

It's one of the many things the game never explains to the player. The convoluted karma system sucks a lot of fun from the experience. The problems arise when the game tries to be any more complex than just killing your way through rooms of enemies. Things like degradable weapons and limited supplies are a nice touch that add some tension and serve as throwbacks to the series' survival-horror roots. I enjoyed exploring the procedurally generated levels and fighting classic Silent Hill foes. I would be lying if I said there weren't irritations though. Especially seeing as how it's a mostly competent experience that has you battling it out with enemies from all across the series and is packed to the brim with fan-service. This is definitely going to seem like an unforgiveable sin to any purist, but when you consider that this is a one-off side-excursion with no effect on the main continuity things are a little easier to swallow. The reason this game has such a bad rep is because it moves away from the traditional survival-horror gameplay we've come to associate with the SH brand in favor of top-down ARPG action à la Diablo. That would be Konami's Silent Hill themed pachinko machines which appear to be the sad future of the series. I'm not saying it's a great game, but Book of Memories is far from the franchise tarnishing change in direction so many would have you believe. All because people don't understand the concept of spin-offs. A game that gets talked about more for what it isn't, rather than what it is.
