Now play dead!
Jack says the town is located on
old "spiritual ground"...
Hopefully we
will be blessed!
A prequel released for the handheld PSP and later ported to the Playstation 2,
Origins is a retelling of the events that happened seven years before
Silent Hill 1. 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
troubled past of his that appears to be a prerequisite for
Silent Hill protagonists.
Although
Origins faithfully sticks to the
Silent Hill formula for creepy atmospheres, nightmare worlds, and baffling puzzles, it introduces
Breakable Weapons and being able to switch over to the
Otherworld via mirrors—in practice, this just means twice as meany areas (of which half are just a grimdark version of themselves) to explore.
Characters in
Origins, with the exception of Travis himself, are all younger versions of the characters found in
Silent Hill 1 — Dahlia, Lisa, and Kaufmann. They wear different clothes and have slightly different personalities, but are ultimately the same.
(Except for the fact that Lisa is a real person.)
Tropes specific to this game:
- Actionized Sequel: While the game does feature "better" controls and a bigger emphasis on killing monsters, the combat was going to be similar to that of Resident Evil 4 with a close, over-the-shoulder 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.
- Already Met Everyone: Travis, his family, and the Butcher are the only characters unique to this game.
- Berserk Button: For Travis, it's the idea of a parent abusing their child.
- Beware of Hitchhiking Ghosts: 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.
- Big Damn Fire Exit: 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, an outfit, and an axe if he's fast enough). At times, the Seal of Metratron shows up to extinguish some parts blocked by flames.
- Big Damn Hero: 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.
- Big Red Devil: The Final Boss is this.
- Bloody Handprint: Alessa leaves one on the glass of a mirror; touching it transports Travis to the Otherworld for the first time.
- Book Ends: Travis leaving Silent Hill is an almost exact mirror of how he entered the town.
- Breakable Weapons: Having a large inventory of backup weapons is why you end up stuffing something like half a dozen TVs into your Hyperspace Arsenal.
- Buffy Speak: Travis, while holding up a piece of the MacGuffin: "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 Silent Hill 1) actually know what it is at that point.
- The Butcher: Travis, either literally or as his Shadow Archetype.
- Continuity Nod: The whole game, but specific callbacks to Silent Hill 1 include a redone version of Dahlia and Alessa's conversation shortly before the poor girl was sacrificed and the graveyard in which he leaves Cheryl.
- Dark and Troubled Past: But of course! Nary a person steps into Silent Hill without one of those.
- Degraded Boss: 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.
- Dramatic Irony: Near the end of the game, Travis angrily asks Alessa when they're gonna get to see what's in her sick little head. Oh, if he only knew...
- Episode 0: The Beginning: Its Japanese title.
- Fan Nickname: The Final Boss has been called Flauros (which is the name of the artifact he inhabits), Alessa's Dream (as an attempt to interpret his nature), Samael (due to Wild Mass Guessing he might be a proto-incarnation of the The Order's god), The Demon, etc.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Final Boss qualifies. It is entirely independent of Travis' psyche, which has so far inspired and codified the creatures inhabiting Silent Hill. All boss fights up to this point are unconsciously connected to Travis' past and feature as cathartic events, whereas the Final Boss really comes out of nowhere, has no relation to Travis or his personal history whatsoever, and is never explained, mentioned or referenced by any of the characters, not in this game nor in any of the following ones.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Travis, like most other Silent Hill protagonists, can carry a lot of stuff on him.
- I Can't Reach It: Travis simply refuses to leave the demon-infested hospital before he finds the girl, who's probably already dead for all he knows.
- Ironic Nursery Rhyme: "Here comes a candle to light you to bed. 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.
- Letters 2 Numbers: It's spelled "Silent Hill Zero-rigins," though you might get some strange looks calling it that.
- Market-Based Title: It's called "Silent Hill 0" in Japan.
- Parental Abandonment:
- Travis's mother became psychotic, tried to kill herself and Travis in a murder-suicide and was committed to a sanitarium and his father subsequently hanged himself while Travis was out playing.
- Dahlia, though it probably would have been better if she had just abandoned her daughter.
- Press X to Not Die: Just about every monster in this game has an attack that triggers a quick-time event. Only one is instantly fatal, but it's still annoying.
- Sprint Meter: Travis can't run very long (compared to other Silent Hill protagonists) before he gets winded unless he downs an energy drink or is wearing the Sprinter outfit. It's justified somewhat in that interactions with the game world reveal that Travis is a smoker.
- Theme Naming: 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 Two-Back monsters found in Riverside Motel refer to "the beast with two backs", a metaphor for intercourse coined by Shakespeare in another of his plays, Othello.
- Tragic Monster: Both of Travis's parents are incarnated as literal monsters during the game. Travis is not too pleased with Alessa about this.
- Travis in the Bad Ending, wherein it is implied he was The Butcher all along.
- Unwitting Pawn: Travis pretty much doesn't do anything or go anywhere unless directed to by the clues he finds.
- Spanner in the Works: He does ultimately end up blowing the Order's plans to hell for the next seven years, though.
- Non Appearing Title: The first song played in the game is titled "O.R.T." This stands for Oral Rehydration Therapy - which is extremely relevant to Alessa, considering it's used used to treat burn victims. Of course, the song itself isn't about this type of therapy, and is never even mentioned.
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