Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 440: Resident Evil vs. Resident Evil vs. Resident Evil

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Diamond Feit, Stuart Gipp, and Alex Fraioli break out the ink ribbons and travel back to 1998 to investigate bizarre murders outside Raccoon City in this episode about Resident Evil (1996, 2002, and 2002 again) Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

You're listening to Retronauts a part of the HyperX Podcast Network. Find us and more great shows like us at podcast.hyperx.com. This week in Retronauts, Jill and Chris and Barry and Alice. Welcome to Retronauts, everybody. I'm your host, Diamond Fight. I'm into horse porridge. You'll talk about it later. But this week, we've got an exciting topic for you.

And that topic is known as biohazard, also known as Resident Evil, maybe also known as something else in your region. I only know two regions. I'm limited intelligence in that respect. but I'm not here alone. I'm not limited by my personality. I've got two guests with me today. Why don't we start over in the UK with a regular retronauts person? Hello, I'm Stuart Chip, regular retronauts person. In the UK, Resident Evil is known as Blimey, spooky house. Oh, no. That's a good title, though.

Yeah, yeah. It rubs it of some of its stature, I feel. But when you think about it, the name Resident Evil is a really dump-on in the first place, so it's okay. It is ironic that they had to stick with that going forward for 26 years, you know, because it very quickly got out of the fact that they were inside a house. Yeah. Speaking of residing, how about the other person residing alongside with me in Japan? Hi. Well, welcome to ZomboCom. I'm Alex Fraoli.

I run a retro video game bar here in Nagoya, Japan, and I do a podcast with Ray Barnholz that you might have heard called No More Whoppers. Thank you for joining me, gentlemen. Yeah. And the topic, as we said, is Resident Evil. I am a big fan of Resident Evil. By my count, I have covered it on my weekly column at least four times because I did the original game. I did Code Veronica. I did Revelations. And it just keeps coming up because I love these games. And my love of these games goes back to the very beginning when they launched. The original game came out in March 1996. So I've been on board since day one. And in recent years, I feel like I've only gotten more into it, and I can't explain this. Hopefully, we will come to a discovery during the course of this episode. But how about you, Alex? How did this start for you?

Were you there on the day one? Or did someone tell you, hey, you've got to play this game? What happened for you? I was not there on day one. I was mostly, I was entranced by magazine coverage. I had bought a PlayStation to play the game no one's heard of Final Fantasy, I want to say seven. I figured out the Sony PlayStation you can put in other discs made by different companies

and get a different experience so I rented Resident Evil from a blockbuster video and I'm typically not a horror guy I'm pretty squeamish when it comes to that kind of stuff but it was in kind of the same way I got into Mortal Kombat as a kid it was just cartoony enough that my brain is like this isn't real gore and I had a great time with it and Stuart how about you what happened

with the blimey spooky house. Oh, yeah. It was, as mentioned, it was huge all over the magazines, stuff like the UK magazine, CVG were obsessed with it. I think I got five out of five big, big, big games. So naturally,

friends of mine with PlayStation's bought it. I didn't have a PlayStation at the time for my sins, but my friend Richard bought it, and he didn't have a memory card. So we would play the whole thing essentially on Roadlike mode, where one death was restart the game from the beginning.

And it got really frustrating, but at the same time, that game is really scary when you can't save. It's kind of scary anyway when you're like 10-11, but when you can't save, it becomes more of a sort of living nightmare. We only really ever got as far as, I think it's like the guest house with the spiders. I think it's a guest house.

It's been a little while since I've looked it up. Oh, the spider's plural. Not the big boss spider, just the regular spiders. Yeah, the regular small spiders, the little ones. Smaller. The small big spiders, yeah, the small giant spiders, yeah. But no, it's why I've never really been on board with, and maybe this is more of a later kind of with hindsight opinion mostly,

but a lot of people talk about, I've seen talk about how this game is not scary. It's just camp and funny. And yeah, it is camp and funny, but it used to scare me quite a lot. Like I would get really creeped out by like the handwritten, or not handwritten, but the notes that you'd find in the game like the classic itchy, tasty one, it genuinely did get under my skin. No pun intended,

especially because right after that, there's a jump skit. Right. Stuff like the dogs and all the classic stuff. It did make me jump. It did give me a sense of trepidation. And I still kind of have that to this day as almost as muscle memory,

but I can play it pretty much comfortably now, thankfully. Well, I can assure you, Stuart, I was not 10 years old. I was twice as old when Resident Evil came out, and I was so scared by this game, I could not play it alone. It was impossible for me. I only played it with my friends. And indeed, we made it sort of like a multiplayer game because we would take turns. We would help each other out.

We, you know, we didn't, there was no internet access for us at that point. But I think we had some magazines to look up. And of course, you know, just from collective experience and ideas like, oh, what if we try this? What if we try this? Oh, I bet there's something in there, that sort of stuff. So that was how I managed to get through the nightmare for me personally. But yes, it was, I was there from the beginning because I read about it. And I think for me, the biggest surprise was, you know, that this game was coming from Capcom

because, you know, I was a kid. I was an NES kid. So I knew Capcom from, you know, Mega Man. I knew Capcom from Street Fighter. I knew Capcom from Bionicamando. But it's like, oh, this is a game and it's a horror game. And it's from the people who make Mega Man. Like, what?

Like, that alone was kind of like really interesting to me. And I remember, the first time I put the disc in, and you got that wonderful, like, 3D animated Capcom logo. Like, oh, this is, no, it really is. This is Capcom. It's them. And then the game just shows you a guy getting chomped on the face or whatever. So, real turn for them. Was the opening FMV, it was cut, right?

It was censored, which is why they had to do the director's cut. Or am I imagining that? The opening was live action. And they meant to restore the censored bits. for the director's cut, and then due to a quote-unquote localization error, they did not. Oh, okay. Fair enough. That didn't happen. Yeah. There's only some slight differences. Like some stuff is black and white and it's in color and like some close-ups of a people, of like a dead body and the dog's getting shot. Like, there's only some slight edits,

but most of what happens is there. I think probably the biggest cut is that when Joseph picks up a gun from the ground, and it's very, he very slowly picks it up. You know, in actuality, he picks up the gun and there's a hand attached to it, but the hand is just severed. And in the Japanese version, you see the hand. In the American version, the video stops before you actually see the hand, and then it cuts to him with his famously abbreviated, ha, scream. That made no sense to me as a kid, like, okay, he's picking up the arm, it's still an arm,

now it's a scary arm, but we don't know why it's a scary arm. Yeah, the other big thing that was cut was Chris's smoking. He lit up a cigarette in the Japanese version. Yeah, Chris is a big smoker. I remember there was a rumor that certain copies of the Saturn version had the cigarette intact, but I don't think that's true. I think that was just a rumor because I did buy the Saturn version eventually, and I was excited, oh, maybe my copy has Chris lighten up as if anybody cares.

But it did not. Sega does what Sony didn't I don't know There's no rhyme there Sega packed They pack the game in with a cigarette To make that fun Now that's edgy

I'm Actually, I want to say that that's one of the many things about this game that's sort of, that really grabbed my attention, is the fact that, yes, this game, you know, I think FMV games were kind of already, I mean, this was 1986 when it came out for the PlayStation, so FMV games, I felt like were already sort of being laughed at, you know, like the night trap sort of fiasco. had already happened, and the congressional testimony had happened. But this game is, it's not an FMV game, but it introduces you to the characters with real actors, and their faces are in there, and they're talking throughout the game. So I feel like this game had just enough, you know, quote unquote, real people in it to make, sort of like, sell it more? I don't know.

That's how I, how did you feel when, when you saw, like, real people in your video game? I felt like, it felt like a continuation of, Sega CDA felt like there was nothing to differentiate it from Sewershark until actual gameplay started. I didn't trust live actors in my video games. They're just inherently goofy and cheesy, so it's really difficult to have a, I suppose, not reasons of opinion, because the Mega CD was just widely kind of derided, you know, and games, not entirely, but games like Sewer Shark and like, I don't know, corpse killer and all that stuff is just kind of seen as

yeah I mean it's nice that we're interacting with video but it's incredibly limited but yeah I mean obviously this is just a cutscene as soon as it ends you're straight in with the much more satisfying gameplay so it didn't really bother me too much it wasn't as good as the live action in gex deep cover gecko but we'll get to that Sunday

given you were you brought up gex in a risen eve episode well the villain in gex is called res So it's relevant. Oh, my God. Yeah, it all comes together. I was, I had seen Sega City games and I wasn't into them, like, I wasn't really into them as a thing, but I definitely appreciated the acting. Like, I remember, you know, the introduction of Resident Evil really got to me very quickly.

You know, the, some of the acting in this game is, let's say, questionable. But at least from a narration standpoint, when, um, sorry, I forgot his name. Scott, I forgot his name, but he passed away. unfortunately. But the guy who plays Chris, he reads that opening introduction, you know, set in the quite near future of 1998. And he, you know, talks about how this murder, bizarre murders in Raccoon City, you know, victims were apparently eaten. Like that to me, that got me. I was like, whoa, this is frightening. I'm frightened by this, you know. And I think it would have having the actors, having the actors read those lines and really, you know, throughout the game, having sort of the

the voices in there, I think, made the game to me a little more frightening, although certainly, as you mentioned, Stu, the game is full of little notes you find, and those also creep me out, big time. Yeah. You know, I think the most infamous one is Itchy Tasty. That's been, you know, that's a meme in English, and it's also a meme in Japanese, which I can explain. In Japanese, they say Kiyu, which is short for Kaui, Ichi, and Uma, which is short for Umai,

which is tasty. but cayu is also a word for like rice porridge and uma is also a word for horse so cayu uma is also sort of joked about as like horse porridge in japanese so that was a little joke i made at the top of the show now you know oh yeah because i heard that and i was just like what are you on about are you talking about this is nonsense you started the show with nonsense i just i just thought it was an osaka thing oh i see regional well yes well thank you for mention that. This game was made here in Osaka. Capcom still headquartered here in Osaka, and local boy, Shinji Makami, was the director of this game. He famously got the job because

he allegedly hated horror. And Capcom Bigwig, Tokoro Fujikawa, who had been with the company since the early 80s arcade era, he said, I want you to make this horror game. Fujikawa had wanted to make a sequel to the 1989 Famicom RPG Sweet Home, which was technically, tightly tied into a Japanese movie, but since the game and the movie never came out in America, never officially licensed in English, basically no one outside of Japan has ever heard of it. And even here in Japan, I don't think it was that big, you know, I don't really see a lot of sweet home chatter on the internet's personally. But when Fujikawa said, you know, for the new PlayStation system, like, oh, I want to go back to this, I want to revisit this horror idea. I want to revisit the idea of a game where people are trapped in a haunted house. They couldn't just do Sweet Home 2 because that's, you know, that's owned by the movie company. And I'm sure in Japan, that would cost a fortune to license. So they said, well, we don't need the name, sweet home. We can just go ahead and make our own haunted house. And we'll fill it with, you know, they roll the dice and said, let's say zombies.

And they went with zombies. But we actually have a quote here from Mikami. He said, for me personally, I find spirits to be scary. So I spent the first month of planning out Resident Evil to include evil spirits. However, I knew that just alone wouldn't sell. That's why I ended up referencing movies like Jaws and other grisly monsters that chase humans and put these into the game.

So I think you made the right choice. I don't know. Are you, folks, are you scared of ghosts in general or are you more scared of actual things that can touch and bite you? I know. Ghosts are pretty scary. I'm just saying,

what usually happens is I usually make like a really tall sandwich with my dog and then a ghost turns up and I sort of leap into the air on my legs start like rotating like turbines and then I go through a series of doors and come out of the doors and this whole thing. So yeah, I'm scared of him. But in the end, it always turns out that they're a guy and not actually a ghost, so it's not really big deal. I'm sorry you mentioned the doors, because doors are a big part of Resident and evil. Thank you for mentioning the doors.

Good. Yeah, it's a segue. I did it on purpose, definitely. I wasn't just being goof. No, it's good. And I'm glad you did that. But also, frankly, yeah, I'm scared of a lot of stuff. I think it's a smart move that Resident Evil is rooted in scary things that are like things you can imagine, like, you know, people, dogs, spider, you know, we mentioned spiders. I think that's one of the more freaky elements of this game, you know, you've been playing it, usually you've been playing it for probably at least an hour or so when you meet the first small giant spider. But when you see those legs, you know, remember when you walk into that room, the camera angle

shows you the ceiling first and you can see the spider on the ceiling. And that to me was like, oh, whoa, like I remember being visibly and audibly shocked when I saw that thing. It's really effective. Yes. It's really effective, I think, yeah. I think to me it was, this might have been Resident Evil too, but the thump, thump, thump of the spider's legs, like just the base, the base on that was enough to terrify me before I'd even seen the thing. Just the sound of these legs thumping around. Like, what is that? I don't want to meet you.

I got to go. They make noise. Definitely. They make every enemy in the game has its own sort of sound. profile, and the spiders have that sort of soft sort of sound as they skitter. I feel nowadays, though, because I'm one of those weirdos who quite like spiders, whenever I see those big furry, like, tarantula-looking spiders, I'm just like, ah, because they're soft, you know, I just, they kind of look cute now.

I like spiders of normal size. I mean, yeah, you know, if I saw a giant spider intent on devouring me, I probably would fear it, but realistically, that's not kind of... I mean, it could happen, I suppose. We don't know. As the years go by... As the years go by... As the years go by, I've tried to convince myself to be okay with spiders

because I want them to eat the other bugs that live in my house. Yes. So as I get older, I'm trying more and more to say, oh, just let the spider be. Just let the spider be. But, you know, living here in Japan, I don't know about the UK situation, but sometimes in Japan, you see a big spider in your house. You know, sometimes you just see the big one. And you're like, oh, you have to go.

You, no. we can't cohabitate. I have a rule. I have an arrangement with the spiders, which is you guys can have the ceiling and you can have the walls. But the floor and everything else is mine, and if you trespass into that space,

then we're going to have a disagreement that may end in your death. I like to exercise power over creatures much smaller and weaker than I. You see. It's fun. Do you use firearms, or how do you do it? You don't usually have firearms to hand. No. But, you know, honestly, it happens so rarely because I'm just so fine with them whenever I see one. I'm just like, oh, there he goes. There's my buddy. It just rarely happens. I mean, I guess if I had to get rid of a spider, it would be the classic glass plus piece of paper or something. But I just, I can't see it happening. I just think they're kind of dudes. I just kind of get on with them, you know.

I find that with the glass method, it's convenient because you also get to listen in on their conversations. Yeah, that too, yeah. Yeah. I mean, now, if there was a zombie or a giant snake, that would be another matter. But the spiders are okay, I think. Or a tyrant, I wouldn't allow that in the house. No, no. The open heart thing is just, that's, yeah, that's a deal breaker.

Yeah. But yes, you mentioned doors. So the door thing, actually, that's one of the many tie-ins to the sweet home game in that first, in that game on Famicom. Whenever the characters went from one room to another, there was a special animation to show the door opening. And they kept that around for PlayStation 1 because it happened to be a convenient, oh, we're loading the new zone. But loading was also a big deal because, you know, they wanted, they wanted this three game to be in three dimensions. That this was their idea from the beginning. but, you know, it's 1996.

It's really hard to make 3D everything, you know. As we have another quote from, sorry, from June Takuchi. He says, back then, it took machines about a day and a half to produce just one background visual. So the idea of making a haunted house where you could explore it with a 3D character and have the environments themselves be 3D, it just wasn't happening. So they came up with the idea, okay, well, if we just make, you know, for the time, high-resolution, you know, bitmaps, and save them and put them on the disc, then we can layer three-dimensional characters over top those images, and it makes

it look like you're exploring a space. And for me, I felt it was convincing, you know, especially with the addition of the voice acting and the fact that these characters would occasionally, you know, they didn't really have faces and they didn't really emote. They just sort of, you know, move their arms up and down. I think Mikami compared it to a puppet show. But when you see these characters sort of gesturing and gyrating and they, you know, but a voice comes out of them and says, whoa, this hall is dangerous. Like, it just, it were, I don't know, for me, it sold me, you know, I was, I was all in.

I was convinced. Were you all convinced? I, I, I was young enough to be convinced, I think. I didn't know that it was pre-randed. I did not have any concept of that. So it didn't, I just knew it looked spectacular, really. Nowadays, obviously, you can see, I can see the seams, but I still think it works fine. And when you pair it with the, okay, I'll get into this more on remake,

because this is one of the few things that I think is slightly more insightful, that isn't just a Scooby-D reference that I can make. But I think that because the game looks kind of creaky and it looks old, and it looks weird, it all works with the sort of slightly dodgy controls, the slightly erratic kind of feel and the sort of general unwieldiness. And I don't mean that as a bad thing, because as a survival horror game, it helps to feel at least a little bit like you're struggling. I think the tank controls are great. So when I say that they're like dodgy, I don't mean that they're bad by any means.

I can't imagine this game working without them. And in fact, it doesn't, because I've tried it without them through the remake, and it's really weird. But, I mean, pressing up to move forward rather than up to go up, so to speak, it's the only movement. that makes sense when you're changing camera angles so often. It's the only way you can not be completely disoriented by the change of camera. So for me, it just works really well. It just feels like you're controlling a movie. It's really cinematic and it really works, I think.

For the similar sort of reasoning, I don't think that the remake works quite so well. But we'll get to that when we get to it. Well, I think the 10 controls are kind of beautiful in a way because, yeah, they're sort of twofold. Like, it is because the game, because every environment is sort of this fixed image that you're walking around, that means the camera is always fixed. And any space you go into, you're always going to walk down this hall the same way. From a direction standpoint, from an art direction standpoint, that means they know exactly what you're going to see at all the times. So they know they can make it so you walk down the hallway and you can't see around the corner until you turn the corner. and they love in this game putting something right there not so close that it bites you,

but so close that you can see it and you realize, oh, crap, I got to turn around or oh, crap, I got to get my gun out. And I think the, so the tank controls, they're very efficient in that, yes, if you're running down a hallway and the camera angle changes, as long as you're still pushing up, then you keep running in the same correct direction. But it also kind of works in the sense that if you are caught by surprise and you need to change direction, it takes you a little moment until you're used to them. takes you some time to sort of get used to that. But of course, in this game, most of the

enemies you fight are slow moving. They're not very agile. They take their time to get to you, too. So by sort of adapt into your circumstances, but also being a little unfamiliar, the game sort of puts you on equal footing, you know? So I feel like that, to me, it all, it all sort of clicks. Everything sort of, the pieces all fit together in that respect. And I must say, as someone who revisited this game last year on stream, you know, did I die a lot? I sure did. But I got used to the old tank controls again really quickly in a way that I didn't think I would. I thought it would bother me. But once I got back in the groove and started running down the hallways again, it was like, oh, no, this makes sense. And then I started, you know, adjusting with the, you have to

push a button to run. To me, it all, it all came together and I found it very comfortable in a way that I did not expect in the 21st century. Yeah, I think, I just find that the aesthetics match the gameplay perfectly, basically. I think it's superb. It's very, it feels very economical in a way that really works, especially given that this isn't really that long of a game. It just feels like the perfect little package. I think they nailed it, to be honest, really, even as soon as the second one,

which is still a great game, I feel like their eyes get a bit bigger than their stomach. so to speak, but this is just the perfect little condensed, spooky haunted house, I guess, experience. I feel like control-wise, the only thing missing for me was what they would eventually add, I think, in the third room, which was the quick turn. If you're doing tech controls,

I think you kind of need that quick turn, because yeah, everything does move pretty slow, but when you see something that moves fast, you got to go the other way, and you can't be like, hang on, I got to turn around, just wait for me. Okay, now I'm going to run. I think they added it into the DS release, deadly silence, but I might be

talking nonsense. They may not have in fact done that. It came later and then became a standard for all the tank control games. Once it was there, it never left. Good. As opposed to the quick dodge, which I think was in three, and I think that was only in three, I think. But yeah, the quick term was pretty essential. Also, depending on the version you play, some versions the game will auto aim for you. If you pull out your weapon, the game will ease you towards an enemy, which is a good way, you know, If you ever walk into a room, you can't always see where the enemies are. But if you pull your weapon out, generally speaking, your character will point it at the direction of something coming towards you. So you sort of an idea of, oh, well, if there's something over there on the left and I can hear it, I can't see it yet.

But I don't know if that was in all regions or not. That may have been taken out for the American version. Like a lot of games of the era, they made the American version harder because they didn't want people to beat it on rentals. So I think the original long box version didn't have auto aim, but then subsequent games. put it back in because it was in the Japanese version. Huh. But yeah, to me, it's like, it's such a part of the game to me. I had forgotten whether

it was there or not when I first played it, but it is there now in all versions. So it's back, wherever it might have gone. I seem to remember a magazine, before the game came out, you know, I was hyping myself off by reading magazines. And one of the things, pretty much the one thing that every magazine was criticizing

was what was eventually fixed and that was item boxes became interlinked. Because originally, they were not. You put a crank in the bathroom on the first floor. It's going to be there and only there. Blimey. Well, it was a, it was a feature that sort of went through some feet, like, they wanted them connected, then they didn't have them connected, then they were connected, and then we'll bring it up later, but in the, in the remake, they took it out as an option. You could play the real survival mode where they are. Yeah, yeah, yeah about that. So, um, they recognized how difficult that was.

And also, I remember those, I think Code Veronica has, like, a specific box that is not connected anything else. So if you want to get it out of there, you have to go back there, which was a little frustrating. Code Veronica has a box where if you put things in it and then progress to a certain point, you've ruined your entire run. So that's fun. Code Veronica's got problems. It's not so smooth. So let's talk about the characters in this game. So this was also a big surprise to me when the game gives you a choice. You get to pick, do you want to be Jill Valentine, or do you want to be Chris Redfield?

I remember when I first played this game, I played as Jill. Did everyone else, did everyone start with Jill? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, you need those inventory spots. you know. Right. I don't remember if Chris had an advantage to make up for that. Chris only

has an advantage in so much that he can survive a lot more damage. Oh, right. Okay. Like if a zombie bites him, usually like a first zombie bite, he still remains at, you know, safe health. Whereas a single bite will put Jill into sort of like caution. Yeah.

And a second bite will either put her in the red or sometimes depending on the zombie will just kill her. Oh, I genuinely didn't know that. So they do, Chris does have a slight health advantage, but yeah, the game is very famously, you know, it's very tight about what you can carry at all times. You know, Jill is able to carry eight items at all times and everything is an item. You pick up a key, that's an item. You pick up a rocket launcher. That's an item. You pick up a bullet for your gun. Well, that's a separate

item, you know, you can load some bullets into your gun, but any extra bullets, that's an extra item. So, Jill has the advantage of more items, so she spends less time worrying about you know, carrying certain things. She also is famously the master of unlocking. She can pick locks. Chris has to find little keys that are scattered around the house that I'm not quite sure there are little keys scattered around the house, but he finds them and he collects them. I think it's been a while.

I think the original game, you don't even get to stack the keys, but in the remake, the keys stack and just become like one item, which is a mercy. I know for me, as a person playing the original game, I always wondered, like, why can't I at least put the keys together. You know, like, if I can hold a magazine of bullets and that's one item, why can't two keys just, like, clip together, you know? I mean, to be fair, we don't know how big the keys are because you don't really often see them.

They might be huge, two-handed, kind of. It could be like the key to the city. Yeah, exactly, yeah. They don't unlock the door so much as you smash the lock with them. And there's chocolate inside. That was never chocolate. Sorry. I couldn't resist.

And funny, you mentioned the save thing, but yes, it's, by design, the game is tense about saves. You know, the game puts you in that first hallway, and there's a typewriter, and the typewriter has an ink ribbon. You can pick up the ink ribbon, and you can save your game. But the ink ribbons themselves are finite items. If you do not ink ribbons, you cannot save your game, which means there are sometimes you'll be alone in this house, you'll open a room, you'll find an ink ribbon and you'll have to decide, oh my God, do I take this ink ribbon? Or should I pick up this healing herb? Or should I pick up more bullets? Or should I pick up this small hexagon? Maybe it's important this hexagon. You have to make these choices constantly throughout the game,

and I feel like all these things together help keep the game scary, even when there's no monsters, because you're always choosing, what the hell do I do in this room, what's important, will I come back here, how many monsters are between me and the next typewriter? you know, can I afford to use typewriter again? Like, to me, at this point, I'm older in my life, and I really appreciate games that lets you save wherever you help, wherever the hell you want. Like, that to me is a big point. Like, just let me save.

I'm tired. It's, you know, it's 10.30 p.m. I'm sleepy. I need to save. But 25, 26 years ago, to me, I was like, oh, I love it. I love that this game is challenging me all the time, and it's forcing me to make these choices. So your memory card issues decide, Stu, once you got to save the game, was that, did that, alleviate terror? Were you still on board? What happened for you, Stu? Well,

I can remember being fussy about this because I did, like I said, I went through my phase of being very harshly critical of anything that seemed this is a bit counterintuitive in a way for a retronauts presenter guy, but I did go through a phase where I was very kind of like, that's too old, that's too

archaic, forget it, we're not having that. No manual saves, no typewriter, I don't like any of this. But now I'm really fond of it. I don't recall exactly how, limited they are in the original I know in the remake you tend to find them at least in the default difficulties

in quite high numbers I would never really find myself without an inkra but when I needed one I don't know if that was the case so much in the original because it has because most of my experience with that game was with no memory cards but I do still like it

I do think it adds a sense of another layer of unease to the whole thing because there is this kind of gradually dwindling resource for something as crucial as saving your game. So you do have to go, you do have to manually sort of bank your progress. There is no assured progress. You could lose everything.

You could end up in a position where all that time has been wasted because you didn't pick up an increment because you got munched by an errant zombie. I do like the tension that brings, but I don't know in practice how often it comes up that you don't have an inkribon, especially because there are item boxes and a lot of the save rooms anyway, where you could store said ink ribbons. I'm not sure. It has been a little while since I experienced it in that way. Most typewriters are near a box, but not always. I know

this one of the bigger ones, I think, is when you leave the house for the second time and you go into the underground caverns, you have to run past a bunch of dogs and at least one or two hunters, and then you find a typewriter, but there's no box. So if you didn't bring a ribbon with you, you can't save the dash you just made past all those monsters. And so when I was replaying the game and I saw that, I was like, oh, God. It really got to me. I was like, oh, God.

Yeah, because who's walking around with ink ribbons when instead you could have a key? Yeah, it's true. Or at that phase, one of two cranks. Two more cranks. I quite like, I am first and a first. foremost a JRP guy. So, you know, saving your game is my entire jam. I don't mind that Resident Evil kind of, you know, I feel like these days a lot of games are, you get to autosave every time you change areas, which is great and convenient and respect your time, et cetera,

but also just kind of cuts the tension down to zero because you're safe all of the time. And, but I think one of the reasons that it does work is the fact that the game, it's not that long a game. You know, obviously it takes a long time to figure out what to do, figure out where you're going. But even if you take your time, even if you thoroughly explore that mansion and you go down all these paths, it should only take you, I mean, I think when I recently played it for the, not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time, I believe my first play-through took me about 11 hours, and that was with, you know, very thorough, very thorough checking every room kind of thing. If you know what you're doing, it can easily be cleared in three hours. If you really know what you're doing, it can almost be done, I think, in about an hour. I mean, like, the record time

is probably like 40 minutes or whatever, but even a non-speed run, efficient run can be done in less than 90 minutes because the game is designed about playing it over and over and over and over again. You know, like you mentioned technically you can lose progress but the idea is that

oh well if you've gone down this hallway and you know where all the monsters are if you die, well the next time you know where the monsters are so you should be able to do it better this time. And that's just, that's fundamentally a part

of the way the game is built. That's why there's, I think it's one reason why you're able to get away with it. I think if the game was too much longer, it would be more frustrating, you know, if you, if, like, let's say you saved too many times and all of a sudden, you know, as you entered hour 20 of the game, you realize you only have two ink ribbons left. Like that would, I think that would, that would rile me up. But, uh, same with the characters, you know, the fact that there are two different characters, you can play the game, and that's certainly how we played it. We played back in 96 when we played this game, we beat it, you know, after probably a couple weeks or so, but they're like, okay, let's try the other character. And then it's like, oh, wait, let's try this character again, but let's not use this weapon this time. Let's just, try and save less this time. Let's try and, you know, I think at one point we even tried knife only, which, you know, now in modern games is an achievement, but at that point, it was just kind of

a crazy, a crazy personal challenge. Like, oh, what if we use the least powerful weapon of the game? But it's kind of effective if you get it right, you know? I mean, did any of you actually use the knife effectively? Or was it just, did you throw it away the first time you found the box? I always dumped it. I think I kept it, but with hindsight, I'm not sure why I bought it, because I think I've ever really used it. I remember trying to use it as a backup. Like with the dogs. If you shoot a dog,

it goes to the ground, and then if you run up, you can sort of keep it on the ground with the knife, because it can't sort of handle the knife. It won't get up anymore. But eventually, if you're carrying too much stuff, it just, well, I'll just carry more bullets. But it is possible. I remember, especially yet, that's another thing with Chris.

Chris is, like, a little better with the knife. I forget, like, his posture or whatever, but, like, his knife is use is a little more effective. So I remember we were able to play the game with Chris, with the knife, easier than with Jill. And last year, when I played it again and I went for a knife-only run, I did use Chris, and I was able to do it.

So it's not impossible. It's not like a super hard thing to do in the modern era. But it is definitely more challenging than the bullets because, you know, the bullets fly farther and do more damage. Well, I mean, in the DS version, at least, you could go into those weird first-person bits and tap the crows with your stylus. that counts, I think.

Yeah, that was an amazing... I mean, of all the ways you incorporate a touch screen into that game, I can't believe that, oh, well, why don't you use your stylus to knife? Like, I know it's not... I mean, it counts as the first game technically, so I think it's okay to bring it up,

but, man, that was weird. Like, I just want to... I mean, it was amazing that they ported it to the DS at the time. It was like, wow. This, like, a full PS-1 game on the DS, that's insane. I mean obviously not so much considering what came after it but I mean that was just like you'd be playing the game and then suddenly you would just be thrust into

this knife bit that was surprisingly difficult and also all the damage you got counted so you could easily just die in this random shooting gallery but with stabbing at hindsight not very good but you could skip the door loading screens which felt wrong it felt like it exposed the artifice a bit too much pulled back the curtain you know

I feel like if you skip the doors then what you're really doing is skipping kind of yourself. It's funny you mention that to do because in the modern PC port of the game it is possible to take the door animations out and there as such, because of those

animations add up to so much over time there are separate speed run categories with and without door animations. Sensible. But I personally, I don't know, I find them to be absolutely instrumental to the experience, especially it never happens in this one

but in later games they started messing with those animations they started adding sound effects to them like I think it's Code Veronica has them where it's like if you go if you go to a certain door it's slower the animation's purpose to slow down and you get a heartbeat it's like oh boy

there's something behind this door they don't do that in this game but definitely like you know you go up a ladder you go in an elevator they show all these you know it's not just fact that it's opening a door over and over again there are so many doors they may so many different little doors, you know? I think it's kind of amazing.

Have they ever done a revolving door? Oh, I don't know if they did in like a turn style. And it just keeps spinning until the next area is loaded. That would be cool. That would mess me up because then you could be, like, especially to like the subway style where like, you know, like those bars, like because that would be, that would be scary that you'd be scared to get in there like in case you get stuck in the bars. I don't know.

Speaking of the doors, though, because they're loading zones, each area of the game is essentially its own space. So there's really no way for any, you know, if you enter a room, you always know what to expect, and if you run away from a room, nothing can come out of that room after you, except when they make that happen, you know, late in the game, there's a, I think it's a kitchen, it's a kitchen in the basement, there's a door that if you approach this door at any time, you get a special animation and a zombie comes out that door. And that zombie also, for whatever reason, is extra fast and deals extra damage.

But at that point, you're used to the game, you've already been raised on the rules of this environment. So that sort of like changes everything. Like, oh, no. It doesn't become like the new normal, but like when that happens, that was a huge surprise for me. And likewise, when the hunters first appear,

the hunters, they're introduced by opening a door. Now, normally they don't open doors after that. But still, to see that alone shows you, oh, no, this is a new monster and it's more dangerous because it uses its claws as opposable thumbs. Oh, no. The cut scene that introduces the hunters is so memorable to me because you're like, it's like a P.O.V., isn't it?

Like, running through the hallways, and you're like, what the hell's this? It's really smart. I really like that. Right. And it shows the hallway you just came through as well. Yeah. Because it knows, you know, the game knows the route you just took. So you see an environment and it's like, oh, where is this?

Oh, that's the hallway I was in. Oh, that's the door I just opened. And then it comes through. And then, you know, it makes the clicking sound and, you know, it's got its own sounds. And, yeah, that, that, the first hunter is, like, it really reinforces to you how much the game has changed or is about to change because if you're, if you show up there at low health and you get that full screen decap, like the thing just leaps across the room and then your head is gone, that's not a thing that's happened to you before in this game. And you're like, oh, okay, we're doing that now. All right, fine. Right.

It's much more nimble. It can jump over your shots sometimes. It has weird. I mean, sometimes it's frustrated for me. Like, there are times where you shoot it and it gets up and, like, you can't shoot it again for like a few seconds. I don't know. That part, I know when I replayed the original game last year, I found hunters to be the most frustrating enemy to deal with just because they seem to break so many rules just as far as combat goes. And, yeah, if you make the wrong move, they can just kill you.

and, well, I hope you saved. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I always think it's kind of a bummer how some of the later Resi Games made hunters into almost like fodder enemies, like Revelations 2 and stuff like that, and one, in fact, because they should be scarier. Like, they should be a real threat, I think, and they made them into almost just straight up cannon fodder,

and it was just kind of a bummer, I think. Well, I guess they had to make more of them, and so once you make more of them, they necessarily got weaker and weaker. I guess, just because you can't, they can't all be superhuman. Were they human? That's a good question. What do you think?

Was a hunter a human or was it just like an animal? Frog. Frog? Frog, yeah. Because I know the Keeper's diary talks about something that looks like a gorilla with no skin. And I'm never sure if that's supposed to be a hunter or if that's supposed to be something else that never escape the lab. It's just a guy who doesn't know what a frog looks like. It's a tiny gorilla with no skin.

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Now part of the HyperX Podcast Network Previously on Chat of the Wild Good to know. I wanted to use this time to impart some words of wisdom from Eslo. Straighten up your hair once I'm gone. You got a style all over the ladies. La, la, la, la, la, la, are the words to his new hit single,

Live Long, Love Long. And also, he woke up from a dream where he forgot to study for the test. Did he really say all those things? Yeah, yeah, these are all things that I discussed. He discussed with me. That's magical. Chat of the Wild, breaking down Zelda and Zelda-like games

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Thanks to the dual chamber drivers enhanced by premium DTS Headphone X spatial audio. Up to 300 hours of battery, two chambers, zero wires. The cloud alpha wireless. Available soon at hyperX.com, HP.com, Amazon, Best Buy, MicroCenter, and more fine retailers. All right. So, well, we've established the nature of Resident Evil. why we liked it. We've established its sort of quirks and personalities. And it was a big hit. We've established it was a big hit. So a funny thing happened six years later in March 2002, Capcom said, we're doing it again. And they remade the game. And I found this shocking for a lot of

reasons, mostly because most people didn't do that, you know? Like, most companies didn't just make a game again. That was very uncommon. What were the really notable examples before remake? The Dragon Quest games had all been remade. Well, 1, 2, and 3 had been remade. What's that Dragon Quest? Dragon Quest, yeah, 1, 2, and 3 had been remade by the point. I guess, oh, yeah, the Super Mario Bros. I guess if that counts, Mario, All-Stars.

Yeah, I forgot about Mario. Right, but it's pretty short list. It wasn't super common, though, yeah. Yeah, it was not very common. This is pre-Twin snakes, right? I believe so, because, yeah, I mean, the GameCube only launched in the fall of 2001. So this was within six months of the GameCube launch. Right, right. Okay.

And I think Twin Stakes was much later. I think that was more, I think it was 0304. Yes. Right, right. But yes, so Capcom surprises everyone and announces they're bringing back Resident Evil and they're doing it again. And it is, I mean, it's the same game, but it's not the same game. I don't know. How did you encounter the remake?

What happened when you first heard about it? What did that do to you when you found out about it? Well, I was, I was pouring over the Capcom website every week for updates on this because they were putting up new screenshots. almost every week on the official Capcom site, and I would pour over them and get even more excited. Look at this new anime. Look at this thing called the Crimson Head. That's crazy.

It looked beautiful. I just bought a GameCube, and I wanted more games anyway, so I was very excited for it. I mean, I didn't, I hadn't sort of developed Resident Evil kind of fandom yet, but I remember the main thrust of this game being, in terms of coverage,

this is the best-looking game ever. Like, this looks insane. and it kind of still looks insane. It does. It still looks great. It looks absolutely incredible. I don't feel like the... This is probably a hot take, but I do feel this very earnestly.

It comes from a very real place. I feel like the visuals no longer match the gameplay in a way that kind of hurts the game, but I get why people dig the remake so much. I think there's a disconnect there between the, the usual controls plus the fact that the fidelity is so much higher that it looks so much better

I feel like if a game controls like that it needs to look worse and that's my maybe that's insane I don't know but that is genuinely how I feel it is a bit of a weird it's not quite there for me but yeah

I didn't get to play it to kind of like anyway so maybe that influenced my feelings I don't know I get where you come from Stu it is it's very new even though it's, but the funny part about it is that it's basically doing the same trick again, you know? Like even though it's six years later, all the backgrounds are still static images. They're just much, much better static images.

Yes. I think, and definitely if you play the remake and then you go back to the original, I think probably the most jarring thing is the fact that all the, you know, all the walls in this mansion are now empty. Whereas in the remake, they meticulously made this mansion to be full of stuff. every space, every table, every shelf, there's so much stuff in the game, which I think, you know, can be a little confusing sometimes because if you don't know where things are, it suddenly you have a lot more places to look for them. Yeah. But it does, it does look incredible. And I think it still looks incredible. I really liked how the mansion looked more lived in and just old and dusty and like some of the carpet was ripped up and it looked like things had gone down here, whereas on the PS1 it was just, we made a pretty mansion.

and there's zombies in it. Right. There's a cleanliness taken away. Yeah, I want that gritty, R.E. feel. Right. There's a quote here from Mikami who came back. Mikami came back to direct the remake. But apparently very few other people,

he said maybe like one of the person who worked on the 96 game came back to do the remake. But he talked about, in 1986, we aimed for a stylish production that felt gorgeous despite being horror. This time, the quality of the video

has been greatly improved. but we prioritize rawness and realism over glamour and I feel like that comes through because like even though yeah the game looks so much better but it's also like I don't know if it's a filter or just the way the graphics are made like everything everything looks kind of like yeah a little grimeier a little a little less sparkling you know like something's something's wrong something's always wrong I always I feel like the original with its less packed less kind of cluttered uh visuals, it reminds me of something like The Shining, like the movie The Shining, whereas the

remake completely loses that. It loses that clinical kind of feel in favour of texture, which reminds me more of like, I'm going to pronounce this wrong, but it almost reminds me of like, there's such of, this Jiello kind of movies or the sort of Dario Argento kind of movies where everything's really, really like, um, luscious almost texture-wise there's a lot of work in colour

a lot of work in making things just absorbing you into the world so I think they're two very different kind of flavours of horror and I wouldn't want to criticise either of them obviously I tend to prefer the original's visuals because I like the almost

stark alien feel of it but the remake does look absolutely spectacular that's gone into every single render. It's just absurd. And it's kind of, I'm always surprised by both how much it is the same game, but how much it is not the same game. Like, they've, it almost at almost every turn, they give, like, if you, if you had arrived in 2002, and you knew the first game backwards and forwards, you would show up and the first, the initial stage was like, oh, yeah, okay, here we are in the dining hall,

and we know we're going to open this door, and we know the zombie's going to turn around. Like, you know all this stuff's going to happen. But then right away, they start throwing little things at you like the dog hallway. Yeah. You know, in the original game, you got this famous L-shaped hallway. It looks empty. You walk down. Suddenly, dog comes to the window.

If you run, you find another dog. And in the remake, the first time you walk down this hallway, it's extra scary now because, of course, like, they've added lighting effects. There's a, you know, there's a storm outside. And the first time we walk by the window, the window cracks and, like, a little piece of glass comes out. And that's it. But if you go back through that hallway again later, then the dog comes out, which I think is brilliant. I think it's a brilliant twist. It's like, oh, no, there's no dog this time, but is there?

It's great. It's the game. I'm just kidding. Or am I? I love it. And it's full of stuff like that. Like, you know, we talked about the zombies and doors. In the remake, some zombies can open doors.

You know, if you leave, for example, you get through that hallway, you come up to that little bathroom, and famously in the first game, it's the tub zombie. This is a tub full of water. You pull the water out. There's a zombie in the tub. And normally, you figure, oh, well, I'll just leave this room, and this zombie

will never bother me again. Wrong. If you leave that zombie there long enough, he will open the door and come out into the hallway. And I think if you leave him there still, he will actually come out to the next hallway, the entrance way, near the save room. Like, he can move surprisingly far, given enough time and story.

like story beats, but he's not alone. There are several zombies in this game who will move from one area to another if you don't kill them. And it's nice that they are polite enough to shut the door behind them when they do that. They were raised properly. Proper zombies. Right. The doors themselves are still these ultimate boundaries. They cannot be destroyed. You know, the spaces are still disparate spaces, but the zombies can cross that space sometimes and then close a door behind. And never locked. They can ever unlock a door. So if you, the door's

locked, then it's safe. But yeah, stuff like that. Like, Forest, the guy you find on the, the guy you find on the balcony, the first game, who has a rocket launcher. When you find him in the remake, depending on who you're playing, he can get up. He can try and bite you. Poor Richard, the guy who gets bit by the snake.

In the second game, the remake, you can actually save him. He will always die to something else later on. But if you actually give him the serum in time, you actually save him. And, like, to me, the first thing that happened, I was stunned. I was like, wait, he's alive. Richard's alive for five minutes. But I don't know.

To me, it's almost, I can ever decide whether that is absolutely brilliant or irritating because, like, I think the game works if you didn't play the first game, but so much of it is designed around surprising you what you expected. So I'm like, I'm never sure where that needle falls, where it's like, oh, this is brilliant. Oh, wait, that's too much. This is too self-referential now. I don't know. How do you feel about the sort of, the built-in you know, remember this?

No, you don't. I mean, I beat this game before I beat the original and I think it works perfectly fine, personally. The subversion stuff is a great nod, but if you're not familiar with it, I think it still works, because that, that it will, just to give the first example you gave

that dog corridor, it still startles you. despite it's still a good scare I think even though it's not the sort of classic sort of iconic one I think I think it works I don't think that the subversions are I don't know what the right term to use is I don't think that they only work

as a reference if that may if that may sense I think they work anyway but that's just my opinion I mean others may disagree I totally agree it stands on its own even if you haven't played the original it's great and the fact that it is

now as old as it. I mean, like, every remake and reboot these days is just packed to the gills with Hey, remember this? Remember all this? You sure do. You love it. This did not have as much of that. In 2002, that wasn't as common a thing,

but there was the Resident Evil 3 remake where it's like, remember this? Well, it's gone. Yeah. Oh my God. We took it out. Quick tangent. Like, everyone complains they and I did that they cut out the clock tower in three, But I guess when they were just copying over the lore files,

they just copied over all the notes and stuff that you find, including a note on a bench that's like, hey, go to the famous Raccoon City Clock Tower. I'd like to. You didn't put it in. Instead, you got an ad telling me to go there, but I can't. So that's cool. Well, in this case, when they remade Resident Evil, they actually put more stuff in it, you know?

Famously, once you exit the house for the first time, you get in the little shed, and, you know, in the original game, you find that crank right away, and then you can go to the fountain. But in the remake, you have to go on a side sort of jaunt through a cemetery, and then you hear a noise in the woods, and you're like, what the hell is that? I've never heard that before. And it becomes a whole side quest thing called Lisa Trevor, who is, I think, I'm normally not a fan of monster that can't be killed, but I think it was, I think in this game it works well because in almost every situation when you see her, you have plenty of time to run away. So the game really makes it clear, and several characters tell you, no, really, you can't kill her, don't fight her, just run away. So if you're stubborn, you know, it's kind of on you. But I think it's, you know, eventually, you know, she's got the noise, she got the chains. So whenever you encounter her later in the game, you're like, oh, God, she's here again.

Oh, I got to got out of here. And that one room where you sort of have to, like, navigate around her to throw a switch to get to the next area. But if you're not, if you're the wrong spot, she'll come down the hallway after you. Like, it's, oh, God. I'm quite fond of that. personally the whole like invincible enemy thing i've always liked that in horror games uh and i feel like lisa trevor is a better implementation of that than something like and i'm not just dumping on these remakes because i actually enjoyed these games but in a rezi two remake with mr x

i almost felt like that was a much more flawed implementation because once you realize that when he catches you he's just going to slightly hurt you it's really not really it becomes completely non-threatening, essentially. But Lisa Trevor is so, like, horrible. Yeah. That it really resonates, I think. I really like Lisa Trevor.

Like, it's horrible to look at, like, she's got this, you know, terrible appearance. She just seems really messed up, like, as a person. You're like, oh, what, what? Like, she's not a zombie. You know what I mean? But you, so you almost have empathy for, especially if you read the notes,

you get some kind of empathy for her. But she's also like, she is there to kill you. She can do a lot of damage. She surprised me one time I was doing, I was doing a no save run. And she surprised me by like shooting tentacles out of her back. And she, she knocked me off the cliff. And I died. And I was like, wait, you can do that. You can do that. And I just throw over. I, yeah, I love that. I totally agree. I like, I like the whole, any, any game where I'm being stalked by an invincible thing, I love. And yeah, it was nice today. They, because

like we'd given it to us in two and three and in the remake they're like hey we can put in one too and i'm like yeah please please do that and the character itself is interesting they they tied her into the lore around uh spencer mansion and all that uh right it was yeah overall very well done she has her own little house she's got like you know a little bedroom she's got a little like cute masks yeah yeah yeah he's got a hidey hole full of candles she's got personality just got a mausoleum oh rich kids am i right But not invincible, but a certainly surprise. How about the first time when that zombie gets back up?

Oh, boy. That to me was, I didn't know that was happening. I didn't know. I think apparently it was part of the press. They did announce it at a time, but I didn't know. So when that zombie got back up, I was like, wait, wait, what? Yeah, I was not over. Spoiled by that by the Capcom website because when they were every week, they were unveiling new things about the game.

They said, here's a new thing. It's called a crimson head. It's a zombie that gets back up. if you leave it. So I was fully expecting it. Yeah. Also, kind of annoyed, you have to just burn them so they don't do that. But you don't have to do that. You can run from them

if you want. But yeah, they just, they're they zip right along. They are fast boys. I found by the time, and this is, okay, this is playing on default difficulty, I found by the time that they turned up, I generally had enough shotgun ammo that they weren't that big of a deal. I would

just be like, oh no, crimson head, boom. Like, oh, The Crimson Head is Crimson Dead. See ya. Yeah, I think they're a really cool idea. I really like them. I don't, I think the whole idea of getting, of burning them is a bit too tedious to be bothered to be worth doing.

So I think I would just let it happen and stock up on ammo, basically. They are really, they are really cool, though. I do like them. I like, yeah. I feel like they could have given them a little something extra because they got the speed and they got like claws now. but maybe a little something to actually make them more of a threat.

Did they ever come back in any of the later games? I don't think so. I don't think there's anything like a Crimson Head specific. I mean, there's different kinds of zombies in all these different games and some of them have like, you know, fish heads or whatever, but I don't think they ever had the here's the enemy, you think it's dead.

I guess part of the Resident Evil 2 remake is that the zombie, you don't really know when the zombies are dead, I think, right? Yeah, that's right. They don't transform, but like, you can shoot them a lot and they fall down and you think they're dead, but some of them will get up anyway, I think. Yeah. I mean, I suppose the later games,

the later games don't really have the structure that would make the Crimson Head's kind of work, I guess. Because they're meant to be more of a kind of like, well, you're, I don't know, X amount of the way through the game now, let's step things up kind of for the challenge. Because the first Crimson Head is the only one that's guaranteed to appear, right? You can burn the others. Am I imagining that?

I think that's... Well, there's one in the new sort of like the, the death mask zone, which is, again, a terrifying scene altogether where you get the masks and you discover where you put them. And then it pulls the chain out of a coffin. You're like, oh, my God, what's in that coffin? Oh, yeah. But there's also one zombie who's like, is already dead when you get there and you just sort of assume it's dead. And eventually, once you run past it, I think a number of times, it just gets up. And then it's just in that room forever, unless you kill it again. Yeah. On the topic of making sure stuff is dead, I think most of the games

with auto aim, you can just raise your weapon. And if something's alive on the ground, your character will instinctively know and just turn towards it and let you know, which is very helpful. They definitely made it easier to sort of aim for parts. Like in the original game, I felt like it was already very much, always very much of a crapshoot, whether you're actually going to hit the zombie in the head or if you get them on the ground. Like, aiming up and down, I found was always a challenge. Yeah. And it's much more streamlined in remake. Like, I always, if I went for a headshot, I usually got the headshot, and I didn't always have that confidence in the PlayStation version,

even with a shotgun. I don't know. Maybe I'm just bad at it, but speaking of defense, that's also brand new for a remake. You now get little defensive items, which don't take them inventory space, beautiful, and you find them, and then you just get an extra thing. You can get a knife, you can get a battery.

I think the funniest one is up for the grenade. You can get a grenade in someone's mouth, and you can shoot the grenade. I mean, that's a bit beyond defense, isn't it? Yes. Well, you know, a good offense is a good defense. And the best combo of all, if you knife someone and you grenade them and you hit, you blow off their head, you can get your knife back. I think that's hilarious.

That is cute. But yeah, even with all these extra things, I don't know. I still feel like the game is still very challenging, even though it's, even though so much of it is more friendly, I still feel it's a very challenging game. I don't know. How did you feel as far as like challenge, you know, remake versus? original. What did you feel about that? I'm not sure if I'm imagining this, but I felt like the remake

had more messing around with items and item slots and item boxes. I felt like I did even more backtracking, but that might just be the fact that I wasn't maybe quite as familiar with it at the time. I have beaten the game more recently this one, and

to my fairly eternal shame, I think it took me about 13 hours because I was just so crap at it. Like, compared to, I think now, if I did it again now, it would take me maybe five, six hours atops. But back then, I was just like, what am I doing? Because I was constantly cycling items out, constantly getting to an area and then realizing I didn't have what I needed. And I don't know if that's because they've changed the design up to make that more prevalent, or if I just ran into that, by coincidence, I don't know.

Well, definitely some things are rearranged. There's definitely, some of the typewriters are in different places. some of the boxes have been moved to slightly new, you know, like the dedicated save rooms are right when you expect them, but there are other like interstitial areas that have been edited slightly, like that cavern space, like there's a cavern space that has a box in the remake that's not there in the original. If you go out to the residence, I think, there's a typewriter right in front of the giant plant, but there's no box. So if you want to, if you want to get a box, you got to go back, but you can save before you fight the plant. Yeah. Which, by the way,

it's totally different because now it's like this two-level space and you can go up the stairs and shoot at the plant's like head. It's totally, like that's totally different. You can you, you can't you? You can kind of skip the plant with plant killer or something. Am I thinking of something else? No, yeah, you can.

Yeah. Mix up some V-jolt, I think it's called. Right. There's the optional mix the poison thing, yes. Yeah, because I think that's what I do, because I don't remember ever actually fighting that thing like as an actual fight. It's so weird.

Plant 42, isn't it? called something like that. There's so many different scenarios where like, there's a scenario where you, like, as Jill, you meet the plant and the plant grabs you and Barry just comes in and saves you with a flamethrower. And there's one where you're Chris and the plant grabs you, and then you become Rebecca, and then you have to do the Vigold. Oh, right. That's right. But there's also ones where it's like, I think you just go in there and you just kill it. I just, I'm always confused by what exactly, what the chain events are. But again, it's one of the many things that makes the game replayable is to find out how many different ways you can go through that scenario.

I mean, there are so many ways to play that game by design with all of the unlockable modes. Not that we're getting to that yet, I don't know. Some of those are so fascinating to me that anyone would never bother doing them, but people did. So, like, I'm intimidated by the unlockable modes in this game. Well, I mean, speaking of Invisible Enemones, this game, the remake introduces the one dangerous zombie, wherein after you reach a certain point, there is always a zombie chasing you, and it's loaded with explosives, which means you can't shoot. it or it blows up and the game is over.

That's Forest, right? It's forest from the helicopter. Forest is now following you around throughout the game. And he can open doors. He can do whatever he wants. I love that idea so much. That's, I think that's the only mode I've not even attempted to play. Because I don't know. My nerves can't handle it. I don't know. Alex, did you survive any of the extra modes in this game? I don't think I did. I don't remember them very well. I think...

There's also one where the enemies are invisible. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't mess with... I mean, I know I tried them all out at least once, but probably just to be like, oh, so that's what that is. Okay, I'm going to go back to the main game and unlock some stuff. They should have done one where the enemies are invisible, but also there's forest, just to make it really impossible. Oh, God. That would be cool. So, wait, on the one dangerous zombie mode, that retains all the other zombies and enemies, presumably.

It's not just him after you. There are other monsters. He is added to the game. Yeah. oh man so he's just as because I have not actually played this mode

because who has the time but so you'd encounter a zombie that's literally completely laced and strapped up with dynamite right that's so cool

I love that idea they shouldn't expand that into a whole game I yeah I'd like to play as Forrest zooming around chasing Chris why don't they make that

multiplayer that would be really fun yeah what were the other modes because they were more right there's real survival which we already, I think, mentioned at least briefly with the item boxes not being linked. Yeah, the remake has three extras.

There's the invisible enemy mode where all the enemies are invisible, except, and it's funny, you can see them in reflections, and if they deal damage, you see them, but then they fade away again. Yeah, but do you still auto aim at them when you... I don't think so.

Oh, geez. I think you can, you know, if you slash, you can sort of slash around. Like, in the speed runs I've seen, people tend to slash with the knife a little bit to sort of find where the zombie is, and then they pull out their gun and shoot. Yeah.

Or if it's in a tight space, you can just shoot down a hallway and, like, you'll figure, oh, I'll probably hit it. But dangerous zombie mode, which is just, yeah, it adds forest to the game, and he cannot be killed, and he always pursues you. And then real survival,

disables auto aim, disables connected boxes. I think just in general, more damage, you take more damage, you know, monsters take less damage. I think you probably even have a little bit less of, there might be less ink ribbons and such as well. I know depending on difficulty

levels, you get different amounts of bullets and different amounts of ink ribbons per find. Like, on the lowest difficulty in the remake, you get like six ink ribbons for every pickup. Whereas the highest one, you get like one. So it's a, it's a stark difference. That is one thing that I appreciate, though,

the fact that the remake really has a lot more difficulty options. Yeah. The original game is basically like, do you want to be Jill or do you want to be Chris? 50-50. Whereas the new one, like, you can be Jill or you can be Chris, and then you get to choose how much you want to put up with the crap of the cape. Oh, yeah, it's like, do you want,

something like, do you want a pleasant hike, a pleasant stroll, or like a mountain climb or something? Yeah, they phrase it like a question, yeah. Do you like, do you like a pleasant hike? Do you like a challenge? Do you like being punched in the face? And one of them starts you in a riding mask? I don't know what's going on there.

But, yeah, so this remake, which came up for the GameCube 2002, for many years it was locked on Nintendo's consoles. Eventually they made a Wii version. But in 2014, they actually made an HD remaster. of this game. So this is the one that is now available on just about every platform, including the Switch. So if you are curious about Resident Evil, you can basically play the remake now

on almost any platform, almost any device. It's on Steam. It's on all the PlayStation's, all your Xboxes. And it's often very cheap. Oh yes, it's definitely been on sale. I think I picked it up for like maybe $4 or $5 at this point.

One of the biggest changes to their HD version, however, is the fact that, yes, now since we all have controls, analog sticks on them, you can basically switch between the two controls at any time. If you push a D-pad, you get 10 controls. If you push the analog stick, you can run in any direction. You don't need to quick turn. You can just do it. Oh, it's completely unacceptable. It's, well, it's funny because on the one hand, it's great for evading stuff. But on the other hand, when you change cameras, it is very easy to get turned around and get confused. And I know, like, in particular,

that one room, it's not in the original. It's only in the remake. It's like a puzzle room where you've got to push a statue down this very narrow space when the walls are closing on on you. Yeah. And in order to get from the button that starts the puzzle to the trigger, you have to run around a wall and you go through at least four different camera changes. If you try to use the analog stick, you will run into the wall every time. You will get confused every time and you might die if you get it like really, really wrong. Whereas if you use tank controls, it's the easiest thing in the world.

Yeah. I mean, I don't want to go into, like, and I'm doing, you can't see me, but I'm doing the air quotes. I don't want to be gatekeeping. Like, I would not do that. If the only way you can enjoy Resident Evil is with direct control, then more power to you, but honestly, there are so many things that are archaic about this game

that I feel like you would bump up against before the tank controls became a factor, that I almost feel like if you don't like the tank controls, you probably just don't like Resident Evil, and you probably maybe don't like games that are this old or feel like this old. And I hate saying that because, again, retronauts, but there are games that are older than this

that feel less old than Resident Evil because of the way it controls. And that's not a criticism. I have no problem with the controls myself. It's just, I don't know, playing a game like this with direct control, it almost feels like using an action replay or something. it's the way you can just run rings around the zombies is just it's just wrong it's incorrect but if that's the only way you're going to play this game i'm not going to try and tell you you're

doing it wrong you know but you are doing it wrong okay how would you ask have you have you tried the new controls at all or i have not uh but uh i think i have this i think i have this uh the pc part of the hd remaster and i i think i want to stream it now in which case i may try that out. I'm going to go with the tank controls because it's classic, but I'll try it out and see how it feels. It's a pretty, I mean, this game turns up in bundles, like humble

bundles and things a lot as well. But as a piece of advice, I want to offer anyone who wants to get into Resident Evil who maybe hasn't tried the series yet. Which is when you want to start from the beginning, this is the one you want to start with. There is also a game called Resident Evil Zero, which you should not buy. You should avoid it at all costs,

even though Zero is a lower number than one. You know, Stu, I picked up Zero on sale recently. And when I said I picked up on sale, everyone on Twitter was like, oh, no, oh, no. I mean, it's not horrible. It's not, like, completely horrible. It's just, like, if someone wanted to start the series and they tried that, they would never play another game. Right.

It's no Yagos of Zero, is what you're saying. Possibly ever, like, any game, they'd probably be like, okay, forget this whole hobby. I'm out. Yeah, I like Resident Evil Zero, but I think that's just because Rebecca Chambers is one of my favorite characters. I think if it hit in anybody else, I would not like the game as much. I think Resi Zero, and I'm not outright saying it sucks because I haven't actually finished it, so I don't feel like I can. Even for, like, when it came out to me, it felt older than Resident Evil because of the way that the puzzles work because of the way that you're switching around characters, dropping items all over the place. It feels more like a classic kind of adventure game, I think.

And that's something to, I put it this way. think that Rezi remake is old and archaic than Rezzi Zero is just going to make you want to cry because it's so much harder as well oh man just wanted to make just wanted to get that out there a bit of a tangent I apologize

no that was a reaction at the time I mean because that game that came also came out 2000 Resident Evil Zero also launched in 2002 so that's also turning 20 this year and it was it was kind of a throwback at that time and people are like hey but the remake the remake is so much nicer than this why you know why would you go backwards by making this

new prequel game. It confused people. Having said that, Resi Zero does still look great, because it has a very similar style to the remake of Memory Serves. Well, I'm sure it was made in the same engine at the time. Yeah. The best way to play Resident Evil Zero is to play Resident Evil, Zero, is to play Resident Evil The Umbrella Chronicles and just do the level that's based on it, I think. So, before we move on outside of the realm of games, there was a game that came out between Resident Evil and Resident Evil, called Resident Evil, colon, dual shock version.

Yes. And I want to touch very briefly on what I consider the most bonkers thing maybe about this franchise, and that is Mamoru Samura Gochi. Oh, my God. Okay, yes. We can tell the story, sure. All right. Real quick. So if you, like me, bought Resident Evil Dual Shock version in 1998 when it came out because you got this cool new controller and you want to play the game with it, and you notice something was a little bit off where you noticed the music was absolutely crazy. That's because it was composed as in quotes by Mamoru Samuraguchi, who had some fame in Japan prior to that as a deaf composer. People were calling him the modern day Beethoven. But the Resident Evil dual shock version soundtrack is pretty objectively awful.

It's a lot of just mashing fists on keyboards. And it turns out, uh-oh, the guy's not deaf and he didn't write any of the music. He takes someone off to write it. And this was, he was outed when someone came to his apartment to do an interview. He would answer questions before his assistant had finished signing them to him. At one point, he got up to answer the door after he heard the doorbell. And I've heard that story. The whole interview thing was apocryphal, but I looked it up and it is sourced by a Japanese magazine called Nikon.

But yeah, I just found that to be insane, the fact that he somehow passed himself off as composer. And I can't remember the name of the guy who actually, I have it written down somewhere, who did the music for Takashi Nigaki was the actual composer of Resident Evil. dual shock version um so he's the one to blame for that uh yeah most i would i would probably not i would probably not take credit like i would be like no it's okay he did it i think yeah maybe that's why he wanted to keep it under wraps like nobody can know that i've done this no i've got to mention because again if this is wrong i apologize and i'm wasting everyone's time but i mean the most iconic bad one is what mansion basement that sounds like yes but wasn't it didn't it turn out to be a

case they'd use the wrong sort of sound fonts or something. And if you change it to a certain other one, it actually sounds kind of okay. Oh, that I don't know. I'm willing to believe that. I'm sure that I read that somewhere that it was a matter of just using the wrong samples or something or the wrong font. Like when it's turned down or something, it sounds like actual horror music. But I'll have to look that up. Well, the tracks run the gamut. I would say not all the tracks are terrible, but that one is infamously like weird and like what the hell are you doing. And it wouldn't surprise me if it was a mistake. I'm going to, I want to affirm this because I don't want to spread misinformation.

But the crazy thing by the story is the fact that that revelation only came out like maybe what, five or six years ago? Like that's a recent year ago. I'm looking at that thing right now. So it's February 2014. Right. That's a recent news item. Yeah. He came out himself and said, I'm kind of deaf, but not really.

Sorry, everybody. Okay. I cannot find any affirmation that what I just said is even remotely true, so now I feel guilty. But Radfranor's listeners, if not, it was one of my hilarious jokes. So no big deal.

It's a classic stew cut up. Yeah, it was a classic, it was a classic wheeze. It was a classic jip, gag, jabe. It's all right, Stu, because it's the perfect segue, because of speaking of crazy music, there's also Resident Evil, the live action motion picture, which also came out in March of 2002. Music, in fact, made by Marilyn Manson, of all people, who I know has been canceled since then, But at the time, that was kind of a crazy story into itself.

Like, wait, that guy who makes the weird rock videos is now doing film soundtracks. But, yeah, it was a big deal that Resident Evil was getting, I mean, okay, six years is not like the tightest timeline, but it was still like, it was still very much irrelevant. You know, the games were still very popular. Everyone was talking about it. It's like, oh, and I think the biggest surprise to me was the fact that Resident Evil, the film is rated R. You know, a lot of video game moves at that point had to be suitable for kids, you know. Moral Combat famously is made PG-13, same director, in fact, Paul W.S. Anderson, he also directed Event Horizon, which is a horror movie that I personally love, even though I recognize it's very stupid, but it's like, it has enough science fiction in it and enough, like, demons in it that I just think it's the coolest thing. I don't know. But this movie, I felt like had a lot of buzz around it when it was coming, even though this director has sort of his ups and downs. I don't know. What was your interest level, if any, for Resident Evil, the movie? movie.

Could I interject with something that's just so... No, wait, I've just realized that was Resi 2 and therefore irrelevant, but I remember George Romero doing a Resi or being attached to something. Yes. He was a... I mean, it took many years to get this thing to screen, and I'm pretty sure he had at least done at least one treatment for a Resident Evil movie, and I think he might have directed like an ad for Resident Evil at some point.

That might be what I'm thinking of, yeah. I seem to remember at the time he, Romero was dropped because... he was being too goofy with it. I think it was either Capcom Japan or America who were like this, yeah, this, like, we don't want zombies in Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses, like, this is real goofy.

And they just kind of quietly dropped him. He was definitely in the mix, though. Like, yeah, this, Paul, Paul W.S. Anderson was not the first choice for this one, but he ended up, I think, based on his resume, I think he got the job. And, well, I don't know, it worked out well for him. I don't know

if it worked that well for the audience. But I don't know. So, I, it's real mixed sort of, in my experience, but people seem to either, it's not love it or hate it, it's kind of hate it or think, yeah, it's like it's fine. I don't have any real time for this movie personally. I just don't think it's good enough. Like, I don't think it delivers on almost any level. The whole of these, the whole sort of franchise of these movies, the ones that I've seen, I just don't know how they kept getting made. None of them really offered me anything.

I mean, there are some gags that I liked. Like, I do enjoy the trolling laser grid. That's quite funny. Just for the pointlessness of it. But, I mean, the fact that the trolling laser grid then got put in Rezi 4. I think it was Rezi 4. They straight up borrowed that set piece. That was cute, I thought.

But, you know, I don't know why they, I mean, And it's Paul W.S. Anderson, he's not, you know, Scorsese. He's just, he's not going to, he made Mortal Kombat. That was pretty good. I liked that. But I feel like Rezi needed a different sort of treatment to what he was offering, which was this kind of, I know, vivid slip-not infused. I mean, I mean, I like my play. It's an excellent record. But like, it's not Rezi. There's no atmosphere, you know? It's just noisy and violent. I mean, violent, yeah. But, you know, it's not. what I mean, it's just vivid and unpleasant and loud. It's an extremely 2002, extreme movie. Yeah.

Like, top to bottom. I mean, it's nice to see Lettie herself, you know, Michelle Rodriguez and them, but... Oh, yeah. That would have improved the movie if Toro Ritter turned up. I remember being disappointed. I went to see it in the theater as a, just a fresh-faced 19-year-old kid. I remember being disappointed because I think what I wanted was like a one-to-one retelling of the video game, and I was disappointed.

did. Now, these days, I'm disappointed for completely different reasons, but yeah, mostly, that it's just, it's an aggressively 2002 action movie. It's sort of, I mean, obviously, it's not really an adaptation, but it does have elements from two, like the liquor is in there and that sort of thing. Yeah, it got bits and pieces. Yeah. But, like, in the same way that Resident Evil One surfed to set up the events of two, I really wanted, I wanted to just be spooky mansion, special ops team goes in. I wanted to be mansion focused, I guess. Right, but even when you see the mansion, I remember, like, looking at the mansion for the very first time, I was like, that's just, that's just not the right mansion. Like, the mansion just looked wrong, you know? I don't even remember. Well, I, I watched it very recently to prepare for this podcast. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely was disappointed by it at the time, and I have not grown an affection for it, but I kind of like, I guess at this point, it's become sort of dated its own way. I kind of appreciate its sort of bizarre choices, you know? Yeah. You know, it's got some matrix hangover to it, but it's also its own thing. And I think I also, I mean, I really like Mia, my God, I think it's Mila Yovic.

I think it's how you pronounce her name. I always liked her. And I think this is, you know, it's great that she got sort of to become a star from this movie. Like she, she had been working for a long time. She started acting like in her teens. So this was not her first movie, but this was like her first hit movie. Like, now she's a star. So I think that's pretty cool.

And apparently she married Mr. Anderson and they seem to be happy together. you know, good for them, but... Yeah, it was like the fifth element was her main thing before this, right? That was probably her biggest role, you know, as Leeloo, but yeah, it's just, it's kind of interesting to me that both as this sort of set the tone as like, no, you can do a video game movie that is rated R, because this movie made so much money that I've made, I've lost counter the number of sequels at this point, and it's also interesting to me because this absolutely influenced what Resident Evil games would be going forward.

you know, like you said, Resident Evil straight up borrows the laser thing but it's like, the action in Resident Evil before this movie wasn't really about being cool. It was always about being careful watching out for your bullets, finding the right gun, going back to the box

and, you know, making sure you have the right equipment for the right setting. And going forward, it's more like, no, no, get your assault rifle, get your handgun, it's okay, blow up, you know, here's five grenades. You can get more grenades later. Just make sure to use, you know,

throw them, If you throw them right, you'll get all the monsters in one shot. Like, I mean, even in an interview about Devil May Cry, which was 2001, Hideki Kamiya was saying how Resident Evil isn't cool because it wasn't. It was like this clunky sort of horror, you know, horror game. But then you, you know, once you got four and five and six, suddenly it becomes this sort of action franchise. And I think the success of the movies absolutely, you know, had a say in that. Oh, sorry. every time anyone in any context

mentions Resident Evil 6, I just start grinning. It's such a hot mess. I love it. It will get its own episode. Trust me. I can't wait. That's retro this year. That's 2012.

I kind of, I mean, I guess I appreciate the movie in that respect because I'm one of those heathens who really does enjoy the high-action Resies. I mean, everyone likes Resi 4, but I liked 5. I think Revelations 2 is one of the best games in the series, and that's pretty much a straight third-person shooter.

I enjoyed mercenaries. I even enjoyed Rezi 6 for all its flaws, and, you know, five. So I do appreciate them bringing that element to the series, though it was a departure from what had come before. All the games, the later games, like 7 or 8, where they claim to be going back to the routes or whatever, they're just not. I don't care what they say.

Resu 7's nothing like Rezi 1. It's great, but it's nothing like Rezi 1. but it's nothing like Rezi. It's just a different game. So I guess I appreciate the movies in that respect for allowing me to play Raid mode in Resident Evil Revelations, you know, with some kind of context

because that's probably the thing I've spent the most time on in the entire series. Well, with the recent 10-year anniversary of Revelations, I feel like Capcom saying, it's time to go back to horror is now 10 years old. Like, it's now a retro complaint, you know? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Though, I mean, the fact that they do keep these older games sort of in some measure of circulation

with the remake being widely available, the Code Veronica X is still widely available. Two and three remakes, I mean, two is probably the closest they came to doing survival horror again, but even that's quite shooty. And the Rezi 3 remake is basically just a cutscene, so, I don't know, it's a fun cutscene. Yeah. And I enjoyed it. It's just not a game. It's barely a game at all.

For me personally, Resident Evil 2 remake came closest to being scary simply because I feel like it's the game where ammo is most scarce out of recent Resident Evil's. And that, to me, increases difficulty and makes the situation all the more tense for me. Resident Evil 3 remake, you're swimming in ammo

from top to bottom. It's not an issue. It's pretty scared to. It's all spectacle and it's all very segmented and it's about three hours long even when you don't know what you're doing. So it's fun. It's a thrill ride, but it's barely a Resi game.

It's barely even a game, I think. But I did enjoy it. I don't want them to remake Resi 4, but they are. No. Before we wrap our discussion here, I just want to quickly touch on the fact that in this year, we actually, well, here in Japan, it came out last year in America. There was a brand new Resident Evil movie that is not connected to the other Resident Evil movies. It was, and it is, in fact, based on the games. It's called Resident Evil Welcome to Raccoon City.

Did any of you see that? I did not. I'm going to be honest with you. I thought I should watch that before we do the podcast. I should definitely watch that. But then I started watching Breaking Bad Season 5, so nothing else really got a look in, unfortunately. I think you made the right choice. But I think it's very interesting just to mention the fact that how different it is when you actually try to put all these things in the movie.

And then you get something that sort of dissatisfying for. different reasons, because the movie, in fact, is filled to the brim with stuff from the games. You know, like, Chris is there, Claire is there, Wesker's there, Chief Irons is there, like, it's everyone is there. Also, everyone curses a lot. But, yeah, like, Jill eats a sandwich and says Jill's sandwich. You know what I mean? Like, that's...

Excuse me? Yes. Jill is a sandwich and says Jill's sandwich. Like, it's Jill's sandwich, like, she makes a joke. You know what I mean? Like, she kicks someone's sandwich. It's like, a zombie at one point writes itchy tasty on a window. Like, it's just, it is...

That is both brilliant and awful, and now I want to watch it. Does someone say Master of Unleck a door and say Master of Unlocking? They don't go that far, but they definitely... What do you mean they don't go that far? She says Jill's sandwich for no reason. That's going far. I appreciate it, I think, on a camp level. I thought it was camp be fun, so I had...

had a good time watching it. I was confused. I wasn't sure why everyone cursed quite so much or why Wesker didn't wear sunglasses until the last two minutes of the movie. But I just thought it was so different than the Resident Evil movie, which had sort of became its own thing. It's sort of like, okay, well, here, what if we try doing the games as a movie? And it turns out no one really likes that either. Because as far as I can tell, the Raccoon City movie was not well received by fans or critics, so... It sounds so bad, and now I really wish I'd watched it. I love the sound of that, just like, let's cram everything in.

Every few months, I host a bad movie night at the bar. I think that's a prime candidate for screening. It definitely, I had, I mean, I watch it myself. I think it would be fun to watch with friends and have a chuckle. Well, I think we're in the end game now, so let's quickly talk about, of the three we've talked about today, which is your favorite version of Resident Evil? Why don't we start with you, Stu? Oh, I mean, I've got to give it to the original. I mean, looking at it more objectively, and I hate using it.

in that word when talking about video games because it's stupid. But looking at it more objectively, I think that remake is probably the better game in terms of what it offers as a package. But I've always preferred the original because I've always been the kind of person who likes their old games to look old

and feel old. I think that the game feel of the original is better. I think that the flow is better and frankly I have got more nostalgia for it. It's one of my little hobby horse kind of pet heaves is when you've got a game that looks great but feels old.

Like, that to me is a big disconnect. Like, if the game, if Resident Evil remake had been fully overhauled into something more along the lines of, say, the Resident Evil 2 remake, I would probably like it a bit better. But as it is, I just respect it as a masterpiece while personally preferring the first one. How about you, Alex? I'm going to say that personally, I like games that look good but feel old. I do like remake for that reason. I'm the same weirder who wanted the FF7 remake to be a turn-based RPG and not an action game.

So that's where I'm coming from. I really like it. And honestly, we're so far out from both of them now that my brain tends to intermingle them. And they're both kind of retro games to me. And I remember being more excited for the remake because I didn't know anything about the first one when it came out. Then I got to know it over time. And then they announced a remake. and I got to build my own hype train

and just ended up loving everything about the remake when it came out. And I need to replay it. I need to revisit it. It's been a while. Well, if I have the tiebreaker, I would personally say I think the remake, the remake to me is just a little bit more accessible and sort of merciful at times.

So I felt like in replaying these games last year, I felt like I had more of a blast enjoying the remake than going back to the PlayStation. version. But I do really, really wish it was easier for people to play the PlayStation version. Like now at this point, unless you have it on a PS3 or a Vita, you basically can't play it without just, you know, stealing it. Oh, yeah. And it's even awkward to buy on a PS3 now, because I don't think you can just put a PayPal on there or like a card on there anymore. It's hard to get. Yeah. It's like if you don't own it already, it's hard to get. Yes.

And that's really a shame because it is, I think it is distinct enough and it certainly is historical enough that it warrants saving, especially if you do the director's cut has a unique like extra hard mode where all the items are like shifted around. Like that's, that's not the remake. You know? Right. Arrange mode. Yeah. That's really cool. I mean, I would say at this point, fans, you know, God bless fans, there is a randomizer for the remake. Yes, of course there is. You can randomize everything. You can randomize the doors. You can open a door and go to a complete different part of the game. It's fascinating. I love watching Twitch. I love watching people play this game on Twitch with the randomizer on because

you have no idea what you're going to see. You can randomize all the enemies. You can open a room and find sharks or bees or tyrants. Like you've no idea what it could be. It could be anything. That would be an interesting bonus mode. Replace all of the enemies with sharks. One dangerous

shark mode. One dangerous shark. No, multiple dangerous sharks, way. Hundreds of sharks. All right. One last question before we wrap up here. Now that it's been so long, How in 2022, how do you feel about Resident Evil, like, as a whole? As an umbrella, how do you feel?

Oh, clever. Alex, please. It lost me for a little bit in the middle. The series, I was really into one, two, three, and four. And then I kind of dropped off for five, six, and mostly seven. And then I came back for eight, and now I'm back on board. I loved eight a lot. I think four is still my favorite overall.

But eight is a strong second. They can keep this momentum up with nine. I'll be policed. I never really stopped liking it because the change in focus to third-person action, then to co-op, which is like my favorite thing ever, couch co-op. Even a game is crappiest six is fun on couch co-op. But then Revelations 2, as I mentioned, I thought was just fantastic stuff. And I don't understand why more people don't talk about it,

because I really think it's a, like, top three Rezi game. But seven was wonderful, and eight, like, I don't replay games. I don't have time. That's not, like, a humble brag kind of, all too much going on. I just don't do it, because with sort of games writing and stuff, I rarely have time to play stuff. I'm not reviewing anyway. When I finished Village, I immediately played through it again,

like, straight through the whole game a second time, because it was just that fun. I think Village is fantastic. I liked it better than 7, and I loved 7. So, yeah, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, this series is still at the top of the pile for me. Whatever 9 is, I doubtless will love it. I think it's heavily rumoured that Revelation 3,

or at least something along those lines is coming. So I'm really looking forward to that as well. And, of course, the Rezi 4 remake, which, while I don't think it will be as good as the original Rezi 4, it will probably be a pretty damn good video game to play. so I'm looking forward to it. Whatever comes, I'm looking forward to it. It's just been a series that's constantly delivered for me,

although what it's delivered has been, you know, different to what it originally offered. It's just, I think it's moved with the times quite well, despite the kind of hiccup of Rezi-6, which was a weird kind of, we don't know what we're doing anymore experience that I still managed to have fun with. Yeah, I would say, me, speaking personally,

I loved the first game, and then I sort of dropped in and out over the year, years where I wouldn't play one, that I would play another one. Like, I personally, for all it's weirdness, I love quote Veronica. I played through all five. I really enjoyed five, even though I recognize it has some serious issues to it. But in the last year or so, I've really been sort of getting back to the ones I never played before. And a big part of that was me revisiting both the first game and the remake version. And I played a lot of them last year. At what point I even got, like, I started speed running the remake. Just, you know, I'm not, didn't send any

records, but like, I did a no save run of the remake. And it, you know, I got it done in like in less than was, like, maybe about two hours, which was like short enough to get like the unlimited rocket launcher. But like, I didn't have to do that, but like I was really into it. And I got, I had fun with it. So I still love risen evil, even after all these years and and versions for it. Speaking of years, this recording is gone for quite a while. So why don't we go ahead and put a pin in this and wrap this up? Why don't we start with you, Alex? Please tell our

listeners where they might find you if they want to find you. Hello, you can find me, the human being, the person at my establishment. I run a retro video game bar here in Nagoya Japan called Critical Hit. It's next to the Nagoya Hilton in Fushimi. You know where that is if you're in

Japan. If you're not in Japan, you can find me on the No More Woppers podcast that I do with my pal, retronauton, alum Ray Barnholt. I'm on Twitter at Petui, that's P-I-T-O-H-U-I, and Twitch.tvision

slash hooded Patui, where I mostly stream retro RPGs. Right now, I'm playing in Shining the Holy Ark on Sega's Saturn. Thank you. Hey, can I ask what No More Whopazes is about, please? It's about two good pals who somehow got through their 20s

and are almost done with their 30s. I mostly just talk about life in Japan. Ray talks about life in wherever he is and tell stories about running a video game bar it's kind of here and there it's just it's two friends goof

and I've often described it as two friends trying and failing to get to sleep at a sleepover If I had drops I would use them but I don't know As for Retronauts well this is Retronauts Thank you for listening to Retronauts

We are, I'm sorry I cut you off Stu you should go before Retronaut Oh really? But I'm also a Retronauts Okay, um... Yes. Hello, I'm Stuart Gip. You can find me on Twitter at Chupacabra.

Like, Chupacabra, it's very clever and funny. Uh, you can listen to Retronauts, and you can hear me hosting some very British episodes of the show and appearing on some less British episodes to inject them with Britishness and silly tangents. Um, and hopefully, just occasionally, some facts. And, uh, you can also find my writing on websites such as Push Square and Nintendo Life and, well, Retronauts.com. And I'm going to plug it because I would, this is a good opportunity to do so.

I was through a webcomic. You can read it at mary hellcomic.com. Thank you, Stu. And as we said, Retronauts, we are fan-supported. You can go to patreon.com slash retronauts. And for $3 a month, you get our all our episodes one week early with a higher bit rate. If you pay $5 a month, Bo, whoa, whoa, well, you get two bonus episodes every month. You get a free weekly column slash mini podcast from me.

As I said, many of them have been about Resident Evil Games. And you also get access to our Discord. You can chat with us on Discord. I'm in there, Stu's in there, Jeremy and Bob in there sometimes. You never know. You never know. It's a free-for-all.

As for me personally, I am not a retronaut by blood. My name's Diamond Fight. You can find me on Twitter and Twitch at Fight Club, F-E-I-T. That's my last name. C-L-U-B. That's a noun or a verb. And that's it. Any final words today?

Itchy, tasty. Sharks. Good night. You know, Oh, Thank you.