Standard Mode should have limited saves

[burningmime]

I played my first 2 runs (Leon A/Claire B) on Hardcore. I *really* enjoyed my first run, and though the Claire B was mostly the same content, I liked the game so much that it didn't feel bad to replay. Then I played Leon B in Standard, and realized this game sucks. It's a lot of fetch quests through the same areas with really basic/unsatisfying combat, little enemy variety, a B-movie zombie story, and even with all the repeated content it's like 5 hours for a casual playthrough, which is way too short for a $60 game.

When the game is rear-iris-puckeringly hard, these things serve a purpose and are actually good. The backtracking helps you plan out what inventory items to carry with you, and lets you decide whether to spend ammo on threats or leave them and have to deal with them later. The combat is basic instead of a real shooter, but it means it's very predictable. It's much more about decision making and risk management than about reflexes.

I think the main thing that makes Hardcore mode fun is the limited saves and limited inventory slots. These are really important to the game, and make your decisions count. If you want to replay an area to not lose health or use less ammo, you might be set back 30 minutes or more. You can also screw up and not have enough healing items or ammo to take on a boss fight and need to go back a long way. This fear and tension *is* the game. When you strip that away, it's just a mediocre, slow shooter with nice graphics.

Which makes me think the default difficulty should be "hardcore lite" (smaller inventory and limited saves, but the combat difficulty of Standard). The game would be better for new players coming in. When you give unlimited saves and a bunch of inventory slots, so much of the fun - and horror - of the game is replaced by tedium. "Lost some health? Oh well, reload 2 minutes ago or use one of the 50 herbs you're swimming in."

I'd never played an RE game before this. If I had started on Standard, I would have played 2 hours and refunded it with a review like "combat sux don't buy". I did Hardcore with the idea that if it was too difficult, I'd go back to Standard, and managed to make it through (although G2 almost had me restart; I might have died 20 times on that chuckle♥♥♥♥). I'm glad I did, but also sad that Capcom is robbing other players of this experience by taking all the tension out of Standard difficulty.

Anyways, enough ranting. Off to try more of Resident Evil HD now.

=============

EDIT: for people w/o reading comprehension: I *LOVE* this game on hardcore.

I think Capcom made a mistake by not having limited saves on standard, and I think the only people who will enjoy it are people who played the original and are blinded by nostalgia (seems like 95% of players here and most reviewers) or people who play on hardcore.

Objectively, the game is way too short for $60, has very basic combat with little variety, and a bunch of fetch quests/backtracking. The threat of losing progress and the tension provided by that is what makes this game fun.

[Captain Raynor]

If you are looking for a shooter go play CoD or battlefield series out there. This is a survival horror game. RE is all about solving puzzles and mysteries while trying to survive from zombies and mutated monsters. It's been like this since the very first Resident Evil. 4, 5, 6 deviated from this core idea. If you are not enjoying this, perhaps this is not a game for you?

[burningmime]

Originally posted by Captain Raynor:

If you are looking for a shooter go play CoD or battlefield series out there. This is a survival horror game. RE is all about solving puzzles and mysteries while trying to survive from zombies and mutated monsters. It's been like this since the very first Resident Evil. 4, 5, 6 deviated from this core idea. If you are not enjoying this, perhaps this is not a game for you?

That's my point. I enjoyed it a lot when it was about surviving. But Standard mode (with unlimited saves) takes that away and turns it into a shooter.

[olstar18]

Then you have 2 choices. Either dig out your ps1 and play the original or play on hardcore.

[talgaby]

Limited saves or lives are an archaic system and should be forgotten or, the better alternative, reduced to hard mode status. Losing progress and replaying entire sections of the game, especially on normal mode where most people play, is just a pointless method to expand game time for no real reason beyond extending it. If someone struggles with a section, forcing them to replay the non-struggling parts is just bad game design. Same goes for unskippable cut-scenes, especially before boss encounters.

The only thing I would probably write off as a negative regarding the limited save system here is that hardcore is way too lenient with ribbons. I would be okay with 20, plenty of save opportunities to punish players for messing up but still keeping it in the possible to complete range.
The real actual high difficulty lies in the S+ rank attempts and weekly challenges anyway.

[burningmime]

Originally posted by olstar18:

Then you have 2 choices. Either dig out your ps1 and play the original or play on hardcore.

I did play on hardcore, and am planning another run on hardcore. But limited saves should be the default on normal mode. I'm saying Capcom made a mistake.

If my first play had been on Standard, I would have refunded the game. Because I played hardcore, I really got into it. I think Capcom's decision to make it this way is robbing other new players of a good experience, and making it something only nostalgic veterans can enjoy.

Originally posted by talgaby:

Limited saves or lives are an archaic system and should be forgotten or, the better alternative, reduced to hard mode status. Losing progress and replaying entire sections of the game, especially on normal mode where most people play, is just a pointless method to expand game time for no real reason beyond extending it. If someone struggles with a section, forcing them to replay the non-struggling parts is just bad game design

That's true for some types of game. But in what way can a horror game actually threaten you as a player to increase the tension? The threat of losing a lot of progress (or not having enough ammo/health and needing to go way back) is actually scary; it provides actual tension and difficulty. The same thing is true in Dark Souls/Bloodborne -- you don't get to restart right at teh beginning of a boss; you're punished for losing the boss battle by needing to spend several minutes running to the boss. Rougelites are a whole genre about punishing death by forcing players to replay content.

It's not "no real reason". Without the fear of losing progress, there's no tension.

[talgaby]

I have plenty of enough tension with the save system as it is. I saw people crapping their pants on live stream despite save scumming like hell. This type of game is never scary because you can lose progress, it is scary because you have to know when something is trying to bite your buttocks off.
RE2 is a tense game even with unlimited saves, the fact that you have to reach a save point is tense enough for many people.
For the rest, they have the S+ limited save requirement to replace the high tension that comes from progress loss.

However, in 2019, mandatory progress loss with a save system that does not have properly designed checkpoints is something reserved for indie titles with artificially bloated difficulty or games that really want to kill themselves as players will just abandon it if they get bored by replaying the same sections repeatedly. Not every game has the Dark Souls player demographic. (Not to mention that as popular as that series is, in reality, abysmally few of its buyers ever finished any of them.)

[burningmime]

Originally posted by talgaby:

I have plenty of enough tension with the save system as it is. I saw people crapping their pants on live stream despite save scumming like hell.

Streamers ham it up for viewers. People want to watch them be scared. That's not a very good argument at all. Also, jump scares can startle anybody, but I wouldn't pay for a series of jump scares.

This type of game is never scary because you can lose progress, it is scary because you have to know when something is trying to bite your buttocks off.
RE2 is a tense game even with unlimited saves, the fact that you have to reach a save point is tense enough for many people.
For the rest, they have the S+ limited save requirement to replace the high tension that comes from progress loss.

However, in 2019, mandatory progress loss with a save system that does not have properly designed checkpoints is something reserved for indie titles with artificially bloated difficulty or games that really want to kill themselves as players will just abandon it if they get bored by replaying the same sections repeatedly.

Would the original Resident Evil games be popular if they were as easy as this game is on standard? Would people have fond memories if they could beat them in 5 hours? Because it's 2019 do we have to throw away what was great from the past?

The save system was a good thing, and a big part of the game design.

Not every game has the Dark Souls player demographic. (Not to mention that as popular as that series is, in reality, abysmally few of its buyers ever finished any of them.)

Source on that?

As I said, if I started on Standard difficulty, I straight up would have refunded this game. Because if you look at it objectively...

* The combat is slow and repetitive.
* There is very little variety in weapons and enemies.
* There is 6-8 hours of content. Except it's actually more like 2 hours of content that you backtrack through. And they're charging $60 for it.
* Nearly the entire game consists of fetch quests.

If you take off your nostalgia glasses for a second, what part of this game is good and worth $60? The visuals, atmosphere, and story are all pretty great, but that alone doesn't make a game. The thing that makes it fun is the tension, and there's no tension when you can save scum and resources are plentiful.

Taking away limited saves takes away the "survival" aspect entirely, and arguably also takes away the "horror" aspect, because what's there to be scared of?

[burningmime]

Originally posted by holychair:

I agree with OP. I was always of the opinion that ink ribbons belong to the essence of the RE survival horror classics and should be in all diffficulty modes. They are part of resources management and also contribute to the "dying-means-something" feeling, And in fact, dying and doing a section better/more successful next time, is a good and rewarding thing too - like in a platformer or shmoop. If RE titles were just story-heavy games you play one time, I'd agree that limited saves make no sense, but RE games were always meant to be played multiple times.

Even if there'd be a more generous amount of them in standard and assisted mode, they still would at least prevent save scumming. In a more linear setting, just having typewriters might suffice (like the save stations in Alien: Isolation - those worked because the game was actually quite linear), but in a metroidvanian setting, with lots of backtracking, the "save stations" have to be complemented by something that actually limits saves.

What I think is that Capcom is always much too cautious, fearing that real survival horror elements will deter potential buyers - that's why they took soooo long to bring survival horror back with baby steps since Revelations 1. And we're still not quite there yet.

Have you tried playing them on an emulator? I like the setting/look of these games but don't have a 3DS

[RopeDrink]

If you're confident on Hardcore then there's really no reason to play on Standard anyway - even less reason to remove appeal for the less hard-minded playthrough by adding that ancient system to what is meant to be 'standard' difficulty for those who would prefer a more forgiving experience. Hell, why not add it to the auto-play difficulty as well for giggles? Right, because its presence is denoted by being the harder difficulty. You know, Hardcore, for people who want a more Hardcore experience. Not everyone is you.

Your suggestion is moot (borderline pointless) and your critique is mere preference. If you're going to boil the game down to such basics (hurr-durr, just back-tracking and item-gathering), then we can equally say 99% of shooters just involve hovering a mouse over a target and pressing LMB until you win - we both know that is not all that is to it.

[talgaby]

Link to what, low DS completion? The highest percentage of any of the ending in the series is usually in the mid-10 percent range, roughly 1 in 6 people who started the game. PSNtrophies has a better percentage (40+), but it is a voluntarily site, not a global aggregation like Steam's.

[Decomposed]

I don't buy the whole 'this game would suck and I would have refunded it immediately if I started it on Standard, but no the game is amazing and rocks because I played it on Hardcore where saves are limited'.

Really? Sorry, but this thread (or at least the way you are trying to put your point across) is beyond ridiculous.

[Decomposed]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Your suggestion is moot (borderline pointless) and your critique is mere preference. If you're going to boil the game down to such basics (hurr-durr, just back-tracking and item-gathering), then we can equally say 99% of shooters just involve hovering a mouse over a target and pressing LMB until you win - we both know that is not all that is to it.

^Exactly.

[RopeDrink]

* The combat is slow and repetitive.

Much like how it was in the original(s). You know, emphasis on avoidance rather than ActionManLeon of RE4 kicking heads off Ganados like they're made of paper, except it is modernized - some would even say far better. This was never going to be an action-game if it was any way faithful, outside of the final act (much like all of them, due to the philosophy of the designers of all past RE's).

* There is very little variety in weapons and enemies.

Aside from the cut Spiders/Crows/Moths, pretty much identical. Zombies of various types, Lickers, Dogs, G-Adults and G-Spawn, Plant-Zombs, Mr.X (two form), Birkin (five form), not including GS-Content with regen/poison/armour zombies, or the one-shot-croc (and anything else I may have missed).

Do keep in mind the game is a remake of an older one and has the vast majority of that bestiary intact, similarly for weapons.

* There is 6-8 hours of content. Except it's actually more like 2 hours of content that you backtrack through. And they're charging $60 for it.

I wager it takes 6-12+ hours for a person to complete an A campaign for the first time - likely much more, especially those lapping up the atmosphere and taking their time. This does not include shuffled re-run B scenario or the differences in story, re-runs for achievements/timed unlocks (which a lot of people have done), or the difficulty said people play at. I seem to recall my first A scenario being 11hrs of slow-paced and cautious enjoyment, followed by an equally long B-Run. Does not include 4th Survivor, Tofu and the four mini-games via Ghost Survivors, even if some people might only enjoy completing them a single time (as opposed to efficiency/speed-runners looking for the shortest no-damage runs possible).

Again, anything can be boiled down to under-exaggerated numbers if you're purposely going to squash it into a shape that fits your argument. See above point about 'this game is just a 2hr fetch quest' is akin to calling a shooter '5minutes of hovering a mouse over a target and pressing LMB to win, stretched over X hours'.

Your argument also goes in the face of the original which, you know, can be completed in no time by anyone who knows what they're doing. What's the world record at now, 1hr? Better blame them for stretching 1hr across the countless tens/hundreds of hours people have spent enjoying normally, right?

* Nearly the entire game consists of fetch quests.

Incorrect term used in other genres. Yes, you go around trying to efficiently plot how to go about rotating needed items and making progress using them. Let's not pretend like this wasn't what the originals were all about.

sad that Capcom is robbing other players of this experience by taking all the tension out of Standard difficulty.

Robbing people of an experience... When it is entirely their own choice... Right. I know FAR more people who went from Standard to Hardcore (as most people would do) than I do Hardcore to Standard, and very few of them complained. Some even felt intimidated and wanted to build themselves up to it. As such, I would argue that some might regard going from Hardcore to Standard is just robbing yourself, not the other way around - but to me it's still a debate of preference rather than substance, thus no point.

I view this whole thing as paintbrushing a view over others as if one train of thought applies to everyone. Irony is I have almost 70hrs put into RE2-R and I haven't even played Hardcore as I am not interested in achievements, unlockables etc, but I could easily dive right in and enjoy some Hardcore RE if I wanted another go and with absolutely no love-lost for doing it in that order.

So, to echo what I said before, this idea (to me) is moot/pointless and the criticisms are almost entirely relative to each individual.

[DOUBLE [R]]

All high and mighty hardcore players. I, for one, started this game on assisted. It was creepy at first and i really enjoyed the game through the first playthrough. Saved 66 times, cause i didnt know it auto-saved, or knew that save count affects your end-game grade. Played too many RPGs with no auto-saves, so saving a lot was a habit.

Beat the game many times on standard, and transitioned over to hardcore. It was a big difference in enemy damage and HP, and i dont think i wouldve been able to complete it comfortably without the infinite knife. I agree the limited inventory does add a new element to it. I still aim to collect everything, and speedrunning doesnt appeal to me, personally. Mr. X’s fast walk speed was also a surprise. Im about to beat it in about 3.5 hours (just have to do G4 fight) with 6 saves, with getting everything.

I cant say that limited inventory and ink ribbons should be necessary to the average player. Especially to new players who dont know when to save. Probably be more frustrating to have to re-play the last, God knows how much... But, to someone whos played this game a few times, i think it adds a great element of worrying and strategizing.

[Mendoborn]

💤💤💤