* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: A mix of WatsonianVsDoylist is used here with regards to Henry's dull attitude in the game. The Doylist think they put jack shit into the character. The Watsonian will argue that Henry's dull reactions and emotional detachment may be signs that he has Asperger's, or that they're symptoms of sleep deprivation, starvation, and dehydration. Or it could just be that he's socially awkward and isn't used to expressing himself.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NdXCsXcs6nA Room of Angel]], a beautifully morbid and sad ballad that plays during [[spoiler:Cynthia’s death]].
** [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K2T5q8UuRj8 Tender Sugar]], a slow, almost gothic song that perfectly encapsulates the overall tone of the game. A stripped-down version of this song (which is unfortunately not in any of the game soundtrack compilations) plays in Room 302 [[spoiler:of the Past, while Joseph Schreiber explains how to defeat Walter]].
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Fans of the game love Henry Townshend for having a simple, unique motivation and not copying the "emotionally tortured protagonist with a dark secret" formula that worked so well for [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 James Sunderland]] but gave diminishing returns for his many imitators. Detractors dislike him for failing to replace the well-used "inner torment" angle with any other kind of reason to care about him or invest in him as a character, as [[FlatCharacter he has next to no personality]], is given no substantial {{backstory}}, and seems [[DullSurprise largely indifferent to all the horrors going on around him]].
* BrokenBase: Depending on who you ask, it's either the last good game in the series, or the first bad one.
* CameraScrew: This game suffers what just might be the worst case of this in the entire franchise. Sometimes the camera follows Henry; sometimes it's positioned at awkward angles, and you have to figure out how to move in order to get it to focus on Henry again. Combined with the direction the controls take you being relative to the camera (departing from the usual TankControls of the earlier titles), it makes even the less tense moments of the game so needlessly frustrating.
* CharacterPerceptionEvolution: Henry, once universally detested as the weakest ''Silent Hill'' protagonist, managed to retroactively become tolerable or at least not as hated as before, though not quite RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap. Unlike Harry, Heather, and ''especially'' James, Henry not only has no connection to the story outside of just happening to live in Room 302, but his personality is also extremely unengaging to the point that his [[DullSurprise reactions]] often spoil the mood. But then the sequels tried to copy the second game's formula by making every new protagonist have a [[DarkAndTroubledPast tragic backstory]] often repressed by guilt, causing them to come off as shallow ripoffs of James. Suddenly, Henry's simple motivation to just get out of his apartment was very refreshing.
* CompleteMonster: [[TheExecutioner Jimmy Stone]] and his right-hand man, [[TheDragon George Rosten]], are the long-deceased leaders of an alliance between the Sect of Valtiel and the Sect of the Holy Mother, branches of the religious cult known as the Order. Running the [[OrphanageOfFear Wish House]] with an iron fist, they brainwashed and abused orphans to make more followers of the Order, sending those who disappointed them to a HellholePrison where the children would suffer for days, some not even surviving. As representatives of their respective interpretations of the Order's teachings, both are also equally guilty of more atrocities. Stone was given the nickname "Red Devil" for his choice in becoming an executioner to be closer to his twisted angel and Rosten was particularly interested in finding someone to complete the 21 Sacraments, sacrifices that, in his belief, would cleanse the world of sin. Deciding to use the young Walter Sullivan as his puppet, Rosten devoted himself to raising and molding him into his own SerialKiller.
* ContestedSequel: It’s the last of the ''Team Silent'' developed games, and is the most controversial of the original 4 entries. It’s often hated by some for having uninteresting/wooden characters, uninspired monster designs, repetitive levels and graphics, poor combat and a lack of deeper themes that ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' and ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'' had, condemning it as the beginning of the end of the series. However, it’s also loved by others for establishing its own creepy atmosphere, having one of the best stories within the series and for taking a risk and trying something new as opposed to copying 2 & 3 again, praising it as the last masterpiece of the series.
* DemonicSpiders:
** All of the special Victim Ghosts, but particularly Cynthia and Richard's; the former is an incredibly fast SuperPersistentPredator who will not leave Henry alone if she's not immobilized with a Sword of Obedience (and she can be real tough to hit too, since she's often invincible while slithering around the floor); as for the latter, the difficulty comes more from the erratic, unpredictable aspect of his attack patterns making it hard to react to him, as he can randomly speed up and teleport around without any form of telegraphing.
** While all the apartment hauntings can be fairly annoying to locate and cleanse, the phone, shadow in the closet and ghosts in the walls are easily the worst to deal with because they happen near Henry's bed, which means ''inevitable damage'' the moment the player regains control of Henry after returning from the Otherworld (unless a holy medallion was equipped beforehand). In any case, those specific hauntings can make any trips back home a dreadful moment, especially if Henry finds himself at low health.
* DisappointingLastLevel: While the entirety of the revisited levels can count, the ''Apartment World Revisited'' really feels like the developers were running out of steam as the level is one large FetchQuest where you must find six hanging bodies to unlock the Superintendent's room. It's very easy to overlook one of these the first time playing, leading to time spent searching every nook and cranny. It doesn't help that the level includes {{Backtracking}} all the way to the beginning of the now-maze-like complex. While backtracking isn't unusual in the series, doing it through a recycled level with the architecture rearranged adds an extra level of letdown, there's also no holes to your apartment, if you need to drop off items/save, you have to backtrack all the way back to the start of the level. For what it's worth, the six hanging bodies are all in just one wing of the apartment, but the unintuitive nature of the quest does add to the frustration of the rearranged layout of the map compared to the first visit.
* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: The game was more or less panned for its obnoxious game design, but the story is regarded as one of the best in the entire Silent Hill franchise. WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw felt it achieved this in spite, and partly because, of the fact that it never goes to the titular town.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: ''Frank Sunderland'' is the superintendent of South Ashfield Heights which got much notice from ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' fans. He's a background character who doesn't directly interact with Henry in his journey, but his worry over his son James's "disappearance" in Silent Hill sounds like a interesting side story that may draw Frank to go to town to search for him.
* EvilIsCool: '''Walter Sullivan'''. Even with the [[ContestedSequel arguments]] made by fans about this game, most definitely agree that Walter is among the most terrifying villains in the series, and is considered the 2nd most iconic antagonist in the series behind Pyramid Head.
* GameBreaker: Whenever you execute your melee charge attack, Henry becomes temporarily invulnerable to attacks during the wind-up before the hit connects, and for some reason the two-handed melee weapon windup animation is longer than your one-handed one. [[DifficultButAwesome With some practice]], you can effectively brush through most of the encounters without taking damage. You can still be damaged by the ghosts' area-of-effect aura, however.
* GoddamnedBats:
** Ghosts, by virtue of being unkillable, dealing damage just by being near Henry, phasing through barriers and constantly getting in your way. There's just no reliable method to deal with them besides running the hell away, unless you use a Sword of Obedience, but you'll probably want to reserve those for the [[BossInMookClothing special ghosts]].
** The Hummers are a more traditional example, being some sort of insect-bat thing that are less scary and more a pest because they're so small and quick and hard to hit as a result.
* GoodBadBugs: When you're at the EscortMission part of the game and have returned to Building World, there's a way to teleport Eileen to a part of the map normally inaccessible to her without solving a time-consuming puzzle. Very convenient for speedruns, as well as for those who just want the EscortMission phase of the game over with.
** There's also a random bug which fits the second half of this trope: for no apparent reason, however careful you might be with Eileen, at random points in the game, she might suddenly be fully haunted by Walter. At the very least, though, she can be (temporarily) treated with a Holy Candle, like a regular haunting. This second bug might occasionally coincide with the first, although it's relatively rare for this bug to happen.
* HarsherInHindsight:
** The one news announcement on the radio. While the issue has existed long before the time the game came out in 2004, the rise of social media and 24 hour reporting has greatly amplified awareness.
--> And now the news in Washington: A gathering of 200,000 people appealing for stricter gun control laws, in the wake of a spate of violent shootings across the country, turned tragic when shots were fired into the crowd.
* MemeticMutation:
** Making jokes comparing the game to another notorious work titled ''Film/TheRoom2003''. Come to think of it, Adult Walter does look a bit like Creator/TommyWiseau. And not only did he [[spoiler:kill himself]], he did so with a spoon...
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7-HrspiKfY Circumcision Theory]]. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The top administrator of the Silent Hill Wiki infamously experienced a CreatorBreakdown in 2015, insisting that the game was one elaborate metaphor for the apparent evils of circumcision, and used his admin powers to quash any edits to the contrary. The embarrassing saga would unfortunately be many people's first experience with the game, and remains a meme long after the admin was ousted.[[/labelnote]]
* {{Narm}}: The game is almost ''casually'' weird at a lot of points just for the heck of it:
** When Cynthia is talking to Henry about how she feels she's inside a terrible dream, Henry responds "So ''you'' think this is a dream, hua?" in an oddly casual tone like they're having a fun discussion about the nature of reality.
** The apartment super keeping a smelly umbilical cord in a box in his room or a document about the tenants ganging up on a peeping Tom and stripping him naked, as a social event are noteworthy. They might have been going for a disturbing effect with much of it, but the straight-faced way it's presented (everyone involved treats this bizarre stuff as if it were perfectly normal) makes these moments feel like they came out of an unusually dark Creator/MontyPython sketch. See [[http://retrovania-vgjunk.blogspot.com/2016/10/silent-hill-4-is-comedy.html?m=1 this VG Junk article]] for more.
* NightmareRetardant:
** The belching Patients. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiDz69EqlFk Good luck figuring that one out]].
** Even more so if a Patient is knocked over on a staircase, causing them to belch repeatedly as the model gets knocked down the flight one step at a time.
** And for some, the Victim Ghost version of Henry is UglyCute.
** Henry's [[DullSurprise non-reactions]] to the world around him can ruin the impact of some of the cutscenes too.
** The way Andrew [=DeSalvo=]'s ghost attacks by curling himself into a ball and then rolling around just looks really silly instead of scary. This also applies to his voice as he's reciting the cult's scriptures when he's not attacking.
** The noises of the ape-like enemies in Building World can get repetitive pretty quickly, especially when there's more than one of them and you can only kill them one at a time.
** The clock haunting in the apartment can be more amusing than creepy, like someone pranked Henry by speeding up his clock tremendously.
* ParanoiaFuel:
** The idea of suddenly being locked in your home, able to observe the outside world, but not contact it.
** Most of your time in Henry's apartment will be spent gawking at Eileen and your other neighbors through various peepholes.
** At the same time, things will move around in your apartment while you're off exploring other worlds. Two sections of the game are spent trawling through a tiny panopticon. Oh, and both the phone and the bunny are watching you.
** Ingame when you're in the second half, cre[[OhCrap eeak]]... [[ImplacableMan *bang bang bang* Hahahaha...]]
** There's also the [[spoiler:corpse of Walter stashed in a secret walled-off room in your apartment]]. Sweet dreams!
* PolishedPort: While not perfect, the PC version available on GOG.com has fixed several problems from the original retail release: It now runs on Windows 10 without errors, has native widescreen support and corrects a bug that capped the cutscenes at 15 FPS. (Game is still capped at 30 FPS to avoid a bug where Henry is unable to move in attack stance and a game breaking bug during the final boss).
* RealismInducedHorror: The supernatural and dream-like aspects of the can offer plenty of creep factor, but what makes Walter Sullivan so eerie is that he's a SerialKiller who was brainwashed by a destructive cult, a scenario that can actually happen.
* TheScrappy: Henry is disliked for coming off as dull, unemotional and [[FlatCharacter lacking in character development]] compared to the Silent Hill protagonists that came before or after him. Spouting many of the game's dumber lines certainly contributes. The character has since sort of been VindicatedByHistory since his character arc came off as more or less normal compared to the tragic back stories of many of the series protagonists following this game.
* ScrappyMechanic:
** The game puts a much greater emphasis on fighting compared to the previous entries. At the same time, ammo is ''extremely'' limited here, even on the easiest difficulty settings, making the two handguns you get TooAwesomeToUse and forcing you to rely on the awkward, sluggish melee combat (which, apart from a charging meter, is identical to that of its predecessors) instead. Incidentally, there's an apartment filled with unusable toy replicas of the guns from earlier games, seemingly put in just to taunt the player. And if ''that'' wasn't enough, each full reload of the guns takes up one of the precious ten inventory slots that weapons, health ''and key items'' also occupy. As a result, it's very common for players to decide that the GunsAreWorthless and stick purely to melee and health items. Still, in areas with multiple monsters in narrow spaces, it can be useful because gunshots penetrate enemies.
** The second half of the game is a game-spanning escort mission. Not only is it very counter-intuitive to have Eileen fight as the damage she takes determines your potential ending; but this is also the part of the game in which [[spoiler:Walter starts hunting you down]], thankfully there is a method to remove all damage to Eileen with a holy candle right before the final boss.
* SignatureScene:
** The giant Eileen head and its accompaniment breathing. So much so that it's the image used for the NightmareFuel page of the ''[[NightmareFuel/SilentHill entire series]]!''
** [[spoiler:Cynthia]]'s death scene, both for it being a total TearJerker, [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic the awesomely morbid Room of Angel song]] and for Henry's DullSurprise.
* ThatOneLevel: Revisiting five of the previous stages can be uninspired enough, but the Building World Revisited really stands out. Navigating the maze-like tangle of buildings can be very confusing, plus you have to find a way to help Eileen progress at one point because she's too injured to use ladders. A considerable amount of time can be spent on this world alone, unless you use a trick to "teleport" Eileen to an area that normally requires solving a time-consuming puzzle to get her to.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Some fans complain about how the gameplay is quite different from the previous ''Silent Hill'' games. You don't use a flashlight, you can only hold ten items at a time, the game isn't as puzzle-oriented as its predecessors, and ''[[NonIndicativeName you never visit the titular town]]''. These things, combined with a complete tonal shift from a uniquely Japanese take on American SurrealHorror into more conventional J-horror (complete with an obligatory StringyHairedGhostGirl), have left it saddled with the (believable, but false) rumor that this is just a DolledUpInstallment (technically, it was meant to be a loosely-connected {{spinoff}} to the series, which got bumped up to mainline installment). Though compared to the [[VideoGame/SilentHillHomecoming other]] [[VideoGame/SilentHillShatteredMemories Silent]] [[VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour Hill]] [[VideoGame/SilentHillBookOfMemories games]] released after 4, this one doesn't have that much hate as it used to have.
* VanillaProtagonist: Compared to previous protagonists like Heather and James, Henry functioned much more like a blank slate for the audience to slot themselves into. It's especially notable because the events of the game have little to no connection with him and he comes into the story as an outsider much like the players do. Similarly, the monsters encountered in this game aren't at all reflective of his mental state as they were for Heather and James, but instead are manifestations borne of the villain Walter's psyche.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: ''4'' has Walter's nightmarish psyche on display in twisted recreations of key places he visited in his life and it's a sight to behold, with highly symbolic displays that feel like exhibits from a gallery of horrific art. A highlight is Walter's interpretation of the residents of South Ashfield Heights Appartments with each room being a museum exhibit of how Walter interpreted the resident providing some backstory to peripheral characters in the story.
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