Disclaimer: These opinions do not reflect the thoughts of Just Push Start, only one insane man who just can’t let go of the Silent Hill franchise.
I am not a Resident Evil fan. Let’s get that out of the way, if you’re looking to tell me why Chris Redfield is a beautifully dynamic character or you’e slowly waiting for me to justify Ashley’s existence in Resident Evil 4, I suggest you hit up another editor.
And even I’m disappointed by the Resident Evil 6 trailer.
To be disappointed, you must first be appointed, and how on earth did I become appointed in the idea of expecting any sort of quality from the Resident Evil series? Well I kind of came to the game late. Resident Evil 4 was a fantastic romp through horror cliches that was executed with such gripping tension that you couldn’t sit still long enough to find yourself complaining about its lackluster story or, might I remind you, Ashley. It was a game that was handled so well, a true horror game, so slick, so stylish and so atmospheric that I could forgive a lot of its flaws.
Resident Evil 5 was a co-operative action game. Basically it was Left 4 Dead except you couldn’t run and shoot at the same time. Oh, and it wasn’t scary. Like at all. But here’s the rub, it wasn’t trying to be. It embraced its new action-style setting and actually handled itself with at least some degree of class.
So, surprise surprise, I actually kind of liked Resident Evil 5 too.
Let’s say the final word here, everything I want to be taken from this article and then I’ll articulate from there. The Resident Evil 6 trailer seems to be taking inspiration from everything that was wrong with Resident Evil 5.
Let’s get everything that was good out of the way so I don’t have to make justifications toward RE5. The environments were nice and atmospheric, it was varied and eventful and seemed to at least be competently strung together. And when I say that the RE6 trailer takes inspiration from everything that was wrong with Resident Evil 5, this is a hyperbole. I didn’t see an unintuitive inventory system pop up during that torturous three and a half minutes and it appears Sheva has gone MIA, thank God for that.
So if I’m going to be more articulate and precise, and I better be, I’m the news editor here, I should tell you that this trailer takes everything that was wrong with the spirit of Resident Evil 5.
Yes, you know, the spirit! That thing that games don’t seem to have anymore! Why are we so attached to the Legend of Zelda? Because its spirit has consistently proved to be one of epicness and sprawling worlds… except for Skyward Sword, but that’s another article. Why do we keep coming back to Silent Hill even after its recent titles have been action games and Pyramid Head tributes? Because we remember the spirit of personal horror and dread that the first games so beautifully encapsulated. Why are many of us so disappointed with the Resident Evil 6 trailer? Because its spirit is one of fan-service and action movies.
That’s enough pretentiousness for one paragraph.
I could harp on for pages and pages talking about how Resident Evil has ditched the horror label and why this is the reason the Resident Evil 6 trailer makes my blood boil, but they ditched that label an entire game ago so that would be a pile of salt onto a wound that healed up around the time that I was fighting mutant Wesker near a volcano and the image of Leon Kennedy and his weird haircut running away from Spaniards had faded into the darker corners of my brain. What I’d like to discuss here is quality and dignity.
We’ve seen this song and dance before, once with Silent Hill when the fans, with glittery fan-money in their fan-fiction writing pants would not shut up about Pyramid Head. We saw it twice when Nintendo created Super Mario Galaxy, looked at their shining and wonderful magnum opus and decided to take a break from innovation for a while and kick back while they released Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario 3D Land, all games without an original thought in its head. We very nearly saw it a third time when Valve decided to not cave in to its braying fans by not making Portal 2 a game entirely about cake and a companion cube.
And the fans still found something to harp on about in Portal 2 even when it had nothing memetic about it. It was the lemon speech.
Capcom seems to be not only caving into, but politely rubbing the shoes and raining complements down onto its fanbase by putting Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy together for a bombastic 6th outing filled with explosions and gunfire and now all that remains of the series is a hollow shell of what made earlier games so lovable to begin with.
THIS.
I promised I wouldn’t harp on, but it’s unavoidable. Resident Evil was a horror franchise. Resident Evil 4 was the zenith of the series, masterfully put together and Resident Evil 5 was an action movie, but it was a competent, co-operative action movie.
Resident Evil 6 is shaping up to be an insult to its players. A cynical cash-grab, hyping up its main character, forgettable plot and tedious, over-wrought dialog. Everything that was unbearable about the series is having a big explode-y spotlight shone down upon it. It’s the equivalent of someone telling Resident Evil that they have a really nice shirt on, ignoring the ugly, obnoxious tie-dye button RE had on its lapel. Convincing itself that it must have been its extra special pin that made them look so good, it bought a tie-dye t-shirt and Rastafarian hat until all that’s left of the classy, well dressed game you knew before was an over-enthusiasm to please.
It’s a shame that Capcom took one of their better franchises and dumbed it down to appeal to the lowest common denominator for a quick buck. It’s not like they had a pattern of doing this.
OH WAIT.
That sure is a lot of conjecture from 3:22 of trailer footage, 10 months out from release.
I largely disagree with your assertion of RE4 as a horror game. Resident Evil has been an action series since 4, and including its spin-offs. Based on the 3-minute trailer, 6 looks like it could be scarier than 5. Honestly, I just don’t see where your arguments come from.
This announcement ruined my day. Capcom is messing themselves up so badly. First the give devil may cry to a new developer, which results in an alternate Universe Heavenly Sword and no ties to the actual Devil May Cry shown so far. Then, they have a Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 character poll, who gets number 1? Megaman X, and not only that, there was 5 different megamna charcters in the top 10, so the made up half of the top 10. What character doesnt show up? Megaman anything all we get is a costume for Zero to make him look like X. Lost Planet 1 was great, when it came for a sequel, it changed dramatically, some thinggs good, lot bad. Megaman Universe cancelled, Megamn Legends 3 cancelled. And now Resident Evil, Capcom is not even a japanese developer anymore. I thought Capcom’s plan was to make a spin-off to cater to shooter fans in the RE universe resulting in what is soon to be released RE Operation Racoon City. Western Games must seriously suck in the eyes of japanese developers if all their games come out crappy, it sounds more like they are blaming the west for a crappy game. I’m surprised Capcom’s stock hasnt dropped like Square Enix (who decided to look at Call of Duty as the inspiration for a JRPG series…. really?) This game they announced looks like you can confuse it for Operation Racoon City, which you should not be able too. Resident Evil six looks like just another shooter but has a Resident Evil story. It’s as if they decided to ignore all the mechanics that make Resident Evil and ignore them for this game. Sprinting looks horrible, especially the camera angle that it goes in to sprint, Chris looks all cover based and doesnt seem like he’ll ever run out of ammo, you can walk and shoot simontaneously, its all fast andaction oriented, and chris has a team with him. The only thing that looks like it got better is the graphics and animations and all the cosmetic stuff. God knows what changes they made to the inventory and hey they might as well have regenerative health because they want to modernize and make a completely new game. Aside from characters and the story this game, from the looks of it so far, was not made for fans at all. Its like they took a diamond and found some way to turn it into just and everyday rock in the dirt that gets kicked, stepped on and tossed.
I’m not going to argue with your assertions about RE4 and 5, mostly because I haven’t played 4, and pretty much agree with your assessment of 5, but I too, don’t really see how you can jump the gun and start bitching about a game after a trailer. Yes, it looks like an action game trailer, but I agree with Kyle when he says it actually looked like there was potential for scary. If anything, I think Capcom might actually acknowledge both…let’s say “versions” of Resident Evil with this game. You get the RE2-ish dark rural town overrun by zombies (with the Tall Oaks plot), and the RE5-style action game with Chris’ raid on Random Chinese City A.
I’m generally pretty cynical when it comes to games, but I’m looking forward to this one. If there’s something RE fans should be bitching about, it’s the latest entry into the goddamn movie series. Ugh.
Not really. They are just putting the two best characters together to make a top story. If RE6 is to be the Big One it needs Chris and Leon.
@ Yami
And all of these things are completely on Capcoms head? Lets be completely fair here…
DMC wanted to try something new. They most likely picked the wrong devs (as they’ve made many unpopular games), but just because its not the same doesn’t mean it can’t be good in its own right.
Fun fact, but to include a character in UMvC 3 you must get permission from that team. They wanted to include the Hunter from MH, but it was opted out by the team… so regardless of what we want, if the Rockman people don’t want it, we dont get it. Also there is Franks Rockman costume (just saying) and Rockman gets gets several cards in the H&H mode.
Keiji Inafune left Capcom a little before Rockman Dash 3 was canceled. This was most likely the major cause for its death, because he was the main force behind it.
Oh, I actually wanted to clarify, I’m pretty stoked for DMC. The character design’s a LITTLE too skinny teen for me, but I’m still stoked.
Exactly what Kyle P. said. RE5 wasn’t much less horrific than RE4, which was significantly less horrific than the previous two Gamecube Resident Evils. And I don’t think you can really make such grand pronouncements on the nature of a game based on a trailer containing like 1:30 worth of random tiny gameplay clips.
Also, I agree that RE5’s inventory system was awful, but what was wrong with Sheva?
Well, although I agree with your point, I think you’re being far too presumptious about what the game will be like. Yes, I’m also annoyed about the direction they seem to be taking with RE:6. However, you are merely guessing that they are keeping all that was bad about 5 in the game, and you seem to think that it is going to be less scary than 5 aswell. Now, I’m not sure about anybody else, but this trailer looked alot scarier than anything from the fifth game.
I must say I love the fact that leon is back, and having chris in there is also cool, as if done properly, I can imagine a multiple story arc working really well in a RE game.
Maybe we should all stop judging the games for what they are compared to their prequels, and just wait and see if it is a good game, regardless of whether it is no longer a horror game. The issue I had with RE5 is not that they tried turning it mainly into an action game, but that some of the gameplay mechanics (e.g. not being able to shoot and move simultaneously) didn’t work in an action game. We can’t do anything about capcom changing their creative direction for the series, let’s just embrace it and hope that they learn to make a better action game.
@Andrew
Regarding: What was wrong with Sheva
A: AI that was 8 years behind the ball.