Overview:
- Estimated Achievement Difficulty: 8/10
- Offline Silent Hill 2: 28/50 (500)
- Offline Silent Hill 3: 22/50 (500)
- Online: NONE
- Approximate time to 1000: 20-35 Hours
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Minimum Number of Playthroughs
- Silent Hill 2: 7.5 (multiple endings, short side-story)
- Silent Hill 3: 3.5 (one ending ends the game halfway through)
- Number of Missable Achievements: 0 (Playthroughs are short)
- Glitched Achievements: None
- Does difficulty affect achievements: Yes ("Who Needs a Gun?")
- Do codes disable achievements: No
- Extra content needed: Just a SH2 Extra Puzzle guide HERE and a walkthrough HERE
Introduction:
To newcomers: Welcome to the foggy streets of Silent Hill as they were in the early 2000's. To veterans: Welcome back! This is Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 remastered in HD for the PS3 and the Xbox 360, along with another 1000 for the taking. The games' textures look wonderful compared to their original releases.
Preparation:
This HD Collection has framerate issues. If you have the extra space on your hard drive, I suggest installing the game to help a little. Your first step on the actual game is to choose which one you want to play first.
There seems to be a common issue with Silent Hill 3 freezing when leaving the motel for the 2nd time. If you want to, use one of your saves right before then to avoid losing too much data.
Silent Hill 2
Step 1: Playthroughs 1-3 (Leave, Maria, In Water endings):
These playthroughs will be used to simply learn the game at a leisurely pace, but they do have an important purpose. To unlock Extra Puzzle difficulty, you need to beat the game on the 3 given difficulties first. Meaning you should play each of these 3 playthroughs on different puzzle difficulties (combat difficulty doesn't matter).
After beating a playthrough, save the results page when given the option. Next time you hit new game, make sure the results page is loaded, as in, when you hit continue, you see a results page. That way the files will add onto each other (which is necessary) It doesn't matter where your results are save, whether it be overwriting the actual save file or on its own individual slot, you just have to make sure that results page is loaded for the game to register you got that ending. You can tell if it is loaded when the new game letters are yellow instead of white.
Step 2: Born From a Wish:
This is the last ending you need. This is a side story where you play as Maria as she travels the streets of Silent Hill and the Baldwin Mansion. This side story should take about an hour to finish. Make sure this is part of your main save as well!
Step 3: Playthrough 4 (Rebirth ending):
This playthrough's ending is unlocked after finishing the game once. This one should be played on Extra Riddle difficulty to get that achievement out of the way. When playing this time, don't worry about getting the first 3 endings, as you won't be able to get them. Throughout the game, make sure to pick up the 4 items for the ending, and you will get the ending for just obtaining these.
Step 4: Playthroughs 5 and 6 (UFO and Dog endings):
For these two endings, you are required to pick up a certain item and use it. For the UFO ending, you need to use the Blue Gem in 3 certain spots throughout the game, the last time giving you the ending. For the Dog ending, you need to pick up the Observation Room Key and use it on the observatory door.
Step 5.1: Extra Playthroughs
At this point, if you are still taking a lot of damage from enemies, you should do extra playthroughs practicing not taking damage on Hard. The next step is to get 10* on a run, which requires you to take minimum damage and get through the game relatively fast on the hardest combat/puzzle difficulties.
Step 5.2: 10* Playthrough
This achievement alone is the reason why I rate this game a 8/10 and am thinking about rating it higher. To do this, you want to feel very confident in your Silent Hill abilities, as this is one of the hardest things to do in Silent Hill. Refer to the "Who Needs a Gun" achievement below for help. This will rack up pretty much any achievements you will be missing since most of them are requirements for the 10*.
Silent Hill 3
SH3 doesn't have any difficulty related achievements so you can play on Easy difficulty for both puzzles and combat.
Step 1: Playthrough 1 (Normal ending):
Play the game as you normally would. Silent Hill 3's achievements are much easier to get. Don't worry about the boss times or any other achievements since you can get them in your 2nd and 3rd playthrough. Also in this playthrough, you want to either choose to kill more enemies with at gun than melee, or melee than gun. And, once you reach the final boss, attempt to finish it off with a melee weapon like the katana or maul. This unlocks the Unlimited Submachine Gun.
Step 2: Playthrough 2 (Possessed ending):
Play on Extra New Game. Same as playthrough one, just make sure to kill everything that moves and to collect a lot of healing items. Just let the final boss hit you A LOT before finishing it off to rack up the damage total. In this playthrough you should kill 75 enemies with a melee weapon and 75 enemies with a gun, making sure one of them is more than the other.
Step 3: Playthrough 3:
This one is in case you didn't rack up 333 kills yet for Heather Beam. Use this playthrough as a "clean-up" for any achievements you are missing besides the UFO ending. Also, attempt to save up to 2 times and beat the game in under 3 hours for those achievements. Also, by now, you should have both the Beam Saber and the Flamethrower unlocked, make sure to pick those up.
Step 4: Playthrough 4 (UFO ending)
This one must be done in Extra New Game. Use Heather Beam to kill at least 30 enemies before reaching your apartment. The game will end here, giving you the UFO ending achievement. If you haven't already, try beating the game with 2 or less saves and under 3 hours here.
Step 5: Clean-up:
Do whatever is necessary for any achievements you are missing for SH3.
Conclusion:
Silent Hill 2 and 3 require a lot of playthroughs, but luckily the story can be easily completed in under 3 hours. Most of these achievements are pretty easy, with one exception. This HD Collection has a few technical issues, but is still playable nonetheless.
[x360a would like to thank Ceris for this Roadmap]