Jawmuncher
Member
The Resident Evil franchise is an interesting beast. I can't think of any other mainline series that has the same legacy and drastic changes Resident Evil has had. It's especially interesting the divide it caused between it's fanbase. While simplifying it to just Horror vs Action doesn't cover everything. These two groups seem like the biggest piece of the pie.
Using the last two games as an example. With RE6 you had a breaking point of a lot of people being tired of action at that point. Feeling RE6 was ramping it too far up and losing the horror. While with RE7 you have a lot of people feeling it doesn't have enough action (from what has been shown) and relying too heavily on horror for it's appeal. What doesn't help matters is that both groups having very strong feelings towards their preferred style.
"RE4-6 aren't real resident evil games because they don't have the feel of earlier games" or "RE7 isn't a real RE game because it's vastly different from 4-6, or even 1-3 (Depending on who you ask)". Which gives absolutely no breathing room for any real discussion outside "My RE is better than your RE". This isn't to say we all should like every RE game that comes out. Especially with this divide capcom has made, you're never going to appeal to everyone with one game.
But I do feel that the fanbase in general should have a better understanding on why certain fans like the games they do. No one should be shunned because they prefer the later games to the earlier ones and vice versa. At the end of the day it was the combined efforts of both fanbases that made RE into what it is today. Who's to say that RE would still be around if 4 didn't happen and bring in new fans. Who's to say the series would have a healthy future if it didn't try to go back to it's horror roots.
Both fanbases have more in common than they think, especially considering the fact that they love this franchise in their own way. No one is in the wrong for what they like, and if anything should be argued, it should be how best to tell capcom how they can take care of the divided fanbase they created. I will say right now anyone who says that the series has to be One style over the other (whether action or horror) doesn't have an opinion worth listening to.
This series is big enough, and has gone through so much that it can appeal to everyone in a sense. Will one game unify everything? No, as I said earlier. But there's simple ways of pleasing both fanbases. With action make the revelations series (or a new subtitle), the flagship for that. Hell, originally Revelations was supposed to be the series to appeal to horror fans. Doing 180s is nothing new for capcom. There's a huge fanbase for the Character Action Melee Systems 4-6 provided. The sales and popularity of those games is evidence enough of that.
With classic and horror fans let capcom go with whatever they seem to be doing with RE7. Can't really say much since it's not out yet, but they seem to be pleasing that crowd quite well if the reactions are any indication. Then along with that you have REmake 2 coming, which should appeal to them as well. but I understand where somehorror fans are coming from. They were essentially left in the dark for like 12+ years, but it wasn't the fault of action fans. Capcom for whatever reason just took so long to feel the need to appeal to horror full on again. But even with that, it doesn't make "I suffered, so now it's your turn". As I keep saying, there's more than enough room to unify this divided fanbase, if capcom cares to listen.
I hope it sheds a little light to the fanbase. Even if it's just to those on Neogaf. As I said, i'm not saying we all need to like the same RE games and style. But we should be more unified in our love of the franchise, and wanting to see the divided fanbases (Both of which are credited to the series becoming as large as it has) pleased.
