The Resident Evil franchise

[Katphood]

What is your take on the whole series?

Which are your favorites? 

I have played:

Resi 1

Resi 2

Resi 4

Resi 5

Resi 0

...and that's it. One was obviously the best while Five was the least favorite one. I guess I could also add Dead Aim in there but I never finished that one.

[Sven_]

Resident Evil has effectively been a corporate mascot, a brand name, a branding under which a corporation gathers and sells whatever it sees as the most profitable. Zombies, werewolves, presidential daughters, 10 feet booby women, explosions, cheesy dialogue, quick time events and pushing rocks — under this corporate Umbrella, anything goes. Because as long as all that nonsense is being sold with a Resident Evil™ tag on it, someone's gonna bite.  

The only really legitly good entries from my end were 1+2 and 7. I can accept 4 though, although it was a really big departure from the rest until that point and all its tonal cheese. Still, if Capcom would be in the Hollywood business rather than gaming, half of those games+spin-offs would have been trashed the same way as a Michael Bay movie -- or the dumb sequels to Jaws or The Terminator. They aren't in Hollywood though, but gaming. And in gaming, professional critics like or at least tolerate everything, for as long as it's not bugged to crap (proof: count the major releases with a Metascore below 50 or even 60).

Still curious for the 9th entry, as every once in a while, Capcom still seems to find something (see RE7, first half of it anyway).


PS: I quite liked The Evil Within also, if that counts.

Edited June 9 by Sven_

[Katphood]

The Evil Within was awesome. It was so good I almost forgot it didn't have a story.

[Wormerine]

Very little experience. I tried Resident Evil2 remake for a bit, I found it very effective. Perhaps too effective. I enjoyed what I played a lot on systemic level, gore was a bit too much for my taste. 

[Sven_]

4 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Very little experience. I tried Resident Evil2 remake for a bit, I found it very effective. Perhaps too effective. I enjoyed what I played a lot on systemic level, gore was a bit too much for my taste. 

Well it's a horror game (and a well done remake, should have added it). Personally I was getting aquainted early (the Amiga version had so much better music tho).  

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Katphood said:

The Evil Within was awesome. It was so good I almost forgot it didn't have a story.

 

 

Well, it did have one.  But at times you got the feeling they first started out with a Best Of horror (kinda like Waxworks from above!) and the rest came after. I think the second game actually lost a bit when it went into more of a typical (thriller) story. In the first game, you never knew what would happen next ... or where you would be taken to. That was messed up, but in a good way.

 

Edited June 9 by Sven_

[Katphood]

Yup. The Evil Within was genius. Horror, madness, gore...

Haven't played 2 yet.

[Humanoid]

Back in the late 90s, I bought a PC Gaming magazine (not sure which, I think it was a British publication) that contained a full walkthrough of Resident Evil 1. I have no interest whatsoever in Resident Evil or frankly anything in the horror genre in general, but I read that entire walkthrough start-to-finish. After all, I paid for that magazine and I'll be damned if I didn't get full value from my allowance money.

So yeah, that's the sum of my experience with the series.

[Lorfean]

I played bits of RE and (I think) RE2 back in the mid 90's without ever beating them, and then played the **** out of RE4 on PS2 when that came out. Took about a 10-year break after that, and then played the RE HD Remaster on PC in 2015. It's an incredible game that holds up to this day.

Then RE7 came in 2017 and as far as I'm concerned the developer has been on a tear ever since... RE7 was a true return to form, genuinly disturbing and scary, RE2 remake (2018) was incredible, RE3 remake (2019) felt a tad cash-grabby but was still very enjoyable for what it was (a more fast-paced, action-oriented entry) RE8 was amazing, and the fact that they had the balls to actually remake RE4, and it ending up being as good as it was is admirable to say the least... I am curious to see how RE:Requiem pans out.

In-between the above entries I also played RE Revalations 1 and 2, which were fine. Gameplay-wise they're closer to (the HD remaster of) the original, the settings are pretty cool, and RE:R2 is episodic, which is kind of a novelty for the franchise -- I'd recommend playing them if you enjoyed the others and are hungry for more.

As you can probably tell it's one of my favorite gaming franchises. I've played all of the above-mentioned titels on PC through Steam. I have not played RE5, RE6 or RE0.