I don't necessarily agree with the newer characters being better developed in general. If you look at the original RE1, all the characters there, even those that never speak a word and are dead when you find them, have detailed backgrounds. The only problem is that you can't possibly know about any of it if you haven't read the manual, as it never comes up in the game itself, and doesn't need to either. For example, the manual tells us that Chris is a sniper and a pilot, but it doesn't matter because there are no sniper rifles or planes in the game for him to operate, and his quick temper as well as his alleged problem with authority never come into play either because he's pretty nice to everyone, including Wesker, who is his superior and therefore an authority. Jill could have been a prostitute who was offered a job at the RPD after a cop was impressed by her beating up a bothersome customer, and we would never know because she's as bland as everybody else in that game.
But that's one thing that changed with the newer games and characters. Their backgrounds are actually revealed, or at least alluded to in the games. Ashley's personality clearly shines through in RE4. In RE5, Chris and Sheva tell each other about their respective motivations in the marshlands. A similar thing happens between Jake and Sherry in RE6. Helena has a sister she wants to protect and later avenge, which makes her sympathetic and relatable, and she's the driving force behind Leon's campaign; without her, he wouldn't have gone anywhere. The Burton's family problems are thoroughly discussed in Revelations 2, and they do contribute to the story. (Also, I love Moira, even if I'm the only one here.) Even though the personalities and back-stories of the characters don't always drive the plot, having them come up every once in a while makes me feel more connected to the game. And that's what the newer games do better than the old ones in my opinion, not the creativity behind the characters in general, which was always there, just executed poorly.
I agree with you for the most part. I am a little confused on the back and forth. The whole mention of inconsistency in the older characters, falling bland to the new characters who have more depth to them. It sense that your option gradually shifted, or at least recognised different perspectives. Mentioning that there is more backstory with the new characters, more relatability, and my opinion (where we seem to disagree) push the story further. What you say about it not necessarily driving the plot forward is somewhat true, but on the contrary, the depth allows for the majority to relate with those characters better. We also tend to naturally feel more emotional when a character has more depth to them. Which is why I prefer the newer games in terms of story. I stand by the notion that Capcom really matured over time in this matter. Many of us older fans feel more attached the characters we grew up with. Which is why I carefully and continually brought up that I am speaking from a "writers perspective". I cannot stress enough that there is a difference with liking a characters development, and properly writing a better character development. It's just not the same. We can see a disparity on this matter with long term fans vs newer fans. I've met some who claim the older games have a "crap" story and out dated gameplay. Sadly while most of us, including myself will disagree... Ink ribbons were also removed because that gameplay mechanic was "out dated" and not "accessible" for many gamers. The goal was the brining in more fans to the series.
We also need to realise something from a game design point of view. Survival horror rarely ever works with lots of cutscenes. Most survival horror games stick with visual story telling for reasons. Telling the story through documents allows us to unravel the mystery. A few cutscenes can be used, but only at appropriate times. For example the beginning and end of the game are preferred. Some times we get a few sprinkles through-out the game to retain the players interest and have them remain focused on their goals. When we switch to cutscenes heavy games and include deeper character development. We sometimes tend to see gameplay shifted to make sure everything is more unified and consistent. For a small example, the awesome fights with Albert Wesker would have been vastly different without that style. It seems clear that Capcom presented the direction and story they wanted to go with. RE6 on the other hand seemed inconsistent and there were times that seemed like Capcom became "confused" with their direction and focus. The Ustanak did not turn out as Capcom hoped, they claimed he would be scary. He definitely wasn't and he was as action pact as the rest of the game. The snake fight was the same. With the Revelation titles Capcom found a way to be more consistant and balanced. Barry was more focused on action moments, and Claire was more focused with survival horror. The biggest common denominator is that they both include uniqe puzzles that were fitting to their style of gameplay. The first Revelation games seemed be this way with Chris and Jill. We see much more focus.
In the end we must consider both gameplay design and story writing. Finding the perfect balance is very difficult and many games see a lot of rewrites through game development. Bungie is assumed to have re-written almost all of their games half way through development to be consistant. We see evidence of this with Destiny's trailer and Halo 2's trailer. Bungie has openly admitted that this was the case with Destiny, which is why the development cycle was so long and they needed to remove things and shove things in, shifting focus to meet it's release date. The end producted ended with a bit of a mess. Halo 1 and Halo 3 were said to have been just as bad. I'm sure many of us have seen the changes and evolution of Halo: CE's development. The game went from an RTS, to a 3rd person shooter, to a FPS. They have been quite open about this where 99% of the other gaming companies are not. I do know for a fact that Mass Effect has had many, many changes to it's story throughout it's development due to a veriaty of reasons. They even left a few inconsitancies that were more than noticeable. Some known, others not so much, but most of them had huge impacts on the games development. The point of mentioning this is to display how both gameplay and story need to be in harmony, or else there are complications and changes need to be made to one or another. Many, many games like Mario can avoid this due to using the most basic of plots. This allows the developers to do almost anything with their gameplay. A lot of experimenting occurs but it still DOES need to have some form of consistency to the gameplay. There are some games that pull off "breaking" moments very well. Batman: Arkham Knight is a prime example of this. If you played the game, you would know exactly what part of the game I am talking about. This is a very rare case when it comes to video games, and it is something that is looked at by both developers an students alike. GTA is no different and you'll often see GTA being played by developers to understand how to interchange gameplay and story, and how to properly make an open world game. EA has done this.
I want to add a little fun fact on that note
RE4 was a huge inspiration for Mass Effect 2. BioWare actually had developers play the game multiple times to understand the mechanics and how to properly implement them into the game. The challenge was to game those mechanics work with the existing gameplay and story. BioWare needed to make it work with the gameplay that all the classes brought to the table. I just figured I would share that :3
PS. I loved Moira myself. I didn't care for her the first time I played the game, but then I really saw her shine. Her personality is my kind of girl :3 caring, kind hearted, yet has fun and we can tell she doesn't take a lot of things seriously thanks to her awesome choice of words. Of course the situation called for her attitude to adjust to what is going on around her. As I said before, she's a punk rocker and not some bull**** stero-type
Yeah, he and delivered so much fanservice :3
Claire: What about you Barry?
Barry:...I have this!!
Natalia: This mansion looks like it's from the movies
Barry: Speak for yourself, I've had my fill of mansions.
Barry: This gives us a "hole" lot of options.
I fanboyed SO HARD.
Ugh! Totally! *smiles wide* Though if I recall right... Wasn't Barry directing the "I have this" to Moira. She insisted to help because she felt Barry needed her. Of course Barry wouldn't risk losing her again and then dropped the bombshell line! xD
"Natalia: This mansion looks like it's from the movies
Barry: Speak for yourself, I've had my fill of mansions."
I actually didn't "get" that quote until my second play through. After reading all the dev interviews I could find and then saw it again... I got it and I realised how disturbing and creepy it was. That line disturbed me so. The "bleeding effect" is just brilliantly done, especially with how subtle it was. The game told this portion of the story through "visual storytelling" through gameplay. If you don't understand what that term means, think BioShock, Metroid Prime, Dark Souls/Bloodborne. It's difficult to do, but Revelations 2 did it well. It's something that hasn't been done since the original Resident Evil games, I'd debate that RE1 did it the best. The only problem with Revelations 2 in terms of story telling, which seemed to be the games true bane. Was that the game attempted to tell the story with traditional cutscenes, documents that haven't been as vital since the original games, and visual story telling through gameplay. That's a lot for a player to take in in-fact it's taught in game design school to completely avoid mixing different types of stories formats together like this. It alienates the majority of the people that play the game as gamers tend to focus on the one or two forms of the narrative, missing another form. Especially without playing the game twice. Luckily Capcom did give players the memo to do so thanks to the dual endings. Sadly it is considered a very poor design choice, one that I gravely enjoy and happily sit in my little corner with the minorities :3 Not that Capcom has been following the "do's and don'ts guidelines" with the past few games xD
I will state that mixing many forms or narratives is fully acceptable in MMO's. This should be fairly obvious, and cutscenes are rarely used in the first place.
...oh god I'm getting Zelda CD-I flashbacks.
