After playing the demo and watching multiple trailers, I'm a bit sceptical about it. Although, it's great to find a new game leading to the horror roots, but not the right roots. All of you guys out there who are loving this game's trailers might be thinking to yourself "What are the 'right roots?" Well there are many roots of horror. Hello Wandering Traveler and welcome to this thought blog.
A Walking Horror
If you don't know, a walking horror is a horror game relying on observation and the area the player's in. Kind of like a haunted house event near the neighborhood. Sounds like P.T. (I will be comparing this demo to P.T. very often). They put you in a location no one would want to go and have you walk through it. If you couldn't tell, Resident Evil is not that kind of game. The game will force you to walk in unwanted areas, but won't have that be the reason why you're scared or frightened. They will add in Monsters or Zombies to have as a dangerous obstacle. In today's standards this doesn't sound very scarey, but Resident Evil was known for it's save areas.
A typewriter or a phone would act as a save point as the game would throw in awful situations, making you fear your demise. In my opinion, that's what made Resident Evil famous. The thought of dying is still a feared concept, but isn't much of one in games. You either had infinite lives or countless checkpoints to keep your precious progress. The one game to bring that back was the RE inspired game, Dead Space.
That image was a beacon of light, a sigh or relief, a chance to stop playing. Unless you played on easy, it was hard to get there. Enemies would be coming out of nowhere and bringing you health down to almost zero. You had to get there, and if you didn't you would have to start over from the earliest save. That is a fear that has genuine feeling to it and it can never be gotten use to.
With the gameplay of the RE7 demo, it seems to be lacking in any of that. Although, just a demo, but if this represents what the final product might be, then I might think on calling it just Biohazard instead of Resident Evil.
Copying A Similar Great Game
I know many of you might think I'm taunting the developers for copying P.T.'s awesome and mysterious gameplay, but I'm not. I'm simply just pointing out that this is the inspiration, but the wrong inspiration.
Don't get me wrong, I want to play RE7, but is it an RE7 game? This is the question I ask any RE fan that can't wait for this game. And they think and do the same thing I'm doing. You see it in a new light and find that some it isn't going to be a "NEW!" Resident Evil we are hoping for. I mean, yes. I want to see someone else than Chris Redfield or Leon Kennedy, why couldn't they do what they did with Resident Evil 4?
Resident Evil 4 was going to be a hack and slash game, but was later renamed as Devil May Cry (Another otherwise great game). After a few years, they made a new Resident Evil 4 without Zombies. It was still the same game, but with different gameplay mechanics. It used the old mechanics such as the Typewriter Save Station, but made the game harder and placed those save stations farther apart.
With the gameplay of the demo, it seems like they want to replace Silent Hill (Again another great game), and I don't want to see that! That what I really don't want to see. Seeing Halo turn into a CoD clone was far enough for me.
The Lack of Resident Evil Characters
In my opinion, this is a great thing. I don't want to see the same character in every game. I want to see more and more characters to be created side by side, but this can make the game hard to label as Resident Evil because of that.
We know many characters like Jessica from Revelations or Piers from the unliked Resident Evil 6. Why not more? The characters seen in the gameplay trailers and demo has people greeted to new people of the series. Although, these don't look anything from Resident Evil, Neither does the villains or monsters. They just look like something similar to The Hills Have Eyes.
I'm not liking many of these character we are shown and I'm getting more and more sceptical as the game get more reveals. I'm trying my hardest to be excited for this game, but I just can't for the likes of me.
Conclusion
Although, I'm very sceptical about the game, I still can't wait to see the game. I'm not excited for the game, but I would like to see the final product before I start to hate on it. Anyways, I hope you like this read somewhat and what do you think about the game? I know that's a big question before it's release, but what do you guys think about it now? Do you think the game is going in the right direction? You can tell me, but 'til next time...
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