Killing enemies in your horror game is not scary btw

[bootywarrior43096]

People trash the original for having "bad combat" but the point of the combat is to make you feel desperate, and aside from the literal bosses it's often meant as a last resort. Forcing the player into claustrophobic corridors with enemies they can't avoid killing ruins any tension or horror that could possibly exist because it FORCES YOU to engage the monsters as normal video game enemies, instead of something to avoid and run from. I'm not gonna be scared trying to memorize obnoxious elden-ring style delayed dodge timings. Besides if I wanted to play a good horror action game why the hell would I play this remake when RE4 remake and dead space remake do it a billion times better??? The combat gets so much focus in this game and yet it's so simple.

[JOKER]

If you don't like it, don't buy it

[Linfried]

True. I felt like a warrior killing these monsters with my steel pipe! I went at the bosses up close and personal.

[bootywarrior43096]

Originally posted by Monke:

If you don't like it, don't buy it

.........i already bought and beat it?

[Mr. White]

That's a matter of personal opinion, and I happen to know a handful of people who can't handle scary at all. You'd be surprised how little it takes for some people to literally stop playing or watching something. Know a guy twice my size that can not watch anything scary.

With that aside I agree the purpose of limited mobility was always to create a sense of tension, and possible panic when it came to the appearance of enemies in older games. (While being true, it was MORE true that controllers just had limited function.) As games developed with time they all became a bit more action like, and I can not say I really know why.

I first noticed this in Resident Evil 5 where Chris got to machine gun through everything in the game, and turned resident evil into a cheap cod zombie simulator. That games release was when horror really took a dive for trying to be so much like an action game imp.

[FruitBat Man]

I don't think there's one way for a game to be horror.

[MapleOmega]

It's a balancing act. The OG you had to either run around or through enemies, ammo was mostly plentiful depending on your difficulty. All melee wasn't a viable option for all bosses But the point of survival horror is balancing resources. Can I sustain this with either my health kits, or my ammo. If not, run. But if you go too heavy in the other direction it becomes an action based kill fest. Luckily unlike Resident Evil, enemies don't drop ammo or health kits. Ironically I'd say the Lakeview hotel had the most balance of enemies in a given area. Apartments second, Brookhaven and Toluca prison had massive enemy density.

But even on hard mode, I never felt crunched for resources. Planning around my ammo or health was key to victory.

[FruitBat Man]

Originally posted by MapleOmega:

It's a balancing act. The OG you had to either run around or through enemies, ammo was mostly plentiful depending on your difficulty. All melee wasn't a viable option for all bosses But the point of survival horror is balancing resources. Can I sustain this with either my health kits, or my ammo. If not, run. But if you go too heavy in the other direction it becomes an action based kill fest. Luckily unlike Resident Evil, enemies don't drop ammo or health kits. Ironically I'd say the Lakeview hotel had the most balance of enemies in a given area. Apartments second, Brookhaven and Toluca prison had massive enemy density.

But even on hard mode, I never felt crunched for resources. Planning around my ammo or health was key to victory.

Turning off the lights still works really well for the straight jackets and sometimes the twin bodies... Though the twin bodies are less effective with this strategy...

The nurses pretty much don't make any sense to me. I almost have to approach them when they're twitching or they still turn around

[Titan]

In the original game it was incredibly easy to avoid almost all of the enemies in the game. And hell it was also incredibly easy to kill all of them, you just never would because there was no reason to since running by was quicker.

Having your enemies actually function as enemies and be a legitimate threat to the player serves the horror a lot better.

[Lucavi]

not every game needs to be a hide in the locker simulator like outlast.

[Aigonowaka]

Originally posted by MapleOmega:

It's a balancing act. The OG you had to either run around or through enemies, ammo was mostly plentiful depending on your difficulty. All melee wasn't a viable option for all bosses But the point of survival horror is balancing resources. Can I sustain this with either my health kits, or my ammo. If not, run. But if you go too heavy in the other direction it becomes an action based kill fest. Luckily unlike Resident Evil, enemies don't drop ammo or health kits. Ironically I'd say the Lakeview hotel had the most balance of enemies in a given area. Apartments second, Brookhaven and Toluca prison had massive enemy density.

But even on hard mode, I never felt crunched for resources. Planning around my ammo or health was key to victory.

I'm a gamer, but speaking from the standpoint of not being a good game player...
I would like to see a few more recovery items in the beginning of the game.
I'm a newcomer to TPS games, so I play on easy, but even on that easy, you'll have a terrible time if you try to take on the Lying Figures as if they were the original.
I know everyone will tell me to "save and try-and-error", or “it's TPS, so dodge”, but when the Mannequin swerved to avoid our attack and countered, it was honestly stressful.
Also, the enemies in the remake have trouble telling if they were able to finish the job or not.

[Bankruptcy]

Originally posted by Titan:

In the original game it was incredibly easy to avoid almost all of the enemies in the game. And hell it was also incredibly easy to kill all of them, you just never would because there was no reason to since running by was quicker.

Having your enemies actually function as enemies and be a legitimate threat to the player serves the horror a lot better.

grrrr noo you dont get it, its symbolic in the original that the enemies had bad ai!!!1! it shows that james is used to beating hospital nurses to death with lead pipes and running from the witnesses!

[Kenny]

I didn't mind the combat too much, even if it was simple, and horror is different for everyone. There was only like two times I had a genuine jumpscare, and it wasn't from combat. The only thing I don't like about the "combat" is exploring the map to find extra meds or ammo, but then you have to kill the one or two enemies guarding the meds or ammo, which then makes it a little pointless.

[Fenrir Deimos]

Originally posted by Titan:

In the original game it was incredibly easy to avoid almost all of the enemies in the game. And hell it was also incredibly easy to kill all of them, you just never would because there was no reason to since running by was quicker.

Having your enemies actually function as enemies and be a legitimate threat to the player serves the horror a lot better.

An argument can be made that because you didn't engage with the enemies in the original, they always stayed on the level, providing a constant ever-present threat. With how much more you had to run around back and forth through the same rooms and corridors compared to the more progress-based approach of the remake, it made sense.

In the remake, you are rarely expected to visit the same rooms again. At least much less so than the original. You're almost constantly moving forward. So it makes sense for the enemies to be more of a threat immediately and serve as a one-time obstacle, instead of... ehh... environmental hazard.

But I still do agree with the OP, though. A game like Silent Hill would benefit more from making enemies much more threatening to the point where not engaging should be considered a better option than just killing everything that comes at you.

Maybe not from the gameplay perspective, but from the overall presentation perspective since James is supposed to be an ordinary guy and not a professional monster killer, making enemies so dangerous you don't want to engage with them but also giving you the option to do so in desperate circumstances would be more in line with the narrative.

Another question is, how do you actually accomplish this through gameplay? It's easier said than done. So I believe Bloober did a decent job with combat considering the context. Probably not much they could have done beyond what they already did.

The only problem I have is that there are too many enemies so the game feels combat-focused as opposed to the original. But at the same time, the combat is too simplistic with a pretty low enemy variety and not much you can do aside from dodge spamming. This simplicity is not enough to support the volume of combat the game throws at you stretched across its playtime, so it becomes a chore eventually where you neither feel threatened by the monsters nor it is satisfying to fight them.

This especially shows on bosses, because they are a joke and as one poster noted above, you are pretty much compelled to get close and personal with them, abusing them with a pipe rather than feel scared and threatened by them you feel the need to empty your magazine at them because you don't want these things anywhere near you (as it was with the original, despite how simplistic te combat was there as well). So the climactic moments associated with them kinda flop and you end up feeling nothing after getting through them.

[naijii]

Originally posted by bootywarrior43096:

People trash the original for having "bad combat" but the point of the combat is to make you feel desperate, and aside from the literal bosses it's often meant as a last resort. Forcing the player into claustrophobic corridors with enemies they can't avoid killing ruins any tension or horror that could possibly exist because it FORCES YOU to engage the monsters as normal video game enemies, instead of something to avoid and run from. I'm not gonna be scared trying to memorize obnoxious elden-ring style delayed dodge timings. Besides if I wanted to play a good horror action game why the hell would I play this remake when RE4 remake and dead space remake do it a billion times better??? The combat gets so much focus in this game and yet it's so simple.

Depends on what you are playing on, Combat can be very hopeless and tense if you play on Hard difficulty, normal is still tense sometimes but not nearly as much as hard mode.

[M3gadeuce]

If anything, there's a section in Lakeside Hotel where you're unarmed and there's closers + straightjacket enemies are roaming around and you have to hide from them. Closers in this game are very strong so when you see them, they do add tension. And it's the first time in SH2 where you see closers walking on the ground instead of hanging on bars.