Grave Gamer News & Views — resident evil 4

A Look Back at the Horror Franchise’s Gun-centric Releases

2016 marks Resident Evil’s 20th Anniversary and publisher Capcom has been celebrating all year long. The company announced a new sequel in Resident Evil VII which vibes as a huge course-correction for the franchise, seeing a return to the original game’s core tenants of environmental exploration, resource management, and hard horror. PS4 owners can download a playable glimpse of the future (which I’ve talked about repeatedly).

Capcom’s also released a new spin-off, Umbrella Corps, a game that proves sometimes a good idea on paper can lead to the virtual equivalent of a burning bag of shit on your doorstep. More successfully, they’ve been mining Resident Evil’s past, re-releasing oldies on current platforms. Resident Evil 0 saw a solid HD re-treatment in the vein of last year’s superb REmake Remaster. Beyond that, Capcom has also spent a string of summer month’s re-releasing uprezzed versions of Resident Evil’s “Action Trilogy” – a trifecta of RE4, 5, and 6.

Though these departures from the franchise’s perceived formula created a rift between old school fans and the new laser-pointed generation, one thing’s inarguable: the Action Trilogy helped push Resident Evil into the mainstream spotlight. Resident Evil 5, for instance, is not merely the top selling game in the series. It’s the best selling game in Capcom’s history. Not Mega Man. Not Street Fighter. Resident Evil 5. And taking second place silver? Resident Evil 6 – a game that some publications can’t write about without preceding it with “the divisive.”

Removed from their hype cycles and marketing blitzes, I re-played each game in the action arc as they’ve been released, beginning with 6 and ending on late August’s RE4. Below, I quickly break down what these game’s were when they launched and how they fare now in order to figure out if these titles really deserve the shit that’s been heaped on them since.

Rebuttal:

xombiedirge:

Resident Evil 4 by Max Grecke / Store

Resident Evil Remake’s Poor Sales Upped the Action in RE4

Survival horror just ain’t what it used to be. In Resident Evil’s case — in which its modern titles each and all feature robust amounts of gunplay and even martial arts action (you’d slap me if I told you that during the PS1 era) — a marked shift away from its survival horror roots can be traced back to one pivotal turning point in the franchise’s history.

Series mastermind Shinji Mikami recalls that it was the 2002 Resident Evil remake’s financial failure that goaded him to turn Resident Evil 4 into Die Hard with parasitic, pitchfork-wielding villagers. I understand; I was befuddled by this news, too. The game was lauded as a critical success, after all. But Capcom’s exclusivity deal that locked REmake onto the Gamecube (and, years later, the Wii) might go a long way in explaining the disparity.

“The Resident Evil remake is one of my favorites of the series too,” said Mikami in an interview with IGN initially about a totally different game (The Evil Within). “But it didn’t sell very well. Maybe there weren’t many people ready to accept that. Because of the reaction to the Resident Evil remake, I decided to work more action into Resident Evil 4.”

Had the remake sold well, RE4 would have been a scarier, more horror driven game says Mikami. “With Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, and all the rest of the series beforeResident Evil 4, I was always saying to the staff, ‘Scaring the player is the number one thing.’ But for the first time, in Resident Evil 4, I told the team that fun gameplay is the most important thing… That all came out of the commercial failure of the Resident Evil remake.”

Even after all these years, Shinji is still burned about RE4’s dominance overREmake. “And then of course Resident Evil 4 sold really well. I have kind of a lingering trauma there, because the Resident Evil remake didn’t sell — much more than people would think.”

My, my, our RE creators are having themselves a walk down memory lane as of late. Not too long ago, Hideki Kamiya was reflecting on how he very nearly ruined the hell out of Resident Evil 2 (the game was restarted from scratch at Mikami and team’s insistence even though the original build neared 60% completion). Can’t wait to hear in another decade just what the hell went awry with RE5 and 6. Keep an eye out for that article come 2023.

Resident Evil 4 concept art.

The fourth game went through quite the transformation before settling on the magnificence we know it as today.  Hardcore fans fresh off of REmake and Zero lamented the marked shift away from survival horror.  But would you have really missed Hook Man and Leon’s B.O.W. companion pooch?