• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Are there any games with better pacing than Resident Evil Remake?

C

Crimsonclaw111

Member
I gotta say, blasted through this game again after a year (been playing it for like a decade though) and the level design is still top notch. I remember my first play through lasting like 14 hours, and my most recent run was 1:46.

It's incredible that an average first play through can last about 10 hours, but a perfect run can be cut down to under three hours easily. The pacing is unrivaled.

Souls and Metroid are the only contenders to perfect world design and pacing imo.
 
My personal favorite is Portal 2 in this aspect.

I must have finished it at least 10 times by now. And still come back to it.
 
Haha, I immediately came in the thread thinking Resident Evil 4, and lo and behold it's everywhere. That game has the pacing perfected.

I also feel like Uncharted (each of 'em) has the best pacing for a big set-piece action game. The brief moments of serenity are placed in just the right spots.

And Metroid's my absolute favorite series out there, but it'd be hard to vouch for its pacing since it's so open, and the way you play affects the way the events are paced. For instance, some people hated the artifact hunt at the end of Prime for breaking up the exciting Mines with the ending, while others appreciated it as an extension of the exploration they'd already been doing.
 
REmake pacing is terrible, because once
zombies started to come back alive
I was too scared to leave the save rooms.

Binary Domain has pretty great pacing, probably the only game in the last decade where I immediately started a new game the moment I was done. Only the walking/talking portions slow the game bit a down on subsequent plays, but when you know what to do they're over pretty quickly.
 
Firebrand said:
REmake pacing is terrible, because once
zombies started to come back alive
I was too scared to leave the save rooms.

Binary Domain has pretty great pacing, probably the only game in the last decade where I immediately started a new game the moment I was done. Only the walking/talking portions slow the game bit a down on subsequent plays, but when you know what to do they're over pretty quickly.
Click to expand...
You gotta finish those zombies off for real.

Face your fears!
 
Some of the best pacing in an RPG ever.


latest
 
All the Souls games? Like you can tackle it however you want, infact you can finish the whole game very quickly without levelling up or take over 60 hours and become a god doing so. That sorta freedom seems like good pacing to me.

I second Dead Space 1 & 2 and also RE4. All these games are in my top 10 GOAT lol. I have good taste...
 
Resident Evil 2 has some damn good pacing, and if they can somehow manage to do all the things right with REmake 2 that they did with REmake, then REmake 2 will be the epitome of pacing for me.

I always see Resident Evil 4 pop up in the "perfect pacing" conversation. In my opinion, RE4's pacing takes a huge dive after the end of the village, and turns into borderline excruciating territory to drag through once it hits the island. The game starts on a really high note, but the longer it goes on, the worse it becomes. That'd be the exact opposite of perfect pacing to me.
 
ugh_the_boot said:
All the Souls games? Like you can tackle it however you want, infact you can finish the whole game very quickly without levelling up or take over 60 hours and become a god doing so. That sorta freedom seems like good pacing to me.

I second Dead Space 1 & 2 and also RE4. All these games are in my top 10 GOAT lol. I have good taste...
Click to expand...
Souls is at the bottom of my OP :)
Persona7 said:
It is always a slog when you get to the laboratory section.
Click to expand...
Disagree, it can be finished in less than twenty minutes and is still easy even when playing normally.

The only part I'd say that sucks would be carrying the nitroglycerin, as it can cause a sudden game over if you aren't careful.
 
It's definitely one of the best packed games ever. Many of its rivals are in the same series (RE2,3, and the GOAT 4).

Uncharted 2 is almost flawlessly paced apart from some stuff at the beginning and end.

Evil Within has great pacing too outside of some annoying forced walking parts, Mikami sticking to his RE4 play book of constantly throwing new shit at you for 15+ hours in everything from enemies and environments to level and encounter design.

nkarafo said:
My personal favorite is Portal 2 in this aspect.

I must have finished it at least 10 times by now. And still come back to it.
Click to expand...

Portal 2 does have great pacing. Half Life 2 (particularly Ep 2) is great as well.

Persona7 said:
It is always a slog when you get to the laboratory section.
Click to expand...

Nah. It's still throwing new shit at you there (new atmosphere/environment), the tense nitro setpiece, tyrant, the insect enemies, etc that keep it really fresh feeling, and it's really pretty short so it's just enough of a fresh injection for the climax of the game.
 
At a high level? REmake's pacing is tough to beat. But on a more moment-to-moment gameflow level, I think the unskippable door animations can make navigating the mansion a real slog. Like playing red light/green light when quickly traversing multiple rooms.
 
Ninjimbo said:
Yeah. I played it last year for the third time. 30+ hours and I was never bored.

TP is a masterpiece.
Click to expand...

I thought this was a thread about pacing though, doesn't Twilight Princess open with like a 2+ hour long forced tutorial section?
 
The Xtortionist said:
At a high level? REmake's pacing is tough to beat. But on a more moment-to-moment gameflow level, I think the unskippable door animations can make navigating the mansion a real slog. Like playing red light/green light when quickly traversing multiple rooms.
Click to expand...
The PC version has a door skipping mod that's absolutely fantastic and makes the game even better (thanks Sectus).
 
RE4 and Portal are ones that stick out

-MD- said:
I thought this was a thread about pacing though, doesn't Twilight Princess open with like a 2+ hour long forced tutorial section?
Click to expand...

yea, the first 2 hours or w/e are the opposite of good pacing
 
Resident Evil 4! Or at least equal.

Also Chrono Trigger. It tells a complete, epic story with plenty of twists in less than 20 hours. It is completely devoid of filler.
 
-MD- said:
I thought this was a thread about pacing though, doesn't Twilight Princess open with like a 2+ hour long forced tutorial section?
Click to expand...
No. It opens with Link helping out people in his village and then getting turned into a wolf and escaping from a weird alternate version of Hyrule. The game takes you to like 5 different places where you're doing different things in the first few hours.
 
Ninjimbo said:
No. It opens with Link helping out people in his village and then getting turned into a wolf and escaping from a weird alternate version of Hyrule. The game takes you to like 5 different places where you're doing different things in the first few hours.
Click to expand...

The tutorial ends when you get out of the gate and that takes like two to five hours. Not admitting that the part is just an overly long tutorial is just being in denial (and I do love TP)
 
I couldn't get into remake, since I got into RE with 4, and the old style controls weren't for me.

In terms of games with good pacing, I think Uncharted 2 is really solid.
 
Evil Within has incredibly varied combat encounters and areas but I wouldn't place the actual pacing with the best as the chapter to chapter progression doesn't feel as seamless as it should be at times (if you remove chapters 6, 11 and 12 then it would actually flow much better; keep the swimming and factory from chapter 11 intact though).
 
PetriP-TNT said:
The tutorial ends when you get out of the gate and that takes like two to five hours. Not admitting that the part is just an overly long tutorial is just being in denial (and I do love TP)
Click to expand...

I also like to bring up the owl statue hunt and Illa's memory thing too. That broke the pacing of the game a little, at least in my perspective. Felt like a last minute addition when Nintendo realize that the rod was completely useless outside the dungeon you got it from.

TheRedSnifit said:
Resident Evil 4
Click to expand...

I have to disagree. The Island sequence felt really poorly paced. The game ramped up to a Rambo shooting fest at the halfway point after the greatness that was the island's labs. At that point, it felt like the story was giving up and just saying, "let's get this over with already". I think the Island dragged on a bit too much as well, they should have cut Mike's section and a couple of those horde rush sections.
 
RE4 was too long IMO, the moment to moment pacing WAS good mostly throughout but I feel like it could have lost several sequences and been even tighter. In that regard I think the remake is easily superior.
 
RE4 is a damn good contender but some parts of the Island section drag like a motherfucker. IMO Remake has far better pacing.
 
PetriP-TNT said:
The tutorial ends when you get out of the gate and that takes like two to five hours. Not admitting that the part is just an overly long tutorial is just being in denial (and I do love TP)
Click to expand...
I consider all of that the opening to the game. Tutorial is strictly a section where you're literally being taught and nothing else is going on. Like the tutorial in the first Assassin's Creed where you're just going over the mechanics step by step.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Resident Evil 4 Remake coop mod
Trailer Indie 
1
120
Soodanim replied
Resident Evil: Veronica (Code Veronica Remake) Announced
News  5 6 7 8 9
427
1K
Soodanim replied
LTTP: Resident Evil 2 Remake
LTTP  2
85
2K
NeverYouMind replied
Resident Evil 1 Remake in development
Rumor  2 3 4 5
214
3K
Generic replied
Resident Evil: Veronica has been wishlisted more than 1,000,000 times in less than a week.
2
61
508
Esppiral replied
Top Bottom