/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7858936
>Developers spent so much time in every state of the game you really can't take their opinion as a voice of the players.
Mikami never took players opinion when he made Resident Evil 1. He was afraid that people would never get used to the awkward gameplay but players loved the game anyway. The reason he had to change gameplay afterwards was probably because new (zoomer) players weren't satisfied as the ones before. Mikami's real intentions was always to use the same gameplay from "Alone in the Dark" with all the bad tank controls and fixed camera angles intended to ruin the combat and at the same time support the horror atmosphere. Only later he was forced to use Doom FPS camera angles to support combat instead. "Alone in the Dark" also had to adapt to the same camera angles in their latest game, but that made old fans hate the great combat gameplay

>>7856126
>You're comparing different genres.
Good so you understand that some genres are meant to have bad gameplay at some point.
>Metal Gear Solid
If MGS had good combat gameplay there would be no need to use stealth

>>7851568
Tank controls only existed to make up for the bad fixed camera angles. Bad camera angles require bad movement controls. Both were removed later on RE. Even Mikami himself told tank controls had to go because they were awkward, but he also told that this bad gameplay was good to horror, because a fixed camera was more scaring.
>In silenthill games enemies sprint full speed at you from all directions and you're expected to circle strafe and shoot on the run, a lot less polished.
And this bad gameplay is what gave SH games a better horror experience than RE games because you could never see they coming. Even mikami knew bad gameplay was good to horror because added the element of surprise. But for some reason he chose to improve gameplay instead.

>>7853973
>word to the wise re4 has tank controls
You are half right, when people talk about combat control, they only judge by the control of the character movement and his gun but forget that cam control also count as gameplay. This is why I was comparing first person perspective to tank control perspective. And RE4 is almost a first person shooter with tank control character movements that are meant for fixed camera angles

>>7851568
Even the best tank controls are shit compared to a first person shooter. You can hardly aim at someones head unless they're up close. Mikami did a good thing on removing this on RE4 to take advantage of 3D graphics. But unfortunately better combat gameplay sacrifices horror because it turns all into action. Which is fine by /vr/. I also enjoy combat action but hate it when this spoils the horror atmosphere.

>>7849503
>Are you zoomer? Resident Evil is far from a bad shooter.
Every tank control shooter is shit compared to a first person. It takes a lot longer to aim at the target no matter how much experienced you are. And using a dpad instead of a mouse ruins the gameplay even further. This is why tank control games were never popular on PC. RE1 was forced to reduce the amount of enemies and make them dumb and slower in order to make it playable. Only recently Resident Evil games fixed this and decided to improve the gameplay by making it first person with smarter enemies.
>>7849969
Not sure if this reply was meant to me because I never disagreed with any of that. But as I said above slow dumb enemies had been a thing since RE1, SH2 just brought more of that. If you are looking for games with better enemies and combat gameplay you shouldn't be playing any Silent Hill, but Resident Evil 4 would be the best option closest to horror

>>7849228
>I don't care about cutscenes in a horror with bad combat gameplay
Then tell me how a bad shooter like Resident Evil managed to be a better horror game than Doom if it wasn't for the horrifying cutscenes.
>Not everything in SH2 was intentional.
No one can tell their true intentions. All we can do is analyse the end results. I believe SH2 became perfect as a horror game in a way that even the flaws helped in the same way that the hardware limits from PS may have helped the horror experience in SH1 with all the fog caused by the bad visibility and the wobbly graphics. But unfortunately these limits also made the game too short.

>>7848850
SH1 had potential but it was ruined by the console that it was meant to port not by the developers. PS couldn't handle 3D graphics well and developers couldn't extend the game further with longer story and cutscenes, maps and creatures. Ito made great designs for SH1 but in SH3 he did a lot better. SH3 had the best art design thanks to him in the same way SH2 had the best storyline thanks to Owaku
>SH2 did have some better cutscenes but I don't think that's enough to make it the better game overall.
Better cutscenes are still more important than combat gameplay, for a horror game at least. The cutscenes help the player to immerse in the story along with the whole game atmosphere. The clunky combat gameplay was a good thing for a horror game, because James was never meant to be a trained agent and if he was there would be nothing to be afraid of. And the creatures were also not meant to be a big challenge. Because they were never enemies but only products of his guilt trying to make him accept it.
>Never really understood why people focus so much on the cult stuff in 1 either, because it has plenty of symbolism and as much of a depressing story as 2 does.
If you pay attention you will see two sides to the story, the protagonist who tries to escape and the town that tries to protect the cult. The saddest thing about SH2 that makes the game even more depressing is the fact that James wasn't trying to escape and there was no cult holding him other then himself.

>>7846121
>There is absolutely nothing that confirms Silent Hill 4 was supposed to be a different game
Except for that
https://www.silenthillmemories.net/creators/interviews/2005.04.23_imamura_yamaoka_gameworld_en.htm
>Imamura: Well, keep in mind SH4 was not originally suppose to be a Silent Hill.
And that.
https://www.silenthillmemories.net/creators/interviews/2004.08.31_tsuboyama_yamaoka_boomtown_en.htm
>Boomtown: Is it true that The Room was not originally going to be part of the Silent Hill series and that this was only changed part way through development.
>In a sense this is true because the game began life as simply Room 302. However, it was always at least a spin-off of Silent Hill and the most important thing was simply that it be different to the previous games. Certainly if Silent Hill had not existed we would not have gotten the idea for The Room, so in that sense they have always been together.
>>7846121
>Survival Horror fatigue and Konami's shit marketing are what killed Team Silent.
The best developers were already gone once SH4 was released without Hiroyuki Owaku and Masahiro Itō. Both SH2 and SH3 was better than SH1 thanks to them. And even the developers from SH4 had SH2 as their favorite and intended to bring back at SH5. Too bad publishers fucked the whole thing up again
>>7847320
>melee combat
That's the only one thing that SH4 had better than all the others.

>>7843086
>go back to playing Reddit Hill 2 you zoomer fag
Says the /vr/ nintendee that played SH4 first.

SH4 was the game that ended Team Silent career in Japan just before they start developing a "Reddit Hill 2" based game as SH5. SH4 failed because it was never meant to be a SH game till the very last moment thanks to dumb undecided publishers. The gameplay was better for an melee action game but the SH atmosphere was reduced from someone looking for a loved one to a lone incel locked in his apt

It's time for /vr/ nintendees full of nostalgia admit that SH2 was and ever will be the darkest Horror game ever existed.

>>7843738
>Tam Silent only made the first one
The writer from the first SH game only took 2 developers to work with him on Siren. Most of the Team remained and a better writer was hired for SH2 and SH3. Both games achieved a deeper story line thanks to this writer.

>>7777692
Which helped in the slow burn (psychological) aspect of horror in these games. In SH1 you usually got gruesome images right in front of you. In SH2 and SH3 you got subtle messages from unknown sources that makes it even more unsettling

>>7777063
I believe that "Water" ending was the original idea at first. It was only decided to add the other endings once the game was nearly already done. Maybe because their bosses didn't want a depressive cannon ending. And most of the development including the creation of Pyramid head and all the wet parts in the game was meant for the "water" ending. That includes the pic related message. Also the artist developer and the guy who dubs James told that "water" ending is the one that makes more sense even though is not their favorite ending and never became officially canon

>>7401909
>Concerning the true nature of creatures,
If there even is a true nature
>I don't intend to suggest the correct interpetration here
Because maybe there is no "correct" but only personal interpretation
>what Vincent says in the library room - "Monsters...? The look like monsters to you? is something that was provided as an answer to this question
To turn this question into an answer all you have to do is remove the question mark "?"
>They look like monsters to you.
Conclusion What everyone sees is what they project themselves to see. Because these creatures appear as a reflection of the psychic of those who see them. But also mixed with a bit of other psychics from others who suffered traumatic experiences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
>Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves by attributing them to others.
Judging by what happened to Leonard these monsters are dead people who turned into many forms depending on those who see them or whom have been affected by them when they were alive. In a way both Claudia and Angela could see their fathers as monsters because of the abuse they suffered from them. And Heather and James maybe saw another type of creature half related to their own psychic mind

>>7402468
Douglas did mention seeing a monster at the mall. It could be a different monster based in his own subconscious. Or maybe something that Claudia wanted everyone to see. He questioned himself if he should kill Heather to put an end to the nightmare. Maybe she was also responsible but Claudia was the one who brought the nightmare back to life from the start. All we can tell is how Heather sees. The only way to be sure of what Douglas sees would be to play as him

https://silenthill.fandom.com/wiki/Leonard_Wolf#Symbolism
>It is not clear what Leonard's condition is. He may be a normal human who Heather sees as a monster
That maybe Claudia sees as her dad. Just like Angela sees in SH2
https://twitter.com/adsk4/status/1097577262612770816
>Only Angela knows what she sees, her Abstract Daddy. James, players and I can't see what she sees. We are on the James's side. And who can say Abstract Daddy which James see is the same as hers?
On SH2 James sees a monster. And Angela sees her daddy. I only knew this because she called him "daddy" though. I have been telling this years ago on forums and no one believed me. Too bad I couldn't rub this twit on their faces. I guess they had a different view from the game. Sometimes people see different things in SH. Here is another tweet about what James sees.
>they are something like illusions from his subconscious, not only creatures to take the score
Sometimes people see what their own subconscious tells them to see. But in the case of Vincent in SH3 it seems he wasn't affected by his subconscious nor was Claudia. And they don't react to monsters at all.

At the hospital boss scene. When Heather stops talking with Leonard and realizes how crazy he is and the "monster" that he became. She says.
>Heather: Is every one here a mental case.
>Heather: Well I guess you're not a person anyway.
Heather stops worrying if these monsters are humans because she hates them

>>7318414
SHPT was great but too short. And if the project continued it could surpass even some of the first games if it had used the same idea of psychological horror in 1st person and deep puzzle and plot solving.

PT was the first SH game to abandon the old combat element that ruined the horror genre.
>P.T. is in a first-person perspective. There are no weapons or combat system because, as Hideo Kojima explained, when players have weapons in their possession it lessens the sense of fear and helplessness.
Kojima's MG was the first game to force the player into non-combat gameplay situations. But I will not go as far and say that Kojima created Stealth because this would be stupid as saying that Mikami created Survival Horror. But I'm sure that Kojima is much better than Mikami on non-combat gameplay and I believe he could make a better horror experience by removing the old RE gameplay that SH old devs were forced to use

>>7316252
And neither did I say anything about horror games with no gameplay as you stated

>>7316015
Despite being rude to dildo sucking furries. He gives good attention to bugger lover westerns.

At this tweet you can see that their high ups hated SH2 as well and wanted SH3 to be an action shooter.

Here is a good example of a true horror game for those RE fans that don't get the genre.
>Clock Tower is a survival horror point-and-click adventure game with 2D graphics.
>Jennifer cannot use weapons against Scissorman. Instead the player must find hiding spots throughout the mansion which are key to Jennifer's survival, or use traps placed in the environment.

>>7309334
>The point of fighting bosses is overcoming (James') mental suffering.
Yes. James had to face his own sins and stand up against his own enemy which was himself and fight it so then he could realize that what was happening was caused by himself. That was the only way to set him free from the horror. In a way he was spoiling the horror, because once he face his enemy all his fear was gone.

>>7308553
Horror in a game is supposed to cause fear of battle to make you avoid. Is more about being chased instead of chasing.

The only "gameplay" that is important in horror is:
>Looking for items
>Solving puzzles
>Hiding/escaping
>Focus should never be on how to kill the enemy but how to avoid it

SH2 as SH1 broke some of these rules to attract RE fans to their franchise by adding guns and almost turned the game into a Zoombie Shooter. Does a bad battle system ruins a horror game? No because there's no need of battle at all because. The focus should be only on survival and escape. This is what horror gameplay is.

When I play SH games I avoid battles and when I need to fight I just use melee weapons and save guns for boss fights. I do feel it is a shame that you are required to fight bosses though

>>7307479
Better battle gameplay spoil the horror experience. You could have a better battle experience in SH2 if you play in hard mode but I don't think that was intended. It was probably to please RE fans. In RE you play as a trained agent, in SH as a regular person in a bad state, so you can't expect a zombie shooter challenge.

I was a zoomer myself when SH first came up and hated the lack of challenge compared to RE games. But later on I learned that psychological horror don't need this kind of gameplay at all. You could avoid every enemy without any boss fights and enjoy the experience.

>With SH2 there's almost no tension from the combat, it actually just gets to be kind of boring because you never really feel threatened.
If you want a bigger challenge like a RE game try playing in hard mode. But if you want better horror experience try using only melee weapons and avoiding enemies as much as you can.
>I'm curious as to why you feel like 2 does horror better than 1.
1 is indeed more harsh and visceral and this is better if you're into quick scares. 2 is another type of horror. It's a more subtle deep psychological kind of horror. Not the one for quick scares but to keep you wondering long afterwards and this is what makes it more disturbing. You don't get scared at first but you get later once you start to realize some of the meaning behind the game.

>>7305675
>One can compare any number of vastly superior horror titles to SH2 and watch it get roundly trounced in the gameplay department due to the discrepancy between solid risk/reward mechanics, difficulty and crucial decision-making.
We can compare games that better used the mechanics as you mentioned like Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry, but did gameplay helped them become I better horror experience than SH2? Should a horror title focus on gameplay like they do? Are you sure you still got the genre or you just want to score rewards to kill as much zombies as you can? You zoomies decide
>Even SH1 thoroughly fucks SH2 in the ass.
In gameplay YES, but in horror NO. It was a very short horror experience and RE2 still had better gameplay but not better horror. Do you get what I mean zoomie? Horror vs Gameplay?
>>7306340
>without the good faith to present evidence or clues
SH2 had clues everywhere from the start, from monsters design to subtle dialogues to items with symbolism, but these were meant to be subtle and not for zoomers to be spoon fed