Post by A Jaded Lizard on Mar 4, 2016 4:46:21 GMT 10
this was something I worked out (and had planned/still plan) to Let's Play as a proof of concept for Re4 a few years ago. It's basically an attempt to make Re4 (and its far inferior clone, Re5) behave more like an older Resident Evil game. Don't take this to mean I'm one of those "it needs zombies or it sucks" people; I really enjoy Re4 (Re5, less so). While Re4 is a solid shooter and fun (the thing which makes it a game), I developed this as both a personal challenge for myself, as well as a nostalgia tool for anyone wanting a hybrid of the old school Resident Evil games with Re4's better shooter mechanics. Re4 is fairly well balanced, so if you want an added challenge you can also try it on Professional; Re5 is not balanced in any way, shape, or form for single play so I don't recommend trying this on anything but Normal unless you want to die a lot.
Here's how it works:
You can't pick up ammo from enemies who wouldn't conceivably be carrying it, so you can't take magnum rounds from tribals whose most advanced form of technology is a bow and arrow. I allow taking incendiary grenades from the Public Assembly Majini because they carry Molotovs, which is pretty close; otherwise, the only dead enemies you can take ammo from are those who actually wield guns, like the Mercenary Majini. In Re4, this means you can't take ammo from almost any dead enemy, but you can take grenades from the mercenaries. I'll allow shotgun shells and .223 rifle ammo from the villagers, since these are both things they'd conceivably have access to; you can't take handgun ammo, custom TMP rounds, .45s, or high tech mine darts from them, though. Likewise, you can only take crossbow bolts from Illuminados and mercenaries, as the villagers never wield them. In Re6, you can take handgun and magnum ammo from any deceased zombie in Tall Oaks, but you can't loot ammo from any zombie in the catacombs; China has virtually no civilian gun ownership so it's implausible to take handgun ammo from anyone but police or BSAA operators. Shotgun and rifle ammo can only be taken from dead police and soldiers, as most States' carry laws don't extent to shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. You can also take ammo from any dead J'Avo you encounter, since they're a fairly well equipped terrorist group, and would conceivably have access to the same weapons you do. Ammo drops from crates and barrels in all three titles are still fair game, though, and you can take money/skill points from deceased enemies.
You cannot upgrade a weapon's capacity beyond what it is physically possible for that weapon to hold in real life. This really means, in Re4, it's best to play using a New Game+ file and pick and choose your armaments carefully. For the Silver Ghost, the one fictional firearm in the game, I allow the 16 shot magazine you get at level 3. I feel this was one of the many improvements Re6 had over Re5: no more 100 round handguns and 50 round bolt action rifles, which completely destroys any need for ammo conservation. Obviously, this also means you can't use the infinite ammo perks in Re6; personally I though they were boring and ruined the game, and were another carryover from Re5 I hated. Unfortunately, this locks you out of most gun's exclusive upgrades, but again, that was kind of the point. Obviously, this also negates the PRL, Thompson, and the minigun. I'll allow the long bow for Sheva because it's actually reasonably balanced for a weapon with infinite ammo. I'm aware this more or less negates the automatic weapons in both Re4 and Re5, and that's deliberate: to be honest those weapons are terrible unless you invest an excessive amount of money into (impossible) capacity upgrades and they way clash with the survival horror atmosphere Resident Evil is supposed to have. Automatic weapons in the older games were terrible and had roughly the stopping power of some airsoft guns; this "rebalances" them so they behave more the way they did in older games. Re6 already has fixed capacities and reasonable stopping power for all assault rifles and SMGs, so nothing need be restricted there. This also has the "unfortunate" side effect of meaning the Savannah level breaks just about every rule for the challenge; feel free to skip this chapter on general principal, because it's absolutely the worst part of Re5.
Healing items are still fair game when dropped by enemies, since the herbs themselves are reasonable to find on everyone in both games. First Aid Sprays, however, cannot be looted from "primitive" enemies, such as the villagers or tribals. Most of these are static anyway, so that isn't as big a deal. Herbs are apparently some kind of mint in Re6; you're in fairly modernized locations the entire game so it's perfectly plausible to take them from dead enemies in that game. I'll allow First Aid Sprays to be looted from enemies in China and Tall Oaks.
You cannot purchase weapons; you can only take new weapons when you find them in game. As awesomely cool as the Merchant is, he makes no logical sense. I think the way Re5 handled weapons makes considerably less since (why is a grenade launcher from 1983 sitting in an undiscovered, ruined temple, or for that matter why is there a $1600 handgun buried in an ancient tomb?), but from a gameplay standpoint it more closely mirrors the way the older games (and Re6) handle things. This is where New Game+ comes into play, since I highly recommend selling your entire inventory and using the resulting money to customize the guns you want to carry; you can pick your equipment before an operation starts, after all.
No quick reloading. You can't use the passive reload exploit in Re5. This means you can't cheat and manage your inventory while climbing, jumping, recovering from damage, or meleeing. Re4 already has this implemented; Re5 has the worst inventory system in any game I've ever played, so I figure we might as well take advantage of that to make things more difficult. Re6 more or less mirrors Re4 in that regard, so there's no need to restrict that.
No checkpoints. Re4 had the infinite safe typewriters, which I liked better than Re5's very blatantly ripped out Halo "rally point" mechanic, and I wasn't especially happy to see this carry over to Re6. Just like in the older games, you can only save in the middle of a level with a typewriter. "But Re5 and Re6 don't have those!" you say. "Exactly." Die in the middle of a level because the game cheated and decided to spawn 15 cephalo in a row right on top of you? Now you get to do the entire level again. For obvious reasons, I don't recommend playing this on Professional; that mode is especially broken even without adding additional hamstrings. There's no need to make it worse.
No co-op. One of the lasting "gifts" Re5 gave us was co-op, something that's just plain wrong in a horror game (which isn't, but pretended to be). Depending on who you're playing as, your partner AI is allowed a handgun and up to two support weapons: a rifle and magnum for Chris and an SMG and magnum for Sheva (who cannot conceivably carry nine full size weapons at a time, despite what Capcom's inventory will tell you). Given how trigger happy the AI in Re5 is, those realistic capacities really start to hurt. Your partner cannot take ammo from dead enemies, either; if they do, you have to ask them for it and throw it away. We're all about realistic survival horror here, and taking 50 rounds of 9x19mm ammo from someone who's never seen indoor plumbing before makes no sense. There is, unfortunately, no way to restrict your partner's equipment in Re6, so we'll just have to ignore that. It's very acceptable for your partner to heal you in both Re5 and Re6, so I highly recommend taking the perk in the latter which allows them to do just that.
You can't buy 40mm grenades for the MGL, either, because that was just stupid. And you can't sell guns you pick up in game to farm ammo for the same reason; you have to sell the ammo too. Basically, farming is not allowed. Re5 is "balanced" so that it's just about impossible to play the game without it, so again, I recommend doing a New Game+ where you already have everything unlocked, as well as a passing familiarity for how the game works. Loot didn't respawn in any Resident Evil game before or after Re5, so while you could backtrack in the older games, you could only pick up things you hadn't already acquired. This seeks to imitate that. It also means the one RPG you find in both Re4 and Re5 is best saved for a tight place...more or less the same way the rockets are implemented in the older games. The NV-PRG in Re5 is still fair game, since it can be reloaded in a plausible manner and is a fixed weapon only used in one segment.
So...what do people think?
Here's how it works:
You can't pick up ammo from enemies who wouldn't conceivably be carrying it, so you can't take magnum rounds from tribals whose most advanced form of technology is a bow and arrow. I allow taking incendiary grenades from the Public Assembly Majini because they carry Molotovs, which is pretty close; otherwise, the only dead enemies you can take ammo from are those who actually wield guns, like the Mercenary Majini. In Re4, this means you can't take ammo from almost any dead enemy, but you can take grenades from the mercenaries. I'll allow shotgun shells and .223 rifle ammo from the villagers, since these are both things they'd conceivably have access to; you can't take handgun ammo, custom TMP rounds, .45s, or high tech mine darts from them, though. Likewise, you can only take crossbow bolts from Illuminados and mercenaries, as the villagers never wield them. In Re6, you can take handgun and magnum ammo from any deceased zombie in Tall Oaks, but you can't loot ammo from any zombie in the catacombs; China has virtually no civilian gun ownership so it's implausible to take handgun ammo from anyone but police or BSAA operators. Shotgun and rifle ammo can only be taken from dead police and soldiers, as most States' carry laws don't extent to shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. You can also take ammo from any dead J'Avo you encounter, since they're a fairly well equipped terrorist group, and would conceivably have access to the same weapons you do. Ammo drops from crates and barrels in all three titles are still fair game, though, and you can take money/skill points from deceased enemies.
You cannot upgrade a weapon's capacity beyond what it is physically possible for that weapon to hold in real life. This really means, in Re4, it's best to play using a New Game+ file and pick and choose your armaments carefully. For the Silver Ghost, the one fictional firearm in the game, I allow the 16 shot magazine you get at level 3. I feel this was one of the many improvements Re6 had over Re5: no more 100 round handguns and 50 round bolt action rifles, which completely destroys any need for ammo conservation. Obviously, this also means you can't use the infinite ammo perks in Re6; personally I though they were boring and ruined the game, and were another carryover from Re5 I hated. Unfortunately, this locks you out of most gun's exclusive upgrades, but again, that was kind of the point. Obviously, this also negates the PRL, Thompson, and the minigun. I'll allow the long bow for Sheva because it's actually reasonably balanced for a weapon with infinite ammo. I'm aware this more or less negates the automatic weapons in both Re4 and Re5, and that's deliberate: to be honest those weapons are terrible unless you invest an excessive amount of money into (impossible) capacity upgrades and they way clash with the survival horror atmosphere Resident Evil is supposed to have. Automatic weapons in the older games were terrible and had roughly the stopping power of some airsoft guns; this "rebalances" them so they behave more the way they did in older games. Re6 already has fixed capacities and reasonable stopping power for all assault rifles and SMGs, so nothing need be restricted there. This also has the "unfortunate" side effect of meaning the Savannah level breaks just about every rule for the challenge; feel free to skip this chapter on general principal, because it's absolutely the worst part of Re5.
Healing items are still fair game when dropped by enemies, since the herbs themselves are reasonable to find on everyone in both games. First Aid Sprays, however, cannot be looted from "primitive" enemies, such as the villagers or tribals. Most of these are static anyway, so that isn't as big a deal. Herbs are apparently some kind of mint in Re6; you're in fairly modernized locations the entire game so it's perfectly plausible to take them from dead enemies in that game. I'll allow First Aid Sprays to be looted from enemies in China and Tall Oaks.
You cannot purchase weapons; you can only take new weapons when you find them in game. As awesomely cool as the Merchant is, he makes no logical sense. I think the way Re5 handled weapons makes considerably less since (why is a grenade launcher from 1983 sitting in an undiscovered, ruined temple, or for that matter why is there a $1600 handgun buried in an ancient tomb?), but from a gameplay standpoint it more closely mirrors the way the older games (and Re6) handle things. This is where New Game+ comes into play, since I highly recommend selling your entire inventory and using the resulting money to customize the guns you want to carry; you can pick your equipment before an operation starts, after all.
No quick reloading. You can't use the passive reload exploit in Re5. This means you can't cheat and manage your inventory while climbing, jumping, recovering from damage, or meleeing. Re4 already has this implemented; Re5 has the worst inventory system in any game I've ever played, so I figure we might as well take advantage of that to make things more difficult. Re6 more or less mirrors Re4 in that regard, so there's no need to restrict that.
No checkpoints. Re4 had the infinite safe typewriters, which I liked better than Re5's very blatantly ripped out Halo "rally point" mechanic, and I wasn't especially happy to see this carry over to Re6. Just like in the older games, you can only save in the middle of a level with a typewriter. "But Re5 and Re6 don't have those!" you say. "Exactly." Die in the middle of a level because the game cheated and decided to spawn 15 cephalo in a row right on top of you? Now you get to do the entire level again. For obvious reasons, I don't recommend playing this on Professional; that mode is especially broken even without adding additional hamstrings. There's no need to make it worse.
No co-op. One of the lasting "gifts" Re5 gave us was co-op, something that's just plain wrong in a horror game (which isn't, but pretended to be). Depending on who you're playing as, your partner AI is allowed a handgun and up to two support weapons: a rifle and magnum for Chris and an SMG and magnum for Sheva (who cannot conceivably carry nine full size weapons at a time, despite what Capcom's inventory will tell you). Given how trigger happy the AI in Re5 is, those realistic capacities really start to hurt. Your partner cannot take ammo from dead enemies, either; if they do, you have to ask them for it and throw it away. We're all about realistic survival horror here, and taking 50 rounds of 9x19mm ammo from someone who's never seen indoor plumbing before makes no sense. There is, unfortunately, no way to restrict your partner's equipment in Re6, so we'll just have to ignore that. It's very acceptable for your partner to heal you in both Re5 and Re6, so I highly recommend taking the perk in the latter which allows them to do just that.
You can't buy 40mm grenades for the MGL, either, because that was just stupid. And you can't sell guns you pick up in game to farm ammo for the same reason; you have to sell the ammo too. Basically, farming is not allowed. Re5 is "balanced" so that it's just about impossible to play the game without it, so again, I recommend doing a New Game+ where you already have everything unlocked, as well as a passing familiarity for how the game works. Loot didn't respawn in any Resident Evil game before or after Re5, so while you could backtrack in the older games, you could only pick up things you hadn't already acquired. This seeks to imitate that. It also means the one RPG you find in both Re4 and Re5 is best saved for a tight place...more or less the same way the rockets are implemented in the older games. The NV-PRG in Re5 is still fair game, since it can be reloaded in a plausible manner and is a fixed weapon only used in one segment.
So...what do people think?