Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Capcom and the PS1 (golden age of survival horror)

[Ash]

Martian Gothic.

+Spooky asf. The atmosphere is really good.
+Nice pre-rendered backgrounds
+cool 3-character gameplay implemented generally well. Same idea as the two-character system in RE:0, but more complex and interesting, and it came first.
+Very intriguing story. Possibly the most intrigued in a horror game's story & setting I've ever been. This and System Shock 2.
+Hard
+I love the intro music.

-It's possibly too hard. It has dev roots in adventure games, but not just any: vague hardcore asf ones apparently. Some situations will really test your patience. Use a guide when the game pisses you off, which it will.
-Lack of weapon and enemy variety
-Lack of challenge variety. It's mostly an adventure game with survival horror trappings, when it should be the other way around imo.
-It's lacking a certain something more. What that is is hard to pin-point. Set pieces/events, gameplay variety, story appeal later in the game, pacing. Hmm, perhaps tangible reward for the player's hard work. Oh and the main characters are a little dull.


It had the potential to be a true classic. In the end, it's a flawed gem.
It's definitely worth giving a shot to. You won't find games like this anymore. But I would recommend a bunch of other lesser-known Survival Horrors before it, Like Darkwood and Parasite Eve 2.

 

[Wunderbar]

DJOGamer PT it's Martian Gothic, i did a small review in the screenshots thread.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/screenshot-thread.72409/post-6510752

 

[Ash]

Easy to recommend if you're into the genre, it's completely by the numbers, you know ahead of time whether you will like it.

It's not by the numbers. It's not out there either, but it distinguishes itself from other survival horrors well enough.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Hey Wunderbar
I vaguely remember you talking somewhere about an obscure RE clone set in a pretty cool sci-fi setting taking place in Mars
What was the name of the game and would you recommend it?

Easy to recommend if you're into the genre, it's completely by the numbers, you know ahead of time whether you will like it.

Martian Gothic.

Last year, I was looking for some survival/exploration games to play, that actually have decent sci-fi plots (like the T-Virus in RE), colourful pre-rendered graphics; ideally something I could just jump into blind and experience without knowing controls, plot, or anything about them. I put together a list of PS1 and PS2 era 'pre-rendered' games like this, because I had such good fun with re-playing Dino Crisis 1. "Martian Gothic" was quite high on the recommendations. Some of the reviews came with reservations, perhaps difficulty as mentioned. There was also an under-ocean one that was recommended by the same sources, perhaps it was "Deep Fear" for the Sega Saturn:

It would be cool to hear people's thoughts and recommendations on this and other survival horror games. Both famous ones and obscure hidden gems. I'm still playing "Fatal Frame" at the moment, as mentioned on the last page; this is probably my favorite non-Capcom Eastern survival horror. I played "Cursed Mountain" on the Wii, mentioned on page one of the thread, this year, but found the controls became really frustrating about half-way through, which was a real pity. Apparently the PC version is better, using a mouse to enact the exorcism rituals, but I found the Wii mote terrible.

Some other survival horrors that were recommended when I was searching, were "Curse: The Eye of Isis" and "Rule of Rose" both on PS2. The first is set in a British museum in Victorian times, when an Egyptian curse unleashed by an object from antiquity. The second is onboard an airship, and I think is more psychological like Silent Hill. There is also "Kuon" by From Software, set in feudal Japan. I played "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Reqiuem" finally, which has been on my to-do list for years. I enjoyed the story, but it has some pretty clunky controls, which ruined the experience a bit.

 

[Alienman]

Extermination for PS2 is awesome as well, and should not be overlooked. It has some serious ammo juggling.

 

[Wunderbar]

I played "Cursed Mountain" on the Wii, mentioned on page one of the thread, this year, but found the controls became really frustrating about half-way through, which was a real pity. Apparently the PC version is better, using a mouse to enact the exorcism rituals, but I found the Wii mote terrible.

Cursed Mountain is not really a survival horror game. It's a clunky action-adventure where you collect notes and diaries, play simplistic minigames, break vases with an icepick, and occasionally shoot ghosts with a magic staff. There's no supply management, no ammo, no proper puzzles, no backtracking, etc.

Doesn't have anything interesting going on besides the neat setting.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I think some of these PS1/PS2 survival horror games do RPG stuff better than RPGs, and have better (more concise) SF/F plots. Similar to how boomer shooters like Heretic get 'dark fantasy' nailed way better than actual RPGs. Essentially the mansion in Resident Evil 1 is like a dungeon in tabletop. Each room is a scenario, resembling tabletop encounters. They each feel visceral, with few/important enemies, high lethality, not over-saturated mobs. The inventory is really limited. Atmosphere is astounding. Items matter, and are essential. The exploration, and clearing out of the mansion is damn satisfying. Rather than horror per se, RE 0/1/2/3/CV are more of an exploration game, with occasional jump scares. If anyone is wary of trying survival horror, due to the 'horror', know this; RE1 is actually a super satisfying map-revealing game, that does not overstay it's welcome. You can't afford to miss RE1 in a gamer's life.

Well, the thing is that's adventure games, and Resident Evil is a adventure game. Exploring location for keys and puzzles to open up new areas so you can go farther is what adventure games are all about. It's their foundational mechanic. It's what Colossal Cave Adventure did in the '70s, and whatever everything taking after it (stuff like Zelda, Kings Quest, Metroid, Maniac Mansion, Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress) has done since.

The original game's scenario writer Kenichi Iwao said some of his inspirations for the game were Alcazar and Fighting Fantasy game books.

Essentially the mansion in Resident Evil 1 is like a dungeon in tabletop. Each room is a scenario, resembling tabletop encounters.

This is an exaggeration, but it's not far from the truth either. Biohazard ofc. has its roots in Sweet Home, which was a JRPG and did the action much worse, but puzzles much better. Have you played it?

Sweet Home is really interesting. It's as if Capcom remade Maniac Mansion as a JRPG while using the movie Sweet Home as the basis for the story. Now I don't know if anyone at Capcom played Maniac Mansion, but when I first played that game years ago, the way each member of the group has their own special skill (and how you can only take three of the group at a time) made me think of Maniac Mansion. It's like the point and click adventure game Maniac Mansion crossed with the adventure game Zelda, but the combat system they went with was RPG.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I haven't played them in years, but I really liked Illbleed and D2 on the Dreamcast. Both of those games are doing more interesting things than most of the games that would follow in Resident Evil's footsteps.

Illbleed is also pretty funny. The original Resident Evil games, and especially the first game, had this kind of B movie feel to them thanks to the voice acting. With Resident Evil that was more incidental, (although I think it worked to the games advantage) but Illbleed leaned into that whole B movieness.

 

[Konjad]

The problem with horrors is they are actually rarely scary. Survival elements add to fun, but if the game makes you cringe "oh another zombie jumping out of a toilet" then no matter how good other elements of such horror are it gets boring.

The only games that ever genuinely scared me were Silent Hills due to great atmosphere, although some cheesy monsters (ie. the four-legs one in SH2 ) did not help. So it wins for me.

That said, Dino Crisis was a pretty fun dark adventure. F.E.A.R. ( and only the first one) was a very good shooter (AI was great), Alien: Isolation was quite good too.

On the other hand I could never get into RE due to cheap and annoying jump scares, but I'm not a fan of Amnesia-like games either where it's more of an adventure game but you hide once in a while (Penumbras were better, though I usually cheesed blocking monsters with boxes and other trash )

Although I enjoy dark and grim atmosphere I'm not a fan of the genre. I just like Silent Hill 1-4 a lot.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Cursed Mountain is not really a survival horror game. It's a clunky action-adventure where you collect notes and diaries, play simplistic minigames, break vases with an icepick, and occasionally shoot ghosts with a magic staff. There's no supply management, no ammo, no proper puzzles, no backtracking, etc.

Well, the thing is that's adventure games, and Resident Evil is a adventure game. Exploring location for keys and puzzles to open up new areas so you can go farther is what adventure games are all about. It's their foundational mechanic. It's what Colossal Cave Adventure did in the '70s, and whatever everything taking after it (stuff like Zelda, Kings Quest, Metroid, Maniac Mansion, Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress) has done since.

Agreed on "Cursed Mountain", now that I've played it. I didn't realise going in. If I made the topic again, I think I would make two topics/polls instead. One for voting on 'horror' of any kind, self-proclaimed by the developers, or broadly recognised as atmospheric, including the modern indie stuff coming out of the West. Some of them proclaim themselves 'survival horror' even though they have very few survival or adventure game elements. That is what the poll originally was; just horror that some internet list considered one genre, and wasn't high effort. The topic was more concerned with a special focus on classic PS1/PS2/Saturn/Dreamcast survival horror like "Dino Crisis" and "Resident Evil". Another topic/poll would be made just for these adventure game-style, console-style, 'survival horror' games pioneered by Eastern devs like Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Sega, etc.

The first would include things like "System Shock", "Soma", "Moons of Madness", "Call of Cthulhu", etc, Lovecraft games, walking simulators, atmospheric first-person shooters like "Doom 3", Clive Barker games, anything with the horror aesthetic, demonic invasions, etc. I can't even remember whether some of them, like "Dead Space", had puzzles/items or not, after all these years, so I'd have to watch gameplay of each. The second would purely be a celebration of the "Resident Evil"-like genre of adventure game, especially pre-rendered, or fixed-camera. I would take more effort to include many of those, in one poll including "Martian Gothic" and "Deep Fear"; the current one is just low-effort. The problem is that when you look at definitions, games can become quite blurred, to the point where horror is capable of including "Doom 1", or survival horror is coupled with 90% action.

Some traditional, or fixed camera, or pre-rendered, or adventure game, survival horror:

• - Resident Evil 0
• - Resident Evil 1
• - Resident Evil 2
• - Resident Evil 3
• - Resident Evil: Code Veronica
• - Dino Crisis 1
• - Dino Crisis 2
• - Silent Hill 1
• - Silent Hill 2
• - Silent Hill 3
• - Silent Hill 4
• - Fatal Frame 1
• - Fatal Frame 2
• - Fatal Frame 3
• - Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
• - Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water
• - Forbidden Siren 1
• - Forbidden Siren 2
• - Clock Tower 1
• - Clock Tower 2
• - Clock Tower 3
• - Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare
• - Echo Night 1
• - Echo Night 2
• - Echo Night: Beyond
• - Parasite Eve 1
• - Parasite Eve 2
• - Deep Fear
• - Martian Gothic
• - Galerians
• - Haunting Ground
• - Curse: The Eye of Isis
• - Rule of Rose
• - Kuon
• - Tormented Souls

Still 'horror' and exploration elements, but adding third-person or first person shooting:

• - Resident Evil 4
• - Resident Evil: Revelations 1
• - Resident Evil 5
• - Resident Evil: Revelations 2
• - Resident Evil 6
• - Resident Evil 7
• - Resident Evil 8
• - Cold Fear
• - Dead Space 1
• - Dead Space 2
• - Dead Space 3
• - Cursed Mountain

The list is incomplete, but you get the general idea. Anyone; feel free to take the bones as a template and flesh it out. Here is a list of PS2 ones by RacketBoy. Also a list of PS1 games, with very broad definitions, from a survival horror Wiki. I think I enjoy the adventure game elements of the genre more than the horror elements, but with horror atmosphere lends them an immediacy you don't really get in other adventure games.

 

[Morenatsu.]

There's a reason so many modern adventure games, hidden object games in particular, are of the "spooky mystery" variety, even though their target audience is 95% female/casual, the kind of demographic we tend to assume prefer cutesy cartoon indies.

i have a lot of experience with wombyns, and lemme tell you, bitches fukkin love GOASTS

 

[Wunderbar]

There's a reason so many modern adventure games, hidden object games in particular, are of the "spooky mystery" variety, even though their target audience is 95% female/casual, the kind of demographic we tend to assume prefer cutesy cartoon indies.

i have a lot of experience with wombyns

 

[Baron Dupek]

You can play as Nemesis in the original RE3
https://www.moddb.com/mods/resident-evil-3-nemesis-scenario

 

[OndrejSc]

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Dino Crisis 1&2 were heaven.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Still 'horror' and exploration elements, but adding third-person or first person shooting [...]

Many of these "modern" games have no exploration. They are basically linear corridor shooters.

 

[JDR13]

The original versions of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 are coming to GOG.

https://af.gog.com/game/resident_ev...l&utm_source=salesmanago&r=true&as=1649904300

 

[MasterofThunder]

I would love to see fans "remake" the original RE games with their backgrounds recreated in real-time, and the character models made to look like their CGI versions.

 

[Ash]

Yes, I love Resident Evil, I love the fixed cam angles, I love tank controls. That's probably why I don't enjoy Darkwood. That top-down perspective and twin-stick-shooter-style controls don't feel like survival horror to me, but remind of GTA, arcade games (polar opposite from survival horror) and indie shovelware. We are talking about survival horror here, you even acknowledge yourself that these things enhanced the horror experience. Tank controls with fixed cam angles are the perfect choice for this genre, since they create atmosphere and tension, they look great, and are perfectly fine from a gameplay perspective. I don't think you realise how much work goes into determining the exact cam positions for each scene in a game like RE so that they look great, feel tense and natural as well as play well. Calling fixed cam angles cheap and praising a lazy, ugly top-down view is crazy. Survival horror is more and better than a poor top-down shooter with modern survival element

Oof this is the biggest godawful take I have probably ever read on the internet. So basically, you love cinematic style more than you do actual game design and the collective whole of the experience. Darkwood achieves almost all the exact same goals as the classic survival horror and then some. The player is gimped in movement and actions which creates a similar degree of restriction and tension tank controls do, the inventory and resource management is tight and demanding, the exploratory and navigation component is there, death is consequential, the horror and tension is peak genre stuff, atmosphere so thick you almost expect mist to start leaking out of your monitor, and what retards that judge it in two seconds or based off of some youtube footage fail to realise, is that it has a high degree of cinematic and artistic merit too. This is without getting into the many, many things it contributes new to the genre that take it to the next level, or the nuanced little details. It is perhaps THE number one survival horror of all time, and an absolute must-play for any serious gamer.

I don't know why gamers must be so disappointing, like the urges I get to slap an ignorant dumb gamer is almost daily. Just urges, but they are there and they are justified. Play the game in full and then realize how wrong you are and return to apologize and thank me, jesus.

Facts and opinions aside, the main thing that makes me in the right and you in the wrong is that I have played it, in full. It is incorrect behavior to live a life being so confidently wrong, judging based on pre-conceived notions or knee-jerk reactions, then ranting on the internet about it when you have zero comprehension of it. Fix this behavior. It's something we all fall a little victim to sometimes but it is something one has to notice they are doing, or are tempted to do, and stop themselves sometimes.

Edit: not sure where you pulled that claim from either - I never said fixed camera angles are cheap. I like them. Resident Evil was the first horror game I beat at 10 years old. Still a classic. Silent Hill and all the rest of note were soon to follow. I've been with the survival horror since the beginning.

 

[Beans00]

Yes, I love Resident Evil, I love the fixed cam angles, I love tank controls. That's probably why I don't enjoy Darkwood. That top-down perspective and twin-stick-shooter-style controls don't feel like survival horror to me, but remind of GTA, arcade games (polar opposite from survival horror) and indie shovelware. We are talking about survival horror here, you even acknowledge yourself that these things enhanced the horror experience. Tank controls with fixed cam angles are the perfect choice for this genre, since they create atmosphere and tension, they look great, and are perfectly fine from a gameplay perspective. I don't think you realise how much work goes into determining the exact cam positions for each scene in a game like RE so that they look great, feel tense and natural as well as play well. Calling fixed cam angles cheap and praising a lazy, ugly top-down view is crazy. Survival horror is more and better than a poor top-down shooter with modern survival element

Oof this is the biggest godawful take I have probably ever read on the internet. So basically, you love cinematic style more than you do actual game design and the collective whole of the experience. Darkwood achieves almost all the exact same goals as the classic survival horror and then some. The player is gimped in movement and actions that creates a similar degree of restriction and tension tank controls do, the inventory and resource management is tight and demanding, the exploratory and navigation component is there, death is consequential, the horror and tension is peak genre stuff, atmosphere so thick you almost expect mist to start leaking out of your monitor, and what retards that judge it in two seconds or based off of some youtube footage fail to realise, is that it has a high degree of cinematic and artistic merit too. This is without getting into the many, many things it contributes new to the genre that take it to the next level, or the nuanced little details. It is perhaps THE number one survival horror of all time, and an absolute must-play for any serious gamer.

I don't know why gamers must be so disappointing, like the urges I get to slap an ignorant dumb gamer is almost daily. Just urges, but they are there and they are justified. Play the game in full and then realize how wrong you are and return to apologize and thank me, jesus.

Facts and opinions aside, the main thing that makes me in the right and you in the wrong is that I have played it, in full. It is incorrect behavior to live a life being so confidently wrong, judging based on pre-conceived notions or knee-jerk reactions, then ranting on the internet about it when you have zero comprehension of it. Fix this behavior. It's something we all fall a little victim to sometimes but it is something one has to notice they are doing, or are tempted to do, and stop themselves sometimes.

You wouldn't slap anything overage, stop acting tough fork would beat the fuck out of you lol.

 

[CyberWhale]

I like Avalanche covering survival horror games. Don't really always agree with him, but he obviously loves the genre and has a pretty pleasant voice. The end product are extremely cozy videos that are not only easy to fall asleep to, but also worth watching when you are concentrated enough to take in all the technical details and port comparisons.

P.S. this is a mostly short video only covering the specifics of the GOG release. Check out his compilation videos of RE games, and its clones (both older and modern ones) for a proper experience.