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Anime PS1 Survival Horror?

Who is more kawaii?

  • Hewie

    Votes: 2 16.7%
  • Hewie

    Votes: 5 41.7%
  • Hewie

    Votes: 5 41.7%

  • Total voters
    12

A horse of course

Guest
It does feel like survival horror though. It just has RPG elements.

What's survival horror about it besides the limited inventory?
 

Bigg Boss

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
Messages
7,528
iu

iu


HD textures on that one but it is pretty obvious and it was called that at the time.
 

A horse of course

Guest
I know it was referred to as such, but it's not. I don't see what those screenshots are meant to illustrate.
 

Karellen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
327
Well, Parasite Eve is scifi horror story, based on a horror film, and the fixed camera angles are reminiscent of Resident Evil, and so is the area design here and there. It's definitely a JRPG first and foremost, and it's obviously better not to expect a proper survival horror game, but I can see how people make the association. It's kind of like Koudelka in that regard; definitely an RPG, but if you're into the aesthetic of PSX survival horror games, there might be something for you there.

And what does survival horror mean anyway? In the first place, outside of Resident Evil, there are barely any horror games that have a proper focus on resource management; Silent Hill, which people call survival horror, has barely any resource management, nor does Clock Tower, never mind Amnesia and other hide-and-seek games that some people call survival horror. For all practical purposes it's used as a catch-all term for any horror-themed game where one might conceivably die. I'm not particularly happy with that, but Parasite Eve has more to do with survival horror games than a lot of other titles that get lumped in that category, so I guess it's not that bad.

That said, the lack of decent Resident Evil clones is truly troubling, as even on the PSX there aren't many. I think that Galerians might very well be the best of the lot; the boss battles are terrible, but the Akira-esque psionic angsty teenager aesthetic is deliciously edgy, and the game has one of the most original takes on resource management in the genre. Definitely worth a look.
 

A horse of course

Guest
The fixed camera angles are also shared by Final Fantasy VII et al. The area design is also shared by JRPGs.

Silent Hill 1 and 3 absolutely do make use of resource management - 2 is the only one where it's not so relevant due to the low difficulty and relative ease of melee against low-level enemies.

Parasite Eve has no stealth/hiding or enemy avoidance mechanics, so it's not comparable to Clock Tower 1, Amnesia (Amnesia already stretches the definition of Suvival Horror) or Clock Tower 3 (which also has resource management).

As you say, it's a JRPG. At best it has some horror themes, but that can be applied to Dead Space 2, Resident Evil 4/5/6 and so forth.
 

Karellen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
327
Well, I was just making the observation that survival horror as a genre monicker has been warped beyond recognition. I don't think there's much overlap at all between the kind of games where the fundamental mechanic is hiding from monsters and the likes of Resident Evil, where the game is all about counting the bullets you need to clear out rooms. Basically, the former is a descendant of adventure games, while the latter has strong affinities with dungeon crawlers and RPGs, which should come as no surprise since Resident Evil started off as the remake of a JRPG. I think it would be great to define the latter as survival horror and come up with another term for the former, but no one ever said that video game genres make any sense.

My quip about Silent Hill games has mainly to do with how the games have powerful, perfectly viable melee weapons, and it's not until the fourth game (which is a terrible, terrible game) that the weapons become breakable. You do run away from some enemies (mainly in the fog world), but it's because fighting enemies there is kind of a waste of time. I love Silent Hill, I really do, but I don't think that the game lends itself to feeling anxiety over the stuff you have in your inventory. It is there, to some degree, but it's not what the game is about at all. Of course, Parasite Eve is even less about that (I mean, you can cure yourself with what amounts to magic and random encounters drop ammo), so I certainly don't think it's survival horror at all. But I do get the aesthetic similarity, and I guess that's something.
 

Bigg Boss

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
Messages
7,528
Survival horror is:

Fixed camera angle.
Limited ammo meaning you need to think before you waste resources.
Moody atmosphere. That includes music and art style.
It needs to be scary at least a little bit. It can't be played for laughs. Like people being caught on fire during a musical event.

That being said it doesn't need to be scary really. Resident Evil 3 is more action than horror. Parasite Eve is JRPG first, Survival Horror second.

Is Dead Rising survival horror? Minus the fixed camera angle it fits the bill so I say yes. You don't have to meet all of the criteria.

Apparently some people think that is retarded. Since I don't know why I have to assume it is either due to me lumping Dead Rising in with survival horror or my list of requirements. Imo that was their last true survival horror game. It was hard as fuck to beat too.

Dino Crisis was barely even scary much like Resident Evil 3. Yet it was survival horror. Where does the SURVIVAL HORROR boundary lie? Because you modernfags think Resident Evil 3 Remake is survival horror. So which is it? Is Parasite Eve survival horror or not? Everyone knows it is a hybrid. Are hybrids not allowed to be survival horror?

Parasite Eve is survival horror

iu


Nevermind.
 
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Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
Silent Hill 1 and 3 absolutely do make use of resource management
why did you exclude SH4? It is the one where your inventory is limited, some weapons are breakable, each ammo mag takes a whole slot, and you have a lot of differently functioning recovery items (candles, amulets).
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,227
Ed123 Use tools to transfer a weapon or armor's stat boosts to another, OR their special abilities. You can only choose one of any stat or ability. After you do this, the weapon and tool will break. Use a super tool (rare) and only the tool will break.

FWIW I recall being confused a little at the start too.

As for if it is Survival Horror. It's a JRPG survival horror hybrid for sure. If you were to play the sequel now (you should. It's good) there is no denying it in the case of that game. I guess whether or not the 1st game is is up for debate.
 
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A horse of course

Guest
Survival horror is:

Fixed camera angle.
Limited ammo meaning you need to think before you waste resources.
Moody atmosphere. That includes music and art style.
It needs to be scary at least a little bit. It can't be played for laughs. Like people being caught on fire during a musical event.

That being said it doesn't need to be scary really. Resident Evil 3 is more action than horror. Parasite Eve is JRPG first, Survival Horror second.

Is Dead Rising survival horror? Minus the fixed camera angle it fits the bill so I say yes. You don't have to meet all of the criteria.

Apparently some people think that is retarded. Since I don't know why I have to assume it is either due to me lumping Dead Rising in with survival horror or my list of requirements. Imo that was their last true survival horror game. It was hard as fuck to beat too.

Dino Crisis was barely even scary much like Resident Evil 3. Yet it was survival horror. Where does the SURVIVAL HORROR boundary lie? Because you modernfags think Resident Evil 3 Remake is survival horror. So which is it? Is Parasite Eve survival horror or not? Everyone knows it is a hybrid. Are hybrids not allowed to be survival horror?

Parasite Eve is survival horror

iu


Nevermind.

Fixed camera angles are only a feature of SuHo when they are used as such. In traditional survival horror, camera angles are constantly reinforcing the player's sense of tension - for example, a low-angle establishing shot of a creepy gateway that looms over the player, to make them feel small and powerless as they enter, or a shot that obscures the end of a bend in the road, so that players cannot see what's lurking there unless they get close enough to change to a more revealing angle. The latter kind also takes on a secondary role due to the real-time action gameplay, as the player might be fleeing a enemy, turn the corner and then panic when they suddenly discover new enemies in their path. And it also gels very well with sound, such as when the player can hear something shuffling or breathing, but is forced to come towards the source anyway. So the camera is almost exclusively used to A: Increase tension or B: Induce panic in tough situations. Conversely, camera angles in Parasite Eve are used in the JRPG style - mostly for establishing shots and giving the player a good view of the environments. There are only a handful of shots that try to evoke fear in the player, such as a dutch angle on the hallway leading to the Police Station boss (which doesn't work anyway since they already showed everything occuring in the room via cutscenes), or a couple of hallways in the hospital. But even if they did want to use these techniques, they're limited by the fact enemies only exist in a secondary space outside the world, and teleport in when combat is triggered. So they could use a shot of a corridor in which the t-junction is not fully visible, but it's a waste of time since nothing is going to be there. You could still use these techniques for disturbing or shocking reveals of static images or cutscenes (turning a corner and finding your partner spread across the wall etc.), but I don't recall any examples of this from my playthrough. When PE uses the camera to hide something, it's just secrets or loot chests, which is again just how fixed angles are used in Squaresoft's other JRPGs.

You cite limited resources, but a great many games revolve around this feature and I explained why this doesn't work in the official RPG Codex review thread. Again, it's only a staple of survival horror when it's used in a way that effects fear in a player. In Resident Evil, limited ammo and health scare you because you know that getting through combat is almost guaranteed to drain your total resources and possibly leave you in a nigh-unwinnable situation later on. This forces to player to sometimes try to flee enemies instead of fighting them, but this too carries an inherent risk of being cornered and dying or losing more health. Similarly, the limited inventory means that sometimes you won't be able to pick something up that you need, forcing you to decide whether you need to replace another key item or resource for it, and then decide whether it's worth the risk of running the gauntlet or enemies again to pick it up later. In Parasite Eve, combat increases the player's overall power level, and when it does drain their resources, the most common items lost outside of boss fights (Medicine, status clear items and ammo) can be farmed with further combat. So the limited inventory doesn't really have any purpose beyond balancing combat a bit to prevent auto-potion spam.

Stuff like music or story is very subjective and not really worth arguing over. But I think you can see why the "survival horror" features you cited aren't actually being utilized in a way conducive to survival horror. Parasite Eve is not survival horror.

Ed123 Use tools to transfer a weapon or armor's stat boosts to another, OR their special abilities. You can only choose one of any stat or ability. After you do this, the weapon and tool will break. Use a super tool (rare) and only the tool will break.

FWIW I recall being confused a little at the start too.

Yeah I figured it out, thanks anyway.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Pac Man is also a survival horror: you have only three lives.
(and there are ghost)

Pac Man's camera is designed to give you an unimpeded view of the full level, therefore it is not a survival horror.
Nevertheless, it is fixed.

And fixed camera angles by themselves don't make a game survival horror, as I've established in my past videogame analysis series on youtube. I suggest donating to my patreon to get the 4k version.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
Also PSX aside, let's not forget that RE only coined the term "survival horror". Alone In The Dark introduced that formula 4 years earlier.
 

A horse of course

Guest
I've played an hour or two of Parasite Eve 2. Man that rural american twang is really getting on my nerves.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,084
Location
デゼニランド
Fear Effect is absolutely fucking awful, holy shit. It's like Dragon's Lair with lesbians.
Are you sure you played the original instead of the sequel?

I have fond memories of the original (although it has its fair share of issues), but the sequel (which actually has lesbians) wasn't very good.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Fear Effect is absolutely fucking awful, holy shit. It's like Dragon's Lair with lesbians.
Are you sure you played the original instead of the sequel?

I have fond memories of the original (although it has its fair share of issues), but the sequel (which actually has lesbians) wasn't very good.

No it was the first one, it's shit.
 

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