I like the game but the story is stupid...

[Dr.Acula]

When you play a game do you ever get that feeling that things just happen so the events in the game can happen and that nothing really makes sense as the events could've easily been avoided if the characters in a story make different choices?

For me it in RE Village I constantly had that feeling. It was pushed a bit back whenever I had fun with the gameplay and combat but as soon as more story sequences popped up I was like "oh right, the plot is still happening...". I had fun the main bosses and the character behind it but still...

Just to provide some context:
1. Right at the start - why is the Winters family in Romania? It's not exactly like that had to be removed from the US after RE7. At least I didn't see any information about why they moved out of the US. And by pure coincidence they seem to be rather close to the village where Miranda has her base of operations and the whole mold thing has its origins. How convenient...

2. Chris Redfield shows up killing Mia and doesn't even tell Ethan the most basic things about what is going on. A few simple sentences like "this is not Mia but Miranda who shapeshifted to be Mia and I don't know where Mia currently is" would've provided some context but then the "surprising" plot twists couldn't happen at the end, right?

3. Also why did the Chris Redfield team drive Ethan, Miranda and Rose close to the village where then everything unfolds? Wouldn't it have been more sensibel to go in the OPPOSITE direction? It's like they were specifically bringing them there so Miranda could get what she wanted.

4. Ethan is captured/surrounded multiple times by the bad guys and every single time the plot demands that he survives. Once is okay. Twice is somewhat managable but when you see it happening a lot times it becomes pretty obvious and it becomes harder and harder to take the bad guys seriously as they are obviously terrible at their job. For example Big Mama lady D comes into the room and grabs Ethan by the neck. Instead of breaking his neck killing him she bashes him into the floor multiple times for him to break through it, slip from her grasp and land in the dungeon again so he can run around free once more...

These are just a few examples among MANY MANY more. I still think RE village is overall a better game than RE7 and let's just say that RE7 has just as many stupid plot points as RE village has. Still the RE Village story falls apart as soon as anyone starts using brain cells to ask questions...

[potato]

resident evil stories have always been kinda schlock

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by potato:

resident evil stories have always been kinda schlock

Well you can even make schlock coherent and consistent within their own "world". But if you don't set up proper rules in how characters act and events can unfold then it very quickly it becomes pretty bad.

[geordiebroon58]

1. probably in some safehouse somewhere as chris is well aware of maranda and the megamyceed while ethan has no idea what so ever

2. all chris really had to say was "that wasnt really mia now come on" but this is also answerd within the game just before hisenburg which chris states he doesnt want ethan being involved, later on he admits to that dumb choice his later on

3. plot convenience obviously, but my bestbet on an actual reason for this is maybe taking ethan to the closest evac point which might be a base setup just outside the village no one expected maranda to mimic a dead body

4. this is false this only happens twice
A. where you enter the castle just to be ambushed by hisenburg which is directly a purpose of introducing the bad guys and your escape is directly explained by hisenburg thinking you died to his trap

B. you are ambushed by the sisters where they put you on the hook to leave you hanging there as they probably did to meany others but ethan manages to break the hook (probably all rusted and weakend) and use the convinent heal on the table next to him (plot convenience so you arent actually using your own heal despite semi breaking this rule later on...)

5. its a videogame after all and up untill re7 these games werent exactly well kowen for its story..... Just enjoy the damn game you dont really question these things

RE2 (original) logic is broken as hell where leon and claire are running round the same area of the building at the same time finding and using the same 4 keys despite leon / claire having them already and not seeing eachother once yet somehow when you get to the weponary storage if leon takes the backpack uzi then claire cant get it and to top it off all the doors are locked somehow despite leon and claire unlocking them at the same time

but no one questioned it as its just a game

[Dr.Acula]

1. You're guessing. There is no sensible explanation for why Ethan and Mia moved to Romania. And if they moved there because Chris told them to do it then he intentionally moved them into a trap while he pretended that he wanted to keep Ethan out of it.

2. The comments towards the end is the writer realizing they screwed up with the beginning and going back to fix it would've required to much effort. So this was a lame excuse trying to wave it away with the character saying it was a bad choice. It doesn't make the beginning sensible. It's just a way to make the player aware that the writer knows it was not sensible.

3. The part where they said they couldn't imagine Miranda faking a dead body is just completely ridiculous. Chris has seen so much insane stuff throughout the RE games that Miranda faking being dead is incomprehensible to him and that he believes a few bullets from his gun would easily finish her off? You can't seriously believe that.

4. No it happened more than twice.
In the castle after the villain introductio you already had three cases:
A. The daughers capturing Ethan which ends with him being on a hook while they leave the roomg (stereotypical villain cliche - no one there to guard him)
B. Lady D grabbing Ethan in her room smashing through the floor for no reason instead of just killing him
C. The scene where Lady D just cuts of his hand instead of his head. She came from behind him and had the element of surprise. Easy victory...

And this is just one section of the game. There were more cases before and after.
Btw. the scene with Heisenberg and the chair right next to the hole was also so predictable and not really sensible. It's like Heisenberg wants to kill him because Ethan refuses his offer but won't dirty his own hands and just throw him into the pit with the propeller cyborg. Another typical "villain being stupid" cliche.

5. Please stop trying to make excuses with comments like "it's a game bro. Just turn your brain off and enjoy it".

Btw. I did say right at the start that I had fun playing the game. I'd even rate it a 7/10 overall. Still the story is incredibly stupid and the events still are not really making any sense and I think criticism should always be possible so that maybe in a future game they can improve the writing...

[MonkeyBone]

You're not wrong, the writing for these games went way downhill starting with 7. RE may not have ever been known for it's storytelling but it still produced enjoyable plots that had some thought put into it. For example in RE4 Krauser is a double agent working for Wesker to not only obtain the sample but to keep an eye on Ada as well, in REmake 4? he's just another cultist.
RE8's plot though is real bad even by RE standards for many reasons you posted. Keeping Ethan in the dark? assuming Miranda was dead even though Chris KNOWS that mould infected calcify as they die, downgrading Spencer and the whole of Umbrella, Ethan thinking it's absolutly normal to GLUE A HAND BACK ON. It's mind numbing at how bad the plot is.
It speaks to the games strengths that despite these issues I still enjoy it quite a bit, but plot reasons aren't why I play it at all. Hell I don't really consider it an RE title.

[geordiebroon58]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

1. You're guessing. There is no sensible explanation for why Ethan and Mia moved to Romania. And if they moved there because Chris told them to do it then he intentionally moved them into a trap while he pretended that he wanted to keep Ethan out of it.

2. The comments towards the end is the writer realizing they screwed up with the beginning and going back to fix it would've required to much effort. So this was a lame excuse trying to wave it away with the character saying it was a bad choice. It doesn't make the beginning sensible. It's just a way to make the player aware that the writer knows it was not sensible.

3. The part where they said they couldn't imagine Miranda faking a dead body is just completely ridiculous. Chris has seen so much insane stuff throughout the RE games that Miranda faking being dead is incomprehensible to him and that he believes a few bullets from his gun would easily finish her off? You can't seriously believe that.

4. No it happened more than twice.
In the castle after the villain introductio you already had three cases:
A. The daughers capturing Ethan which ends with him being on a hook while they leave the roomg (stereotypical villain cliche - no one there to guard him)
B. Lady D grabbing Ethan in her room smashing through the floor for no reason instead of just killing him
C. The scene where Lady D just cuts of his hand instead of his head. She came from behind him and had the element of surprise. Easy victory...

And this is just one section of the game. There were more cases before and after.
Btw. the scene with Heisenberg and the chair right next to the hole was also so predictable and not really sensible. It's like Heisenberg wants to kill him because Ethan refuses his offer but won't dirty his own hands and just throw him into the pit with the propeller cyborg. Another typical "villain being stupid" cliche.

5. Please stop trying to make excuses with comments like "it's a game bro. Just turn your brain off and enjoy it".

Btw. I did say right at the start that I had fun playing the game. I'd even rate it a 7/10 overall. Still the story is incredibly stupid and the events still are not really making any sense and I think criticism should always be possible so that maybe in a future game they can improve the writing...

1. fair enough

2. dont even think its that they prob knew right from the start that the idea is flawed and arent even trying to hide it, they are giving it an explamation at least and stupid or not its something being self answerd

3. i mean thats against what is normall huge beasts etc not something that just seems like the equivlent of normal zombie, the only reason i could somewhat agree with this statment is because of him fighting wesker but even then he doesnt actually fake any injuries, this is the first time as far as im aware that tere has been someone / something mimicking its death, at best you got was in original resident evil the zombies drop to the floor and then try to grab you

4 you stated "captured / surrounded" ethan getting his hand cut off was an ambush attack not a capture

5. im so used to people just making excuses like "this isnt realistic" in games that its became a joke on its own. if you want a game unrealistic BS has to happen every so often

sure the game couldve been prevented by driing the oppisit direction but then you wouldnt get a game and get this why didnt maranda just take rose to begin with, why go through all the effort of pretending to be mia for who knows how long to just kindap rose anyways, coulda just killed ethan right there and then and flew off with rose before chris had a chance to even figure out maranda was pretending to be mia

or as i pointed to re2 classic the whole side b thing makes literal no sense what so ever

the only reason i can see somewhat caring about the story is because they did more emphasis on it than the terrible bad acting of re1 but thats just more of a times change thing than they are driving these games into heavy story focus

6. sorry if it came across that im ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on you for hating the game or the story or something as i am not but rather its questioning a games bs when resident evil was never even knowen for its good writing to begin with.

the story begins to fall apart when you use your brain cells and start asking questions with any re game or just in general even

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by geordiebroon58:

4 you stated "captured / surrounded" ethan getting his hand cut off was an ambush attack not a capture



or as i pointed to re2 classic the whole side b thing makes literal no sense what so ever

I counted attacks from behind in the same category as being surrounded because Lady D for example is big enough to surround you on her own. But I should've included "surprise attacks" as its own thing. Fact of the matter remains that there is to many "plot armor" situations which affects tension in a negative way as you can't take bosses serious anymore when they constantly fail at killing you at "good" opportunities.

Originally posted by geordiebroon58:

sure the game couldve been prevented by driing the oppisit direction but then you wouldnt get a game and get this why didnt maranda just take rose to begin with, why go through all the effort of pretending to be mia for who knows how long to just kindap rose anyways, coulda just killed ethan right there and then and flew off with rose before chris had a chance to even figure out maranda was pretending to be mia

You're absolutely right on this one. They used it to "make the game happen". However it's a bad way to make it happen when a player constantly ends up thinking "well this could've been easily avoided". It's just like in RE7 where Ethan walks further into the house even after seen animal cadavers at the entrance and corpses in the cellar. And sensible person would turn around, walk away and get the police. But because the game had to continue Ethan walked further into the house which then to me is "well Ethan only has to blame himself for anything bad that happens to him" killing all my sympathy I could have for him.

Anyway it's the responsibility of the writer to come up with a sensible scenario on why a character is at the location where the game happens in the first place. In older RE games it usually worked out pretty okay as you had something like special police force members that were sent in to investigate or retrieve something which then through events got stuck in the situation and tried to get out.

For Ethan's storyline nothing has made sense in terms of setup in neither game which is a pretty big flaw unfortunately.

If I had written RE7 I probably would've started it something like this:

Mia and Ethan are on vacation in a quiet cabin in the woods where they just want to relax while celebrating their first anniversary of marriage. Mia picked the location and Ethan doesn't really like it as it looks creepy. Obviously Mia picked it because of her Umbrella and Evelyn connection (which is revealed later in the game) and she's there to investigate what is going on with the Baker family. Mia and Ethan get attacked during the night and kidnapped by the Jack Baker and carried to their house (events initiated by Evelyn to get her caretaker back or something like it). Ethan is just thrown into a cell with the intention of turning him (Evelyn trying to get a "family"). And this could be where you then actually start the first game....

Ethan would be dragged into it due to his connection to Mia without really knowing anything about her past with Umbrella (or what that company even does with viruses) and his goal would just be to find his wife and escape. He could be a perfectly sympathetic character in that situation.

RE8 as a follow up could still be in Romania but you'd also need a completely different setup compared to what you currently have. I can't think of anything sensible at the moment though.

Btw. I don't hate RE8 (I despise RE7 though). I consider its story simply as so bad it's fun though which just means I can enjoy it for what it is while making fun about how stupid it is.

It's somewhere on the same level as the first Doom movie with Karl Urban and The Rock. That story in the movie is horrible but it's still fun to watch. It's guilty pleasure of mine.

[Planetesimal]

Originally posted by MonkeyBone:

You're not wrong, the writing for these games went way downhill starting with 7 [...]

I disagree. RE 5 and 6 are mindnumbingly bland storywise. Village was way more engaging to me, albeit flawed. I share OPs sentiment that little made sense, but I feel a little more forgiving since the storytelling is well executed and a fun ride.

[Krem]

Yea this is just Resident Evil, none of it ever made sense. It was all bad and constantly retconned people just have a fantasy from their childhood that those games had stories that "made sense in their own world". Honestly go experience the lore of original RE1, then go through all the games to zero and just look at all the inconsistency, the illogical behavior of all characters, and storylines that made little to no sense. Like when they had to make up Marcus because the entire Racoon City incident made no sense. People in here keep referencing 4 for a reason, it was the game with the the most logical story other than sending Leon into a tactical mission with just 10 bullets and a first aid spray. Then we have resident evil 5 and 6, which yea I need not say anything more than that. So don't worry about nonsense and plot holes, they will make another game where they make up new stuff that negates those and creates new ones as they always have and will.

[Giant Wasp Face]

You know, I genuinely liked how Resi 7 took a few steps back and told a more focused story. Something smaller scale, more personal, and more or less unconnected to the tangled mess that constitutes the larger Resident Evil world (until they shoved Chris in at the end, anyway). Quite like Resi 4 did; just add a couple of familiar things here and there, like a returning character or two, or some nods to larger events, but keep the story scaled back and distinct from previous iterations. I think there's a lot of potential for exploring the stories of ordinary civilians caught in the midst of these horrific BOW outbreaks.

But no, Capcom just can't help themselves. It's like watching a drug addict relapse; every time you think they're moving forward they fall off the wagon and it's back to Umbrella and Chris and explosions and all that crap again, only this time, for reasons already outlined in this thread, absolutely NOTHING makes sense now. Don't get me wrong: I'm not expecting the Resi version of War and Peace, and story telling has never been the strong suit of this series, but it's just so intensely bloody stupid that it takes me out of the game and impedes my enjoyment of it.

[Dr.Acula]

Small and personal stories can be really interesting if they are well told. They should make sense though.

[Mayon]

fair enough, but it's just a video game after all. It's like, if they want it then this is it

[WattledMirror28]

1. Maybe it wasn't "Mia" who decided to move to Romania. If you know what I mean.
2. Yeah, it's a wacky piece of crap.

[WattledMirror28]

Just realized she's called Mia. As in M.I.A. haha

[lucent]

I really didn't look too deep into the story. You had a handful of family members that had something you needed and you went to go get it.

What really gets me is all this dream state in games anymore. Sure, it gives the developer a lot of open freedom in creativity. But sometimes it feels like it gets out of hand, to the point of things not making sense.

Playing The Evil Within 2 was constantly dreaming through out the game. Is this a dream, an illusion or am I actually fighting this guy. Sometimes it's a little over kill.

Even in The Guardians of the Galaxy, the main character kept having dreams and long ones. I get it, you loved your mother but I don't remember you dreaming this much in the movie.

I think if you do it too much, you lose the audience.