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[Teggy]

So this thread isn't too dangerous I'll put spoilers in tags. If you're putting in spoilers and you're unsure how sensitive the info is, please do the same.

I'm playing RE7 for the first time, and at the start of the game the main character

Spoiler

(seemingly) kills his girlfriend

and just really doesn't seem all that shook up about it or try to do anything about it. Shortly after

Spoiler

she cuts off his hand

and that point he seems kind of...just...pissed? Finally, he

Spoiler

he wakes up with his hand sewn back on and working

and doesn't seem to notice at all.

I know there are other games that have made me feel this way, but this is the one that made me make a thread. It just makes me think more about why the character is reacting so unrealistically than what's going on in the game. And it would have been easy to fix with a little animation and dialogue.

 

[georly]

I just chalked it all up to adrenaline and being in shock. When it's fight or flight you don't have time to process stuff like that.


What bothered me was how he didn't do the greatest job

Spoiler

explaining to the police officer what his situation was.

Obviously it was for story conceit, I just wish it had been more believable. Those are not the things I would have said

Spoiler

to a cop if i was being held hostage.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Ethan doesn't really have a running commentary of things. Think it was a design decision since it's a VR game too.

 

[SomTervo]

They definitely could have done that better.

Another classic example is Lara in TR2013 being legit shook first time she kills someone then proceeding to kill about 20 people in five minutes without blinking an eye.

Pratchett confirmed that this wasn't how it was planned initially but the game design demanded it.

 

[dugdug]

Ludonarrative dissonance is real, y'all.

The opening hour of RE7 would be enough to drive any one person clinically insane, but, you gotta make a game out of it, you know? Just need to shut your brain off.

 

[Bronetta]

Yeah the RE7 intro is a mess in terms of continuity.

I played the intro with a friend and he said theres an explanation for why Ethan is still alive and didnt die from blood loss. I finished the game and still didnt see any explanation for any of it.

Oh also, Jack Baker can cut your leg off and you can simply attach it back on by spraying some first aid on it.

I know its a horror game with its own rules but at least try to be consistent instead of making up magic shit as you go along.

So yeah OP, that bothered me too. The main character getting all these fatal injuries and dismemberment in the beginning and he just shrugs it off.

 

[Gxgear]

I've been playing Persona 5 and it's really bugging me that

Spoiler

Haru barely reacts to her father dying and attends the school festival a week later

. That's pretty messed up, and for a game that is story driven it sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[¡HarlequinPanic!]

the way I saw it, there's more to Ethan than he's letting on. Maybe he knows about the nature of these kinds of things~

Either way, I was glad RE7 wasn't a game about shivering and hiding in corners like amnesia or something.

 

[BadWolf]

Ethan is a garbage character.

 

[Crankshaft]

Realistic? In a Game?

I would have driven up to the point where you see the house, then not gone in. I would have called the police and left.

 

[Gin-Shiio]

Getting fucked up in shooters with blood on the edges of your screen and your character limping their way only to be back to running around like a madman right after might be seen by some as immersive, but it's become very jarring to me. I'd rather health wasn't reflected in movement and screen effects at all. See Dark Souls for example.

 

[antitrop]

This is The Evil Within in a nutshell.

Seb don't care

 

[dugdug]

I played the intro with a friend and he said theres an explanation for why Ethan is still alive and didnt die from blood loss. I finished the game and still didnt see any explanation for any of it.

It does crack me up that, you literally wake up to your hand being stapled back on, and, the game's just like "yeah, that's good enough."

 

[RecRoulette]

Yeah the RE7 intro is a mess in terms of continuity.

I played the intro with a friend and he said theres an explanation for why Ethan is still alive and didnt die from blood loss. I finished the game and still didnt see any explanation for any of it.

Oh also, Jack Baker can cut your leg off and you can simply attach it back on by spraying some first aid on it.

I know its a horror game with its own rules but at least try to be consistent instead of making up magic shit as you go along.

So yeah OP, that bothered me too. The main character getting all these fatal injuries and dismemberment in the beginning and he just shrugs it off.

All of this stuff technically has it's own explanation.

Spoiler

The mold has regenerative properties.

 

[Fury451]

The lack of reaction of Nathan Drake making his first kill

Spoiler

as a child

, albeit indirectly in U3 was pretty fucking weird.

Also the fact that he survives like 2 days in a desert with no water only to bounce right back into a gunfight like he wasn't on the verge of death.

And yeah, RE7 was pretty egregious in that regard.

On the opposite end of things, Heather in Silent Hill 3 had some very realistic responses.

This is The Evil Within in a nutshell.

Seb don't care

Yeah, that bothered me. He's fairly realistic to a point in the beginning, and then dull surprise after.

 

[Keinning]

Every horror game character ever
People are either too far on the Henry Townshend specter of being apathetic and never reacting to any of the weird shit happening at all ("my neighbour just died and became a The Grudge ghost huh.... look, a placard...") or overreact to every thing every time (you should be used to ghosts appearing to you by the end of Fatal Frame already, Miku)

 

[Crossing Eden]

Yeah the RE7 intro is a mess in terms of continuity.

I played the intro with a friend and he said theres an explanation for why Ethan is still alive and didnt die from blood loss. I finished the game and still didnt see any explanation for any of it.

Oh also, Jack Baker can cut your leg off and you can simply attach it back on by spraying some first aid on it.

I know its a horror game with its own rules but at least try to be consistent instead of making up magic shit as you go along.

So yeah OP, that bothered me too. The main character getting all these fatal injuries and dismemberment in the beginning and he just shrugs it off.

Since you start hallucinating it's implied that you're infected like Mia.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Yeah RE7 dude is hilarious. I like how when you see the lady crawling on all fours he just says "Well that's special." Its implied he

Spoiler

has some Umbrella or BOW connections

but still.

Ideally my favorite horror protag is Isaac in Dead Space 2 because he reacts to most things by going "FUCK SHIT FUCK" which is me playing the game

 

[Manu]

Lara Croft gets impaled by rusty rebar in a cave in the middle of fucking nowhere in the first half hour of Tomb Raider.

It hurts for a total of 10 minutes.

 

[Fury451]

Every horror game character ever
People are either too far on the Henry Townshend specter of being apathetic and never reacting to any of the weird shit happening at all ("my neighboor just died and became a The Grudge ghost huh.... look, a placard...") or overreact to every thing every time (you should be used to ghosts appearing to you by the end of Fatal Frame already, Miku)

This makes some sense depending on the character though, especially with Silent Hill- Henry Townsend taken as a whole seems to have some traits of a mental health disorder such as Schizophrenia or depression due to his isolation even before confinement, and the game hints at personal issues he has also. I've seen some people suggest autism as well. Or it could just be severe insomnia or induced psychosis due to his confinement and nightmares.

James Sunderland has elements of lacking reaction too, but there's some story context.

Besides Heather, Murphy Pendleton from Downpour reacts exactly as you would expect.

You're right about Fatal Frame though.

 

[PSqueak]

I've been playing Persona 5 and it's really bugging me that

Spoiler

Haru barely reacts to her father dying and attends the school festival a week later

. That's pretty messed up, and for a game that is story driven it sticks out like a sore thumb.

This one was really weird for me too.

Maybe there was some implied shit about her life that made more sense for the japanese audience?

I dunno, maybe things like Her being expected to be a "perfect princess" and continue to engage in her obligations or

Spoiler

some resentment going on about how awful her dad actually was

 

[Bronetta]

Since you start hallucinating it's implied that you're infected like Mia.

I totally missed this implication. Is it mentioned anywhere?

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Since you start hallucinating it's implied that you're infected like Mia.

It's even more than implied later on. Can't get much more explicit.

 

[Barry Burton]

This is The Evil Within in a nutshell.

Seb don't care

"What the fuck!"

 

[LowlySmokeGuy]

Ethan does freak out when he's around bugs. Maybe he's handled BOW stuff before and it doesn't faze him. We don't know.

 

[Fury451]

I totally missed this implication. Is it mentioned anywhere?

It's blatant by the midpoint of the game. It's implied by the time you get your hand cut off, and the dinner scene makes it a sure thing, but it's suggested that it started occurring basically immediately.

 

[Kookos]

I've been playing Persona 5 and it's really bugging me that

Spoiler

Haru barely reacts to her father dying and attends the school festival a week later

. That's pretty messed up, and for a game that is story driven it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Glad I'm not the only one thinking this was weird. One of the few things that really bothered me in P5.

 

[swearing-circle]

I found Ethan pretty funny at times. Completely unrealistic but entertaining nonetheless.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Glad I'm not the only one thinking this was weird. One of the few things that really bothered me in P5.

idk I feel like Haru was just bottling it up because that was what was expected of her and her part as the vulnerable princess

 

[gfxtwin]

Nathan Drake mowing through like 20 other pirates in a gunfight and then bouncing straight into charming, lighthearted quirky jokes right after. I guess kudos on him handling his PTSD really well?

He's 90% as shitty as the guys you're shooting in terms of his actions. Literally the only things that makes you root for him is his charm and how he usually kills in self defense, but he always goes out of his way to put himself in those situations just to get a bunch of gold. So dumb. His motivation was more believable in UC4 I admit, but not by much.

 

[Javier23]

For some reason you're assuming that a RESIDENT EVIL game would try to remain rooted in reality and have their characters feel like actual human beings with plausible behaviors and personalities.

 

[ItIsOkBro]

I loved Ethan for his lackadaisical reaction to everything.

I was coming off of Uncharted 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider where characters simply do not shut the fuck up so it was a nice change of pace to have a character that didn't dramatically react to everything and was relatively silent throughout.

 

[Sayad]

Isn't this in almost every survival horror game?!

"What the hell is going on here! There are zombie, fucking IRL zombies in this mansion in the middle of nowhere! Also a teammate was just eaten by wild dogs and the other two are nowhere to be seen!!...

Know what? We should split up and look for clues."

 

[Kuraudo]

Ethan has lived in the Resident Evil universe for his whole life.

 

[Sayad]

For some reason you're assuming that a RESIDENT EVIL game would try to remain rooted in reality and have their characters feel like actual human beings with plausible behaviors and personalities.

You say that, but they really were trying to do exactly that with RE7. According the developers, that's why we got a random normal guy instead of the super heroes from the previous games.

 

[Keinning]

that's why we got a random normal guy instead of the super heroes from the previous games.

ethan looked pretty damn resilient and heroic in my game tho

 

[Javier23]

You say, but they really were trying to do that with RE7, according the developers, that's why we got a random normal guy instead of the super heroes from the previous games.

It's the first narrative in the series you can actually take somewhat seriously, to the extreme of even being a little nice, poignant story, but come on, it's clear they've still gone with a healthy dose of black humor. It's quite evident in those same sections that the OP is critizicing.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Yeah the RE7 intro is a mess in terms of continuity.

I played the intro with a friend and he said theres an explanation for why Ethan is still alive and didnt die from blood loss. I finished the game and still didnt see any explanation for any of it.

Oh also, Jack Baker can cut your leg off and you can simply attach it back on by spraying some first aid on it.

I know its a horror game with its own rules but at least try to be consistent instead of making up magic shit as you go along.

So yeah OP, that bothered me too. The main character getting all these fatal injuries and dismemberment in the beginning and he just shrugs it off.

I'm pretty sure it's implied, if not directly stated, that Ethan gets infected pretty early on, and therefore gets regenerative abilities (albeit not to the extent of the Bakers, who've been infected for years). The herbal mixture you're making doesn't actually have any healing powers, but gives the Mold the nutrients it needs to fix you up.

Although this being the RE universe, where getting elbowed in the face by a 120-pound woman is enough to make your head explode, I wouldn't be surprised if trillions of dollars were spent on researching ways to fix lost limbs.

 

[faridmon]

I must be the only one who thought RE7 story was OK

I mean considering the franchise its part of, the beginning of it is nothing crazy

 

[kinggroin]

I mean, you start by making the conscious choice to go into a house as fucked up as that one. At that point it's your own fault for getting annoyed by narrative pot-holes.

But, I guess it's a funny thing to observe, pick apart, etc.

 

[HeatBoost]

If characters in video games reacted realistically there'd be a whole lot of losing control of them for minutes at a time while they freak the fuck out.

Especially in horror games.

ESPECIALLY IN HORROR GAMES

 

[TheFNEffecT]

I'm pretty sure it's implied, if not directly stated, that Ethan gets infected pretty early on, and therefore gets regenerative abilities (albeit not to the extent of the Bakers, who've been infected for years). The herbal mixture you're making doesn't actually have any healing powers, but gives the Mold the nutrients it needs to fix you up.

Was going to post this, haha.

To me, Ethan saying "What the Fuck?!" at being able to reattach part of his leg implies there's probably more going on that what is immediately presented.

 

[SoulUnison]

I've been playing Persona 5 and it's really bugging me that

Spoiler

Haru barely reacts to her father dying and attends the school festival a week later

. That's pretty messed up, and for a game that is story driven it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Yeah, the other characters even seem to bring it up a few times and she's always just like "I'm fine, really," and shrugs it off.

And not like in a "hiding her pain" or "secretly maybe happy he's gone" sort of way, but just like "we're done talking about that part of the plot, let's move on."

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I totally missed this implication. Is it mentioned anywhere?

Spoiler

Child!Mia only appears to people who've been infected (in the real world she's that old woman). Ethan can see her.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I totally missed this implication. Is it mentioned anywhere?

Just the fact that they mention how the hallucination is caused solely via infection, so basically that entire ending segment when he relives everything from the beginning but actually sees and hears the source. The fact that he communicates with the bakers telepathically like Zoe and Jack. Coupled with his rapid healing and superhuman resilience that allows him to keep up with Jack, Marguerite, and Lucas. He doesn't seem to be aware that he's infected but then again the Bakers don't either until it's too late. Unlike the past protagonists in the series who either get infected incredibly briefly, (Jill), or basically don't get touched at all throughout the entire games while solely using pistols being the canon, Ethan actually gets hurt and thus infected during cutscenes.

 

[Charlouie Jonesman]

I'm not sure if this applies to Sebastian, the protagonist of The Evil Within, or if he's just the most stone-cold motherfucker there is, but it certainly took away from the horror aspects of the game. In fact, none of the characters seemed concerned at all about the things happening around them.

 

[Astral Dog]

He is a

Spoiler

secret agent

 

[Eggbok]

The annoying part of RE7 to me is the

Spoiler

cop part, I would have hauled ass out that garage and got in the car as soon as I saw it there. If you want to ask questions ask my ass while we driving down the street.

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

RE7 is really weird because out of everything that happens in the game he freaks out the most over bugs crawling on the wall.

 

[TheFNEffecT]

I'm not sure if this applies to Sebastian, the protagonist of The Evil Within, or if he's just the most stone-cold motherfucker there is, but it certainly took away from the horror aspects of the game. In fact, none of the characters seemed concerned at all about the things happening around them.