My issue with Mr. X isn't inherently that there is no risk/reward system for him; Nemesis was always superior when it came to this. No, ultimately, my issue is that he's around too much on top of everything else.
Well, that was not my experience at all. For the most part I was able to shake him off by taking him for a spin over at the library or going through the East side of the building and going up or down the fire escape. In my experience, he leaves well alone after you have put a few doors/rooms/corridors between you and him. Getting rid of him is not that much of an annoyance unless you are doing a speedrun. There is then also the fact that he just sods off once you go into one of the "safe spaces", of which BTW there are a lot of. OTOH, there's the S.TA.R.S. office, the Clock Tower, the room with the licker coming out through the glass, plus pretty much every save room. There was only one time he seems to have stuck around, and I think that was because he was trying to get out through a barred door and just stood in front of it instead of heading for the other one (this happened in the area outside the Clock Tower), but I think that is a bug, or simply AI derp.
Talking about AI, his AI is derpy indeed and easy to game. In the library for example, I found out that when I went up the ladder and ran towards the stairs, the guy would follow my trail up the ladder instead of taking a straight line towards the end of the stairs. He would only take the 'smart' approach if I was way down the stairs and pretty much on his face. It is odd that his AI is so goofy, given that most enemies have solid AI. Phase 1 Birkin, in particular, surprised me by consistently trying to 'ambush' me by appearing on the opposite side of a piece of cover instead of just blindly following me. I guess the fact that X's behavior is 'emergent' probably makes it harder for the devs to get his AI to perform as well as in the more scripted boss fights. In any case, his AI might require some patching, but as of now, it is quite exploitable.
Furthermore, if you have your routes well-planned out, have escape plans, and you know the station's layout (which you should by the time X starts pursuing), it is not that hard to prevent him from catching you with your pants down, and the only situations where you are really in danger are licker areas, and at least two of those have a safe room nearby (the S.T.A.R.S. office in the case of one, and the photo room in that of the other). I only really had three "Oh shit!" moments with him, and two of those were scripted (when you grab the Mechanic Jack Handle and getting out of the prison area), and thus cannot really be blamed on his
systemic behavior, which is what is being discussed here.
Overall, I think to the extent that he disrupts the player's leisurely exploration he is working as intended and, in my view, well-designed. He introduces an element of unpredictability to your campaign that prevents you from letting your guard down, even on replays and when you know the layout of everything by memory, thus enhancing replayability. I think the unpredictability is good because it amps the tension in the game. This is necessary more than ever because they really have toned down the scripted jump scares and ambushes that the franchise used to rely so heavily upon, up to and including 6. Mind you, I think this is a good thing, I was never a fan of them, and actually I think QTEs were the natural development of that kind of mindset. But without them it has to be admitted that things can feel too predictable and safe, so it's a good thing that X is now around to supply that element, but in a more systems-based and logical way. Still not perfectly logical, mind, I haven't quite figured out what's up with his teleport patterns, and I do wish Capcom did a better job of communicating his mechanics. Nevertheless, it still beats scripted "Gotcha!" moments.
I'm just now going through Claire B, and I felt very disappointed that he shows up in both scenarios.
It doesn't help the scenarios differentiate, that's for sure, but I think it was for the best overall. When you get back to the station from the parking lot, the place is pretty much empty, at least if you were thorough in cleaning it up the first time around. There are no respawns, or OTOH even new spawns in most areas . I think there is a new licker in the western corridor, and maybe some more zombies too if you didn't board up certain windows, but that's pretty much it. Of course, you get access to new areas with fresh zombies, but overall I feel that X is kind of essential for keeping the challenge up during that section (especially since a few of the new zombies can be killed before activating X). Also, there is no lore reason why X shouldn't pursue Claire too, especially in Claire A. After all, the T-00 has orders to eliminate all witnesses/survivors, not just Leon, plus recovering a G sample which, if anything, makes it more likely that it would bump heads with Claire and Sherry than Leon.
As for Nemesis, I have no idea of how they plan to implement him, sounds way more challenging to pull off than Mr. X. As has been mentioned, Nemesis is not just a brick approaching you in slow motion in order to punch you. Dude's hardcore and packs stuff like a gatling gun and a rocket launcher in some sections, not to mention those tentacles of his. The mechanic of the dynamic pursuer works well in Alien: Isolation because it is a very different kind of game to RE, it is a stealth/horror hybrid, where combat, level design, and resource management all took a back seat to, and supported, the stealth-horror gameplay. You were never meant to fight the Alien, you had to sneak past it and, at best, you were expected to repel it with a flamethrower on occasion.
With Nemesis, you have an enemy that is arguably more versatile than not only Mr. X, but even the Alien (ranged attacks), and you would be stuck trying to balance him in a campaign where the player cannot use stealth to avoid him. Seems impossible on paper, tbh, unless of course, they make some of the Nemesis sections stealth-based. They actually did this in - of all places - Resident Evil 6, where there is a section in which you have to sneak past Ustanak (the Nemesis clone) inside a mine. This is hilarious because RE6 was a game in which your chars are OP anyway and there is no real reason to make that section stealthy instead of a full-blown boss fight, except perhaps variety. Anyways, the section itself was lame and gimmicky, but perhaps they could make things more interesting for Nemesis.
That said, I am not a big fan of introducing stealth elements into RE; I liked how it was done with the lickers (especially since it did not involve any popamole 'crouching mode' stealth) since it fits their lore, sets them apart, is well-integrated with the overall systems and level/encounter design, and does not make them feel less threatening at all. If anything they now feel more foreboding due to them now being an ever-present menace rather than a mere 'resource tax'. However, making Nemesis sections stealthy would cheapen him somewhat IMO and also make him feel more generic. Not to mention that this would defeat the point of making Nemesis more systemic, as the stealth sections would have per force to be scripted, unless they are planning to turn the entire game into an Alien: Isolation style stealth game built around Nemesis, which would be ridiculous. If they are going that route they might as well use the system from OG 3, which quite frankly seems like the easiest and best way to go, but I doubt they'd go for that.
There is also, of course, the possibility that they will simply nerf Nemesis and make him more like Mr. X. But that would frankly be quite lame.
- Inventory interface looks bland.
That is something I really hate in this game and in RE7. I wish they did the same thing as in REmake.
Pretty much, I wish games these days paid more attention to little details like that, they can add a lot of charm and character to a game as they pile up. This is an area in which both OG RE2 and REmake are definitely cut above the remake of 2.
