History YMMV / SilentHill2

** Angela's FamousLastWords, as it signals how far she's gone.

* SacredCow: Much like [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SnakeEater the other big PlayStation 2 Konami game]], criticizing ''Silent Hill 2'' will not end well for someone on a gaming website or forum.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Even after almost 20 years since it first came out, the game is ''still'' gorgeous to look at to this day. From the fog in the town to the facial reactions, it’s aged very well.

-->''"James...you made me happy."''

-->''"For me, it's always like this."''

* WTHCastingAgency: How a majority of fans reacted to the change in voice actors for the HD Collection, with Creator/TroyBaker and Mary Elizabeth [=McGlynn=] replacing Guy Cihi and Monica Horgan as James and Mary Sunderland being particular standouts. Not that they’re bad voice actors (quite the opposite, really), rather many felt they were miscast in the roles, believing Baker’s gruff antihero portrayal didn’t fit James’ overall character, whereas [=McGlynn=] was criticized for [[VocalDissonance sounding too deep for the soft and gentle spoken Mary]]. Even [=McGlynn=] noted her own voice was too deep, but the producers cast her anyway. Similarly, it is ''really'' hard to make Creator/LiamOBrien sound like a loser, with his take on Eddie suffering as a result.

** Silent Hill (the town) only tries to lure in people [[TankControls who have really poor control over their legs]].
*** Silent Hill 2 was the first game in the series to have 2D controls as a control option, though. It and subsequent sequels default to 3D/tank controls for the stiffer horror element, but they all have the ability to swap to 2D controls if you prefer. It's not always a good idea for the hallway running segments, though, where tank controls perform better with the sudden camera shifts.

* SignatureLine: Mary's letter at the end of the game is one of the most impactful lines in all of ''Silent Hill''. But it's the final line that will wring tears out of a stone.

* CommonKnowledge: Even on this very wiki you will see Pyramid Head being called a rapist/that his abuse of the other monsters is representative of rape. Masahiro Ito has [[https://mobile.twitter.com/adsk4/status/1263050285062094848 disputed this]], saying Pyramid Head is meant to make James face the facts of his actions.

** Angela's final scene in the burning staircase. [[PlayerPunch Jesus]].

* WTHCastingAgency: How a majority of fans reacted to the change in voice actors for the HD Collection, with Creator/TroyBaker and Mary Elizabeth [=McGlynn=] replacing Guy Cihi and Monica Horgan as James and Mary Sunderland being particular standouts. Not that they’re bad voice actors (quite the opposite, really), rather many felt they were miscast in the roles, believing Baker’s gruff antihero portrayal didn’t fit James’ overall character, whereas [=McGlynn=] was criticized for [[VocalDissonance sounding too deep for the soft and gentle spoken Mary]]. Even [=McGlynn=] noted her own voice was too deep, but the producers cast her anyway.

* TheScrappy: Laura. Fans hate her for her antagonistic role, which to many feels ''too realistically'' like that of an aggressive, unpleasant brat. Not helping is when that brattiness manifests in ways that actively impedes James (such as when she kicks an important key away from James and stomps on his hand for trying to stop her) or even endangers him (as when she locks him in a room full of monsters). Whilst she ''does'' have her justifications for acting the way she does, which are revealed over the course of the game, and WordOfGod is that ''she can't see'' the monsters, this is revealed so vaguely in the game that, combined with her antics -- especially her final scene where she rages at James at the ''worst'' possible time, which is the metaphorical final straw for many -- [[DeathOfTheAuthor many fans don't acknowledge (or care) that this is the case]]. Combine with the fact that the Leave ending, the only unambiguously good ending in the game, has Laura leaving Silent Hill with James and suggesting he's going to adopt her, and the result is that she has a prominent {{Hatedom}}.

* FanficFuel: What if Laura ''could'' see Maria?

* SoBadItWasBetter: While the voice acting in the original game was hardly bad all around ([[spoiler:Mary's letter reading]] has been near-universally praised), it was noticeably less polished than the voice acting of the HD collection. Naturally, there were fans who preferred the former regardless.

* HarsherInHindsight: Eddie's story is that of a troubled young male social outcast whose trip to Silent Hill turns him into a monster who [[SlowlySlippingIntoEvil finds it ever easier to rationalize his heinous crimes]], and directs much of his rage at idealized images of masculinity that he feels he can't live up to. It was already disturbing enough when the game came out, but experiencing it again after a wave of [[SpreeKiller mass shootings]] in the 2010s committed by people who fit Eddie's character description, it's downright frightening. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGrltJnoXrM This video]] by The Gaming Muse goes into more detail.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Maria asks James where Laura is and begs James to find the girl. However this is never brought up again, nor do Maria and Laura actually interact because of Laura's innocence shielding her from the horrors of Silent Hill and by extention Maria herself. It would've been interesting to see how Laura would react to her.

* EightPointEight: ''Game Informer'''s lukewarm review of the game proved very controversial to much the magazine's readership, in no small part because they tapped a reviewer who was known for being an action/twitch gamer and admitted to disliking the SurvivalHorror genre as a whole. While the logic behind this choice was somewhat sound (i.e. "If ''this'' guy likes it, then it must be great!"), assigning the review to a writer openly biased against games like it also had a very obvious flaw (i.e. "If ''this'' guy hates it, that might not mean it's terrible."). Their [[DiggingYourselfDeeper continued potshots at the game and disbelief at its sales numbers]] in several subsequent issues didn't help in smoothing things over, either. Gameinformer would subsqeqently praise the game in retrospective articles, and unlike many of there other "retro" reviews, they never even bothered to archive it, indicating they consider it an OldShame.

* BetterThanCanon: With the controversy surrounding the HD Collection and the increasing efforts from modders attempting to fix the ailing PC port of the game, many consider the fan-made ''Enhanced Edition'' project as a superior alternative to the HD Collection's version of ''Silent Hill 2'' as it not only retains the game's original features, but also improve upon them and aims to restore missing elements from the [=PlayStation=] 2 version (e.g. the soft shadows, uncompressed audio, 60 FPS [=FMVs=]).

** While not exactly a disaster, the PC version has a few issues. Music skipping can be solved with a fan patch, and the game isn't designed to run on multi-core machines so you get voice de-synching and other issues if you don't manually set it to run on one CPU core (CTRL+ALT+DEL>Processes>Set Affinity). Thanks to the ongoing community efforts of various modders however, this can be easily fixed on modern systems with the ''Enhanced Edition'' project and [[InvokedTrope then]] [[PolishedPort some]].

* EightPointEight: ''Game Informer'''s scathing review of the game proved very controversial to much the magazine's readership, in no small part because they tapped a reviewer who was known for being an action/twitch gamer and admitted to disliking the SurvivalHorror genre as a whole. While the logic behind this choice was somewhat sound (i.e. "If ''this'' guy likes it, then it must be great!"), assigning the review to a writer openly biased against games like it also had a very obvious flaw (i.e. "If ''this'' guy hates it, that might not mean it's terrible."). Their [[DiggingYourselfDeeper continued potshots at the game and disbelief at its sales numbers]] in several subsequent issues didn't help in smoothing things over, either.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Maria asks James where Laura is and begs James to find the girl. However this is never brought up again, nor do Maria and Laura actually interact. It would've been interesting to see how Laura would react to her.

* TheScrappy: Laura. Fans hate her for her antagonistic role, which to many feels ''too realistically'' like that of an aggressive, unpleasant brat. Not helping is when that brattiness manifests in ways that actively impedes James (such as when she kicks an important key away from James and stomps on his hand for trying to stop her) or even endangers him (as when she locks him in a room full of monsters). Whilst she ''does'' have her justifications for acting the way she does, which are revealed over the course of the game, and WordOfGod is that ''she can't see'' the monsters, this is revealed so vaguely in the game that, combined with her antics -- especially her final scene where she rages at James at the ''worst'' possible time, which is the metaphorical final straw for many -- [[DeathOfTheAuthor many fans don't acknowledge (or care) that this is the case]]. Combine with the fact that the Leave ending, the only unambiguously good ending in the game, has Laura leaving Silent Hill with James and suggesting he's going to adopt her, and the result is that she has a prominent {{Hatedom}}.
* SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel: "White Noiz", the ambient track that accompanies the opening bathroom scene of the game.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlotPoint: Maria asks James where Laura is and begs James to find the girl. However this is never brought up again, nor do Maria and Laura actually interact. It would've been interesting to see how Laura would react to her.

** "Silent Hill 2" is universally lauded as the best entry in the whole series, yet it’s also responsible for introducing the concept of [[TragicHero the hero having to own up to their tragic backstory as they enter the town]], a plot point that would become increasingly controversial in later installments such as ''[[VideoGame/SilentHillHomecoming Homecoming]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour Downpour]]'' for instance. It was better received here than the [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 games before]] [[VideoGame/SilentHill3 and after]] [[VideoGame/SilentHill4 this one]] developed by Team Silent didn’t focus so much on the characters being flawed individuals but rather as capable fighters trying to survive against the hordes of monsters, making James’s struggle and the twist that inspired him to go to the town feel suspenseful and unique. Once the games were exported to American developers almost all of them tried to reprise this narrative, with flawed protagonists having to come to terms with their tragic backstories to escape or be punished. The only exception was SilentHillShatteredMemories which is a reimagining of the first game, but it still passes a sort of moral judgment on Harry depending on his actions.

** "Silent Hill 2" is universally lauded as the best entry in the whole series, yet it’s also responsible for introducing the concept of [[TragicHero the hero having to own up to their tragic backstory as they enter the town]], a plot point that would become increasingly controversial in later installments such as ''[[VideoGame/SilentHillHomecoming Homecoming]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour Downpour]]'' for instance. It was better received here as the [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 games before]] [[VideoGame/SilentHill3 and after]] [[VideoGame/SilentHill4 this one]] developed by Team Silent didn’t focus so much on the characters being flawed individuals but rather as capable fighters trying to survive against the hoards of monsters, making James’s struggle and the twist that inspired him to go to the town feel suspenseful and unique. Once the games were exported to American developers they started focusing ''too'' much on them being flawed people with tragic backstories that it became very tiresome and predictable.