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Resident Evil 2 Remake

Deflowerer

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Joined
May 22, 2013
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2,052
We need another moment to appreciate the pure incline that the Director's Cut of RE1 was in terms of soundtrack. I heard Black Isle wanted to get this guy to do IWD's soundtrack but he was in high demand so they had to settle for Jeremy Soule.



The official composer for this was outed as a fraud a few years ago for basically demanding his junior composer to compose everything for him and also pretending to be deaf. That's why the Onimusha remaster has scrapped the original music as well, because originally it was composed by the same guy (although now we know he didn't do almost jackshit).

Article on this dude on New Yorker, since he was not just a small-time VGM composer but very famous in Japan otherwise (probably why Capcom wanted to have this dude to begin with).

Although maybe the track in question is his actual original contribution, after all.
 

Kitchen Utensil

Guest
By the way, why does nobody develop a kind of spiritual successor to the original Resident Evils? With prerendered backgrounds and fixed cam angels? Wouldn't that be an untapped niche worth serving with a AA budget? Almost every discussion about RE2 Remake I've glanced over has a sizeable portion of people being disappointed by the decision for 3rd person.
 

Ash

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Oct 16, 2015
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This REmake2 is in a limbo of shit between RE4 and classic RE. It has none of the nuance, charm and prestige of classic RE design (much has already described on previous pages), and none of the exciting gameplay of RE4 (many upgradable weapons, collecting treasures and easter eggs, hectic action with diverse AI types and unique challenges in every room etc).

Mind you RE7 was also this to an extent.
 

agentorange

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Codex 2012
I agree with Ash in that I prefer the original, particularly because of the art direction and soundtrack too, but feel like ReMake overall was as stellar of a remake as you could get, and it's a terrific game in its own right.

As far as remakes go, it's certainly commendable. I mainly just have an attachment to the original and I was clear about that, though a highly monochrome, decay-themed art style is still arguably a questionable choice on the developer's part.
I don't really feel like getting into an argument over personal preference, and I like both RE1 and the REmake, but the visuals in REmake are certainly not monochromatic. And the visual style of the manor was changed to maintain consistency with the visual direction of RE2 and 3 (the mansion is very reminiscent of the police station and the clock tower from the two games respectively), which were both quite different from RE1 in that respect (since I don't think they really had any idea where they were going with the series at the time, although that works to its advantage in 1 since it feels so weird). Trying to recreate the weird, wide open and vacant interiors of RE1, with those blank wall textures, which worked very well with the overall lower resolution of RE1's graphics and gave the game a very strange atmosphere, would have looked terrible with the higher resolution graphics of the REmake. The more lavishly decorative and detailed interiors were a better choice for the remake, and it made for a good contrast with the later industrial, lab areas.
 
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Deflowerer

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By the way, why does nobody develop a kind of spiritual successor to the original Resident Evils? With prerendered backgrounds and fixed cam angels? Wouldn't that be an untapped niche worth serving with a AA budget? Almost every discussion about RE2 Remake I've glanced over has a sizeable portion of people being disappointed by the decision for 3rd person.

Pre-rendered backgrounds wouldn't really fly at all anymore in this day and age. I assume it's also kind of a hassle for iterative level design.

As for fixed camera angles, it just won't be popular. I like them, many people like them, but there's shittons of people who are incapable of processing space in that way and therefore complain about how they don't understand where they are or where they're going. Besides, people these days are less and less willing to put up with restrictions: if you can't rotate camera anyway you want and can't move fluidly, it's considered Bad Design.

Mind you, you have to put some thought into it how you do those angles, since 90s are chock full of games that went for the fixed angle approach and have some really terrible choices of angles. RE games are in fact one of the tightest and best in that regard.

There's definitely space for indies to do it, but not AA. First QA or design committee session and all that shit will be thrown the fuck out of the office windows, including the person who even suggested it.
 

Kitchen Utensil

Guest
So what you're saying is the niche is too small for AA? Fair enough.
And it's too expensive to achieve it with an Indie budget?
 

agentorange

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Codex 2012
By the way, why does nobody develop a kind of spiritual successor to the original Resident Evils? With prerendered backgrounds and fixed cam angels? Wouldn't that be an untapped niche worth serving with a AA budget? Almost every discussion about RE2 Remake I've glanced over has a sizeable portion of people being disappointed by the decision for 3rd person.
Elements of modern game design: open world, procedural generation, feature bloated. Games like the classic Resident Evils are the polar opposite of these. No one is going to put time and money into making a meticulously hand crafted game that appeals to a niche audience of enthusiasts (and chances are a lot of those people you see complaining about the over the shoulder camera in RE2 Remake are posers who have never played the original games and wouldn't buy a new one in that style, so the audience is really even smaller).

The only time you will see a game make use of stuff like fixed camera angles now is some sort of indie game using "retro" qualities as a cheap cash-in attempt. It will probably have a vhs filter too. And they will only be similar to RE in the most superficial ways, they will not have any of the design depth, whether that be in the survival horror gameplay itself or like Deflower said in the visual design department, since it's not just about having fixed angles but how they are used.
 

Ezekiel

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May 3, 2017
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By the way, why does nobody develop a kind of spiritual successor to the original Resident Evils? With prerendered backgrounds and fixed cam angels? Wouldn't that be an untapped niche worth serving with a AA budget? Almost every discussion about RE2 Remake I've glanced over has a sizeable portion of people being disappointed by the decision for 3rd person.
I want fixed cameras in fully rendered environments. Graphics are good enough now that we don't need to pre-render backgrounds. When it's fully rendered, the developer can pan and play with the camera (and things in the environment) more as the player moves through the environment, using the same beautiful compositions and manipulative tension. It looks more realistic and consistent with the polygonal character. Until Dawn is an example.

DtWDxh0.jpg
 

Deflowerer

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May 22, 2013
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So what you're saying is the niche is too small for AA? Fair enough.
And it's too expensive to achieve it with an Indie budget?

Doubt it's too expensive, just that it isn't that popular. Even indie landscape, as much as you'd like to praise it for being different and original in comparison to AAA design, it also tends to coalesce around certain stylistic choices that everyone and their mom copies.

Also, Until Dawn was fucking garbage.
 

Swigen

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Joined
Dec 15, 2018
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Most of the criticism levied at this game is coming from people who never even played re2 and re4, they’re just parroting homo youtubers. Case in point, re4’s zombies are smarter ‘cause they’re not zombies, they’re parasites. You can shoot through doors and windows in re4 ‘cause they don’t know how to build proper doors and windows in backwoods eastern bloc shit holes, in ‘murica our police stations have bullet proof doors and windows. Also I’ve got a feeling there will be a “cinematic” camera mode so your women can watch you play.

Game’s totally gonna be worth $70. Pre-order it, you won’t regret it!!
 
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I really don't understand the dick sucking for fixed camera angles. Sure you have more 'tension' and can set up jumpscares more easily but it's negated from having auto aiming, a mechanic that which every classic RE game had. (The auto aim was dummied out in US version of RE1) if you're in angle that has blind spot, you just raise your gun and spam the change target button. If there's a single enemy you'll change directions and it will slowly shift left or right if the enemy is moving around something, if there's two or more it will rapidly alternate between the enemies. Sure you don't know how close they are to you until they get inside of the camera angle, but at worst you can just fall back to the door and reset the enemies postion. One way to address this is removing the lock-on altogether however that will make aiming needlessly difficult as well.
 

agentorange

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There is absolute no depth of skill to the aiming in an over the shoulder system like RE4 or this RE2 Remake. This isn't Quake or something. It's just point and click (especially RE4 where the enemies kindly stop a few feet in front of you so you can leisurely shoot them, basically a rail shooter). So they eliminated the benefits of the fixed camera in favor of nothing.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Also, Until Dawn was fucking garbage.

Until Dawn was really retarded. I remember it had a series of "gotcha" moments that were as stupid as the last one. There isn't a deranged killer, it was some guy scaring his friends. There isn't a deranged killer with a flamethrower, it is some cool dude. Wendigos are the real threat. One of the wendigos is a girl that disappeared a year or so ago and transformed into it.

Not to mention it was some Heavy Rain style trash where you just walk around and collect shit and then go to the next cutscene with some quick time event bullshit. Sixty dollar interactive DVD.
 
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There is absolute no depth of skill to the aiming in an over the shoulder system like RE4 or this RE2 Remake. This isn't Quake or something. It's just point and click (especially RE4 where the enemies kindly stop a few feet in front of you so you can leisurely shoot them, basically a rail shooter). So they eliminated the benefits of the fixed camera in favor of nothing.
I'm saying that the classic RE has the same lack of depth, the only major difference is that you had to deal with controls that weren't relative to the camera, so that throws a lot of people off.
 

Big Wrangle

Guest
It was mostly about positioning and making sure you don't get swarmed. You can make the argument that with a camera that's too close, said aspect could get more intense as you don't have a vision as wide, but we'll see how that pans out I guess.
 

agentorange

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Codex 2012
There is absolute no depth of skill to the aiming in an over the shoulder system like RE4 or this RE2 Remake. This isn't Quake or something. It's just point and click (especially RE4 where the enemies kindly stop a few feet in front of you so you can leisurely shoot them, basically a rail shooter). So they eliminated the benefits of the fixed camera in favor of nothing.
I'm saying that the classic RE has the same lack of depth, the only major difference is that you had to deal with controls that weren't relative to the camera, so that throws a lot of people off.
Yes. My point is that auto-aiming was not to the detriment of the game in the original RE, it's not subtracting anything because that's how the game was designed in the first place. When talking about why the original RE games are great no one brings up the skill based gunplay (there was skill involved in dodging enemies and so on). However in taking away the fixed camera angles it should theoretically allow for more skill based gunplay, but this isn't the case, so they've eliminated a positive aspect, the fixed camera, and replaced it with nothing: a net negative.
 

Big Wrangle

Guest
The infamous trumpet song might have been decent with a different instrument.
 
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Feb 13, 2018
Messages
152
The main hall likely won't allow zombies in because it is a save room( you know like in the previous games), but on the other hand, the previous demos they showed off had mr. x in the main hall.


so it could be mr. x is the only exception, or the full game would also allow regular zombies to enter in.

But apparently it is a joke that zombies can't enter a save room but they couldn't enter rooms in REmake outside of the scripted doors that the game allowed them to bust down and not the rest of the doors in the games that couldn't be busted down. Sure, that's not gamey at all.

You are missing the point. And this being a "re-imagining" is precisely what some fans didn't want.
that's not his point.

RE4 was the first Resident Evil game to implement an over the shoulder perspective. It's perfectly sensible to compare both games within the framework of those basic design features (breaking glass, reactions to being shot, adaptive movement) that are universally relevant, regardless of genre differences. These are tangible objective things you can pick out individually and say 'that was done better in X game.'
zombies react to being shot better than RE4, RE4 is a game designed in rather large areas in comparison to RE2. If breaking glass is the hill you're willing to die on, then so be it, but it just seems like retarded codex complaining that doesn't impact gameplay in a tangible way outside of "muh immersion" especially using a video where the creator came out with a positive impression from a demo that you didn't play (for whatever reason).

Who cares whether he used that specific video or not, and who cares if the creator of that specific video will buy the game, the inconsistency remains and his arguments are about the inconsistency of said game. You keep mentioning it as if it were a valid counter argument, which is not. The point is, as a design stand point, it robs agency from the player which stands out even more due to game design decision that other people in this thread already mentioned. Period. Admitting this doesn't make the game complete shit, it's just not going to be the second coming of Christ either or deserving of the amount of hype it is getting.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
All right, I've been sitting on this one for awhile so here it goes:

I want the knife to go back to being useless.

Back in the old days, the knife was an important weapon. It was the symbol of so many things: you didn't choose Jill like a smart person, you ran out of ammo and are telling all enemies you're now fucked, you have huge balls.

The knife has since been promoted and pushed hard for Summerslam since around... I don't recall exactly, maybe REmake, but it has become useful. Very useful. It will continue to be useful in this RE2 Remake and it shouldn't. The knife has not earned itself to being anything more than a gimmick weapon and a joke you give to a big block of tofu. First off, the knife is bullshit. Zombies don't care about being stabbed, every other monster is a monster and laughs it off, the only possible use it can have is cutting through tape which Leon can probably do with his own fingers if he really wanted to.

Now many of you may disagree and think I have suffered brain damage, but I want the knife to go back to truly dogshit status. If the knife is in your hand, you are walking into a You Died screen. Bring back the jobber knife.
 

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