Support NeoGAF

[shadowstar35]

Because it was not Resident evil...at least not to me. It was a co-op army of two game..in a African theme.

I never finished it the game as it was hard to play single player. As someone in my mid 30's I don't have many real life friends that game and the ones who do were busy playing WOW at the time.

I didn't like the lack of atmosphere and puzzles. Two things that RE was always about, exploration, puzzles and tension. Hell the levels felt linear, i hated it. RE 1 and 2 were my favorites by the way. Played them when they launched on PS1!

 

[Cormano]

I also enjoyed RE5, although Chris kidney punching that boulder was really stupid.

 

[Man God]

Pretty much every set piece is a straight ripoff from 4.

There's some annoyance in terms of weapon upgrade and partner ai, along with the terrible last parts but overall it's good because it has the amazing fundation that is re4

Worse in every way somehow. Especially the boss fights. I agree with your general sentiment though.

 

[How About No]

1. Too much like RE4 (Mechanics, enemies, and some rehashed set pieces)
2. Not enough like RE4(No sense of isolation or awesome environmental progression)

 

[Fancy Clown]

Okay, here's something more specific.

RE4 was constantly throwing new things at the player that A) hadn't been in previous games and B) hadn't been done in previously stages of RE4. When it did repeat a situation, there was usually a twist to the later occurrence (like having to fight off 2 of an earlier mid-boss simultaneously, or a drastically different arena setup, or doing a previous lit-up area in the dark with new enemy types). Just from the early part of the game, you get:

1) a linear area that introduces the basic gameplay concepts
2) the infamous siege/chainsaw sequence
3) some heavy trap sequences with beartraps, boulders, and sudden ambushes
4) a more open area to show off the power of the sniper rifle

And that's just from the first hour or so.

Then you throw on so many memorable boss sequences (each of which needs to be tackled differently), the more puzzle-heavy sequences in the castle, and how the addition and subtraction of your ally companion changes the feel of different parts of the game, and RE4 was constantly keeping the player on their toes.

In contrast, many of the scenarios and enemies in RE5 were direct imitations of something that happened in RE4 and thus lost most of their edge if you had played the previous game. And since the entire game needed to be playable in co-op mode, that really hampered the kind of variety they could do, so most of the less action-packed segments of the game got stripped out in favor of constant "walk into an area, fight off a bunch of enemies, repeat" sequences.

One of the main problems with RE5 is that it feels like a co-op expansion pack or fan hack for RE4. Fun if you have a friend to play it, but you can tell that Capcom was afraid of their own success and that instead of trying to do something creative or meaningfully improve on the previous game, they were content to try to just copy it.

QFT

 

[Renekton]

RE5 dropped all pretense of being a horror game that RE4 still clung to.

It's not a horror game if Leon is armed to the teeth and can roundhouse kick zombies.

 

[Camp Lo]

Nothing. It's a fantastic game. More so than Resident Evil 4 which is overrated.

I like you.

 

[SovereignSnake]

I had fun with the game because me and my cousin can have fun with just about any coop game. However, the inventory is trash, the environments are unremarkable, the boss fights are unmemorable, the gunplay gets boring after a while, zombies with gun are not fun

Spoiler

Yes I know they are not zombies

, no zombies, armor takes up a space in the shitty inventory, and finally not tension what so ever.

 

[Fancy Clown]

RE5 dropped all pretense of being a horror game that RE4 still clung to.

It's not a horror game if Leon is armed to the teeth and can roundhouse kick zombies.

And yet there were still a dozen moments that scared the shit out of me. The balance of wildly differing tones is one of my favorite parts of RE4.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Dat cross-dive though

so GOOOOOD

 

[Zebetite]

It cribs from RE4 far too liberally and ultimately doesn't feel like it added anything of value aside from co-op, which serves as a double-edged sword because it makes playing the game in single player absolutely garbage. This in turn brings its own problems: it's a lot harder to appreciate what is ostensibly a horror game, and thus is relying on its atmosphere to try and unnerve players and create tense situations, when the best way to play the game is by far with a friend with voice communication enabled and take yourself out of the game, so to speak. RE4 is already hardly a horror game, but at least succeeds in having a periodically-creepy atmosphere, which is a complete no-go in RE5 because you're going to be too busy listening to your buddy talking about their day at work or whatever.

There are also parts in the later stages of the game where it devolves into a cover shooter and that's really lame.

RE5 is a really solid game, but it's not sublime in the same ways that RE4 was. It represents the Resident Evil series' complete and total break from even pretending to be a horror series and feels sort of re-hashy in how closely it apes RE4. But it's a fun little action game to blow through with a friend.

Sidenote: There was some talk when Capcom was first revealing RE5 about trying to make the bright, sunny African desert a stressful place to be by implementing some cool features where the sun would be actively dehydrating you and you'd have to stick to the shade and try to find clean water to drink and stuff. That sounded really cool. It's a shame they took the path of least resistance.

 

[aly]

As much as I like Re4, I played Re5 alot more due to the co-op with my sister and mercenaries. It was just a lot of fun. Yeah it wasn't scary but it was a great game.

 

[warheat]

Nothing. It's a fantastic game. More so than Resident Evil 4 which is overrated.

 

[DSix]

It's basically an unimaginative rehash of RE4 set-pieces but with a forced coop mode on top. It's very good for what it is, coop-RE4 is an excellent idea. But too bad for people who like to play solo...

 

[Fancy Clown]

I would say the only substantial improvement RE5 made over 4 was in mercenaries. 5's mercs mode is sooooo good.

 

[leng jai]

Few glaring flaws I can remember I played the 360 version at launch:

- Deplorable sound quality. The game like it was a super compressed MP3, not satisfying at all.

- Tank controls obviously.

- The black levels were completely screwed TV, looked pretty my head grey.

- Not much fun as a single player experience.

 

[spawnsniper]

A buddy of mine and I did co-op so many times. With only pistols, only knives..etc. it was amazing. Fun times. Can you believe I actually enjoyed Re5 more than 4? Here's how I, personally, would rate them on consoles (not including revelations)

Remake>RE2>RE1>RE3>RE:cvx>REutbreak/file2>RE5>RE:0>RE4>RE6

I can care less about the survivor series or the chronicles.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Few glaring flaws I can remember I played the 360 version at launch:

- Deplorable sound quality. The game like it was a super compressed MP3, not satisfying at all.

- Tank controls obviously.

- The black levels were completely screwed TV, looked pretty my head grey.

- Not much fun as a single player experience.

 

[TheVampire]

Didnt like the whole partner thing.

 

[Duress]

It's a solid game, but it really lacks the horror part.

 

[superpickleman]

The only thing I didn't like about it was trying to play it alone. After going through the entire campaign with a friend I couldn't replay it alone without getting frustrated at the partner's AI.

 

[Golgo 13]

Coming off a total masterpiece like RE4 hurt the game a lot (as far as how it was received) The co-op was fucking awesome, made lots of great friends playing that game.

 

[brandonh83]

Nothing. It's a fantastic game. More so than Resident Evil 4 which is overrated.

Agreed. I thought 5 and 6 were definitely more fun. I don't see this massive gap in quality between 4 and 5. If anything I thought 5 had much better pacing and didn't outstay its welcome. RE4 kept going for so long that it lost its creative juices and just went full retard action wise. 5 felt like a logical progression; RE4 was the one that "jumped the shark."

 

[Boss Mog]

It was really amazing in co-op. I only played co-op so I can't speak to the player AI at all.

 

[Shmeagatory94]

Never played Resident Evil 4 (blasphemous I know) but I LOVED Resident Evil 5! Played through the campaign with my sister and we had a blast

 

[brandonh83]

It was really amazing in co-op. I only played co-op so I can't speak to the player AI at all.

The AI wasn't perfect but I found it manageable enough. It was only on rare occasion that Sheva would do something I didn't approve of or whatever, but the actual co-op was incredible. Something exciting to me would be getting a game like RE5 on PS4, and being able to use the share feature to have another player jump in as my partner even if they don't have the game, and the checkpoint/mission structure would be perfect for the 60 minute window.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

- Tank controls obviously.

RE5 doesn't have tank controls, hell not even RE4 has tank controls.

You know those Radio Controlled car toys that had a go forward button and a spin around button? And to turn you had to just hit the spin button until you landed in the right direction?

Those are like tank controls, except tank controls let you pick the direction in which you spin.

 

[SirCrush]

You will very likely also like 4, so go play it. Then again, I'm pretty sure I've met someone who likes 5/6 and hates 4; I'm sure I've met every possible combination of likes/dislikes within the RE fanbase actually.

I'll get around to it some day. My buddy owns the game. All I have to do is borrow it.

 

[Honey Bunny]

It was an amazing action game that wasn't scary in the slightest.

Remember the first previews of it where Capcom talked about the intense sunlight and shade of the African environment and how those contrasting areas would really add to the horror? Nothing really came of that did it. I had images in my head of legging it from zombies through cramped Moroccan streets and alleyways to get into the sunlight of an open road or town square. They never managed to create a scenario anywhere naar as intense as that sounded to me. Just action sequences.

 

[Pathos]

I enjoyed the game
The companion AI is dumb as fuck, so I always played with my brother

 

[Alfredo]

I guess reusing a lot of RE4 enemy animations was pretty lame (to the point that when going back to RE4, I sometimes try to melee enemies in stuns that only work in RE5).

I played through the game single player the first time, and I quickly got over the partner AI when I realized you could press B to have the AI immediately come help you. I mean, the AI wasn't great, but...it had godlike aim to make up for it, lol.

I honestly don't understand people saying that RE5 didn't add anything new. I think RE5 greatly improved on RE4's combat by simply adding melee attacks on grounded opponents. No more running up to fallen bodies to slash them with a knife a couple of times. Instead, I get a cool unique animation for attacking floored enemies.

 

[Riposte]

One of the main problems with RE5 is that it feels like a co-op expansion pack or fan hack for RE4. Fun if you have a friend to play it, but you can tell that Capcom was afraid of their own success and that instead of trying to do something creative or meaningfully improve on the previous game, they were content to try to just copy it. And in trying to copy RE4, they only copied the surface without understanding the underlying reasons behind most of its design decisions.

The thing is, among the set pieces, what is on the "surface" and what differences really show a lack of understanding? If we start picking out exceptions and small incompatibilities, does that really reveal a profound misunderstanding? Moreover, what can or can't be constituted as a logical change (based on RE5's co-op design or otherwise) after having understood RE4 and changing it (for better or worse)?

You are ignoring that co-op in itself is a very meaningful improvement and shows creatively in its co-op based mechanics. In no way does RE5 feel like a "fan hack"; it's actually one of the more polished and better looking TPS of the generation (at least early generation) and its changes from RE4 are not haphazardly implemented (including a real-time inventory system).

I think the strongest point you've made is one that's already been stated and agreed upon, that RE5 is very much an extension of RE4 and it's based on that foundation (much like RE2 is based on RE1, and so on). However, you seem to be trying establish a difference within that between the two games with your specific examples of RE4 set pieces, but RE5 didn't exactly lack that sort of design in the slightest (unsurprisingly, given what has just been said). Going from entirely by memory, I can almost think of a counterpart for every one of your examples in RE5. To give at least one example, in the case of an area with traps and ambushes I think back to the C4 lines and dogs at or after the early rail yard area. Yes, RE4 does introduce a wide range of enemies over time and reuse them in interesting ways, but so does RE5 and a lot of other good games. Additionally, I think people seem to be overlooking that RE5 had its relatively quiet, slower moments, insofar RE4 is a "quiet" game (not really, not compared to older Resident Evils at least). Fewer jump scares and gothic castles though.

A reasonable conclusion is that RE5 lacked some novelty that RE4 had in its enemy archetypes and set pieces, which is fair, but I don't believe that betrays a lack of understanding. So then my problem is people are making a rather pretentious claim that "RE5 doesn't understand RE4" when all they mean is "I don't like co-op over isolation" and "I wish it had more novelty".

 

[Kadey]

I didn't like Wesker going from a cool and calculated villain to your typical moron bent on world destruction.

 

[badcrumble]

I didn't like Wesker going from a cool and calculated villain to your typical moron bent on world destruction.

It was even worse for him to go from being a corpse to being an alive bullet-time cliché anime dude so all in all it's a good thing that that situation got corrected.

 

[brandonh83]

I didn't like Wesker going from a cool and calculated villain to your typical moron bent on world destruction.

That was before he started getting jacked up on viruses and shit. It seemed like a natural progression after the events of CV.

 

[Rize]

...shits on RE4? yeah... no. Let's just end that statement right here and now cause that is 100% inaccurate.

 

[Rentahamster]

Fuck that stupid El Giante arcade shooter boss "fight".

-Only looked to RE4 on a superficial level while demonstrating a failure to understand what made it great.

Yes yes yes.

 

[dragonzdogma]

It had a silly weapon and currency system,sometimes you could dupe weapons by saving and restart campaign.

I think the game was compromised by the coop system in certain aspects.

all in all I had blast,but like most people here I think we all wanted re5 to surpass re4 in every aspect.

if the had done the game more like that mansion dlc,things would have been different for sure. That dlc was awesome.

 

[PensOwl]

Really, other than than the presentation (which was better in RE4), the del Lago fight and the El Gigante fight in RE5 are pretty much mechanically the same, except the del Lago fight is even more boring because all you're doing is endlessly throwing harpoons at a dark blob. You can't really point to RE5's El Gigante fight as a showpiece of RE5's terribleness when comparing the two games.

Also, Salazar's boss fight is worse than any other between the two. It's just sitting in a corner pressing qtes and unloading on his face. That's it.

 

[bishopcruz]

The key difference between RE4 and RE5 is that RE4 felt more explorish while RE5 was a lot more stage based. Sure RE4 broke up the action into chapters, but the whole game felt like a very inter connected area that you could backtrack around. RE5 on the other hand felt like a straight shot, the most you progressed the more you felt like you ditched the last area completely. You went from a town to oil fields to a swamp to a tribal village to temple ruins to a lab to a boat to a fucking volcano.

I guess a lot people disliked that change which is very understandable but it's not a real fault. If you ask me there are only three areas where RE5 failed massively, atmosphere, inventory management and the fact that playing it solo is just less fun than playing it co-op.

Amazed that a) it took so long for this to be mentioned and b) that it's barely been touched on again.

What drove me NUTS about RE5 was this stage based design. The game plays better, it is fun in coop, and until the gun toting enemies, I was really onboard. But man even from the beginning the sense of physical progression is just non-existent, the chapter based progression just fails for me because it doesn't feel like I'm on a journey at all, it feels like I am going through the village stage, the swamp stage, the ruins stage, the factory stage, and so on. It doesn't work. While RE4 ramped up the action, it kept, at its core that same feel of progression from earlier games. In RE1 you explored one large environment but, which had a lot of sub-environments. But there was progression. RE2 did an even better job of this moving you from the city, to the police station, to the underground, to the sewers, to the tram, to the lab, to the train. All of it felt like a logical progression. Every game followed that template. RE5 wanted none of that. Each chapter felt wholly distinct, and even the sup chapters never felt all that well connected. It worked great for coop, because you could jump in at any point, but it was horrible at building tension, because each environment was so cut off from everything that had come before it.

That is why RE5 was a worse game than its predecessors. It controlled better, hell individual set pieces were often better, and the co-op felt great when it worked. But you lost so much in creating that functionality.

 

[Despera]

Nothing. It's a fantastic game. More so than Resident Evil 4 which is overrated.

Yep, no doubt about it now... First post GAF is dead.

The mere thought of comparing RE5 to RE4 is nauseating.

 

[Silky]

One of the reasons why I enjoy Resident Evil 5 more than RE4 is that RE4 had an issue with item management. Thought I can praise the shit out of the briefcase system, it doesn't exactly add to the tension when I can continue to increase the capacity of my briefcase to lug around even more items and weapons to blow away the AI. I like RE5's 7-slot system. No space restrictions by blocks but at the same time you have that option of choosing wether you want to waste space on weapons instead of items/ammo and vice/versa. The game can punish you for picking up too much ammo and can clutter your inventory space when you find something worthwhile like one of the hidden weapons, or health. (Especially in something as critical as playing on Professional difficulty.)

Gunplay is better in RE5. RE4's hit reactions were good for an introductory game in that playstyle but RE5 exceled above and beyond it while still holding strong to that 'stop and shoot' mantle. There were much more enemy reactions. The AI used the idea of 'bobbing under your shot so their faces won't get blown off' more. Weapon fire didn't feel as flimsy as four did. Stun Rod is AMAZING. <3

RE5 is a better looker, but I'll admit the environment design was trash up until the catacombs/labs. Enemy design...ehh.

I couldn't care less for the story of RE up until RE5 where the game actually gave a damn at recapping past events with it's timeline.

It's a cooperative game. You could argue that RE isn't meant to be a cooperative game, let alone multiplayer, but there were two games that released before it that proved that isn't the case. Would they have more segments in RE akin to the light in the caves segment, or the separated buildings segment, it would be a better RE game with co-op. You can do isolation/overpowering in co-op. 5 wasn't the game for it, nor was 6 unfortunately.

As a survival action game, like RE4 up to RE6 are. (they aren't survival horror anymore. RE4 was never survival horror.) RE5 is superior to RE4.

 

[braves01]

I was lucky enough to play through the whole thing with a buddy---and it was great. I've got good memories of the experience.

I totally understand not liking it as much as 4 if you don't someone else to run through co-op with though, and even with another person, item management was a bitch.

 

[Cpt Conifer]

Too much easy access to the shop killed most of the enjoyment. Iirc you could access a shop just by quitting and reloading, and money was never an issue regardless of the difficulty mode.

Insanely fucking stupid oversight. Almost as stupid as how quickly you get access to weapons that break the game.

 

[Currygan]

hated the co-op centric gameplay, personally. Killed all the remaining horror feel that was there after RE4

 

[Pejo]

Resident Evil 4 and 5 are really hard to go back to gameplay wise after Dead Space 1, for me. Tank controls are just such a hindrance in a full 3D environment. The AI wasn't great, but if you managed to play through the game Co-Op, it was a really good time. I enjoyed it slightly more with the Move enabled GOLD version. I really liked Sheva as a character as well.

I'm currently playing through RE6, and what a total shitfest it is. I start every mission with a "I hope this mission is over soon" view. That tells me I should just stop playing and uninstall it, but because I spent money on it and it's a mainline RE, I'm forcing myself to play it. I had a much better time with RE5 than RE6 (so far).

 

[Curufinwe]

Fuck that stupid El Giante arcade shooter boss "fight".

Especially on Professional.

 

[GuardianE]

Especially on Professional.

It was the one fight where having a co-op partner was a liability.

 

[Robot Carnival]

can you jump in directly with a friend at all? I never figure out how to online co-op with a friend on PS3 when I was playing it (seems to only be able to connect with randoms when I try the online co-op option) which ended up woth me giving up on the game due to the terrible AI.

 

[ArkkAngel007]

All of this is still caring too much about a name/brand. So what? This string of words is now being used this way instead of that way. Maybe General Mills decides to push a candy bar line; okay, so what? Resident Evil (which in itself is just a localization name) could be called fucking Cheerios and it wouldn't matter when you are actually playing the thing. It wouldn't matter that other things called Cheerios exist (just like it doesn't matter other things called Biohazard exist). It is just a brand, a label because sold products need labels. People got attached to the title because they liked the game experience, but the title remains the least important face of that experience. Important to the product and merchandise, but not the experience, which itself is what made the title have any relevance. To have this fairly natural phenomenon of becoming attached to a phrase associated with the enjoyed experience supersede the process of enjoying experiences is, exactly as I said, decadent and backwards. It's the fetishization of the gaming process by people who spend an absurd amount of time talking about videogames (and since this is GAF, probably not enough time playing them). Taking a step back and looking at this is all it takes to realize how silly it all is. Fanboys need to be more self-aware about their fetishes.

I agree that a title is the least important factor. But outside of co-op, what improvements have been brought to the series with 5 and 6 to benefit the franchise? How has that gameplay translated to better sales that couldn't be explained by the massive marketing campaigns of those titles?

I get it, you seem to like 5 and 6 more than the old games. But it comes down to more than 'fanboys' talking more about games than playing them, no matter how much you want to spin it that way. I would have liked 5 more than 4 possibly if it went its own direction more and was polished up compared to what we received. But it wasn't, and thus sits with 6, CV, and Zero as my least favorite main-line entries.

can you jump in directly with a friend at all? I never figure out how to online co-op with a friend on PS3 when I was playing it (seems to only be able to connect with randoms when I try the online co-op option) which ended up woth me giving up on the game due to the terrible AI.

It's been so long that I don't remember, and I think that was my first plat on the PS3. Should just be able to go to your friends list, open up the menu on their name, and join game.

You and whoever you're playing with also need to make sure your co-op options are set in a way to allow people to jump in and out. Should at least be an open option and an invite only option.