I was instantly intrigued by Silent Hill: Book of Memories when I first heard about coming exclusively to the Vita. The fact that veteran developer WayForward Technologies got the gig was cool enough, but as soon as I saw early screenshots showing the game was a top-down action RPG hybrid, it went on my radar as something to watch.  Of course, me being so stupidly busy trying to get DAF more noticed and generate some income (hey, I like being a taxpayer!) meant I’d forgotten to check in on things until recently when a demo dropped on PSN. Not too surprisingly, the team has whipped up an extremely addictive action-heavy blast that’s sure to draw in those who crave tightly focused dungeon crawlers in all their knocking off of monsters and gathering of much loot glory.

While the BoM demo isn’t as initially creepy or instantly unsettling as previous games in the franchise, it has enough going for it that promises plenty. In terms of gameplay, it rocks in the manner of the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath and Hunter the Reckoning series. Naturally, some Silent Hill fanatics are raging over this intensely all over the internet, but let me put some sanity into place here by saying the game not only looks and plays well, it works as a Silent Hill game once you get over the fact that it’s the most combat-focused entry in the series history. The game deviates from the SH formula in a few key ways, but it also taps into what makes the series compelling. If you’re familiar with the above mentioned titles and love this type of game, I’ll bet you’re grinning already…

Once you create a character (male or female) and choose a starting charm (that adds a permanent stat boost based on which one you select), the demo kicks off with your avatar getting a strange package on his or her birthday from a rather cryptic postman. Inside the box is a book that happens to have your entire life story in detail up to the moment the mystic mailman drops it off. In the real world, you’d probably be checking for cameras and microphones in the walls and slowly going crazy (like Gene Hackman at the end of The Conversation), but as it’s a Silent Hill game, you fall asleep wondering and wake up in a very weird place. The dungeon dreamworld is a series of battered rooms of assorted sizes connected by rusted metal walkways and you’re trapped there until you make your way though, dispatching monsters, solving puzzles and gathering clues that advance the plot and add more mystery in the process.

That book of memories is indeed your character’s own memories and like other games in the franchise, elements of your avatar’s life will come into play as the story unfolds. Notes found scattered about, TV’s that play out aural moments from your recent past and other things creep the story forward while you go about the grinding and grabbing of goodies. You enter unarmed, but you’ll find some SH staples such as knives, wooden planks, lead pipes and even a few firearms. Weapons have durability ratings or require ammo, so the gameplay isn’t completely mindless. You can strafe, block and dual wield some weapons, but have very limited inventory space that can be upgraded as you progress. Leveling up allows you to assign stat points and you can also buy and equip more charms or artifacts that bump your character’s stats or skills up even more.

Par for the RPG-like course, killing monsters rewards you with experience and varying amounts of currency. You don’t earn gold from your kills, but Nightmare Residue (NR), which can be used at shops in each stage to purchase items and gear. In addition to a handy lock-on and the ability to dodge, WayForward has cleverly implemented a combo system here as well with execution moves you can pull off to take out enemies with flair. This adds an extra layer of challenge to the game that keeps it from becoming a simple button basher. Granted, you can succeed (in the demo at least to some extent) by hitting the two attack buttons over and over against smaller or weaker foes, but the demo introduces some nastier beasties that require a bit more effort to take down.

Most monsters drop MR, but there’s a Karma meter that moves between Light and Blood based on which monsters are killed. Focus your attacks on Light creatures, the meter inches towards Blood and vice versa. The more that meter goes one way, the more creatures of that alignment will refuse to attack you or perhaps go after opposite creatures when you’re in their midst. Enemies come in three alignments, Light, Blood, and Steel, and using finishers on them rewards you with Karma in larger amounts. This system is tricky to figure out at first because you’ll probably be whacking everything in the room with that lead pipe or 2 x 4, but once you experiment, it’s quite cool.

On the not so cool side, while combat is excellent throughout the demo (you have to love a game that lets you pistol whip monsters when you run out of ammo!), some of the touch screen stuff such as tapping items in the backpack or choosing which weapons to pick up made for varying degrees of frustration thanks to my big fingers trying to precisely tick the right box or object in the heat of battle (which resulted in a Game Over a few times). It’s the one major issue I have with ALL the touch screen platforms I’ve ever played on and it’s too bad that there didn’t seem to be an option to choose a standard button layout for other players who also have meaty paws as standard equipment. Hopefully the final game will get some sort of patch that fixes this or even better, this will have been worked out in the final build.

The multiplayer mode wasn’t available in the demo, however the manual promises that it will be more challenging (and most likely a bit more scary for some) thanks to the need to communicate constantly with your teammates and share items. I’m guessing more monsters will come into play in this mode as well as the need to pick a Karma side you want for your party and stick to it. I’m hoping the game does well enough that we see a PS# iteration at some point or hell, a new IP from WayForward that builds upon what they’ve created. For my money, you can’t go wrong with a reliable, well-made hack & slasher at all and thankfully, this is currently one of the better ones I’ve played on Sony’s handheld.

From a presentation standpoint, the game uses the extremely versatile Infernal Engine to excellent effect. Everything looks great on the Vita’s high-res screen, the locked down camera keeps things from getting crazy in the more hectic fights and while the game isn’t as gory as some would like, there’s still enough blood spilled as well as some nicely freakish familiar fiends from past entries in the franchise. Music and sounds were solid as well (it would indeed be nice to get some sort of soundtrack player in the final build, but I guess I’ll have to see if that’s a bonus feature on the card) and overall, WayForward has crafted what could be a sleeper hit of nightmarish proportions.

Of course, that all depends on the varied SH fans out there from stubborn to supplicant wanting to give all this hard horror work a try (and a buy) when the game hits retail on October 16. I know Konami really wants you all to be in on this one and I also know WayForward DEFINITELY wants some of that love as well. They’ve most certainly nailed a place in my Vita collection with this one. Now, about getting an HD Shantae remake and that cool sequel on the Vita? That needs to happen sooner than later, I say…