Replaying the Resident Evil series

[chris on the moon]

Resident Evil 5 (Gold Edition)  (2009)

I've got strong memories about how I felt about RE5 when it was released. After 4 proved to be the absolute best thing ever, it's fair to say that a few people were quite interested in a sequel. But as more details were released, lots of slightly concerning details came out. Most notably, Shinji Mikami left Capcom. Could the game thrive without its creator or would it just limp on like a soulless zombie?  We started to see screenshots and were perplexed by Chris' big muscles. Then there was the racism controversy, where we all pointed out that obviously those weren't really men in the videos, they were monsters controlled by parasites, so it was all fine and racism wasn't an issue. Then it turned out the game was co-op only, co-op having become a big thing at this point in time. Maybe because of Gears of War and Halo 3?  
Personally, when 5 came out I was massively disappointed and decided that the “real” Resident Evil series was over. That said, I definitely played it quite a lot, so I must have gotten some enjoyment out of it. I'm sure that this time I can just set my expectations low and enjoy it for what it is, and settle down for some stupid slightly frustrating fun.
But oh no, we're off to an appalling start. I am outraged to find the game is trying to install games for windows live, a horrible service that died about a decade ago because everyone hated it. I can't get around it, the game just won't launch. I have to resort to installing a dodgy looking patch from a link in someone's steam comment. It works fine though and the games starts.

 Welcome to Africa! It's war-torn, the government is destabilised, and there are terrorist hotspots everywhere, obviously. I immediately remember that this is the game where the radio constantly farts obnoxiously.

The controls are a stark change from RE4. This ime I've decided that I'm going to try and get used to the default controls instead of changing them immediately to RE4 style controls. I give up after 5 minutes, they're dreadful and make no sense. Tilting the left stick left or right is either strafe or turn depending on whether you're running. It's baffling. I change back to the RE4 style controls, which means I don't get to strafe at all.

The graphics are quite nice but there's a nasty green/brown filter over everything. It's quite cinematic I guess. The interface is pretty ugly. The two fonts are one that looks like a typewriter and one that looks a bit like papyrus (see the bottom right corner of screenshots).

 

The item management is much worse than previous games. There's no combining treasures, there's arranging the items tetris-style in a case. The player and the partner both have only have 9 slots for items, throughout the whole game. My inventory was constantly full and it was a constant pain managing everything. I often just didn't have the right weapon for the job. The game doesn't pause for the inventory, which seeme like a deliberate decision so that it's a lot more stressful to use items. Oddly, though, you're back to being able to reload weapons by combining ammo and weapon on the inventory screen, meaning it's possible to cheat and reload very quickly.
The merchant is sorely missed.

 

The dialogue is awful, it's po-faced and serious, and fails to be funny or dramatic or cheesy. You shout “RELOAD!” every time you reload. Chris says things like “Zombies! I'm always fighting them!”

 

The music is often really annoying. It's repetitive and tries too hard to be tense.

 

Some of the enemy designs are pretty boring and feel uninspired. Some of them are pale imitations of their RE4 counterparts, and some of the new enemies aren't interesting. There's one guy who is just a bald shirtless fat guy. There's a man who is really big (but not that big). A lot of these enemies are real bullet sponges too, which feels cheap. A lot of the combat, to me, feels either too easy or too difficult.
There's the welcome return of the lickers, which creep inexorably down corridors this time. It's a fun dynamic. Then there's the new “reapers”, bug things with cool sight obscuring effects and big bulging weak-spots. I like these.
 Several of the bosses are absolutely dreadful, and it's very unclear what you're supposed to be doing and if you're succeeding.

 

The level design of the first few stages really disappoints me. It's  a lot of cramped areas with right angles, little labyrinths where I'm endlessly walking around corners.
For the first half of the game I feel like I enter an empty area, then oh no, enemies appear. We kill them all and move on. It's quite repetitive. It's not like resident evil 4, which was just a series of brilliant and unique set-pieces.

I remembered liking the swamp bit. And ohhh dear. This sort of thing looks quite bad.

There's a diary entry that says they've started dressing up like their ancestors, but I'm not buying it. I feel like the devs just wanted spear chucking grass skirt tribal savages and thought of an excuse afterwards.
 This is, however, the area where we get access to eggs. The game allows players to ask their partners for an egg. They say “gimme an egg”. It's a great game mechanic that I really appreciate.

I enjoy the later levels a lot more than the earlier ones. The lost city is really fun, even if it feels a bit weird to loot archaeological treasures.

The ship is good too, despite looking quite ugly.

There's a weird bit later on in the game where it turns into a cover shooter, and starts to feel a bit gears of war. I get a sense that gears had an unreasonably big influence on this.

 

I strongly dislike the focus on co-op, which feels like it comes and goes. There are a few bits where I felt like I was missing out by playing alone, and a lot of time where it felt totally like a single-player experience. The AI is often really frustrating. You have two options for AI behaviour – Cover and Attack. Cover means your partner sticks to your side and never uses anything but the handgun. Attack means your partner runs away, wastes a lot of ammo and is then killed. AI partners will never, ever use explosives as far as I can tell. If you're playing as Sheva, your view is switched (which is very disorienting) – but I also think the AI was programmed to stand to your left side. Which means they're out of the way if you're Chris, but block all your shots and gets in the way if you're Sheva.
There's one particularly aggravating boss where Sheva suggests that we attack from both sides, sandwiching the enemy in a sort of pincer movement. It's a great idea, which makes it frustrating that she absolutely won't do this and just runs around uselessly.
I do remember having a good time when I played through in genuine co-op with a friend, but that was a long time ago, and who has friends willing to play through re5 with them now? Or friends at all for that matter?

 

There's quite a long section that's an on-rails shooter. It's quite depressing as you slaughter lots of men and destroy lots of motorbikes.

 

I often feel like the game taunts me with things I'm not going to do. The best example is a bit where you meet a giant (el gigante from RE4). The first time I was really excited to fight it, and then was appalled to discover you don't fight it at all, but just get back on the car to shoot at it with the mingun.

 

Story wise, it's OK but there's a lot of  retconning and unnecessary detail. Like the file that explains how Umbrella needed to buy irrigation pumps. There are also unlockable files where you can read backstory. Far too much of it. 30+ pages of this shit for each entry. We learn shocking facts like how Sheva used to do the shopping. Or there's this dreadful shit that tells us medicine is now an integral part of medicine.

Wesker's back, and yes, he's full of shit and constantly drones on about nonsense. There are some other people being mysterious and conspiratorial, like this weirdo who sounds like Meowth.

 

Wesker talks far too much, and is in far too many boss fights. There's one where he says “Seven minutes. That's all the time I have to play with you”, which always amused me at how blatantly it exposes the game mechanics.
The final fight with him is horrible, though I do like it when he shouts “Chriiiiis!” Again the AI is really unhelpful, it's unclear what you're supposed to do, and there's lots of instant death and unskippable cutscenes.
The game is over quite abruptly really. I didn't want more, just the story and gameplay arc didn't feel like it went anywhere. There was a beginning, middle and end, but I didn't really feel like I was invested in any of it or that anything was developed much.

 

Once the main game ends there's a lot more content.

There are 30 BSAA emblems in the game to find and shoot, like the blue medallions in 4 or the handprints in revelations. You absolutely will not find most of them without a guide even if you're looking for them.

There's a great version of mercenaries, and the mercenaries reunion. If anything there's too much here. Many character loadouts and stages. I feel a bit fatigued having already played this extensively and the mercenaries 3d on the 3ds which was very similar. If you haven't already had enough, it's a very good version.

 

I try desperate escape, which was originally paid DLC. I have no memory of whether it was any good. You play as Jill, which means horrible men flirt with you all the time.

It's fairly challenging, with some fairly normal combat punctuated by intensely difficult choke-points. You're constantly getting knocked off your feet, which is very annoying. The scenario culminates in a timed survival showdown (which feels a bit mercenaries). I perform terribly and die several times but am awarded an S rank.

 

I try Lost in Nightmares, which I remember being fun. It's set in a mansion that is very similar to the one from RE1. There are door opening animations, and even a hidden static camera mode, which is fun but impractical and ends after the first section. 

The best thing about this scenario  is that it's reminiscent of RE1. The worst thing about this is that it's entirely reliant on being reminiscent of RE1. There's moonlight sonata again. There's a copy of the keeper's itchy tasty diary purely for nostalgia's sake. How and why could that have possibly be brought here?
In more exciting news, Lost In Nightmares marks the return of the mysterious urinal with toilet roll dispenser beside it, previously seen in RE4.

The main story beats were covered by the main campaign, but there is some more detail here, mostly told through some excruciatingly dull diary entries from a boring butler.
There's not much combat. There is one kind of enemy, which is pretty creepy, but slow-moving and another bullet-sponge. I get killed and am shocked to discover there are no continues. Later I discover that there are continues and I must have been mashing the wrong button.
This scenario feels a bit padded out, when there's a puzzle that's repeated 4 times.
It ends with another utterly dire boss fight with Wesker. Again he just dodges all your bullets and zooms about and kicks your ass. At least he's quiet this time.

 

I have another go at the campaign, as Sheva, to see if I've missed anything much and if I'm less disappointed when I know what to expect. Yes, I guess so. There's a lot of good stuff in here. Mainly that it's trying to be more of Resident Evil 4 and uses the same engine. But I'm always impressed at the amount of stuff they've managed to fuck up, and how many obviously wrong decisions they seem to have made.
I think, in the end, it's about one third brilliant game, one third padding, and one third stupid shit.
Next, a game I know nothing about.

[Anne Summers]

I remember playing this and my main impression was that it was just more Resi4 but worse set pieces and level design. Always wanted to give the mansion DLC a go but never got round to it.

[christaylor]

I loved RE5 at the time, though as said the experience was elevated significantly by playing through the whole thing in co-op with a friend. Am tempted to pick it up for a re-run now.

[Garwoofoo]

RE5 is fine as a game but there's no getting away from the fact that it is very, very racist. There's a bit right near the start where you need to rescue an innocent-looking white woman from a big insane-looking black man like it's still the 1930s and no amount of blathering about parasites makes that stuff all right. There's the bit with the spear-chucking stereotypes that @chris on the moon mentions. You can tell Sheva is the Good African because she's light-skinned, not like all those other ones. And so on.

 

I'm sure it's more reflective of Japanese cultural ignorance than outright racist intent, but as a game it was really dodgy back in 2009 and I'm sure it looks even worse these days. It's the one Resident Evil game I can't see myself ever replaying.

[dumpster]

I remember enjoying Resident Evil 5 back in the day and completing it.  Completing the game opens up a level select and I flicked through and realised there wasn't a single level I wanted to play again.  

 

I did enjoy one of the DLCs, it was good fun to speedrun.  Not the one that starts in the mansion, the other one. 

[ianinthefuture]

59 minutes ago, Garwoofoo said:

RE5 is fine as a game but there's no getting away from the fact that it is very, very racist. There's a bit right near the start where you need to rescue an innocent-looking white woman from a big insane-looking black man like it's still the 1930s and no amount of blathering about parasites makes that stuff all right. There's the bit with the spear-chucking stereotypes that @chris on the moon mentions. You can tell Sheva is the Good African because she's light-skinned, not like all those other ones. And so on.

 

I'm sure it's more reflective of Japanese cultural ignorance than outright racist intent, but as a game it was really dodgy back in 2009 and I'm sure it looks even worse these days. It's the one Resident Evil game I can't see myself ever replaying.

Journos were asked not to talk about those bits at the time - I think in reviews, but definitely in previews. Capcom's UK PR team wasn't particularly happy with the content, I don't think, and while it is CENSORSHIP ALERT THE INTERNET etc etc, I understand their position. Not like they could change the content of the game.

 

Regardless, it is very racist.

[dumpster]

Lee Ryan from Blue loves it.  

[chris on the moon]

Resident Evil Revelations : 2 (2015)

 

I guess now I'm not replaying the resident evil series, just playing a game that I've never played before. I know nothing about this game except for who the main characters are. That's usually not a good sign. What could this possibly be about?
In the past I'd thought about buying this but didn't, because I was very, very put off by the way it was sold. It was sold as 4 episodes and a confusing array of DLC. It seemed like a daunting task just to buy the basic game. But I got it in a bundle, so I'm free of that burden.
Revelations 1 had a blue interface, and revelations 2 has a red interface. Lots of nixie tubes and that sort of thing.
The game beings with a really off-putting video. It feels like a parody, but of what?

Claire and Barry are back, and they're joined by Barry's daughter Moira, and a creepy little girl. Barry sounds a bit different and has been severely Steven Seagald.

He's also voiced by a guy who has been in basically every video game, Michael McConnohie
. I was a bit confused that he was the commander from EDF 4.1 and red faction guerilla in disguise. Thought he might start commanding something.

The first playable part of the game isn't like resident evil at all. It's all abandoned buildings covered in blood. It gave me silent hill vibes, or rather vibes of one of the silent hill ripoff games that we used to get.

Once we leave, we find that we are in an abandoned former soviet bullshit industrial brutalist craphole. As a setting it's OK, but it's unoriginal and doesn't feel like it belongs in RE. Predictably, though, there is a bit with a lab and a bit which looks like a fake mansion.
After playing the first area as Claire I took control of Barry and a mysterious new child friend. It's not too long before I'm exploring the exact same area I just saw as Claire. This dynamic is reused for the whole game. It gets quite boring fast. I like mystery and the joy of exploration and it's cut in half.
There game basically handles like a 3rd person adventure shooter. There are some RPG lite elements like a skill tree and the weapon upgrades from revelations 1. Despite the game feeling like a shooter, bullets and herbs are often quite sparse which can feel really unfair. Stealth attacks can sometimes be used, sometimes not.
The controls are usually pretty smooth, except for when they're really not. I had times where the running direction changed without my input. The inventory is pretty fiddly and very difficult to use in an intense fight.  There's a lot of jank in general, in terms of the animations and how cohesive the game feels. Sometimes the graphics look great, sometimes extremely rough. Compare the textures on this screenshot for example.

Co-op play is back, sort of. You always have 2 characters, and you manually switch between them. One character (Claire or Barry) shoot guns, wheras the younger characters don't. They instead have the (worse) ability to see secret things, resulting in lots of switching back and forth. There's the occasional two-character puzzle. Apparently the game can be played co-op, which I imagine would be really annoying for one player.
Some of the enemies are fun to fight, others quite predictable, others cheap. Some are invisible. No thanks. The enemy design isn't RE like at all. Some enemies remind me of bioshock's splicers, some of Silent hill 2 and 3's mannequins and closers. Some are more like zombies. They all feel heavily influenced by other games. There are a couple of really shitty bosses where it's possible to get stuck in an unwinnable situation if you're not suitably prepared, which feels inevitable if you're playing for the first time.

 I often felt like I was playing a fan game. Made by fans of different games.

A lot of the music follows the Super Hans philosophy.

The story is deranged and all over the place. There are so many different virus variations and so much mangled history it's difficult to care. There's so much that doesn't make sense that you quickly stop questioning it. There's a lot of Kafka stuff, especially on the loading screens. There's no satisfying reason for this. One character has written one diary entry saying that they've read Kafka and they liked it. That seems to be it.
There are a lot of references to older RE games. Some of them are amusing in a cheesy way, some of them feel like a desperate attempt to legitimize an obvious spinoff.
The “previously on...” cutscenes are back, which is  helpful if you want to be reminded what happened in the boring story. Interestingly, one of the cutscenes that you see every single time is of some men running away from monsters. One of them yells “Mother of balls! My life is awesome!”. Much of the rest of the dialogue is similarly embarrassing.
The game isn't too long, but with the amount of reused areas it does overstay its welcome by the end. There are multiple endings, and I got the bad one. I wasn't willing to try and work out how to get the good ending myself, so I googled the solution. It turns out in the 3rd episode (of 4) instead of doing what the game prompted me to do I should have done the wrong thing. Total piss take.
 The good ending does come with an extra boss, too.
After the main game I try the two single player DLCs. The struggle is more combat focused, with a lot of defending against wave after wave of enemy. There is almost no story. You accompany the old man who is trying to find out what happened to his daughter who is definitely dead. Spoiler alert, she's dead. I do not recommend playing this. The best thing about this mode is the image you get for completing the scenario, which I have put in a spoiler below. I have not edited this image.

 

Spoiler

The other DLC, Little miss, is more weird and unique. It's a sneaky stealth game, with lots of instadeath. It feels a bit like sneaking in to hyrule castle in ocarina of time. I hate stealth games, but managed to get through this. It's quite short, and story-wise it raises more questions than it answers.
I realise that I've been relentlessly negative in this write-up, but the game is honestly fine. It's fine, it's OK, it's of normal quality. There's just so much about it that feels cheap or annoying or unnecessary, or just plain dumb. Mainly it doesn't feel like a Resident Evil game.

[Haribokart]

I have seen the first movie and only played three Resident Evil games; the original on Saturn, Code Veronica on Dreamcast and 7 on PS4. I did like and finish all three though and wanted you to know @chris on the moon that despite my limited knowledge on the series I have really been enjoying this thread and your detailed posts on the games. Keep it up!

[chris on the moon]

Thanks Haribo! Does that mean you've never played 4 though?

 

I've thought of something nice to say about revelations 2 - a lot of the guns are fun to shoot and some of the subweapons are good fun too.

[chris on the moon]

Resident Evil 6 (2012)

 

I've avoided this game for a decade. By the time this came out Mikami was long gone. Unlike 5, he had no involvement with this at any stage. To me Resident evil was over. I had very low expectations of this game, but I did try the demo. I must have played played it for about 10 minutes. Hated it. Deleted it. Forgot about.

From what I can gather, this game has a reputation of being too long, having a crazy story, and being shit. Also giraffe fellatio.

There was a review I saw a few years later, I think it was by Chuckiedregs, that persuaded me I should give the game a go at some point when it was cheap. But I've waited until it was free with lots of other stuff and I'd played all the other games available.

So here we are.

 

The Intro is dull and slow, but it helpfully explains how you heal, which has been made very complicated for no reason.

Instead of having one campaign, or one campaign with two scenarios, this game has four independent campaigns, with a total of seven playable characters. That may seem like a lot for this kind of game, and it really is!

There are three and a half returning classic characters (Leon, Chris, Ada, Sherry Birkin) and the rest.

I play Leon's campaign first, because it's the first in the list.

Aside from another dull and slow intro, first impressions are pretty good!

This campaign starts in the USA. It looks great, and the setting feels like a classic resident evil or zombie movie. Hunnigan is on the radio again, which is nice. The Radio farts again, which is not nice.

Coming from Revelations 2, this feels really well put together. It's got high production values. It looks excellent for a game that came out on the Xbox 360, and it's obvious that a lot of work was put in to it.

The first level feels quite messy, but I'm enjoying it OK. It's really linear and the combat doesn't feel quite balanced, quite satisfying. But maybe it will get a bit better later?

 

Nope. It's not long into the second chapter when I can't deny any longer that this is complete turd. An unfocussed mess.

I begin to imagine a bunch of people sitting in a boardroom at Capcom, saying, what are we going to do for the next Resident evil? A whole bunch of people come up with different contradictory ideas and then the boss just says “yes! Let's try to do all of that! All at once!”

 

There are so many enemies. There are sets of enemies from like four games. There are classic zombies. There are fat zombies and loud zombies like out of left 4 dead. There are fantasy knight zombies in chain mail. There are weird monster zombies that look like kraid. There are humanoids with spider faces whose limbs go big. There are dogs. There are coccoon people. There are funny acorn golem things, there are people made out of a swarm of flies. There are enemies that just look like people, so I can't tell them from my squad - none of them are shooting each other very much, which makes it especially confusing. There are bird things, there are bat things with people hanging off, there are cricket men. There are soldiers from power rangers. It's so incoherent that from minute to minute I'm not sure what game I'm playing.

 

There's basically no puzzles or exploration, it's just a linear combat game, a third person shooter. The guns feel OK, but there's often a scarcity of ammo that feels really unfair, especially when there are a lot of enemies on screen. Weapons can't be bought or upgraded. There is an ability upgrade system, but it's not used much. I'd nearly finished 2 campaigns before I upgraded anything to level 2, and I never earned enough points to upgrade anything to level 3.

I did like how you can just kick everything by pressing the right trigger. I didn't like that sometimes my kicks went through enemies without damaging them, but then they'd hit me.

A lot of the time I didn't feel very much in control. The game often wrestles the camera away from you to show you something. It's sometimes also very unclear what you're supposed to be doing. I kept dying because I thought I was watching a cut-scene when I wasn't.

The player falls over if they get shot, which happens a lot. It takes a while to recover, and you can often just repeatedly knocked down or killed with no chance to recover.

You also often get trapped in areas that are too small so you don't really have a lot of options. Or they're too big so you can just run through enemies.

Quick turn is either missing or doesn't work, I can't tell which.

There's a cover shooting mechanic, but the controls are so finicky and impractical it's better to just avoid using it.

The button prompts come and go sporadically, and I sometimes found it quite hard to get in the right spot to trigger a prompt.

There are QTEs too, which are really sudden and unforgiving. They require near instant reaction. There are some interminable sequences that are so repetitive it feels like a Stewart Lee joke. Like the parts where you need to climb by alternately hitting the left and right triggers. Or the bit where there's just 4 doors in a row and you have to turn the valves on each by rotating the control stick.

There's a “stealth” bit with no instructions. The game doesn't explain that you can't kill some enemies but absolutely must kill others. I died 17 times at this bit.

The inventory is abysmal. It has been so oversimplified that you just scroll through items. It takes forever to do anything and is a pain to use in a fight.

Weirdly, each character has their own different menu interface. See 2 examples below -

One of the most frustrating things is that the game doesn't save when you think it does. Checkpoints are meaningless. Sometimes I'd quit and come back to the exact same place I was, sometimes I'd come back and lose half an hour's progress.

 

Mandatory co-op is back, and as usual the AI is more of a hindrance than a help. They don't seem to be able to die, which is good, but they'll often wander off instead of helping when you're dying, or lag behind when you're trying to rush through an area.

There's also some sort of online functionality, which I didn't use. The main effect on me was that if I didn't turn the online mode off, pausing the game wasn't possible.

 

A lot of the areas look brilliant, particularly the parts in China.

Some areas look really dull and uninspired, like the endlessly brown brown underground brown caves. Some bits are just too dark. Regardless of how good the areas look, the level design is poor throughout. There are a lot of cramped narrow twisty corridors that are really annoying. There are bits where it's unclear where you're going or what you're doing, or bits with big invisible walls and fake doors. There was one bit where I got stuck because I looked at something once, instead of immediately looking at it a second time. There aren't the memorable set pieces of a game like Resident evil 4.

There are several on-rails shooter and vehicle sections. They're all tedious.

There's also a bit where you just sit in a car and look at fog for a bit.

 

The Music is fine, but totally forgettable. It serves its purpose. Weirdly there's a couple of resident evil 4 sound effects that have survived.

 

There are plenty of cutscenes telling the story. They all have intense shakey cam throughout, which is just annoying.

There are a lot of stories.

They are bad.

It's a winning combination of confusing, yet boring.

 

Here's a brief summary of the different campaigns. Moderate spoilers below.

 

Leon is friends with the president. He had to kill the president. He accompanies a woman whose name I have already forgotten to a church. They find people that turn into mossy statues that then shit out clones, and Ada comes out of an egg. Because of this, they go to China. There, Leon finds his nemesis, who is a man named Derek. Derek transforms too much and turns into a big fly. Leon is friends with Ada.

 

Chris is a drunk. He's a mean asshole to everyone for no reason. He is upset about his men. He's obsessed with his men. He's very much a military guy now. He remembers what it was like being in a crappy squad based third person shooter in a non-existent European country. Chris and his men all have to go to China too. Chris is looking for Ada but gets stuck trying to take revenge on an invisible snake that keeps killing his men. Chris then chases Ada onto an aircraft carrier, which leads them to a secret underwater lab where Chris has to kill a big wet man. On the way, Chris has a lot of arguments with his friend whose name I have also forgotten. Basically Chris is grumpy and his friend wants him to keep fighting for the sake of the men.

 

Jake is a money obsessed nihilistic mercenary, and is also Albert Wesker's son. Sherry is the girl from resident evil 2 but all grown up! Jake has the antibodies for whatever the fuck virus this is now. Sherry has an interesting story element to her as well, but that's mentioned once and quickly forgotten about. They are basically trying to get home to America but keep getting captured because they're useless. There's a nemesis sort of thing.

It's invincible and very strong and never gives up, except for when it disappears for ages. The chapters don't follow on very well from each other. Bits of this campaign are identical to Chris' and Leon's campaigns. They are also bits that suck, but what else did they have to choose from? Jake defeats the invincible nemesis by punching him, then shooting him a bit.

 

Ada is exploring a submarine for some reason, then goes to America and China as well to make sure she can see all the bits from everyone else's stories. She runs around saying stupid cocky one-liners that all fall flat. Puzzles are back in her campaign. They range from basic to badly implemented – the kind where you get no feedback as to whether you're doing the right thing. Ada doesn't have any friends so there's no co-op. Most of her campaign is stuff you've already seen, but from the perspective of someone who is further away. Most of the combat can be avoided by simply running through the enemies, so I do. This campaign ends with the exact same boss fight from the Leon campaign.

 

There aren't really any major story revelations when you finish. There's a version of mercenaries, but I don't really enjoy the combat in this game, so I play it once and then uninstall the game forever. Good riddance. It was shit, and it took nearly 24 hours to get through.

 

Next, a scary game.

[chris on the moon]

Resident Evil 7 (biohazard)

 

It's only a couple of years since I first played this. But that was on gamepass and on a previous windows install, so all my progress is gone, so it's a fresh start! Plus, this time I have bought all of the DLC to enjoy!

This game is also the last game in my resident evil to play list, so I feel like I can relax!

My first impression of this game was the demo. I tried that out since I wasn't sure about what it was. What it was was terrifying, and it convinced me that it was probably a good game. It was pretty much the start of the game, though it ended differently.

Anyway, it's a huge tonal shift. It feels very serious. And American! Like a modern Netflix horror drama. And it's first person, which feels much more and immersive, as well as lonely and hostile.

The introduction isn't very interactive, and a little bit walking-sim, but the atmosphere is amazing. The environment is remarkably solid and convincing. The baker house feels like a new classic location like the original RE's mansion, a lot of intricately designed rooms with a lot of character. There's a couple more areas late on the game which aren't as brilliant, but still perfectly good.

But it's not long after the intro before the action starts, and things quickly get ridiculous. You're quickly bamboozled into trying to kill your loved one with an axe, and I'm baffled by Ethan's pain threshold. The violence feels extreme, and it's intensified by the first person viewpoint. I wonder what it'd be like to play in VR. Probably stressful.

The big shift in tone strips away any feelings of familiarity, and left me with no idea what horrible thing was coming next. To begin with, if feels like the horror could be entirely human, or supernatural, but it's not long before the nasty sci-fi monsters come to kill you. They're quite hard to shoot and kill. Mostly they just lumber towards you, wobbling about and avoiding my crosshairs, which is simple but effective.

Unfortunately there's a huge and horrible difficulty spike quite early on in the form of a boss fight. It's way too hard and I died plenty. It's the one part of the game where I got really frustrated and felt like giving up.

And there are a couple of bits where you have to use stealth. I still hate stealth.

There are some cool VHS tapes to find, which let you play as someone who was previously stuck in the baker house. These show you the way forward, and direct you towards a solution – but it's also towards a place where someone died a horrible death. I think these are great.

The game has much more of a focus on exploration than action, which I'm pleased about.

Though most of the game feels very unlike other resident evil games, there's a bit of typical stuff, like herbs, inventory management, and keys with stupid stuff on them. There's also a couple of sound effects from the PS1 games when using the keypads. And a boss with a lot of eyes. That's about as resident evil as it gets.

The shift in story focus works great. Whereas in other games (especially 6) you're involved diretly in massive world-changing events, this time you're a nobody, dealing with other nobodies , just some people whose little lives are on the receiving end of the secret evil plans.

That said, the characters in this game have plenty of character. They're memorable and unique.

The story is helpfully explained very thoroughly and explicitly at the end, even though you've probably figured out what's happening by then.

It's a sensible length and the quality is good throughout. It's refreshing after the endless slog that was 6.

 

As for the DLC – there's a lot of it.

First is a sort of area defense thing where you earn resources and upgrade weapons and traps. This is surprisingly quite a bit of fun despite the simple combat.

 

There's an escape room thing which is very different and engaging, if frustrating. It's a small area with a high amount of detail, densely packed with some really satisfying puzzles. It's worth playing, but I don't think there's any replay value.

 

There's 21, which is literally just a card game – it's just blackjack. It's slow and tortuously drawn out. It feels like I'm participating in the violence and sadism and am supposed to enjoy it. It's shit.

Daughters – a game where you play as Zoe at the beginning of the bad events. It starts with some live action news which I always love. The house is all normal and nice, which sort of shows how absurd the Baker house is as somewhere to actually live. Unfortunately this game is also total shit. It's very unclear what you're doing, with lots of instant death situations. From a story standpoint is just feels really unnecessary. There are two endings, and the actions you need to get the “good ending” are extremely obtuse. I can't imagine anyone will get it without reading a walkthrough.

 

Not a hero – this one is free. It's about Chris Redfield and it's more action oriented. Chris looks weird. He's working with Umbrella, who are apparently good now? Whatever. It's in the mines. Chris is quite fast and has good weapons. This scenario is fiercely average, but not bad by any stretch. There's a bunch of new unique new content at least, including some new areas. It's fairly monotone though.

 

The End of Zoe is presented as being significant standalone content. You play as a new guy, Jack's brother, who is an asshole. He shouts stuff like “Die muddafucker!” and punches everything. Yes, it's a brawler! With occasional stealth and niece carrying sim elements. I'm not a fan of brawlers or stealth, so I'm not thrilled about some of the gameplay in this. The stealth is a little bit more optional though. The swamp setting is cool but unconvincing. The game starts with a stupid misunderstanding which makes you feel quite bad to have to play as this character, and then you must fight the swamp man. Things get wrestlingy. There's something that makes the combat more fun near the end, but it's pretty late in the day. Once again the last boss is a pain. The whole scenario is only approximately an hour and a half long. It's fine, I guess. I'd be pissed if I paid full price for this.

 

Jack's 55th birthday party is next, which is completely Bizarre but surprisingly addictive. I guess it features all the elements I like – weapons that shoot confetti, monsters in silly hats, annoying ragtime music, and rushing around collecting lots of food. I got a few hours enjoyment out of this.

Ethan must die is the last piece of DLC, and it's so impossibly difficult its inclusion seems pointless. I never killed a single enemy.

 

I paid about £12 for all of the DLC together, I think that's as cheap as it gets. Frankly I don't think it was worth it. It's fine, but doesn't offer anything special enough that I'd think you were missing out if you just stuck to the base game. What a base game though!

So there, that's me definitely fully done. When I started I told myself that I wasn't going to buy any more resident evil games, even though VIllage was out. Not even if it was heavily reduced in a steam sale a couple of weeks ago, and the demo was great.

So next: nothing, definitely nothing, because I don't waste all my money on video games.

 

[Yasawas]

Great thread. Despite the sniping at Zero which is secretly quite good really 

 

I'm tempted to replay Code Veronica myself having played CVX on PS2 at launch and being forced to give up at what I think was the final boss due to being armed with only a knife and distinctly meagre skills. I was going to play the Dreamcast version for emulation ease and it seems to have a difficulty setting I don't recall it having on either PS2 or the HD remaster. Am I misremembering this? I just want to reminisce and sightsee my way to completion really so I'm thinking I might play on Easy unless it's comically so. 

[strider]

I’m enjoying this thread. Currently playing Revelations at the moment after discovering I own it on Xbox One 😂

I think Raid mode is amazing. The core game feels far more budget when you move it away from the 3DS.

[bplus]

I've started in resident evil 1 directors cut on ps1 via retro arch swanstation (aka duckstation). I'm trying to find a way to make it not look awful on a 4k oled withough spending all my free time tinkering with settings instead of playing the game!

 

Also I've heard directors cut ruined the music , is this true?

 

I've got the PS4 remake but I'm not playing that as I need save states!!!

[bplus]

Has anyone tried the reshade mods for GameCube dolphin emulator:

https://www.reshdp.com/re2/

[chris on the moon]

On 20/03/2023 at 18:47, Yasawas said:

Great thread. Despite the sniping at Zero which is secretly quite good really 

 

I'm tempted to replay Code Veronica myself having played CVX on PS2 at launch and being forced to give up at what I think was the final boss due to being armed with only a knife and distinctly meagre skills. I was going to play the Dreamcast version for emulation ease and it seems to have a difficulty setting I don't recall it having on either PS2 or the HD remaster. Am I misremembering this? I just want to reminisce and sightsee my way to completion really so I'm thinking I might play on Easy unless it's comically so. 

I think that Zero had a couple of things wrong with it (mainly the plot and the new item/2 character mechanics) but it's absolutely gorgeous and the atmosphere is great. It's not close to the worst games in the series.

As far as I can tell only the Japanese versions of CV had difficulty settings, so it's not something I've ever seen. I think I read that it's one of the games that was made harder for the western release, but I can't actually find any evidence of that.

 

10 hours ago, bplus said:

I've started in resident evil 1 directors cut on ps1 via retro arch swanstation (aka duckstation). I'm trying to find a way to make it not look awful on a 4k oled withough spending all my free time tinkering with settings instead of playing the game!

 

Also I've heard directors cut ruined the music , is this true?

 

I've got the PS4 remake but I'm not playing that as I need save states!!!

I'd just go with the remake, it's a better game in all respects. I don't understand why you'd need save states.

There are two versions of the director's cut. The dual shock version with famously ruined music (sometimes called green label) and, uh, the other one with normal music that's called black label.

[ianinthefuture]

2 hours ago, chris on the moon said:

There are two versions of the director's cut. The dual shock version with famously ruined music (sometimes called green label) and, uh, the other one with normal music that's called black label.

And as of the end of 2021 there's also this hack that makes the definitive PS1 version of the game - rumble compatible, fixes the music, makes the intro full colour/uncensored and some other bits. It's great.

[bplus]

11 hours ago, ianinthefuture said:

And as of the end of 2021 there's also this hack that makes the definitive PS1 version of the game - rumble compatible, fixes the music, makes the intro full colour/uncensored and some other bits. It's great.

That looks interesting, but a lot of work, might see if I can find a pre hacked iso...

 

 

[bplus]

13 hours ago, chris on the moon said:

I think that Zero had a couple of things wrong with it (mainly the plot and the new item/2 character mechanics) but it's absolutely gorgeous and the atmosphere is great. It's not close to the worst games in the series.

As far as I can tell only the Japanese versions of CV had difficulty settings, so it's not something I've ever seen. I think I read that it's one of the games that was made harder for the western release, but I can't actually find any evidence of that.

 

I'd just go with the remake, it's a better game in all respects. I don't understand why you'd need save states.

There are two versions of the director's cut. The dual shock version with famously ruined music (sometimes called green label) and, uh, the other one with normal music that's called black label.

Save states: because being a parent of a 3 year seems to mean I have ten minutes of free time a week! Not enough to find a typewriter...

 

I think I'm playing the non dual shock version, thanks.

[chris on the moon]

Resident Evil 8age (2021)

 

Ok, now I know that this game definitely doesn't begin in retro and arcade gaming, and I'm not replaying anything. But unfortunately it has become part of my mega-playthrough of the entire series, so here it is in this thread.

I've been ill the last couple of weeks, so rather than doing anything useful I've been sat inside alone playing this game. Thankfully it's very good!

 

The intro section was a bit weird and felt in bad taste to me. Chris is evil now. Or rather, I' m sure he isn't and at some point I'll find out why he did this, but he's going to let me believe he's evil for a long time. Which is in itself a dick move.

The introduction is quite long, with a lot of cutscenes. There's a long walk to the village that's very bleak and violent and unsettling. We're soon enjoying Ethan's improbable pain threshold again.

It's already obvious that this is another very beautiful looking game.

I soon meet some enemies. I thought that this game was about vampires, but maybe it's about werewolves? Or both?

This game feels more like gothic fantasy horror rather than sci-fi horror, but I'm certain that there'll be some absolutely nonsensical sci-fi virus explanation of why everything is how it is.

There's a very good bit in the intro where they introduce a bunch of characters all at once, who I immediately know are going to be the bosses in the game.

The big lady is there. That's one of the main things that people talk about in this game, the big lady. She's there and so are her vampire daughters.

There's a small ugly doll. There's Moreau, who is a bit like if Lisa Trevor joined the esoteric order of dagon. I can't understand half of the things he says. Finally there's a Trenchcoat incel who definitely wouldn't have been called Heisenberg if breaking bad didn't exist.

Next I'm trapped in Castle biglady. It feels like a substantial bit of the game. I thought the game was basically going to be Resident evil castle, and the village was just an excuse for the name – but no, while it's a decent length it's not the majority of the game.

Fighting the boss of the castle is the first time playing this game that I'm reminded of anything from the Resident Evil series.

 

Maybe it's time to talk about how this doesn't feel anything like a resident evil game. When I think back to the original games, the original 4 traditional resident evil games, there's absolutely nothing of them in here. The setting, design, gameplay, music, story - everything is totally gone. I hate to use the phrase “jump the shark” because Village is a great game, but it's also the point where absolutely everything I liked about the original Resident Evil series is gone. The only connections are some story elements, but they're pretty far-fetched and the connection between the last few games has been pretty arbitrary.

 

As I exit the castle I collect a flask. I'm told that I need to collect the four flasks, and their locations have been marked on my map. It's pure typical video game nonsense and I love it.

 

Back to the village, and navigating around is a bit of a puzzle in itself, and bits gradually open up as the game progresses.

The village setting is reminiscent of Resi4, and there's a few more elements from that game that have returned. Treasure gathering and combining is back, which I'm pleased about. There's a merchant (no, not him) and attache case item tetris is back! But that's something I never actually had to engage with, and I didn't bother buying the last size upgrade. I used all my items pretty quickly.

 

The Beneviento house is up next, which is very scary and cool. All your weapons are removed, so it's just puzzles, which is a change of pace that I welcome. The house also contains the most horrible thing I've ever seen, so congratulations Capcom!

 

In this game there are lots of cutscenes with lots of action in them, your character is fighting and moving about a lot. I think 15 years ago, they'd all have been packed full of QTEs, but all of the QTEs are gone now. I felt the same thing about the remake of 3.

 

There's a wet lake area, with some cool effects. I liked the puzzle to make a path form over the water.

The villagers have helpfully covered everything that I need to interact with in lots of yellow tape. It's sometimes helpful when I get a bit lost, but always a bit distracting and very garish.

There are quite a few times where I'm not sure why I'm doing things, why I'm interacting with the yellow stuff, but everything tends to work out fine for me in the end.

The tutorial prompts are repetitive and invasive. It took me a long time to turn off, since I was afraid that some new gameplay element was going to get introduced at some point, and I'd need to be tutored in it. It wasn't though, I just kept getting told to craft items and heal myself.

There's lots of crafting again, which I'm ambivalent about. It's freedom I don't particularly want or need. The icons for resources are far too small, I can't see them.

 

As I finish the lake it's clear that the 4 locations I expected to visit, the paths to the 4 flasks – they're getting shorter and shorter.

 

There are lots of secret areas to explore, lots of secret collectibles, lots of treasure. I like this stuff.

There are some marble mazes which are fun. But I soon have more money than I know what to do with. I quite comfortably upgraded all my weapons and I never felt the need to get the last case size upgrade.

 

The last major area reminds me of every single late nineties - mid noughties FPS, some industrial setting with nice graphics.

(Half-Life, Valve, 1998)

This game has a great variety of enemies. Not too few, not too many. They each feel unique in the way they behave and the challenge they offer. Combat has very similar mechanics to 7, but it's massively improved by virtue of all the new enemy types. It basically plays like a good FPS.

Again there are shootable collectibles (goat statues) that I can never figure out why I'm shooting or what the reward is. I don't think I've gotten all of them in any game since 5, and you don't seem to get any reward for shooting any amount other than absolutely all of them.

At the end of the game everything is fucked up, and it makes my PC run a lot more like shit. As is tradition, the last boss is a bit crap. It's a shame since the rest were pretty good this time!

At the end there's a story element that I think gives a hint as to where the series is headed next. I do not care for it at all.

 

 

I got the gold edition, so it's time for the Shadows of Rose DLC, which oddly seems to run worse on my PC than the main game. It's set a few years later, but there's no real sense of time passing.

Rose is looking for a magic crystal in an alternate world. She keeps talking to some disembodied writing – I really hate this for some reason, I'm not sure why.

This scenario mainly uses the same areas that are in the main game, but they're all covered in a Mario Sunshine style goo. Rose has special magic powers, so the combat is slightly different. These powers are a bit of a change, but don't dramatically alter the gameplay.

The enemies do this face sucking thing which looks cool.

There's not a huge amount of what I'd call interesting story, but there is a lot of deep and serious lore about mushroom for you to read.

The second half of the scenario is much better than the first, with some really inventive and creepy scares.

Near the end there's a lot of sentimental stuff which I hate, and the mysterious secret character is revealed to be exactly who you'd expect it to be.

For finishing, you're rewarded with the ending video, which is... completely identical to the post-credits sequence of the main game! Why?! And what the fuck is with the voice of that kid on the bus?! See this video (but stop at about 40 seconds to avoid spoilers) https://youtu.be/0r4E5S33ZlI
Overall the add-on felt like a drop in quality from the main game. It's fine, it's OK, It's not essential.

 

As I was getting towards the end of the Rose DLC, I realise from the way the camera is moving that Ethan doesn't have a face. I thought I knew what his face looked like, but it turns out that I was imagining James from Silent hill 2. His hair etc. is so detailed I don't see why his face was hidden in the first place. The new 3rd person mode reveals what he looks like anyway, so why go to the bother in shadows of rose when it's in the same DLC pack? Whatever. He looks boring.

 

Other than that, there's the Mercenaries! The Mercenaries is good! But its' not really strictly mercs. It's much longer, with games taking place over a series of stages on one level. It's really more like a raid mode. There area a aet number of enemies in set locations, and they don't respawn. There are randomised perks to pick up scattered about the stages, and in between the stages there's a shop where you can buy and upgrade weapons.

The sound SFX is weirdly messed up, and I struggle to hear which directions enemies are coming from – they all sound like they're on top of me. At this point I also notice that some enemies sound a little bit like Mr. Blobby.

The last few stages contain major story bosses, which I'd call very un-mercenaries.

There's quite a bit of content there in the mercenaries, it's challenging and fun but not extremely difficult to get a good rank.

There are two characters to start off with, Ethan (fairly normal) and Chris, who is quite overpowered (especially with his upgraded pistol). He also apparently loves punching now, and has a doom style beserk mode, which all seems very out of character for Chris, but I guess that's where the series is now.

Getting an A rank on all stages will give you new characters, as long as you have the DLC. This took me about 4 hours. After that, I could finally play the mercenaries as the big lady!

There we go, that's what we all wanted.

 

Other than that, there's some decent concept art with interesting developer commentary to look at.

 

And now I'm done! All the Resident Evil games. Good thing I finished my run before Capcom could release any more of the damn things.

[Qazimod]

Congrats!

 

This has been fun to read.  I've added this to the forum playthrough hall of fame.  

[chris on the moon]

7 hours ago, Qazimod said:

Congrats!

 

This has been fun to read.  I've added this to the forum playthrough hall of fame.  

Thanks Qazimod! I'm glad someone enjoyed it.  I got notified that you'd done that! I sort of wish I'd written a bit more for the first couple of games I played, I got more into writing about the games as I went along.

Also, I may not be entirely finished 😬

16 hours ago, chris on the moon said:

Good thing I finished my run before Capcom could release any more of the damn things.

 

[Anne Summers]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading each episode of this playthrough, well done COTM. I keep meaning to do epic playthroughs of series that I've loved and previously enjoyed spaced out over several decades - this one, or all the Fallouts, or Soulsbournes or something, but never had the willpower and dedication to stick to it and probably never will. Like when I tried to do all the AD&D games recently (ish) and got to about the third, then skipped ahead to the Eye Of The Beholder series just because I figured they would be more fun than playing another Gold Box one after Curse of the Azure Bonds (they were). So I applaud your tenacity and focus. 

Gonna have to get round to playing Resi 8, its the only one I haven't done yet. 

[acidbearboy]

Good stuff cottem. Enjoyed this thread, even if I skimmed through the last couple of games. 

[chris on the moon]

Resident Evil Gaiden (Game boy color, 2001)

 

Surprise! I said that I wasn't going to play any spinoffs or side games, but I've been curious about this game for years, and if I don't play it now, then when am I ever going to play it?

I was always intrigued by the UK box art, which looked pretty spooky and violent. And I was very perplexed by the American box art, which looked like it was stolen from someone's deviantart.

I've only just realised that this was actually released after the Game Boy Advance was, so that goes a long way to explaining why I didn't play it at the time. That, and the Gamecube remake was my first RE game.

 

Gaiden sits in a very important category of Game boy color games, one where a developer has tried to transfer a well-known successful series onto a console that absolutely can not reproduce any of the elements that made the original games work. The developers of Gaiden wisely didn't try to faithfully recreate a main Resident Evil game. Instead, exploration takes place from a top-down perspective and combat is a vaguely RPG like first person mini game. I'd heard this was quite clever and worked much better than you might expect – or was I getting confused with the Doom mobile RPG?

It features fan favourites Leon and Barry! Or... some approximation of them, at least.

It takes place on a cruise ship, which I thought was a great idea for a setting. Of course, we've had Revelations since then.

The story is non-canon, and is directly contradicted by all the other games, so you really don't have to worry about it. Not that much interesting happens anyway. Basically they're on a boat and there are zombies.

 

The first thing I noticed about this game was the music. It's really very bad. Other game boy games like Pokémon and Zelda proved that you could do a lot within the limitations of the system, but Gaiden's music is bottom of the barrel bad. If you've ever heard the theme from Halloween or The Exorcist, you'll have a good idea of what the composer was aiming for. I get the impression they didn't aim very well or try very hard, as the end result is bland, uninspired and extremely repetitive. During gameplay the music is adaptive, changing when more enemies appear on screen. It's a feature I've never really cared for. I'd prefer it if the music was just good.

The game features some zombie moan samples, as well as the title being read aloud, which is cool for a Game Boy game, but there are only a couple of samples (one for each enemy type). When a zombie is lunging for you, it's the same sample repeated, interrupting the music and clipping over itself.

 

The quality of the graphics is extremely mixed . Some are quite good, some are quite awful. The environments are mostly simple and sparse, with some areas that are more detailed.

Some parts have a very poor sense of perspective. For instance here's a set of stairs that I couldn't figure out which was up and which was down (they were both down).

Some of the zombies look excellent wobbling about in the first person mode.

The cut scenes for the most part look pretty terrible. The character portraits and cut-scene art are all a different kind of ugly. It's as if the art team weren't speaking to each other. Leon and Barry look like they're from different games.

Here's one scene where it looks likely someone had to try and draw the background after they'd finished the foreground.

 

Combat can start one of two ways. Either the player is grabbed by a zombie, or you can enter combat by using an aiming system, holding down the B button and moving the cursor. The aiming is slow and finicky and doesn't work very well, so most of the time I just got grabbed.

Combat is quite difficult and frustrating. It takes place in the first-person perspective, with zombies gradually coming towards you. Once they reach you, they can hurt you. They are, however, strangely limited in how much space they can take up, so you often end up with zombies having to wait and take turns, like this -

It is very possible to have two or three zombies in the danger zone though, so it's by no means a gentle and sedate experience.

You have a cursor moving constantly from left to right like a metronome. The zombies have targets in front of them which grow larger as they get closer. To attack, the player has to hit these targets as the cursor moves over them. It's like something out of a golf or rhythm action game and is very difficult. The more powerful the weapon you're using is, the faster the cursor moves. This is contrary to expectation. You may stock up on powerful weapons for an encounter, but it's very easy to fail to actually hit anything with them. At one point I managed to waste 8 grenades on a standard zombie and still not kill it.

I personally used the knife a lot to save on ammo, and it's much easier to hit enemies with it as the cursor moves the slowest. It can only be used at a short range, though.

Combat can be escaped by hitting the start button, in theory. It's quite hard to do as you have to hit a small target with your cursor perfectly, and enemies will hurt you more as you're trying to leave. It also can't be cancelled. I usually died when I pressed start.

The in-combat inventory is quite simple and doesn't have any confirmation prompts, so I found it very easy to use multiple herbs unintentionally.

Occasionally zombies don't die after combat, but crawl around on the floor, getting in the way. If you re-enter combat with them they're just as strong as they were last time.

There are two types of enemies – zombies, and the boss, who appears early and often.

Fortunately there's a bit of variety in the zombies. Some are poisonous, and some tear at you with rusty hooks. Some are even women! There's an infuriating zombie type later on that can attack you with melee weapons. They can annoyingly attack with a melee weapon, from a distance, rendering your knife useless. You must die if you encounter these without ammo, which you will.

Exploring the ship is OK. The character movement in the top-down perspective reminds me a lot of the GBC version of Metal gear solid, which I appreciate is a niche reference. Movement is pretty quick when there are no enemies on the screen, but that almost never happens. Slowdown is almost constant. There are some distinct looking areas, but a lot of areas that look basically the same. The same textures are repeatedly used. The environments are plagued with an improbable amount of holes in the floor everywhere, severely limiting the amount of space you can actually walk on.

There are lots of narrow spaces where zombie encounters are inevitable. They can't be avoided or coaxed into following you elsewhere, as they will just return to their appointed position. These zombies will also respawn, while ammo and healing items don't, meaning that any kind of movement through any area has to be carefully rationed. To be clear, exploration means using and running out of items, which means death. It is very, very possible to reach a point in the game where you're unable to progress.

Items are invisible and can be found in odd places. As an example, here's where I found the shotgun.

Some items are held by zombies, who you must kill in order to pick up the item. An icon flashes up informing you when an item carrying zombie appears on the screen, but it could be anything- a herb, ammo, or key item needed to progress.

You're also not allowed to pick up ammo for weapons you don't have, so you must backtrack and pick them up later, if you can remember where you saw them last time.

There are also a couple of weapons that spawn at a certain time, so while you can explore an area completely, you have to come back later to pick up the weapon. But why would you? You've already seen everything there once.

There are absolutely no puzzles, at all. There are several items to collect – weapons, items, herbs, and key items – but the key items all just function as literal keys. The challenge is finding out which identical looking locked door the key is for. There's a lockpick that only functions on one specific door. There's a blowtorch that opens one door. There's some semtex that you are told will open the captain's door on floor 3. But when you pick that up, you haven't been to the captain's door on floor 3, but your character somehow knows that it will be opened in future. When you come to use it, it doesn't blast a hole in the door, the door just opens it normally as if it were unlocked by a key.

Basically, the gameplay mostly consists of aimlessly wandering around picking up keys, punctuated by incessant zombie attacks and death.

 

Saving is done at set story points, but continues are generous and allow you to resume from the room you were in.

There are multiple playable characters, but the only practical use of this is having three different health bars, so an opportunity to spread the damage and pain around.

The story progression isn't good. As an example, there's one part where someone I was with told me they heard that there are survivors in the fridge. Why tell me now, and not earlier? From when and whom did you hear there were survivors in the fridge? I'd actually already been to the fridge, so I know there aren't any survivors there. But since I was there, the game has just spawned some enemies and items in there and I'm being prompted to go there.

 

I had to give up and start again, twice, having ran out of items. It's much easier when you know what to do, and I started enjoying myself a lot more on the second attempt. I stopped quite soon though.

The second time I got to the end boss but being unable to kill it, so had to try again a third time.

I think that it's absolutely necessary to know exactly where to go, what to do, and conserve all your ammo to finish this game. Just go directly to the next objective and then hoover up all the items at the end. If I haven't made this clear, I think that this is bad, and not fun.

I encounter an odd glitch on the third play through. I obtain the super weapon, the gas launcher, which quickly kills all of the zombies on screen. There are less than ten rounds for it in the entire game, since it's so powerful. But on my first zombie encounter it seems to work without me pressing anything! And it didn't seem to use any ammo? I quickly realise this is happening again and again, all of the zombies are being killed without me doing anything or losing ammo. I change weapon, but nothing happens. I take some advantage of this, but don't want to fully cheat, so I reset the game and the glitch does go away.

This time I've strictly rationed my ammo (and have had some unexpected help) and am able to kill the last boss quite quickly.

 

My verdict is that this is a bad game and you should not play it. I did get some entertainment out of it, but I think a lot of that was a nostalgia for the game boy color.

It takes me back to a time I vividly remember, when myself and my friends would accidentally end up with a turkey of a game, believing that the console could handle one of the console big hitters of the time, like grand theft auto or tomb raider. It couldn't, but that never stopped the developers from trying.

Oh, and for anyone curious, yes, some fans are currently trying to remake Gaiden in a much more capable engine.

[chris on the moon]

Resident evil 4 (2023)

 

Well here I am at last. I got a sinking feeling when this game was announced. The original was easily one of my favourite ever games. A remake seemed totally unnecessary, offensive even. I did not have fun with the demo, which felt massively different from the original. Despite that, there was never really much danger of me not buying the game and trying to enjoy it.

 

It's clear even from the introduction how different the game is going to be. The intro feels more sensible and “realistic”. Leon is presented as a much more troubled character, and actually shows part of his life with Krauser in it, instead of introducing him as though he was a returning character, several hours in to the game. I feel like there are several attempts like this to make the story more reasonable and cohesive, less ludicrous and nonsensical. I object to this.

The game looks like crap to begin with, and I feel like my processor is really showing its age. It turns out the game and Nvidia geforce experience have made some very weird choices. Once I change a few settings the game looks great, like all the other RE engine games do. There are some especially nice flame and explosion effects too. Of course, once again it's extremely dark and I can't see shit. I have to adjust the brightness settings every time I start the game to accommodate whatever time of day it is.

When he meets his first villager, Leon actually makes an effort to speak some Spanish instead of barking orders in American.

There's a short ramble through some countryside sheds before the first major set piece, the village square. This is the area that I played and didn't enjoy in the demo. I hoped that maybe the difficulty was set too high, or perhaps there were some restrictions on items or something like that. But no, it turns out that the demo was very representative of the final game.

The combat is hugely different, and that's the main meat of the game. To me, it has such a different philosophy that it's a different type of game, practically a different genre.

Resident evil 4 was in a lot of ways quite limited and restrictive, quite old fashioned, and quite easy. The enemies would perform their “I'm gonna get you” animations and look like they were swarming and rushing towards you, but their behaviours and their movements were fairly simple and predictable. They'd appear to run fast, but then they'd be delayed and dutifully hang around, waiting to get shot in the face. You could quite easily run away to find a safe space, turn around and dispatch the crowds coming for you. In a lot of ways it was like an old-school arcade game. The strict enemy attack patterns of 2d shooters, or the running the fuck away and then counterattacking of pac man. The chainsaw man may have looked scary, but he wasn't really a chainsaw man running towards you at full speed. He was slow and easily outrun, and was quickly knocked off his feet so that he often spent most of his short life lying on the floor.

This new game isn't like that.

When the villagers came for me, they did not hold back. They didn't stand around posing and waiting for permission, they actually came straight for me. I like this less. It feels like the developers wanted to move from silly and conceited arcade blasting and towards something more realistic. My problem is that I do not want to be eviscerated by a chainsaw in real life.

I found the combat consistently a lot less forgiving and a lot less fun.

The combat also has added complexity with the introduction the knife parry/block. This must be a welcome addition to people who are fans of games with blocking and parrying in them, which I am not. Mostly I forgot I could do this until it was too late. I'd get hit and think “I could probably block that attack” after it had happened. I was disappointed that my simple tactic of shooting enemies in the face to stop them didn't work as well as it did in the original game.

There's also the duck/dodge button, which baffled me and never felt intuitive. I often couldn't figure out why some attacks were to be blocked and some were to be dodged, or why backstepping from some rocks was a “duck” evade.

I'm perplexed by the knife being breakable as well. I felt that I was being simultaneously encouraged to use it all the time to survive, and also not all so as not to break it.

The guns feel really substantial, and all of them give a really satisfying kick. They also require a punishingly high degree of precision, and in the first few encounters they don't provide much stopping power. There's an increased variety in guns, but unfortunately they're much less useful. The game is heavily weighted towards the handgun. Drops of anything other than handgun ammo are relatively rare, which is a huge shame. In the original game I was presented with a smorgasbord of weapons that I could pick from, and I'd gleefully tear through enemies in lots of different ways. I sometimes even sold all my handguns and didn't use them. In this new game, that's not possible. I am given toys and then feel that I am allowed to use them. I have to behave myself and be sensible and conservative, sticking with the handgun as my bread and butter, everything else is a sometimes treat. I hoped that this might change if I switched my case type from the one that increased handgun drop rates to the one that increased resources drop rates, but it didn't.

As well as being a shame and a lot less fun, it's a huge problem in areas that are designed for other weapons. One great example is the water room, where Ashley is alone on a higher level cranking some cranks, while Leon has to kill the enemies coming for her. It's built for the rifle, which I immediately ran out of ammo for. The area is transformed from a fun shooting gallery into a desperate frustrating struggle.

Later on there were even times where I completely ran out of ammo.

The reloading is much less forgiving and impossible to cheat, as is everything else in the game really. It's all more smooth and solid and less janky. I find it a lot less fun, but imagine it will please the people who feel that all games must be dark souls now.

Despite this new smoothness, I never quite got used to the controls and struggled throughout. There were also a few times where I was unable to do what I wanted to because of interface issues, mostly due to so many actions being on the “A” button. Like when I was stood near a valve, I wasn't able to melee enemies or jump off a ledge. Once I wasn't able to perform a stealth kill because Leon stood up and did an “it's raining” gesture, and another time I found myself unable to jump down off a ledge to safety because I was on fire. I did occasionally also find myself stuck when I wasn't given enough time to recover before being vulnerable to attack again. One example was the first catapult. I had just enough time to get back up, recover Ashley, and then immediately get hit again and killed. I would have preferred to have just been killed instantly.

They've added some obligatory stealth mechanics. As someone who hates stealth, it's a real shame that someone has remade one of my favourite stealth-free games and decided that what's is missing is a thing I hate.

They've also added endlessly respawning enemies, which piss me off enormously. It just feels so cheap. The original may have felt to some like it had endlessly respawning enemies, but it only did in one or two, possibly three areas - and one of those felt like a glitch.

I loved the treasure hunting, which has been changed and expanded in a satisfying way. I also really enjoyed the new quests. I felt like the medallion seeking quest in the original was over too quickly and really under utilised, and it's nice to have a reason to backtrack and explore areas again.

The inventory is good, by which I mean it's thankfully similar to the original. The crafting I could take or leave, but at least the interface works much better than the one in village.

The new shooting gallery (the pirate memory game) is a lot of fun, though to begin with it frustrated me since I couldn't figure out that I needed to hit some wrong targets to get the highest ranks. It's a pity that the rewards come in the form of coins for a horrible gacha machine.

A major difference is that there are no QTEs, at all. They were such a major part of the original RE4. I feel like their absence really amplifies how utterly tedious all the dialogue cutscenes are.

The puzzles range from dull and barely there, to so absolutely baffling that I had to mash the buttons until I somehow get the right outcome. I'm thinking of the lakeside tile puzzle. I've got no clue what I was supposed to do, but eventually I did.

At one point I fall through a walkway to my death, and am told that I can't run on uneven surfaces. This mechanic hadn't been introduced before, and it is never used again. It's such a strange decision that it's in the game at all.

Ashley is one of the biggest changes. She has been redesigned to make her less of a brat, and she also can't hide, or wait. She's much more of a liability, often running into enemies and getting hurt. I found it very stressful how hard it is was keep her safe, and she sounds genuinely very upset when Leon is hurt. As well as the genuine challenge, the enemies also cheat, since they're able to grab Ashley by clipping through Leon. There's even an area where enemies can carry Ashley away through a door that doesn't exist. It's in this room.

I had wondered how many new areas there would be in the game, and what might be lost. A lot of the earlier areas are almost the same, except they've erected a lot of raised wooden walkways that enemies can throw things off. There's so many rickety wooden structures in the village that it feels like blight town, which I found visually a bit ugly. Similarly to VIIIage there's also yellow tape on everything interactive.

The surviving areas are arranged in a different order to the original, which can be confusing. With the old areas I'm simultaneously disappointed that they're different and that they're not different enough. I feel that the old areas weren't designed for this new gameplay style and suffer as a result. As a rule, the best parts by far are the areas that are new. The extended lake caves are a highlight, and there are a lot of very atmospheric additions to the castle. On the other hand, there are some new areas that really don't fit in, like the section on the ruined castle rooftops where a giant is throwing things. This felt so out of place, like a fantasy game.

There are a lot of glaring omissions, too many missing things to reliably list. A few I really missed were the cable cars, the big salazar robot, the gallery gatling gun, and the choice of two paths where I had to decide between the giant and the chainsaw sisters (the correct choice was always both, to collect the most treasure). There game references some of the things that are missing, like the truck on the castle approach. But instead of driving at me, it's sitting there broken, doing nothing, mocking me.

There are a lot of areas that feel weirdly empty and dead and undramatic. I can't quite explain it, but it's like the energy is missing.

The story and characters have been modernised. Everyone has been redesigned, some characters more than others.

Leon, as well as being more serious and troubled, is also a lot less funny and more embarrassing. He reminds me of a 90s teen, the way he broods and repeatedly sarcastically quips “sorry, must've slipped”, or “present for ya”.

Luis now specifically worked for umbrella, has a much higher voice, and goes on about Don Quixote for some reason. Leon is needlessly a dick to him.

Ada has been redesigned again. I wonder if it's so that she fits more in with a Chinese ideals of beauty rather than Western ideas of what Asians look like. She's also much more talkative, friendly, and helpful, which is a bit unsettling.

Krauser's voice is much higher too, and he has an extremely tedious backstory that can fuck off.

The merchant's voice is higher. Everyone's voice is much higher! Everyone sounds younger and it's like they've filtered off all the low end on everyone's voice, and it's infuriating.

Anyway yes, the merchant sounds more like a young cosplayer from London, and he's a lot more chatty.

Salazar has been transformed into a sort of awful disgusting Maggie thatcher clown.

Saddler sounds more American, and again, is a lot less funny.

As well as more major character or story changes, there are lots of inconsequential little changes along the way too. As an example, the rescue chopper gets rained off instead of shot down. As I played I was confused, wondering what narrative function these little changes serve. Why did the developers think that this is better?

Lots of dialogue annoys me because of my unreasonable peculiarities. I decide that I'm the arbiter of how people actually talked at a particular point in time, and that people in 2005 didn't call people “twisty”. And how dare Ashley call herself a master of unlocking?!

Leon and Ashley grunt and pant constantly, which is a pet hate of mine in games. I know and understand that real people would be breathe really loudly and get worn out if they rushed around all the time,but it's just annoying to me in games. They should be unrealistic.

A lot of the plagas make a particular sound when they die which kept amusing me. It sounds really similar to a squid or octopus in either Mario or Zelda. Either way it's a Nintendo cephalopod.

Later on, it felt to me like some bits of the story were perhaps missing, or not explained very well. Then again, this could just be that I wasn't paying proper attention to the dialogue and story files, since they're all utterly tedious. There are far too many new diary entries by minor characters explaining a backstory nobody needed in excruciating detail.

Most of the enemies look very similar to the original game and fulfil the same roles, but there are a few changes.

Notably there are a couple of new plagas variations which pretty panic inducing. There are some female monks who aren't nuns, which is very progressive! The dogs look quite silly but are still formidable. There are guys that strengthen surrounding enemies and incapacitate you, which are a huge pain. The novistadors have a new camouflage effect which is extremely cool.

The section where the regenerators are introduced is brilliant for people who played the original game, with their distinctive breathing tormenting you long before they make an appearance. It's a shame that when they do arrive they look like teletubbies.

The bosses, unfortunately, I found to be a huge pain in the ass. They are all quite difficult and I died plenty. Chief mendez is similar, but it's in a larger area and feels a lot less dramatic. Salazar's fight is very confusing, and also features some dialogue that's been transposed from earlier in the game so that it doesn't make sense. The lake monster might be an improvement – this is the first and only time that I felt that I was playing an improved version of the original game. I didn't manage to kill Ramon's assistant on either playthrough, since I ran out of ammo. I assume that it's possible but I doubt I'd ever find out by myself. The Krauser fights are quite faithful to the original, in the way that they're extremely infuriating and unwelcome. They were the one thing in the original game that I don't like, and this time around they're completely dire.

The final boss is similar enough, and there's the jetski sequence, where, for some reason this time the countdown clock is running at half speed.

The ending was probably the biggest differences, story wise.

Spoiler

This time, Leon ignores Hunnigan's calls. I don't know why, or what this is supposed to add to the story. Ashley has proven herself competent instead of clumsily flirting with Leon. And in a twist that I hate, Ada has a change of conscience and decides not to deliver the sample to Wesker. She was never the bitch in the red dresss, it turns out she was good all along! I find it bizarre and a little bit pathetic that they've decided that Ada needed to be a good person.

Credits roll, and there's a horrible indie song. I rank pretty badly.

I decide to start again on hardcore mode. Hopefully the higher difficulty will help me learn how to play the game properly and I'll do better? Maybe my experience will show me that the village wasn't actually that hard? Maybe I'll do better if I make a special effort to dodge and evade? No, not really, I still find it really hard and unfair. I did eventually make it through the game, but it wasn't pleasant. I think that my increase in skill was equal to the increase in difficulty, and it felt pretty much the same amount of a challenge as it did the first time. I got another bad grade. In fact, the difficulty is really inconsistent. It's not a game that starts easy and gets harder, or starts hard and gets easier. There are sections that are extremely hard and large parts that are a cakewalk.

I tried the mercenaries a few times, but didn't get along with it very well. It just left me sort of cold. At the start I'm quite bored and lonely, and then after a while I'm overwhelmed with guys. I found it quite easy with Leon and got an S rank even when I deliberately ran down the clock so that I could stop playing and watch TV. With the other characters I found it much more difficult. There aren't many stages, either. This mode isn't a patch on any of the other versions of the mercenaries.

Overall for me the game is a big disappointment. It felt like this game was made on the assumption that the original resident evil 4 was unacceptable, so they've had to change it into a different game. I get the impression that some people aren't noticing this big change that I am, because they're fans of the kind of game that this remake is more like. Maybe it's games like the fromsoft souls games, or the last of us. But I've completely lost patience with souls, and I hated the last of us. I really liked resident evil 4, and this new game is less like resident evil 4. It's a decent game in its own right but as a remake it just doesn't live up to the original. At least the original game is still playable and Capcom haven't forcibly deleted it.

[chris on the moon]

A summary that I've now finished.

 

I was playing resident evil games from early September 2022 until early May 2023.

Why did I do this? Do not do this.

I thought I might get a better appreciation of the story, or the way the games developed or something like that. But the games feel like half the story is missing because it is. That's just how the games are.

It was sort of interesting to see how the games evolved from title to title. I could feel some kind of connection between each new game, but nothing from the original game survives in the recent releases. They're just completely different experiences. And that doesn't matter.

It wasn't fun to make myself play the games in order and then write about them. I just got sort of sick of them and it felt like work. It made me doubt sometimes whether I like resident evil at all. There are quite a few very mediocre games, and they feel so much worse if you've just played something similar.

It did remind me that I quite like writing, but nobody likes reading my writing and it is a complete waste of time. There are better ways to spend my free time, like playing Zelda, which is why it took three weeks to write about the remake of 4.

In summary, I'm an idiot.

 

Now here I can do an oversimplified best to worst ranking. Or rather rank them in how much I enjoyed playing them today.

 

 

Must-plays

4 (2005) one of the best games ever.

Resident evil (2002): absolute pinnacle of the old style series. A brilliant classic.

 

Great games!

2 (1998) A nostalgic classic. Still has a lot to offer, if you can tolerate loading times, pixels and manual saving. Probably doesn't appeal if you're not nostalgic for late 90s playstation games.

2 (2019) really good but kind of brutal and less fun. Semi-essential? Mixed feelings.

 

Also very good games!

3 (2020) short and sweet, fun and stupid.

Village – It's great and a lot of fun but doesn't feel like resident evil at all.

7 – Scary game! Yikes! A big departure, but has a lot going for it.

 

Decent, but I'd prioritise the above before these!

4 remake (2023) – I am personally offended by this remake

Zero – Looks great, plays pretty good, story ptretty stupid. Play if you like classic RE.

Revelations : it doesn't feel that much like Resident evil, but plays a little bit like 4. Great 3ds tech demo, less good on other platforms.

5 – a big mess. Some good stuff in there, but all the trash is in the way. Probably much better as a co-op game but good luck with that.

 

For fans only!

Original re1/director's cut: fun, but best as a historical artefact. The remake is better.

Code Veronica : Interesting, very much a classic RE game, but often dull and drawn out. Ugly.

3: Nemesis (1999) - feels like a side game and is a bit of a mess. Only for completionists and people who really want to play all of the classic RE games.

Revelations 2 (2015) Doesn't look, feel or play like resident evil. It's not dreadful but it's not a memorable quality game.

 

Bad games

Gaiden:

6 – Total shit. Avoid at all costs.

[acidbearboy]

Kudos for doing this. I like your writing. I wish more people just poured out opinion on stuff they have played like you have done in this thread. Your detailed comments on the recent remakes confirmed to me that I do not want/need to play them. I look forward to reading similar posts in the Zelda thread. 

[Calashnikov]

Possing both you boys despite recognising you dun clearly fucked up not liking / playing REm4ke 🫡