Line #28 VideoGame/SilentHillOrigins


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e20f5a81_c631_45df_adea_84bdb15f5951.jpeg]]
2
3	->''Jack says the town is located on\
4	old "spiritual ground"...\
5	Hopefully we\
6	will be blessed!''
7
8	A {{prequel}} released for the handheld Platform/PlayStationPortable and later ported to the Platform/PlayStation2, ''Origins'' is a retelling of the events that happened seven years before ''VideoGame/SilentHill1''. It stars a trucker named Travis Grady, whose attempts to take a shortcut through Silent Hill get sidetracked by a figure running onto the road and a house on fire. After bailing a mysterious (and very, very crispy) girl out of her house, he passes out and awakes in the completely deserted streets of Silent Hill. His attempts to find out what exactly happened to the girl lead him all over the town and eventually get him embroiled in mysterious cult activity, as well as the [[DarkAndTroubledPast troubled past]] of his that appears to be a prerequisite for ''Franchise/SilentHill'' protagonists.
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10	Although ''Origins'' faithfully sticks to the ''Silent Hill'' formula for creepy atmospheres, nightmare worlds, and baffling puzzles, it introduces BreakableWeapons and being able to switch over to the [[DarkWorld Otherworld]] via mirrors--in practice, this just means twice as many areas (of which half are just a grimdark version of themselves) to explore.
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12	Characters in ''Origins'', with the exception of Travis himself, are all younger versions of the characters found in ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' -- Dahlia, Lisa, and Kaufmann. They wear different clothes and have slightly different personalities, but are ultimately the same.
13	----
14	!!Tropes specific to this game:
15	* ActionizedSequel: While the game does feature "better" controls and a bigger emphasis on killing monsters, the combat was going to be similar to that of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' with a close, AlwaysOverTheShoulder camera view. There were also plans to introduce a laser aiming module for guns and a barricade system to block monsters from accessing certain areas. In October 2006, the U.S.-based team was sacked and production was moved to another studio in the U.K., and those plans were scrapped.
16	* AlreadyMetEveryone: Travis, his family, and the Butcher are the only characters unique to this game.
17	* TheArtifact:Since all the pre-rendered cutscenes were already created before the game was re-written, looking closely shows it's actually a masked man that Travis swerves to avoid, not Alyessa, "Mr.Twilight", a masked Cultist who'd eventually be revealed to be Kaufmann, this entire plot thread was removed but the cutscene still shows him. On a more minor note, a cutscene near the end shows Travis wielding a pump-action shotgun, which is a clear holdover from pre-release versions, as the final release instead gives him a double-barreled boxlock.
18	* BerserkButton: For Travis, it's the idea of a parent abusing their child.
19	* BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts: Travis stops his truck to avoid hitting a hooded figure. As soon as he gets out of the truck to check on this person, he sees Spectral Alessa in his rearview mirror and Silent Hill's signature fog starts rolling in.
20	* BigDamnFireExit: Travis has enough time to enter the burning Gillespie house and rescue Alessa from it, even if he takes his sweet time trying all of the locked doors (though he earns an accolade, [[AndYourRewardIsClothes an outfit]], and an axe if he's fast enough). At times, the '''' ''[[http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Halo_of_the_Sun Halo of the Sun]]'' shows up to extinguish some parts blocked by flames.
21	* BigDamnHero: Travis is possibly the most selfless and altruistic of Silent Hill protagonists yet. He willingly stays in town to help out the girl he just rescued from a burning building, while disinterestedly confronting his troubled past just because it's on the way. Of course, as the story goes on and the horrors get more personal, Travis reveals that even he has limits.
22	* BigRedDevil: The FinalBoss is this.
23	* BloodyHandprint: Alessa leaves one on the glass of a mirror; touching it transports Travis to the Otherworld for the first time.
24	* BookEnds: Travis leaving Silent Hill is an almost exact mirror of how he entered the town.
25	* BreakableWeapons: Having a large inventory of backup weapons is why you end up stuffing something like half a dozen [=TVs=] into your HyperspaceArsenal.
26	* BuffySpeak: Travis, while holding up a piece of the MacGuffin (The Flauros): "Hey! I've got your... your THING for you!" Justified in that he had just faced the most traumatic event of his whole life. He wasn't exactly in the right state of mind. Plus, neither he nor the player (unless they've played ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'') actually know what it is at that point.
27	* TheButcher: [[spoiler:Travis, either literally or as his ShadowArchetype]].
28	* ContinuityNod:
29	** The whole game, but specific callbacks to ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' include a redone version of [[spoiler:Dahlia and Alessa's conversation shortly before the poor girl was sacrificed]], a redone version of [[spoiler:Dahlia and Kaufmann's conversation about the summoning spell to draw Cheryl back to Alessa]], and [[spoiler:the graveyard in which Harry and his wife find Cheryl]].
30	** One of the memos Travis can find is a version of the "Manifestations of Delusions" article that Harry finds in the first game.
31	* DarkAndTroubledPast: But of course! Nary a person steps into Silent Hill without one of those.
32	* DegradedBoss: Happens twice. You see the first (Straight-Jacket) and third (Caliban) bosses stalking the streets of Silent Hill not long after you first fight them.
33	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: A list of patients at the mental hospital includes a crossdresser, which can be chalked up to the time the game is set and Silent Hill's facilities not having the greatest priorities.
34	* DemonicDummy[=/=]CreepyDoll: The Ariels.
35	* DepartmentOfChildDisservices: Social services are utterly useless to help Alessa, noting that her mother appears to be very religious and that her claims about cult rituals are "clearly" just her imagination running loose.
36	* DramaticIrony: Near the end of the game, Travis angrily asks Alessa when they're gonna get to see what's in ''her'' sick little head. [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 Oh, if he only knew...]]
37	* EarnYourBadEnding: You have to go out of your way to slaughter monsters to get the bad ending, ''and'' you have to do it on a NewGamePlus.
38	* EpisodeZeroTheBeginning: Its Japanese title. Also, the English title has a stylized "zero" for the "O" in "Origins" (generally rendered as "0rigins").
39	* EverythingFades: Zig-zagged. Rank and file enemies will leave corpses that don't vanish until new enemies spawn in the same area, but bigger monsters like the Caliban and Giant Carrion will either fade or dissolve in a cloud of greenish-black smoke -- likely to avoid the carcasses either blocking pathways if solid or causing immersion-breaking clipping issues if not.
40	* {{Expy}}: The Butcher looks like a more muscular and "sexually repressed" version of [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 Pyramid Head]].
41	* HeroBall:
42	** At several points, Travis has no good reason to stick around the highly dangerous Silent Hill. His initial motivation of finding out what happened to Alessa is quickly resolved (he does believe it when he is told by Lisa that she is dead), and unlike the other protagonists of the series he has no personal investment in getting to the bottom of the town's mysteries, and his determination to do so seems to be purely for the reason that there would be no plot otherwise.
43	** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade hung]] by Dr. Kaufmann just before the final boss fight.
44	--->'''Dr. Kaufmann:''' I'm surprised to see you. We had assumed you'd just leave.
45	* HollywoodDarkness: Not only are things much more visible than ever before in the "dark", but you're also allowed to check your map and interact with/pick up objects when the flashlight is off. This makes it easy as pie to hoard weapons and supplies in indoor areas, since you can simply keep the light off and weave past most enemies without them ever noticing you ''and'' safely snag any goodies that might be laying around the area.
46	* HyperspaceArsenal: Travis, like most other ''Franchise/SilentHill'' protagonists, can carry a ''lot'' of stuff on him. It's a lot more noticeable in this game, however, given the ability of Travis to carry multiple portable televisions, typewriters, etc.
47	* ICantReachIt:
48	** Travis simply ''refuses'' to leave the demon-infested hospital before he finds the girl, who's probably already dead for all he knows.
49	** He also refuses to enter the pool at the Motel, despite there being an important item in there. You have to go to the Otherworld, where the pool is somehow drained.
50	* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Moon Gauntlets in NewGamePlus. The majority of regular enemies are easily taken down with a quick one-two from these and they're completely indestructible, but they are still a melee weapon, so you'll likely want to switch to a firearm for the bigger, nastier monsters you'd rather not get in close to and they're not as handy on the open streets, where sneaking up on enemies is significantly harder to do.
51	* InfinityPlusOneSword: The unlockable Tesla rifle doesn't pack the biggest punch out of all available guns, but it does have rapid fire, infinite ammunition, and no need to reload, making pretty much every monster encounter a breeze.
52	* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: Quite a few examples through the game, but the most prominent one is when Travis is blocked by a hallway chain he could easily step over.
53	* InterruptedIntimacy: At the motel, Travis walks in ([[ItMakesSenseInContext or, rather, falls in]]) on [[spoiler:Lisa and Kaufmann]] dressing after having had sex.
54	* IronicNurseryRhyme: "''Here comes a candle to light you to bed. [[spoiler:Here comes the butcher to chop off your head'']]". Based on a real nursery rhyme called "Oranges and Lemons", which is totally innocuous up until the chilling last verse.
55	* JokeEnding: The game swaps to a very {{Animesque}} style for its UFO ending, where [[spoiler:Travis attempts to enter the motel room where his parents died, only for the key to not work. Suddenly, an alien appears with the dog from the second game's dog ending. The alien explains that since Travis left his truck in the middle of the road at the start of the game, the aliens moved the truck to their planet, and invites Travis to visit and pick up the truck. Travis agrees, and enthusiastically asks if he can pilot the UFO, to which the alien asks "Do you [[DrivingStick drive stick]]", and they [[EverybodyLaughsEnding both laugh as they get pulled up by the tractor beam]]]].
56	* Letters2Numbers: It's spelled "Silent Hill Zero-rigins," though you might get some strange looks calling it that.
57	* MarketBasedTitle: It's called "Silent Hill 0" in Japan.
58	* NonAppearingTitle: The first song played in the game is titled "O.R.T." This stands for '''O'''ral '''R'''ehydration '''T'''herapy - which is extremely relevant to Alessa, considering it's used to treat ''burn victims.'' Of course, the song itself isn't about this type of therapy, and is never even mentioned.
59	* ParentalAbandonment:
60	** Travis's mother [[spoiler:became psychotic, tried to kill herself and Travis in a murder-suicide and was committed to a sanitarium]] and his father subsequently [[spoiler:hanged himself while Travis was out playing]].
61	** Dahlia, though it probably would have been better if she had ''just'' abandoned her daughter.
62	* PressXToNotDie: Just about every monster in this game has an attack that triggers a quick-time event. Only one is instantly fatal (and it gives you plenty of time), but it's still annoying.
63	* SillinessSwitch: Many of the unlockable costumes. Play through the game with Travis as a spaceman! Or a Mexican wrestler outfit! Or in a Shiba Inu fursuit!
64	* SolveTheSoupCans: At the motel, Travis has to drain a pool in order to get a thing lying on its bottom. The thing is that the water level in the pool is barely waist-height so Travis could easily just climb down there and fish it out, but there is no prompt to make him to do so.
65	* SprintMeter: Travis can't run very long (compared to other ''Franchise/SilentHill'' protagonists) before he gets winded unless he downs an energy drink or is wearing the Sprinter outfit. It's [[JustifiedTrope justified]] somewhat in that he's a trucker (a mostly sedentary job), interactions with the game world reveal that Travis is a smoker, and he probably inhaled some smoke from the fire he went into at the beginning of the game as well, making things worse. [[spoiler:The fact that Helen tried to gas Travis and herself to death when he was a child could also be a factor.]]
66	* SuddenlyHarmfulHarmlessObject: The first Ariel Travis encountered was idle. The second ones moved and attacking after he passed by it and they become monsters exclusive to Artaud Theater.
67	* ThemeNaming: The monsters in Artaud Theater (Ariel, Caliban) are all named after characters from Shakespeare's ''The Tempest'', which is being staged when Travis drops by. The theater itself references [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud a french poet and playwrite]] that experienced a descent into mental illness.
68	** The Two-Back monsters found in Riverside Motel refer to "[[UnusualEuphemism the beast with two backs]]", a metaphor for intercourse coined by Shakespeare in another of his plays, ''Othello''.
69	*** This extends to ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'' (the bookstore puzzle) and ''VideoGame/SilentHillShatteredMemories'' (several of the mementos refer to Shakespeare's plays).
70	* TheKillerInMe: If the Bad Ending is canon, [[spoiler: Travis is implied to be a serial killer and The Butcher is a manifestation of his "dark side"]].
71	* TragicMonster:
72	** Both of Travis's parents are incarnated [[spoiler:as literal monsters]] during the game. Travis is not too pleased with Alessa about this.
73	** [[spoiler:Travis in the Bad Ending, wherein it is implied he was The Butcher all along.]]
74	* UnwittingPawn:
75	** Travis pretty much doesn't do anything or go anywhere unless directed to by the clues he finds.
76	** SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler:He ''does'' ultimately end up blowing the Order's plans to hell for the next seven years, though.]]

Context VideoGame / SilentHillOrigins