Silent Hill Shattered Memories: A Memento Of You

Welcome to Pixellated Culture. This week we'll be looking at one of the story devices in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Image from the Silent Hill Wiki

I know some of you may object saying I've already done Silent Hill (and on a Lit Day no less), but Shattered Memories takes the series in a totally different direction. This is obvious if you look at the storyline of Silent Hill. Shattered Memories cannot fit with any other game other than the first and provides a distinct split in the storyline. It cannot exist along side SH2, SH3, or any of the other games except the first and then only for one of the many endings (spoiler: for the curious, the ending where SM meet SH1 is the Dying Dream ending). Therefore, SH:SM is basically a game unto itself and the mechanic were looking at only exists in this game.

SH:SM takes place in them titular town as most of the other games do. You follow Harry Mason as he runs all over town looking for his daughter. Yes this sounds remarkably similar to the first game, except you don't have weapons and you have a smart phone. This games makes no mention of evil cults or religion or any other staple of the other games' plot (there are still aliens, so you still get one funny ending).

Harry Mason wanders all over Silent Hill looking for Cheryl, every where from his home to the shopping mall to the high school. The game does encourage mild exploration with cute little references and collectibles called mementos.

Mementos have no gameplay purpose. They do not unlock anything. They are there to collect. However, they do serve a minor story purpose. The mementos are not for Harry, they are for Cheryl. (There are spoilers from this point.) Harry collects mementos in the game, but we never see him do anything with them. The player is hard pressed to find any significance in them. That's because all of these mementos are trinkets accumulated across Cheryl's life. Harry shows no sign of recognizing these objects, as many, if not all, of them came after Harry died. The end of the game reveals Cheryl is the one in the therapist's office and she is much older than the little 7 year old Harry thought he was chasing.

All of the mementos allude to a part of Cheryl. These objects have subtitles alluding to their greater significance. The first memento you find is a snow globe with a lighthouse inside called "A Winter Beacon." This alludes to A) the winter weather outside B) the lighthouse is a beacon for the player to eventually get to C) the therapist's office is called The Lighthouse. This little trinket shows where Cheryl currently is in her life and provides a dose of foreshadowing. This is just one example of the many mementos available.

Many players dismissed the mementos once they realized it didn't affect the game. However, these things represent how Cheryl grew from the innocent child to the woman we see in the therapist's office with a criminal record. There is one gameplay event. There is always a scene with all the mementos the player/Harry collected across the game in a box. Cheryl takes one more look in the box before closing it up and leaving it in the attic. A fresh start for young Cheryl as she is able to put all the memories aside and continue with the life after Harry's death for the first time.