Its literally an update you download just like any other patch.Seems really complicated to me
Its literally an update you download just like any other patch.Seems really complicated to me
Was Resident Evil really in such dire straits even from the POV of people outside of Capcom? Back then I wasn't part of any online gaming community, but I did read news and reviews from at least 3 websites on a daily basis along with some monthly magazines (who remembers those?) and RE seemed to be in good health. Certainly, moving the series to the GameCube wasn't a very clever move (and they already had Code: Veronica as an example of extra-PlayStation releases), but were people aware that RE1make wasn't selling as fast as hoped?
RE2make is the first game from the Resident Evil franchise that I am actually happy with in about 20 years - I don't care about the plot having been messed up, it's the gaming experience that truly feels like modernized survival horror. I hope Capcom will follow its trend, but, who knows? Yeah, RE8 having started as Rev3 actually worries me about the plot: if it was supposed to be a spin-off, the chances of it being pretty messed up are quite high.
I cannot say exactly how Capcom was viewing the franchise at the time. They had statements about pushing the series in new directions which they did, but inside the Capcom offices - who knows. But yeah - lots of headlines at the time were about how Capcom was stale and they needed new games rather than re-releasing the same games with new paints of coat. Resident Evil and Street Fighter both had major complaints about them. They milked Street Fighter 2 for YEARS and then Street Fighter 3 seemed very generic to the fanbase. Resident Evil had very similar complaints. But I think the Gamecube games were selling enough for them to continue the series even if RE4 wasnt the biggest hit of the time. All complaints from the fanbase are still super relevant, but at the time, it was very sketchy.
Yeah, they had RE1.9 (later 2.1 and even later 3), RE3 (later RE4, before getting scrapped), RE4, C:V, RE0, and Gun Survivor in the oven between 1999 and 2000 alone. Plus the outsourced ports of RE2 for the N64 and RE1 for the GBC. But my impression was that the audience was still quite hungry for survival horror games in the pre-RE4 era. Also, and that might be just me, but stuff like RE1make felt like high-quality filler: yeah, it was cool to see the original game with those state-of-the-art graphics and better voice acting, but what most people wanted was the next chapter in the saga, especially after RE2, RE3 and C:V all ended on a sort of cliffhanger with every character (minus Claire) stating that Umbrella had to be taken down. So I can see why a lot of people skipped the remake of RE1 despite its undeniable qualities or why there wasn't this big interest over RE0. I don't think Capcom or Mikami ever factored in the fact the players saw the games more like movies than "only" games, so they wanted to move forward, not dwell on the same story about Raccoon City over and over.We also know that Capcom had like 10 different Resident Evil games in conceptual development during the early 2000s, so to call this epoch in time ”messy” would be an understatement.
I don't think the problem was with REmake itself but the platform it was on. They took a series that was mainly on Playstation and made it exclusive to Nintendo. Not even RE4 sold that much better than REmake on the Gamecube. Yet when REmake was ported and remastered on modern consoles, it broke sales records.Yeah, they had RE1.9 (later 2.1 and even later 3), RE3 (later RE4, before getting scrapped), RE4, C:V, RE0, and Gun Survivor in the oven between 1999 and 2000 alone. Plus the outsourced ports of RE2 for the N64 and RE1 for the GBC. But my impression was that the audience was still quite hungry for survival horror games in the pre-RE4 era. Also, and that might be just me, but stuff like RE1make felt like high-quality filler: yeah, it was cool to see the original game with those state-of-the-art graphics and better voice acting, but what most people wanted was the next chapter in the saga, especially after RE2, RE3 and C:V all ended on a sort of cliffhanger with every character (minus Claire) stating that Umbrella had to be taken down. So I can see why a lot of people skipped the remake of RE1 despite its undeniable qualities or why there wasn't this big interest over RE0. I don't think Capcom or Mikami ever factored in the fact the players saw the games more like movies than "only" games, so they wanted to move forward, not dwell on the same story about Raccoon City over and over.
Yeah, I agree: the userbase was on the Playstation line of machines. Moving the series to Nintendo was not a shrewd move, especially after Code: Veronica didn't do that well on the Dreamcast alone (maybe they thought it was because Sega had grown weaker, while Nintendo seemed strong enough to fight against Sony and Microsoft - as it turned out, it was not). Apparently, Mikami and his people were not happy with the PS2 hardware (like most devs, actually) and originally offered the RE exclusive to Microsoft, but the latter's Japanese reps failed to make a good impression. Truth is, they should've clenched their teeth and stuck with Sony - that's what Konami (yeah, I know they are the bad guys now) did with Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill despite the platform not being easy to work with nor as powerful as everyone hoped. True, Sony definitely paid them handsomely to retain the exclusive, but I doubt Microsoft was offering less for the chance of snagging one of those franchises (I remember rumors circulating around early-2000 about Microsoft trying to get its hands on MGS).I don't think the problem was with REmake itself but the platform it was on. They took a series that was mainly on Playstation and made it exclusive to Nintendo. Not even RE4 sold that much better than REmake on the Gamecube. Yet when REmake was ported and remastered on modern consoles, it broke sales records.
The direction definitely wasn't the issue when it came to RE4 though, nor was it fan or critical feedback. It was Capcom becoming overzealous with a popular IP and running it into the ground with oversaturation like they did with Street Fighter. They had too many projects going on for different consoles while Resident Evil 4 was stuck in development hell, and even though Zero was being criticized for being more of the same, RE4 was already fixing that issue long before it became the action game we know it as now.
I feel like the point of REmake was to re-establish what a Resident Evil game is and lay out the groundwork for future installments, which we're currently seeing with RE7 and all the games that have come out since. REmake took things back to basics and modernized it for the time, which is why Zero, a game originally developed for the N64 took a backseat and released after REmake and was just "more of the same." Meanwhile, they were saving the majority of their big innovations for Resident Evil 4.
I remember hearing that the reason the game was scrapped was due to rendering issues on the Gamecube, so at what point they decided to call it quits on making a survival horror game because of REmake underperforming is quite confusing.
I don't think the problem was with REmake itself but the platform it was on.
It's a pretty common complaint among fans of the classic trilogy + CV, that RE4 basically skipped the whole plot about taking down Umbrella. I felt so bummed playing RE4 the first time when the intro sequence said that "Umbrella was finished". So, the ultimate bad corporation that put all of us into this hellhole is taken out of the story just like that, because their stocks crashed? How exciting. The first three games always gave me the impression that Umbrella was essentially deep state with lots of corrupt politicans behind their backs. Digging deeper into the lore even shows us that both Umbrella, their rival company, the US government plus black-marketeers were able to secure samples of the G-virus prior to the destruction of Raccoon City. Cutting Umbrella out of the equation was a bad move on Capcom's part.Yeah, they had RE1.9 (later 2.1 and even later 3), RE3 (later RE4, before getting scrapped), RE4, C:V, RE0, and Gun Survivor in the oven between 1999 and 2000 alone. Plus the outsourced ports of RE2 for the N64 and RE1 for the GBC. But my impression was that the audience was still quite hungry for survival horror games in the pre-RE4 era. Also, and that might be just me, but stuff like RE1make felt like high-quality filler: yeah, it was cool to see the original game with those state-of-the-art graphics and better voice acting, but what most people wanted was the next chapter in the saga, especially after RE2, RE3 and C:V all ended on a sort of cliffhanger with every character (minus Claire) stating that Umbrella had to be taken down. So I can see why a lot of people skipped the remake of RE1 despite its undeniable qualities or why there wasn't this big interest over RE0. I don't think Capcom or Mikami ever factored in the fact the players saw the games more like movies than "only" games, so they wanted to move forward, not dwell on the same story about Raccoon City over and over.
Well, I cannot see how an old-time fan couldn't be bothered by Umbrella being wiped out like that. It is especially fastidious when you consider that the scenario for 1.5 was rewritten in order to make Umbrella the main villain and guarantee more sequels since the company was supposed to have been shut down after the events of RE1. I guess that "more sequels" only meant RE3 (which is hardly a real sequel) and C:V. Oh, and "Gun Survivor", the bad game with the good plot.It's a pretty common complaint among fans of the classic trilogy + CV, that RE4 basically skipped the whole plot about taking down Umbrella. I felt so bummed playing RE4 the first time when the intro sequence said that "Umbrella was finished". So, the ultimate bad corporation that put all of us into this hellhole is taken out of the story just like that, because their stocks crashed? How exciting. The first three games always gave me the impression that Umbrella was essentially deep state with lots of corrupt politicans behind their backs. Digging deeper into the lore even shows us that both Umbrella, their rival company, the US government plus black-marketeers were able to secure samples of the G-virus prior to the destruction of Raccoon City. Cutting Umbrella out of the equation was a bad move on Capcom's part.
At the same time, I've never been a fan of the whole "save the world" plots of RE4/RE5/RE6 (especially RE6) that turned our relatable police characters into secret agents. Any game dealing with the eventual takedown of Umbrella would've had to include some sort of "save the world" plot, but with the right story it could've been done right.
What I wanted to point out is that, in RE7, you have another biological incident that doesn't involve saving the world. New characters would've been necessary in the long run, you can't have the same ones over and over. Actually, it's a trend that started with RE2: most people take Leon and Claire for granted nowadays, but I remember that in '97\'98 people were kind of shocked about Chris and Jill not being in the game.@Hardware Yeah but I think RE7 departs in a different way. (Like scrapping all the original RE characters/plot points.)
It honestly seemed like a genuinely good game when I watched gameplay of it but I had a serious problem with it literally having nothing to do with previous RE's and I don't understand why they couldn't have connected it to the series or titled it something else. (And no, I don't count Redfield's strange appearance or the inclusion of Umbrella to be a sufficient connection. That could have literally been anybody.)
I also wish that you could choose between first person and over the shoulder so that I could've had the chance to play it. I think I would've enjoyed it.
I hear you, man. I've always been a Playstation user since the late-90s and I was pretty furious when they announced that RE had become a Nintendo exclusive. I actually got a GameCube (all black, to go along with my PS2) ONLY for RE1make, RE0, and RE4 (which, at that time, only existed as a title) and I was pretty embarrassed by the fact I owned TWO consoles: it really made me feel like a spoiled kid. But I didn't want to miss out on the next important game in the series (RE4) like I did with Code:Veronica (by the time the latter was ported to PS2, half the plot had already been spoiled on magazines and chatrooms - who remembers those?). You can imagine how frustrated I felt when RE0 turned out to be a weak entry and RE4 was....well, RE4.This. I was pretty upset when the REmake came out and, as a long time fan and PlayStation-user, I was unable to play it. It kinda felt like a slap in the face, to be honest. My favorite video game series decides to go all in on a remake that looks amazing and I can't play it until 13 years later when they finally decided to port it to the series' home console.
Agreed, I saved Zoe first time round. Shame it's pretty much a total waste of a choice in the next cutscene...@Jen You summed up my feelings about Ethan and Mia perfectly! My husband and I just got done watching a playthrough of 7 and I couldn't stand her. Neither of us liked that the player chose to save her, even though I hear that gets you the good ending for whatever reason, and wish Zoe had been saved instead.
They're both just really bland and honestly, Miss Mia brought that **** on herself. Don't work with bioweapons and you wouldn't be held in the middle of nowhere for 3 years by crazy mold people.
I would say that that previous infection is as important as Capcom decide to make it, and they've chosen that as a convenient way to try and make Ethan seem more relevant and special. They could just have easily had it mean nothing, just like some of the previous infections other characters (Jill, Claire etc.) have had.You could argue that Ethan is considered "special" because of his previous Mold infection, but it doesn't really cut to the chase.
Perhaps the whole plot of RE8 is just a bad dream, and it ends with Ethan waking up in the sofa with his wife and daughter beside him, having slumbered through an old vampire flick on Netflix.
I am playing the Devil's advocate here, but Village was already in development before RE2make was released. It was originally supposed to be Revelations 3 (following the tradition that tech used for previous mainline games is recycled for the spinoffs - that's what DuskGolem\AestheticGamer says at least) and then got promoted to mainline entry because they thought it was so good. There's a good chance that Resident Evil 9 (which will probably not feature a numbered title) will be like RE2make. I hope so. Even though we are talking years from now.The only Resident Evil game to win a Game of the Year award in modern times is Resident Evil 2 Remake, which to me says a great deal, and that game gave me real hope that Capcom still knew how to make a decent RE game and that they'd take that into consideration with the future of the series. But hey, lets ignore that and stick to first person and bland characters and story...