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I don't think Resident Evil needs to 'return to it's roots'

I wasn't as into RE: Revelations as I thought I was going to. I guess I wanted a return to silly stuff like save ribbons, lugging around stuff like cranks, puzzles and good old regular zombies.
 

Rhysser

Banned
I personally find it difficult to have something that is action/survival horror hybrid. If I'm playing as a character who is constantly encountering and killing zombies, often times knowing zombies or mutated baddies will be around before entering a certain situation etc, the survival horror element is basically dead.

The more these same characters encounter zombies or even chase after people who are involved in making zombies, the less their state of mind will be one of survival, and therefore this will also change my perceptions. You can't feel fear over something you encounter and defeat 100 times over.

In addition, the more capable and badass these people are, the more 'cool' their reactions are to such situations, the less I myself will feel any sort of tension.

Therefore I think Resident Evil needs to drop its current story arc, and start over with new characters and settings. Then, take the controls / gameplay of Revelations, remove the constant 'zombie swarm' sequences in every damn room that plague games like RE 5 (maybe one or two of these is fine), and create a game where I don't feel like I can run around blowing the heads over whatever it is that I encounter with little thought or effort. Things should not take a billion bullets to die (unless they are meant to be avoided) and I should also not be finding a billion bullets to pump into them. They should take 3 bullets to die and I should be finding roughly enough bullets to where I am often forced to run away.

The environments should have a sense of mystery rather than a sense of 'brown' like in 4 and 5 (did not make it to 6 so not sure what this is like).

Without these types of elements it is hard to have a survival horror game. Capable characters specializing in zombie eradication as a career with many years of experience under their belt, fighting against hoards of zombies in open, well-lit environments with high visibility just does not put me in a 'survival horror' type of mindset.
 

Kaleinc

Banned
It's getting much harder to scare folks with a videogame and good action never gets old. I'm cool with the series as it is as long as Capcom doesn't outsource it like Racoon City.
 

Daingurse

Member
Resident Evil doesn't have to necessarily do anything, but I would appreciate getting back to the roots. I want to get back to having the shit scared out of me. Get back to that level of tension, the old style games possessed. We can definitely modernize some mechanics though, like those fucking controls, Christ.
 
They need to just end the current storyline as it had pretty much become shit.

Right now the series is neither survival or horror, it's an arcade action game with non-believable storyline and characters. They need to make something much more grounded, take a look a TLOU or Siren Blood Curse where the sense of horror is still there, as well as the sense of helplessness and overwhelming odds.
 
I don't even see how true return to horror will even be viable for Capcom when it comes to RE. It's not like the series is hurting in sales and is on it's last leg. Yeah it had a hiccup with RE6 in most eyes. But by comparison AC3 was in the same boat with negative reviews and the masses didn't really care since they picked up AC4 just as quick.
RE6 is down on sales compared to RE5.
 

Riposte

Member
They need to just end the current storyline as it had pretty much become shit.

Right now the series is neither survival or horror, it's an arcade action game with non-believable storyline and characters. They need to make something much more grounded, take a look a TLOU or Siren Blood Curse where the sense of horror is still there, as well as the sense of helplessness and overwhelming odds.

The games still have "survival" mechanics in the form of the health system. "Arcade action" (as opposed to just action?) doesn't exclude survival mechanics.

Also the whole point of this thread is saying they don't need to do that.
 
All they would do is further isolate the horror genre by giving it clunky gameplay that nobody outside of hardcore nostalgics want to deal with.

The horror genre is already isolated/not necessarily mainstream, though, so I'd figure the players into them would be more appreciative and understanding of divergent control schemes.

If somebody made a game like RE today with tank controls, it absolutely would feel antiquated. Like TheRedSnifit said, it would be like making a 3D PC game today without mouselook.

AKA FPS, b/c there are plenty of PC games that don't have mouselook b/c they don't need them. FPS is maybe the one genre that really needs them.

Does a horror game NEED full 360 analog control? Not really. But I guess if that's what most people in the fanbase want, and developers want their attention, that's what they're going to do. I just think it's an aspect of game design that can't be argued objectively, or if it can, it's not so binary.
 
The horror genre is already isolated/not necessarily mainstream, though, so I'd figure the players into them would be more appreciative and understanding of divergent control schemes.

You'll find there are many potential fans of the genre, but they won't become real fans if the controls make it so that they play it uncomfortably, resentfully, or not at all.


AKA FPS, b/c there are plenty of PC games that don't have mouselook b/c they don't need them. FPS is maybe the one genre that really needs them.

Does a horror game NEED full 360 analog control? Not really. But I guess if that's what most people in the fanbase want, and developers want their attention, that's what they're going to do. I just think it's an aspect of game design that can't be argued objectively, or if it can, it's not so binary.

I can keyboard-ninja my way around pre-mouselook FPSs all day. In fact, I'd argue that FPSs would be better if mouselook was dropped and the genre was restricted to players more appreciative and understanding of divergent control schemes.

Does it occur to you that some people may find tank controls genuinely frustrating, just like you dislike pre-mouselook controls?
 
I've been replaying REmake this week and I think it holds up wonderfully. I've actually only played it and RE2, and this is making me curious about the others. I'd love to see another game in the original style, the basic formula is open to myriad interpretations.

The constant complaints about tank controls have always made me wonder what a better solution would be for a game with static camera angles. A "normal" control style would mean that players would inevitably be pointing in the wrong direction when they go through some camera position changes, which would be incredibly frustrating. Practice could mitigate this at least to some extent, but that's not really a solution. I think I heard once that some versions of the older games already had a non-tank control scheme, but I've never gotten to try them. Has anyone gotten to, or did I hear wrong? In any case, I'd love to hear suggestions for an alternate control scheme that would work with static camera angles.
 

charsace

Member
I think Capcom needs a horror series that is about surviving and not being a badass 80's hero that destroys everything that moves. Run Like Hell and Journey Man Project Turbo are two games that were closest to combining survival and horror. The new Alien game looks like its on the right track.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
RE6 is down on sales compared to RE5.

RE6 is at 5.6 million while RE5 was at 6.5. Sure that's about a million difference.
But RE5 counts all of the rereleases such as gold edition, and has been out longer.
All things considered while less it's hardly a end all situation for what is Capcoms biggest IP in the west.
 

J2 Cool

Member
Resident Evil was about mood, scares, survival (odds stacked against you) and presentation. They killed that as good as RE4 was. REmake for life. Can only imagine how those games would have benefited from modern consoles.
 

Neff

Member
RE6 is at 5.6 million while RE5 was at 6.5. Sure that's about a million difference.
But RE5 counts all of the rereleases such as gold edition, and has been out longer.
All things considered while less it's hardly a end all situation for what is Capcoms biggest IP in the west.

Indeed. RE6 sold very, very well, despite its divisive reception.

Even Operation Raccoon City, which was pretty much slaughtered by the press and gamers alike, racked up 2m sales. RE is still a killer IP.
 
Just got a crazy idea recently, what if Resident Evil 7 is a open world horror game?

Imagine being in a city, overrun with zombies and all sorts of infected stuff, and you're given a simple goal but you have figure out the best way to traverse the environment. Better yet, in the outskirts of the city is a huge forest, a big mansion, and some sort of hidden research facility. Solving puzzles in a open world environment could be awesome too, tons of tools to complete the puzzle, but you gotta figure out how to use those tools correctly.

Shit, a character switching mechanic ala GTAV would be fantastic as well. Different movesets, strengths, weaknesses. You switch to one character and find out they used most of the ammo and items in the inventory, making the player search for more supplies.

Hi, I'm actually making this game and would love to hear any other ideas you'd like to see in it :)

Bonus points for puzzle suggestions.
 

Gaz_RB

Member
Ultimately I just want more RE. Reboot or not, RE6 style or not, I really just hope we get some information at E3.
 

akaoni

Banned
I'm pretty sure most people don't understand what it is that made the early Resident Evil games interesting. For the most part, the complete lack of non-controlled cameras are what make most modern 3D videogames lack engagement and ironically enough, also make most modern games into action games of some stripe (not to mention, has made necessary the awkward insert of cutscenes). Forced perspective allows designers to do a lot more with their designs than free-control cameras. Not only that, but because you can no longer design where the player is focused, it's extraordinarily difficult to make a camera that's effective in a videogame anymore. 2D games have forced cameras almost by necessity, and in a lot of ways that gives designers quite a bit more to work with. Camera control is fundamental to designing a space and when you no longer have that, design has to become much more broad and far less focused than it could otherwise be.

[B]http://youtu.be/Q2PDstTaqrs[/B]

I felt the need to reply to this thread and let everyone know that the same youtube user talkingabouter aka real_slime on GAF, has started a sort of analysis/playthrough of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. It's similar to the Resident Evil 2 video he produced that gathered a decent bit of traffic except it's more 'as we go' thoughts. Wasn't sure if would be fit for a thread so I'll post the first few parts here for now;

Resident Evil 3 - Part 01 - Intro to Bar
Resident Evil 3 - Part 02 - Uptown to Police Station
Resident Evil 3 - (Part 03?) - Downtown Area
 

Maedhros

Member
I just want the game to go back to limited resources, survival horror feel.

If it doesn't, that's ok, I'll just facepalm like every new RE announced after four, maybe laugh a bit about how shit it looks, and continue with my life.
 
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