The apotheosis of
all theses pertaining to horror was stated in Danny Boyle’s sort-of-zombie-epic 28 Days Later, in which the scientist at
the very beginning of the film says, “In order to cure, you must first
understand.”
With that being said, I’ve composed a
list of everything that CAPCOM should avoid in Resident Evil 7, and what they should bring into the mix.
1. NO MORE PARTNERS
There’s a reason why Dead Space 3 wasn’t as good as the first
two; it wasn’t necessarily story or gameplay—it was having a partner to dull
the scares. When you step into a survival horror game, you don’t want a partner
because it makes things too easy; unless the partner, of course, isn’t armed,
isn’t strong, and is important to keep alive—such as Ashley from Resident Evil 4—or are capable of dying,
like in Deadrising, and NOT from
dying via cut scene, but rather dying because of your own in-game decisions.
That would be the only scenario that having a partner—whether armed or not—would
be a good idea.
Hasn’t CAPCOM learned from Resident Evil Zero that we don’t want an
AI partner that will make the game easier to play, along with less scary?
Resident
Evil 7 needs to put an end to the partner system, plain and simple. Have
Mercenaries be for co-op or multiplayer, because co-op has no place in a Resident Evil game.
2. ONE GOOD, COMPLEX LOCATION
When you think Resident Evil and Zero, you
think of a mansion; Raccoon City’s streets and police department is what you
think about for Resident Evil 2 and 3: Nemesis; a village, castle, an
industrial facility for Resident Evil 4;
a boat in Revelations. And then it
takes a dive. In RE5, nothing was really
distinguishable; I certainly can’t name my favorite location. Perhaps the
swamps. But when you think of RE5,
you don’t think swamps—you think the shantytown that is . . . uh, what’s the
name of the city again? Kijuju? Something like that. (And yes, I’m deliberately
playing dumb because I can easily Google the name, but that’s not the point.)
And in RE6, get out a notepad and
make a list of all the locations—you’ll need a couple pages. Then how many of
those locations were significant to the actual story? How many of those
locations were interesting? Only a handful. And even if a location was
interesting, that doesn’t mean that the gameplay elements were.
Part of the reason why RE5 and RE6 had the weakest locations (and location designs, mind you), is
because it’s pointless to backtrack in either game, pointless to explore. Even
though RE4 was a straightforward game
(it wasn’t as if you were stuck in the village for the entire game), there was still need (and rewards) for exploring
every nook and cranny. Backtracking is good. And it creates incentive for the
game developers to put more detail and passion in the actual locations.
For Resident Evil 7 to be effective, it needs to pick a location and
then make it interesting. CAPCOM needs to add some RPG elements to make it
necessary to backtrack and find things they couldn’t have otherwise; for
instance, if at the beginning of the game there is a crumbly wall and then
later on you find grenades and realize that you could blow that wall up, then
that is smart game design. That’s also why The
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora’s
Mask were so good, and why Twilight
Princess and Skyward Sword weren’t
as good—because the latter two games had less emphasis on exploration. In Resident Evil 7, I want to find secret
weapons, treasures, etc. . . . by exploring, not by following a cookie crumb
trail to the next objective in the game.
3. ATMOSPHERE / MOOD
What the first several games of the
franchise had—and you can’t dispute this—was a moody atmosphere. The atmosphere
alone (contributed by a creepy score, of course) made those games terrifying as
they were. And then add sound design, creature design, pacing, etc. . . . and,
well, you needed to bring along an extra pair of underwear.
This is where some fans might disagree
on. Resident Evil 4. Okay, so the
game might not have had a dark, sinister atmosphere as the first several games
had, but it did have an atmosphere of its own. And it worked. Perhaps the first
few games were the equivalent to hot sauce, and Resident Evil 4 was rich, almost-spicy cinnamon. It was Resident Evil even though it was
different; it might have had a different taste,
but it had a similar tang nevertheless.
And then Resident Evil 5 had no atmosphere, and Resident Evil 6 had inconsistent atmosphere in all the campaigns.
What Resident Evil 7 needs to do is create an atmosphere that creates a
mood. The early trailers for Resident
Evil 5 hinted at such a mood, whereas the actual game didn’t deliver. And RE7 needs to deliver—whether its taste
is different than the other games, it needs to have a tang of horror, mystery,
depression, hopelessness.
4. CONTROLS
I won’t spend much time on this
category, but it needs to be addressed. Resident
Evil 5 had decent controls (upgraded from Resident Evil 4); Resident
Evil 6 had terrible controls. Reason for which: the loose camera that
follows the character. It’s sad that I prefer the fixed camera behind the
character over the incoherent one from RE6.
If I want to see my character’s face, I’ll wait for a cut scene.
5. QUICK TIME EVENTS
All the best quick time events come
from RE4—cutting the rope after the
fight with the giant salamander, Jack Krauser’s fight, dodging the lasers,
avoiding certain enemy attack, etc. . . . In RE5 and RE6, the quick
time events are . . . sad to say . . . gimmicks. RE5’s quick time events are better than RE6’s.
Resident
Evil 7 needs to take a step back and think before doing. It would be
awesome to see Chris Redfield having a hand-to-hand fight with a group of
enemies and using a QTE to fight through them. But, the quick time events can’t
be cut scenes anymore. The Last of Us is
what Resident Evil 7’s QTEs need to
look like. They need to be intergraded into the gameplay.
Imagine this (in cinematography
terms): During gameplay (not a cut scene) you see (character) getting
surrounded by the enemy (whether zombie, human, ganados, majini, whatever). You’re
prompted to press “X”—you miss your chance. An enemy damages you. “Y”—you press
it and punch an enemy; “B”—you press it and counter an enemy attack and manage
to get the enemy in a headlock. ‘Hold “A”’—you hold it, and your character is
trying to break the enemy’s arm or neck and the enemy is struggling. Meanwhile
another enemy attacks. While holding “A,” you’re prompted to press “RT” (if you
succeed, you block the enemies attack and finish breaking the current enemy’s
neck; if you fail, you lose your headlock and that enemy is free. Essentially
you can choose this method of fighting a lot of enemies, or you can choose to
blast them away. It’s an option. There’s pros and cons to going hand-to-hand,
pros and cons to using a gun. This sort of QTE would be an optional risk
assessment. Do you want to take a group of enemies hand-to-hand (which would
save ammo but you’re more likely to get injured)? Or do you just want to start
shooting? And even if you want to shoot, you can still apply some hand-to-hand.
That sort of innovative gameplay is
what Resident Evil 7 needs to have. And
it serves survival horror. It’s not just mindless QTE that was in RE6.
6. THE SURVIVAL HORROR ELEMENTS
A) limited enemies (that don’t drop
ammo, that don’t respawn); limited ammo; innovative weapons (not to the extent
of Deadrising, but if I don’t have
ammo and I see a board of wood, I’ll want to use it).
B) No more “end of chapters,” instead
bring back the typewriter. Or, hey, if typewriters are outdated, then why not
send an email on a computer or laptop and that’s how you save the progress?
That’s a good modernly relevant solution, isn’t it?
C) Bring back the “safe room.”
D) Enemies should be able to break
down doors (aside from safe rooms).
E) The inventory needs to be fixed. As
with all the games up until 5, bigger items took up more room; you had to be smart
about what items you wanted to bring along.
7. A “VIRUS/PARASITE/FUNGUS” THAT IS
LIMITED
The Uroboros from RE5 was way too simple and not scary enough and it never really
made sense how Ricardo magically turned into a sea monster because he injected
himself with the Plagas on a boat; the C-Virus from RE6 could just do waaaaaay too many things, the mutations were too
numerous and inconsistent—even an enemy with a biological chainsaw for a hand.
It didn’t make sense how the C-Virus could create zombies, monsters, the
Ustanak, and J’avos (which were the same thing as Majini but only looked
different). If they really did want a virus that could do all those things,
they needed to have had A LOT more in-game documents to read. In fact, RE6 didn’t
have any in-game documents. That was a disappointment.
I think Resident Evil 7 needs to have a novel’s worth of documentation within
the game for whatever their “virus” is going to be. Because it needs to make
sense in order for suspension of reality to happen for the player. And sure, it
doesn’t have to be journals or pieces of paper, but cell phone text messages
too. RE7 needs to be modern.
8. UPGRADES / ITEM PURCHASES
Bring back the merchant. Enough said.
9. A RELEVANT, DARK STORY; SIMPLE PLOT
Examples of simple Resident Evil plots:
1) Leon’s sent to a European village
to investigate leads on the kidnapping of the president’s daughter; once he
finds her, he needs to save her. (RE4)
2) You’re trying to survive and you
discover the story/plot as you play (RE1,
2, 3, ZERO, Revelations)—and most of the “plot” in those games is actually
more or less the backstory.
Here’s an example of a plot that doesn’t
make sense (or gets too discombobulated): For some reason the president of the
United States is at a university in Tall Oaks and Leon shoots him and he is
with a girl who he doesn’t know and Hunnigan somehow knows her and meanwhile there’re
zombies everywhere in Tall Oaks; meanwhile, in Russia, Sherry Birkin magically finds Jake
Mueller and discovers instantly that his blood is special and that a cure can
be made byusing it and, uh, somewhere else Chris is a captain of a BSAA team and
(where’s Jill?)
he . . . I have no idea what his
objective is, other than killing B.O.W.s—and that’s the problem with RE6. The plot was WAY too
overcomplicated. (And I still have no idea why Simons’ wife wanted to clone
herself into Ada Wong and I had no idea why Simons’ wife wanted to kill Simons’
and!—brain!—hurts!
Resident
Evil 7 really needs to tone it down and find a simple story.
My example of a simple plot:
In a city a bioterrorist organization
holds a group of people hostage and for every day that they don’t get what they
want, they’ll kill a hostage and release a new B.O.W. into the city.
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