Honestly...THe Plot of Resident Evil

[Becky's Butt]

So let's rap for a second here folks.

Do die hard RE fans know why RE4's changes were met with enthusiasm by most gamers?

Well partly it's the fact the old school camera was just bad and needed to go. But even more important than that I think the split arises from the fact that most gamers think of Resident Evil as a joke.

The plot, its characters, the dialogue, all of it is regarded as absolute crap by most people. Cheesy and appreciable crap sure but not in any way does it resemble real quality.

So when RE4 came out and had Leon saying dumb things and Las Plagas and all that? That was not unexpected for most people. The fact it didn't stick with Umbrella was thoroughly unimportant to the average gamer.

So my question to all of you die hard RE fans is this. Do you honestly think the series is well-written? Would you hold Resident Evil up as a symbol of why video games are an art and deserve respect when it comes to narratives?

[News Bot]

The series is well-written in its original language (Japanese). Everything else is pretty much complete and utter trash that isn't really worth listening to but people are forced to do so anyway because it's all they can even understand. Something is wrong when mistakes and things completely made-up are being spotted 15 years after the fact in a version the majority of the world's population actually plays. The only people who have access to the series storyline in its entirety are CAPCOM themselves and Japanese gamers.

But no it's not a symbol of why video games are art. Quite a number of people who call storylines "art" are pretentious fuckwits to begin with. It's all down to personal opinion, and while BH has a generally well-written, expansive storyline, it doesn't have any underlying messages or meanings that certain people get all wet over. It's entertainment first and foremost, and the storyline is engrossing and enjoyable for some but ridiculous to others.

[Wrathborne]

So my question to all of you die hard RE fans is this. Do you honestly think the series is well-written? Would you hold Resident Evil up as a symbol of why video games are an art and deserve respect when it comes to narratives?

There are 3 arguments against what you said:

1: RE was made in 95/96, video games weren't really known for their strength in writing (early FF games were ahead of their time in a lot of ways) and were just at the point where they started to improve in this area.

2: REs dialogue was translated from Japanese to English, what works in Japanese doesn't always work in English.

3: 8 years after RE1, things changed in video games. Stories and dialogue got much better and have gotten tot he point where they can match live action movies.

One of RE's biggest problems however is that they've never caught up with this really. While they all retain the B action aspects from game one...they haven't really improved the dialogue or stories like other companies developers have.

That might just be a Japanese thing, but in all honesty...there's almost no comparison to games from 10 years ago to games now in terms of story and dialogue. The improvements have been leaps and bounds really.

[News Bot]

What should also be mentioned is that what you see in the games is never the entire story. There is a lot of background information that adds a lot to the story and helps it make a bit more sense, but this is never included in the games for some reason or other. It's reserved for supplemental material which must be bought separately.

[Guest]

I honestly think the "crappy things" we like is what made Resident Evil look like what it is now. I'm pretty sure, for the first time I've played it, didn't think the camera was shit, actually, I pretty much enjoyed it. The dialogue of the second game onwards was acceptable for the time, and I liked it too. The first one's dialogue, by more crappy than it looks, was fun and is memorable to any hardcore RE fan.

The thing is, RE4 is a newer game of a new generation, I have no problems with the camera being changed or anything like that, what I really don't like is the fact that they killed the "Survival Horror" spirit there was in the classics, I mean, characters acting like ninjas?. OK that RE was never THAT scary, they really needed to change things, not change the series completely. You have to take in mind that not all people in the world like both SH and Action and you can't force this people to like it. It makes sense to cheer for something you don't like?

About the game's plot, It's obvious that the classics (excluding RE3 and Survivor that had shitty plots too) had more detailed elements than RE4. Everything in RE4 just seemed like a western action movie. It's like it was written by monkeys.

[Pikminister]

I always saw RE as a homage to hollywood horror B-movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's (with a ton of influence from 80's creature flicks).

So all the cheese and bad writing didn't really bother me, considering that it was just like the movies from those eras. I thought it helped make the series a bit unique. Not taking itself too seriously.

[Wrathborne]

It's reserved for supplemental material which must be bought separately.

Which is complete bullshit in the long run, it feels like a complete cop out to come up with sections of story later on that are cannon, but a chunk of the fan base has no idea about it.

These supplemental materials would add a lot more to the existing games if they were present in them.

[News Bot]

I always saw RE as a homage to hollywood horror B-movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's (with a ton of influence from 80's creature flicks).

So all the cheese and bad writing didn't really bother me, considering that it was just like the movies from those eras. I thought it helped make the series a bit unique. Not taking itself too seriously.

BH1 was more or less a remake of Sweet Home with a scenario written by Kenichi Iwao, which didn't really change all that much except give it a more sci-fi spin.

The series began taking itself seriously with BH2 when they hired a professional writer and established a writing company to handle the scenarios, keeping many Hollywood references but doing something very different with them with nowhere near as much cheesy nonsense.

CAPCOM's localization monkeys didn't quite catch up as they should have, and still haven't. So to most people, and in relation to the acting in the series, it is stuck in a void of shit.

[Wrathborne]

So if you just play the games, but don't indulge in the supplemental material...you're only getting what, 70% of the story?

[Pikminister]

BH1 was more or less a remake of Sweet Home with a scenario written by Kenichi Iwao, which didn't really change all that much except give it a more sci-fi spin.

The series began taking itself seriously with BH2 when they hired a professional writer and established a writing company to handle the scenarios, keeping many Hollywood references but doing something very different with them with nowhere near as much cheesy nonsense.

CAPCOM's localization monkeys didn't quite catch up as they should have, and still haven't. So to most people, and in relation to the acting in the series, it is stuck in a void of shit.

I wasn't familiar with Sweet Home at the time RE1 came out, though. So my impressions of that game was that it was heavily influenced by B-movies. But then you would only get that impression if you had seen those movies in the first place. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to make a connection.

But then I read this interview with the director of RE2 and he said that Mikami made him watch a lot of horror flicks to get a feel of what RE was about. So maybe there was some of that. Or maybe not.

[News Bot]

So if you just play the games, but don't indulge in the supplemental material...you're only getting what, 70% of the story?

Probably closer to 60%, I'd say.

I wasn't familiar with Sweet Home at the time RE1 came out, though. So my impressions of that game was that it was heavily influenced by B-movies. But then you would only get that impression if you had seen those movies in the first place. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to make a connection.

But then I read this interview with the director of RE2 and he said that Mikami made him watch a lot of horror flicks to get a feel of what RE was about. So maybe there was some of that. Or maybe not.

Sweet Home itself was a movie (later got a game, which is what BH is based on), but I'm unsure whether it qualifies as a "B-Movie".

There are definitely a lot of horror movie, anime and B-Movie references and inspirations, but they're written a lot more seriously in the series. Not quite translated or acted as well, though. So in the end it can come off forced and hammy, with many things lacking the background information that actually makes them understandable.

[Pikminister]

There are definitely a lot of horror movie, anime and B-Movie references and inspirations, but they're written a lot more seriously in the series. Not quite translated or acted as well, though. So in the end it can come off forced and hammy, with many things lacking the background information that actually makes them understandable.

Yeah, but maybe the translators took a first look at the material and thought it just had to be a homage to the cheesy, hammy horror flicks of the past. And then translated the script accordingly to their vision of what the game was all about.

The director of the cutscenes from RE5 got the very same impression (the original script was corny has hell in his opinion). But then again, maybe the translators were to blame for that?

[News Bot]

If they did that, it is unprofessional and would be grounds for getting their stupid ass fired. Their vision has nothing to do with the game, they're there to translate it faithfully and make it sound right in whatever language they are translating to, but in 16 years they haven't done this once.

The cutscene director of BH5 was reading the initial script translated by CAPCOM's asshat translators. It sounded corny as hell because they can't translate anything worth shit. He doesn't really have much room to talk since the final script was still a piece of shit primarily because they decided to add a bunch of superfluous nonsense that didn't need to be there, and ended up fucking both the plot and the actual dialogue, both of which are completely fine in Japanese.

[Wrathborne]

Probably closer to 60%, I'd say.

...Ok, THAT pisses me the fuck off. This means the story I thought I knew as well as the characters by my own interpretation, has been a lie.Bleh.

[alexdz]

The series plot is interesting, conspiracies, bio-engineering, secrets experiments, terrorism, RE has a lot of stuff to make the for an engaging and thoughtful story... which doesn't actually happen and we end up with three games where the villain wants to conquer the world (Alexia, Wesker and Saddler). There's a lot of wasted opportunity in the series which I believe gives this image of a cheesy story to most people, combined of course with bad translated dialogue and the fact the most casual players believe Umbrella makes zombies for the sake of making zombies.