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Has The Resident Evil Series Lost Its Way?

January 06, 2010 in Blog comments 25

Resident Evil is the series that coined the term "survival horror", but in recent years the games have moved towards more action-oriented gameplay and stories, leaving the 'survival' and 'horror' behind.

While the Resident Evil franchise still manages to pull in sales, many fans feel that it has lost much of what made it such a popular series in the first place.
Go to the source for the full article.

With Resident Evil 5 came the truly over-the top humongous monsters that you would expect to see in something like Gears of War, and while this is a horror game afterall, the new settings and new monsters took the essence of what Resident Evil was all but away, no more would you get the same suspense as Resident Evil 2's Police station where a Licker would randomly jump through the window as you explored the Interrogation room and make you crap yourself in amazement at how awesomely shocking that scene was. The game had taken a direction away from the core fans of the series and tried to open up the survival horror genre to a more wider audience.

Some may think that RE4 and RE5 were a step in the right direction in the progression of the series, it certainly could of gotten stale if they carried on using similar settings and stories, but then wouldn't we have preferred them to try and fail than to not try at all? One can only hope any new Resident Evil game that comes out in the future goes back to its roots as a true zombie survival horror.
Miss Razz via gamesrelay.com »
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  • 2
    reaver11 Jan 7, 10
    The simple asnwer to this article would be yes. Fortunately, I think Capcom understands that. We'll see what they can put out next, only because there was a lot of positive feedback regarding The Darkside Chronicles, mainly the RE2 segment...c'mon Capcom! You want to remake it, we want you to remake it...so do IT!
  • 2
    ruledbysecrecy Jan 7, 10
    The Pre-RE4 RE4 looked incredible. Over the camera gunplay with horror in heavy play. Makes me so sad it turned out so different. Get back to the series roots capcom!!! And bring Dino Crisis with it. I would pay 100 bucks for a Dino Crisis 1 remake. Absolutely.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_5kwX0LZAc
    • 0
      Miss Razz Jan 7, 10
      Amen to that!

      RE4's early version looked amazing (not counting that supernatural stuff), and the atmosphere and locations were definitely creepy. So how on earth did Capcom end up going so far off track?

      Don't get me wrong, RE4 was a great game, but it wasn't exactly a scary game. They seemed to take all the spooky stuff out of the early version...in exchange for what? Generic angry villagers and a man with a tentacle dick? That's worse than the ghosts in the early trailers, imo. At least the ghosts and supernatural elements could have been explained away as hallucinations caused by a virus/drug/chemical that Umbrella created (or something like that). Would have been better than the "Las Plagas" crap we got instead.
      • 0
        dwg14390 Jan 7, 10
        Agreed, RE4 beta was simply fantastic. I remember seeing that airplane level and just jawdropped. They way they had the over the shoulder camera and still pulled off the static angles, the only bad thing about the beta was that leon was fat as hell. He even wore his jacket the whole time! (what was the point of his jacket if he loses it in the first 30 minutes of the game?)

        And I think Dino Crisis is in some vault deep under capcoms main building wasting away. No matter how much I would love to see a Dino Crisis 3, I don't think were getting one
        • 0
          ruledbysecrecy Jan 7, 10
          There was a Dino Crisis 3 man... it took place in space hahahah. It wasn't a terrible game on it's own right except for the camera angles, but it was a horrible Dino Crisis game. No returning characters what so ever, the only real tie to the other games was some third energy research.

          Had it just been called Dinos in Space I would have enjoyed it more, but since it unnecessarily tainted one of my favorite series of all time I was quite upset. Still though, for it's time it had some great graphics and incredible CGI movies.

          I didn't have a problem with Beta RE4's supernatural stuff, but that's probably because I'm a bigger Silent Hill fan than RE to begin with.

          What a story Resident Evil 4 has coming into existence... you guys remember Devil May Cry 1 was originally supposed to be Resident Evil 4? Capcom is *bleep*ing crazy.
        • 0
          Xeros the Slayer Jan 7, 10
          Not exactly DMC1 itself so much as its engine and control system.
        • 0
          ruledbysecrecy Jan 7, 10
          Clearly not exactly DMC. I thought that was a given that I wouldn't have had to explain myself. But it was going to be heavily combo focused and the transformation ability was going to be intact too. The way Dante transforms into his devil self in DMC? That was supposed to be Leon transforming due to his infection. We all remember the progenitor virus RE4 videos from way back? Him kneeling down and clutching his arm and that swarm coming across the screen? Yep, he was gonna transform into something.
        • 0
          Shinobi_razor Jan 7, 10
          yeah and they realized they had a whole other series they could do lucky for us.
        • 0
          dwg14390 Jan 9, 10
          I tend not to acknowledge the existence of this "Dino Crisis 3"

          I played it but I repressed the memories of it so far deep into my brain I sometimes get weird nightmares of Space dinosaurs without knowing why.
    • 0
      Gamesta100 Jan 7, 10
      Yeah I saw that vid a few years ago when it was on a demo disc.It looked damn good and acyually looked creepy.
  • 1
    Dramon Knight Jan 7, 10
    Yeah they're losing it, fingers crossed things will change though, Resident Evil is usually the first thing that coems to mind when I see or hear Survivial Horror. :[
  • 1
    Hideo1 Jan 7, 10
    Yeah... you're kinda late to the party on this one, don't you think?
  • 0
    Daweii Jan 7, 10
    Personally even the original RE4 was onto something. I almost think the paranormal was a far better move than villagers. Atleast with the paranormal Leon couldn't fight back for the big guys. It almost brought back the fear and lost hope of taking on the Nemesis only for him to keep coming back.
  • 0
    Killosity Jan 7, 10
    It is quite interesting, because most of us can agree that Resident Evil 4 was a fantastic, brilliant title, but would have been better off detached from the Resident Evil brand.

    Wish Remake and Zero would come to the Playstation/Xbox consoles... they both are fantastic (Zero is so underrated!), and I loved them to bits!
    • 0
      Shinobi_razor Jan 8, 10
      if 4 was to be another separate series from RE, its likely Dead Rising would have never happened. Capcom doesnt need 3 different zombie related series.

      if anything needs to be separated from the RE series, its the god awful live action movie trilogy they made.
    • 1
      reaver11 Jan 8, 10
      Only thing I'd want the REmake and Zero on the PS3 is for the trophies. Other than that they play fine on my Wii.
      • 0
        Miss Razz Jan 8, 10
        Ohh...I'd play through REmake again just for the trophies.
        • 0
          dwg14390 Jan 9, 10
          gold trophy- Beat the game under 5 hours, using only a knife on the hardest difficulty with invisible enemies, auto-aiming off and limited use of healing items.

          It would bring a smile to me.
        • 0
          Shinobi_razor Jan 9, 10
          are you joking? that would be ridiculous. i could see only using the knife, but invisible enemies too? i think not.
        • 0
          dwg14390 Jan 9, 10
          No. I've done it, purely out of sheer boredom and I only got to like the last part before you get on the elevator before you fight the tyrant before I just got tired of it.

          lol, but really the game can be filled with achievements/trophies since there's just so many modes in this game. Whatever happened to the countless modes?
        • 0
          reaver11 Jan 10, 10
          I would too. Just saying...

          But it would make some sense to do that if they did end up doing a REmake2
        • 0
          Shinobi_razor Jan 10, 10
          if you got bored of it chances are everyone else would. might be exhilarating for 5 minutes but id get bored too. i wouldnt mind only using the knife, but no invisible enemies for me thanks. but yeah, "You call this a knife?" would be great as an achievement\trophy for only using the knife the whole game.
        • 0
          dwg14390 Jan 10, 10
          Obviously my original achievement should stay a personal one, but knife runs have been done several times before.

          REmake is just a plunder of achievements and trophies with so much stuff it has. Ah the good old days when Capcom made awesome RE games. I'm guessing Darkside is the last good game. And that's only because of RE2 in new graphics.
  • 2
    Seeker X Jan 10, 10
    I've been personally banging on this same drum for 5 years. Hell, right after I beat RE4 for the first time, I was already on top of it. Took a blog like this 5 *bleep*ing years to come out? Whatever.
    • 0
      dwg14390 Jan 10, 10
      Well in my case, I've seen countless of these blogs for years now, this might be the first one on gamecrep though I do believe their where others on this site.

      Like a fool I ignored them all and said RE5 would be the game to put the RE series back on track

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