Spectacle is all well and good, but it’s short-lived, and doesn’t stick in your mind like the haunting corridors of Raccoon City Police Station. I’m not going to remember the Lady Dimitrescu boss battle for years to come, but Leon’s first hesitant steps into Raccoon City are already cemented into my mind. Resident Evil 4 is filled with moments like this. Despite being a rollercoaster ride of gunfights and boss battles, it never fails in making you feel vulnerable. Leon could have a fully upgraded arsenal at his disposal, but not taking his surroundings into account would lead to an untimely de
With the release of the Resident Evil 3 __ remake, fans are wondering what’s coming next. Will Capcom release Resident Evil VIII ? It has been three years since its predecessor launched in 2017. Rumors are already swirling about the game suggesting that it could be even more drastically different from Resident Evil V
Princess Zelda is busy holding back Calamity Ganon in Hyrule Castle, locked in a state of immortality as she tries her best to save the land from ruin. You can either embark on a journey to recruit allies and reclaim the Divine Beasts or simply dick around for hundreds of hours. Ultimately, it’s up to you, and thus any sense of urgency tied to the plot is lost. Player agency is the most important thing here, so for better or worse, the story takes a backseat until you’re ready to tackle it. A number of main characters like Sidon, Riju, and Purah can be found across the game’s major cities, but they’re mostly passive. They’ll initiate cutscenes and dialogue to push the plot forward once you engage with them, but up to that point, they just sort of exist, rarely influencing the world until you decide to acknowledge they even exist.
There are countless ways to tackle the majority of combat encounters and puzzles, while exploration offers the same level of malleability as the world around you shifts and changes with the day/night cycle. It isn’t perfect, and I’ve expressed annoyance at rain grounding my heroic himbo on more than one occasion, but I’d be a fool to ask for its removal. Countless games have taken inspiration from Breath of the Wild’s revitalisation of the open world formula, with Genshin Impact and Immortals Fenyx Rising being the most notable, and guess what – they both let you climb in the rain. Mihoyo and Ubisoft likely recognised the occasional frustration of this and decided to make things easier for you, while also secretly knowing that it sacrifices something in the process.
If the remake of Resident Evil 4 decides to trim the fat in a similar way to 2 and 3, it will lose moments like this. The original is the longest game in the franchise by a significant margin, and this is for good reason. Each major location is like a game in itself, taking time to introduce you to their threats, puzzles, and further intricacies before things inevitably descend into an avalanche of action. You hurl grenades around like other modern entries, but here it feels earned, like you’ve triumphed over unstoppable horrors and can finally take your revenge. The campaign being cut short would rob these moments of their brilliance, and this isn’t how newcomers should experience one of the best survival horror games ever concei
It could be that I’m worrying over nothing, and Capcom plans to do Resident Evil 4 all the justice in the world, but many of the habits it has formed and repeated over the last generation have me thinking otherwise. I hope I’m proven wrong, since I’m still so excited for such a reboot, but not if it does a disservice to what came before
The remake of Resident Evil 3 reportedly shipped two million units in five days. There is an obvious hunger from consumers to relive games of the past rebuilt for modern consoles. The remake of Resident Evil 2 is currently Capcom’s sixth best-selling game of all time, with roughly 5.8 million units sold. Similarly, the original 1998 release of Resident Evil 2 for PS1 is Capcom’s seventh best-selling game of all time. That game sold 4.96 million units worldwide, not counting the various ports and updated re-relea
Since then, shops have opened up in other games, usually through New Game+ modes. While it might be tempting to just do that again without clerks, they shouldn’t get rid of The Merchant. His warping around may not make sense but he is as big a part of the game as Leon
This train of thought originates from the remake of Resident Evil 3, which was a painfully underwhelming successor to the phenomenal remake of Resident Evil 2. The latter was one of Capcom’s best games in years, ushering in a new era of survival horror brilliance that I was confident it would Beast Claw build upon. With the arrival of Resident Evil 3 and Village, it seems it is opting for an action-oriented approach that won’t risk alienating those who aren’t willing to negotiate with horror. It’s the smart move, but creatively, it feels like a hollow one. Resident Evil is at its weakest when the action ramps up, giving way to adequate gunplay instead of allowing its atmosphere and monsters to do the heavy lift
