This is the classic RE formula stretched to its limit (stretch beyond the limit and you get RE Zero btw)
There are so many instances in this game where I legit stopped for a moment and thought "...why?". Countless baffling design choices that do absolutely nothing but make the experience of a first-time player much, much worse.
If you don't know what you're doing you will absolutely waste a lot of time either going the wrong way a lot of times (meaning door animations), or doing some insane backtracking. And if you don't know what to expect, you may even soft-lock yourself, forcing a reset. Great game design.
The story's cheesyness constantly crosses the line and becomes cringey, and Steve is a fucking idiot. Out of all the fiction I've consumed, he may very well be the worst character I've seen. He's so fucking bad he even makes Claire worse by osmosis.
The fully 3D backgrounds, while giving us some cool camera angles, means that backgrounds are much more sterile and forgettable that the previous 3 games.
You can skip nearly every single boss. That's not a positive nor a negative, I just find it funny.
Still, being the well-established RE formula means the game is still fun, even with the inexplicable design. But out of the "good" REs, it's easily the worst (that and Rev 2, but that's for different reasons).
(That was the actual review. Below is just me ranting about some of the dumb and/or bad design instances):
This game finds the idea of respawning zombies brilliant. Fuck off.
It also likes to spam a miniboss as regular enemy in the early game, these yellow hunter-ish creatures. With a long range attack! Cool.
At one instance, you must follow Steve, and put 3 medal things to activate a lift. Did you forget the medals, or didn't even realize they'd be needed (it's in a lift that's very easy to miss your first run through the area)? Too bad, go the item box 15 cities away and grab the stuff.
There are multiple instances of "all of a sudden you need a key item, and there's no item box nearby" actually. Like... why?
All because this game distributes the item boxes in such a strange manner. It always feels like the closest one is on the other side of the country, goddamn.
Save points however are spaced at complete random. Multiple times you find a lonely save point, implying there's a boss or something. But between it and the next save room, there's nothing. Literally nothing. ?????
The last area has the item box and the save point in completely separate rooms btw. Why?!
The "let's take 20 seconds to open the door" isn't tension-building, it's annoying.
Dear Capcom, don't have small, flying, fast enemies in your tank control RE. Bats and moths, yuck.
And also don't have tiny crawling minions on your final boss. Yuck.
Keep the damn extinguisher. You're not getting the Magnum without it.
Not that it matters actually, because explosive arrows are soooo much stronger than the Magnum... Unloading the Magnum at the final boss did nothing, but it died to like... 10 explosive arrows. Jesus.
And here's the big one: the second time you get control of Claire, if you give her too much stuff, you just soft-locked yourself. Fantastic design.
There are so many instances in this game where I legit stopped for a moment and thought "...why?". Countless baffling design choices that do absolutely nothing but make the experience of a first-time player much, much worse.
If you don't know what you're doing you will absolutely waste a lot of time either going the wrong way a lot of times (meaning door animations), or doing some insane backtracking. And if you don't know what to expect, you may even soft-lock yourself, forcing a reset. Great game design.
The story's cheesyness constantly crosses the line and becomes cringey, and Steve is a fucking idiot. Out of all the fiction I've consumed, he may very well be the worst character I've seen. He's so fucking bad he even makes Claire worse by osmosis.
The fully 3D backgrounds, while giving us some cool camera angles, means that backgrounds are much more sterile and forgettable that the previous 3 games.
You can skip nearly every single boss. That's not a positive nor a negative, I just find it funny.
Still, being the well-established RE formula means the game is still fun, even with the inexplicable design. But out of the "good" REs, it's easily the worst (that and Rev 2, but that's for different reasons).
(That was the actual review. Below is just me ranting about some of the dumb and/or bad design instances):
This game finds the idea of respawning zombies brilliant. Fuck off.
It also likes to spam a miniboss as regular enemy in the early game, these yellow hunter-ish creatures. With a long range attack! Cool.
At one instance, you must follow Steve, and put 3 medal things to activate a lift. Did you forget the medals, or didn't even realize they'd be needed (it's in a lift that's very easy to miss your first run through the area)? Too bad, go the item box 15 cities away and grab the stuff.
There are multiple instances of "all of a sudden you need a key item, and there's no item box nearby" actually. Like... why?
All because this game distributes the item boxes in such a strange manner. It always feels like the closest one is on the other side of the country, goddamn.
Save points however are spaced at complete random. Multiple times you find a lonely save point, implying there's a boss or something. But between it and the next save room, there's nothing. Literally nothing. ?????
The last area has the item box and the save point in completely separate rooms btw. Why?!
The "let's take 20 seconds to open the door" isn't tension-building, it's annoying.
Dear Capcom, don't have small, flying, fast enemies in your tank control RE. Bats and moths, yuck.
And also don't have tiny crawling minions on your final boss. Yuck.
Keep the damn extinguisher. You're not getting the Magnum without it.
Not that it matters actually, because explosive arrows are soooo much stronger than the Magnum... Unloading the Magnum at the final boss did nothing, but it died to like... 10 explosive arrows. Jesus.
And here's the big one: the second time you get control of Claire, if you give her too much stuff, you just soft-locked yourself. Fantastic design.
Baka_Ouji
3 years ago
Steve is annoying. A lot of that is unintentional due to his VA, but a lot of it is also very intentional. This is bordering on "It's supposed to be bad", but the point of his character is quite literally that he's an edgy little shit that's in over his head. He suffers from chuunibyo syndrome and simultaneously wants to connect himself with Claire and also wants to be alone and not be betrayed again. I understand not liking him though, I have a high tolerance for annoying characters (you want to see a really annoying character though, play Darkside Chronicles' interpretation of CV and see how they handle Steve).
I wouldn't really consider the bandersnatches all that difficulty. They job pretty easily to the knife, it's almost laughable. You can rack up so many hits in one slash that they go down easily, and it's insanely simple to just run past them as they're basically emulating Nemesis' design, where they have a weak side you can just run right past.
The "all of a sudden you need a key item" stuff is meant to test your ability to remember where items are, and to fuck over new players. There's a reason I cite CVX's S-Rank as one of the more satisfying ones, nearly all of its backtracking is completely optional.
The "small, flying, fast enemies" are actually pretty easy to deal with. Mainly the bats. Just break out the lighter and they won't go near you. The final boss' tiny crawling bug things are really fucking annoying though, and there is no way around them.
Also, you can't softlock yourself if you give Claire too much stuff. Just use the knife :^)