Activated using L1+L2+L3+Left Dpad+Left Left Stick+Left Right Stick on PS2 and HD Collection versions.

This lets you open a save menu anywhere except during FMVs. A lot of PC only skips/strats can now be performed as well as other glitches where the PC disables quicksaving.

Here we can post different findings (even if useless in a speedrun such as stuff that requires a save/load - remember this is only allowed in the Bug Room). One nice glitch is the ability to despawn Pyramid Head in the Hospital Basement chase scene - wait until he spawns, open the save menu, soft reset and continue).

Finally, you don't actually have to save, or even have a Memory Card inserted, simply opening the save menu will create a checkpoint right there, allowing you to quit to the main menu, then continue - see my Bug Room skip where I don't have a Memory Card.

#Useful in a Speedrun Plank / Radio Skip (this is now useless because the game will freeze upon re entering the area after the hospital). Opening the Debug Save menu while picking something up from the ground which requires a bend down animation, puts the game into a softlock state allowing you to run through barriers. Guarding will unsoftlock the game in this case (note the car reappearing).

Woodside Apartments Scream Skip (slightly less time save; you need to aim twice or aim+shoot)

Bug Room Skip You don't even need to save, just go into the Debug Save menu (which makes a checkpoint), soft reset and Continue. As you can see I didn't have the Memory Card inserted.

Hotel OoB This probably doesn't save any time because you have to pick up the thinner, go into the Debug Save menu to softlock, and then do the setup on the stairs which is hard enough on PC with full 360 control. Here it is in action on PS2 anyway. You only have one chance at getting the fall in the wall due to there only being one thinner and falling unsoftlocks you.

[PS2] 44:22 using Debug Save Menu Example of a run using this so far, stamina refreshes when opening the menu, which is pretty difficult as you can tell lol

Also fall animations are cancelled (Apartment pool and exiting the well).

Unsoftlocking the game seems to depend on the area. When doing the Hotel OoB, I was hit a few times by the mannequin which managed to unsoftlock me, and also falling, which is why you only get one shot at the OoB before the stairs trigger reappears. So from this, some animations (aiming, guarding, falling, getting hit) depending on the area will unsoftlock you and sometimes won't. Quitting and Continuing will unsoftlock you everywhere although I did have the game freeze doing this at Rosewater before meeting Maria.

If you open the menu during a ingame cutscene, it will stick on either a black or grey screen for like 30 seconds, then the menu will open allowing you to close it and the scene will continue, albeit glitchy and with a fixed camera, like SH1s Amusement Park cutscene. Also the game seems to freeze if you let the cutscene play until the end, this might be specific to some and not all.

Audio plays in the save menu, if SH3 works the same, you could probably do the Borley Mansion thing, because IGT is paused while in this menu.

Also nothing for Abstract Daddy yet.

#Not Useful in a Speedrun Laura & Maria Cutscenes Skip Can also be done on PC by QSing using the Apartment door text (trying to go back). The game will lag and become unstable as it tries to load items/enemies/triggers and will soft freeze at Pete's Bowl-O-Rama (trying to load the cutscene with Maria).

Rosewater Sign Breakout I never use this even on PC since IGT is ticking, you might as well just skip it. Here it is working on PS2 using the Debug Save menu anyway.

Hospital Text Breakout IGT Runs.

Cube Room OoB This is possible on PC and serves no purpose, many rooms can be found including the hallway right before the Eddie boss fight. No hitboxes will be active outside of the Cube Room if my memory is correct.

Hotel Elevator Breakout Fun but Pointless.

So there is a way to bypass text boundaries using the debug save screen. In these videos I show some examples but none are viable for speedruns as they break the current rules. Also in the videos I make saves but making actual saves is not required as simply opening the debug save menu will make a checkpoint which Aaron has said above.

The videos also has details on how exactly these are performed which is done by opening the debug save menu and holding down on the d-pad as the save screen fades out.

Xbox 360 Silent Hill Map Skip -

PlayStation 2 Silent Hill Map Skip -

PlayStation 2 Alternative Radio/Plank Skip -

Note that tricks of this sort should work on the PlayStation 2 versions aswell as the HD collection versions.

update

When you enter the debug save menu at a text barrier the text will remain while you are in the save menu on the HD collection. You can abuse this to perform some of the tricks above without breaking the speedrun rules.

Viable Silent Hill Map Skip (X360) -

FMV Breakouts (PS2 only?)

Just found this by accident (yes, a frame perfect trick by accident lol), so if you open the Debug Save menu exactly 1 frame before an FMV cutscene starts, it will let you move around as if the cutscene has played BUT when a cutscene plays, a lot of stuff is unloaded (boundaries, textures etc.) It will put you in a similar softlock state to picking up items on the ground, letting you bypass triggers but also allowing you to interact with doors and items.

Unfortunately there's a problem which makes this totally useless - the cutscene will be stuck in the games' memory waiting to be played, meaning the next cutscene that you trigger (even if you managed to warp to the end and play the credits FMV), the cutscene you skipped will play and instantly freeze the PS2. Even quitting to the main menu and starting a new game will result in the FMV at the start freezing.

Playing while in this state causes a lot of lag, its not my capture.

Thanks to Bobbykaze who tested this on the HD Collection, apparently it does not work.

Finally, saving and loading will "fix" the area. Testing on emulator with save states will be much easier, I had to redo the glitch repeatedly, which I got rather consistent at after awhile).

Graveyard OoB (Part 1) Here I ran into town, the area isn't loaded at all, you must go through the gate (the one which is used on PC for plank/radio skip), its too high to activate.

Graveyard OoB (Part 2) Here I managed to raise myself up enough to interact with the gate and loaded the chainsaw area to make sure that's what wasn't causing the freeze, it still froze entering the gate. All 3 areas (the path after the steps, the graveyard and the chainsaw area seem to all be one area?)

Also yes I ran beyond Toluca Lake, I'm pretty sure the Hotel and even the Boat Landing are infact interiors - not accessible on the overworld map.

Laura / Maria OoB I only posted the Maria one because it allowed you to go further (not much though). Trying to enter the Hospital results in a freeze and as you see in the video running beyond it also does.

The Laura skip will unload the water front, allowing you to run onto the lake and over by the Historical Society. Turns out you can actually get around the map using this FMV by going back to the Apartments rather than through the park (where it will inevitably freeze). Still freezes trying to go into or past the hospital.

Will need to test more FMVs but ultimately this is probably another "cool but pointless" discovery.

Cutscenes and Results: James Toilet (intro) - Freezes upon leaving Angela in Graveyard - see above Eddie in Apartments - Skips as usual Angela in Apartments - Door isn't loaded but has invisible wall Laura on wall - see above Maria at Rosewater - see above Maria in Hospital basement - needs testing (very difficult, need to press X on the ladder and open the save menu 1 frame later) Eddie in Prison - needs testing Maria in cell - needs testing Hotel VCR - Freezes upon leaving Credits - needs testing

Hi, my question is not really speedrun related.. But I'd like to know if saving to the PS2's RAM by simply opening that menu without actually saving to a Memory Card, has any influence on the save/continue stats in the rankings. For example, if you soft reset afterwards and then use continue. I would assume it shouldn't count as a save since you're not really "saving" but will it increase the continue count or does that only happen when you die?

It will increase the Continue count, yes. If you're asking for 10 star, I believe you are allowed 1 continue, so you could do the bug room skip if you wish.

HD Collection (PS3)

Same as PS2 - game checks whether you went into the alleyway or not upon returning to this part of town and hangs. There are a couple of differences however:

1. You don't have to pickup something on the ground, on PS2 you had to do this for the game to softlock, and then break out of it by holding guard/run, here you can pickup anything, open the debug save and keep the text on the screen allowing you to bypass any triggers just like PC, without spamming quicksave, simply drop the text to unsoftlock.

This might be useful for other places in the game though!

2. The game actually hard freezes on PS2 requiring a system shut down. Here, the game just infinitely loads, it will freeze if you try to ingame reset, but you can safely exit the game to the XMB.

UPDATE: Okay so its pretty much confirmed now that HDC is the fastest console version even over PS2s Debug Save. The Debug Save in HDC doesn't despawn text on screen, meaning stuff like map skip, Abstract Daddy and Hotel OOB skips with the "It's too Dark to read the map" text, all work in this version, on top of that you have ~60FPS menus similar to OG Xbox (in fact you have unlocked " in "~60FPS" however is that it rarely ever gets anywhere close to that, often dropping into the teens. Good thing IGT is tied to the frames, right?

Videos:

Map Skip: Works just like PC, just a bit tricky to open debug save while bringing the text up.

Scream Skip: Very easy since you already have the plank equipped, just aim it to unsoftlock and go through the door.

Garbage Coin Breakout: You can run back towards the door during the transitions like on PC.

Bypass Cutscene Trigger (after hospital) IF the initial Plank/Radio skip worked, this is what you would do. As of right now, this is useless.

Bug Room Skip For some reason you actually have to save here unlike the PS2 version, which makes a checkpoint just from opening the debug save menu.

Gallows Breakout Save some time running back to the door.

Abstract Daddy Skip Save 2 shotgun shells on Beginner (also saves even more time on Normal/Normal not having to switch around weapons).

Hotel OOB One benefit over PC is that you'll notice you don't lose the text from the falling animation if you fail this however many times. Otherwise its exactly the same as PC.

Music Box Breakout Debug Save screen takes a little longer than usual but its pausing the timer so doesn't matter.

There's a few other places where you can use this to breakout of fades and start running such as the locked box in the hospital, can opener/video tape pickup in Hotel etc.

One final difference to the PS2 version: You may have noticed from some of the videos that, for some reason, the background image from the save screen will be used instead of the background image that's supposed to be there instead, there's one place where this is helpful: It makes numbers a little easier to read.

Almost a year later and I'm back to testing this again (mainly was looking into the RNG Manip on HDC, which I figured out, guide soon).

Boat Stage OOB

Debug Save during James'animation getting into the boat (you need to quickly skip the cutscene of him getting into the boat and have him turning around as hes sitting down, if you save after he's done this or he doesn't do that animation, the game will crash upon loading the save).

Getting to the other boat landing is initially faster (James' running speed vs boat) however you need to go back to the initial boat landing and "raise" James, then you need to go around the light on the far peer, otherwise the game will crash trying to load the cutscene of James pulling up and getting off the boat.

So overall, not worth it.