LogFAQs > #943251923

Do you want to know the thing about post-4 Resident Evil that completely misses the mark? Its the BSAA. Oh sure, Ill grant that after Raccoon City, an international organization forming to fight monsters makes sense. Ill even concede that its realistic in a good way. But heres the issue: being part of a large organization isnt scary. Having hundreds of soldiers and infinite resources isnt scary. RE5 is the game that introduces the BSAA, and it understands that the concept is at odds with horror, so it just doesnt even try to be scary. Revelations includes the BSAA, youre constantly calling headquarters like its 24 or something, but its still trying to be spooky and have jump scares and body horror stuff. Either be a dumb monster shooter game where youre part of the BSAA, or be about normal people getting trapped in monster apocalypses, but you cant be both.

I guess Ill close this section by complimenting the only story-ish thing in the game I kind of liked: the first boss. Theres a guy whos been half-mutated into a fish monster, but hes not all the way there yet, and hes desperately calling mayday for help. When you find him, hes like Dont shoot, Im still human even as he attacks you because hes just too far gone to understand whats happening. Thats a cool, creepy idea, but its completely mishandled. That needed to be a cutscene, where like Jill reaches out a hand and is like Dont worry, dude, we can still help you, and then he attacks. Instead, Jill does not hesitate to shoot a partly-human monster, and she does not reflect on the horror and tragedy of this at all.

Im going to just give the game a pass on any gameplay problems that are the result of originally being a 3DS game, and just talk about the stuff unrelated to that. But yes I do think this game should be congratulated. This is the very best you could possibly do in translating Resident Evil to a handheld system. Its not perfect, but its the best that could have been done.

The biggest problem of this game is that it seems to think its a survival-horror game? Youre on this huge, elaborate ship, you have to wind through hallways and find key items, there are safe rooms, etc. But youre showered in ammo, so theres no rationing aspect, the carrying items aspect is reduced to you only being able to carry three weapons at once, and all other items dont take up slots, the game uses autosaves, so the idea of safe rooms is pointless, and you always have a very clear goal, so theres never a moment where you need to really examine the map and figure out where you havent been yet.

There is also no purpose in backtracking and exploration. The game still lets you, but you dont really get new items to open up wacky new locations or anything. I found some shotgun ammo by going backwards once. You eventually get a cardkey that opens up some safes with mildly useful items in them, but thats in like the last hour of the game, and its the only significant time when you have any incentive to go exploring. When I got that cardkey, I was more annoyed than excited, because I just did not want to have to backtrack over the entire ship to use it. Bizarrely, the window between getting the cardkey and the ship sinking (spoilers) is like five minutes of gameplay, so I really feel like this was the most token effort imaginable. And dont even get me started on the scanning system in the game you get a Metroid Prime-esque scanning device that you need to use in every single room to scout for hidden items, which completely kills the flow of gameplay.

However, I have to say: its actually a good thing that there is no exploration element to the game, because good ****ing luck understanding a 3D map where every room is an unlabeled gray block. Was this map better on the 3DS? Because this is the literal worst map in any video game Ive ever played, it is completely unusable. Even worse, every room in the game is either a gray hallway or a gold hallway, so figuring out where you are relative to anything else is a nightmare. The game is like lol the ship was designed by the same guy who designed the mansion in the first game, so half of the ship just looks like the mansion again. I am so tired of the mansions aesthetics at this point, weve had it now in RE1, CV, 0, 5, and Rev, and only one of those games is good.

There are two things about the gameplay I can recommend. The first is that the game is only 7 hours long; it doesnt waste your time at all. I respect that. The second is the weapon variety and upgrade system. Throughout the game, you find little upgrades like +20% damage or whatever, and you can slot them into the fifteen or so weapons you find. You know what? Thats the best and most interesting weapon customization feature in the series.

I guess I can give the game this: the absolute most basic premise of monsters on a cruise ship is good. Youve got this decadent modern setting full of rich jerks, but thats also isolated from the rest of the world. Heres how you do it: Jill Valentine goes on a cruise for a vacation, when monsters. She has no weapons, but she has to fight like monsterified rich people who are in bikinis and swim trunks, she needs to go down into the dank crew-only hallways and fight monsters who are muttering things like Can I offer you a drink misssssssss argh, she needs to whack a slot machine in the casino to spit out coins at a monster so she can get away, she sneaks through the buffet and sees a monster chef has replaced all of the food with human innards, etc. Obviously, Im making this comedic, but the important part is that if you set a game in a wacky location, you play up the elements of that location. RE1 plays up the things you associate with mansions, RE2 plays up the things you associate with police stations, etc. The fact that this game is set on a cruise ship never really comes up. The only time in the game where the cruise ship matters is when you have to play slots in the casino. This is such a missed opportunity that it makes me angry.

Overall, yeah, this is a bad game. It is playable, though, and it doesnt waste your time like RE0 and CV do, so I appreciate it a lot more than them. Its Its like, have you ever watched Jurassic Park 2 and 3? 2 is still trying to be this epic tale, whereas 3 is just a random stupid adventure, so 3 is kind of easier to accept on its own terms even though its worse from an objective perspective. Rev feels like a random stupid adventure Jill and Chris go on, so its easier to let it slide. Also, at least the series has stopped being about Umbrella. Yep. Surely the next games, Rev 2 and RE7, wont bring back Umbrella for no reason, nosiree.

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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005