Resident Evil games

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I'm reading this as "The whole series is a bunch of overrated nonsense that only originally got super popular because zombies hadn't become The Most F*cking Annoyingly Overused Plot Device In The Entire Recorded History Of Fiction yet back in 1996." That's mostly what I'm gleaning from this conversation.

It's kind of more than zombies, though. It's mutants and monsters and fungus people and stuff.

[Leo656]

Nobody lets me just do schtick anymore.

[Turo602]

Honestly, as diehard of a fan I am for this series, my general enthusiasm for it has died quite a lot because of how f*cking clueless Capcom has been since Shinji Mikami left the series. Resident Evil is just a name now that Capcom milks to keep reaching a wider audience. It doesn't even know what it wants to be anymore, but unfortunately for any real fan of where this series started, Capcom has been really successful with each and every single focus grouped game they've churned out.

The name Resident Evil is just too big to die, and despite Capcom's extremely corporate approach to video games, their developers know how to make a good game that the casual gamer will eat up without a second thought. Resident Evil 4 being a great example. A revolutionary and iconic video game masterpiece that just so happened to be called something it wasn't... That was really the end of the series as it used to be known and it hasn't really felt like a series since. Just a bunch of isolated games with loose connections to keep it familiar enough to suckers like me who remember what Resident Evil was.

With that said, I can definitely understand why Resident Evil got so big and it's by no means overrated. The original Playstation trilogy were great survival horror games of their time with Resident Evil 2 being the absolute standout. The series really begins to get weird around Code Veronica and Zero though, and while I personally like both games for their classic survival horror gameplay, they're both very polarizing for their stories and how they mess around with the survival horror formula. In both cases, I can definitely understand the criticisms to their stories, but if you generally suck at these type of games, these 2 will more than likely give you a harder time than the rest, which wasn't a problem for me.

But the gold standard is easily the Resident Evil REmake. Put simply, it's a survival horror masterpiece and the best game to come out of this franchise. No Resident Evil game has ever come close to it since with the only thing that could have ever topped it being the same exact remake treatment of Resident Evil 2. And I know, Resident Evil 2 was indeed remade, and while it is the single best Resident Evil game to come from Capcom post Shinji Mikami, it leaves a lot to be desired as a remake, but is made special by how it perfectly modernizes the classic Resident Evil survival horror formula. It is everything the series should have been since Resident Evil 4 and it's exactly what the series needs now, but they gave us Village instead...

The rest of the games aren't exactly bad either, but mileage will definitely vary depending on what you're looking for from this series and what you're willing to prioritize and put up with. As much as I hate what Resident Evil 4 did to the series, both RE4 and RE5 are some of the most fun games I've ever played. They're great games with familiar elements that are recontextualized for a much more quick paced and casual experience that focuses on action with the same characters you've been following. They're very easy to hate, but undeniably well made and fun.

However, the same cannot be said for Resident Evil 6 which is such a mixed bag. It lacks the polish you'd expect from a Capcom game due to either rushed development or budgetary restraints from its bloated scale. It's easily the most ambitious game in the series with lots of cool ideas that aren't always executed well. It had such an unfocused vision that aimed to please every type of fan and ended up pleasing none as each campaign was more or less just an action shooter with superficial illusions to previous games in the series. There's co-op fun to be had here, but it's definitely a series low point in terms of quality and direction.

Which brings us to the Revelations series, which was basically Capcom's idea of a classic Resident Evil game without Shinji Mikami, using the gameplay and a lot of the same conventions found during the action phase of the series. They were honestly pretty good for the time with the first being originally released for the 3DS, making it a rather cool novelty despite completely missing the mark as a classic Resident Evil experience.

The 2nd on the other hand was released episodically on consoles and was a huge improvement over the first one and a bit of a love letter to the fans as it was really aiming to gain back good faith in the series after Resident Evil 6 by giving fans things they wanted, like the return of fan favorites Claire Redfield and Barry Burton. They also followed up on Resident Evil 5's major loose end that was ignored in Resident Evil 6 by making Alex Wesker the antagonist and a female, which was a popular fan theory despite evidence pointing to the opposite. It wasn't perfect, but it was the kind of game the series needed at the time that not only pulled elements from all over the series, but evolved the gameplay in ways RE6 failed to and unfortunately hasn't been done again. It was the Resident Evil 6 fans deserved and the most interesting from a lore perspective the series had ever been since the original games as it was doing all kinds of work to make the newer games feel much more interconnected like an actual series again.

But this is Capcom, so we ended up in a hillbilly house that had sh*t to do with Resident Evil and never heard of any of that other stuff again... Honestly, my biggest gripe with Resident Evil 7 and Village is that they're called Resident Evil. Otherwise, I'd probably enjoy those games so much more as a separate survival horror franchise because that's honestly what it is, but without the Resident Evil name, no one would give a sh*t about them. The remakes are honestly the most exciting things about this franchise, and they haven't exactly nailed those either despite how incredible Resident Evil 2 turned out as a whole, seeing as Resident Evil 3 was stripped down and rushed out, feeling like nothing more than a companion piece to RE2 than a full-fledged game.

[Leo656]

I like you, Turo. You remind me of Me, just a Me that hasn't yet been TOTALLY beaten down by life and consumed by irrational hatred of Damn Near Everything. Yet.

I like that. I even kind of admire it, a little.

[Prowler]

Well, I've only played REmake so far. Great game indeed. Seems rather disappointing that no other Resident Evil game might come close to it in quality.

I'm still willing to play some of them, anyway.

Also, Jill Valentine is my favourite character. Clearly she's the face of the series. A game without her as a playable character seems a bit disappointing on paper, but I suppose I'd quickly get over her absence.

[Turo602]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I like you, Turo. You remind me of Me, just a Me that hasn't yet been TOTALLY beaten down by life and consumed by irrational hatred of Damn Near Everything. Yet.

I like that. I even kind of admire it, a little.

I can be extremely bitter when I want and I often hold back on places like these, but it does get tiring so I'd rather just make my case as clear as possible and if people can't handle it, then they can take their insecure dumbass elsewhere. I've dealt with enough sh*t in my life to be able to sling it, but I try to keep myself in check to get my point across, otherwise it's just gonna be a sh*t fest and everyone knows that's what social media is for.

Originally Posted by Prowler

Well, I've only played REmake so far. Great game indeed. Seems rather disappointing that no other Resident Evil game might come close to it in quality.

I'm still willing to play some of them, anyway.

Also, Jill Valentine is my favourite character. Clearly she's the face of the series. A game without her as a playable character seems a bit disappointing on paper, but I suppose I'd quickly get over her absence.

Don't get me wrong, Capcom is good at spinning sh*t into gold, so quality isn't really an issue for this series. As a newcomer, you'll most likely not be in contention with a lot of the decisions made in regards to story, characters, and shifts in gameplay. It's a fun series from a gameplay perspective and REmake probably won't even end up being your favorite anyway. But I value survival horror and the early history of the series and for me, it doesn't get better than REmake. You might like Resident Evil 4 more, hell, even Resident Evil 7. But like I said, it all depends on what you're looking for and what you prioritize.

As for Jill, I wouldn't exactly call her the face of the series. Her and Leon are probably the most recognizable and popular characters in the series but the games do tend to revolve around Chris Redfield more, for better and for worse.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Considering how the Wiki for the franchise is longer than the King James Bible, I am willing to assume that Yes, on some level the story must matter somewhat (even if almost all of it is batsh*t lunacy anyway). I mean if it didn't matter at all then there wouldn't be SO much of it.

I do have a few friends who "love" the franchise and have played several games and couldn't even begin to tell you what the hell the games' plot is because they themselves never cared, they just thought it was cool how sometimes you could shoot zombies with a bazooka, or whatever. But I mean, if that's all I wanna do for a weekend I have Lollipop Chainsaw... which is AMAZING. Especially once you unlock Juliet's tiny little bikinis.

But anyways, I mean, yeah, I would like to try and immerse myself in the lore, such as it is, while playing through the series. If I play them out of order I won't be able to keep track of anything, and if I don't care at all then I'll just play some Silent Hill stuff again since those games are generally more cerebral.

MGS is another one. People are like, "Just pick one and play it, the story doesn't matter, it doesn't even make sense anyway, it's about the gameplay." And while I'll admit that the gameplay is king, after doing the full series run in storyline order back in 2018-2019 I can attest that no, that's bullsh*t, the plot DOES matter and it absolutely DOES make sense, and it's epic as all hell... it's just... well, "convoluted" is a bit of oversimplification, though apt. "It makes perfect sense IF you completely immerse yourself in it from A to Z and pay absolute attention to Every Single Detail, and such immersion will be rewarded upon completion of the series" is I guess the best way I can describe it. Like, I'd played most of them many times, and yet, it was quite amazing just how much of it had just gone right over my head without the context of treating the series like one long narrative. In some ways it felt like I was only "really" playing most of them for the very first time. It was pretty f*cking neat, actually.

Don't ask me to explain it, though, I'm not in the right headspace. I'd need to be completely sleep-deprived, stoned off my ass on weed and running on about six cups of coffee while playing through them all again stopping only for sleep and bathroom breaks. Because IF YOU DO THAT then the plot of the MGS saga makes absolute perfect sense. I'll throw hands with anyone who says otherwise.

I doubt the plotline of the RE saga is anywhere near as life-affirming as that of MGS, but then again nothing in this world is. So it still might be pretty good.

From what I gather from watching the wife play through them all, and then watch her play through them all again, is there is one line of story from RE1-RE6 that keeps getting bigger and bigger, gets "best" in RE4 and then gets really convoluted and silly through RE5 and RE6. Then they kind of ditched the virus stuff altogether and made a much simpler, "back to basics" storyline for RE7 and RE8 with a new character. Texas Chainsaw-style house and inbred family in RE7 and largely abandoned creepy Eurotrash town in RE8, both with weird fungus zombies and very few connections to RE1-RE6.

[Leo656]

I'll play 'em eventually, if for no other reason than to justify the fact I've bought some of them twice.

[Turo602]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

From what I gather from watching the wife play through them all, and then watch her play through them all again, is there is one line of story from RE1-RE6 that keeps getting bigger and bigger, gets "best" in RE4 and then gets really convoluted and silly through RE5 and RE6. Then they kind of ditched the virus stuff altogether and made a much simpler, "back to basics" storyline for RE7 and RE8 with a new character. Texas Chainsaw-style house and inbred family in RE7 and largely abandoned creepy Eurotrash town in RE8, both with weird fungus zombies and very few connections to RE1-RE6.

That actually happened as early as RE4.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Turo602

I can be extremely bitter when I want and I often hold back on places like these, but it does get tiring so I'd rather just make my case as clear as possible and if people can't handle it, then they can take their insecure dumbass elsewhere. I've dealt with enough sh*t in my life to be able to sling it, but I try to keep myself in check to get my point across, otherwise it's just gonna be a sh*t fest and everyone knows that's what social media is for.



Don't get me wrong, Capcom is good at spinning sh*t into gold, so quality isn't really an issue for this series. As a newcomer, you'll most likely not be in contention with a lot of the decisions made in regards to story, characters, and shifts in gameplay. It's a fun series from a gameplay perspective and REmake probably won't even end up being your favorite anyway. But I value survival horror and the early history of the series and for me, it doesn't get better than REmake. You might like Resident Evil 4 more, hell, even Resident Evil 7. But like I said, it all depends on what you're looking for and what you prioritize.

As for Jill, I wouldn't exactly call her the face of the series. Her and Leon are probably the most recognizable and popular characters in the series but the games do tend to revolve around Chris Redfield more, for better and for worse.

Well, Chris was also a main character in the first game, so it makes sense.

But Jill, as you said, certainly is very recognisable. I'd say she's the most famous RE character overall. Most definitely the most famous female character. I believe she was even in a Marvel vs. Capcom game or two, in fact.

Her blue dress in RE3 is very iconic. I know Lara Croft tends to get all the attention as far as video game women from that era go, but Jill is just as hot, imo. If not more.