Resident Evil. What Happened?

It may sound like a rant and in truth it probably is.

My love for Resident Evil knows no boundaries. One of the first games I can remember playing, where I almost shat my pants but continued because of the sheer thrill and gripping storyline. The Spencer Mansion will stay etched in my gaming memory for as long as I live. The Racoon City Police Station will too never, ever be forgotten.

Then why is it, after Resident Evil 4, I genuinely thought about writing a letter of complaint to Capcom about the abuse my poor TV and Playstation had to endure from having this disc inserted?

RE1, 2, 3, Code Veronica X and Zero, for me uphold the series that is Resident Evil. I am thankful that these five games were released, in the style that they were.

Then, Resident Evil 4 was released. Over the shoulder, free roaming, unstructured, un-tamed piece of mess. Hoardes upon hoardes of not only zombies, but zombies now who had the capability to wield weapons, stripping them of their "Zombie" title and instead making you feel like you were just playing against a hoarde of pissheads.

Then it got worse with 5 and 6. Button bashing, CoD like gameplay. Complete lack of suspense and puzzle completion. Noooo, instead Capcom thought that because CoD was doing so well with it's shoot 'em ups, that we all want play the exact same thing in a survival horror game!

Co-Op?!! It's bad enough when you have and AI partner dragging you down, why on earth would you want this with a real life player?! That's not suspense! That's...What's that you say? Ohhhh Call of Duty have a zombie hoarde mode with other online players and that's the in thing at the moment? Oh, well I'm sure we can accomodate that in to our game! It does have zombies in it after all!

It saddens me to think, that I will never relive the moments that made this game so special for me. I don't think Capcom will listen to the thousands of fans who want to old days relived. We're not asking for a HD remake of the originals (however, I wouldn't complain!) but something that would relive the suspense of the original games, the excellent musical score, where a well place piano strike would make you shit your pants. Something where the zombies are still there, but almost as an inconvenience to solving a puzzle, not just waves after waves where shooting almost becomes constant. You want scarce amounts of ammunition, zombies lurking in areas you can't see and please if you've learned anything from Resident Evil 6 get rid of the fucking buttom combos. This is a survival horror, not Tekken.

Okay these "what happened to the good old ....." threads are coming way more times than usual ?

There must be reason !

It's because publishers of Resident Evil want to sell more games, and Capcom sees doing this as "let's make our game more like the popular games of the moment." So what do they do? Strip the horror elements and instead make the series a guns-blazing action-fest with cheap jump scares and large monsters that aren't terrifying and are only there to be in your way.

We're nostalgic so and so's who can't get past the motto "If it ain't broke, don't balls it up" or something like that...

@blessingboi111: There are ways of fixing a horror series without fucking up the core horror elements. For instance, Silent Hill 2 was a much better game than Silent Hill because it realized that focusing on the most horrifying and interesting aspect - the haunted town - and placed another poor sap in its clutches. What Resident Evil should've done is kept the origins of the virus a mystery as much as possible, and kept things to a confined space like the mansion or something. When your movement freedoms are limited in a horror game, it makes it all the more terrifying.

I get that President Evil is the Survival Horror king.... But was it ever actually scary ? Be honest now...

Obviously if you think those old games are perfect then any change be it for better or for worse will be the work of Satan to you. Mechanically speaking the series has been been improving, yes the overall product is different but the enemy designs and core gameplay is no longer haphazardly designed to be an absolute pain in the ass to do something as simple as changing weapons.

Also as a general rule if you liken anything to COD when it actually isn't then how can anyone take you seriously, it just sound like you're a fanboy who can't deal with change.

Its easy to spot a fanboy, they think different = Inferior.

@Lulu_Lulu: Maybe for you it wasn't scary, but I know some people who were terrified of the game when it first came out. Feeling helpless inside a hallway with zombies coming at you, and the only door you can escape into happens to be locked for some reason? That'll make any kid mess their pants. In a survival horror game, taking away your ability to defeat the enemy is important, as well as making you feel helpless, a key feeling when it comes to horror fiction or gaming.

It's not that the mechanics are improving. I'm fine with making a game play better. What's wrong with the Resident Evil franchise is the continual shift from horror to action, which takes away from what made the series so popular in the first place. I'm not even a fanboy of the series. The tone was always too campy for me to take anything seriously. But I know a few of my friends who actually were terrified with the game when it first came out. Hell, I even found Resident Evil 4 had some pretty damn good scares that made my heart race. But it's an action game now instead of horror, and that's ultimately not what Resident Evil started off as or what made it popular to begin with.

I could not agree any more with the op I feel the same way.

Resident evil 4 was the beginning of the end for franchise for me.

I feel they should I have gone the horror route rather than action, maybe a similar direction to the penumbra and amnesia games based off atmosphere with little to know combat.

@thehig1: Or even Outlast, which I've played. It's terrifying, and you don't even fight anything off in the game.

@mastermetal777: hell yeah imagine the Spencer mansion outlast style.

Or the racoon police station.

It could be just as terrorying as outlast

@mastermetal777

Its nots scary if you don't have a fighting chance.... I don't mind being ineffective in offense but to be defensless and helpless is just frustrating, it actually kills the horror. Why should you care if you're just flatout screwed ? Why stress about it ? its not gonna help.

Plus the scariest game I played was Doom 3, this is the game that lets you carry 6 weapons from shotguns to grenade launchers to plasma rifles..... And more Ammo than I knew what to do with.... It was still fucking scary.... there was this one room with walls covered in some type of Genetic growth oozing with blood and a bunch of candles in the room, in my 1st 3 playthroughs I always avoided that room, it was just way too creepy.

Horror is not an exact science with definite do's and don'ts, hence the whole "co-op kills horror" argument doesn't really hold up.

But Survival-Horror is something else entirely. Basically its the "Survival" part that complicates things.

@Lulu_Lulu: Knowing a friend is helping you in a horror situation does decrease the horror.

And horror is all about not feeling like you can control the situation. It pits you against something you can barely understand, having all of your skills (or lack thereof) not be able to help you in any way.

The way Stephen King puts it, there is terror, horror, and gross-out when it comes to writing horror fiction.

Terror is being afraid of something you can't necessarily see, but you know it's there because it gives off a presence. A sudden noise, a foreboding atmosphere of dread, and knowing something is behind you, but you don't dare look behind for fear of what might happen. And you're powerless to do anything about it. That's terror.

Horror is knowing what the monster is, but still feeling helpless to stop its advances towards you. It's dominating, intense, and makes you feel weak and helpless. Which makes eventually overcoming it that much more triumphant.

The gross-out is what Saw does. Constantly shell out gore and blood in order to shock rather than legitimately scare.

The same principles can be applied to video games.

RE4 was and still is a fantastic game, and a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned; I share the same nostalgia regarding the old games, but RE4 is in a class of its own

@mastermetal777

Actually the same principle does not apply to video games, I sure as hell am not going to take Steven King's word for it, he's barely scary in his own medium let alone in an interactive one, plus passive mediums suffer from "Immatative Fallacy" whilst games benefit from it so thats one reason to believe why the principles won't transfer willy nilly ... Not only that, the principles are already abit dodgy to begin with. Like I said... Its not an Exact science, and I agree, having a partner helping you does decrease horror, but what about having a partner depend on you, being in danger, uncertain if you can depend on them....? It can inspire a different kind of fear and doubt. Ofcourse gamers are a selfish bunch so its normal for them not to feel concern about others... ;)

@Lulu_Lulu: It's because co-op is almost always played with friends. When it's another player who doesn't know what they're doing, it's more frustration at them than it is being scared of the enemy.

The problem is that were focusing on the horror part of the game.

Games are about practical problem solving. It is about using critical thinking while suppressing you feelings.

While, horror is about getting an emotional response. To do this they want you to suppress your critical thinking and use more of your feeling.

The RE games focus on the horror part and just place action for the rest.

Look at most of the true horror games. They normally have game play pause for a haunted house moment. Or have a truly pathetic character. When a man stuck in a wheel chair with one good arm is a more capable character then you have a joke of a game character.

One nice thing about the RE games is that they took what happen and say that they matter. How many horror games forget what happen or just does a reboot?

@mastermetal777

To perhaps.... In Lost in Nightmares me and My friend were frightened despite playing in Split Screen, the co-op is partially asymmetrical in its design which we found quite enjoyable.... :)

Anyway like I said... Its not an Exact science, theres no definite way to guarentee horror... Shinji Mikami is only the King of Survival Horror, theres other types of Horror you know.... And those of us who aren't drooling notalgic fans would like to see that part come into fruition. For those that are stuck in the 80s theres The Evil Within. So everybody wins.

The only thing scary acout the old Resident Evil games were the controls. Oh no, there's an enemy. Can I aim at him this time without breaking my fingers? People confuse that with a horror game.

I'm going to go ahead and dismiss this as pretty much a troll post, but I'll use the opportunity to say that people need to get over RE4 being so ******* different. That game was ******* beautiful. I'm not going to say it was the best RE game, but damn, it was pretty far up there.

Anyway, am I the only person that thought quick time events were a good addition? Of course, RE 5 had some really hard QTE that were a bit frustrating, especially towards the end of the game, but I thought it was well done for the most part. I noticed that when Halo 4 had QTE, people got mad about that, but I thought the addition was great in that game as well.

@EPICCOMMANDER

The theory is that the simplicity and easiness of hitting a single button doesn't correlate with the complexity and difficulty of the task happening on screen... But thats just a theory... Its not even my theory...

@EPICCOMMANDER

The theory is that the simplicity and easiness of hitting a single button doesn't correlate with the complexity and difficulty of the task happening on screen... But thats just a theory... Its not even my theory...

So...? Some of them were fun and I thought it was a creative way to make cut-scenes more engaging for the player.

@EPICCOMMANDER

It says alot about your taste and standards.... :p

press X for Awesome ! ;)

I could say the same for you, but I really don't know what point you were trying to make with your previous statement lol.

@EPICCOMMANDER

I would say that was by design but thats a load of crap that nobody would believe. So I'l just say I got lucky. :p

@EPICCOMMANDER: I don't think the QTEs in the RE games added anything to the game. They come out of nowhere in the most unpredictable places and expect you to just "know" that they're gonna be there. As opposed to God of War, where it's expected that a QTE will appear when an enemy's health is low so you can finish them off with style and brutality. Or in Heavy Rain, where the gameplay is centered around QTEs so you're constantly expecting them.

@EPICCOMMANDER You're quite entitled to your opinion and I'm glad you enjoy the QTE inserts within RE5/6.

Personally, I think this is something which strips away the originality from the iconic cut scenes from Resident Evil. Cut scenes are there to be admired and provide a bridge between gameplay, I personally don't like the button bashing as it provides nothing, it's just a pointless time filler.

Even if RE4 wasn't exactly a true survival horror game, it was a great game in its own right, and is still being hailed as one of the greatest games of all time to this day. And that's the problem: The game was too great for its own good. And so Capcom decided to push the RE series further and further into action game territory.

@Jag85 And therein lies the problem.

It was too good for it's own good. Maybe part of me believes it should have died a dignified death and stopped when the plaudits were raining upon it.

Now it appears it's a mess that they won't and probably shouldn't bother to get out of.

I know exactly how you feel...

Lightning in a bottle really, At the time, it was the first to do so many things. Somethings are best left as is. It was just special, the right feel at the right time at the right place on the right system. Somethings just can't be recreated. Nothing wrong with that, it's a good thing. There are actually tons of games like that where you just can't rekindle the flame no matter how hard they try.

They just have that special place in every ones heart, Goldeneye, Twisted Metal 2, Gran Turismo, Rise of Nations, Grand Theft Auto 3, Hell Sea Battle for the Intellevision or even Utopia. Command & Conquer Red Alert back in the day. M.U.L.E. for the Commodore 64, Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES, Super Mario 64. The list goes on and on of pure epicness that for some reason can never be recaptured. Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, Ren & Stimpy for the Sega Genesis lol. Earthworm Jim...Star Wars Galaxies!!!!!

@blessingboi111: "Then why is it, after Resident Evil 4, I genuinely thought about writing a letter of complaint to Capcom about the abuse my poor TV and Playstation had to endure from having this disc inserted?"
Probably because you have bad taste.

"RE1, 2, 3, Code Veronica X and Zero, for me uphold the series that is Resident Evil. I am thankful that these five games were released, in the style that they were."
Why? These games are complete and total garbage. They're horror games that completely fail to be scary, have intentionally horrible controls and camera angles that do nothing but irritate. They're full of some of the most bizarre, nonsensical, frustrating design choices I've ever seen. You spend the majority of the games fucking around with your inventory and backtracking to item chests. All of the "puzzles" aren't even puzzles, they're finding keys and key holes over and over. They're shitty, shitty games and I can't believe anyone legitimately likes this crap.

"Then, Resident Evil 4 was released. Over the shoulder, free roaming, unstructured, un-tamed piece of mess."
It's odd that you complain about RE4 being "free-roaming" when it isn't, at all. And "unstructured" when it isn't. I'm not even sure what you mean by "untamed". These complaints make even less sense when you consider how the games prior to 4 are some of the most aimless, meandering messes ever made.

Hoardes upon hoardes of not only zombies, but zombies now who had the capability to wield weapons, stripping them of their "Zombie" title and instead making you feel like you were just playing against a hoarde of pissheads."
They weren't zombies in the first place so your entire complain here is fucking stupid. These enemies are far more interesting and tense to fight than some generic brainless zombies.

"Then it got worse with 5 and 6. Button bashing, CoD like gameplay."
Neither of these games play anything like CoD and there are only a few QTE's that involve button mashing. Which really shouldn't be a complaint for you since you were required to button mash in traditional RE games every time a zombie grabbed you.

"Complete lack of suspense and puzzle completion."
More suspense than the snoozefests that were traditional RE games. These games also have about as many puzzles as traditional RE games as well, since traditional RE games have maybe one or two actual puzzles per game.

"Noooo, instead Capcom thought that because CoD was doing so well with it's shoot 'em ups, that we all want play the exact same thing in a survival horror game!"
Except they really play nothing like CoD, and this gameplay is far better for RE since RE was never a good survival horror series in the first place.

"Co-Op?!! It's bad enough when you have and AI partner dragging you down, why on earth would you want this with a real life player?!"
Because it's fun.

"That's not suspense!"
I dunno, Lost in Nightmare was a lot more intense and frightening than any traditional RE game.

"It saddens me to think, that I will never relive the moments that made this game so special for me."
Those crappy games are still around for you to play though.

"You want scarce amounts of ammunition"
Traditional RE games don't have scarce amounts of ammunition. In every single one you end up being a fucking walking arsenal by the halfway point.

"This is a survival horror, not Tekken."
But RE6 has fantastic action. They should keep it and improve on it, not regressed back into being a "survival horror" series that isn't scary and doesn't actually have any survival elements.

Resident Evil 4 was "free-roaming" and "unstructured."

Good one. I needed a laugh.

Primarily the series changed ultimately due to Capcom wanting more money. There was an article that I read where Capcom compared the sales of Resident Evil 4 to Resident Evil Remake. They stated that since Resi 4 sold more than REmake, they made the decision to make Resi 5 more action based and why Resi 6 ended up being a confusing mess.

The problem with that comparison, and these are my thoughts on the matter, is that Capcom looked at the total sales of Resi 4 at the time. Resi 4 sold around 4 mil whereas REmake sold just shy of 1.3 mil. That may seem like a big difference, but when you look at the numbers more closely, they included the numbers that Resi 4 sold on multiple systems, primarily the Gamecube and PS2. REmake was only out for the Gamecube during the time deliberation about Resi 5 should have occurred. On the Gamecube, the sales numbers between the two games is much closer as Resi 4 sold shy of 1.6 mil. So it's not a huge number, but still helped dictate their decision making process.

I mean, let's explain a few things.

1. It's kind of a point in RE4 that the enemies aren't zombies. You see, there's a thing called the "uncanny valley," where the closer something resembles a human being while still recognizably not being a human being, the creepier it is because of the cognitive dissonance. That's actually one of the reasons zombies are popular. The enemies in RE4, however, aren't zombies. They display intelligence, work together, and are capable of problem solving. Conceptually, it's a lot creepier than brainless shambling undead. To say nothing of the creative designs for some of the enemies.

2. "Unstructured" RE4 was not. The game's pacing is superb, the way it lets quiet moments stay in for building suspense and building atmosphere, and giving a sense of building up to a climax rather than just throwing explosions at you or letting the pace sag. The claim that the game is "unstructured" is laughable.

3. RE4 wasn't free-roaming. This claim is so monumentally, stupidly, and obviously untrue I'm astonished you made it.

Bascially, Capcom's Clover Studio fell apart in mid 2000's. Capcom sent Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya on their ways. That's what happened to RE. Also the plan to make all the games Gamecube exclusive wasn't doing too hot. The PS2 wasn't as optimized for Remake and Zero, but if Capcom kept it open, they would've made more money on RE:Remake and Zero, and not felt pressured to 'action it up' just for RE4 to make its impact.

The RE team may have switched to over shoulder and somewhat different mechanics for RE4 but the pacing, tension and room situation remains pretty much the same. You still have to decide whether best to shoot or run. Its really On the Halo/COD side of gaming where the mechanics completely remove tension from the combat entirely. For RE4 Only the seedy merchant was the big mechanical difference in the gameplay to me. You encourage too much buying and gamers aren't conditioned to struggle for success as much. That stuffs better off for older or expansive RPGs where theres so much ground to cover, and random encounters, that in game purchases feel more like a pit stop on a long drive.

RE5 was under post CoD:MW -post-Mass-Effect-jealousy-syndrome like the rest of the gaming industry after the original creators left for Platinum games. I think that was when things mechanically started to go downhill. It became about 'more and more' zombies and co-op, and shock value, less about tension and strict resource management when you could outsource those hard decisions to your partner. Chris went on steroids. Wesker came off dumber, and for a B-plot it went far less of anywhere than RE4 did, and lost its slight campy self-awareness.(on the plus side Sheva and Excella looked hot...whatever that counts for...)

Nothing happens. Resident Evil 5 and Revelations are great games very much like Resident Evil 4.

Resident Evil 6 would be as well if it where not for the all QTE, which Resident Evil 4 popularized.

@blessingboi111: OH God not one of these threads again.. i like ranting about stuff but intenret has bitched enough about the Resident evil.. its time we put this argument to rest and call it day!

Old style RE IS DEAD DEAD DEAD! just forget about it already... old re style gameplay won't make capcom big money like call of duty so they'll NEVER go back to it..

@torenojohn7

Hey it might wind up on kickstarter or something... You never know... ;)

I wish i knew what happened in those developers heads.

Resident Evil was one of the best games of its generation and it had some of the best horror elements only outdone by Silent Hill. But the latest games are just a absolute bore and feels like any action game out there, in fact it feels worse and not only did it alienate fans but also didn´t get any new.

So ya i wish we could go back to the first and partly 2nd and have those elements redone in new games.

@Jacanuk: well the original maker of Resident Evil is making The Evil Within. From what I've seen, it's a return to form

I played that and it is VERY true to the old school Resident Evil "Form". Graphics may be deemed weak by today's standards but hey, not every game needs to have EPIC AWESOME GRAPHICS!!!!!! To be good.

@High-Res: Are the controls fluid and do they handle well? Im really interested but in the gameplay videos Ive watched, they look pretty clunky and sluggish.

Anyway. What happened to Resident Evil? They replaced Survival with Action. It's a mess now, 4 was the last good one.

@XOne_ShotX91

4 and 5....

@xone_shotx91: Well no. But that's not a bad thing. If you remember the original Resident Evil kinda had them awkward camera angles which led to awkward controls which kinda of made you wig out when you were scared. I mean, they are totally playable but they are not "Tight" confidence building controls.

If your into Horror survival, and want something like the original Resident Evil, this is about the closest thing in the horizon.

Like I'm not a huge fan of horror survival...I tapped out after Resident Evil Veronica and Fatal Frame, But I do believe you need kinda "clunky" controls because that enhances the whole scary I'm not in total control and I can't just pwn everything feeling that is required to make the stuff....well...scary!

I also found the game to be a bit graphic...but I don't like graphic gross stuff. Like to me gore and scary are two different things. I'm cool with scary, just not gore.

This is gore & scary so the gore makes this one I won't be playing. Like what made the original Resident Evil work for me is we were not at a level of such incredible graphics that it bothered me.

@Lulu_Lulu: 5 Wouldve been good if they wouldnt have had you baby-sitting Sheva the whole game. And before somebody brings up Ashley Graham, atleast the idea of her character wouldnt really know how to defend herself in this situation. She's the presidents daughter, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth so she never wouldve had to worry about being shot at and such. Sheva was in the military, and now she's in the BSAA, yet she still cant defend herself worth shit? No, that just doesnt work at all. I hated that bitch. Atleast the partners in 6 weren't ammo hogs.

@XOne_ShotX91

Seriously.... Babysitting is okay IF you it suits the character ? Thats just wrong.... Theres no grey areas or exceptions of Baby sitting, its shittyness is an absolute state whether you're babysitting the hulk or babysitting a teenager. Its like saying Rubber Band AI is fine if they use actual Rubber Bands. escort missions always suck.

Not that it matters. Sheva is not helpless Dead weight shes only as usefull as the the equipment you give her so crying about babysitting Sheva if you give hey a pea shooter while you wield a triple barrel shot gun is hardly fair, more importantly its optional, if you don't want to Babysit Sheva then you're weolcome to play it in co-op mode and BabySit an actual human being.

Also I get that you're forced to play as Chris on your 1st playthrough but when you play as Sheva, Chris is governed by the same AI... Yet no one seems to make that distinction... They always say Sheva as if the problem is actually with her specifically and not the AI itself.

As for Ammo hogging, I thought you guys loved running out of ammo, this has always been the critism of President Evil 5 and Dead Space and Doom 3... "its not true survival horror because you have plenty of ammo" I mean come on now.... Seriously ?

@High-Res

Well horror is not an Exact science in medium let alone games... I doubt its impossible to design a real Horror game great gameplay...

I say Horror and not Survival Horror because I just want to be scared shitless... I don't find it scary at all if I run out of resources and other survival type elements that try to screw me over. Its frustrating, not scary. I'm not saying I want more resources, I'm saying skip the combat entirely... I have absolutely no issue with spending 8 hours doing nothing but running and hiding from monsters...

Ya that does look like its going back to the Resident evil roots , and its definitely a title i will follow.