Not as bad as people say. Still not very good.
Resi 6 marked a pretty dark time for the franchise and Capcom in general, being both a part of and herald for a period when the company was trying REALLY hard to appeal to gamers in the west by catering to what they believed western gamers wanted. Slow-paced horror with mechanical complexity and the potential for getting yourself in difficult situations was out. Endless shooting at bad guys with guns and monsters with guns through gritty corridors was in. Big budgets and EPIC (in all capital letters) storytelling were in. Realism (or rather a warped perception of realism based on trying to ground outrageous hollywood spectacle in a cartoon caricature of real military procedure) was in.
Thus was Resident Evil 6 born. And despite all that - it has its moments. For series veterans, it really is kinda neat to see Leon and Chris meet up, it is neat to see Sherry grow up and pick up a gun, it really is neat to see more weird Ada Wong intrigue. For everyone else, the ideas here aren't bad - the shooting isn't nearly as good as RE4 or 5, but the weapons are serviceable and some feel downright great to use. Locational damage still exists and enemies are largely quite reactive instead of feeling like the meat puppets of other seventh-gen shooters. Enemies explode into weird bug-gore when you take them down, or even before that, transforming into new enemy types in real time by acquiring monstrous claws if you blow off their arms or spider legs if you blow off their legs. The monster design is inventive both artistically and in terms of what they can do. Diving around Max-Payne style is kinda fun. It has elements of what made the previous two more-action-oriented RE games great. It's just also buried in QTEs and bland visuals and bad netcode that will see zombies warp to grab you constantly.
Much like RE5, this is not a game to be played solo. The game saddles you with an AI partner if you do this and while they aren't terrible, it drags down the experience enough to make the entire game markedly worse for your trouble. Find a friend to play with or don't bother. Or just don't bother. I don't hate this game, but honestly you're not missing anything by skipping it.
I used to think some of the QTEs were really unforgivingly punishing but it turns out the friend I played with is just terrible at mashing. lol.
Resi 6 marked a pretty dark time for the franchise and Capcom in general, being both a part of and herald for a period when the company was trying REALLY hard to appeal to gamers in the west by catering to what they believed western gamers wanted. Slow-paced horror with mechanical complexity and the potential for getting yourself in difficult situations was out. Endless shooting at bad guys with guns and monsters with guns through gritty corridors was in. Big budgets and EPIC (in all capital letters) storytelling were in. Realism (or rather a warped perception of realism based on trying to ground outrageous hollywood spectacle in a cartoon caricature of real military procedure) was in.
Thus was Resident Evil 6 born. And despite all that - it has its moments. For series veterans, it really is kinda neat to see Leon and Chris meet up, it is neat to see Sherry grow up and pick up a gun, it really is neat to see more weird Ada Wong intrigue. For everyone else, the ideas here aren't bad - the shooting isn't nearly as good as RE4 or 5, but the weapons are serviceable and some feel downright great to use. Locational damage still exists and enemies are largely quite reactive instead of feeling like the meat puppets of other seventh-gen shooters. Enemies explode into weird bug-gore when you take them down, or even before that, transforming into new enemy types in real time by acquiring monstrous claws if you blow off their arms or spider legs if you blow off their legs. The monster design is inventive both artistically and in terms of what they can do. Diving around Max-Payne style is kinda fun. It has elements of what made the previous two more-action-oriented RE games great. It's just also buried in QTEs and bland visuals and bad netcode that will see zombies warp to grab you constantly.
Much like RE5, this is not a game to be played solo. The game saddles you with an AI partner if you do this and while they aren't terrible, it drags down the experience enough to make the entire game markedly worse for your trouble. Find a friend to play with or don't bother. Or just don't bother. I don't hate this game, but honestly you're not missing anything by skipping it.
I used to think some of the QTEs were really unforgivingly punishing but it turns out the friend I played with is just terrible at mashing. lol.