#this game looks like it's running on ps1 graphics the way i have it set lolol

[killjoy-prince]

So I'm playing this game on my tablet, which means I have everything graphic related set to the lowest possible setting to ensure the game runs with as little lag as possible and it's worked out for the most part but sometimes the game will try to communicate something with the in-game graphics and it makes me laugh

Like near the end of the Xianzhou quest line, we go to Scalegorge Waterscape, and we see this statue of Imbibitor Lunae and someone's like, "Look at this statue. Doesn't it remind you of anyone?" and

I don't know, chief. Could be anyone. Could be Skott for all I know. Looks like an unfinished sculpture to me. What do you think, spiky Dan Heng?

Got any idea who this statue could be depicting bc I haven't got the slightest clue

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Saturn - Snatcher

Title: Snatcher / スナッチャー

Developer/Publisher: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Release date: 29 March 1996

Catalogue No.: T-9508G

Genre: Cyber Punk Adventure

Snatcher is one of the cult classics and unlike many cult classics, this is actually good. Set in the cyberpunk future you take the role of Gillian Seed, a bounty hunter whose goal is to source out the cybernetic creatures known as Snatchers. Sound like a certain cult movie to anyone? Yep, Blade Runner in Japanese game form is a nice way to describe Snatcher.

Snatcher has been available on many formats such as the Japanese home computer systems mainly the NEC PC-8801 (where it was born) and MSX 2 [1988], NEC PC Engine Super CD [1992], Sega CD [1994], Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn [1996]. The strange thing is that the only English version released was for the Sega CD, the least successful console that this game was released for. Crazy! Anyway, Saturn fans will be very happy to know that the Saturn version is the best version released to date. Unlike the PlayStation version, the Saturn version is uncensored plus it has the benefit of having high-quality graphics from those versions that came before it. Now if only someone would produce an English patch for it (and the PS1 version, and the PC Engine Super CD version too.)

No one, at least in America, had ever seen a game like Snatcher, and thanks to the fact that Policenauts, Snatcher's unofficial "prequel", hasn't been and probably never will be released in America, we'll probably never see a game like it again (there is an English fan-translation for both PS1 and Saturn versions of Policenauts). It's a game that never fails to keep you on your toes. It manages to genuinely scare you, even though it never actively tries to. At one point I would even refuse to play the game at night, because as I would walk from my basement up to my room to go to bed, I would keep looking over my shoulder to check if a snatcher was sneaking up on me.

I actually grew up with Snatcher thanks to the Sega Saturn version, not the Sega CD, though I heard the Sega CD version is extremely popular. When a game that's running on a meager 16-bit machine with an onscreen graphics palette of only 112 colors (or in the case of the Saturn, a 32-bit console with an onscreen graphics palette of 256 colors) manages to scare you even after you've turned it off, that's the mark of something truly powerful. It could also be the mark of a paranoid coward, but I'd say it's a combination of both. Everything about the game is perfect. The graphics are in the style you'd find if you picked up an issue of Shonen Jump comic books, or manga. They're colorful and detailed, and even though they rarely move, they're too good for you to care. The sound is excellent. The voice acting is truly excellent, and although the voice actors seem to be overplaying their roles at times, we have to remember that decent voice acting at all in a pre-Metal Gear Solid era was pretty rare, and probably nonexistent to begin with. 

The music is excellently composed, and the right tunes play at the right times to get your heart truly racing. (The Saturn version swaps out the Sega CD and PC Engine's Roland Sound Scape [RSS] technology.) The game structure is a massive menu with a few shooting sequences thrown into the mix. It's the most entertaining menu ever made, in my opinion. All the choices one would want to make are there, and it rarely feels limiting. The shooting sequences are far and few between, and this is a good thing because once you start getting into the game, you'll want no interruption from your investigation. The storyline is top-notch- there are just enough plot twists and character developments to make it truly great. Luckily, there's no way to die in Snatcher. If you get killed during a shooting sequence, you push a button and attempt it again. Clumsy gamers like me appreciate the fact that you have infinite lives. All in all, there is much to love in Snatcher. Anyway, back to the game. Ungodly carnage, the greatest video game story ever, and an interface that is just the coolest. It's just pure quality at its finest.

As always, Konami gives us a quality color-printed disc and some nice stickers.

[miiilowo]

I like security breach for the potential it had. I hate it for what it turned out to be lol

So many cool things removed and so many plot holes or just inconvenient things like the security passes. Just really rushed and yadda yadda (The security bots screaming in your face was really really really annoying)

Thank god for fan fiction tho. Those writers got my back and have made lore that’s way more interesting than what we got in SB

Also I know this has nothing to do with fnaf but I thought I might as well ask since I’m here! What is ultrakill? Also have you heard of the Callisto Protocol? If so what do ya think of it?

i generally dislike pretty much everything security breach has to offer, which is rather unfortunate. i think on a superficial level the designs are sick, especially sun specifically, but even the glamrocks dont feel like fnaf characters. it deviates too much from what the series actual IS for me. i do think itd be cool if they capitalized on the potential of making it a sort of liminal space-it IS the perfect setting-but they just. didnt. which is disappointing

I have never heard of callisto protocol, but looking over it for a few moments has definitely intrigued me. ill probably forget about it unless markiplier plays it or something so i hope he does lmao

as for ultrakill!!!!!! its an indie release, high speed movement shooter, gets compared to doom VERY frequently. if youre familiar with doom, it should help to know it makes doom eternal feel incredibly slow. then crank it down to sexy stylized 'ps1' graphics add gay sex with the angel and thats ultrakill

as much as i love doom, it kind of feels wrong to compare them. they are both set in hell and you have to kill demons, but aside from that + the genre, they are very different things. i havent been able to play a whole lot of ultrakill myself because my laptop ABSOLUTELY cannot run it but what i HAVE experienced has been very fun even if i keep getting my ass kicked. the devs are pretty in-touch with the fanbase and there is so much content fed to us you would never get from other shit its insane. like. theres something beautiful and also very funny about a game existing within what is considered i feel to be a very masculine, 'gamer'y genre but also being almost explicitly homosexual and having officially licensed body pillow cases of male characters illustrated by a gay trans guy

[shadomega7569]

One-To-None Re-makes/masters

It's no secret that Remakes never live up to their original counterparts, and while they offer a similar experience in the end the original offered more in terms of content or even detail. Remasters while being a Modern Port still finds a way to strip something from the game, allow me to explain.

REMASTERS

Remasters again while provide players with a Modern Port of their favorite game and usually in a collection (Devil may cry, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Dragon Ball Z, etc.) and marked with a lower than norm price. However if we take Metal Gear Solid 3 HD you'll see that while it Mimics the Euro/Subsistance release, you'll see that the entire 2nd disc is missing aside from the Duel Mode which IIRC was on disc 1 as a completion reward. then lets take a look at The Last of Us Part I the "Remake" of the first game but we all know that its a glorified Remaster of the Remaster for PS4 and what happened to it? The entire MP aspect was cut in favor to have people buy Part II in order to play against people when the Remaster offered it. But not all Remasters have the MP portion in them. Other titles that have had a remaster with their Multiplayer modes cut are followed but not limited to;

Uncharted 4 (PC release)

Mass Effect 3

Crysis Remastered Trilogy (co-op and MP)

REMAKES

Remakes are a whole different bag as they try to incapsulate the nostalgic feeling while implementing new or improved features to make it feel Modern. Resident Evil 2 is one of those games that look amazing in terms of graphical quality, however the lack of the zapping system featured in the original 1998 release back on the PS1 that allowed any actions taken by Leon or Claire and having that decision effect the other in their B game (If Claire A uses a shutter to block zombies then in Leon B those same shutters will open after short circuiting bringing those zombies into the RPD). This is instead replaced with an altered path of the same exact set of events only having the starting point, puzzle solutions, Item Locations, and final boss being changed, other than that 1st Run and 2nd Run are the same between the two characters and yet the game unlocks the other characters 2nd run when completing the 1st run of the other character.

Now with Remakes I get that at times they're more reimagining's than anything but another offender In the case of piss poor remakes is Resident Evil 3. What makes this Soulless to the original 1999 release is a lot when compared to RE2, RE3 in this regard drops the Live Selection system (timed choices), altering paths depending on where you go like going to the Restaurant to meet Carlos and finding one of the gems in the press office where if met in the press office then the gem would be in the basement of the restaurant, an actual randomly encountered nemesis, and the lack of a subtle lab. The Lab was merely located under the hospital as oppose to it being hidden within a factory.

Another remake that seek to improve everything visually and implement features from later games would be the Yakuza Kiwami remakes, while not bad like other remakes there's mainly some level of detail that was better represented in the PS2 release. The scene that comes to mind is in Kiwami 2 when fighting the Go-Ryu Clan at the Tojo HQ with cars blocking the entrance rather than what they did in Kiwami 2 and just have the AR restricted area field pop up. That said the Kiwami games are still good for those looking to get into the series although if you plan to play them i strongly recommend you play through 0 first as both Kiwami games do have call backs to that game. I wont dwell anymore on this game series as Cvit covered this in more detail addressing a plethora of issues the remakes have when compared to the PS2 releases.

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

So I'm starting to enjoy myself more.

Yeah.

Did I mention the graphics and set design? It's actually kind of impressive. The "dungeons", which have usually been the interior of buildings, actually look pretty neat. It's not just flat walls with pixelated textures--there's a lot of detail and each one has looked different so far. I've made it to a Jedi Temple, and while still blocky, it looks really interesting and organic.

I guess I was expecting something closer to the PS2 games I've played. While there are some great looking PS2 games, many are...lacking. I'm not 100%, but it seemed like on PS1 there were more pixels per polygon, while PS2 had way more polygons but the ration wasn't as sharp. I don't really know what I'm talking about--but I'm impressed how good this game looks. It is the PC version...so...

WAIT. NO! It's the Android version.

Speaking of the dungeons, we get invited to this rich dude's mansion. One of his soldiers is working with us to steal rich guy's ship so we can get off the planet that's ruled by the Sith. Dramatic irony, the Sith are about the destroy the planet because...stakes. We end up attacking a Sith fortress and I'm intimidated. The game hasn't been "easy" because everything is based on chance and stats (ughhg). But it looks like I've level'd up pretty well and I was able to move through. Then we have to run around this guy's mansion that's heavily guarded, but it's easy work.

All the while, the game started to remind me of World of Warcraft, which I love. The combat is very pick a target and trade licks till someone dies. I kind of wish there were more moves like WoW. Just like 5 or so. In WoW you always have your opener, your DPS, your base attack, and your finishers. It makes the combat more than just pick a target and let it play out. At the same time, it makes the game a little relaxing. I can let the game play itself sometimes. The only issue is that character navigation can be clunky. My characters can't "pass through each other" so I can get stuck in a corner when my party members trap me, forcing me to switch characters to move out. And when there's combat in tight quarters, the melee characters can get stuck, unable to move into position.

Running around this facility felt very Star Wars. I almost hated to admit it. I don't know, shouldn't I enjoy a game I'm devoting hours to playing? But being in a small squad trying to break it just had that classic rebels against the world vibe that makes Star Wars films fun. But I need more computer spikes. Near the end I found an access card. Wish I had known about that.

As far as leveling up, for my main dude I'm trying to focus on persuade and...something else. Given how dialog heavy this game is, I want access to the good stuff! Many games, and I imagine this is one of them, having a high personality can get you easy access to things but rarely have you had time to develop it. Disappointing.

We saved a Jedi lady, and she's a jerk. I feel it has to be some developer misogyny but there is talk of her being very head strong. Sure.

The game is fulfilling my expectation of being story and mission driven. I like that. Sometimes the dialog choices aren't great. I was talking to a female Sith that had just killed her master. She was feeling ashamed and heartbroken. The secret, best answer the game was provided was to complicate her on her beauty. That's right, when women have recently committed murder and are struggling to figure themselves, tell them they're pretty. It fixes everything. In the same area, a woman says she misses her partner. The partner turns out to be a droid. The way the dialog is setup, the game seems to hint that this droid has relations with the woman. She's embarrassed and the dialog options seem to egg it on. Just seems like sexist dorks trying to make each other giggle.

I have a light saber now! I'm training to be a jedi. Part of the story is that you have to learn the ways of the Jedi, including their philosophies. Very dogmatic and pro-religious. As an atheist it was kind of icky. Got me looking up "atheist games". Didn't really find much. Atheist games being games that don't lean on magic and pseudo religion to tell their stories. Think the movie Sunshine, which the screenwriter said was supposed to be an atheist story. We're just stardust.

And then the game commits the ultimate sin. It praises the player character for being exception. "Oh I've never seen a Jedi learn this stuff so fast. Your power far exceeds anything I've seen. You're sooo coool." I'm guessing they're trying to make the player feel special, but it's so contrived. I mean, how can I be awesome and then keep getting my ass kicked in combat areas, huh? Check some ego friends.

Speaking of combat areas, the Jedi planet has some open plains for missions and fighting. It feels VERY World of Warcraft to me. I was also able to unlock a force healing ability. Very thankful for that! It heals people nearby too!

Alright. Well I'm having fun, and I look forward to progressing further.

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Tomb Raider Games Ranking

I saw WhatCulture published it’s own ranking the other day and thought I’d also share mine! I’ve only included games that have had home console releases so handhelds and mobile games are not in this.

Tomb Raider focuses on fictional British archaeologist Lara Croft, who travels around the world searching for lost artifacts and infiltrating dangerous tombs and ruins. Gameplay generally focuses on exploration, solving puzzles, navigating hostile environments filled with traps, and fighting enemies.

Tomb Raider games have sold over 85 million copies worldwide as of 2021. The series has generally been met with critical acclaim, and is noted as one of the pioneers of the action-adventure genre. Lara Croft has become one of the most recognisable video game protagonists, winning accolades and earning places on the Guiness World Records and she is praised for pioneering female characters in video games.

Ever since I first saw that Lucozade ad featuring Lara on TV as kid I fell in love with her and the series. I was with my parents at their friends’ house at the time and I was already obsessed with Ancient Egypt and seeing that badass woman doing all these crazy stunts in an Egyptian tomb was more than enough to make me start pestering my parents’ friends’ daughter who was older than me to take me to a nearby store to get me a Lucozade! After that it wasn’t until Legend’s demo came out that I got to actually play Tomb Raider for the first time. I eventually got Anniversary, then Legend, then watched the first Angelina movie, got to play Angel of Darkness and Chronicles as well and then the rest is history.

But enough about me, let’s talk about the games themselves!

15. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

There’s not many things I could say that haven’t been already said about Angel of Darkness so I’ll keep it short. The game has a pretty good story, the whole moody and gritty murder mystery plot was really fun. Lara’s characterisation is pretty fun too, like, I can tell that by this point she’s been through hell and is trying to go back to action. The graphics, when working properly, are actually still looking pretty and the soundtrack is also top tier. But in the end, the extremely dated, even by the time of its release, controls, the horrible combat system and the numerous glitches, as well as the very nature of the game being unfinished, lead to a rather tedious and unpleasant experience.

Score: 5.2 / 10

14. Tomb Raider Chronicles

Chronicles I feel is the least inspired entry in the series. I don't think I need to elaborate on why because it's literally just a bunch of scrapped ideas shoved together as a last attempt to make money out of the good ol' PS1 formula. It can still be fun and runs smoothly but it feels... empty. It's kind of just... there.

Score: 6.3 / 10

13. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris

Like with The Last Revelation, I love the fact that Temple of Osiris is set in Egypt! I also loved that Keeley returned for one last time! This one I've played a lot more with friends because it's usually three of us so we can play all together whereas Guardian of Light only allows for two people to play together. I'm also in love with Lara's model in this one and I hope to see it return in some capacity somehow someday. But other than that I don't feel like Temple of Osiris really has much to offer over Guardian of Light. It's a fun game but I can't help but feel like it's just Guardian of Light but for four people and in Egypt. I also noticed that Keeley's delivery is kinda off in this one? The way she delivers some lines either sounds overdramatic, off-tone or just cringe and it's definitely not Keeley's fault because she's done an amazing work in past games.

Score: 7.4 / 10

12. Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft

Tomb Raider III does some things really good. For one, it perfectly balances out the original's focus on exploration and the second one's action-packed gameplay into a perfect middle ground. The level design is on point, everything looks beautiful and I really enjoyed the vehicles in this one more than in Tomb Raider II. On the other hand however, the game really didn't bring many innovations to the table and I feel like by now they could have started to work on revolutionizing the controls and not just the graphics. My main issue however is how cheap the deaths in this game are. The previous two games and Last Revelation are challenging but reasonable, Tomb Raider III however feels like it's out to kill you on purpose and making the game harder for the sake of making it harder is not fun. Last Revelation did get this right; It's harder than the first two games but it goes about it the reasonable way and not the cheap deaths galore way. The return of the stupid save crystals further complicates things.

Score: 7.6 / 10

11. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation

My inner Egyptophile couldn't possibly not love a game set almost entirely in Egypt! The game feels different enough from its predecessors to understand that this is an evolution of the recipe but at the same time it's not revolutionary enough for me to rank it higher. I enjoyed the evolved puzzles this game features and that it wasn't just about finding the right key or pushing the right lever. It's more challenging but it's also genuinely rewarding too. Honestly though, the game's biggest selling point for me other than the fact that it's set in Egypt is Lara herself. If it was any other franchise and character I'm not sure if I would bother playing it again. I do appreciate Lara's further fleshed out backstory and personality a lot though. Jonell also further refined the character with her voice acting talent, building on what her predecessors did before her.

Score: 7.9 / 10

10. Tomb Raider: Underworld

The first time I played Underworld was on PS2 and... It wasn't good... So when I finally had a PS3 and got it as part of the Trilogy I was blown away by how much better it was in every single way. The game is pretty, even by today's standards, Thailand is hands down the prettiest location ever made in the series. I love how agile Lara is. Even if the transitions inbetween her animations are weird, I love the sheer ammount of moves she is able to perform. I miss acrobatic Lara so much! The story, although not as good as Legend's, is not that bad and I felt like it wrapped things up in a, relatively, satisfying way. Puzzles were a little bit better and the levels were bigger, allowing for more exploration. I actually got lost a few times the first time I was playing the PS3 version of the game, particularly in the underwater levels so making things less linear than before was definitely a fun factor. I of course have to talk about the shitty camera though because it was even more annoying than I actually remembered. Lastly, the combat system is also something they could have worked on a bit more. It's definitely more challenging than Legend's, even Anniversary's, but it still needed a little work. I like the fact that she can shoot at two targets at the same time though or underwater or while climbing and her kicks were awesome. Adrenaline meter was kinda cool but at the same time you could still play the game without ever really using it, making it a bit redundant.

Score: 8 / 10

09. Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Although the sheer ammount of collectibles and Paititi can be really overwhelming at first, after I got accustomed to them I had fun! Loved loved LOVED the challenge tombs and the focus on puzzles. I remember the one with the huge pool of piranhas in San Juan and the one with the statue in the Yaaxil DLC took me a while to figure out. Overall, even if I didn't have as much fun as I did with it's predecessors, I feel like Shadow was a good game. Shadow and Underworld actually share a lot of similarities. They both tried to innovate a bit on what the previous games in their respective trilogies did and developers incorporated fans' feedback while making them but the end result, while still fun, lacked the polish to compete with their predecessors. I'm excited to see what they'll do next now that this trilogy is also over.

Score: 8.2 / 10

08. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend

I have nothing but love for Legend for being my very first in the series and for being such a big part of my childhood. But, I tried my best to let go of any personal bias and take off the nostalgia goggles and acknowledge not only its benefits but also its drawbacks. Legend is fun, it's campy, it brought Lara back to the tombs and back to the gaming world from almost dying and for that I will always appreciate it. Lara in this is so sassy and kind of a smart ass and I think Keeley did an excellent job at bringing her to life; Keeley's Lara will forever be the definitive version of the character for me. Whenever I play I always try to walk whenever she's chatting with Zip and Alister so that I won't miss any of the dialogue... I probably know all of the script by heart by now but it never really gets old! Now, not everything is fun and games, unfortunately. The game is too damn short and, the more I grow up, the more linear it seems. Even if I didn't know the levels by heart it still wouldn't be much of a challenge to find my way around and even when I walk through each level instead of running it still doesn't last more than six to eight hours... Lastly, while I appreciated the more action-friendly tone and the music being constantly present as a kid, growing up I have realized that it kind of stands out a lot in a Tomb Raider game, where you normally expect the ambiance and exploration to take center stage. I still enjoy Legend any time I play it and it will always be one of my favourite games ever made but playing the game has become second nature by now and playing almost feels automatic, in a way.

Score: 8.2 / 10

07. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Like Legend, Anniversary is a game I've replayed countless times and also know by heart by now. More challenging than Legend, Anniversary almost feels like Legend's big brother in a way. Overall, I think it's a really good remake that could have faired better if it had been promoted. I feel like promotions for Anniversary were even worse than Shadow's. I randomly stumbled upon it when my PS2 died and I had to get a new one and Anniversary was sold along with it. I love the ambiance in the game and I feel like it's something Crystal have never managed to replicate in their games. Like Legend, Anniversary feels a little bit too linear. The slight increase in difficulty kind of sort of makes up for it but only in some levels like St. Francis Folly or The Obelisk of Khamoon.

Score: 8.3 / 10

06. Lara Croft Go

The most surprising and refreshing entry in the series in a while, I had my first chance to play Go when they were giving it away for free during the lockdown. I wasn't sure if it was worth it's money but girl... it is! I immediately bought it on PS4 as soon as I realized it's available there as well. I adore the ambiance in this game and the blocky character design. I feel like every time they include models inspired by the original blocky models from the first games in the series, a lot of people complain and even go as far as call it mockery of the classics which, forgive me but it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's a tribute to some of the most revolutionary early 3D games. The blocky low-poly models in Tomb Raider or Virtua Fighter or Resident Evil have become instantly recognisable because, back then, they looked amazing and, as pioneers in 3D games, really pushed things forward. The puzzles were genuinely challenging and it felt really "Tomb Raider-y" despite not having "Tomb Raider" in the title. Unfortunately, it does end a bit too quickly for my liking but at least it did good enough to receive expansions so that's something!

Score: 8.4 / 10

05. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Another one of the "fun little surprises" of the series. I feel like the Lara Croft side series gave a lot of room for experimentation and I do hope they eventually release a new Lara Croft game. Guardian of Light is fun to play either alone or with a friend and, compared to Temple of Osiris, it feels a lot more ambitious and you can tell the team behind it was really passionate about it and put a lot of work in perfecting it despite being a side game, and it paid off!

Score: 8.5 / 10

04. Tomb Raider II, starring Lara Croft

Don't worry, I'm not leaving all of Core's games out of the top ten! I saved the fourth spot for none other than Tomb Raider II! A beloved game by many, hardcore stans and casuals alike, the game is so much fun. While it can be argued that it doesn't do much differently compared to the original, that's not necessarily a problem in this case. The levels are huge and gorgeous and colourful and they reminded me why this game deserves a remake! Although there's a bigger emphasis on action, puzzles and exploration are still a big part of the gameplay and, last but not least, Lara finally has a braid!

Score: 8.5 / 10

03. Tomb Raider

When they announced they were rebooting the series I was not yet mad at them for the shit they would later pull with Rise so I played the game with no pre-determined notions of what it should feel or play or be like. And it worked. Tomb Raider is the only one out of the three Survivor games that I have replayed many many times because it was fun in 2013 and it's still fun now. It looks gorgeous, even by today's standars. Gameplay was... interesting. I never felt bored or annoyed while playing the game so the huge focus on action didn't bother me but still, I would have loved a little more exploring and puzzle-solving thrown in. Camilla really did a great job as Lara. I now understand the "she doesn't sound British enough" complaint that some of the British fans have and while I fully respect it, as a non-native speaker, it doesn't bother me personally. Out of all three games I think Camilla's best work was in this one. The story overall was good and it had it's moments like the ending or Roth's death and the first few hours of the game. Lara's transition from local college girl to survivor was, for the most part, convincing except of course when she goes from "Oh my GAWD I killed a mahn" to "welp, let's kill all the others too ^^" in mere minutes. Although very cheesy, Anniversary I think did a much better job at establishing Lara's first kill. The multiplayer mode was not necessary at all and it's one of these ocassions were I feel like resources could have been spent on developing content for the main game that would actually be interesting instead of a multiplayer side mode that no one really asked or cared for.

Score: 8.7 / 10

02. Rise of the Tomb Raider

It took me a while to get over the huge "fuck you" move that the time exclusive deal was... Yes I understand why it happened now and I've come to terms with it but at the time it just served as a means for me to start finding flaws in the Survivor games that were actually no big deal to bitch about because I was mad at Crystal and Square's decision. Leaving all that aside, the game truly delivered. I'm no fan of snow levels AT ALL, but, I can still recognise and appreciate the ammount of detail and hard work that went into designing both the enviroment and Lara herself. I appreciate that the gameplay is a bit less linear, some traps have returned, and that they generally seemed to be willing to listen to fan feedback and implement it but... it all felt like they could have taken it a step further. The previous game's formula worked of course so if it ain't broken don't fix it but every time they seem to take fan feedback into consideration they seem to go about it in the most "safe" way possible. The story is still good. Nothing groundbreaking and not as enjoyable as the previous game's but it still worked.

Score: 8.8 / 10

01. Tomb Raider, featuring Lara Croft

The one that started it all, Tomb Raider is a landmark in the gaming industry and one playthrough is enough to understand why. The game never truly loses it's appeal and this is one thing I've come to appreciate over the years. The ambiance is terrific, the pacing of the game is just right and completing each level truly feels rewarding. The levels, especially Peru, are pretty and, although a bit basic compared to some of the later games in the franchise, I think I felt the happiest and most satisfied during my playthrough of this game. There weren't really any moments were the game felt like it was dragging on. Everything was just about right and for that, I place it on the first place.

Rank: 9.1 / 10

First of all if you've made it this far then I'm happy because I'm assuming I've kept you entertained with my ramblings! So thank you! As a sign-off I want to make clear that this is not my list of favourite Tomb Raider games per ce, otherwise Legend would have been at the top! What I did is try to look at the games objectively (I mean, to an extent, it's still my opinion) for what they actually are and tried my best to not let nostalgia cloud my judgement. I made a ranking based on which games made me feel the most fulfilled and excited while playing them and this is the list I ended up with. Thanks again for reading. Happy raiding!

[super-famicom-star-inactive]

Friday Special #7

January 9th, 2021

So it has come to my attention that when people talk about RPG Maker the series, many aren’t aware of how far back the series goes.

Did you know that series dates back to almost thirty years?

That’s right, next year will be the 30th anniversary of RPG Maker!

So why don’t we have a history lesson into arguably one of the most important franchises in gaming history?

Alright, where does the story begin for this iconic series?

According to sources, there has been games similar to RPG Maker that were made by ASCII (the original company behind RPG Maker) and that were released as far back as 1988, with the following titles:

Mamirin (1988)

Dungeon Manjirou (1988)

RPG Construction Tool: Dante (1990)

Dante 2 (1992)

Chimes Quest (1992)

The very first official RPG Maker title came in the form of RPG Tsukūru Dante 98, released on December 17, 1992. This game, along with its 1996 sequel RPG Tsukūru Dante 98 II, was originally made for the NEC PC-9801 Japanese home computers at the time. It was originally made when ASCII pulled from other games (listed above) and combined them together to create a RPG-making development title with its own toolkit. The genre of RPG specifically was thanks to the rise of JRPGs in recent years like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to name a few. 

The next major release of RPG Maker was in the form of RPG Tsukūru: Super Dante in 1995, which marked the very first time that the series has landed onto a console. The console was the Nintendo Super Famicom and it was later broadcasted a year later using the Satellaview service. While it did exhibit some restrictions in terms of content due to system limitations, it was famous for providing hundreds of character, monster and scenery assets with color swap palettes to save on memory in the cartridge as well as designing the stats of characters and monsters pre-determined by the player. It was said that the game was popular with players but sources are limited about actual reviews. RPG Tsukūru 2 is the sequel and it was released in 1996 on the Super Famicom as well. 

Windows saw the release of the third installment with RPG Tsukūru 95, which was released in 1997 and was the first of many RPG Maker titles for Windows. Unlike its predecessors, it boasted higher resolution in sprites and tilesets as well as higher screen resolution. It also has the honor of being the first version to have an unauthorized English translation and release due to demand. Also with this version, the number of party members was boosted to 8 people with the first 4 acting as the main battle party. RPG Tsukūru 95 Value! was released not long after with the added bonus of having Windows XP support, which was new at the time and very valuable. 

So when did the West finally receive an official version version of RPG Maker?

On November 27, 1997, Enterbrain released the following title RPG Tsukūru 3 for the original Playstation and chose to release the software simply as RPG Maker in the West three years later on October 2, 2000 under Agetec. This was the first time the West would finally receive a version of RPG Maker and experience the magic of RPG development, but it was reported that a limited run of copies were released outside of Japan. It was also one of thirty games that utilized the now-rare Playstation Mouse (which is usually an arm and a leg to import). Players got to customize their own assets using the Anime Maker that was also built into the game and, like the original Super Famicom versions, utilized color-swap palettes to save on memory. Another cool feature that was a first for the series was saving your created game onto a memory card so that you could share your creation with your friends.

One of the most beloved and popular versions of RPG Maker is next on the list and it is RPG Tsukūru 2000 for Windows on April 5, 2000. Despite the popularity, it was Japan-exclusive and it featured a lower resolution for graphics and assets overall than its RPG Maker 95 predecessor. Despite this, it boasted more functionality with unlimited sprite sheets and tilesets.

The last in that trio was RPG Tsukūru 2003, first released only in Japan in 2003 before being released worldwide in 2015. Improvements to this version included the side-view battle system that was popular in Final Fantasy, and interchangeable resources. From this point, the development company Enterbrain would take over RPG Maker as it was part of the ASCII company. 

Starting with the released of RPG Tsukūru 5 on the Playstation 2 in 2005, Enterbrain was starting to look into developing the series for an international audience of players. They would beginning to craft titles that are now iconic in the RPG development community, with the first of these releases being RPG Tsukūru XP (RPG Maker XP as it was known world-wide) released on Windows in 2004. While many of the simplified features have been removed from this version, it was the first RPG Maker game to use Ruby, a type of programming language first seen in 1995, and it was the first title to distribute assets online amongst the community thanks to the rise of the Internet. It allowed greater control over sprite size other gaming aspects, which helped it become more versatile than previous titles. However, a drawback is the steep learning curve, which was intimidating to new players. It was released to Steam in 2015.

The next modern RPG Maker title was the release of RPG Tsukūru VX (RPG Maker VX as it was known world-wide) in Japan in 2007, world-wide in 2008. It has the one-up over XP for its more user-friendly layout and faster framerate of 60fps over XP’s 40 fps. The programming was completely done over to be more accessible in scripting and the battle systems were now similar to Dragon Quest with a front-view battle system and detailed text. Because of these aspects and other improved features, it became a popular choice for modern developers since release. However, one of the biggest drawbacks was the lack of support for multiple tilesets when mapping that frustrated players. It was released to Steam in 2016.

Right after that, RPG Tsukūru VX Ace (RPG Maker VX Ace as it was known world-wide) was a direct sequel to the version mentioned above. Described as an “overhauled version of RPG Maker VX”, it removed the multiple tileset issue that plagued players in the previous version and re-introduced battle backgrounds during battle scenes. Magic and skill systems were re-worked to have their own recovery and damage formulas in the programming, and a new set of music tracks were accompanied in the database files. It was released to Steam in 2012.

Having the distinction of being released by Degica for the first time world-wide, RPG Tsukūru MV (RPG Maker MV as known world-wide), underwent quite a few adjustments by introducing multiplatform support as well as side-view battles and high resolution features and assets. For the first time, JavaScript replaced Ruby as the default programming language. Players also saw the return of layered tilesets, which were missing from the previous installments. Not only was it released for Windows, but also for PS4 and Nintendo Switch (A XBox One version was planned but unfortunately scrapped), giving players new ways to share games. It was released to Steam in 2015.

The newest installment to the famous series is RPG Tsukūru MZ (RPG Maker MZ as known world-wide), and it was just released last year in August of 2020. Reviews for the game were mixed as players noted that the trailers leading up to release were very similar to RPG Maker MV. It did have some positively-received features such as autosave functionality and XP-style autolayer mechanics. It was released to Steam in 2020. 

So with the history side taken care of, what about some of the most iconic games ever made using the software?

Good question! Given the extensive list of successful games to come out of RPG Maker, that will be a separate Friday Special so I can cover them more in-depth. Maybe next week perhaps?

So there you have it, a comprehensive history of RPG Maker!

(Now, there were some older Japanese titles that weren't mentioned because of lack of sources, I do apologize. I also wanted to stick more to the major installments of the franchise itself.)

Thoughts From The Head

I was formally introduced to RPG Maker by some mutuals of mine on Discord a few years ago when I expressed interest in wanting to create scenes like a movie of sorts. My software of choice is RPG Maker VX Ace as it was suggested to me for being better at creating events than any other version. It's understandably intimidating at first, especially for newcomers, but there are hundreds of tutorials on Steam, Youtube and all over the internet.

I also have other copies of RPG Maker, including the PS1 version of RPG Maker and even RPG Tsukūru: Super Dante for my Super Famicom that I just received a few days ago! It's definitely wild how much the series has grown and improved upon over the years.

From what I have been recommended by friends who are long-time players of this series, either go for RPG Maker MV (if you're interested in mapping) or RPG Maker VX Ace (if you're interested in creating events). From what I have seen, those two are some of the more popular choices. In terms of platform, always go for Steam (and get them on sale when you can) because you will have better accessibility and it's more user-friendly than the console versions. The abundance of community-generated assets also help.

To end this post, here's some pics from RPG Tsukūru: Super Dante!

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

This is something a bit different from me, but in light of the recent announcement from Ubisoft that there’s going to be a remake of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time coming out in January 2021, I thought I’d share some thoughts.

(This started out small but got outta hand so super long post incoming, no spoilers for the games)

So first off, a bit of my history with the original game.

 I’m a big fan of the Prince of Persia (PoP) franchise, and I’ll fully admit that nostalgia plays a big part in it. You see, in many ways this 2003 classic was my real entryway drug into the world of videogames.

It wasn’t the first videogame I had ever played. My friends had consoles, there were some games on the school computers, but I didn’t own games as a kid. As far as my parents were concerned, these were all the spoils and soul damning devices of Lucifer himself. You know how it is, every generation goes through this thing of blaming all the world’s problems on a new artform: rock and roll, comic books and then videogames.

So yeah, a gaming console or buying games for the home computer was a BIG NO-NO! 

But of course, the more an authority figure says you can’t have something, the more you want and crave it. It was only a matter of time until the opportunity presented itself to me.

And then the day finally came.

It was just me and a couple of friends, going to this new magazine store near the school. And there it was: the dvd case that came with a gaming mag for like 5 euros if I remember correctly, stupid cheap for such a great game. 

There was doubt, there was fear, there was anxiety. I didn’t know much about the game, only the old 1989 DOS Prince of Persia:

This had the same name but looked different. I was seduced immediately.

The case stared longingly at me:

 It’s not my fault, I was bewitched and I bought it.

My symbol of rebellion, my first big transgression, and my first real treasured posession that I bought with hard earned money.

PoP:The Sands of Time was my original sin so to say:

Accurate representation of what happened that day

I furiously installed the game as soon as my parents left the house. Played it for a couple of hours and stood in awe at the thing - the cinematics, the cool parkour moves, the arabian nights setting, the time manipulation to undo mistakes when platforming or in combat, the Prince breaking the fourth wall saying:”no no no, that’s not what happened, let me start over” whenever I died and got a game over…

You have not experienced true fear if at some point in your life you didn’t feel the cold sweat running down your back as you hear the very distinct sound of your parents’ car arriving when you’re doing something “prohibited”.

 As soon as I heard that sound, I quickly quit the game, uninstaled it (I could not run the risk of them finding out I had tainted their machine with a videogame *gasp!*), and ran to my room to hide the game before opening the door for them. 

Neetheless to say, I never made much progress since I had to start over every time after quitting and uninstalling the thing. I would just play those first couple of hours over and over, never knowing how the story progressed, but I was happy all the same. At one point I knew every line of dialogue, every music cue, every sound effect of that beginning part. It would be some years before I got my first laptop and finally managed to complete it. 

All of this to say that the game means a lot to me. Not just as a product or piece of entertainment. This wasn’t casually playing on someone’s gameboy advance or PS2 to have a bit of fun and pass the time.

 This was more intimate.

 It was just me; the game; a dark room and a blanket; and a sincere and charming, simple but compelling story told seamlessly through mechanics that only enhanced it. This was me witnessing gameplay and storytelling going hand in hand in a way that even many of my other favourite games don’t do, or don’t do as well (there’s usually some disconnect where a game only manages to really excel at one but not the other).

Ok, so on the announcement and trailer:

As a big fan you might think I was super hyped for this. 

But I gotta say…no, not really.

I’m not super angry, but I’m not really excited either honestly. And I don’t think it’s just the rough and uncanny character models and animation that people are pointing out all over (although that doesn’t help).

I guess to talk a bit on that, I should stress out that my problem isn’t that it doesn’t look realistic enough. To be honest, and this is going to sound rich from a big Witcher 3 fan, I think that the gaming industry overall, moreso big tripple A titles, seem to have this unhealthy obsession with photorealism. Like, I don’t need to see the characters’s pores to care about these polygon people. Strong art direction is what I feel is more valuable. I just don’t think this arms race to photorealism is sustainable. Games are taking longer to make and fund, and I’d rather have dev teams spend more time polishing and refining the games’ mechanics and/or story if the trade-off is less “realistic” graphics.  

It might just be personal preference, but I wish we were getting more stylized character and world design. Go look at some screenshots for Pathologic 2, a game that came out last year that hits that sweet spot between full-blown cartoony/caricature and realistic by today’s standards:

And I think that is somewhat what they were going for with this remake’s character models (or I hope it was). But it’s still not quite there, hopefully they’ll work on improving those so they can hit that sweet spot also.

(in defense of my hipocrisy and love of The Witcher 3, I think the more realistic look was appropriate for the world they were portraying, it benefits from it. However I don’t think I would love it any less if it had less detailed models and environments)

One last thing on the graphics.

I will say this though, at least from the footage we see in the new trailer the team seems to be capitalizing on colour. Big vibrant reds, blues, whites and yellows in the environment look great, and really captures the 1.001 nights/arabian nights feel that I absolutely love. I appreciate that since there’s always this tendency for remakes to suck all the colour and life from the original (in both games and movies), regardless if it fits the setting and tone or not.

Anyway, I think the reason I’m very much without a big reaction is that I believe the 2003 original is a true classic, a masterpiece even - I guess I should stress out that when I say masterpiece, I don’t mean it’s perfect. Just that the whole is bigger and better than the sum of its parts, that the things it does right, it does so right, that it completely overshadows the flaws. 

The story, the art direction, the gameplay (the holy trinity of platforming, combat and puzzle solving), the brilliant introduction of the dagger of time as a gameplay and story mechanic (one of my favourite mechanics in all of gaming), the music, the charming duo that is the Prince and Farah, the tight pacing with the game being just the right length and not overstaying its welcome, the outstanding level design where you’re never stuck doing one thing for too long (the game is always juggling between combat, story, platforming and puzzles, mixing and matching)… 

Looking at all these things, I just really don’t think we need a remake because I don’t think there’s that many glaring terrible flaws that could justify it. 

Adding more scenes and content could be good, or it might backfire: bloat and ruin the game’s already excelent pacing and fluidity (which I think is the main keyword that better describes the original, everything flows superbly). The original was only 6-8 hours long and it is better for it. I’m not confident that adding dozens of hours of gameplay like the big tittles today would help at all.

The only real improvements I can see are: 

tweeking and perfecting the combat (I’ve seen it mentioned that they’re implementing a targeting system which sounds good); 

perhaps also better Farah’s A.I during combat when you have to help protect her from swarms of enemies;

Maybe throw in a couple more enemy types? The cut sand tigers for example? 

usual things like adding the option of subtitles, add the ability to skip cutescenes;

But other than that…

I don’t even think the graphics of the original look bad. They’ve aged of course, with the game being 17 years old, but still. I installed it last night and played through the first hour to take some screenshots and I think they’re still good:

I can understand the MediEvil remaster, the Spyro remaster or the more recent FFVII remake in terms of wanting to update the graphics. I can understand that not everyone can easily go back to these low poly lads:

 But this game? I know I’m influenced by nostalgia and all, but I don’t think it needs that makeover that badly, especially when compared to these other remakes and remasters. Funnily enough, I just noticed that these examples I just listed were all PS1 games. PoP: SoT was a PS2 , PC and Xbox game. PS2 era games have aged far better visually and don’t need that big a makeover in my most humble opinion.

It would be one thing if the original was out of print like a Rule of Rose scenario ,where you can’t find the game unless you go to ebay or something and it’s stupid expensive. Or if it was a pain to get running on modern systems like it was with Grim Fandango, until it got a remaster. 

But no, you can find the Sands of Time trilogy and the PoP (2008) reboot on GOG and Steam (on Steam only there’s also the PoP:The Forgotten Sands midquel). So there isn’t the usual problem of the game no longer being accessible to people who want to play it, which helps justify the need for a remake.

The original still plays nice, sounds nice and looks nice, so I guess this all goes to show that at the end of the day, this remake just feels a bit unnecessary to me, at least from what little the trailer showed (I would love to have my bitter cynical ass proved wrong though!). 

 Maybe I just have a superhuman tolerance for older games and how they look, I really don’t have that big a problem if the game itself is good or interesting, so I don’t always think older games need remakes.

Maybe my falling out of love with Ubisoft in this last decade has curbed forever any hype I might have for their announcements, even when they pull out my  son, my baby boy Prince of Persia out again.

 Maybe I’m just burnt out and too pessimistic about remakes, remasters and adaptations (although game remakes usually do better than film ones).

And this makes me a bit sad because I don’t want to sh*t all over the first piece of “new”  Prince of Persia content we’ve had since 2010??? Oof, it’s been a while.

Especially knowing that Yuri Lowenthal is coming back and excited to voice the Prince again. And I also don’t want to be too harsh since we’re looking at an alpha of the game. But so far I’m just very numb to this, I do seriously hope it turns out good and that they don’t rush it out the door. But I’m not convinced we need a remake in the first place. The original is a milestone, a game changer. I’d rather see a game that had great ideas and poor execution being remade than something people already love and consider a masterpiece.

 Guess we’ll see how I feel once more news and footage come out.

Oh and feel free to share your own thoughts on this remake. I’m curious to know what both fans and newcomers alike think.

small edit: I can’t believe I was just watching this Sands of Time playthrough on youtube and at one point it is said: “Another game that is designed similarly to this is Soul Reaver actually.” 

Of course! I didn’t even see it! All of my favourite things are connected!!! Maybe that detail was another thing that helped me getting really into Soul Reaver as I was first playing it.

[aion-rsa]

15 Hardest PlayStation One Games of All-Time

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The PlayStation is fondly remembered for its classic collection of revolutionary games, advancements in 3D technology, and CD player functionality that let you easily play the Men in Black soundtrack whenever you wanted. As you’ve probably guessed from the title of this article, though, it’s also the home of some of the hardest games of the ’90s.

The PlayStation may have helped move us out of the arcade era and its notorious difficulty levels, but with the challenges of 3D game design came a new set of in-game challenges that tested a generation of gamers in ways that they simply were not prepared for.

Even after we’ve grown accustomed to the machinations and expectations of 3D game design all these years later, I suspect that many modern gamers would struggle to beat the 15 hardest PlayStation One games ever.

15. Crash Bandicoot

One of the funniest things about the release of 2017’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was watching everyone suddenly remember that the Crash Bandicoot games were absurdly difficult. 

Despite their linear design, the Crash Bandicoot games demanded a level of platforming perfection that proved to be elusive enough at a time when modern video game graphics, cameras, and controls made the remakes of the Crash Bandicoot games much more accessible but was nearly impossible to achieve in the early days of PlayStation gaming.

The later Crash Bandicoot games made things slightly easier, but the first title’s combination of intentionally challenging obstacles and a few questionable design decisions make it one of the most truly difficult games of its era.

14. Fear Effect

The original Fear Effect games are awkward to play today for a lot of reasons (casual racism and strange “softcore” cutscenes, for instance), but if you find yourself struggling to make it through these titles, it’s not just because they haven’t aged especially well. Fear Effect was an incredibly difficult game even for its time.

Essentially a blend of Resident Evil-like controls, point and click adventure puzzles, and awkward stealth sequences, Fear Effect is like a Hall of Fame for the most challenging and infuriating gameplay concepts of its era. 

Fear Effect 2 might even be harder than the first game, but the nod here goes to the original for featuring one of the most uniquely difficult gaming experiences the PlayStation has to offer. 

13. Driver

22 years after its release, I’m still convinced that Driver is a prank. How else can you explain developer Reflections Interactive’s decision to make this game’s tutorial mission one of the hardest levels in video game history?

Driver’s first level requires you to complete a series of complex maneuvers in a confined space while racing against a way too short time limit. To make matters worse, the game often fails to recognize when you’ve properly completed a maneuver, which means that you might not pass the test even if you’ve somehow mastered the game’s most complex movies the first time you’re ever asked to perform them. 

If you’re one of the many who has never beaten Driver’s opening level, you may be shocked to find that there are difficulty spikes later in the game that are even more difficult than its notorious opener. At least this game is still better than the sequel. 

12. Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey

Oddworld’s unique puzzles and strange core mechanics would have made it challenging enough for players just trying to figure out what’s expected of them, but this game goes one step further by employing some of the most unforgiving level design tactics in PlayStation history. 

Your margin for error in this game rarely rises above zero as gunfire and traps constantly threaten to end your fun. While that kind of unforgiving gameplay makes sense in something like a bullet hell title, it can be frustrating to work with in a puzzle game where your trial and error attempts are hindered by an additional series of wrong moves. 

Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey is clearly meant to be a difficult game, but knowing that doesn’t make it feel any less unforgiving. 

11. Rayman

As strange as it may seem given the evolution of the franchise over the years, the original Rayman is by far one of the hardest games of the ‘90s and arguably one of the hardest platformer games ever made. 

Unlike other platformers that challenge you with rewarding gameplay that requires precision movements, most of Rayman’s challenges can be best described as “bulls***.” The slippery slopes and spiked pits spread generously throughout levels might kill you, but the game’s bizarre enemy spawning system that makes it practically impossible to anticipate their placement certainly will. 

If Rayman isn’t one of the hardest games ever made its certainty among the most frustrating. 

10. Vagrant Story

For years, fans have called Vagrant Story one of the most underrated PlayStation games and one of the most overlooked RPGs ever made. It deserves both those titles, but I think Vagrant Story also deserves to be remembered as an absurdly difficult epic. 

Initially, the challenge of Vagrant Story comes from learning its unique combat system that often leaves you feeling helpless. Even after you’ve made sense of the basics, Vagrant Story’s brutal bosses, clever traps, and even “basic” enemies will constantly make you wonder whether or not you can ever really master what this game throws at you. 

Like Dark Souls, Vagrant Story’s difficulty is very much part of what makes the game work as well as it does. Appreciating that doesn’t make the game any easier, though. 

9. Heart of Darkness

Never heard of Heart of Darkness? I’m not surprised. Even for its time, this was a relatively obscure title that is now fondly remembered for its visuals, excellent story, and interesting gameplay. Mostly, though, Heart of Darkness is remembered for its nearly unrivaled difficulty spikes.  

In fact, Heart of Darkness could give Driver a run for its money in the battle between games with the most absurdly difficult opening levels. Enemies swarm you in this opening section like you’re playing a bullet hell shooter, but the game controls like a particularly clunky FMV puzzler. Even if you know what you’re doing, it’s incredibly difficult to respond to the on-screen action in time. 

Things get slightly better from there, but I’d still say that most gamers will not have the patience for this game’s labyrinth levels, bewildering puzzles, and often painful controls. 

8. Blasto

To be fair to Blasto, this PS1 action game was probably released a generation before technology could properly support it. In another timeline, it might have turned out to be as good as the first Ratchet and Clank game. To be even fairer to Blasto, it starred the late Phil Hartman who always went above and beyond for everything he did, including the voice work for this game. 

With all of that out of the way, let’s focus on Blasto’s real reputation as one of the PS1’s most reliable sources of broken controllers. It’s bad enough that this game’s slow movements and dodgy camera make even basic sections challenging, but the fact that many levels have no barriers to speak of means you spend most of your time falling to your death while trying to complete even simple jumps. 

This is a truly painful gaming experience that snared many unsuspecting gamers with its charm and front-loaded good ideas. 

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7. Einhander

While not the most difficult 2D shoot ‘em up ever made, Einhander was high-profile enough to lure in many early PS1 adopters who were completely unprepared for its retro difficulty level. 

Rather than throw as many enemies at you as possible and call it a day, Einhander increases the health pool of the average enemy while requiring you to navigate some truly devastating death zones. The impact of that design decision really comes thorugh in the game’s boss fights which task you with taking down massive foes who employ complex and shifting attack strategies. 

This is a truly great game that stands the test of time, but don’t let its looks and sounds convince you that Einhander is anything less than a classic example of “NES hard.” 

6. Irritating Stick

Yes, the game’s title gives its difficulty level away, but to truly appreciate how frustrating Irritating Stick is, you’ve got to play it for yourself. 

Irritating Stick is like a blend of Super Monkey Ball and the board game Operation. It requires you to guide a small ball through a series of themed mazes that leave you almost no room to safely maneuver. To make matters worse, you have to race against a constantly ticking clock that’s absurd restrictions essentially require you to truly master this game within a few levels. Of course, true mastery may not be possible for most players as each level seems to add a new wrinkle that makes you wonder how you will ever get through in time. 

Oh, and I have to give a special shout-out to the game’s announcer who screams “Watch out, you’re too close to the edge!” whenever you’re near the game’s barriers. Yes, I know I’m too close to the edge, now kindly leave me the **** alone. 

5. Incredible Crisis

Remember that scene in Metal Gear Solid when you had to mash the Circle button to survive the torture device until it felt like your wrist was going to break? Well, imagine that scene stretched out across most of a full game. That’s Incredible Crisis. 

Incredible Crisis is a collection of eclectic minigames that often require you to mash buttons as fast as humanly possible. Actually, I take that back. No human can be expected to survive this gauntlet of finger destroying terror. Oh, and if a minigame doesn’t require you to furiously mash buttons, that means it’s only going to destroy you in some other strange way. 

The bizarre set of skills required to beat this game means that it may even frustrate gamers who otherwise seek such challenges.

4. Tomb Raider 3

Yes, the first two Tomb Raider games are difficult. However, part of their challenge (especially today) stems from their ambitious design which was often ahead of what you could reasonably expect from video game technology at the time. 

Tomb Raider 3 is on a different (difficulty) level, though. Even if the game didn’t add a ridiculous number of spikes, boulders, pits, and traps waiting to end your run before you know they’re there, its bewildering level design that tried to recreate the experience of having no idea what you’re doing in the middle of a dark tomb has broken even diehard series fans. 

Despite its better moments and incredible pedigree, it’s genuinely hard to recommend this game to anyone but masochists. I genuinely don’t know if it’s possible to beat this game without a strategy guide or walkthrough. 

3. Nightmare Creatures

There’s a degree to which early PlayStation games were fundamentally unprepared to handle the challenges of 3D action/adventure game design. That means that any additional difficulties added to that underlying level of challenge make some games of that era nearly impossible to properly play today. 

I guess that’s just my way of saying that Nightmare Creatures is indeed the nightmare it bills itself as. What would already be a challenging romp through a hellish world of monsters is made that much worse by the presence of an adrenaline system that effectively serves as a time limit and forces you to kill enemies as quickly as possible despite often being unprepared for them in every conceivable way.

Some games throw you into the water to teach you how to swim. Nightmare Creatures holds your head under the water as you lean because it fundamentally doesn’t want you to succeed.

2. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

The “fall” of the stealth genre from mainstream gaming in recent years has long disappointed genre fans who rank such games among their favorites of all-time. Yet, it has to be acknowledged that even the best stealth games were often difficult in a way that could immediately dissuade even tested gamers. 

While difficulty is a given in many stealth titles, Tenchu sometimes abuses the privilege by going out of your way to remind you that you are weak. Maybe it’s because many of us were just excited to play a game where we were a badass ninja assassin, but the way that Tenchu required you to play it safe and employ trial-and-error tactics to survive its various challenges left many burying their hands in their face as they tried to understand what they were doing wrong. 

Even after you appreciated Tenchu for what it was and even discovered what the game expected of you, it always found a way to force you to make that little mistake that would instantly end a run. 

1. King’s Field

Is it cliche to name a game from eventual Dark Souls developer FromSoftware as the hardest PS1 title ever? For the sake of argument, let’s say it is. That doesn’t change the fact that even Dark Souls veterans will find themselves surprised by how difficult this game truly is. 

King’s Field was pretty revolutionary for its time, which means that many gamers simply didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing when they booted up this title. What the most patient PS1 gamers discovered, though, is that King’s Field is basically a rough draft of Dark Souls combined with an especially difficult dungeon crawler. Even if the game’s ambitious 3D visuals and the jank they produce didn’t create additional challenges, this title’s brutal combat, a parade of traps, confounding controls, deliberately slow pace, and complete lack of direction even made hardcore PC RPG fans wonder what this game was and why it hated them so much.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

King’s Field doesn’t hate you, but it’s a testament to what the game was going for that it’s both clearly an early look at the next 25 years of gaming and a title that will likely still challenge generations to come.

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[frangelic999]

Resident Evil Time

As we all know, Spooky Season began on August 1st, as it does every year. Skeletons began to emerge from the earth, and we all joined together to help along the slightly unripe ones with just a knuckle bone sticking up out of the lawn. Pumpkins rolled down into town from the foothills, snuggling into piles of radiant leaves as they awaited their new, temporary keepers. Here on the west coast of America, ash began to fall from the sky, as it does every season of ash, and we all went out to frolic in the ash as we gasped for air in our newly toxic Zone. It never rains in California, except when it’s raining ash. As such, around August 1st I began my quest of playing every mainline Resident Evil game, and a couple of spin-offs. What follows is the book report that I wrote on this experience.

Resident Evil is a series that’s been on my radar in one way or another as far back as 1996, when I was a kid, but I never really took a very close look at it, or wanted to, until I played RE7 in 2019. My oldest memory involving this game is wandering Blockbuster with my older brother looking for a game to rent. Another kid was there, also with their older brother, and the little kid suggested Resident Evil, but the bigger kid sagely declared “Nah, the controls are bad,” and they left it at that. I don’t know why I remember this, but I do, and my general feeling about Resident Evil was negative, I think because I had played the demo and didn’t like it, due to the fact that it’s not really designed in such a way that a kid would like it much. My first actual experience with the series, outside of that, was playing Resident Evil 3 in 1999. At the time, I loved it, but I was 12, and wouldn’t have been able to articulate anything about why I liked it other than “cool videogame, Jill pretty. Jill me.” I also played RE4 and RE5 around the time they came out, and I enjoyed them as fun action games, but still didn’t think much of the series or really care about survival horror. My other experience with the genre pretty much only extends to Alan Wake, Dino Crisis, and Dead Space, all of which I played so long ago that I remember almost nothing about them. What kind of monsters does Alan Wake fight? Couldn’t say. Could be anything, really. I remember the main character of Dino Crisis, Regina. She had red hair. Regina pretty. Regina me? Strangely enough, wanting to play the role of formidable, independent, resourceful, attractive women in games was a running theme in my formative years. What could this possibly mean? We may never know. But anyway, I was very excited to go on this journey into the survival horror franchise, and one of the most iconic franchises of all time. It had its highs and lows, but it was well worth it, and I emerged with a newfound appreciation for the design and appeal of survival horror games. The intention here isn’t to give a full, thorough analysis of these games or a breakdown of every aspect of them, but to compile my various thoughts on them, so it’s more of an opinionated overview than a deep dive. 

Resident Evil (1996)

It’s actually really hard to place this game when making a tier list, due to the simple fact that none of these other games would exist without the conventions Resident Evil set. It was groundbreaking, and literally invented a genre. At the same time, it's impossible for me to not compare it to other, better games, because I have knowledge of the rest of the series. It was an experiment for Capcom, and it shows in the game's rough edges. It feels like it had good ideas that didn’t always live up to their full potential, due to some combination of inexperience, available hardware/software, and questionable implementation.

RE1 is... not very good at being scary. It does its best, but it's a fairly early PS1 game. I think a lot of this has to do with the atmosphere and graphics. Visually, it’s just kind of ugly in that early PS1 way, and the color choices are dull and lack cohesion. For a horror game taking place in a spooky dilapidated mansion, it feels a little too bright, and I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that no one really knew how to make darkness convincing on PS1 at the time. But it’s not entirely the PS1’s fault this game is ugly, as you can see from RE2 and RE3 being not ugly. The color choices and backgrounds just aren’t especially lush or interesting.

I don't really need to go into the voice acting and writing of this game, due to their status of legendary badness. The live action cutscenes are unbelievably cheesy and almost impossible to watch with a straight face. The live action ending where Jill and Chris hold hands as they fly away in a helicopter is incredibly dumb. If you correctly chose Jill as your main character, it just seems incongruous that after fighting her way out of a deathtrap of horrifying creatures, she's now laying her head on the big strong man's shoulder. It’s bad, but fortunately the game isn’t entirely bad narratively. It was surprising, in a game from 1996, to see the in-world documents scattered around that add to the narrative, telling you what's really going on and adding detail to the broader strokes of the story. This is a thing that's ubiquitous in games now, AAA or otherwise, and I'm wondering if this game helped to establish that facet of games. RE1 has a simple story of evil corporate experiments gone wrong, with the driving force behind everything the player/character does being escape from the mansion, and this simplicity really works in its favor. As we shall see in later RE games, convoluted stories don’t really lend themselves all that well to horror. 

If you look at other games released in 1996, there are a lot of fast paced action games, like 3D platformers and first person shooters, as well as RPGs, and it's clear this game was something different. It has that slow, methodical play that makes survival horror feel unique. The feeling of not knowing what's waiting for you behind the next door, but knowing you have to go anyway, and that balance between surviving and solving puzzles to progress. The backtracking and item hunts, the interlocking paths and puzzles, the environmental storytelling and documents, the sense of isolation, it's all here in the first game. Some players may not find inventory management thrilling, but it’s a key part of these games, and it’s mostly done well in the good ones. Inventory management and item scarcity are a big part of what actually captures that feeling of “survival horror.” Since items are needed to progress, your inventory is directly tied to your progress, and at its best this forces you to make tough decisions about what you really need to carry and by extension makes you play more conservatively and prioritize avoidance. At its worst, it forces you to go back to previous areas for no reason and wastes your time while hurting the pace of the game, which RE1 is only guilty of at one point toward the end. The more weapons and ammo you have, the less room you have to do the work of actually progressing in the game through item-based puzzles, so you often have to sacrifice some of your lethality to progress smoothly. There’s a fine line between giving the player too many resources and too few, and almost all good survival horror games walk that line very well. It's also just thematically appropriate that your character isn't able to lug around a hundred pounds of gear. The open-ended nature of exploration, or the illusion thereof, is also an important aspect of survival horror. In good Resident Evil games, you usually have multiple doors you can choose to open, multiple potential paths, and feeling out which one is right, and which places are safe to travel, is a big part of the game. That exploratory feeling of gradually extending your reach and knowledge of the place you're in, knowing how vulnerable you are but also knowing you have to keep going deeper, gives the player a much greater sense of agency than more linear horror experiences.

All of these good design elements are firmly established by RE1, but they're just not executed as well as in future Resident Evil and survival horror titles, and by today's standards, playing it can feel like a chore. I think it certainly deserves a huge amount of credit for establishing almost everything that's good and defining about survival horror. There were earlier horror themed games, and I'm sure there are online people who'd be strangely invested in arguing that it's not the first survival horror game, but Resident Evil was clearly something new, different, and more sophisticated. It feels like a beginning, a rough draft, but it established something special. In some ways, I feel like RE1 has actually aged better than a lot of its 1996 contemporaries. Not in terms of controls, visuals or voice acting, heavens no. But, in terms of things like a focus on atmosphere, good pacing, and elegant, focused design, much of it still holds up today.

-Monster Review Corner-

These are the monsters that started it all. Zombies, undead dogs, hunters, Tyrant, and the absolute classic, a big plant that hates you. And who can forget the most forgettable monsters, giant spiders? The enemies themselves aren't especially exciting, but honestly, they work very well for the style and slow pace of this game. The deadly mansion full of the living dead is a classic horror setting. Things like Hunters and Tyrant seem pedestrian by series standards now, but they would have been a surprise in a zombie game in 1996, and Hunters are terrifying when they first appear. Overall monster score: 7/10

Time to complete: 5:46

Games were shorter overall in 1996, but the short game length is another survival horror trait the game established, and that brevity is a trait I really appreciate about this series and the genre as a whole. 

Resident Evil 2 (1998)

I feel like I’m going to be using the word “better” a lot. RE2 is immediately more cinematic than its predecessor, which is a good thing. It’s an important element of establishing tension and atmosphere. All the best horror movies, in my opinion, have smart and artful cinematography behind them. I’m not going to say Resident Evil 2 has masterful cinematic direction, but it’s a vast improvement over the previous game. Gone are the super cheesy FMV cutscenes and the atrocious voice acting. The voice acting here isn't great by today's standards, but people do talk mostly like humans! This must be due to the fact that it was the first time Capcom ever outsourced voice acting to a studio outside of Japan. The writing is also much, much better. The soundtrack is much more atmospheric, and even the save room music is better. Visually, the game looks so much better. Character models are more detailed and lifelike, and backgrounds are much more detailed, colorful and cohesive. I vastly prefer the character designs to those of RE1. They’re very 90s, in a fun anime way. Even the portraits in the inventory screen look way better. Even the story and the documents you find are more well written and interesting, and Umbrella is established as a more sinister and far-reaching presence. 

RE2 gives you separate campaigns for Claire and Leon that are similar, but different in some major ways. Rather than being a super long game, it has a short campaign that can be replayed multiple times with different characters for improved ranks, unlockables, and short bonus levels. I actually really like this kind of replayability, as opposed to the much more common type of replayability of modern games, which is just making the game 100 hours long and filled with boring sidequests, trinkets and skill points. This is  partially because I inevitably burn out on that kind of game, even if I like it (Horizon Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild) and never finish the game. Super Bunnyhop has a whole video (“Let’s Talk About Game Length”) about the advantages of this game’s style of replay value which is worth a watch. I’m much more likely to rank a game among my favorites if I’m actually compelled to finish it. I’m always annoyed by how persistently gamers thoughtlessly complain about these games (or any game for that matter) being too short. Gee, maybe that has something to do with why 4, 5, and 6 all feel so bloated and outstay their welcome. Funny how the three most recent games in the series that brought it back from the brink of total irrelevance are all under ten hours in length.

The level design feels less haphazard and boring than RE1, but retains the satisfying sense of interconnectedness that the original mansion had. The balance of the game is good, and it feels dangerous without ever feeling unfair, like all the best RE games. Distribution of healing items and ammo feels right - I rarely felt like I was in serious danger of running out, but I always felt the pressure to conserve ammo and remember where healing items were to pick up later. This game is also a sterling example of the kinds of boss fights that work in survival horror. Rather than being reflex tests, boss fights are more a test of how smartly and conservatively you’ve been playing. If you’ve saved enough powerful ammo by playing well, you’ll have no problem with boss monsters, and there’s also the alligator fight, which, if you were paying attention to the area you just traversed, can be ended with one bullet. 

Overall, it’s a huge improvement over RE1 in every way imaginable, and a genuinely good game even by today’s standards, if you discount the cheesy voice acting and dated cutscenes. I finished RE1 in two sittings because I wanted to get it over with, but I finished RE2 nearly as fast because it was hard to stop playing. This is where the series came into its own, and RE2 feels like the beginning of the series as we know it today, while RE1 feels more like an experimental rough draft.

-Monster Review Corner-

This game, overall, has some great monsters. Fantastic monsters, and this is where you’ll find ‘em. First, we’ve got your classic zombies. Classic. We’ve got your zombie dogs, two for one deal. We’ve got some evil birds who inexplicably burst through a window one time. Okay, decent. Giant spiders, boooring. But then, here comes a new challenger! It’s lickers, one of perhaps the most iconic Resident Evil monsters. These nasty wall crawlin’ flesh puppies have got exposed brains, big ol’ claws, razor sharp tongues and a complete lack of sight. Due to this last fact, you can avoid them by being very quiet, which is extremely survival horror. Lickers are great. RE2 also has a giant alligator, which even the RE2 remake team thought was too silly to include in the remake (but to the great relief of everyone around the world, he made it anyway). Personally, I love the fact that they brought the classic urban cryptid, the mutant sewer gator, into the RE family. RE2 also has a Tyrant who chases you around in the second scenario. He’s just Nemesis before Nemesis. There are also big plant monsters who look like walking venus fly traps, totally rad. And finally, all of the G-Mutation designs pretty much set the stage for the monster design of all future RE mutants, including Nemesis. They have this alien, body horror feel to them that’s become a hallmark of the series. Overall monster score: 10/10

Time to complete: 5:06

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999)

RE3 has a darker tone than RE2, a lot of quality of life changes, and the terrifying presence of an unstoppable Nemesis. It’s a more combat oriented game, not in that combat is more complex, but in that there are more weapons, more ammo, faster zombies, and in comparison to the two previous games there are more times where it’s safer to kill enemies than avoid them. Jill can also dodge and quick turn. Dodging is fine, and quick turn, was an excellent addition that’s been in every RE since then, minus RE7. It’s a very good game, but the fact that there are fewer moments of quiet exploration and puzzling detracts from the variety of the game and makes it feel more one note. It definitely feels more like an action movie, not just in its increased amount of fighting but also in its story beats and cutscenes. I think it’s important to make a distinction between the style of this game and RE4/5/6, in that those are action games with light or nonexistent survival horror elements, while this is a survival horror game with action elements. I played the game on hard mode, because this game only has hard and easy mode. Hard is essentially normal, it's what you'd come to expect from the series, and easy mode is easy and gives you an assault rifle at the start. 

The titular Nemesis is such a great way to change up the Resident Evil formula. The first time you encounter him, he kills Brad in a cutscene, and you run into the police station. You think he’ll just appear at certain times during cutscenes and maybe a boss fight, but then a little while later he bursts through a window and chases you, and he’s faster than anything encountered previously in the series. That’s when it becomes clear that you’re going to be hunted, and from that point on Nemesis is in the back of your mind at all times, injecting an undercurrent of paranoia into every moment of methodical exploration. Although, I do have complaints about Nemesis, too. If you’re familiar with the series up to this point, his appearances are undermined by that very knowledge. What I mean is that if you played the first two games, you start to get a sense of when events or attacks are going to be triggered in Resident Evil, and that makes Nemesis much more predictable. You start to think “whelp, it’s about time for another Nemesis attack,” and then he shows up. Also, the first time you’re actually supposed to stand and fight him is an awful boss fight, and the first really bad boss fight in the series. The game’s dodge mechanic is finicky and hard to time, and it’s an important part of winning the fight, at least on hard mode. He’s basically a bullet sponge, which is not interesting. 

Something that I like about three is it really expands on the setting by giving you lots of details about Umbrella and their relation to Raccoon City. You learn that not only have they infiltrated the city government and police, but a lot of the city's infrastructure was funded by Umbrella donations. You also learn that they maintain their own paramilitary force and are a far reaching, international corporation. Umbrella is really fleshed out as a more robust and powerful organization here. 

Another unique aspect of this game, that’s never been in another RE game, is the “choose your own adventure” system. Nemesis will be after you, and you can choose between two different options, such as running into the sewers or hiding in the kitchen. You have a limited time to make these choices, and they have positive or negative outcomes, but never outright kill you, as far as I could tell. It’s kind of neat, and an interesting way to change things up occasionally, but not especially important. 

Overall, this is an excellent Resident Evil game, though a good deal less original and groundbreaking than RE2.

-Monster Review Corner-

Honestly, most of the monsters are fine, but nothing to write home about. Nemesis is the star of the show, which you can already tell by the fact that the game is named after him and he’s on the front cover. He’s like the cooler, better, more deadly version of a Tyrant. Nemesis score: 10/10

Time to complete: 5:32

An Aside About Puzzles

I’ve been trying to figure out how to articulate what I like about the puzzles in this series, and this seems as good a place to put these thoughts as any. I get that not everyone likes the puzzles in this series, and that many of them can only be called puzzles in a very loose sense, but I think they add a crucial ingredient to the games.

The thing is, if they were more complicated or difficult puzzles, they would take up too much screen time, they would overpower the rest of the game, like too much salt in a dish. There are a lot of them where you have to follow riddle-like clues to figure out what to do, but they're all pretty easy. There are a lot of item hunts that boil down to finding item A and bringing it to point B, or combining item A with item B and using the result at point C, and I remember plenty of jokes over the years playfully lampooning this facet of Resident Evil. But, while playing through these games, I found myself dissatisfied with the view that these item hunts and simple puzzles are stupid, or bad game design. Because really, what makes these games good is not shooting or puzzles or atmosphere or good monsters, but all of these elements working together in harmony. It seems like the more harmonious that balance, the better the Resident Evil game. All these little parts make up the whole. The puzzles aren't hard, sure, but they aren't meant to be. They add an element of sleuthing and a sense of accomplishment and progression that would otherwise be lacking, and which could easily slip into frustration if they were any more difficult, and detract from the overall experience. If you just went around and shot at monsters and opened doors, it would be missing something big, and it would be a much poorer series. If you need evidence of that, may I direct you to Resident Evils 4 to 6. Without that exploratory feeling, without that aha feeling of figuring it out, it would feel bland. "If I use this item to open this, then I get this thing and I combine it with this, it frees up space in my inventory, and now I can take them back to the spot I remember from earlier because I was paying attention and taking mental notes, and I can open this path..." I'd argue that this feeling of things clicking together neatly, of attentive and methodical play paying off, is integral to the series and to the entire genre it spawned. The whole game is a puzzle that you’re figuring out, and things like item juggling, map knowledge, and carefully leaving enough space in your inventory are a part of that puzzle. 

The puzzles in the series are more representational than what might usually be called a puzzle. The item lugging, inventory swapping parts that I remember being maligned at one time are more akin to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, but those pieces are scattered across a monster infested, carefully designed, difficult to traverse map. What made RE7 feel so much like a revival of Resident Evil, despite it being a first person game that looks and feels very little like its predecessors, was returning to this approach to game design. It was a polished and well made return to the principles that made survival horror popular. The fact that Capcom brought back all those often complained about puzzles and item hunts, and slashed the current idea of game length to ribbons, returning to the roots of the series, and then those games being so highly praised, feels so right in part because it feels like the developers are saying "look, a lot of you were totally wrong about what made these games good."

Resident Evil - Code: Veronica (2000)

To me the most immediately noticeable thing about this game is Claire’s embarrassingly early-2000s outfit: high rise boot cut jeans, cowgirl boots, a short-sleeved crop top jacket, all topped off with a pink choker and fingerless gloves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen character design that so perfectly encapsulates the time period of a game’s release. It’s bad, and the game only gets worse from there. 

I really tried to like Code Veronica, at first. But after playing RE1-3, saying it's underwhelming is putting it lightly. I honestly don't think I have a single good thing to say about this game, and it's possibly the worst mainline Resident Evil game ever made (RE6 being the only thing that might take that crown of trash in its stead). It's pretty much not possible to take Code Veronica seriously in any way, especially not as a horror game. The visuals have no sense of darkness or atmosphere and manage to look much worse than the old pre-rendered graphics, the puzzles are uninspired rehash, the enemies and bosses are irritating, the character designs are a particular type of early-2000s bad, the voice acting is insufferable, the story is asinine, and the game is full of the bad kind of backtracking. It's not entirely the game's fault it's ugly, it's a product of its time, but it's weird to see in retrospect because it looks worse than RE3 from one year prior. Previous RE games had bad voice acting, but this is the first one where the voice acting makes you want to turn the game off. 

Up until this point, the storylines of Resident Evil games were very simple. Evil corporation caused chaos with a virus, get out alive. There are details scattered throughout about how the city and government were being paid off, but that’s the gist of it. Code Veronica is where the lore of RE starts to get convoluted and sometimes very dumb. I won’t go into all the ways the story is bad, but suffice it to say this is definitely when Resident Evil jumped the shark, and it paves the way for the stupidity of RE4. It also uses the “mentally ill people are scary” horror trope, which is perhaps my least favorite horror trope. The villain for most of the game, Alfred, has *gasp* a split personality and thinks he’s also his sister. Of course, at one point Claire calls him a “crossdressing freak.” I’ll just leave it at that. Of course nobody who writes this kind of thing bothers to do any kind of research into the mental illnesses they use as story crutches. I feel like I need to mention the voice acting, for Steve and Alfred particularly. Steve sounds like he walked off of a middle school campus, and Alfred sounds like your local community theater’s production of Sweeney Todd. They’re both absolutely atrocious and make the game that much more annoying to play. Claire’s acting is about what you’d expect from a Saturday morning cartoon of the era.

As though the fact that it's a bad game visually and narratively wasn't enough, it's also badly designed, not much fun to play, and way longer than the previous three. The game’s map, at least for Claire’s portion (most of the game), is divided into multiple small areas, each with one path leading to them, so you have to go over these paths repeatedly once you’ve retrieved an item from a completely different area, and it makes for a lot of very tiresome backtracking. The series always had backtracking, of course, but never over such long, samey stretches of space. On top of this, there are tons of blatantly bad design choices. To name a few:

-The hallway you have to traverse multiple times containing moths which poison you and respawn every time you leave and are really hard to hit on top of being a waste of ammo. It’s hard to see how they were unaware that this is bad since they also leave an infinite supply of poison antidotes in the same room

-The fact that there’s no indication whatsoever that you should leave items behind for the next character you have to play, which left me struggling to even be able to kill enemies as Chris

-Multiple times where in order to trigger progress you have to look at or pick up a certain thing, not for any logical in-game reason but just because it triggers a cutscene. One of these makes you look at the same thing twice, and I wandered around not knowing what to do for a while before checking a walkthrough

-More than one save room that contains no item box, when this game asks you to constantly juggle items and repeatedly travel long distances with specific items

There’s more, but I don’t want to write or think about this bad game anymore. This game is a slag heap that deserves to be forgotten, and I hope it’s never remade. Something I find really disappointing about Code Veronica is that the setting is ripe for a good Resident Evil game, but they botch it. It takes place in two locations, a secret island prison run by Umbrella, and an antarctic research station, both of which I can imagine a great RE game taking place in. I guess, really, the best thing that can be said about Code Veronica is that it’s a survival horror game. They didn’t totally stray from the principles that made the series good, they just implemented those things very badly, in a very stupid game.

Time to complete: who knows, I quit near the final stretch of the game. The internet says it takes about 12:30, which is far too long.

REmake (2002)

I played the remake first, and it’s the only game I played out of order, because when I started I had no plans to play the entire series. It’s a remake that fixes everything wrong or dated about the original while keeping the things that made it good, and I would say it’s the definitive version of the game and the one that should be played. 

Visually, a lot of it looks very good, and uses darkness much better than the original. I like this game’s high def pre-rendered backgrounds, because it’s like looking into an alternate reality where pre-rendered graphics never went away, and just increased in fidelity. I actually really like a lot of the backgrounds in this game. Pre-rendered backgrounds have their shortcomings, but I think they can play a role in horror games. They give the developers total control of how things are framed, and framing/direction are a big part of what can make things ominous or scary in horror movies. You can do this to some extent in games with free cameras, but without nearly as much control. I think over time the popular consensus became that pre-rendered backgrounds are inherently bad, but I think like any style of graphics they have their pros and cons. The late 90s Final Fantasies are great examples of how pre-rendered graphics can be used to frame characters and events in certain ways.

The strongest suit of this game is that it really feels like a horror game, and avoidance is encouraged over combat due to scarce ammo and healing. The pace is slow and thoughtful, the mansion is sprawling and claustrophobic, and even one or two zombies feels like a threat, especially before you find the shotgun. Even after that, shotgun shells are fairly scarce. Like the original, combat mechanics are intentionally very simple and limited, though this one sees the introduction of the defensive items that return in the RE2 and 3 remakes. One thing I really like is that if you kill a zombie and leave their body, without decapitating or burning it, it will eventually mutate into a fast and powerful zombie, and these are genuinely threatening to encounter. You constantly have to make decisions in this game about what’s more important, immediate safety or conserving ammo. The fuel that’s used to burn corpses is limited, and can be used strategically to eliminate threats from frequently traveled areas. It’s a great idea for a game mechanic, but in practice, I rarely did this, because inventory is so limited that it didn’t feel worthwhile to use two of my eight slots on a lighter and fuel. Another nice added horror element is the fact that doors aren’t always safe. You’ll hear monsters pounding on doors, see them shaking, and at multiple points they’ll be smashed open when you thought you were safe.

A lot of the ideas that made this game good and the original good are ideas that were returned to in RE7, the RE3 remake, and especially the RE2 remake, and a big part of what made those games so successful. 

Time to complete: 10:15

In my opinion it ran a little too long. It takes almost twice as long as the original, and I feel like the added areas pad out that length rather than improving the game. Even though I think it’s a very good game, it started feeling like a slog in the last few hours.

Resident Evil Zero (2002)

After Code Veronica, it was initially refreshing to feel like I was actually playing Resident Evil again and not some subpar knockoff. This one feels a lot more like classic RE, and in its slower pace it’s most similar to REmake or the original trilogy. I played the HD remaster of RE0(which changes nothing but the graphics) since it's the one I own on steam, so I can't speak to the original GameCube graphics, but the art direction itself is vastly better, and it creates an atmosphere that's perfectly Resident Evil. Highly detailed backgrounds, with rich dark colors, old paintings, dusty bookshelves, soft clean lighting, marble and dark wood, wind-rustled ivy, shadows and rain, creep dilapidated industrial spaces. The HD remaster is gorgeous, and one of the best looking games in the series.

This game adds two major new mechanics: playing as a team of two and swapping between characters, and the ability to drop items anywhere. Character swapping is an interesting gimmick, made more of a curiosity by the fact that it will probably never be used again in a RE game. Often it's pretty neat, but just as often, it's an annoying chore. I like the idea of controlling two characters, but I don't think what they attempted to do with it was entirely successful, and could have been better with a couple of simple changes. Ultimately all the inventory management required feels like more trouble than it's worth, especially since you have to carry weapons and ammo for both characters. Between inventory management and swapping off-character actions, I found myself in the inventory screen a lot more than in previous games. It seems like they could have alleviated these problems with more inventory space and buttons for switching off-character actions. Most of the time it ends up feeling like a chore to manage two characters and two separate inventories. In theory, the ability to drop items anywhere adds an element of player choice and planning, but in practice, I just found myself missing the item box that allows you to access the same items from different places.

This game is fine for the first hour or two, but ends up getting more and more frustrating the farther you get into it. After playing about half the game, I started feeling like I'd be having a less terrible time on easy mode. I died in it a lot more times than in any previous game. The combination of really irritating new enemy types and all weapons (even the grenade launcher) feeling underpowered means there are multiple enemy encounters where you're just forced to lose health. This wouldn't be so bad if there were enough healing items around, but there aren't. Every enemy in the game, even a basic zombie, feels too bullet sponge-y. I repeatedly found myself with very little ammo and no healing items, so in a lot of situations I would just die, and reloading with the foreknowledge of what rooms would contain felt like the only way to progress. Managing the health of two characters, one who has very low health, makes it that much harder. I played through all of the previous games on normal difficulty (RE3 on hard) so I know I'm not imagining the spike in difficulty. It's possible they wanted to make this game challenging for series veterans, but if that's the case they missed the mark, because part of what makes a good RE game is excellent balance of difficulty. In a good RE, you always feel like you're facing adversity but still progressing, and you really don't die all that often if you're being careful and using the right weapons for situations. In RE0, you just die a lot to frustrating video game garbage and feel irritated that you have to reload and repeat content. To make matters even worse, aiming feels weirdly sticky in this game and movement feels clunkier than previous games for some reason.

Just like Code Veronica, this game has a premise that seems like it should excel as a Resident Evil game, but it misses the mark. With the new mechanics, it feels like they were struggling to think of ways to further refine and reinvent a series that was getting a little tired. I love the formula of the first three games, but I can understand why after six games following that same formula, with a lot of very similar in-game occurrences and puzzles, they wanted to move in a different direction with RE4. This game feels like it's floundering, attempting to reinvent the series while being chained to the same rules, and though I have mixed or negative feelings about the next three games, it feels like the series was in dire need of a total overhaul.

-Monster Review Corner-

Whoever designed the monsters in this game thought that giant animals are absolutely horrifying. Giant bat, giant scorpion, giant centipede, giant roaches. There are also guys made of leeches, and they're pretty boring and annoying to fight, and it's hard not to find the way they move comedic. There are also hunters and your typical zombies. All in all, a lackluster offering of critters. Overall monster score: 3/10

Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Let's get the obvious out of the way: this game feels almost nothing like Resident Evil, and feels less and less like it the further into it you get. The devs made sure to do a lot of things that make RE4’s identity as an action game very obvious. It’s a game of series firsts: first in the series with an over the shoulder camera, first with weapon stats, first with such an abundance of enemies and weapons, first with QTEs, first where the primary enemies aren’t shambling zombies, first with currency and a merchant, the first where Umbrella isn’t the big bad, the first where you can karate kick and suplex enemies. It’s incredibly not survival horror. It might succeed as a 2005 action game, but it fails miserably at being Resident Evil.

I’m feeling generous, so I’ll start with the things I like about RE4. I really do appreciate that it’s a slower and more methodical action game than its contemporaries, and precise, thoughtful shooting is rewarded. I also like that the over the shoulder camera gives you a pretty narrow field of view, which makes it always feel like enemies could be lurking just off screen. This makes things more tense and is often used to surprise the player, especially in the early game. The almost identical perspective used in the exceptional RE2 and RE3 remakes shows that they weren’t off the mark with this element of the game’s design. However, in RE4 even this good thing is undercut by the fact that jarring, anxious combat music plays whenever enemies are anywhere nearby. The first 2-4 hours of this game, just about up to the Mendez boss, are actually a pretty good game, and provide most of the really tense and scary moments. Unfortunately, these opening hours aren’t really indicative of all the stupid shit to come. Something I grew to hate about this game is that it feels like it just goes on and on and on. It took me around 12 hours, which is short by video game standards, but long by RE standards. By the time I reached the end, it had long outstayed its welcome. Even in these early, decent moments, there was still stuff I hated, like the button mashing quick time events to run from Indiana Jones boulders, the garishly glowing item drops, the dumb kicks, the dynamite zombies.

The crux of a survival horror experience is the feeling of vulnerability, and this feeling is only scarcely captured in the opening few hours of RE4, when it’s still sort of pretending to be Resident Evil. But then, you keep getting more and more powerful, as you do in action games, you keep getting more and more weapons and upgrades and grenades and facing more and more enemies and bosses until it all feels trivial. It’s thoroughly an action game, and by the time you’re near the end, storming a military fort guarded by heavily armed commando zombies manning gatling turrets while you’re aided by helicopter support, it’s clear the game has entirely stopped masquerading as Resident Evil. On top of being a big stupid action game, it’s also extremely a video game. The glowing items that are dropped whenever enemies die, the tiny adorable treasure chests full of doubloons, the big garish video game markers for QTEs(and the most heinous kinds of QTEs: button mashing QTEs and mid-cutscene QTEs), the action movie window jumps and kicks, the cultists driving a death drill, Leon’s backflips, the dumb one-liners that scarcely make sense at times, a giant fish boss, a mine cart level. The absurd stupidity of this game never lets up, so much so that playing it in 2020, it feels almost like an intentional parody, which I know it’s not. 

The story is kind of silly from the start, and delves increasingly into the realm of asinine bullshit as it goes on, as though Capcom and Shinji Mikami sought out the dumbest ideas they could find. In RE2, Leon was a cop for one day during a zombie apocalypse, and now somehow he's working for the White House on a solo mission finding the president's daughter. It's quite the barely explained leap. One of my least favorite things in the narrative department is that Leon's voice acting and dialogue make him insufferable. The humble rookie from RE2 is gone, replaced by a heavily masculinized, aggressive, arrogant, misogynistic, backflipping action movie hero. We went from six consecutive games with women either as one of two playable main characters or the only playable character, with Jill Valentine in RE3 single-handedly destroying the most powerful BOW ever created, to a game where a gruff manly man is tasked with rescuing a literal damsel in distress, and has actual lines like “Feh, women” and “Sorry, but following a lady’s lead just isn’t my style.” It’s atrociously bad, and I hate the character they decided he should be for this game. It also doesn’t even make sense, because why would he even have that attitude towards women after seeing what Claire can do in RE2? It’s a huge step backwards for the series. On top of this awfulness, the actual plot points are just increasingly unbelievable and imbecilic, in a way that totally undercuts any way in which the game could theoretically be frightening. At the end of the game, it’s not Leon and Ashley sitting in silence as they contemplate their harrowing and traumatic experience, it’s “Mission accomplished, right Leon?! Please have sex with me!” and then they literally ride off into the sunset on a jet ski.

At first I thought they were aiming to turn a beloved survival horror series into a big dumb action movie, which is partly true, but then I realized what they had really made: an amusement park. It’s divided into themed zones, like an amusement park: there’s a spooky village, a deathtrap castle, a haunted manor, slimy sewers, an underground tomb, a Mad Max island. There are little coaster cars with purple velvet seats that carry you through the castle, there’s a mine cart ride, living suits of armor, there’s literally a giant animatronic statue of Salazar you can climb around on, there are trinkets and treasures everywhere and a merchant always magically appearing to sell you new toys to make sure you don’t ever get bored or think too hard, there’s a lava-filled carousel room with fire-breathing dragon statues, a haunted house section, a shooting gallery, a cave full of monster bugs, a hedge maze, a tower of terror where flaming barrels are rolled down the stairs(and then you get to pull the lever to roll them!), there’s a crane game, an evil villain lair with a deadly laser corridor, there is for some reason a subterranean battle maze in a cage suspended over a chasm, and your whole visit to this horror themed wonder park culminates in a jet ski ride through a collapsing cavern.

I find it baffling, but "a masterpiece", "the best Resident Evil game", and “one of the best video games ever made” are actual ways I have seen this game described. Multiple reviewers called it the best of the series, and people continue to call it that. Gone is the tense, atmospheric, resource management based survival horror gameplay, the harmonious balance of puzzles, survival and action that made this series so beloved. It’s replaced with a theme park of homogenous action gameplay and an incredibly stupid story. In my mind, it’s not Resident Evil at all, and may as well have belonged to an entirely new series that’s continued in RE5 and RE6. Another oft repeated bit of unquestioned conventional wisdom about RE4 is that it “saved the series from itself,” which is strange given that it marked the beginning of a slump that lasted over a decade. But, who knows? Maybe Resident Evil had to undergo this kind of transformation and decline to ultimately produce the four most recent Resident Evil games, all among the best of the survival horror genre. If these bad mid series games had to come first in order for the latest four exceptional games to come later, then I’ll gladly suffer their existence.

-Monster Review Corner-

Another thing I actually like about this game is a lot of the creature design work. The Mendez boss fight feels like a Resident Evil fight, and his insect-like true form looks like a classic Resident Evil BOW. Verdugo and U-3, likewise, feel like classically inhuman RE creatures, and they’d be right at home in a survival horror series entry. Regenerators and Iron Maidens are genuinely terrifying creatures – or they would be in a survival horror game. Here, they’re just another enemy to mop up. The Plagas that burst out of enemies are a shock when they first appear, and look like horrifying hybrids of The Thing and facehuggers. The chainsaw men are initially one of the best and most horror-centric additions to the game, that is, until you get powerful enough to trivialize them and they stop appearing. At least in the first two hours, they’re legitimately scary due to your narrow field of view and the fact that they one shot you. But it seems like with each thing this game may have done right, there comes something that it did very wrong. Toward the end of the game, you start fighting stuff like the zombies with huge gatling guns, and it’s very dumb. I hate these military zombies, I really do.

Overall monster score: 6/10

Overall monster score minus the merc zombies and dumb robed cultists: 9/10

Time to complete: 11:28

By around the 8 or 9 hour mark, I was practically begging for this game to end.

Resident Evil 5 (2009)

When I started this, I thought I'd like RE4 more than RE5, but it turns out 5 is a much better game. It's a big dumb action movie, but it's a much better big dumb action movie than RE4, or RE6. The action is better, the graphics and art direction are better, the controls are better, the story, characters and dialogue are all better. It's too bad they just couldn't let go of the QTEs. It's a very good Capcom action game, but again, not a great Resident Evil game. It's much more confident as an action game than RE4, and almost entirely stops pretending its gameplay is about anything other than action, to its benefit. The combat is faster and more responsive, but still feels slower and more methodical than most action games. It’s just overall a significantly improved action game.

RE5 Chris is so much better than RE4 Leon. Chris and Sheva are a likable duo who feel like a typical RE pair and play off of each other well. The dialogue likewise has much more natural localization than most if not all previous games in the series. I don't really like how they gave Jill and Wesker Kojima character designs, and this bad aesthetic continues in RE Rev.

The files unlocked in the menu are actually kinda good, and this game expands and fills out the setting in some interesting ways, setting the stage for the Revelations games and RE6.

If you read the files, you learn what happened to Umbrella and how they shut down. What's nice is that the files and in-game story actually go into the ramifications of a world where BOWs exist and can be sold to people with various agendas. It's a world of corporations, NGOs, political subterfuge, and black market dealers making profit off of human suffering, where a whole international organization was created to handle bioweapon incidents. It's disappointing that with this backdrop, the game's actual story is ultimately reduced to a battle in a volcano to save the world from a supervillain. It's a very comic book conclusion.

I know they're infected with a monster virus, but the visual of black people as writhing, animalistic subhumans is, uh... problematic, to say the least. Also, the image of Africa The Continent as a land of dead goats, megaphone-shouting lunatics and rabid, violent crowds. Also the scene early on where some brown savages are carrying off a scantily clad white woman. At least she turns into a tentacle monster shortly after instead of being rescued. It's hard to deny that they probably chose part of Africa as RE5's setting due to the misconception of the entire continent being a war-torn land of petty dictators.

Some parts of the game are much better than others. Generally, the early game is good. The ancient city level is... pretty bad. And it culminates in a laser mirror puzzle that some version of would feel at home in an older RE, but here feels out of place and rhythm-disrupting. I wouldn't necessarily say the game gets really bad toward the end, except for the two consecutive Wesker boss fights. The boss fights against Wesker are both bad and pretty dull. You don't really want your climactic final battle against a longtime series villain to be so boring. I imagine it's a bit less long and dull with another player, like everything in the game. I've played this game in co-op and alone, and you're really missing something by not playing co-op. Sheva's AI can be very frustrating and many parts are clearly designed for two human brains. Overall, RE5 ends pretty fast, and wears out its welcome less than RE4. The biggest problem with RE4, 5 and 6 is that they totally lose the spirit of survival horror. Because of that, I don’t have much to say about the gameplay of RE5 other than it’s a pretty decent action game. If you’ve played an action game, you’ve seen this kind of game design before, and it’s just not all that interesting. 

Neither of the D LCs missions are especially good or interesting, but I want to mention them because they do show the beginnings of Capcom experimenting with the episodic formula that they'd continue with Revelations, Revelations 2 and RE6.

Lost in Nightmares sees Jill and Chris exploring Ozwell Spencer's sprawling mansion, and is meant to be a throwback to the old style of RE. Unfortunately it doesn't have the spark that made those old games good, probably because it was designed by the RE5 team. It mostly ends up just being an extended and unnecessary reference to the classic games.

Desperate Escape is essentially just another level of RE5, but you play as Jill. Since RE5 already exists and is a fine length, this doesn't really need to exist.

Time to complete: 9:17

Resident Evil: Revelations (2012)

It's very rough around the edges, far from the production value you'd expect from the series, and definitely not something I'd call exceptional, but there are some good things going on. It definitely does feel more like RE than 4 or 5, but still only kinda feels like survival horror. It would be no great loss if this game didn't exist, but it's an interesting experiment.

This game was originally made for 3DS, and it feels very inconsistent, in a way you'd kind of expect a spinoff game made for a handheld console to be. It’s split up into episodes that usually take around half an hour, and have you switching between characters, and the short length was meant to be tailored to a handheld experience. Usually each chapter starts with a sort of interlude related to the main story where you play as other characters in another location, then it switches back to Jill exploring the main ship the game takes place on. The bite sized nature of the episodes makes it feel easy to keep playing. Some parts of the game are very fun and flow well, and other parts are just dull or frustrating. The game feels like a confused mix of survival horror and RE5 style action, and between that and the constant character swapping and hit-or-miss dialogue, it feels like a game that’s not very sure of what it wants to be. The bulk of the game where you’re playing as Jill aboard the Queen Zenobia, a BOW infested ship adrift at sea, tends to be the strongest part of the game, and it’s a great setting that’s perhaps underwhelming due to the graphical capabilities of the 3DS. You end up in a similar setting near the end of RE7, also directed by Koushi Nakanishi, and it looks a lot better there, and does justice to the concept better. Like so many things in Revelations, it was a good idea, but a bit underwhelming in its execution. This period of Resident Evil was definitely a time of trying out new directions for the series. Revelations, RE6, and another spin off I didn’t play called Operation Raccoon City were all released in 2012. RE6 is bad, Revelations is okay, and by all accounts Operation Raccoon City is not all that good. After a year like this, it makes sense Capcom went back to the drawing board. 

The writing in Revelations is not great, and is sometimes suddenly better or worse, but I appreciate what they were going for with the rapport between characters. I also feel like this game messes up that classic survival horror feel of exploring an intimidating place alone. You're always with a partner and always switching perspectives, so it never feels like you're alone, and because of that switching you never even really feel like you're isolated from the outside world on the Zenobia. It feels more like a TV show storytelling technique than something that works well for survival horror. Part of what makes survival horror work is that atmosphere created by feeling isolated and vulnerable, and it doesn't really work when the game is always cutting away between chapters to show what so-and-so is doing elsewhere.

Most of the characters get Kojima style designs, which I'm really not a fan of. Previous RE character designs were always very grounded without being too boring, and included classics like Jill's beret look, Jill's blue tube top look, Claire's magenta shorts look, and Ada's red dress look. I’m really not a fan of the skintight suit covered in tubes, straps and gadgets style of character design. It feels very “anime Rob Liefield.” 

I appreciate what they wanted to do by telling a story in multiple perspectives, and how they did it to suit a handheld game, but at the same time I feel like it disrupts the flow of exploration and the atmosphere of survival horror. Revelations 2 does a significantly better job of telling a story in different perspectives. Revelations was pretty fun to play, and had some decent ideas, but it’s nothing I’ll ever return to. It would be remiss of me not to mention my favorite bad dialogue of the game, so here are all of the best lines:

"Sorry, I don't date cannibal monsters."

"Me and my sweet ass are on the way!"

“Jill, where are you?”

"I dunno. A room, I think."

"These terrorists must be brought to justice... blast it!" 

-Monster Review Corner-

They went for an “under the sea” aesthetic for the monsters in this game, so almost every monster is a variation of a bloated pale humanoid. It does have guys that are like walking mutant sharks with arms that are swords and shields, which I’m not going to pretend isn’t sick, but they really, really don’t fit in a Resident Evil game. Oops, wrong game, these guys were supposed to go to Etrian Odyssey. The only kinda cool RE monster is the one that’s like a nightmare mermaid with spiny abdomen teeth. Overall monster score: 4/10

Time to complete: 5:12

Random fact: this was the first RE game where you could move while shooting.

Resident Evil 6 (2012)

I’m not going to have much to say about this one. RE6 is bad in many of the same ways the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy is. Abandoning almost everything that gives the series its unique identity in favor of trying to make a game that will sell a lot of copies. Obsessed with QTEs and explosive, loud set pieces, and resentful of player agency. "No no, silly player, look over here. Move at this speed. Go this way. We know best. Now that's entertainment!" It's a game that desperately wants to entertain and impress, dragging you by the wrist through loud, brash, guns-blazing action campaigns that totally miss the point of both horror and Resident Evil. Most of the time it just feels like an arcade shooter, and you're expected to stick to the script so closely that it may as well be a rail shooter. It really does take away everything that makes survival horror special: it doesn’t have a slow pace, it’s not about exploration, you don’t feel vulnerable or isolated, there’s no sense of map knowledge or pathfinding, it has overwrought combat mechanics, there’s pretty much no quiet time, the atmosphere is more goofy than scary, and it takes forever to finish. Sometimes it feels like this game really wanted to be Left 4 Dead 2: the way campaigns are set up like movies, the special zombie types, the co-op play, the sprawling levels. Except the devs seemed to have no clue as to what actually makes Left 4 Dead fun. The producer said the idea behind RE6 was to create the “ultimate horror entertainment,” which perfectly explains why it feels so much like a bad movie you’re being forced to sit through. It’s bombastic and stupid like a Fast and Furious movie, but doesn’t even have the idiot charm of one of those movies. Resident Evil 6 is a long, forgettable and stupid third-person action game that doesn't even have the common decency to be fun. 

Time to complete: Who knows. I'd finish this game if someone was paying me to, but they're not. People say it takes over 20 hours, which sounds unbearable. 

Resident Evil: Revelations 2

Finally some good fucking Resident Evil. I was actually kind of surprised by how good this game was, something the mediocre Revelations didn't prepare me for. It's a very welcome return to a more survival horror style of gameplay. From the start, it's dark, lonely and atmospheric. You do always have a companion, but it's still mostly very good at capturing that survival horror isolation feeling. 

It does have a few holdovers from RE6, most notably sprinting, skills and dodging, but it's the same style of dodge as RE3R, which doesn't feel totally out of place in a survival horror game, rather than the over the top rolls and dives of RE6. It doesn't have any of the dumb combat moves or the pointless stamina gauge or the action movie bombast. Skills are mostly passive and have only a very slight effect on gameplay. To me, this is a good thing, but it also means there may as well be no skills at all. It feels like something that’s needlessly tacked on, as though they wanted to convince a certain subset of their potential audience that it’s not just a classic survival horror experience, or perhaps they were trying to make it feel more modern, or extend replay value, or all of the above. In any case, it doesn’t need to be there and I’m glad it has little effect. 

The game has a good deal of combat, but combat is simple enough to fit into a survival horror game. It would have been fine with less, but it's still fine, because it actually has things outside of combat, unlike 4-6, and lets you play, explore, and figure things out without a lot of overbearing guidance. A lot of the puzzles and navigation feel like classic RE, and it’s a great return to form in that regard. Sometimes it has a bit too much combat for my taste, but this is made up for by long stretches with few or no enemies, and it has those survival horror moments of exploration and puzzle solving to balance things out. 

This game does AI companions right, for the first time in the series. Moira and Natalia are both really useful, and I found myself wanting to switch to them almost as often as I wanted to play Claire and Barry. You also don't really need to babysit them because it's pretty hard for them to die and they’re good at following behind. There are multiple good segments of the game where your characters separate, and Claire or Barry need to cover their partner while they traverse a room to gain access to the next area. Unlike in RE5, though, you’re not required to have a second player to have fun during these parts, and I don’t think it’s even possible to play the game co-op. At first glance this seems like a missed opportunity, but honestly, if someone had to play either of the secondary characters full time, it would get boring very quickly. I think it was a necessary sacrifice to make the two character system work well in a single player experience. I really don’t mind, since I think of survival horror as a single player genre. As a result, it lacks both the painfully slow character switching of RE0 and the painfully stupid AI of RE5. 

It’s funny that just as in RE5, Rev 2 ends in two consecutive Wesker boss fights, but this time against Alex Wesker rather than Albert. Also, these Wesker boss fights are much better. The final boss makes use of the character swapping, and actually does it really well. Barry is running from mutant Alex through cliffside caves, and you switch between him and Claire, who’s in a helicopter with a sniper rifle. It’s very much a Resident Evil fight, in that it’s more about positioning and survival than it is about fast shooting or burning the boss down with damage. 

I also actually think this game has a good story for the series, but mostly what makes it stand out is the characters themselves. I also really appreciate the callbacks to previous games. It refers back to things from RE1, Code Veronica, Revelations, and RE5. Alex Wesker, who I think previously only existed in lore notes, is the villain, and the Uroboros virus of RE5 plays a small role. It makes nods to the larger mythos without being so convoluted that someone who doesn’t know everything about every game would have trouble following. The central story is easy to follow: you’re trapped on an unknown mastermind’s monster infested deathtrap island, infected with a virus that causes you to turn into a disgusting, mindless monster if your level of fear gets too high. I love their choices of Claire and Barry as the main characters. Claire being a beloved series staple, and Barry being an unexpected but surprisingly great choice. I also love how you play in two different timelines, Claire and Moira on the island six months before, and Barry and Natalia searching for them in the present. You travel through a lot of the same areas, but fight different enemies, take different paths and solve different puzzles. Rev 2 also has the most naturalistic character dialogue and acting the series has seen thus far. It feels like the rapport they were going for in Rev 1, but done better, and both pairs of player characters play off of each other well. I like that Claire takes a matter-of-fact, seen it all before approach to the situation, because she’s been through two different self-contained zombie apocalypses, while Moira the teenager is always cursing and yelling and basically saying “what the fuck,” and she really acts like I think a teenager might in such a situation. Barry, the dumpy old dude with dad jokes who came prepared with his dorky backpack and cargo pants, and the fearless 10-year-old girl Natalia, also go together well. By the end, I found myself actually caring about what happened to these characters.

Between Rev 2's gameplay, dialogue, and visual style, it's easy to see how it paved the way for the third-person RE2 and RE3 remakes. It was a very good move for the series, and I'm surprised it's not mentioned more often. Despite being a sequel to a spin-off, it was at the time better at being Resident Evil than anything since REmake, which came out thirteen years prior. It has its highs and lows, but it’s a big step in the right direction, and a good survival horror game. It’s not quite the same quality of RE7, RE2R or RE3R, but I really liked Revelations 2. 

-Monster Review Corner-

Honestly, the monster designs are one of the weakest parts of Rev 2. The principal zombie-likes are just these kind of blobby, gross dudes who run at you, sometimes while holding wrenches or other makeshift weapons. Most of the enemies follow the same pattern, kinda blobby humanoids that look like bloated corpses or conglomerations of body parts, and I find it pretty dull. There are also some generic RE dogs that for some reason have pig heads. I never hold zombie dogs against a Resident Evil game, because you can’t have a Resident Evil without evil dogs. I don’t make the rules. As you progress you just get bigger, meaner blobby corpse guys with different abilities. There are only really two exceptions that I find less boring than the rest: Glasps, and Alex Wesker’s monstrous forms. Glasps are invisible, bloated flying insectoids that instantly kill you if they catch you. In order to kill them, you need to switch to Natalia, who can sense them and point them out, then switch back to Barry to take your shot. They cause this weird vision effect when they’re near, implying that their invisibility is something they’re doing to your mind, which to me feels less out of place than physical invisibility. If you had asked me before if I thought an invisible enemy was suited to RE, I would’ve said no, but Glasps feel like a creature out of a STALKER game, and I like it. Alex's final form is classic RE, like the Tyrant or G-Mutation designs, but with more of a disfigured crone vibe. Her unnaturally long spiky spine and humanoid limbs give her a creepy marionette feel. The heavily mutated humanoids, like Nemesis, tend to be among the best RE monster designs. Before she injects herself with Uroboros and transforms, she looks like an ancient haglike being with the air of a hunched vulture, with tubes and staples and half her face peeled off, a victim of her own T-Phobos virus.

Time to complete: 7:45

A practically perfect length. It feels like a long and satisfying experience that's paced well and wastes very little of your time. 

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)

I actually played this game in early 2019, before I ever conceived of this journey through the series, and I was as surprised as anyone at Resident Evil 7 being a good game. An oft repeated sentiment among RE fans who dislike RE7 is "it's not Resident Evil." In my mind, that's a very strange thing to say, since it borrows almost all of its design principles from the classic trilogy. I think the negativity some people feel towards this game is a knee-jerk reaction to the first person perspective. I've learned that like any fandom, Resident Evil's is full of idiots who just kind of say things, and barely make any attempt to understand the thing they like so much. (Not to say everyone who's an RE fan is an idiot. People like Suzi the Sphere Hunter and Critique Quest on YouTube have plenty of insightful things to say. Your average video game comment leaver or redditor is just a "whoa, cool videogame" meme). RE7 brings back so many things from classic RE: a slow methodical pace, save rooms, a classic style map, limited inventory space, item boxes, emblem keys, limited ammo and healing, a small array of weapons, a relatively small number of enemies, a creepy isolated mansion, a lone protagonist, survival horror puzzles, a focus on exploring in order to escape, item-base progression, simple mechanics, a feeling of vulnerability, environmental storytelling, a relatively simple story, a harmonious balance of all these elements, and a short game length. Even the character switch at one point near the end of the game is classic RE. The design philosophy applied to RE7 is classic survival horror, through and through. This is so much the case that I noticed myself playing in a similar way to the classic era games. Checking my map to carefully plan the safest, most optimal route. Managing inventory for the least amount of backtracking. Making sure I checked every room as thoroughly as possible for useful items. Slowly making my way through a small but interconnected and well designed map. Feeling that sense of tension every time I opened an unfamiliar door. Getting absorbed in the atmosphere and taking my time. It's weird to say playing a horror game feels comforting, or cozy, but RE7 does, in a way. All of this isn't to say it feels just like playing the old games. It's a reinvention, rather than a re-creation, and I think that was the right route to take. 

RE7 is the first game to use Capcom's RE Engine, and it looks extremely good, especially its lighting. The one thing that doesn't look exceptional is the models for people and their movements and expressions. People move and make facial expressions in that weird video game way that never looks natural, and it's kind of impressive how far Capcom has come since 2017 in that department. This is greatly improved in the 2 & 3 remakes, which also both use the RE Engine. The first thing I noticed while replaying this game is how incredibly detailed everything is, including the sound design. You hear your character's slightly hesitant breath, his footsteps, the creaks and groans of an old house, and other muffled sounds that can't possibly be attributed to a house's age. All of the visual details let you imagine how every part of the Baker farm slowly fell into disrepair, the toll that multiple floods took on the place, and the gradual disintegration of a family's sanity and normalcy reflected in the physical dilapidation of the house. Like the Spencer mansion in 1996, the Baker property is as much a character as it is a setting. The return to a seemingly abandoned, sprawling house as a setting really helps establish that this is a return to form, a return to slow, creeping horror. The house is a shadowy urbex nightmare of abandoned spaces and black mold. The washed up tanker and the mines you explore in the game's final stretch aren't nearly as memorable or characterful as the house. RE7 succeeds in actually being scary more than most Resident Evil games. It's very good at being a horror game, but has all of the survival horror gameplay that makes the genre so satisfying.

The RE7 team wisely created a new narrative that’s almost entirely disconnected from the convoluted mythos the series has been building on since Code Veronica, but used the ending to leave the narrative open to that connection to the larger story. This, combined with the first person perspective, makes the game feel more intimate and more focused, which really works for it. It's really more a story about the house and its inhabitants, about Eveline, Mia, Zoe and the Baker family than it is about its protagonist, Ethan Winters. In my opinion, he's one of the weaker parts of the game. This series isn’t exactly renowned for its brilliant character writing, but he’s just kinda there, like American cheese. At least characters like Jill, Carlos, Ada, Claire, Chris, Sheva, Barry and Wesker are likeable and/or memorable in a video game character kinda way. Ethan feels intentionally designed to be the most unremarkable mid-30s white dude you could think of, almost like he's meant for a target audience, and he drags an excellent game down a little bit. Even Nemesis, the monster whose only line is "STAAAARRSs," is more memorable. They can really do better. So while I’m very excited to see what they do with RE8 after the quality of the last three games, I was disappointed to learn I’d still be playing as Ethan. I'm hoping they'll figure out a way to make him less lame. The other thing is, almost every RE protagonist is a member of S.T.A.R.S. or the BSAA, or someone who knows how to shoot a gun, so they at least have some explanation for how good they are at handling these situations. Ethan is literally just some guy who goes into a swamp to find his wife.

RE7 is at heart an amalgamation of a bunch of horror tropes and references, even references to the series itself, and yet it feels more like a loving homage to horror than a hackneyed rehash. Meet the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre as you explore the mansion from Resident Evil/The People Under the Stairs and evade your wife who’s now a deadite from Evil Dead, meet the gross body horror man from From Beyond, shambling swamp monsters, an evil witch grandma, and the little girl from F.E.A.R. You also solve a puzzle from Saw in a serial killer’s murder maze. It's all bundled together and interwoven so well that it feels like something fresh and unique rather than horror's greatest hits.

Time to complete: 7:40

Like all of the best survival horror games, it ends right before it starts wearing out its welcome. The short length keeps any of its ideas from getting stale.

-Monster Review Corner-

There really aren't that many different kinds of monsters in this game, which I'm fine with. The principle zombie-likes of this game are slimy black sinewy humanoids called molded. Eveline, the bioweapon in the form of a little girl, is the cause behind everything bad that happened to the house and family, and she creates a black mold which infects those she wants to control, and which molded are made of. A lot of people think they're boring enemies, but personally I think they're perfectly suited to the setting of a dilapidated, water-damaged house that's being slowly reclaimed by the surrounding wilderness. The first enemy you actually encounter in this game is your wife Mia, who switches between normal Mia and evil deadite Mia. She also chops your hand off with a chainsaw, which is pretty fun. Jack is the Nemesis of RE7's early game. He's an unnaturally pallid middle-aged man who stalks you and has regenerative abilities which are later revealed to be... extensive. As you explore the house in the early game, you're always on edge because you know he could be lurking anywhere. In his later boss form, he's a bulging body horror monstrosity. Marguerite is another enemy who stalks you through the boat house with a creepy lantern. She creates bugs that attack you, so she's like a nasty bug crone. As a boss she employs hit and run tactics, lurking in the dark waiting for you, so slow and careful is the best way to fight her. Eveline is just the little girl from FEAR. No two ways about it. I'm honestly not a big fan of her, just because I kind of hate the creepy little kid horror trope.

Side note: I think this is the first game in the whole series without evil dogs.

Overall monster score: 7/10

Resident Evil 2 (2019)

To my taste, Resident Evil 2 remake might be the most ideal incarnation of Resident Evil that exists. It has everything that makes survival horror great, and it’s all implemented extremely well. Combine this with the gorgeous graphics and chilling atmosphere and you have a practically perfect survival horror game. It feels like the culmination of everything that worked in the series over the years, with the visual fidelity to do it justice. It’s a good remake because it does more than just faithfully recreate the original – it takes the best ideas from across the series. It has the methodical pace of classic survival horror, the backtracking and slow unlocking of new areas, the shadowy, eerie atmosphere of REmake, the highly detailed graphics and sound design of RE7, the item combining of RE3, Revelations 2 and RE7, the close over-the-shoulder view of RE4 and beyond, which notably feels like Rev 2. I’ve talked about how survival horror is a balance of things, and in that sense, RE2R is superbly balanced. Visually, it’s so detailed and nails the atmosphere so perfectly that it makes you want to move slowly just because it feels like you should. Moving forward feels foreboding. The way zombies look and move is scary, and lickers are terrifying. Narratively, it’s the same story but told better, and characters are much more human and believable than the original. Leon is just a regular dude, not the regular shithead he became in RE4 and RE6, and Claire is a great character. The Raccoon City police station is the strongest setting of the game, it’s all shadowed corridors, bloodstained walls and shattered windows. You really get the sense of it being a building that was formerly used as a museum, and the barricaded doors and aftermath of carnage everywhere help you imagine what happened as people fought for their lives, and lost, before you arrived. The sound design is extremely well done and detailed, which I never noticed until I played with headphones. (I wish I had paid more attention to sound design on this series playthrough. It can be an important part of survival horror). Gameplay is no slouch, either. Patient, precise shooting and tactical retreats pay off, and inventory management remains an integral part of progressing through the game. You eventually have much more inventory space than in the classic games, but it still never really feels like too much until right near the end of the game. Puzzles and item usage feel just how they should in survival horror. The Sherry and Ada portions, in Claire and Leon’s campaigns respectively, are both a nice change of pace and they’re short enough that they don’t wear out their welcome. 

Strangely, I don’t feel like I have much to say about this game, just because it so well embodies everything I’ve already cited as being good about survival horror. The police station especially is exceptional, in terms of atmosphere, map design, the layout of enemy encounters, methodical play, and balance. It’s very light on anything resembling fast paced action, and I love that. All in all, I think this is the most well-rounded and well-made Resident Evil game to date. It would be a great place to start the series, and a great way to show someone everything good about the genre. 

Time to complete: 

First run, Leon A: 7:49

Second run, Claire A: 6:39

Resident Evil 3 (2020)

Here are the common criticisms people have of this game, and why they’re wrong:

“It’s bad because they cut content from the original.”

First of all, these two are both excellent games, but they’re different enough to be completely separate games. Even the maps and the paths you travel through the game are totally different. Sure, it would be fun to see a clock tower area in the style of the remakes, but I’m not going to hold nonexistent content against a game, especially one that’s this good. If you want to relive RE3, it still exists. No one seemed to complain about how different RE2R is.

“It’s too short.”

It’s pretty much the same length as RE3, and it’s a fine length for a survival horror game. I like that the game is fast paced and concise, and this captures the spirit of classic survival horror. In this day and age I find short games refreshing, and brevity is a mark in a game’s favor rather than a mark against it. Also, when a game is short, I’m a million times more likely to want to replay it in the future. Case in point, this was the second time I played this game. If it took 20 hours, if it even took 10 hours, it would run too long. 

“It’s an action game, not survival horror.”

It’s more of an action game than RE2R, but even that is up for debate. I feel like throughout a lot of the game, you’re really not doing more shooting than you do in RE2R, and Jill isn’t really any more heavily armed than Leon or Claire end up being in that game. There are more boss fights, and more explosions, though, and by the end of the game you have a ton of ammo and resources, but they generally give you tons of stuff at the end of these games. I mentioned that original RE3 felt more like an action movie than the previous two games, and the remake is a lot better at being an action movie. It has a breakneck start where you’re almost immediately in a fight for your life against Nemesis as he bursts through the wall of Jill’s apartment and chases you through the streets, which culminates in the player ramming him off of a parking garage with a car. I’m normally not a big fan of explosive set pieces in games, but this one is really good and is great at setting the tone for the rest of the game. Just like the original, it’s more action oriented, but it’s just much better at action than the original RE3. I really wouldn’t classify it as an action game, like a lot of people seem to. Its pedigree and presentation are thoroughly survival horror, in my mind. Inventory management is an integral part of the game and most of the game has that slow survival horror gameplay. One thing I like less about this game than RE2R is that it has fewer puzzles. It’s not like it doesn’t have any, but they take a backseat, which is why I’d call it more action-oriented survival horror. 

“Nemesis doesn’t show up often enough.”

I really don’t know where this comes from, because I feel like if he showed up any more often than he already does it would get irritating and redundant. There are literally four separate boss fights against him, and multiple parts where he chases Jill around. How much more do you need in a five and a half hour game?

Now that that’s cleared up, on to other things.

The Resident Evil 2 Remake has a lot of noticeable similarities to the original version, but Resident Evil 3 Remake is basically a completely different game, and I honestly think that’s a good thing. Somehow, when you play the original RE3 in 2020, it feels more dated than RE2, and I thought RE2 was a better game. 

Back on the topic of action: this game does a thing video games do I don’t usually like, which is when the main character is often seen falling off of exploding things and staggering through corridors and burning buildings and thrown against cars and so on and so forth. Here, I don’t really mind it though, maybe because it’s not a long game and these parts take up little of its play time. It also makes the fight against Nemesis feel more immediate and tangible. It does often feel like playing an action movie, but it’s Terminator 2, not Michael Bay. Also, the bad Nemesis boss fights of the original are replaced with actually good boss fights. 

One thing I really like about RE3R is the way characters are presented. Jill and Carlos both feel like more relatable, human characters, with actual personalities, and this makes you much more invested in their fight to escape the city. They end up being two of my favorite versions of RE characters, and I hope we see them in future games, though I find that kind of unlikely. Resident Evil is really not great when it comes to consistency in characters. It’s a shame because I’d love to see a direct sequel with this version of Jill and Carlos. Apart from these two, even the rest of the cast are given a lot more character and feel human. 

The Carlos segment of the game in the hospital is much more atmospheric and interesting than the original’s Carlos section, and this one ends with a siege style fight much like the cabin fight of RE4. On the topic of RE4, this game has a document explaining that Nemesis was created by implanting some kind of parasite into a Tyrant, and the author of the document berates Umbrella for going the route of parasites due to their unpredictability. You also fight a few zombies in the game who were infected by Nemesis and grow alien-looking parasites on their heads. It can be assumed that this is tying the lore of these games in with the Las Plagas parasites of RE4 and RE5 and paving the way for the RE4 Remake. I think this is neat, even though I wish they wouldn’t remake RE4 on account of it being garbage. 

All in all, I really like this game, and it’s one of my favorites of 2020. It’s a very good survival horror game with tons of detail and character that can be finished in two or three sittings. I have pretty much no complaints about it other than the aforementioned lack of puzzles. It’s more fast paced survival horror, but it’s very good in it’s own right.    

Time to complete: 4:36 (2nd playthrough)

I don’t know the exact time of my first playthrough, but my old save file that’s right before the final boss was at 5:52. 

Final Thoughts

I feel like after playing all of these games, it should be asked: is the story of Resident Evil any good? The answer to that is… kinda, sometimes? But also no, not really? It’s often entertaining, scary, gory, tense and atmospheric in the way that a good horror movie is. It’s also a little silly, often in a charming way, like how you can always tell at any given moment that this setting is a Japanese interpretation of America. The story itself goes well off the rails by the time you reach RE4. I mean, you’re rescuing the president’s daughter from evil zombie villagers and space alien tentacle monsters and cultists and ogres and then the zombies get body armor and guns. (Let's just not ever talk about the story of Code Veronica.) But the story isn’t really the point, is it? I think the series is vastly improved because there is a narrative, and it just wouldn't be the same without it, but you won’t find anything too deep or meaningful in that narrative. The one saving grace is that a defining feature of the story is ultimately the fact that corporations and governments are evil and only care about profit, to the extent of sacrificing hundreds of people in multiple biological weaponry incidents. That aspect at least feels true to life, especially in the midst of a pandemic that neither our government, nor the extremely powerful corporations that exercise control over that government, are doing anything about. Umbrella is an international corporation that no one dares or bothers to oppose who maintains their own paramilitary force, has their own private prisons and research sites, and has their hands in every part of the government and infrastructure of Raccoon City and who knows how many other cities. The villain is always ultimately the unchecked corporation - even in RE7, the nightmare family that seems disconnected from the outside world is ultimately revealed by in-game documents to be directly linked to corporate experimentation.

In Revelations 2, as well as the new 2 & 3 remakes, the characters are at least likable and there’s nothing incredibly dumb like you’ll find in RE 4, 5 or 6. Some would cite the part at the end of RE3R where Jill uses a humongous railgun called the FINGeR (Ferromagnetic Infantry-use Next Generation Railgun) to kill the final form of Nemesis as something dumb, but they are wrong. The characters of RE2R, RE3R and Revelations 2 are likeable and human, so they seem to at least be going in the right direction in that regard. The storytelling of RE7, RE2R and RE3R returns to the more grounded approach of the original trilogy, which is a good thing, and I think a good sign for the future of the series and its setting. 

There’s something I’ve noticed about RE games, which might just boil down to my own personal preferences. In pretty much every game, you end up in an entirely new location in the final act of the game, and that last part is never as good as the rest. In RE2R, you spend most of the game in the police station, then go to the sewers (and the orphanage if you’re playing as Claire). For the last stretch of the game you end up at NEST, Umbrella’s secret underground lab, and this part is weaker than the rest. Likewise, the ship and mines areas in RE7 are weaker than the majority of the game, the lab in RE3 and its remake, the lab in REmake, even the last section of RE5. This isn’t to say these parts are necessarily bad, just that they tend to be worse than the rest. At the same time, I think they’re necessary changes of pace and locale. I think there are two reasons for this: one, the first locations of RE games tend to be very strong settings with lots of character, and two, it’s an an example of a problem all horror fiction faces, which is that the more you ramp up tension, the harder it gets to do it in believable and interesting ways. If horror goes on too long, situations become predictable and it loses its bite, and survival horror games are no exception. Ramping up tension and action necessarily compromises the things that initially make horror enjoyable, like slow and eerie pacing, the danger of an unknown threat, the vulnerability of character or player, and the slow unraveling of mysterious and fatal circumstances. At the same time, horror needs a final act, needs some kind of closure, otherwise the building of tension feels like it was for nothing and the story is unsatisfying. I have no idea what the solution to this is, except brevity, which good RE games are very good at. 

I liked a few RE games already, but playing through them all really made me realize I like this series more than I previously thought, and I like survival horror a lot more than I thought. The really bad and long mid-series slump that lasted about thirteen years can’t be ignored, but I really like more than half of the games in the series. It created an entire genre with a devoted following, and I feel like RE2R brought the genre back into the limelight somewhat. You can see the influence of the genre even on games that aren’t really in the genre, like Prey, Gone Home, Bloodborne, and Left 4 Dead. I’m really looking forward to playing through my list of other survival horror games. 

Things Resident Evil showed me that I love about survival horror:

-Slow paced, thoughtful gameplay. You’re rarely rushed, and action isn’t the focus. Generally there’s nothing dragging you along in a certain direction, forcing you to look at or interact with certain things. It’s up to you to figure out the way forward.

-An emphasis on exploration. This is tied in with the previous point. A lot of the fear and tension comes from not knowing what's through the next door or what will happen next, but knowing you have to explore to progress. These games have a lot of backtracking, a healthy sense of map knowledge and memory as a useful skill, and lots of item-based progression. As I mentioned in my note about puzzles before, the whole map feels like a puzzle to be solved.

-A feeling of vulnerability, reinforced by things like limited defense options, slow movement, scarcity of items, limited inventory space, and simple combat. This goes hand in hand with the sense of isolation usually found in survival horror games.

-Environmental storytelling. Setting details being revealed through documents, destruction, corpses, bloodstains, locales, and even puzzles. 

-They aren’t defenseless walking sims. It's on you to survive. Having a way to respond to threats, but not feeling like you ever have quite enough, is much scarier than being defenseless. It's because it's a game - mechanically, you know a game isn't just going to give you no defenses, then throw you to the wolves. Survival horror acknowledges its framework of video game, its limitations and advantages. It gives more of a feeling of success or failure hinging on your decisions rather than on scripted events. The player feels like they have more agency, even if it's not always strictly the case.

-Making use of silence, something games aren't generally good at. This ties in with quiet time, something I wish more games were aware of. That is, times when the player is just quietly left to their own devices, exploring alone, solving puzzles, reading notes. You're not in danger 100% of the time, which gives the danger teeth.

-Simplicity of play, or accessibility. These games generally don’t contain any difficult mechanics or concepts that need to be explained, have little need for tutorials, and are easy to understand and play. Things like difficulty settings, auto aim, and the assist modes seen in RE2R and RE3R expand accessibility too. I think difficulty goes in this category too. Honestly, most survival horror games aren’t all that hard, because if you died all the time, you’d get bored and frustrated. Survival horror games seem to actually want you to have a good time. Imagine that. 

-Mostly short playtime. A genre that's often good at not wasting your time. It’s very good for people without much time or people who like to actually be able to finish games and move on to other games, or replay games. It might sound weird, but also, sometimes I feel like really long games have something to hide under all that repetitive content.

-New weapons or abilities feel earned, because you generally go through a lot to get to them and they’re not handed out very often.

-A harmonious balance of elements. When a survival horror game is good, it elegantly combines all of the aforementioned traits.

RE Score Sheet

Endings where I flew away in a helicopter: 8 Crank or valve handles collected and turned: 16 Zombies or dogs or birds that burst through windows: 19 Object pushing puzzles: 14 Shaped indentations filled (including cogs): 71 Jump scares: 13 Puzzles where you configure shapes or valves or gears or numbers or lights a certain way: 18 Oversized animal types: 12 (Spider, Bee, Moth, Snake, Shark, Worm, Scorpion, Cockroach, Centipede, Bat, Salamander, A Different Bat) Rooms with monsters in tubes: 8 Gigantic mutant plants: 4 Times when it looked like a character died but they didn't really: 10 Secret subterranean labs: 10 Switches that change the water level: 5 Batteries/cables attached to things: 9 Clock towers: 4 Vaccines synthesized: 4 Self destruct sequences: 7 Helicopters shot down or otherwise destroyed right before they were used to escape: 6 Unique viruses: 9 (Progenitor Virus, T-Virus, G-Virus, T-Veronica Virus, Uroburos Virus, T-Abyss Virus, C-Virus, T-Phobos Virus, Mold Virus)

Resident Evil Tier List

Obligatory tier list disclaimer: tier lists are stupid and bad and fail to acknowledge the many nuances of things.

[fostersffff]

Can Xbox win next gen?

Thank you for asking me this anon, I’ve been dying for an excuse to talk about console war stuff.

With what we know right now? I don’t think there’s a fucking chance.

To begin, based on what I’ve seen, Sony genuinely internalized their lessons from the PS3′s wack ass cell architecture by talking with developers about what they want out of the system, which has led to people like Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney- a man who could not possibly have less of a reason to pick sides in a console war- praising the PS5 and talking about how incredible it is, whereas Microsoft has made A Very Strong Box... perhaps even History’s Strongest Box.

A Very Strong Box would be perfectly fine, but there’s a problem: because they have said and reconfirmed that the Series X isn’t going to have any first-party exclusives for at least the first few years, every game is going to have to run on an Xbox One, and Microsoft just discontinued the One X, meaning that games are going to have to run on the One S. This will result in one of two things happening: either they’re going to primarily develop for the Series X and downgrade games for the One S, which will almost certainly result in HILARIOUS jank like the PS3 version of Shadow of Mordor, or they’ll develop for the One S and just crank the hell out of the settings for the Series X, which will absolutely result in incredible resolutions and framerates, but model/texture work won’t be nearly as impressive as it could be. Compare the reception of Halo Infinite’s graphics versus the the big-budget stuff on the PS5 showcase like Ratchet & Clank and Miles Morales. Plus, in either situation, first-party games won’t be able to be developed around having a Solid State Drive, the benefits of which are immediately apparent if you go watch that Ratchet & Clank trailer- the only way they can get environmental swapping like that without loading screen is because of an SSD.

Speaking of SSD, there’s another problem: Microsoft has yet to formally announce the Lockhart, which according to leaks is a budget Series X, and we know it exists because there are references to Lockhart in the Windows 10 OS. There’s a possibility that one of the budget cuts Microsoft will make is using a standard optical hard drive instead of a SSD. This would cripple not just Microsoft but possibly the entire industry for the whole generation, because for as good as those PS5 games look now, they’re only going to look better down the line. A possible future is that third-party developers won’t take full advantage of SSDs since they’ll want to make sure their games will run well on everything, and as a result Sony’s first-party output will blow everything else out of the water because they know they always have an SSD. Even if the Lockhart does have an SSD and make cuts elsewhere like the PS5 with no disc drive, a lower spec Xbox Series console almost certainly means that developers are going to be required to make sure it runs on both, which will just cause more issues for them. I guess the positive side to both of these problems is that they are technically consumer friendly- making sure people who don’t want to upgrade to a Xbox Series console will still be able to play games like Halo Infinite, and making sure people are able to afford some kind of upgrade even if they can’t afford the Series X- but I don’t think most people are thinking of it like that, especially when the pomp and circumstance around a new console generation has always been about how much better the new hotness is.

On the subject of new hotness, Microsoft’s marketing strategy is very bad. Xbox has never had the best names, but this holiday Microsoft will have the Xbox One S, the Xbox Series X, and whatever they call the Lockhart, presumably the Xbox Series S or Series L. Maybe you and me can distinguish that with relative ease, but there’s going to be no shortage of tech illiterate parents and grandparents stumbling over themselves to remember what their kids wanted, or kids writing down and asking for the wrong thing, or even people buying for themselves trying to remember if it’s a One X or Series X or Series One or whatever. And we know this kind of thing is a problem because it 100% contributed to the Wii U’s abysmal sales. The other aspect of their marketing strategy is that they really... aren’t doing much to celebrate the Series X being new hotness. They’ve announced the Series X UI is going to be identical to the Xbox One, and just by looking at game boxes you’d have a hard time knowing if the Series X is a brand new console or just an enhancement the One X because of how identical it is:

Same banner, same smaller black banner advertising what console to use, little white text in the top right advertising graphical fidelity. It’s nearly identical. Compared with the reveal of what PS5 boxes will look like:

It’s still blue plastic, but check out what white banner and black text! No more “Only on Playstation” text so there’s less to distract from the box art! Even if you want to argue that no one but turbo nerds really care about the boxes- and you’d be correct to do so- there is something to having them look even slightly different to signal “THIS IS NEW!” Also, going back to marketing, Smart Delivery is a terrible name for Cross Buy/“you own it on the old thing and the new thing”, and they’re not even enforcing that name for consistency despite featuring it heavily in their advertising because EA is calling it “Dual Entitlement”, which is actually still a better name:

Also, the OPTIMIZED FOR SERIES X sticker. Madden 21’s box art is already fucking awful enough without also needing that big ol’ OPTIMIZED FOR SERIES X sticker making it an even bigger mess.

Then there’s all those studios they bought up: your tastes may differ, but the only studio in that bunch that I think can produce worthwhile games is Obsidian. Ninja Theory’s got Hellblade but not much else, Double Fine is going to be a fucking money pit because Tim Schaffer just revealed they were going to CUT ALL OF THE BOSS FIGHTS OUT OF PSYCHONAUTS 2 BECAUSE THEY SPENT ALL THEIR MONEY ON JACK BLACK until they got bought and funded by Microsoft, and the other studios they acquired like inXile and Compulsion are kinda just… fine. Even if they did have an absolute killer’s row of developers, I think about what Rare’s been doing since they were acquired (although people seem to like Sea of Thieves now that it’s had some updates, and I sincerely hope Everwild is as cool as it looks), and I think of this recent quote from the head of Xbox Game Studios:

“It’s kind-of a phased thing. Take Compulsion. They’re working on their next game and have spent the last year on early ideation. I try to keep us as far away from that as possible. And then, as it starts to get exposure within the organisation, feedback will come in and things will start to steer. But it’s important to leave them alone for as long as possible, until they’ve got something that can walk on its own. And then there’s no shortage of feedback within Xbox.” (emphasis mine)

… which makes me think about what happened with Platinum’s Scalebound, a game that somehow transformed from a single-player action RPG to an online multiplayer hunting(?) game and was cancelled because Platinum just couldn’t meet deadlines and am overwhelmed with dread.

The last thing is to think of that really just completely undercuts Microsoft is that fact that all of their Xbox games are also going to be playable on Windows 10. Obviously, gaming PCs are more expensive than consoles- even if both consoles wind up at a super high price point, getting comparable or better performance on a PC will cost just as much, or more- but it still cuts out a portion of people who might otherwise be persuaded to buy an Xbox if they wind up with a lot of good exclusives.

I think the only things Microsoft can claim as an inarguable advantage is the fact that the Series X is A Very Strong Box... perhaps even History’s Strongest Box, and that Xbox Game Pass is an insanely good deal (but again, Windows 10). Right now, they also have the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility baked-in, which is excellent, but Sony could potentially pull out the “PS5 can play PS1-4 games” card, which would nuke Microsoft’s “largest launch line-up in history” from orbit. Their only other possible advantage would be price, which is why despite the fact that we’re roughly four months out from launch, we know nothing about price of either console. I think they’re playing chicken to see who reveals their price first, and how low they can go before it would be suicide for the other company to go lower. And- this is wild, baseless speculation, but fuck it- Sony recently announced they’re increasing production of launch PS5’s up from 6m to 9m. It’s true that gaming sales have actually gone up despite/because of the current state of the world, but who knows what things are going to be like in four months, and either way the average person still probably can’t afford a huge purchase… which could mean that the PS5 isn’t such a huge purchase. I don’t know the cost of the PS5 components, but Sony might be willing to go absurdly low and sell at a loss for a while just to put Microsoft in that position, where they literally can not go lower than them (or they COULD, because Microsoft as a whole has theoretically infinite money, but I can’t imagine them wanting to accept that much of a loss).

tl;dr: Naw, man.

[marcussour]

As promised some time ago, here are some random (non spoilery regarding the new story stuff) thoughts about FF7 Remake: 

Jessie is love, Jessie is life. Also, can’t remember if her surname existed before or not, but it’s kinda adorable that it’s Rasberry.

Also, she’s SO THIRSTY. 

Bigg’s cool. Wedge’s also cool, but I still can’t get over the fact that he’s voiced by Breaking Bad’s Badger.

Since Square was willing to mix up some things regarding the story and narrative of the game, it would’ve been nice that they would have let you play as Jessie, Biggs or Wedge at some part (Jessie rides the bike with you at one point and it’s the closer we get to that -while also adding more wood to the thirsty fire, like, that scene while she rides the bike is not subtle at all-).

Everyone in this game -EVERYONE- has the hots for Cloud (at least until that part when Aerith meet Tifa, and from then onwards, Cloud’s pretty much just a third wheel).

Johnny is annoying, but it kinda grows on you. What I like the most about it is that they updated a random NPC model from the original and made it a character that’s clearly going to be a thing in the future.

The combat system in this game is fucking amazing.

The soundtrack is just in another level, I really like both the new dynamic orchestration of the original songs, and the remixes that are offered as in-game records (especially when it’s songs that doesn’t appear in the Midgar section of the story, like Wutai or Costa del Sol’s music).

Said it in an earlier post, but Aerith really grew on me in this game. The same thing with Barret, who I had some fears based on his previous characterization and the voice acting, but he’s amazing, and it’s great that (SEMI SPOILER) there’s an in game explanation for how he’s basically faking this almost 80′s action movie star facade, while hiding his insecurities and fears.

Red XIII is perfect.

Let Aerith curse more often. 

The way they modernized the Wall Market is a triumph in and on itself. Not only how they managed it, but in how they got rid of the worst and most problematics part of the original, while expanding the setting, giving it new personality, and adding new characters that are some of the most memorable ones in the game.

For the most part, the games looks and runs amazing. But it’s still kinda weird that in some parts there are some textures that looks like they came from the PS1 or PS2 era, while other parts have these weird graphic hiccups where not everything loads at the same speed. Dunno if the people with PS4 Pro had those issues or not. Anyway, it’s nothing that ruins the experience, but it’s distracting at times. I’m guessing this was a result of the weird change of developing teams that happened a few years ago.

Almost all the new and expanded sections work great. But there are some places where the padding it’s visible (going through almost the same corridors over and over, those weird instances where you have to go through a mini cutscene in order to go under a collapsed building or something like that).

I love how some of the old (and weirder) enemies now got a revamp -and glow up- as bosses, specially the Hell House.

The weapons upgrade system is really good and, also, really squareenix-sy.

One of the things I liked the most about the original (and was more fearful before playing) was if Square was going to keep the political side of the original story or don’t. And, without spoiling the new stuff, I’m more than happy to report that they actually expanded upon it. Yeah, the game has never been subtle (the villains are literally a corporation that milks the planet of it’s essence while ruling a city state -and basically almost the whole world- where the upper clases live in a plate above the ground, while the poor people live in slums among the garbage and destruction caused by the upper classes), but I always felt that it didn’t need to be subtle in it’s message. Yeah, it’s fucked up that the cautionary tale about this weird dystopia, ended up being more and more relevant as the years went on, but it’s amazing that Square decided to double up upon it, while also adding some new modern layers (like how Shin-Ra now uses fake news to control the narrative in Midgar).

A nice detail is how in the places where the original had save points (or where you’ve expected them to be if those were still a thing in this game), now got these vending machines that sell various items, and some benches (in some places with a logo that’s the old save point) where you can rest and heal up, basically replacing the need for tents. 

That’s it for now, might come back later with some more random thoughts, maybe regarding the spoilery stuff.

[bearpillowmonster]

Resident Evil 2 Remake Review

NON SPOILER

I've bought Resi 4 on Steam, after the first level of playing it, I realized that it wasn't for me, all the enemies looked the same and it looked repetitive, zombies kept spawning and there was no way to get rid of them all, I ran out of ammo, it was a mess. I knew that the genre did that, I know that that’s the point, but I didn’t like it. Plus, I couldn't even really get the gunplay to work right. I heard that it was at its best on the Gamecube but I haven't given it another shot since then. However I saw that Resi2 got a demo, so I played it when it released and I kind of liked it, I was sold on the game and asked for it for Christmas (or maybe even my birthday, so yeah it’s been a long time but I was busy with other games) Now, the RE3 remake is already out...wow, time to play RE2 then, huh? So, you can consider this my "first" RE game.

Right out of the gate, visuals are stunning, almost needless to say and the level of accuracy is immense. I mean I didn't expect there to be a gas station at the beginning but it even had the lighters and beef jerky towards the front and stuff, they really went all out. 

I can't imagine seeing this game when the original came out with PS1 graphics, it's ambitious, this is clearly the way it belongs. I thought a bug flew on screen but then I realized it was in-game, it's immersive, I don't normally read all the little tidbits and notes and stuff but it was generally interesting to read on the lore along with the VHS tapes and get some clues as to what to do next. I tried to play through it as if it were 1998 so I didn't look much up, I usually tried to do it myself with a few small exceptions. I felt accomplished by the end of each session like "Wow, I did that. I'm smart." It's rewarding. Now I played through each campaign so both Leon and Claire (starting with Leon) Claire on the other hand I was more lenient with, I looked up a decent amount because I was already in the station doing the same puzzles as Leon. It makes me wonder how they got the same items story-wise though, I mean we see Leon leaving her notes but you can't blow up the same wall twice in reality, that's nitpicking the game a little bit though. I will say that I felt like it was a wild goose chase when I did look it up because every thing I looked up was giving me different information "The portable safe is in this room." "No it's in this room." "This is the combination for the unicorn statue" "No it isn't, this is." Because it varies when you're playing on standard vs hardcore and whether it's your first or second run. So, I got my punishments for looking it up I guess.

But with that said, I know some of these types of older games have a tendency to make it really confusing and difficult without a guide so I was kind of worried about not knowing what to do or where to go. While I will say I had had to look a few things up, it became cut and dry once I figured out the pattern, most of the things I looked up were things I was going to do anyway but wanted to make sure before I somehow unleashed a hoard of zombies that I certainly didn't want. Same goes for story too, I knew close to nothing about it. But you basically just have to make it to the next area, think of it as that Chowder episode where he loses his hat and Chestnut has it so he has to go around doing odd jobs one by one in order to progress. The overall goal is to get out of the police station and kind of just find a way to survive but you have to focus on the smaller goals / getting to the next room. I looked pretty thoroughly through everything and managed to find everything I needed without even trying or knowing what it was for half the time like "Well this should come in handy later." *puts it in storage chest*  Speaking of, I like how each chest is like an Ender Chest and is interchangeable as if it was the same one chest in every location, that makes things much easier rather than some hardcore game of "where did I put my keys?" that I'm not into. But you learn to find your destination a lot easier than I thought. That was always something I hated about Resident Evil games while watching them, that there was a lot of backtracking but actually playing the game hits differently, it's not what I expected, it's actually kind of fun, like I mentioned saying "I know where that is!"

Maybe it's just the setting of a police station that did that for me or maybe seeing speedrunners doing it with the old games and paying no mind made me scared or maybe the fixed camera angle of the old games (so that each side of the room had the clip as if it were just a picture) along with the idea that the originals are dated rather than PS4 but regardless, it's just surprisingly not annoying like I thought.

Games can easily stress me out but I actually found myself cruising and feeling good about it despite all these zombies...then I met Mr. X. He chases you EVERYWHERE throughout the game. Thing of nightmares. I will probably hear footsteps in my sleep now. I knew he was coming but I didn't know his presence wasn't always scripted, it's just a game of cat and mouse...and he's the cat! It gets me paranoid because I'll stop and hear footsteps then stand still for a good 5 minutes and he's still tromping around. I walk down a hall. BOOM! Crashes through the wall, making ME screech. There's no way to get rid of him and it kind of ruins the atmosphere to be honest, I know it's trying to be scary but it's more annoying than scary because every time I move I'm like "Ok stop" and I'll stand around for a minute, checking the map, to check the fastest route to where I need to go, just to make sure and then continue... only to turn the next corner and then repeat. I couldn't even move comfortably anymore, it's space invading. The tension is high because he can come into the main hall which I liked to use to save but alas, I had to memorize where all the other save points were or check the map again.

So, you get to play as Claire, which I like, but with Leon's story it's kind of just like "Well I'm going to do my own thing and if she survives, she survives." I understand each step is essential to progressing and getting closer but for all he knows, she's just out in the rain, waiting for him to unlock the door. And I also know that she said that she can handle herself (before Leon had to point out the zombie behind her! lmao) and he has survival on the forefront of his mind too but still. They flirt every time they're on screen together but the thing is that I love it, I ship it, it's cheesy but I don't care, that’s half of what I’m even here for.

As for the rest of the story, you're telling me that they made not just one movie but a SERIES of movies and it wasn't this?! This is great, this is a master-craft in its work. I'm not a big fan of zombie movies, I'm sure there's one out there that I like but I can't think of any off the top of my head but this? This is it! (Jennifer Lawrence would make a good Claire tbh) Let alone the horror genre in general, I'm not even frightened all that easily, I just think a lot of the plots and decisions are stupid in horror, this goes against all that. Speaking of spooky, I know making the screen brightness balanced is normal for games but I don't think it's mattered more than here, brighten that baby up because sometimes it's pitch black, immersive but still hard to see.

Boss fights are something I didn't think a whole lot about until I actually got to it. Doing the first boss fight with G was really memorable for me because I could cower away all I wanted in that gridded pit of a machine room and just launch grenades at him but it wasn't until the bosses in the sewer that I really started to like it. First was that Crash Bandicoot type running sequence, then we had G-2. I had actually ran out of ammo at that point, I used it all on the sewage monsters (I didn't get the flamethrower, I didn't know how, as I said, I did this more or less blind) so I just kept running, and clicked X every time the option came up, hoping to pick up something good. All I got was a combat knife and a flash grenade, then I started messing with the buttons on the control panel, in hopes of cheesing it and just going to the next section but then I realized what I was actually doing. I was using those buttons to move a crate and using that crate to slam G into a pit. I love the classic boss style, I haven't played a boss like that in a long time. One where it doesn't matter how much ammo you have, but just using the environment to your advantage without it explicitly telling you (except the death screen giving you hints). That was until the later boss fights, you basically just keep unloading your belt until they die, kinda lame but whatever.

This actually made me rethink the genre and also about giving one of the other games a shot (PLEASE REMAKE CODE VERONICA, I BEG!) it might be right time, right place (PS4 with modern graphics and modern gunplay) that made me actually interested. The “true ending” is unlocked by playing through one of the two’s campaign and then playing through the other, which is basically the same game but with different cutscenes and context (some new areas too) so it’s definitely worth it, you could even just speedrun the second run if you’d like, you even unlock a secret boss and for those who have already seen the true ending, know that I liked it based off of what I said earlier, no spoilers.

[bwprowl]

Rage and Replacements in Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII isn’t my favorite video game ever. Hell, it’s not even my favorite Final Fantasy game (That’d be FF4). But it is a game that I really, really like, and for that I’m immensely grateful that Final Fantasy VII Remake exists. Not just for letting me dive into an exhaustingly immersive version of this game’s world that, thanks to design, music, and general vibes, ‘feels’ pitch-perfect as a recreation of that, but also because it lets me experience a resurgence in Final Fantasy VII fan enthusiasm and discussions in our modern era. Just being able to scroll through my Twitter feed and see tons of great art and memes based on this old game I love is a testament to how worthwhile this project has turned out to be.

That said, as anyone who’s played through all of FF7R can now tell you, much of that rich retro-recreation is in service of the later twists in this installment. The whole thing turns out to be designed to pull the rug out from under the player and the characters by the end, an exercise in escaping the original plot of Final Fantasy VII as much as the walled-in city of Midgar itself. And there’s thus some trepidation from people who may have preferred that this revisiting of the story stay on the rails they remembered, sticking only to the plot of the original just with all those glossy current-console-generation bells and whistles helping it along. And while I can’t really condemn that mindset, I also can’t really adopt any element of my own.

As someone who’s played through Final Fantasy VII several times, and has played the beginning of Final Fantasy VII particularly quite a few times, the attention to detail in recreating the Midgar portion was worthy of applause. But as much as I was happy to get sucked back into the world, right from the start, pretty much, I was being even more drawn in by the presence of new elements. Right after that first reactor bombing run, where the demo left off (both in the original and for the Remake), we get a new illusory scene of Sephiroth and the appearance of the spooky plot-arbiters called Whispers as Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth himself all make cryptic statements hinting towards the idea that we might have Done This All Before. And as an absolute slut for metatext in fiction, that really drove me as I played through the thing. It creates an interesting context, treating the plot of Final Fantasy VII as a setting unto itself that we’re then drip-fed this new plot on top of. And of course that doesn’t become clear until right at the end, but it’s still an element, that question of what’s ‘really’ going on here even as we’re also enjoying being taken through an FF7 theme-park with fancy new takes on stuff like Wall Market and the Train Graveyard.

I guess my hang-up comes in comprehending the real issues of FF7 faithful upset that we didn’t get a straight recreation. A lot of times my attitude towards new versions of things is “The original still exists, so if you don’t like the changes made to the new one, you can still go back to the old one.” And indeed, if all these folks are as big of fans of the original FF7 as they profess to be, they can understand that Remake isn’t going to cause their PS1 discs to blink out of existence. Part of me can understand a fear that with Final Fantasy VII Remake 2 (whenever that manages to come out) pointedly going in an ‘unknown’ direction plot-wise, we may miss out on seeing reenvisioned versions of our favorite later FF7 stuff, but this is Tetsuya Nomura we’re talking about. I think it’s clear that whatever else you think of the man, Nomura is a HUGE fan of FF7. Cait Sith has already popped up, and Cid, Vincent, Yuffie? Safe to say all those characters will still be in there. The Gold Saucer will almost certainly still be in there. Chocobo breeding and fights with the Weapons, probably all still going to be in there. They’ll probably still make us do the Wutai sidequest again. The contexts may end up changing and there may be all sorts of wild new shit in-between, but to think a massive FF7 fanboy like Nomura is going to completely excise a lot of the most enjoyably iconic parts of it is to ignore the sheer unbridled love for the game that came through just in this first part.

And god, how can you not be excited to actually have no idea how or if Aerith is going to die in this version? They’re setting me up for another shock based on one of the most overspoiled spoilers in video-game history, and that’s friggin’ brilliant, if you ask me.

Because the fact is, all those elements in the original FF7 are what make it still hold up today, and if you want to experience them in their original iteration, you can absolutely still go back and play it. Heck, I’m amazed at how much playing through Remake has me hankering to return to the original, never mind revisiting all that Compilation material. This game has me curious about checking out Dirge of Cerberus, a game that everyone knows is bad! But on the subject of the original, there is the point of those who seemingly were counting on Remake to ‘replace’ that old game, or newcomers who jumped on thinking this would be an ideal way to experience that story for the first time. And with that ending up a wash, I don’t think it’s as big a deal as some are making it out to be, again for the simple fact that the original FF7 still exists, and can be bought and downloaded and played on more platforms than I can list at this point. You can play FF7 on your phone! If you’re reading this and getting mad about Remake’s plot changes on mobile, you can just download the original FF7 on that device and play it instead.

Because it’s important to admit that graphical fidelity and robust modern gameplay flourishes do not a masterpiece make. I like a lot of the touches in the original FF7, its prerendered backgrounds used for a sense of style and perspective that would’ve been unthinkable in the sprite era of RPGs, but it is true that a lot of its other graphics, especially its overworld models, look a bit shit. They’re chunky, awkward first attempts at translating the old Final Fantasy style to a polygonal place, and they definitely don’t hold up. But for something great, looking like shit shouldn’t matter too much. I said my favorite Final Fantasy was IV, and that game looks like shit too, running into simply awkward translation to the 16-bit era the same way VII did with 3D on the PlayStation. But IV is still a wonderful game to play that tells a killer story with characters I love. And FF7 does the same, with its own systems and interfaces to gameplay that make it great to go through even as those characters are represented by shuffling tinkertoys. If you love FF7 so much that you were all-in on its Remake and compelled by the nostalgia it summoned, then you should still be able to derive joy from that original and recommend it to newcomers for the same reasons. To feel betrayed that this new version didn’t sufficiently replace it is to admit that you thought your timeless favorite needed replacing.

And finally, I have to laugh at anybody arguing that Final Fantasy VII Remake was ‘falsely advertised’ as it was, since you know what other game famously misrepresented itself in its advertising?

Final Fantasy VII.

[gamesweforgot]

The Mummy Returns for PS2 is not good and you should play it

Being bisexual, I naturally love the first two Mummy films starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Being a kid who spent too much time playing videogames in the 90′s and 00′s, I also remember seeing previews for a tie-in game to The Mummy Returns and always finding it intruiging. The ability to play as Rick and Imhotep, blending gunplay and magic? Sold! Except I was a poor teenager and didn’t have, y’know, money. Now I do. As the title of this piece may have tipped you off, this is a bad game. A game that 14 year old me would have tried and utterly failed to love. But with age comes wisdom, the ability to laugh more freely at the things you love, and the ability to buy The Mummy Returns for PS2 for £1 instead of however much second hand retailers wanted for it back in the halcyon days of the mid 2000′s. I started my first playthrough is Imhotep, which is the better choice if you’re looking for a game that is “fun”, or “passable”. You know you’re in for a good time when the first thing you’re told to do after being revived is set out on a fetch quest. Exploring Imhotep’s first level, the British Museum, you’re tasked with finding four items to give as offerings to the god statues you’re sharing a basement with, as well as being told to look out for collectible Canopic jars that will expand your health meter. So you run around, punching out security guards and Medjay as you go. The melee combat here doesn’t feel precise or impactful or, y’know, good, but enemies have the decency to die pretty quickly, and you awaken with the magical power to restore your health by absorbing the souls of weakened humans through a technique I insist on referring to as “soulvore”. This level shows some promise. The environment isn’t huge, and the game doesn’t look great, but there’s a decent amount of unique assets and the level is easily navigable. This is largely the case for Imhotep’s story. While you can gain a new spell on each level, anything that isn’t soulvore is basically never useful outside of the two times you’re forced to use the resurrection spell in the museum. Instead you’ll just punch dudes a lot and maybe use a sword? Idk it’s your afterlife. Oh, Imhotep’s third level is hilarious by the way. Remember that temple he stops off at with Alex and his henchfolk? Yeah, you turn up there, pick up a “spirit sword” from a corpse, kill a couple of ghosts and that’s it, you win the level. Rick, on the other hand, has a much worse game, but a much funnier one. Rick O’Connell has no magical soulvore. Rick O’Connell lives in a vore-free zone. Instead, he relies on good old-fashioned firearms to get the job done. Each level gives Rick dual pistols and either a shotgun or tommy gun, plus a starting pool of ammo. As for health, you’ll be forced to find and ration out the limited health packs in each level. However, Rick’s enemies are so spongey that a regular dude will take eight pistol shots to kill. Your starting pistol ammo is 32. And Rick’s punches may as well be gentle subtweets for all the good they do. Rick’s limited abilities to stay alive and defend himself aren’t the only thing that make the levels more tricky than Imhotep’s, but we’ll get to that. From the first cutscene, you’re in for a treat. Evy, Rick, and Jonathan all suffer from some pretty terrible voice acting and honestly it’s the only thing worth playing Rick’s story for. His first level is that temple from the beginning where he, Evy and Alex find the magic bracelet, where you’re tasked with...finding four items to open a door! Luckily, ammo and health are pretty plentiful in this level, even if you’re like me and don’t discover that you can loot the corpses of gunwielders until the third level. The only real problems here is the confusing maze that two of the trinkets you need are found in and the unmotivated shooting of brown people. But then we start getting onto the rest of the game’s levels, the ones Rick shares with Imhotep. When Imhotep goes to Cairo, all he has to do is find the hotel room the heroes are staying in, then go down to the train station and fight Ardeth a bit. Sure, the place is a confusing maze, but you’re unlikely to die. When Rick goes there, you have to bribe your way past the guards at the docks to reach the train station. They will only accept 5 golden coins. So maybe you have to do some platforming for them, or even a series of tedious fetch quests? Nope, you have to kill random, otherwise peaceful brown people. Specifically, you have to kill the armed men walking around town, who might drop a gold coin if you’re lucky, but will mostly just drain your ammo.  After this, you (somehow) find your way back to the docks and see Alex giving Anck Su Namun the Benny Hill treatment before you teleport back to the hotel so Ardeth can go with you to free Alex. This is more difficult than it sounds, as the wandering townsfolk have been replaced by zombies that don’t drop ammo, and can do some nasty damage if they latch onto you. You then follow this up with a gauntlet of cultists at the docks/train station. Really though, so long as you’re careful and save/reload often enough to avoid catastrophe, this level is just tedious. Rick’s trip to the jungle is where things get real fucky. This is another two parter. The first half is essentially identical to Imhotep’s, with Rick doing some basic platforming and light puzzle solving while trying to avoid the wildlife, except you get a slightly different path to the level exit! Huzzah! But the treetops...oh the treetops. You may remember the army of mummified pygmies from the movies. When Imhotep passes through here, they’re fighting Medjay that 1) distract them 2) let you soulvore back any lost health. When Rick comes through here, there’s no cultists for the pygmies to fight, meaning you get the full brunt of their attacks. I assume the final level and fight against the Scorpion King is the same for both of them, I stopped playing after running across a rope bridge cost my half my health bar in unstoppable damage. It’s not all awful though, and I do think this game had potential. Imhotep’s kinda fun to play is, even if his useless magic reduces him to a repetitive punch machine. There are some neat touches, like Imhotep withering as he gets hurt, or Rick’s two pistols actually being visibly stored on his model. Oh, and the cats in Cairo will actually drain Imhotep’s health if he’s around them. Graphical fidelity and audio quality aside, this game would be pretty disappointing even as a PS1 title. But its bad voice acting, janky animations, and amatuerish level design can make for some “so bad it’s good times”. I definitely got my quid’s worth out of it. This seems to have been exactly the sort of d-tier entry the developer, Blitz Games, specialised in. Their other titles include Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue, a videogame adaptation of Reservoir Dogs, infamous Burger King advergame Sneak King, Bratz:The Movie (the videogame), and The Fairly OddParents: Breakin' da Rules . These games are all noted to have “mixed reception”.

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Resident Evil 7

I know I'm about 3 years late to the party, but I was hesitant to trust that Capcom could get back in touch with their Survival Horror roots.

My very regrettable mistake...

So: Resident Evil for PS1/Saturn was great!

Cinematic Storytelling: The game could be completed in under 2 hours (if you knew what you were doing). So that means you're not spending days to get through a feature-film level story (unlike SOME games). It makes the plot and characters a more crucial part of the experience.

Puzzles: Sure, the puzzles are little wacky: like clicking buttons under pictures in chronological order or you get attacked by well-trained zombie birds. But it made the game more than moving from point-a-to-b. It's about exploring and understanding your environment. Speaking of which...

The Environment: The Mansion (and it's other areas) was a character unto itself. It had secrets and a past. And since the game wasn't designed as a series of sequential levels, you really get to know the environment.

Zombies: Zombies were not the mainstream success they are now. Hell, Vampires were just barely getting attention through Interview the Vampire. I became obsessed with zombies and bought all 3 major films in existence.

Such a different time...

Anyway, the point, RE1 was great, RE2 was better, RE: Code Veronica was pretty good, and RE4 is stupid.

Well...not stupid, but it completely changed Resident Evil, and not for the better. While folks loved RE4, it really was the start of a new franchise, which RE5 and RE6 followed. And that's fine--except they sacrificed what Resident Evil was to make way for this new product.

Succinct, mystery-driven storytelling was replaced with nonsensical twist and turns that did little to grow the overall world or its characters. They just stretched contrived cliffhangers across overlong campaigns of mass murder.

Puzzles, as best i can remember, were sacrificed for challenge rooms filled with enemies while the player looked for the exit switch.

The environment, as great as the graphics were, simply became battle zones meant to offer shallow context to the bloodbath gameplay. RE4 did have a strong aesthetic, but you don't get to know each room and hall like you do in the classics. Nothing but well-dressed strangers to high-five as you pass by.

And what happened to the Zombies. I mean, they still had zombies--but they weren't zombies. Whatever. Resident Evil has always had a diverse set of monsters. They didn't have to sacrifice zombies...

All this to say, Resident Evil 7 is awesome!

The opening was a little cheesy with poorly synced dialog and a helicopter shot of Louisiana swampland I'm sure they stole from True Detective stock footage.

But once I took over the character, I was hooked. The game looks great on my phone and TV via Stadia. I enjoyed walking through the woods and house, looking at every little detail the artists meticulously placed.

I've seen most of a playthrough on Youtube (though I was distracted). So I kind of knew what to expect. It's way more intense when you play. Having dialog and cutscenes playout without leaving the first person camera is great at making you feel "there". So all that goes down and I end up in the house for dinner.

Watching this bit on YouTube, I was a little turned off by the obvious Chainsaw Massacre connections: but original RE was heavily influenced by horror films, why not this? (I also have a better understanding of this family cause I know some things.)

Once I gained control, roaming around the kitchen/dining/living room area was great. I was seeing hints to future puzzles, scavenging for supplies, and finding notes giving clues to events that were happening. Very Resident Evil.

I struggled a bit trying to get away from Jack. Since they gave me a hiding spot, I assumed stealth was gonna be a major component. Nope. Not really. Eventually I get to the save room (A SAVE ROOM!!) and then on to the garage fight.

I wasted all my ammo when I probably just needed to grab the car keys. Lesson learned. Jack trying to run me over was kind of crazy, and maybe a little laughable since I was just swiping at him with a pocket knife for five minutes.

After that, more of the house opens up. It's insanely huge and illogically designed. While it creates some great hallways, and helps the designers break the home up into controllable sections: there's no house build like this: wtf...

Going into the basement reminded me of RE2. The molded, I think, are people the family has kidnapped and infected with something. Some change and some don't. Know they've turned into very lethal zombie-esque creatures. Since they're infected people stumbling about, I'm gonna say they've rekindled the zombie. Kinda.

To fight these guys, I've resorted to my pocket knife. Saves ammo. I basically dance around them like I did guards in Thief, wacking where I can. Eventually I chop off their hands, often without taking damage. But the crab guy in the incinerator required a shotgun blast.

One of the fights, he cut off my leg and I was crawling around. I thought it was a scripted scene (I mean, I lost my arm already). Nope. You're supposed to pick it up and reattach it. Ah-well.

Jack wandering around the new area was frustrating. It seemed I could never lose him, so wasted a lot of health and ammo stunning him. His boss fight was pretty rough. I nearly gave up. It took some time getting used to the chainsaw. Right as I was about to switch to easy, I had a near perfect run and defeated him. My wife laughed at the way I was squirming on the couch trying to get a hit in without being cut in half!

Made it to the old house with the bugs. This went way faster. It reminded me of the guard house from RE1, which also had giant wasps. Without Jack or molded zombies, it was actually really easy to explore the house and solve its secrets. Once the old lady showed up, I thought I could lure her away from the exit room. She didn't buy it, so I just ran past her.

When it came to her boss fight, it reminded me a lot of Laughing Octopus in Metal Gear Solid. Which that boss was practically a horror movie in of itself. I thought the flame thrower was gonna be the way to go, but a guide suggested focusing on her belly. And I kept running out of fuel, then being harassed by flies. So I opted for the shotgun and had a successful run.

About a year and a half ago, I played through the original RE as Chris. I remember there was a point about a third of the way through that I had about seven rounds of pistol ammo, and a single green herb--yet several zombies stood in my way. I wasn't sure I was going to make it. But then, I unlocked the shotgun and the game became a breeze. Suddenly I had too much ammo, and too many healing items!

That has kind of happened here. I'm doing well on healing items (though I've used up my shotgun). Still, I feel confident sprinting around and doing quick searches of spaces. I don't even fight the molded much anymore.

Getting into Zoe's trailer was interesting, but you can interact with her bra. I thought that was kind of pervy. I'm guessing Zoe is a part of the family? I imagine she's some how the source.

I think it's great they keep putting the grandma in different places without explanation. The way she looks at you sometimes is creepy...

I'm not a huge fan of the VHS flashbacks. Often, they have you play areas you've either already played or will play. While it's inspired some game ideas of my own, it just feels like a cheap gimmick to get more playtime.

Anyway, this really does feel like a reboot of Resident Evil. It's capturing the strong environmental storytelling of the originals, and making it more about the horror, less about the action. I'm actually getting into the plot and mystery. I look forward to getting my answers.