With both Resident Evil 7 aka Biohazard 7 and the Resident Evil 2 remake both scoring accolades within the industry and from gamers alike, I think it is time to revisit a controversial entry of the series that put the franchise in hiatus for a while – Resident Evil 6.
I had a chance to replay the whole game on PS4 with a friend recently and what a trip down the memory lane.
On paper Resident Evil 6 had everything to make it a success – Leon Kennedy and Christ Redfield as two of the returning main protagonists, the inclusion of Sherry Berkin and the reappearing of Ada Wong, both from the Resident Evil 2 fame, and split screen co-op from Resident Evil 5, the Mercenary Mode from Resident Evil 4 fame etc. So what went wrong?
The separate intertwining story concept was good. It worked in the original games so it should work here. However, at this point the Resident Evil story had become so convoluted that at times it doesn’t make sense anymore. While Capcom was trying to move forward with the main entries’ plot, the whole Umbrella, Neo-Umbrella etc. plot had gone really stale. The introduction of new characters that you know would be the main villain and how certain existing characters’ behaviours no longer make sense had taxed what were the remains of some credible storylines. I mean seriously Leon Kennedy, you should know by now Ada Wong can hold herself a lot better than you do, especially after Resident Evil 4? And for Chris Redfield, without Jill Valentine by his side he acted like a total brainless beefcake for female gamers to drool all over with…hold on how come it was Jake who was responsible to strip but not Chris? That does not make sense at all….Anyway the good throw back of the story was Sherry. I mean good to see her back but I thought she would be less naïve after Resident Evil 2 and being experimented continuously by the US government all these years? New comers such as Helena and the fake Ada weren’t that interesting either. They were meant to expand and further the plot and the Resident Evil world but neither of them did neither of that in the game. It’s like ‘ok it’s done moving on’. Piers Nivans was the more interesting and likeable character but then it was quite obvious that we won’t see him again in the Resident Evil world. From story plot and character development, Capcom just made strange choices that led them nowhere to go. Also the concept of reintroducing the same boss again and again and again and again throughout each individual campaign was just mentally tiring. We have moved on, the characters in the game said they had moved on, but not for the lazy developers at Capcom so they can recycle the same polygons as much as possible to minimise their work.
Gameplay-wise, Resident Evil 6 is just a hot pot of all elements that made the previous games interesting. Over the shoulder aiming: checked; split-screen co-op play: checked; active time events: checked, checked, checked and more checking. However, what Capcom failed to acknowledge was that throwing everything together and amplifying them in the same game does not make a game successful. While over the shoulder aiming is still good but with AI enemies improved and in some areas the environment was shaking and moving all the time, the control or satisfaction of mastering over the shoulder aiming was basically out of the window. It just become a tedious exercise to try to even score a headshot. And at times head shots seemed to be relying on luck as so many times you saw the red dot at the right place and still no satisfying head shot sound came out and you ended up rotating your left analog stick like a maniac because you got attacked due to a ‘failed’ headshot. And speaking of the left analog stick, I do not know how in the world developers at Capcom would think that making you to rotate the left analog stick every two minutes is a good way of enjoying an action game (seriously at this point we do not pretend Resident Evil 6 is a survival horror game). For example there was a part where Jake and Sherry had to go through a succession of doors with wheel controls. All I wanted to do was to fight off the enemy and moved on via the cut scene. But Capcom made you to spin the left analog stick in succession several times before that happened. By the end of it I was scared that I had completely broken my friend’s controller. I did not find it enjoyable and I did not find the moment intense. I just found it tedious and infuriating. Another good example was the plane control that let my friend nosedived the plane several times. The instructions were so confusing for her that we crashed just because nobody understood what Hannigan was talking about in the midst of all the actions. Active time events can be good and entertaining when applied properly but unfortunately not in Resident Evil 6.
Resident Evil 6 was pushing the graphic capability of the PS3 at its time but then sometimes you wondered whether Capcom had its priorities right. For instance in the battle against Debbie, the environment was collapsing, and screen was shaking. At times you could see the framerate dropping and because it was shaking it was hard to figure out where you were, especially at times when enemy reinforcements were added to the field you couldn’t even spot them because they blended into the lighting of the environment. However, whenever you used the sniper, as you zoomed in to Debbie, you can clearly see the trillions of polygons that made up Debbie’s boobs and ass. That made you feel, ‘Really? That’s the most important aspect of this boss fight?’ The other main issue is the change of camera angle every time after a cut scenes. And this is particularly annoying when they were timed mission that you need to complete or it could be game over. You thought you could prepare first to save time, after the cut scenes that had no reason to kick in, you were presented with a camera angle that you had no idea where you were and what you were looking at.
For me these are either cheap tricks to either extend the gameplay or that’s Capcom’s definition of a fun game. For me Resident Evil 6 had so much potential to be a good game with all the right elements but the execution was so bad that it sealed its fate as the game that nearly destroyed the franchise. I think it was good that Capcom retuned to the drawing board and started from scratch with Resident Evil 7 and got things right with Resident Evil 2 remake. But with the announcement of Resident Evil 3 remake, I fear that Capcom is returning to its roots of milking their IPs. I mean come on, Resident Evil 3?
