Given the trajectory of Capcom’s admittedly stellar remakes thus far, I’m unsure it will do such a thing. It could be the opposite, with reimaginings of Resident Evil 2 and 3 opting to trim the fat in favour of tightly executed scares and chaotic action instead of giving us time to stew in our own horrific, b-movie circumstances. Compared to everything that came before it, Resident Evil 4 was a completely different beast. It took the clunky controls of the franchise and morphed them into a third-person shooter experience that felt deviantly modern by 2005 standards. It wasn’t afraid to push boundaries, setting the bar so high that I’d argue the genre is yet to surpass them even to
This didn’t feel the same in Resident Evil 3 or Village, due to a forgiving focus on action and campaigns that were so short that you never had enough time to feel overwhelmed. You’re on a relatively linear track of varying locations and setpieces, meaning Ethan Winters and Jill Valentine never feel lost or alone amidst foreign circumstances. They’re also armed to the teeth, so zombies and werewolves that would feel like the end of the world to a normal civilian are little more than pesky obstacles to our unstoppable her
The fashion on display here is incredibly exciting, and has the potential to extend into a grander mode of customisation where clothing isn’t the only thing that defines Link’s hairstyle and physique. I hope we’re able to adjust the specific nature of each outfit, perhaps extending to the colour of materials, the stats and buffs provided when you wear them, and possibly specific adjustments to accessories and st
RE4VR doesn’t function like a remake or remaster at all. When I play it, it’s a way of experiencing something I’m intimately familiar with. It’s somewhere between nostalgia and deja vu – like going somewhere you’ve only been in your dreams. When I’m fully immersed in a VR game, it’s the closest I ever get to that childhood feeling of getting totally lost in a game, and the familiarity of RE4 makes that even more profound. I know every inch of this game, yet somehow I’m also seeing it all for the first t
There are countless ways to tackle the majority of combat encounters and puzzles, while exploration offers the same level of malleability as the world around you shifts and changes with the day/night cycle. It isn’t perfect, and I’ve expressed annoyance at rain grounding my heroic himbo on more than one occasion, but I’d be a fool to ask for its removal. Countless games have taken inspiration from Breath of the Wild’s revitalisation of the open world formula, with Genshin Impact and Immortals Fenyx Rising being the most notable, and guess what – they both let you climb in the rain. Mihoyo and Ubisoft likely recognised the occasional frustration of this and decided to make things easier for you, while also secretly knowing that it sacrifices something in the process.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a beautiful game. Despite the relatively limited hardware of the Switch, Nintendo was able to produce a vast, uncompromising open world that could be freely explored for hundreds upon hundreds of hours. Each discovery felt perfectly natural, with its picturesque landscapes and immaculate art design spurring us onward into each new location. It’s a masterpiece that remains unbeaten to this very
However, neither of these games encourage experimentation like Breath of the Wild does, so it’s much easier to provide us with an easier mode of traversal instead of artificially increasing the time required to reach our destination. However you slice it, these games viewed climbing in the rain and weapon degradation as negatives, choosing to build upon Nintendo’s vision by removing them entirely. I understand why games that adopt so many of the ideas pioneered by Breath of the Wild opt to change them, because every game is different and it’s unfair to tar them all with the same brush. That being said, I don’t want the upcoming sequel to follow in their footsteps. Nintendo needs to stick to its guns, favouring clumsy wet traversal and obscenely delicate weapons over an adventure that simplifies things to the point of triviality.
With Resident Evil Village opting to retread this sacred ground and falling short in the process, I’m worried that a full remake might fall to the same fate, but considering the trend of Resident Evil remakes, I imagine it’s going to happen whether we like it or not. Now don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to see what it does with Leon’s journey on the new, more powerful consoles, but I also don’t want to come away from it feeling underwhelmed, to feel that perhaps the past should have been left exactly where it belongs. Only time will tell, NG+1000 Run but right now, I remain unconvin
I can’t play the Spyro trilogy for the first time again, nor can I approach it with the same innocence and sense of wonder that I did when I was ten years old. I still love the series, but games have changed a lot since Spyro first came out. There have been 20 years of evolution and innovation since Spyro the Dragon was made, and I’ve seen how games have been refined and enhanced since then. I’ve changed a lot too. I’m a critic now, and I pick games apart and analyze them for a living. I can revisit Spyro from a new perspective, but now I experience it as an echo of the original – a snapshot of my childh
0
Leave a Reply