After playing through RE: Revelations on the PC and RE6, I would play more of RE:R even if it does nothing to advance the Umbrella storylinebut I bought both games. But if you've played RE6 and still haven't done Revelations yet, read my comparison OR BUY REVELATIONS NAO! RIGHT NAO!
But I played RE6 before that and even though RE:R was released before 6 and is nothing more than a port, there are parts of it that it got right from a gameplay standpoint and I'm surprised that Capcom flopped on the simple things that made Revelations a better game.
Controls
RE6 and RE:R both have good shooting controls, but RE6 fails miserably in its camera and movement. RE:R's camera moves both your camera and character towards one direction, guaranteeing precision movement when you need it. Because RE6 introduced melee combat that lets you throw punches and kicks in any direction (which is pretty awesome), it also forced the developers to prevent awkward and jarring "snap" animations where the character would change direction based on the camera's position without any frames inbetween. This leads to some very imprecise movements where your character has to walk/run/crawl in an arc instead of turning in place, sometimes getting them stuck on walls or objects and being unable to slide around them.
Camera
I could look around freely in RE: Revelations from my over-the-shoulder perspective.
I could look around freely in RE6 from my over-the-shoulder perspective UNTIL THE GAME THOUGHT THAT SOMETHING WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT IT LOCKED MY VIEW OR CHANGED ANGLES FROM MY OVER-THE-SHOULDER PERSPECTIVE. For a game released on the PC with keyboard bindings, there were too many points where the forced camera angles made for awkward, zig-zagging movements just so I could see whatever hellish creature was right behind me. "I have to escape, I get it. Now **** off while I run for my life, fixed camera."
Progression
I enjoyed being able to upgrade my guns like in RE2 and 3 (and the ammo), and I enjoyed being able to upgrade specific stats on my guns like RE4 and 5. RE:R did the job well enough by letting me pick and change the modifiers on my guns even if there was no cosmetic difference. There was no merchant, but picking up a part still made me feel like I would have an edge in killing BOWs, mostly because ammo was harder to find. And I like knowing my weapon's stats.
RE6... just has skill points. Kill a monster, get skill points or ammo, spend skill points between chapters for skills that are universal and can be bound to 8 loadouts that can be selected on-the-fly. Statistically, I knew there was going to be some difference, but ammo was so plentiful in some parts that it didn't feel like it made much of a difference at all. There was no cosmetic difference, just the knowledge that now, your firearms are doing "more damage". I understand that Capcom didn't want loadouts and weapon ugprades to be a hassle because we would change characters, but I like upgrading specific weapons to suit my playstyle. Dividing the weapons into general categories with upgradable stats would have been better than just providing a general bonus.
Inventory Management
RE:R trumps RE6, hands-down. I might have been able to carry only 3 weapons at a time in RE:R, but my inventory's limits for ammunition, herbs, weapons, and grenades were separate. I miss some of the management from RE4 and back, but Revelations provided a good system that let me use guns, grenades, and (g)herbs with minimal downtime without needing to think about the specifics.
RE6 is ****ING GODAWFUL at inventory management. You won't notice the problems early on, but as you pick up more guns, more ammo, more grenades, more herbs, you will run out of space very quickly. The guns don't take up those precious slots, thankfully enough, but there is no way to store anything you pick up. The game could drop the ammunition you don't want, but will need because your favorite weapon is low on ammo. With 5 weapons of varying effectiveness, that's 5-6 slots of inventory space taken by ammunition out of the 9 you're given. Herbs still need to be combined before they turn into pills, but the system of RE3 that let you combine herbs that you find on the ground with those in your inventory is nonexistent. Prepare to discard something you like.
Melee
RE:Revelations is simple at melee. If you're not aiming down the sight and left-click, your character attacks in one direction. It's simple, powerful, and not clunky.
RE6 gave us multi-directional combat and instant-kill attacks which are pretty damn effective and satisfying at some points. I'm on my second playthrough with a friend (Youtube link later.
) and as I watched Leon punch, kick, chop, and bottle shiv zombies left and right, I couldn't help but feel giddy about how brutal these attacks appeared. But needing to scroll through my inventory to switch to that damn knife is dumb. My ass is getting chomped by zombies, I'm out of ammo, and I STILL HAVE TO SCROLL TO FIND MY KNIFE WHILE I DIE MISERABLY!
Atmosphere (Not actually a little detail)
When I played Leon's campaign, I felt like I might be in Raccoon City all over again. It started off slow and the tension grew as I found survivors, then all hell broke loose as soon as the elevator doors opened and I had to kung-fu my way out of the zombie pile only to find that the entire city was ravaged by the undead horde. Like Leon said, "It's Raccoon City all over again." After escaping the city, there were even more eerie locales until we landed in China. And that's where the game started to push for action. I'll give Capcom good credit for the J'avo, who mutate into different forms based on certain damage and randomness, but that's it. Chris' and Jake's campaigns can go suck a rotten egg for not offering me the same level of horror and tension that used to be common for the RE series.
After the RE6 fiasco, Capcom was smart to release a RE:R port for the PC to cater to a niche instead of everyone. Despite lacking the innovation of RE6's monsters, my time aboard the Queen Zenobia was very tense. Low on ammo (and missing a shotgun), every shot had to count, every enemy had to be kept as far away as I could so that I wouldn't waste herbs, every corner had to be checked for loot or death. That tension bombed when I had to switch to anyone that wasn't Jill or Chris, but the game was still trying to evoke desperation (unless you're playing as Keith, then you'll spend more time laughing).
Skill Requirements and Death
In RE:Revelations, you can die often if you don't play smartly. If you're down to your knife, pray that you can dodge, which is nothing more than pressing one button at the right time. It's forgiving enough that if you see the dodge animation, you'll be just fine. There are still a few instant-death attacks from certain enemies, but these come from standing too close at the wrong time and even those can be dodged.
RE6 is a cheap little ****. If they don't have guns, they're likely to catch you in some grab animation that has no wind-up, especially if you're trying to finish them off like the fallen zombies in Leon's campaign. To make it worse, RE6 relies on a lot of instant-death QTEs. If you're not playing co-op, you might have a bad time since your AI partner will be an idiot that just likes to stare while you get pushed head-first into a meat grinder.
TL;DR: Why did I buy this game? I wanted to play through the story, but I would prefer to do it with a friend. RE6 was a fiasco that tried to pander to everyone, but in the end, it was a mess of bad designs and gameplay that were not from the Resident Evil that we all know and love.
But I played RE6 before that and even though RE:R was released before 6 and is nothing more than a port, there are parts of it that it got right from a gameplay standpoint and I'm surprised that Capcom flopped on the simple things that made Revelations a better game.
Controls
RE6 and RE:R both have good shooting controls, but RE6 fails miserably in its camera and movement. RE:R's camera moves both your camera and character towards one direction, guaranteeing precision movement when you need it. Because RE6 introduced melee combat that lets you throw punches and kicks in any direction (which is pretty awesome), it also forced the developers to prevent awkward and jarring "snap" animations where the character would change direction based on the camera's position without any frames inbetween. This leads to some very imprecise movements where your character has to walk/run/crawl in an arc instead of turning in place, sometimes getting them stuck on walls or objects and being unable to slide around them.
Camera
I could look around freely in RE: Revelations from my over-the-shoulder perspective.
I could look around freely in RE6 from my over-the-shoulder perspective UNTIL THE GAME THOUGHT THAT SOMETHING WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT IT LOCKED MY VIEW OR CHANGED ANGLES FROM MY OVER-THE-SHOULDER PERSPECTIVE. For a game released on the PC with keyboard bindings, there were too many points where the forced camera angles made for awkward, zig-zagging movements just so I could see whatever hellish creature was right behind me. "I have to escape, I get it. Now **** off while I run for my life, fixed camera."
Progression
I enjoyed being able to upgrade my guns like in RE2 and 3 (and the ammo), and I enjoyed being able to upgrade specific stats on my guns like RE4 and 5. RE:R did the job well enough by letting me pick and change the modifiers on my guns even if there was no cosmetic difference. There was no merchant, but picking up a part still made me feel like I would have an edge in killing BOWs, mostly because ammo was harder to find. And I like knowing my weapon's stats.
RE6... just has skill points. Kill a monster, get skill points or ammo, spend skill points between chapters for skills that are universal and can be bound to 8 loadouts that can be selected on-the-fly. Statistically, I knew there was going to be some difference, but ammo was so plentiful in some parts that it didn't feel like it made much of a difference at all. There was no cosmetic difference, just the knowledge that now, your firearms are doing "more damage". I understand that Capcom didn't want loadouts and weapon ugprades to be a hassle because we would change characters, but I like upgrading specific weapons to suit my playstyle. Dividing the weapons into general categories with upgradable stats would have been better than just providing a general bonus.
Inventory Management
RE:R trumps RE6, hands-down. I might have been able to carry only 3 weapons at a time in RE:R, but my inventory's limits for ammunition, herbs, weapons, and grenades were separate. I miss some of the management from RE4 and back, but Revelations provided a good system that let me use guns, grenades, and (g)herbs with minimal downtime without needing to think about the specifics.
RE6 is ****ING GODAWFUL at inventory management. You won't notice the problems early on, but as you pick up more guns, more ammo, more grenades, more herbs, you will run out of space very quickly. The guns don't take up those precious slots, thankfully enough, but there is no way to store anything you pick up. The game could drop the ammunition you don't want, but will need because your favorite weapon is low on ammo. With 5 weapons of varying effectiveness, that's 5-6 slots of inventory space taken by ammunition out of the 9 you're given. Herbs still need to be combined before they turn into pills, but the system of RE3 that let you combine herbs that you find on the ground with those in your inventory is nonexistent. Prepare to discard something you like.
Melee
RE:Revelations is simple at melee. If you're not aiming down the sight and left-click, your character attacks in one direction. It's simple, powerful, and not clunky.
RE6 gave us multi-directional combat and instant-kill attacks which are pretty damn effective and satisfying at some points. I'm on my second playthrough with a friend (Youtube link later.
) and as I watched Leon punch, kick, chop, and bottle shiv zombies left and right, I couldn't help but feel giddy about how brutal these attacks appeared. But needing to scroll through my inventory to switch to that damn knife is dumb. My ass is getting chomped by zombies, I'm out of ammo, and I STILL HAVE TO SCROLL TO FIND MY KNIFE WHILE I DIE MISERABLY!Atmosphere (Not actually a little detail)
When I played Leon's campaign, I felt like I might be in Raccoon City all over again. It started off slow and the tension grew as I found survivors, then all hell broke loose as soon as the elevator doors opened and I had to kung-fu my way out of the zombie pile only to find that the entire city was ravaged by the undead horde. Like Leon said, "It's Raccoon City all over again." After escaping the city, there were even more eerie locales until we landed in China. And that's where the game started to push for action. I'll give Capcom good credit for the J'avo, who mutate into different forms based on certain damage and randomness, but that's it. Chris' and Jake's campaigns can go suck a rotten egg for not offering me the same level of horror and tension that used to be common for the RE series.
After the RE6 fiasco, Capcom was smart to release a RE:R port for the PC to cater to a niche instead of everyone. Despite lacking the innovation of RE6's monsters, my time aboard the Queen Zenobia was very tense. Low on ammo (and missing a shotgun), every shot had to count, every enemy had to be kept as far away as I could so that I wouldn't waste herbs, every corner had to be checked for loot or death. That tension bombed when I had to switch to anyone that wasn't Jill or Chris, but the game was still trying to evoke desperation (unless you're playing as Keith, then you'll spend more time laughing).
Skill Requirements and Death
In RE:Revelations, you can die often if you don't play smartly. If you're down to your knife, pray that you can dodge, which is nothing more than pressing one button at the right time. It's forgiving enough that if you see the dodge animation, you'll be just fine. There are still a few instant-death attacks from certain enemies, but these come from standing too close at the wrong time and even those can be dodged.
RE6 is a cheap little ****. If they don't have guns, they're likely to catch you in some grab animation that has no wind-up, especially if you're trying to finish them off like the fallen zombies in Leon's campaign. To make it worse, RE6 relies on a lot of instant-death QTEs. If you're not playing co-op, you might have a bad time since your AI partner will be an idiot that just likes to stare while you get pushed head-first into a meat grinder.
TL;DR: Why did I buy this game? I wanted to play through the story, but I would prefer to do it with a friend. RE6 was a fiasco that tried to pander to everyone, but in the end, it was a mess of bad designs and gameplay that were not from the Resident Evil that we all know and love.
) So although I think RE6 starts out with better characters, it doesn't really use them to their full extent, and story-wise, I can't say which of the games is better.
