Resident Evil (1996) and later versions

Sorry for being blasphemous, but only today I started this game. I'm referring to the HD Remaster (Steam version) so it's not the original release. I bought this game some years ago but it was difficult to get into it. Now I want to learn it in the best way possible: normal difficulty, original controls, defensive items on manual and 4:3. I chose Type B controls that should replicate the Gamecube version, but I'm not too sure.

I'm using Jill and I've obtained the armor key. Right now I'm low on resources and I should understand better dodge mechanics and how to not waste bullets. I did a fantastic headshot with the shotgun but then I wasted three bullets against another enemy.

I know there are a lot of RE's experts here, so if you guys have any advice, I'm all ears

This is the only game I purposefully never learned anything about, since I still think it's the best horror title ever made and I don't want to get good at it, I want to keep the horror. I do one run every few years through the game just so that it remains tense and I forget stuff. Biggest 'thing' I did was Chris Hard. That was brutal.

I'll leave the tips to the experts and "lalala" my way out of here haha!

Ahh, REmake. The closest a video game has ever got to perfection IMO. Another Mikami masterpiece.

>Jill

Good idea to start. She has less health and moves slower than Chris, but the grenade launcher and increased inventory slots are a godsend for anyone not familiar with the game. The lock pick is also great for new players(don’t need to go back through enemies as often). She’s sort of a built-in easy mode while Chris is more for advanced players(less inventory slots but can dodge zombies and tank hits better)

>low on resources

Fear not, you’ll pretty much always have just enough to scrape by as long as you’re not shooting walls or something. If you haven’t got to it yet, save rooms get stocked with supplies a couple times during the course of the game, big help.

>dodge mechanics

Much like RE4 if you’re familiar with that. Walk towards an enemy, just into their grab range, and walk backwards. They have a little bit of recovery on the grab which is a perfect chance to run by them if you need to. Enemies on stairs don’t go for grabs, they only do the vomit attack, which is extremely easy to dodge. There’s a room with a staircase leading to a safe room(I’m sure you’ve seen it by now), and it’s possible to get multiple enemies on those stairs if you go in from the bottom and are willing to wait for them. Hunters are...not so easy to dodge. Grenade launcher is your friend for them.

>not waste bullets

As you pointed out, headshots with the shotgun is very important for this(aiming up right as a zombie is going for a grab). Obviously you can shoot multiple with one shell to knock them over, and while they’re down you can knife them or burn them(hmm, sounds familiar). If you’re unfamiliar with a room’s layout and the camera isn’t giving you a clear view, you can just aim and you’ll auto-aim over to an enemy. For maximum safety, if you’re not feeling confident, use the grenade launcher at long range.

Other tips:

-Clear our enemies near safe rooms. You’ll be going back to those spots frequently.
-If a room as an enemy or two that are easy for you to avoid, don’t bother killing them until you have a comfortable amount of resources(like the zombie on the 2F balcony with the statue above the dining hall).
-Shotgun for headshots, as noted before. Handgun should be used at long range. I’m also of the opinion that if you use the handgun bullets to down an enemy, you may as well go the extra mile and kill them while they’re vulnerable.
-Only carry one healing item at a time. The whole game is a balance of weapons/ammo+health+leaving room for what you may need.
- I also recommend putting away one weapon when you find the grenade launcher. If you have the handgun, shotgun, grenade launcher, and their ammo types(of which the GL has 3), then it’s possible for all 8 spots to be taken up by weaponry. I personally put away the handgun once I reach the residence, but you should experiment and see what you feel comfortable with.
-Don’t bother with Jill’s knife until you’re used to the game. It kind of sucks.
-Save only after you’ve done something fairly significant(clearing out a room or two, finding key items, etc). Once you’ve built up a good number of ink ribbons(maybe 8-10+) then you can be a little more lenient with their use.

I haven’t played in a while, but that’s what I got for now. Let us know what happens!

RedShot wrote:Now I want to learn it in the best way possible: normal difficulty, original controls, defensive items on manual and 4:3.

Oh, my sweet Lord. Somebody doing things properly of their own volition! Makes me very emotional.

Yes, fantastic start. The 4:3 original aspect ratio is an absolute must. The widescreen just chops off huge bits on the top and bottoms of the pre-rendered backgrounds and looks like complete ass as a result. I've written about this at length in the past, but here's the most egregious comparison I can think of to summarize things:

HD Demaster:


GameCube OG:


Look at how much the overall picture benefits from the extra details at the top and the bottom. Look at how much height is being implied through the extra headroom and the design of the upper alcoves. Look at how the lower handrail was carefully drawn to perfectly coincide with the bottom right corner of the frame.

No two ways about it, the cropped version feels cramped and incomplete in comparison. Probably because it is. Gar-bage.


Oh, and the new analogue controls completely break the game by skipping basically all turning animation frames and giving you the type of hyper-mobility the game is absolutely not designed around:




Screw Capcom with a rusty pipe for making these the default options.



...I see Based_Inf has already covered the gameplay fundamentals in the time it took me to scrounge these gifs together so I'll leave you in his more than capable hands.

@Royta/Raeng Clear, its atmosphere is really incredible. Today many horror games don't scare or even have a good gameplay.


@Infinity_Divide Thanks for all those advices, I'll keep them in mind! It's my first RE, so I need to adapt to the basics, but my first impression is extremely positive.

@KSubzero1000 Haha, I read some of your posts in the other topic and I decided to play this game as pure as possible.

Oh, a few more things I will add.

Early on when you're navigating through the mansion, you will find a lighter, a fuel canteen and a few kerosene containers. This gives you the option to burn the bodies of defeated zombies. Which may sound like a waste of time and resources at first. It isn't. Do it for the areas near the save points and others you plan on traveling through in the future.

Ink ribbons (used for saving) are limited, but you should have more than enough to play through the entire game provided you don't waste them. As a rule of thumb, saving every 20-30 minutes is perfectly fine.

In fact, much of this game's metagame revolves around planning where to go, what to take with you and whether you should kill the enemies in the way or dodge them to save ammunition. Pause and plan ahead if you're not sure. This game is more strategy than action.

Since this is your first time, there's no shame in jotting down a few notes along the way! Like the location of important items or specific puzzles, for example.

Don't rush. If you have to trek back to the save room to deposit a few extra items, do it (as long as it's safe). Leave the speedrunning for later. Play it safe.

Familiarize yourself with the map. The colors of the rooms indicate if there are some items left in them or not.

Headphones recommended.

Damn, I only ever played the Gamecube version and now that I see these things I'm glad I did. They added analogue controls? Isn't that basic heresy? Sure you have more mobility as you show in that image, but that must pretty much snap the game's difficulty in half I feel.

Royta/Raeng wrote:Damn, I only ever played the Gamecube version and now that I see these things I'm glad I did. They added analogue controls? Isn't that basic heresy? Sure you have more mobility as you show in that image, but that must pretty much snap the game's difficulty in half I feel.

Well, analogue in the sense that your character instantly starts walking in the direction of the analogue stick. But the walking/running speed are still the same, as far as I know. In any case, it does basically break the game and trivialize most of the combat. Not only did Capcom add that garbage in, they made it the default option which means that 95% of new players experienced the game for the first time using these. Good luck finding a review or some other REmaster footage on YT that doesn't have those.

Although if you ask me, the background cropping is even more heretical.

GameCube is and will always remain the best RE console ever.



...Being a RE fan is hard sometimes.

I do remember people noting that for some reason they vastly increased Jill's breast physics in the Demaster. But never heard about this, granted, I didn't listen since I couldn't imagine playing this game on anything but my trusty Gamecube. Did REZero suffer a similar fate?

Royta/Raeng wrote:Did REZero suffer a similar fate?

Obviously.

As a little extra, they even managed to not have a shared control scheme based on the GC original across the two games. I had to re-assign buttons on PS4 to come even close to something resembling the control scheme I used on the REmake remaster.

Capcom, amirite?

Great tips Ksub. Fully agree about taking your time and making extra trips to item boxes. If you find a key item or a stash of healing items, pick them up if you have the space and run them back to a safe room if the path is clear. Multiple save slots aren’t a bad idea either, see if you can do certain sections cleanly and reload a past save if you need to.

Infinity_Divide wrote:Great tips Ksub.

Thanks, man!

Btw, what do you think of the widescreen / analogue controls options in the HD remaster? Am I being too harsh?

Thanks, good tips indeed. Right now I'm finding some masks for the cemetery's puzzle. I'm having some troubles understanding where to go but the map is really helpful to keep track of red doors and some important places. GL with incendiary shells is amazing.

RedShot wrote:I'm having some troubles understanding where to go but the map is really helpful to keep track of red doors and some important places.

Figuring out where to go is arguably the most important part of the gameplay loop. Take your time. Evaluate your options.

I imagine it must be a bit disorientating at first if you're used to modern games who never trust their audience to figure anything out by themselves. This game has no autosave, no regenerating health, no dynamic ammo drops, no magic bottomless inventory, and most important of all, no objective markers. On the contrary, it expects you to keep track of all these elements by yourself. All manual, no automatic.

Mikami helps those who help themselves.

I have no complaints so far, a masterpiece doesn't age. Finally I understand why RE is revered :)
By the way, what's the general opinion about Silent Hill and other survival horror games? Is there any serious rival?

KSubzero1000 wrote:

Infinity_Divide wrote:Great tips Ksub.

Thanks, man!

Btw, what do you think of the widescreen / analogue controls options in the HD remaster? Am I being too harsh?

I fully agree with your stance. The widescreen I immediately noticed a downgrade in the main hall, the painting room, and the first area with spiders.

As for the controls...I think the new control option is a joke. Not only does it look absolutely awful in such a beautiful and well-animated game, it lets you make a complete mockery of most enemies. I’m a firm believer that enemy and encounter design are huge factors that effect a game’s core gameplay/combat loop, and when you can just dance around enemies in a way that clearly goes against the intended design, there’s a problem. I don’t care that it takes some getting used to, classic controls are THE way to play RE, as they crafted the enemies and environments around those controls.

>finally understand why RE is revered

This is warming my heart. So great to see newcomers experience this gem. Just an FYI, RE1 remake is considered by many to be the pinnacle of classic RE, so you’re getting the best the series has to offer right away, haha.

>other survival horror games

To be honest, never been as big of a fan of any other series(aside from TEW obviously), but there’s some good ones. I love the atmosphere and suffocating sense of dread in Silent Hill, but mechanically I find the games quite weak(note that I’m specifically talking about the first three titles). Fatal Frame has some neat mechanical ideas and has a great atmosphere and some pretty creepy locations. I played the Siren game for PS3, and while I found it pretty scary, I kind of hated playing it. There’s also Dead Space, which is much more RE4 than RE1, but the first two games in that series are great stuff(a lot more in your face than RE and has some really good combat). In my mind, RE is about the only series that really manages to blend level design, exploration, resource management, and combat into one cohesive experience.

Honestly, I don't even really consider RE to be horror in the first place. A horror story is meant to terrify you, usually with flawed characters undergoing severe hardships. The Shadow over Innsmouth, The Exorcist, Silent Hill 2: those are horror stories through-and-through.

Classic RE is... more of a hyper-atmospheric, slow-paced action-adventure type of game for me. The RE universe is oddly uplifting with its silly pseudo-science and charismatic superheroes, the good guys are pure and hug it out in the end, the bad guys are cartoony and tend to explode in wet chunks. None of that really qualifies as "horror" to me.

Yes, there are a few jump scares here and there, but ultimately, they're slow-burning power fantasies. They start you off as a vulnerable character in a very precarious situation, but your skills and confidence are automatically growing over time, not decreasing. RE is closer in spirit to Con Air than to The Blair Witch Project. It's great at pretending to be horror due to its aesthetic, but it's really not as soon as you look past the curtain. RE2 in particular has a straight-up Hollywood action movie structure. Pure joy.


I'm not a fan of most other horror games, especially the modern first-person ones that play themselves and only ever pull the same peekaboo trick over and over again. I tried Alien Isolation, Outlast, Prey, Slender Man, etc... and found them all to be mechanically limp and audio-visually overbearing. They're so focused on "scaring" the player at every turn that they forget to have anything interesting going on besides that. Zero strategy, zero subtlety. RE7 can get in the bin as well, while we're at it. Complete trash.


But I do really like the original SH trilogy (and Shattered Memories), even though I don't think they're in direct competition with RE at all. I play RE for the gameplay. I play SH despite the gameplay and for everything else (its mystifying world-building, use of symbolism, fascinating character arcs and bone-chilling OST and sound effects). As games, they're kinda trash (even though some of the puzzles are really cool), but as overall experiences they're absolutely fantastic in my book.


EDIT: Now that Inf mentioned them, I love Fatal Frame / Project Zero and Dead Space as well. Fatal Frame being a lesser niche version of SH, and Dead Space being a mechanically shallow space-flavored version of RE4 with some of the best sound design in the medium.

Very interesting. I played a bit of SH1 and some elements can be certainly described as "horror", but I wasn't too sure about gameplay. Still, I'll probably play it for your same reason. It's difficult to categorize RE, I used "survival horror" because "action-tps" seems more appropriate for RE4, but my info are obviously limited. Horror is another matter, I agree.

RedShot wrote:It's difficult to categorize RE, I used "survival horror" because "action-tps" seems more appropriate for RE4, but my info are obviously limited. Horror is another matter, I agree.

Oh, of course. Mostly semantics anyway.

Personally, I do classify classic RE as "survival horror" regardless. "Survival" being the main gameplay descriptor and "horror" merely referring to the aesthetic side of things.

I mentioned this in the other thread but I also prefer the term "survival action" to describe RE4 and similar games. It's difficult for me to call it a third-person-shooter because, well, the enemies don't shoot back.

>They added analogue controls? Isn't that basic heresy? Sure you have more mobility as you show in that image, but that must pretty much snap the game's difficulty in half I feel.

I know they did in the Onimusha remaster. They remove the need for the 180 turn. I was able to slash an instantly turn and run.

>screenshots

Wow that's disgusting. And I was thinking of buying the collection on PS4 for convenience. Good thing I still have the Gamecube version.

>horror

Subjective. Zombies and dinosaurs are my worst fears. I love Fatal Frame but Japanese ghost look stupid to me. One or two are a little creepy but that's it. I know some people who are terrified by it but for me it comes off as a kind of somewhat creepy magical girl/super power thing.

NB: These new control and camera systems are thankfully all optional. Even in the Onimusha remaster the d-pad still serves as the traditional tank controls and you can switch to the original 4:3 aspect ratio in the options.



Nothing wrong with buying these modern versions for convenience as long as one knows how to disable or bypass these new features.

Birdman wrote:>horror

Subjective.

Of course. But the scripting, character arcs and narrative progression in classic RE are certainly a lot closer to conventional action games / movies than to conventional horror stories.

Yeah those elements are. For me they tend to take a backseat to zombies though. Same goes for Dino Crisis.

I think the name alteration from the original Biohazard gets peeps confused, for most part their own doing by adhering to some trope.
EVIL. Horror trappings, right.
Sure sounds sinister at the title call. But in all practicality it's shooting mutants. Knifing mutants for the evolved. Masters of Knifing. Get your knife today!

Resident Evil Remake scared the shit out of me though when I was a little kid. I think I was 12 or something when I played it, borrowed it from a classmate who had a 'edgy brother', did drugs, earring, you know the kind. Remember getting as far as using the first gemstone in the tigerstatue for those shotgun shells and being far to scared to continue. Game left a lasting impression on me though.

Regarding horror, in terms of movies I always love the obscure. Movies like Enemy or tv-shows like Twin Peaks are how I like my horror. In terms of games, these days the only game that really frightens me is P.T.

It still scares me. Zombies are my worst nightmare.

The only time they're not scary is in stuff like Lollipop Chainsaw where they say funny shit, breakdance, and throw chickens.

I watched my brother play RE2 when I was a kid(I think I was 7) and that game gave me nightmares. The noises the zombies made, the arm hallway, and the giant spiders...literally had to sleep with the light on for the next week. Then I tried playing REmake and RE0 when I was about 10 or 11 and couldn’t do it, I was so pissed that I still couldn’t stomach the games. Didn’t actually finish a game in the series until 4, and then went backwards

>zombies throwing chickens

Why haven’t I played this yet.

@Redshot how’s the run going?

It is legitamately scary how alike we can be at times Infinity. I was also pissed at myself, 4 was the first one I beat. Went backwards since then, played 1, Zero, 2 and 3 and CVX. Later-on I played 5 when it came out. What a series.

Only game I haven't tried is the first one still.

It really is eerie, isn’t it? I also played all the originals between the release of 4 and 5, by the time 5 was out something felt off to me about the game. I played the hell out of it but couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t liking it as much as 4. Later on I obviously realized what it all was.

>haven’t tried the first

I didn’t play it until after I had played 5, and I immediately thought how great the remake was. Crazy just how well they pulled it off.

The run is going well, except the part where I didn't have a ink ribbon haha. I had to redo the giant snake and the fight in the crypt, but it was a learning experience. Now I'm at the residence and I have to fight several sharks.

Tip: A lot of enemies in the classic RE games are better off being ignored entirely. These sharks are a perfect example of that. They take a lot of ammo and are only present in one section in the entire game, so don't feel obligated to fight them, especially if you're already low on resources. Just run past them if they give you any trouble.

Oh, I didn't know I could avoid those sharks (tried the fight only once). I think I'll do some testing with them and, after a reload, I'll proceed without wasting resources.

I don't even recall having to fight them, there's a very short bit where they swim around but always thought they were just scenery. Can they attack you there?

Yep. Best to just rush to the exit, really.

Huh, the more you know. Played the game a few times through to the end and they never attacked me. Guess I got lucky.

What a weird enemy for a survival horror game. The whole residence consists of fighting mutated animals.

I always kind of liked that, felt like a natural evolution of the 'zombie' to have the virus take hold of animals in weird ways. RE0 really went nuts with this, with the giant bats, monkeys and frogs. Such a weird game, love it though, but weird.

Speaking of analogue controls...

The excellent Resident Evil Remake offers the player a couple of alternate control schemes to choose from, and one of them, “Type C”, is by far the best. Under the Type C control scheme, the right trigger button is used to move the player forward, and the analog stick is only necessary for turning left and right. This is fundamentally the same as Fatal Frame 2’s run button movement, but it works even better in this context because the GameCube controller’s trigger buttons are big and analog. Push the button down part way and the character walks forward, but clicking it down completely will cause him to run. The depth of the button on the GameCube controller gives the player far more control over their movement than analog-stick based systems, and since Resident Evil players are used to holding a button down to run anyway, it’s not any more work than normal. In fact, the system works so well that I wish that it were available in every Resident Evil game; the ability to run forward without using the stick and without relying on the direction the camera is looking makes the dreaded tank controls a walk in the park.

Only on GameCube.

source and a good read: http://horror.dreamdawn.com/?p=6550

>I always kind of liked that, felt like a natural evolution of the 'zombie' to have the virus take hold of animals in weird ways. RE0 really went nuts with this, with the giant bats, monkeys and frogs.

Try Outbreak. ZOMBIE ELEPHANT.

Type C sounds interesting, though this might be an immersion thing for me, I just prefer using a stick to walk. I have the same with Splinter Cell, where there's always a lot of talk of MouseWheel versus Stick for sneaking, and while the Wheel is better, using the stick just feels more like you're 'there' if you get me.

Interesting to see that option is akin to FF2.

Type C in REmake is an excellent control scheme. The only reason I never use it is because I prefer having the same one for the entire classic series. Muscle memory is no joke. Plus, it's not like you're missing out on any functionality or having any other drawback when using the default one.

I've just finished my first run. Fantastic game, I'm gonna start a hard run with Jill and after that a run with Chris. By the way, Barry is safe and sound haha.

Very nice, glad you liked it. Good idea to go with Jill again and then Chris. Just out of curiosity, what was your favorite section of the game?

Infinity_Divide wrote:Very nice, glad you liked it. Good idea to go with Jill again and then Chris. Just out of curiosity, what was your favorite section of the game?

The mansion, no doubt. I like the other sections, but if I think about RE it's the first thing that comes to my mind.

Agreed about the mansion, it is the quintessential RE area to me. This also has my favorite lab in the series.

Not inclined on shaming anyone here who hasn't played the '96 originator, but indulge me when I say that by now it is too late. Time over. What is it? The funny thing is that despite the goofy intro and lame dialog (What is it? Blood.) it's so crude in horror and the soundtrack so effective that it is really a thing on it's own. Positively weird. Master of Unlocking. Lemme ask you: do you even know without the net why Jill got the funky moniker "Sandwich"? By all means what makes the remake stand out is not only the technical, neither that the same director got the opportunity to improve his vision and streamlined it to high reverence. It's ditching the weird part. Kill that thing, whatever it is! So yeah, some could "argue" that 96 looks ugly and whaaa a tank simulation, and you could have it so much better. Sure. Alright. What I find impressive most of all is that it worked at a certain time because of the weird stuff. That's why I think it's not right to cast it aside as just a womb for what came out of it. No one has to like it just because it's part of history either. YOU DIED

Not exactly sure what you're saying there Zenyn. The Sandwhich quote is still in the remake to a degree and the ham is still dialed up to eleven nearly constantly. Think both games had the same atmosphere too in terms of trying to be realistic while also catching that B-horror movie vibe. Only difference being the '96 originator having aged less gracefully visually. I didn't play the game when it came out, but I remember the magazine screenshots and video previews on TV which were unlike anything I had ever seen.

I mean, the voice acting is just so deliciously horrible no one can take this seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN4Dbi0AV0Q

And I think that's part of the charm for the entire series barring the more serious ones like RE5 and 6 (to a degree), that balance of absolute horror and then laughing in the cutscenes. Think RE4 also had that down (giant Salazar statue)

NOTE: apparently though this is a lot in thanks to the translation department. Got curious about why Leon is so delightful in RE4 but a wooden plank in some of the movies, turns out in the Japanese version of RE4 his lines are a lot more depressing and 'real'. No bingo, no "no thanks bro" etc. Granted, this is based on some users on Reddit. I haven't watched the game in Japanese. But would be interesting if true.

EDIT: apparently RE never got Japanese voices, which is interesting. Did some translations of key cutscenes from the Japanese subs, and his reactions really are totally different (Leon's that is). No Bingo for instance, just just asks "where is everyone going". Salazar also notes that he's the eight-heir during his introducing. Asked the Japanese aunt of my fiance to translate the "No thanks Bro" scene, apparently he notes "I'd rather not". Interesting. Since the script was written in Japanese first, we can assume this was the 'original'. Interesting.

The original RE is by far the worst of the classic series and I consider it to have been rendered obsolete by the REmake. I really don't see any point in playing it, honestly.

I don't say that because of the technical limitations (since RE2 is my favorite) or because it somehow "hasn't aged well" (which I think is really dumb and lazy criticism that I personally never use). I just don't think it's very good to begin with. The color palette is a bit tacky, the storytelling is abysmal, the atmosphere is ruined by unintentional tonal whiplash, soundtrack is super uneven, and the elements it does well (inventory management, puzzles, etc...) have either carried over or been expanded upon in REmake.

Same as NES Metroid or the first two Fire Emblem, you're better off sticking with the much superior remakes.

> NES Metroid
Most games I'd agree, but NES Metroid has some elements to it that I feel later ones didn't. A lot of the future games improved on it immensely, but NEStroid really has that survival feeling on a hostile world that later games never really captured. Areas are dark, confusing, there's no map and you're pretty weak in terms of health (not to mention you start nearly dead if you use a password). Later games in the series and genre focus much more on what was laid out on Metroid2 and Super, but I'd like to vouch for NEStroid's difficulty and unique maze giving it a worthwhile stay. If you're a fan of the series, I'd still recommend you play it through once. A good game imo that a lot of people avoid because it's so damn hard.

I'll take your word for it, I only ever played a few hours of it and gave up.

I love the survival labyrinth design in theory, but the lack of map is really a deal-breaker for me. Super Metroid and Zero Mission still have a lot of that survival element but without the hair-pulling parts, so I don't feel too pressed to sit down and power through NES Metroid at the moment.

Still, duly noted.

> lack of a map
That's mostly what's cool about it, you get to make your own. I think that's part of the enjoyment of it. Don't take this as me calling it an amazing game by any stretch though, I finished it once and it was a worthwhile experience but I'm never touching it again. Don't feel Zero Mission has that survival element considering how easy that game is, maybe on Hard thanks to the reduce powerups, but other than that, maybe Prime 2 on Hard?