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2005 Ashley the epitome of beauty.
(hexbear.net)
2023 Ashley the embodiment of western d*generacy
(G*mers literally believe this)
I think I'm the only person who didn't like the original re4 that much. It marked the downfall of survival horror for me turning the genre into a hammy action fest then quickly dying out completely. I do very much like the remake though and new Ashley is superior in every way.
Everyone always regards 4 as an evolution to the genre and revolutionary. Evolution of what? Killing survival horror? 4 birthed 5 and 6 then capcom had to throw it all in the bin and start again to make 7
Have you played any game with an over the shoulder camera since 2005? All thanks to RE4
I also fucking love classic survival horror but Capcom had milked the series to death by the mid 2000s. A reinvention was necessary
I'm honestly having a seriously hard time remembering any i liked. Dead space is one, maybe cold fear i liked kinda. The thing movie tie in game? Othe than that I'm drawing a massive blank.
Gears of War rules. Just a bunch of yoked bros talking about their feelings while shooting bugs
Ironically it mainstreamed a lot of design ideas that people now complain about, like quicktime events and contextual button presses (actually do people still complain about that? I know they used to after quicktime events got shoehorned into everything for like a decade after RE4). Basically everything about its design and controls was practically cutting edge for the time, even if it didn't invent any of it itself. I don't particularly like RE in general, but RE4 was genuinely an important practical example of a bunch of design principles that have since become standard.
Did you like the original Dead Space at all?
You're right, though, I fell off survival horror for a bit after RE4. I think I got back into the genre with Alien Isolation.
I do like dead space but that game sits in isolation to everything else re4 spawned. I don't even like dead space 2 or 3 just the first one.
Thing is i like it for the vibe, story, atmosphere. The gameplay itself is meh
I didn't even bother playing Dead Space 3 lol
I think you're onto something here. Vibe, story, and atmosphere are the key ingredients of a horror game. Gameplay is secondary, but can really enhance the vibe and atmosphere part if executed well.
If i think back to some of my most favourite horror games the gameplay generally hasn't been that great. I still have very strong memories of crawling through spider infested tunnels with some glow sticks in penumbra and coming across notes left behind and it sending chills down my spine. No monsters just imagination, writing, atmosphere. Signalis is similar, basic gameplay yet one of the most effective psychological horrors I've played in years.
One thing that actually felt revolutionary to me is the concept of a stalking monster which alien isolation did so perfectly. That game for me is my revolutionary horror game. And on the back of that Mr X in resi 2 remake and amnesia the bunker are just perfect.
Third person shooting, qte's, action focus gameplay, a resounding meh. Winback is my third person shooter of choice, so much fun to try and beat my times on that game.
Signalis is a beautiful game. Really well made. Good distillation of 90s survival horror gameplay.
I think it's less that it was revolutionary for the survival horror genre and more that it was revolutionary for third person shooters. Basically every third person shooter took some design cues from RE4.
I definitely agree with you though, that it basically ended the era of horror games being mainstream.
Were they ever that mainstream? Resident Evil was the only horror mega blockbuster in the PS1 era (I'm including the first two Dino Crisis games among them since they're basically RE spinoffs) and in retrospect I don't think it was the survival horror the average gamers liked, it was blasting monsters with guns. With the exception of Silent Hill, none of the other big survival horror games came close in terms of popularity, and even then Silent Hill was a pretty distant second.
Just to illustrate what I mean, Project Zero/Fatal Frame was considered one of the major survival horror franchises of the early to mid 2000s among RE, Silent Hill and Siren, and to date the entire series has sold 1.3 million copies. In comparison, Dino Crisis 1 sold 2.3 million copies and Dino Crisis 2 1.2 million.
The marker of downfall of horror to me was Amnesia. Now too many horror games are about hiding in a closet or under a bed as a spooky monster shambles outside. It kills the pace and kills atmosphere. Alien Isolation was the only game in that style I've enjoyed because of how reactive the monster is.
Silent Hill 2 is still a high point of horror gaming that's never quite been matched. RE7 was kinda cool though, I dug it. Reminded me of my Louisiana family in some weird coincidental ways.
When it came out Amnesia was a breath of fresh air (even though it was largely just an evolution of Frictional's previous Penumbra series) simply by actually focusing on horror. In 2011 we were one year away from RE6, Silent Hill was in the toilet and Dead Space 2 had just come out, which while a great game, leaned even more on action than the first Dead Space.
While I enjoyed Amnesia and to a lesser extent the first Outlast, I definitely did not like how horror in video games basically became synonymous with first person games about jump scares and hiding in closets from unkillable monsters. The thing is though, at the time Amnesia came out horror games had been mostly boiled down to shooters with gloopy monsters and flickering lights.
Also, you can really tell the first Evil Within came out during the height of the Amnesia trend. It's mostly a RE4 clone (from the same director) but the beginning of the game has some really clunky and annoying closet-hiding sequences awkwardly jammed in
If you liked Silent Hill 2 I would recommend the game Signalis that came out last year, if you haven't played it. It's very Silent Hill inspired and has great atmosphere
Edit: Nevermind lol I just scrolled down and saw you talking about it already
Really lovely game. Devs knew exactly which buttons to push. Thanks for the recommendation though
I've had this argument with my friend who's played and liked all the Resis (except Zero, she obviously doesnt like Zero, actually I think she doesn't like Code Veronica either) and that includes her not getting why people hate 5 and 6.
For me, Resi 4 original is a fun game, but I agree its a franchise (and genre) original sin moment and its not really Survival Horror, its a third person shooter with zombies and a few jump scares. I honestly can play and enjoy 5 and 6 as well but 6 especially just feels completely soulless.
Like idk. I think the original 4 is well designed so I can't bash it, but I totally get where you're coming from.