Resident Evil Megathread

Underground

I’m not sure what the fan appetite would be like to see 5 and 6 remade.

Just finished the demo there and was grinning like an idiot all throughout the village horde section. Man that was fun. Can’t wait for the full thing now.

johnny_ultimate

Series need to reimagine themselves, and Resident Evil has done it several times to varying degrees of success - but success nonetheless. The survival horror formula was tired by the time Resi 4 came out, and it delivered a much-needed round-house kick to the franchise with one of the greatest, tensest action games ever made. 5 and 6 may have been crap, but 7 and 8 were another smart and much-needed reinvention. It's a series that, to Capcom's credit, has often tried something different.

Also: Resident Evil has always been goofy and dumb as ****. The first game is laughably corny in so many respects - for every jump scare there's an embarrassingly delivered line of dialogue. The goofier aspects of Resi 4 fit into that lineage nicely. And honestly, I don't think there's anything scarier in the series than encountering chainsaw man for the first time.

Zero-Cool

It was rumoured (or was it proven?) They this went into development hell for a while with a different team coming to to take over. I wonder if they tried to go the serious route and met pushback to keep the tone of the original? I love Resi 1 and 2, my favourites the series but 4 was a real breath of fresh air, it had everything, such a great balance. Obviously the scales tipped to be more action orientated in 5 and 6 and as much as they could have made 4 remake now serious and scary, i think they would have lost the magic.

Also, there's a secret hard mode called mad chainsaw mode that seems to randomly unlock after either quitting the demo or completing it. Enemies much harder, no checkpoint, different enemy placement and new chainsaw boss who is on fire .

Grumpypants

I've 6 on the go on steam deck and 7 on the go from tonight on ps5. Such wildy different games. J

Zero-Cool

Yeah, like Johnny said, as bad as 5 and especially 6 were, at least they were trying something different and then to go in a completely different direction with 7, kudos to them. I'd like to try 8 in the 3rd person as i have no idea if i prefer 3rd or 1st for resident evil anymore. Both 1st person in the newer ones and 3rd person in the remakes are both brilliant. I can't see them remaking 5 or 6 though.

nix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343457#Comment_120343457

Yeah, while 4 went bigger on the action, it was commercially loved by near everybody (cept meh!) and so with that success they doubled down on the OTT action with 5, 5 done really well in sales though im pretty sure a lot of people didnt like it too much, i hated it of course 😁, but 6 was widely regarded as a piece of sh!t and didnt hit its sales targets, its the only console resident evil i havent played, the trailer was enough for me, it was hilariously bad 😂

So yeah they went back to the drawing board for 7, i think that came out like 5-6 years later after 6, which is wild as there was a resi evil game out like every 2-3 years at most prior to that.. So yeah, thats why they're such different games.. even before 6 came around the story was a complete mess so doing something completely new/different for 7 was kind of just necessary..

Zero-Cool

There's a hidden submachine gun in the demo :)

https://youtu.be/Iw4k9FBPar4

Grumpypants

I'm really enjoying RE6. All the puzzle and managing ammo elements are gone. But it's still a pretty decent zombie game so far.

Bar the cut scene heavy introduction I thought the later part of the University was fun, the subway was good as I was joined by a random player dropping in, just finished a big shoot out in a gun store where zombies poured in the windows.

I can see why it was not a fan favourite but Im glad I started playing it and it's not miles off the other action packed parts of 2&3.

brady12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343457#Comment_120343457

I have played and finished 2 & 3 remake . 7 & village plus 4 on oculus quest 2 . Was debating whether try 5 or 6 after 4 remake . what's it like on deck ?

polysteamtoken

I love resident evil. It's really going back. Playing to play from the first one through all the remakes till the latest ones. It will be exciting to see the new features & differences the new remakes bring to the series.

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120347293#Comment_120347293

It seems to be running pretty well. I didn't change anything and it's 60fps and looks pretty good.

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120347316#Comment_120347316

That's what I'm doing at the moment, although I had to give up one RE1. Even the remastered version is still pretty shaky.

Played 2,3 and now 6&7. I have 5 on PS3 but the disk won't play on PS5 so I might end up having to buy it again. Finished 8 recently enough too.

Now I just need to rewatch the movies again to complete the resident evil universe. 😂

polysteamtoken

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120347409#Comment_120347409

Why what's wonky about the first one? The wierd controls are like that for the first few but help create anxiety and tension. After that you should play silent hill that's what I'll be doing. Also some other Japanese horrors like clockwork, fatal frame & siren.

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120347845#Comment_120347845

I think it was coming off the back of playing the remakes of 2&3 the jump back to the remastered version of the first was just too jarring.

I'm not through 4 chapters of 6. The first two are 2 hours each. Still enjoying it. And it looks like you can play alternative timelines with the other characters too so could keep me going until 4 gets here.

Grumpypants

Wrapped the first run as Leon there. That was good fun. Far better than I expected considering the blowback it got.

The only bit that got tiresome was the reoccurring boss. I'm a bit tired of big monsters with glowing orb boss battles.

I'd say if they slowed the pace from a jog to a walk they could make it a bit scarier.

Started playing as Chris and it's completely different.

Zero-Cool

Leon's part is the only one i could play through. Chris's is awful and i didn't even get to the other one.

Retr0gamer

Chris's chapter is far and away the worst experience I had during the PS360 era, and that era was awful for triple A games so it's saying something. Saying that even the supposed best campaign, Leon, I found painfully bland.

Also plays Resi 6 instead of the masterpiece of the two versions of Resi 1. Does not compute.

Grumpypants

I've played RE1 a ton back on PS1, I've never played 6 even though I'd apparently bought it at some point. So that's why I went with that.

I did boot up the original RE1 and the directors cut and they are horrific looking on a 55 inch TV. Tried the remastered one. And while it improved the graphics a bit but the game was still too clunky to be enjoyable. maybe if they ever do a RE2 remake style update I'll give it a go. But I've zero interest in playing the original RE2 either.

Zero-Cool

Interesting topic, would RE 1 Remake work in the style of RE2 remake. i think the freedom of movement and ease of aiming would take away some of the claustrophobic horror of the first game and i would still play the absolute **** out of it. To this day, no horror game has sunk itself into my very being the same as Resi 1 OG has.

Retr0gamer

Resi 1 would work with a Resi 2 remake I think. It will be a very different game though the way Resi 2 remake was. There something just wonderfully tense about Resi 1 and also the design of the house and progress through it. The series went way more action orientated with Resi 2 and nothing really has replicated Resi 1 other than it's own remake. I just find the original a wonderfully designed game from a game design perspective. I didn't realise until boards poster Ropedrink brought it up that there's loads of alternative paths and cutscenes depending on you actions in the original Resi 1. That attention to detail was never replicated in the series.

As for it looking bad on a 55 inch modern display, the playstation 5's treatment of PS1 games is awful, they all look awful on it. I play my PS1 games on retroarch at native resolution with a crt filter and they look amazing. I wish the platform holders or even retro game compilations added decent CRT filters (I heard the recent turtles compilation on is pretty good so hopefully digital eclipse continue with it.)

Grumpypants

I wonder how much was design choice and how much was forced due to the limitations of the tech at the time. (Which is also good design to work with what you have and still make it good).

Probably a fair bit was done in the best way they could rather than what they wanted to do if they had more power.

Kind of reminds me of the stories you hear from movies where they talk about the suspense created from not seeing the monster, but it turns out they just couldn't afford the special effects to have them on screen more 😂

Retr0gamer

It was definitely the game they wanted to make. They took the likes of sweet home, alone in the dark and doctor Hauser on 3DO and decided to do that but better. The fact that they wanted to have a slow paced game that wasn't action orientated meant they had a hard time convincing upper management that it was a game concept worth pursuing considering Capcom were all about arcade and action games. I doubt the game came about accidently considering the people involved.

Anyway limitations breed creativity.

eggy81

Resi 4 demo dodgy enough on the steam deck.

Underground

I thought Resi 6 was really bad across the board bar the first I think two chapters of the Leon campaign, as soon as the bus crashes near the church, that’s when it all starts to go downhill. There were one or two cool moments in those first two chapters, there’s a part in the university where you go down a lift and can hear the zombies waiting for you in the underground car park which was cool.

Can’t forget that unintentionally hilarious bit at the start where Leon tries to talk the zombie president back to humanity, lol.

The rest of the campaigns were poor from start to finish imo.

Retr0gamer

The bosses as well we're all uniformly guinness pints scutter levels of awful. I mean you have resi 4 with some of the all time great boss fights and Capcom behind the game and they couldn't even get that right. It's actually worse than mgs 4 in terms of bafflingly bad boss fights from a developer that excels in them.

nix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120357153#Comment_120357153

Yeah the president bit is sooo dumb, they even put that in the trailer for the game, id understand if it was someone new and first time coming across a zombie acting like that, but Leon?!?!?! That guy has seen some sh!t and knows how its gonna go 😂

Mr Crispy

This is nicely done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPFDAp6fOcg

Grumpypants

Went back to RE7, they have done an amazing job on making that first part of the house really creepy.

Played a bit of it and then jumped on to the long dark. Great survival game. But it also involves searching abandoned cabins. Even though I know they are empty, I was still feeling nervous thanks to RE7.

Underground

First 75% or so of RE7 is great. Such a good return to form. Almost feels like they were apologising for deviating from horror by making RE7. Has elements of RE, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blair Witch and Evil Dead, great stuff.

Grumpypants

Forced myself over the hump with RE1. Learning to live with the issues and appreciate it for what it is. Can't do a full play through of them all without finishing 1.

Have just finished unlocking all the doors with the second key (suit of armour). Got the shot gun now too and told to burn the bodies.

Need to finish 1 and 7 this week. Playing both at the same time. Then likely try replay 8 on PSVR2. Then get 4 remake next week.

Not sure about all the spin offs. Loads of them are on ps+ but it might be a bit too much.