Resident Evil 5! My 6th Resi game of the year and the second this month. Resi 4 was just quite damn good so it propelled me right into the next game, even after I said I'd give it a break to finish Gears and/or Monster Prom and/or Pathfinder (one day Pathfinder Kingmaker... one day) but I didn't! Resident Evil 5 is... pretty good? Regular good? Good but because it has to be compared to Resident Evil 4, not that great? All of that and more!
Seriously though, playing 4 and 5 basically back to back makes many parts of 5 stand out, and not really in a good way. The first chapter tries really hard to call back to Resident Evil 4, yet also set itself apart. There's crazy townsfolk you're trapped in small areas with, weird mysteries abound, El Gigantes, chainsaw bad guys... And it all is pretty crap compared to 4. The village scene in 4 works so well because it was one of the first games to do that, it is not scary at all in 5 because we expect it to happen, and there's even more wiggle room with controls and where you can flee to (and loads of ammo, don't forget that). It is set in daylight, which is an interesting idea but doesn't really pay off in any way. The chainsaw bad guys are just literally recycled, nothing about them is different or scary (remember how they stopped showing up in 4 after a few times? Because they knew there was nothing else interesting about them after that and it would be boring to bring them back). El Gigante fight was also dumb, you're on a turret the whole time fighting it. That isn't scary or interesting!!!
This is all of Resident Evil 5's big issue - it apes 4 without really understanding at all what made it great. 4 is excellently paced, and uses its enemies and hurdles in new ways almost every time you see them, the team really flexes its creative muscles. 5 just brings all of that stuff back because folks loved 4, but not really getting that because 4 did them as much as was needed, bringing them back here with nothing interesting to twist on those formulas is just tiresome. I can think of like ten moments in Four that were standouts in great design or just scary. Five has basically nothing like that I can recall, despite beating it a few days ago now. It's monster design is absolute shit, just big scary blobs that come from nowhere. THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO HORROR. BIG DUMB MONSTERS YOU CANT EVEN TELL WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE IS STUPID. STOP IT.
I'm sure this will get worse in 6 -_-
The story is.... eh. Bringing back Chris = great. Making it ultimately about his connection with Jill + Wesker = love it. However, the story does very very little with this. We're given a handful of flashbacks Chris has to his and Jill's encounter with Wesker (that ends with them both going over a cliff), however we receive no context at all about when this mission was or what it was about. Why the hell wasn't this playable?!?! I honestly thought I'd missed a game where this occurred (looked it up even!) but nah, just bad storytelling. Jill and Chris also barely get a reunion and she does nothing the rest of the plot other than bail out Chris + Sheva at the end on a helicopter. I DIDNT EVEN GET TO AIM THE ROCKET LAUNCHER AT WESKER
So yeah, Sheva. She was relevant to the plot for... exactly one chapter. We're on her home turf in the beginning of the story and she's pals with one of the BSAA soldiers we see early on, however we leave that part of Africa (and the game ALWAYS calls it 'Africa', never getting more specific. That's a touch racist!) and her pal exits the story the next chapter. I was even hoping we'd get some more on him near the end of the game, since he has a TERRIBLE excuse (even voiced suspiciously) for how he got out of dodge in the mess that killed his squad, but nah it was just bad directing on their part and he shows up fine at the end. There is however one real good moment at the end where it looks like Sheva is going to sacrifice herself to bring down Wesker (legit got worried) but then Chris goes Beast Mode and saves her before the big finale.
So I've spent quite a few words bagging on the game, but honestly the rest of it is solid. The shooting is good and the weapon upgrade system is just as fun as it used to be, although money feels a bit more scarce? I also deeply miss the vendor guy for some reason haha... The inventory system isn't as good as 4 (inventory blocks are just the best inventory system okay, accept it) BUT it is much more functional for all the gun switching that goes on. There are several areas as well that take advantage of the co-op partner where either each will have a section on their own to solve or you have to hit things together to move forward. I don't think the partner system is really any good and maybe there should have been a solo mode more focused on horror but what can you do?
Resident Evil 5 is pretty solidly at the bottom of my Resi list so far, but I do think it is still a good game. Solid mechanics and two good lead characters are held back by the fact that the dev team just couldn't, or wouldn't, reach for higher heights than the game that came before it.
Seriously though, playing 4 and 5 basically back to back makes many parts of 5 stand out, and not really in a good way. The first chapter tries really hard to call back to Resident Evil 4, yet also set itself apart. There's crazy townsfolk you're trapped in small areas with, weird mysteries abound, El Gigantes, chainsaw bad guys... And it all is pretty crap compared to 4. The village scene in 4 works so well because it was one of the first games to do that, it is not scary at all in 5 because we expect it to happen, and there's even more wiggle room with controls and where you can flee to (and loads of ammo, don't forget that). It is set in daylight, which is an interesting idea but doesn't really pay off in any way. The chainsaw bad guys are just literally recycled, nothing about them is different or scary (remember how they stopped showing up in 4 after a few times? Because they knew there was nothing else interesting about them after that and it would be boring to bring them back). El Gigante fight was also dumb, you're on a turret the whole time fighting it. That isn't scary or interesting!!!
This is all of Resident Evil 5's big issue - it apes 4 without really understanding at all what made it great. 4 is excellently paced, and uses its enemies and hurdles in new ways almost every time you see them, the team really flexes its creative muscles. 5 just brings all of that stuff back because folks loved 4, but not really getting that because 4 did them as much as was needed, bringing them back here with nothing interesting to twist on those formulas is just tiresome. I can think of like ten moments in Four that were standouts in great design or just scary. Five has basically nothing like that I can recall, despite beating it a few days ago now. It's monster design is absolute shit, just big scary blobs that come from nowhere. THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO HORROR. BIG DUMB MONSTERS YOU CANT EVEN TELL WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE IS STUPID. STOP IT.
I'm sure this will get worse in 6 -_-
The story is.... eh. Bringing back Chris = great. Making it ultimately about his connection with Jill + Wesker = love it. However, the story does very very little with this. We're given a handful of flashbacks Chris has to his and Jill's encounter with Wesker (that ends with them both going over a cliff), however we receive no context at all about when this mission was or what it was about. Why the hell wasn't this playable?!?! I honestly thought I'd missed a game where this occurred (looked it up even!) but nah, just bad storytelling. Jill and Chris also barely get a reunion and she does nothing the rest of the plot other than bail out Chris + Sheva at the end on a helicopter. I DIDNT EVEN GET TO AIM THE ROCKET LAUNCHER AT WESKER
So yeah, Sheva. She was relevant to the plot for... exactly one chapter. We're on her home turf in the beginning of the story and she's pals with one of the BSAA soldiers we see early on, however we leave that part of Africa (and the game ALWAYS calls it 'Africa', never getting more specific. That's a touch racist!) and her pal exits the story the next chapter. I was even hoping we'd get some more on him near the end of the game, since he has a TERRIBLE excuse (even voiced suspiciously) for how he got out of dodge in the mess that killed his squad, but nah it was just bad directing on their part and he shows up fine at the end. There is however one real good moment at the end where it looks like Sheva is going to sacrifice herself to bring down Wesker (legit got worried) but then Chris goes Beast Mode and saves her before the big finale.
So I've spent quite a few words bagging on the game, but honestly the rest of it is solid. The shooting is good and the weapon upgrade system is just as fun as it used to be, although money feels a bit more scarce? I also deeply miss the vendor guy for some reason haha... The inventory system isn't as good as 4 (inventory blocks are just the best inventory system okay, accept it) BUT it is much more functional for all the gun switching that goes on. There are several areas as well that take advantage of the co-op partner where either each will have a section on their own to solve or you have to hit things together to move forward. I don't think the partner system is really any good and maybe there should have been a solo mode more focused on horror but what can you do?
Resident Evil 5 is pretty solidly at the bottom of my Resi list so far, but I do think it is still a good game. Solid mechanics and two good lead characters are held back by the fact that the dev team just couldn't, or wouldn't, reach for higher heights than the game that came before it.