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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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 Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:24 am |
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| Ebrey wrote: |
| The only problem with RE 4 is that the village is so awesome is makes the castle disappointing. If the castle had been before the village the game would probably have been perfect. |
The Castle is the worst area of the game. It has some good parts, but it also has a lot of weak parts. It also feels disconnected from the rest of the game. I think that is because it also feels the most like a classic RE game area, with weird area designs and wonky puzzles and the like.
The castle does suffer from another thing, beyond bad design. Around the castle is where it really sinks in that Leon has more than enough ability to handle what the game throws at him. This particularly comes through in the various ambushes that the game resorts to (a swarm of monks entering a room after Leon triggers them, the cage fight with the Garrador and monks, the sheer volume of enemies in Water Room) and relying on Ashley as a weak link (because in most cases Leon is fine).
The Castle does perhaps make an okay transition from the first half of the game to the military base, which is a completely different feel. Maybe nothing would have survived that transition unscathed. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:36 pm |
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There are some differences beyond the camera.
The areas are designed to be less restrictive, for one. Prior REs flat out abused the fixed cameras in enemy placement.
Leon is more mobile. Prior RE characters would have to walk around the smallest objects. When I first saw a low fence in RE4, I was certain that I'd have to walk all the way around to the opening. But then I found Leon could just hop right over it. (And the enemies as well.) There were all sorts of mobility touchs that classic RE games did not allow.
Still, it is mostly the camera change. Which is understandable. The problem with classic RE controls wasn't the controls themselves. It was those controls combined with that view system. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 7:38 pm |
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| Frequent Pilgrim wrote: |
| Playing assignment Ada, I realized that it pretty much plays like a classic RE except with the new controls. Enemies you dont have the right weapons for, narrow corridors and limited ammo. It's also got the classic lock and key progression mixed with cheap scare tactics and extremely limited health. |
I can't speak for the PS2 version, but that is only true at the beginning of the GC version.
The enemies of the island were designed for an extremely powerful Leon. Ada arrives with the weak version of the handgun and minimal ammo. Her kick also isn't as good as Leon's. she can't power up her weapons.
The real killer is that she doesn't have a knife. She has to dodge or shoot things that Leon could knife. She even has to shoot to set up her kick. If you really wanted to make Leon's game more dangerous, you wouldn't just have to reduce the amount of ammo, you'd likely have to remove the knife as well.
You have to be cautious at first. But then the same thing happens with her as with Leon, particularly if you do play cautious. You start amassing more ammo and healing than you'll ever need. Near the end, you'll be dropping and leaving stuff. Krauser isn't an issue even without a knife, as you should have a ton of TMP ammo to waste. (Particularly if you know how close to the end you are, and thus can judge when you can best afford to drop the handgun to make more room.) |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:18 pm |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| BUt if Silent Hill played like RE4, it would not be Silent Hill. |
I don't know. It might work.
On the InsertCredit forums I made a similar post describing a RE1 remake in the RE4 engine that would avoid the "never in danger" feeling.
For Silent Hill, you'd need to tone down the player's advantage even further.
Ammo would have to be cut severely. The knife would need depowering and/or complete replacement. The situational attacks would need depowering.
Situational attacks are easy enough to deal with. Leon's advantage is that they do good damage on their own and the kick even handles entire crowds. Replace them with something that does little or no damage. Instead of a kick, what about a panicked shove? Maybe you can knock back one (or two if you are lucky) enemies and buy a few seconds of time.
Reducing ammo on its own isn't a certain solution. On the RE1 idea, I went further with mostly ditching ammo boxes in general. Instead, you'd more likely find entire guns, maybe with some spare ammo and maybe empty. No upgrading of weapons, but rather a large variety in the weapons themselves, not all of which are in top shape. Even if you find a favorite, there would also be a variety of shell types. Run out of ammo for something, and maybe you should just ditch it or use it as a club until it breaks.
Which leads into the knife. The knife has to go, or at least be depowered. Instead of a permanent knife, let the player grab whatever might be useful. But whatever they grab can break and can be lost. A board might last a few swings. A pipe might be grabbed by an enemy, and maybe even then used by that enemy. Many objects wouldn't do much damage, rather just staggering or knocking down an enemy if lucky. And all such objects would take inventory space, just like everything else.
And with Silent Hill, you could easily get away with more invulnerability in enemies. RE4 lets you kill everything, even the Iron Maidens. Silent Hill need not run that path.
Weapons would be unreliable. They'd take a lot of space but often have limited uses. The player wouldn't have a "sure kill," at least not for long. You wouldn't find a hand grenade by shooting a crow. On the other hand, scrap weapons might be all over the place.
Would it work for Silent Hill? I don't know. Maybe it would. The above could be tweaked in a way that takes most of the power away from the player, returning him to a state of defense and avoidance except when pushed into a corner.
The other aspects like the camera view shouldn't be a problem. You can still have sneak attacks and strange noises. Vague things can come out of the fog, drop from a ceiling, or shuffle behind the player out of sight. Maybe even bump into the player. And with a weaker player character, the player would presumably worry even more about those unseen enemies. Areas can still look freaky.
The biggest problem might come from the RE4 continue system, where you can find out how dangerous something is and quickly get back into the game after death. I'd hate to see it go, but some things might need to be altered. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:26 pm |
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| Indeed, the few classic RE puzzles present really stick out. Mainly I think of the one behind the church. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:53 am |
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| Predator Goose wrote: |
| Baines wrote: |
| Indeed, the few classic RE puzzles present really stick out. Mainly I think of the one behind the church. |
Wasn't that one entirely optional though? I'm pretty sure it just gave you a shiny for the Beer Mug. |
Without a FAQ, you just see something the equivalent of a giant flashing neon sign saying "PUZZLE HERE!! SOLVE TO DO SOMETHING!!"
If you are using a FAQ... Well, first of all, why? RE4 doesn't need a FAQ. Second, how much can you judge puzzles when you read the solutions or read whether they are worth the effort?
| Adilegian wrote: |
| The technology felt *somewhat* plausible. I guess that it makes more sense for a castle to have internal defense structures (indoor drawbridge, mainly) as opposed to those giant acid/fire-breathing dragon heads later on. I can't really say the same about the submersible platforms, but, still. |
It feels more plausible when you consider the castle is owned and run by a complete madman. Salazar was presumably quite insane ever before running into Las Plagas.
He seems like the kind of guy that would install catapults as an internal defense system. And construct giant flamethrowing dragons that hang from chains. And have a mine cart ride from one arbitrary room to another arbitrary room.
| Adilegian wrote: |
| Earlier RE games didn't show a lot of need to cohere enemy placement with the environment, especially with respect to the order of the levels. |
The Castle did have some nice touches there. At the far end of the Water Room (the giant room with the equally large number of cultists) is a little cubbyhole room. You can run there with Ashley and hole up. Leon seemingly just has to guard the door to ride out the enemies, which is an easy task. Try this, and you'll probably hear Ashley scream. Turn around, and you'll see a couple of cultists in the room. You'll likely get mad that the game just spawns enemies in the otherwise safe room. But it doesn't. They actually drop through trap doors in the ceiling. If you watch, you can see it happen. The room itself is a trick to catch the player. (Mind, once you know of the trick, you can still use the room as a safe house.) |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 10:25 pm |
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| Tim wrote: |
| Also, I wish Magnum ammo was more common. I always sell back the Broken Butterfly because I can hardly find any bullets for it! Maybe because it's too awesome? |
The Broken Butterfly is meant for taking down the deadliest of enemies, not the teeming masses. When used for that purpose (and when powered up,) you'll have enough ammo.
Second, you need to consider how random items are generated. From random drops and crates, you'll only get ammo for guns that you have. (Handgun ammo is an exception. The game can generate handgun ammo even if you don't have a handgun.) But the rate that you get ammo versus other objects doesn't seem affected by the number of guns (or is only slightly,) so every extra ammo type means lower odds of any specific type being generated.
If you don't carry a Magnum-using gun, then the only Magnum ammo you will find is in the fixed locations. If you carry several different types of guns, then few of the ammo drops will be Magnum rounds.
If you want to maximize Magnum rounds, then carry a gun that generates them and only the minimum of whatever else you need. (I don't know if the infinite Handcannon counts for item generation.) The same goes for the Mine Thrower (for which you can only get ammo through random drops.) Carry a mine thrower and several other weapons, the mine darts will be rather uncommon. Carry just a mine thrower and one other weapon, and they'll be much more common. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:06 am |
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| Joe wrote: |
| One of the things I always liked about the shotgun in Half-Life was that Freeman actually put 8 shells into the thing upon reload, and if you interrupted the reload animation by shooting, you had just as many shells in the shotgun as you put in. I appreciate attention to detail like that. |
TimeSplitters 2 tried to do that with the Tactical 12-Gauge.
Except the game only kept one ammo value for unequipped weapons, not separate loaded and unloaded values. (Probably because a few guns used the same ammo type.) Equipping a weapon loaded it instantly, unequipping it effectively unloaded it. So you could circumvent the Tac Shotgun's load animation just by switching weapons and immediately switching back. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:16 pm |
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Leon doesn't get the suplex until the castle, from what I recall.
The kick available at the start of the game is better, anyway. The kick is serious crowd control, hitting everyone in front of you. The suplex only deals with one enemy and often leaves you in a bad position if you do it in a crowd.
Eggs are really there for the healing. Golden eggs are arguably the best healing item in the game, being a full heal that takes only a 1x1 space. (The only thing that can compete is the RGY herb mix, simply because the herb mix also increases your max life.) Throwing eggs seems to have been put in more as a joke. (Or maybe at one point the developers thought Leon might need some kind of desperation stun attack by throwing an egg in someone's face, then decided it wasn't necessary and never finished it.) |
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Baines
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Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:24 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
It took me playing through the whole damn game ten times to learn that Flash grenades kill the parasites upon detonation.
Though this also raised the question: shouldn't it be possible to protect Leon from the exposed, flailing Las Plagas by running close to a light source? If they couldn't take the gray cloudlight from the skies of the village, I wouldn't think they could stand being near a torch or bright fluorescence. |
My eyes are sensitive to bright light, and I can tell a difference between a bright day and standing near a fire. Some days it is bad enough that I get eye aches and even headaches. On the other hand, watching a blazing fire or flourescent lighting only carries the normal side effects, like the negative after-image you get after you stop staring at a light source.
Sun and snow certainly don't bode well for me, as the whole thing makes me more succeptible to snow blindness.
I can only assume Flash Grenades would do no world of good for my eyes though. Then again, they don't exactly do "good" for a normal person looking at them either.
Oh, and a funny thing about sunlight that I've noticed. Certain kinds of cloudy days are worse for my eyes than perfectly clear days. I think it might be the light being scattered or something similar. On such days with no obvious source to avoid there is no where I can look for relief. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 3:27 am |
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| Pavement wrote: |
| One other thing. For a while I wondered why that RE4 lost some of its power after the village. Now I've realized; there were no video-gamey puzzles in the village. The village was believable. It's only when the castle comes around that you start finding animal ornaments, riding ziplines and watching treasure chests materialize out of thin air. The game definitely lost some of its impact in that lava room with the dragons. That room was like a parade of survival horror nonsense. It should have been ported to Killer7 and used as another piece of satire. |
The player realizing his power is the real killer. That happens around the Castle as well. The ludicrous nature of the castle only compounds upon that realization. Some of that ludicrousness actually comes about as an attempt to counteract the player's power.
The first house shows the player that he isn't dealing with classic Resident Evil zombies. (And also forces the player to notice context sensitive actions, as you can only leave the building by jumping out one of the windows.)
The village overwhelms the player on the first run. It is designed to lure the player into various actions just to catch said player. You are baited to use the binoculars near the side path that you'll likely only notice by looking at the map, and which enemies will approach unseen if you make your stand near there. The path to the right is a dead end where an uncautious player will be caught (but is easy to make a stand afterwards.) If you try to stay hidden along the left side, they'll come from different directions. Sneaking around allows time for the guys on the roof (who are conveniently out of sight unless you think to look up) to hit you. If you take to the houses, you risk hitting the house that triggers a Dr. Salvador (chainsaw guy). If you rush to the far gate, you trigger the other Dr. Salvador. I want to recall there is another response based around climbing the tower.
Then things slow again. The next swarm I recall is after meeting the merchant? That one you can treat more like a shooting gallery, or you can risk more in-your-face combat. Without skill, the shooting approach will drain a lot of ammo, which is kind of an iffy message to the player (who eventually learns that he doesn't have to horde ammo).
The cabin is the next big swarm, but also one of the last times a swarm will push the player without needing serious handicaps in play.
In a way, the Castle is the next step. The player can handle a flood of enemies on his own. So you've got Ashley at risk. She gets abducted if you leave her too long. You get more parasite attacks. You get enemies with shields. You get Garradors that you need to shoot in the back, and get trapped in a cage with them and other monks. You get flaming catapults and fire breathing dragons. You get the cloaked Novi-whatevers (the insects). You get a hedge maze.
After the Castle, you lose even that. The game becomes a shooting gallery with a few gimmick enemies (metal protectors, machine guns, Regenerators). When you see a wide open space, you know enemies will swarm you. When you see winding corridors, you know enemies will be waiting. You know you will trigger traps that will send swarms after you (unlike the more natural floods of the village.) You know attacks with Ashley will be designed to take advantage of her vulnerability (like the area where you have to protect Ashley and break down a wall, while being constantly attacked by bullet-resistant enemies along with ranged attack enemies.)
Basically, the game was already risking its impact by the Castle, even if the Castle had been a more normal design. It might have been less noticeable, but the game was already on that path. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 6:00 am |
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| Pavement wrote: |
| I can't help but wonder how Resident Evil 4 would have turned out without Leon's constant increase in power, without any traditional puzzles and with the difficulty of the village continuing throughout the game. |
If you tried playing Professional after beating the regular difficulty, or tried replaying the game without using overpowered weapons, you might have an idea.
The game just isn't that difficult anymore. Powered up weapons give the player an advantage, but the game is designed to give Leon so much freedom and ability that they are not a necessity.
After playing through the game, the village just isn't difficult anymore. Yes, part of it is knowing the layout and such, but it is also knowing just how much you can do with Leon. Same with the Cabin and other spots.
You have to reduce Leon's innate abilities (as similar to a post I think I made earlier in this thread) to be able to keep a suitable interest after a while. Or get exceedingly cheap in the designs and situations you put the player into.
Even Mercenaries shows this to a degree, as players learn the levels and it is no longer a game of survival but of maximizing time extensions and score, once you reach a point where you can survive what it is willing to throw at you seemingly indefinitely. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:27 pm |
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| Ging wrote: |
| Is Seperate Ways only on the PS2 version? |
The Gamecube version has Assignment Ada, unlocked after you beat the game.
Assignment Ada is only on the island base. It starts where Leon starts the island, and covers some of the same areas. It ends I think on the walkway to the communications tower?
From what I remember, she has a Punisher (weaker handgun but with penetrating shots), the TMP, and the semi-auto rifle? Weapons are only slightly improved from stock and with minimal ammo. No knife and weak situational attacks round out a difficult start, forcing you to avoid more than fight, but by the end you'll have more ammo that you can reasonably expend.
Anything else is PS2-exclusive. Capcom's main PS2 enhancement was supposedly to add more Ada missions, though I've never seen a decent description of just how much was added. |
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Baines
banned
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:38 am |
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Seems kind of weird, when Assignment Ada was about going from powerhouse Leon to underpowered Ada. (And I can see no way that it wasn't. The difference is just that great.) Guess it shows Capcom decided to further push the "bad-ass death machine" appeal of the game with the PS2 version.
Bowgun? Krauser's bow, or a new weapon? |
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