Legendary Capcom creator Shinji Mikami discusses Resident Evil and his gaming philosophy in this lengthy interview from 2000.
shmuplations.com
So ı just found this interview. I read it fully and one specific part got my attention:
" —They acted as a kind of restriction that people enjoyed. Restrictions have become an irrevocable part of gameplay. "
" Mikami: Yeah. I think that's something we should re-consider, and it wasn't
intentional.
I wince when people tell me that the poor controls in Resident Evil helped contribute to the sense of dread and horror… because that wasn't my intention. It was kind of embarrassing, and when journalists would ask me questions like "How does it feel to sell a million copies?!", my honest feeling was, "Well, not that great." And the more interviews I did, the more depressed I got. As a creator, putting my work out into the world was it's own reward. "
He said this and yet people still think the outdated design of older games, at least the ones before outbreak games, are intentional genius work that adds to " horror " somehow when they are considered to be forced limitations added into the games. With re4 and re5; they wanted to get away from these aspects and with re6; they finally succeeded by making the game really different from past ones in terms of design and people just complained more and more about the game and how it somehow " betrays " the so called " roots " ... Only for capcom to try to please those people by making re7 designed more similar in terms of past games and it seems that they succeeded since a good portion of the fanbase praises re7 and this is one of the reasons. I find it massive step down from re6. Reimaginings arent much better either, especially re2 2019. ( Didnt play revillage so ı cant speak for that one nor have the interest that much. )
idk how some could play this game
steamcommunity.com
This is another thread that's created on the game's steam discussion board. Like it's so generic.
I also want to drop some specific posts:
" The original vision of survival horror died after RE0 and the Outbreak games. "
" RE7 at least brought back some of the gameplay elements and structure from a classic RE experience, which is more than 4, 5, 6 and Village did. "
" Killing monsters was part of the classic RE experience, but so were inventory management, exploration, backtracking, planning ahead, searching keys and solving puzzles while figuring a way out. "
" I can list things I've seen people complaining about:
Pacing.
Linearity and level design.
QTEs and explosions galore.
Vehicle chases/battles.
Filler sections.
Lack of exploration.
Dumbed down resource management.
Fixed loadouts.
Downgraded weapon/inventory management compared to RE5.
Skill system.
Unbalanced melee combat.
Messed up plot and storytelling.
Enemy designs.
Camera issues.
Time-scripted battles/sequences.
Unbalanced PvP modes.
...And even more, that I don't necessarily agree with. "
It just proves my point that some people are surely blinded by nostalgia and still want that generic design aspect of those older games. The last one especially just makes up things as it goes. I already debated those criticisms made against re6 before and the same ones are still made. Granted some people also voice against criticisms there but still.
I think ı would be more passionate for future if they continued from re6's loose ends storywise and made another ambitious passion project like that, especially if it meant both director and writer returning. I would like to see more games designed like re6 but ı dont think that's gonna happen. I also miss sasaki and suga so much.
