on the earlier memos rather clear whereas the English translation's "Same thing..." only added to the confusion about the requirements.

The corresponding text transcribed:

Japanese

English

また　これか⋯⋯ 捜査難航 麻薬“PTV”の売人特定できず。 相次ぐ怪死事件。 麻薬売買の取締り強化を掲げた市長に続き、 麻薬捜査官が原因不明の心臓発作で死亡。 他にもあるのか？ かなり古いな⋯⋯ 繁華街で不審火。 6棟が全焼。 逃げ遅れたアレッサ・ギレスピー（7歳）の 焼死体が発見された。 出火の原因を調査中。 調査の結果、出火場所は ギレスピー宅の地下室と限定された。 出火原因は老朽化したボイラーの 故障ではないかと推測される。 この火事の日付は⋯⋯ シェリルを見つけたあの日だ⋯⋯

Same thing... Investigation stalled. “PTV” dealers still at large. Suspicious deaths continue. First the anti-drug Mayor, now a narcotics officer dies of a sudden heart failure of unknown cause. Are there others? It’s pretty old... Fire broke out in town. 6 homes destroyed. Charred body of Alessa Gillespie(7) found in aftermath. Cause of fire currently under investigation. Investigations show source as basement of Gillespie home. Blaze now believed caused by malfunction of antiquated boiler. The date of the blaze... it’s the same day we found Cheryl!