Anyone else think Resident Evil just ended up being super dumb?

[Guest]

Recently, I decided that the series just isn't for me anymore. I guess some other people could very well feel the same way, but then a lot of people do still appreciate the games Capcom releases, as it's something to show off on YouTube. 

 

I liked the really early games and during the GameCube era, Capcom goes and releases RE4 after once again changing a game in development. And while RE4 is of course a very popular game that influenced future action games, I never really considered it to be very RE like because of the shift it began. I also didn't appreciate the fact you were gifted ammo and stuff for shooting villagers, because it also had a shopping system where it became a game about going nuts with guns and visiting a merchant, as opposed to thinking about how to get around hordes of zombies or other creatures. It was vastly fun, and I suppose some fans may feel that this is all that's important. But to me, it was a game changer. Pun intended. 

 

Basically, I felt a bit cheated how every other game was scary and had a common theme around characters discovering facts about Umbrella. Then I felt Capcom should have did one last game about their overall demise. And while they did make an on rails spin off game that more or less achieved just that in a sense, it isn't a game style I particularly like. 

 

So after RE5, Wesker is gone and then you just get all these strange villains like that dude who turns into a dinosaur and chases you as you are on top of a train. It wasn't even survival horror any more, to be honest. 

 

The only baddie I can say I liked was Alex Wesker. In fact, they tried to at least do something a bit different with the mind control ideas with her capturing the little girl, Natalia. But I didn't think it was too bad, and the game was actually like the older games with puzzles, although still kind of mixed with the gameplay of RE4, etc. Being over the shoulder, and so on.

 

However, we just had RE8 in 2021, and these remakes with a lot of content removed. In my opinion, RE8 felt like someone's idea of a joke, because it felt like a fantasy style game with werewolf looking beasts and these female vampires hunting Ethan Winters down in a castle, not unlike the one in RE4. It was just really silly too, like when that dude with the large hammer becomes a living junkyard and pulls in metal. What the hell? 

 

In general though, I think Capcom just lost their way, and decided to copy the latest trends. Like when first person games got to be well known on Steam, they just wanted to imitate that, due to Hideo Kojima also being praised. Then their DLC copied the Silent Hill nurses with the mannequins in the house.

 

So nowadays, the franchise is just incredibly odd, and I think Chris was only in a bit of RE7 so that fans would still feel like there was a genuine connection with the prior lore. I just considered it to be a forceful tactic to sell DLC. And now the characters apparently don't age because a virus slows down their genes. But it feels like a stunt to keep them around for decades to come, and therefore churn out more games. But using overpowered veterans with big fighting skills means RE is null and void in the terror department.

 

But anyway, what do you think? What time period is your favourite for the RE series? Is it the 1990s? 2000s? Or 2017 to the present day titles? Let me know.

 

Thanks...