I'm sure I'll REgret this - Going through the Resident Evil Games

[Peklo]

If a stalker enemy in a horror game focused on environment internalization, route-learning, (ostensibly) resource conservation and movement execution under pressure applies ever more pressure and provides a variable that further reshapes and diversifies those elements, then I'm all about it. The least interesting are ones defanged by their specific implementation within the game's structure that they cannot meaningfully do any of it, while posturing with the presumed pomp of the concept.

 

[Falselogic]

Okay, I pulled on my big boy pants and started playing the game again. And I've made quite a bit of progress, I think. Got out of the Police Station, got through the city and into the Orphanage and stopped after the elevator crashed into some unknown depths below the city.

Mr. X is manageable. I still don't like him and think they could have done a better job of it. Once you catch on to his thing, its just a time/fun tax. No, you don't get to play the game. Now you have to run around and escape this guy. Then you get to play the game. Though, that did make the proto Tyrant (Sherry's dad?) ripping his torso apart quite satisfying.

I was not expecting sneaking mission in the middle of my RE, but I did enjoy it. The little subplot/sidestory playing as Sherry was quite fun. I hope there is more of it. (I don't recall any in 3 or 4 and don't know about any of the others, but my understanding is that there is some of it in 9.) Especially effective as she has no weapons at all. Though the documents I found afterwards has me really worried about her and her dad. Also, her mom also seems awful...

 

[Purple]

Excuse me as I push up my glasses and continue in an extra nasally voice, but Tyrants are the ultimate end result from the original T virus (hence the name, I think), while the plot of RE2 s about Sherry's dad's development and eventual exposure to the fancy new G virus (and I still say he has a whole lot more gravitas/gets sold as a bigger threat in the original, something about those low poly models just really sells the body horror).

And of course I can no longer mention the T virus and the G virus in the same sentence and not mention the trivia that 7 years later one of the more obscure spinoffs has a villain combine the two to make the TG Virus and turn into a hot monster woman. Because holy crap that is the most obvious and perfect joke and I don't recall anyone thinking to make it before becoming a (sort of?) official thing.

 

[Falselogic]

I knew I was missing something there. Got it. Tyrants are T and whatever Berkin is is G. Also, Sherry's mom must die. Leaving your child in a sewer shit pile?!

 

[Purple]

You know, random side tangent here actually:

So the original Resident Evil is mostly content just doing the zombie thing, and the big reveal, such as it is, is hey there's a whole evil corporation making zombies on purpose oh no they can unleash zombie plagues anywhere they want in the world.

RE2 starts from the already much bigger point of "oh whoops, the whole city is crawling with zombies, damn, but we still need a big reveal, so we have this whole G-virus plot, and we're really honestly doing an excellent job of selling "oh, yeah, the zombie virus we already had was pretty bad because it turns everyone into zombies, but at least zombies aren't actually all that threatening, you can just shoot'em or whatever and lock all your doors with chess piece locks they can't solve. This new virus though, wow, this is a problem, because anyone exposed to THIS one turns into this ever-mutating horror that's a huge unstoppable force with increasingly weird powers, like Zeiram or something. So yeah it's imperitive that nobody ever gets to use THIS for real.

... and every game past there just kinda has had whatever big bad final boss-y type (or even just regular stuff) also do this wild mutation come back if there's even a couple still living cells shtick, without any justification for it at all. It's most egregious in 3 because that one's set more or less concurrently with 2, so it's like "we need black ops teams everywhere looking for our one researcher with the big blobby monster virus! That's invaluable to our cartoon villain plans! Also we should deal with those nosy cops with our new super monster agent." "Oh, is that something you made with early samples of this virus you're after?" "No, we kinda just took a regular tyrant and gave it a speak and spell? It was slow glowing but look he can wear a little coat and fire a rocket launcher and talk, kinda!"

So by 2 remake it's just like... oh this is just some zombie guy. They all do this.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I’ve long felt that Resident Evil as a series would make a lot more narrative sense as fantastical supernatural horror instead of the fantastical sci-fi horror it nominally claims to be. The two games that directly spawned it, Sweet Home and Alone in the Dark, are both supernatural horror stories, which lend them well to both elaborate puzzles using crests/sigils and outrageous monsters that defy the laws of biology and thermodynamics. The riddle filled streets of Raccoon City and the wacky lava rooms of Salazar’s castle don’t fit too well in a “grounded” setting that Resident Evil wants to present itself as. I’d argue Resident Evil 7 and especially 8 finally crossed into full metaphysical territory with the fungus stuff, but from I hear, Requiem dumps that storyline to go back to the Spencer well.


I have a question that I’ve been thinking over for a while. Why did Resident Evil 7 feel so different from all the subsequent games in the Modern Era? The writing of the Baker Family in general had a different quality and style that did not really carry over to Village, or any of the remakes. 7 had a vibe that was unique.

 

[Peklo]

The series has rarely maintained a consistent writing staff, with Noboru Sugimura's tenure from RE2 to Dead Aim being the closest to one; had he not died in 2005 I'm sure he would've scripted many more series games as well as other Capcom projects. The modern revival era kicked off by RE7 is different in that literally every game has had a different writer, allowing no one person to settle in in terms of writing voice or coming to grips with the tangled legacy continuity the writers have to interact with. They also work with English-language writers now; every game from RE7 on has been written by one except for RE3's remake. It's not really a series I enjoy for its writing anymore, and it has only become more pervasively misogynistic in the last decade in its writing themes, whereas the preceding action era had more surface-level visual emphasis on such content which was easier to judge at a glance.

 

[Purple]

Noboru Sugimura's tenure from RE2 to Dead Aim being the closest to one;

Wait wait wait wait wait. You're telling me the same guy introduced the G virus and then 7 years later ran with the TG virus gag!? That's some real playing the long game there.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I was curious about who was the main English language writer behind 7, and it’s apparently the same guy who wrote for Spec Ops: The Line. I never played Spec Ops, but he did a good job on 7. Maybe should have kept him on for Village!

 

[Peklo]

Wait wait wait wait wait. You're telling me the same guy introduced the G virus and then 7 years later ran with the TG virus gag!? That's some real playing the long game there.

Well, five years, but yes. Sugimura had written TV shows for decades before doing video game scripting for Capcom, mainly in the tokusatsu format and other action-focused series (the live action Sukeban Deka series, for instance). I can't even begin to imagine what kinds of sensibilities abound in as long a career as that, for a writer who got their start in the '70s... but if his later video game work is any indication, he certainly wasn't averse to exploiting queerness for horror--Code Veronica alone is a monument to that.

One of the bigger what-ifs for the series is if the original game's writer and major designer Kenichi Iwao had stuck around Capcom instead of leaving shortly after its release, thanks to a turbulent development schism between him and Shinji Mikami. Iwao pushed for an elaborate horror narrative and mechanics while Mikami conceptualized a more straightforward scenario with more outlandish characters, science, and tone; it's easy to extrapolate that bent later coalescing into RE4. Iwao's departure from Capcom and the credit for the game mostly elevating Mikami and Kamiya did at least lead into some interesting throughlines: he and other RE Capcom alumni joined Square where one project that Iwao directed and wrote was Parasite Eve II, if you were wondering why the game resembles the survival horror formula codified by RE more than the first game did. Can't really shrug it off as an imitation when it comes straight from the source.

 

[Falselogic]

This game really is just Birkin over and over isn't it? That gimmick fight with the crane swiping him off is not fun. There really isn't much room to navigate around him. I kept thinking I was doing it wrong because he can just block you off from the controls if you play things incorrectly. I finally got it but it seemed like sheer luck more than anything else.

Did I miss a giant crocodile somewhere? I could have sworn one of those was in this game... But I just finished Claire's story and no croc. Just more Dr. Birkin madness. Really appreciated the game giving me the gatling gun right before the final fight. Though somehow that still wasn't enough for the guy. Thankfully they telegraph the end is coming and I put all my remaining weapons and ammo with some healing items and pushed through. I think the writer wanted me to feel bad for Sherry's mom but that isn't happening. Do feel for Sherry though, poor girl, she's going to spend a life time in therapy trying to work through this all.

I started my Leon run. Funny how quickly you get into the Police Station, I thought I'd be spending more time on the street. It took Claire like two hours to get to the part where she meets him at the gate and it took Leon maybe five minutes.