History VideoGame / SilentHill3

* JokeEnding: The UFO ending, where Heather return home to her father, Harry from the first game, who is having tea with an alien, while James from the second game is standing in the background. Harry speaks in an electronically distorted voice and refers to Heather as Cheryl, [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight none of which seems odd to her in the slightest]]. Heather tells Harry about her encounter with the cultists, and subsequently visits to the Otherworld and fighting the monsters, setting off his PapaWolf instincts, leading to him bringing a bunch of UFOs to Silent Hill and blowing the town to Kingdom Come. Then the credits roll as a Japanese MC leads a karaoke performance of a song about the characters of the game, including some very off-kilter interpretations of them, before finally ending with the sound of Heather's sub-machine gun shooting the MC and singers.

** In the hospital level, the security door's combination must be figured out from a very vague and sickly violent poem that requires the player to know they need to visualize the keybad as the face described in the poem. But it gets even worse when a nearby diary entry from another character specifically states that the code is more than four numbers and it's not; it's four numbers exactly. So even if the player can figure out the visualization trick, he's still going to be trying five digit codes instead of four. This is arguably the the most obscure puzzle in the game due to the fact that it lies to your face about how many numbers it is, with no hint to the contrary. You basically have to notice that one of the actions doesn't ''quite'' fit the others, and it's easy enough to miss: [[spoiler:the four correct numbers have to do with cannibalistic actions; the odd action out is poking the eye]].

* {{Nerf}}: The katana. Earned in [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 the first game]] after saving one good ending and one bad ending's clear data, the katana [[KatanasAreJustBetter originally had a lot of attack power]], and Harry glided forward with every swing. In [=SH3=], you will find it on the first playthrough, but its attack power [[ScrappyWeapon is very slim]], and the magical "rollerskating" effect is nil.

** That door with the red light above on the subway tracks has the lock broken, and when you check it, it spawns 3 monsters behind you while the train approaches to kill you. The monsters also count as well -- if you spend too much time dealing with the dogs on the tracks, [[HaveANiceDeath enjoy your meeting with the oncoming train]]. Unfortunately, [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption jumping onto the tracks is the only way to advance the plot]].

* VideoGameCaringPotential: Played with for the confessional scene. When Heather finds herself in the Order's confessional booth, an unseen member comes in a sobbing wreck, confessing to having murdered someone as revenge for her own daughter's death, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone now begging to repent for her sins]]. You have the option to either stay silent or forgive her, and it isn't clear on a first playthrough whether nor not this choice is important, so it's up to you to decide on if you want to help the poor woman out or not. [[spoiler:Starting from your second playthrough, [[SubvertedTrope making the decision to forgive her will actually get you much closer to the "bad" ending]] -- since Heather is bearing the order's god inside of her, you're assuming the position and divine responsibility of said god. ''[[DoubleSubversion However]]'', your first playthrough will automatically lock you into the "good" ending no matter what you do, so for that run alone, you absolutely can choose to forgive the woman without guilt.]]

--->'''[[https://www.cracked.com/article_19974_the-6-most-absurdly-difficult-video-game-puzzles.html Cracked]]''': What's that? You don't have an intimate, encyclopedic knowledge of King Lear? "Haha, what are you doing playing video games" the developers of Silent Hill ask, "when you could be discovering the wonder of literature?"

-->'''[[https://www.cracked.com/article_19974_the-6-most-absurdly-difficult-video-game-puzzles.html Cracked]]''': What's that? You don't have an intimate, encyclopedic knowledge of King Lear? "Haha, what are you doing playing video games" the developers of Silent Hill ask, "when you could be discovering the wonder of literature?"

-->[[https://www.cracked.com/article_19974_the-6-most-absurdly-difficult-video-game-puzzles.html Cracked]]: What's that? You don't have an intimate, encyclopedic knowledge of King Lear? "Haha, what are you doing playing video games" the developers of Silent Hill ask, "when you could be discovering the wonder of literature?"

During a trip to the mall, seventeen-year-old Heather gets approached by a shady private detective named Douglas who wants to talk to her about her past. Heather shuns him as a stalker and slips away... only to end up trapped within a hellish otherworld populated by grotesque monsters.

Heather struggles to return home and make sense of what happened, but she finds herself stalked by the mysterious otherworld, which corrodes her surroundings wherever she goes. She receives "help" from two people during her quest: Claudia Wolf, a strange woman who urges Heather to "remember who she really is"; and Vincent, an enigmatic preacher with an agenda of his own.

** Valtiel never directly interacts with Heather (unless she dies, anyway). He just watches. And turns that valve at the Otherworld hospital. And dangles a nurse atop an inferno in Nowhere, as seen in the page picture. Subverted in that he's not actually an enemy, but a protector and aid to Heather and/or the cult's god.

* DifficultButAwesome: The Maul (A bludgeon with a long handle) has significant wind up time for its attacks, especially the power swing, and if poorly timed, you're left open for enemies to take swings at you, but time the attacks just right, it hits like a truck and can quickly put enemies down for the count. The difficulty is timing it just right for each enemy type.

* RealPersonCameo: Creator/NormanReedus appears on a cover of a [[http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/silent/images/8/8c/SH3RidusBook.png/revision/latest?cb=20150216065610 book]]. He gets much more involved later on in VideoGame/SilentHills.

* AdultFear: While some of the game is about teenage fears--like appearance, identity, and uneasy sexuality -- even an adult can identify with the terror of being stalked and watched by hostile entities. Just as well, female adults can identify even more than males with the themes and horror present than males because the majority of the game focuses on female fears in particular, such as unwanted pregnancy, miscarriage, rape, botched or forced abortion, with the overall theme being helplessness.

* DangerouslyShortSkirt: Heather is wearing one. Fixed camera angles and occasional use of shadow prevent us from seeing a PantyShot.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge[=/=][[spoiler:SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome]]: [[spoiler:Harry Mason, Heather's father, is killed specifically to anger Heather and nurture the EvilGod inside her.]]

Whereas ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' featured a story divorced from ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'', ''Silent Hill 3'', released in 2003 -- the third game in Konami's ''Franchise/SilentHill'' franchise -- is an out-and-out sequel, picking up 17 years after the events of the first game.

* SequelDifficultySpike: Ammo and health pick-ups are far more scarce in this game then they were in the first two.[[note]]Actually, the quantity of pickups varies based on your performance.[[/note]] In addition, the enemies are much tougher and have a wider variety of attack methods. At the very least, Heather can now block certain attacks to minimize damage -- a very helpful thing to remember when facing Insane Cancers.

->''"Monsters? They looked like '''monsters''' to you?"''

-->"''Monsters? They looked like '''monsters''' to you?''"

* SequelHook: One that didn’t make it into the game proper. [[spoiler:After defeating God and breaking down over her father’s death, Heather stands up and begins to walk away but shortly after looks back with a concerned expression on her face. This was supposed to be because she hears a baby crying, implying that God has been reborn into another host. The cry was ultimately removed from the final game, however WordOfGod states that Heather does still hear it, just in her head, which is why she briefly turns back.]] This will likely never be explored further however, making it also a case of AbortedArc.

** Earlier in the game when you first meet Vincent, Heather questions what’s going on, prompting Vincent to say this:
-->"''You’re don’t remember? Ah, so [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/SilentHill1 Harry]] didn’t tell you anything]]''".

* MagicalGirl: Parodied with Heather, who during a replay game can find a wand and, after invoking a TransformationSequence, shoot FrickinLaserBeams at the enemy. [[spoiler:Kill enough enemies with it and you can unlock the game's UFO ending]].

''This game has a [[ShoutOut/SilentHill3 Shout-Out]] page.''