Capcom copying other games, etc, for Resident Evil...

[Seanspeed]

RE7 copies Evil Dead, Saw, The Ring and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Even RE1 kind of took ideas from the original Alone in the Dark with the thing coming through the window.

Yeah. That's just shoddily prepared plagiarism.

'Inspired by' is not the same as plagiarizing. Come on now.

And everybody takes ideas from others. Every major game that comes out is built on ideas from previous games. So long as they're putting their own flavoring into it, it's all good.

One thing I don't understand about RE is that if cities now know about zombies and so on, how come they just go through each day doing normal stuff? Why isn't there more guards to watch over the area, or something?

I think a lot of aspects to the franchise doesn't make sense, and it's due to Capcom just milking it. By now, nobody should be surprised to see monsters running amok. But a big reason as to why it's not really a scary franchise now, is because every mainline character is too strong and cunning.

Are we seriously worrying about realism in Resident Evil games? lol

The series has never been serious.

As for not being scary, I'd say they've definitely gotten scarier since the days of RE4-6. RE2 Remake is one of the best horror games ever made, in my opinion.

Saying Capcom is just 'milking' things lately is also crazy. Capcom was in a right slump back in the X360/PS3 days, but they really got their act together and started killing it last generation. Right now, they're probably one of the best major publishers around.

 

[Roger Cobb]

Well, if they're not milking the franchise, why do they keep going back to 1998 repeatedly?

It's the same type of storyline, over and over again.

 

[Seanspeed]

Well, if they're not milking the franchise, why do they keep going back to 1998 repeatedly?

It's the same type of storyline, over and over again.

Almost like it's normal for a franchise to be known for certain things.

Like, if you've ever watched the show House, this meme is hilarious because it is genuinely the formula for basically every episode.



Yet people still liked the show. Having a 'formula' is not inherently a bad thing.

'Milking something' implies a company is putting out a product without any real care, just to exploit the popularity of the IP. Capcom is very obviously not doing that. The games continue to be high quality and well received. Maybe they dont hit for you anymore, that's whatever, but you're gonna be a minority on this.

 

[Roger Cobb]

That's your opinion, but I think the RE2 and 3 remakes were rush jobs.

While 3 was way worse, 2 had a lot of enemies taken out of the game. Besides that, a lot of areas were pitch black, making it hard to see things, and with bullet sponge zombies closing in, this wasn't a fun experience. Some cutscenes were also just lazily repeated between scenarios for some reason, which didn't make sense.

In the original game from 1998, if one character was in the gas station, diner, or whatever it is, the other character was away, stopped on the road. That was of course Leon when he arrives in his vehicle. So this type of thing just didn't make sense.

I thought it was all in all, a good effort. But it's certainly not a masterpiece. Even the combat just feels rather sluggish.

 

[Seanspeed]

It's not just 'my opinion'. RE2 Remake is widely perceived as a top tier, amazing game.

I'll stress this again - your opinions on this are going to be in a very small minority. And claims like saying Capcom are just 'milking' things are pretty much just objectively incorrect, as most people seem to really like where Resident Evil is nowadays.

 

[Roger Cobb]

If Capcom weren't milking the franchise, there would be no reason to constantly return to Raccoon City for all of these mediums that offer up the precise same story, albeit in a severely watered down fashion each time it occurs.

They already blew up the city, and Leon, Claire and Jill got out of dodge, before the area got obliterated by the US government. OK? Therefore, why should we be forced to revisit this time period so many times?

For example, the trashy Netflix show was lame, and so were the on rails shooting games, the movies by Paul Anderson, and the crappy reboot, as well as the side story games and remakes, to a degree.

Since Raccoon City is long gone, repeating the same stuff is hereby a huge waste of my time as a fan looking ahead to the future.

Have you played the older games?

 

[Seanspeed]

If we're talking non-gaming stuff, you might have a slightly better argument, though they aren't as bad about that as they used to be, once again.

And yes, I've played the older games, and nearly every 'standard' RE game made. I'm really not interested in going further with this, as you are going to insist that your opinion is correct, when again, you're in a clear minority here as most gamers quite like what Capcom is doing with RE these days.

 

[Roger Cobb]

Again, that's your opinion. Believe it or not, many people on YouTube don't like RE8 or even 7. I don't see as many people hating on the RE2 remake, so that, I will give you.

I didn't say I hated the RE4 remake. But in general, RE4 isn't one of my top games in the series anyway. Plus, the reason I don't care about remakes is because this is 2023. I played these games when they were relevant, so I feel it's time to keep the franchise going forward. It's just amazing Capcom took this long to give us Jill again.

I do like the game. RE4 is fun. It's just not correlated with the other titles that much in terms of the plot, and so it feels like a RE game in name only. Even RE6 is more correlated with RE than 4 is, because of Umbrella and zombies, yet nobody likes it.

RE5 is the same game as 4, so if people like 4 a lot, it doesn't make sense when people hate on 5. I don't recall any difference in how they play, and the enemy types in 4 carry over into 5 as well.

And yeah. RE8 was trying to be like Silent Hill. When something is surrounded by these many circumstances in terms of how the main character came to be and how you face mannequins like the nurses in a similar looking house, then I would say it's Capcom trying to pass science off as being like the supernatural. It's just that because RE isn't about hauntings or ghosts, there has to be another explanation behind why it happened.

But anyway, I don't expect to be believed. Very few people have ever done so on forums, which is why I think they are absolutely crap. But believe me. Many people I know online, knows what Capcom are like.

 

[Seanspeed]

You can find people who dislike any game. There is literally no game in existence that is universally loved. What a weird argument.

 

[Roger Cobb]

Never mind.

 

[Nesh]

Are we seriously worrying about realism in Resident Evil games? lol

Actually Resident Evil games in the past had the perfect balance of realism and science fiction. They were more grounded.
Hence why they felt more believable and immersive. Monsters and Zombies aren't realistic, but they were designed on the "what if they did exist in reality" logic.
A human transforming to huge bone monsters including a huge T-Rex looking kind of thing and back, or a normal human with the ability to punch and kick hoards of humans and monsters like puppets are so extreme that it totally ruins the believability.

The series has never been serious.

How do we define serious? From Resident Evil 4 and onwards minus the remakes and 7 (and no opinion on Village since I didnt play it) the series became comical. Like a parody of itself

As for not being scary, I'd say they've definitely gotten scarier since the days of RE4-6. RE2 Remake is one of the best horror games ever made, in my opinion.

Saying Capcom is just 'milking' things lately is also crazy. Capcom was in a right slump back in the X360/PS3 days, but they really got their act together and started killing it last generation. Right now, they're probably one of the best major publishers around.

Certainly the Remake of 2 and 7 were fucking amazing in terms of atmosphere.
Capcom is a production powerhouse pumping out quality like no other. But I do feel that they are still milking at the same time. It seems less now, but at some point they had a tendency to rerelease many of their games with huge updates and content, making the first purchase an incomplete outdated release.

 

[Cyan]

One thing I don't understand about RE is that if cities now know about zombies and so on, how come they just go through each day doing normal stuff? Why isn't there more guards to watch over the area, or something?

I think a lot of aspects to the franchise doesn't make sense, and it's due to Capcom just milking it. By now, nobody should be surprised to see monsters running amok. But a big reason as to why it's not really a scary franchise now, is because every mainline character is too strong and cunning.

that's too logical a explanation. We are talking about a fictional story. Still, we could argue that we need people to be alive, people like in real life are the key to everything. If people don't exist, monsters can't exist even if they exist 'cos there will be nobody documenting monsters --it's quite sad to observe how the people from the village in RE Village is gone.

Without stupid people intelligent people wouldn't exist, and without ugly people, beautiful people wouldn't exist either.

 

[Seanspeed]

Actually Resident Evil games in the past had the perfect balance of realism and science fiction. They were more grounded.

The only relatively 'grounded' RE game I think you could make an argument for is the first one. The second one already jumped heavily into B-movie schlock with the giant mutating monsters and whatnot you're arguing ruins any believability.

As for serious, I just mean I dont think the series ever really took itself that seriously. Anything that goes for that B-movie style stuff is clearly making a purposeful choice of not being overly serious. So it just seems to weird to me to imagine that Resident Evil had any kind of 'history' of being a grounded or serious franchise.

 

[Nesh]

The only relatively 'grounded' RE game I think you could make an argument for is the first one. The second one already jumped heavily into B-movie schlock with the giant mutating monsters and whatnot you're arguing ruins any believability.

As for serious, I just mean I dont think the series ever really took itself that seriously. Anything that goes for that B-movie style stuff is clearly making a purposeful choice of not being overly serious. So it just seems to weird to me to imagine that Resident Evil had any kind of 'history' of being a grounded or serious franchise.

2 and 3 also make a good case of grounded resident Evil games. For me up until 3, the b-movie atmosphere wasn't there. It is not a large monster that defines a b-movie. It is the presentation of a low budget movie with elements that appear random and often disconnected. The bigger monsters were reserved in numbers as mini bosses/bosses with a proper presentation and background up until 3. The games had a heavy emphasis on atmosphere and vulnerability. Unlike the outlandish superhuman, supernatural transformations we were getting from 4 onwards (giant axe weilding manlizard, superhuman beings with supernatural psychic and whatnot abilities, literally a transformer, a huge intelligent blob etc).
2Remake was such an amazing experience exactly because the original had none of the BS that were becoming prominent in 4 onwards. The original had brilliant foundations.

 

[milk]

I see RE as a brand name with multiple completely different games styles that just happened to have some similarly named characters retconned in for marketing purposes. Ignoring the million spin-offs. RE1-3 is one type of game. RE4-6 is a completely different one, inspired by the first REs but morphed into something completely different, and RE7-8 is another beast entirely, that probably started develoent as a non RE related VR horror title and the franchise was rammed into it the same way Star Fox was rammed into Rare's Dinosaur Planet.

Just accept that it is what it is and move on with your life.

All three styles are decidedly inspired by horror B-movies though. Its just the first triology took inspiration from the more traditional 70's and 80's zombie/monter flicks. RE4-6 took inspiration form actionny hooror films from the late 90's and 2000's. And the latest batch takes inspiration from the mockumentary steady cam horror genre such as blair witch project, paranormal, etc.

You can chose to like one more thant the other. Ignore some entirely. Or do whatever you like. I just dont get the endless comparing. Capcom is clearly not trying go abide by any rules, beside making money that is. If you want a traditional early RE experience, look for indies that are atempting just that. They are made by the dozes each month right now. Shitty PS1 graphics and all...

 

[Nesh]

You have to admit though. Resi2Remake blended two generations and brought it to the modern era without vanishing what made the original great.

 

[Seanspeed]

2 and 3 also make a good case of grounded resident Evil games. For me up until 3, the b-movie atmosphere wasn't there. It is not a large monster that defines a b-movie. It is the presentation of a low budget movie with elements that appear random and often disconnected. The bigger monsters were reserved in numbers as mini bosses/bosses with a proper presentation and background up until 3. The games had a heavy emphasis on atmosphere and vulnerability. Unlike the outlandish superhuman, supernatural transformations we were getting from 4 onwards (giant axe weilding manlizard, superhuman beings with supernatural psychic and whatnot abilities, literally a transformer, a huge intelligent blob etc).
2Remake was such an amazing experience exactly because the original had none of the BS that were becoming prominent in 4 onwards. The original had brilliant foundations.

I mean, I'll grant that 2+3 were relatively more grounded than RE4-6 for sure, but really just relatively. But like, Mr.X alone is absolutely B-movie type hilarity. Some large, basically unkillable human monster thing that wears a hat and trenchcoat? lol Umbrella at that point was a very cartoonish entity in general.

Definitely getting into very subjective territory here, though.

 

[Roger Cobb]

That's precisely my point.

Every game before RE4 was consistent with the plot. It all just gelled fine. Then after RE4, things were always more confusing, with the disjointed plot threads. This has bored many a fan, to the point where a lot of old school fans are on the verge of quitting the franchise. It's like they're just making up more rubbish as they plod things along.

It's not just the crazy storylines either. They just don't have very appealing gameplay in general. For example, when you shoot with the guns in these newer games like RE7 or 8, they don't even feel like they have any impact. The games feel like indie titles with a tighter budget. That's basically it.

Even the first game - a game from 1996 - had better gunplay. But of course, you're welcome to disagree with my opinion. I won't be losing sleep over it.

 

[milk]

Even the first game - a game from 1996 - had better gunplay. But of course, you're welcome to disagree with my opinion. I won't be losing sleep over it.

Legit curiosity here: What aspects of the first titles gunplay you thought were better?

Personally, I always found aiming at the rough direction of enemies through tank controls from a fixed camera perspective was a fundamentally broken gameplay design that they massaged enough to be swallable. That was my opinion back then, before over the shoulders aming became a thing.

I sometimes feel like people over scrutinize modern games while they over-forgive old ones. And Im guilty of that myself. I used to think Super Mario 64 platforming controls and camera were near perfect as is. Untill I watched someone unfamiliar with the game try to play it.

I realized how awkward the camera can be. Things I didnt notive before because I subcontiously memorized what angles work well and when it acts out in odd ways in each level and I avoided those without even noticing. Same for movement. There is a lot to love about SM64 controls and physics, but there are many many flaws too, which I learned through practice to work around, and it becamw such second nature that I couldnt even see that they were there anymore. I see a lot of rambling gamers fall into the same illusion when it comes to their particular favorite title.

 

[Roger Cobb]

When you shoot the enemies in the first three games, like with a shotgun or magnum, they kind of burst open. In the second game or the third, the zombies could split into halves. It just felt really cool. The first remake also allows you to use grenades and stun batteries to destroy enemies, which is just excellent.

I don't get why the gore was downgraded in the RE3 remake. But that game was especially garbage.