# Chapter Select, [[S5E10 - Resident Evil 6]] Transcript This transcription was completed on March 4, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model. My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy. --- Happy Zelda Day. *00:00* Yeah, except for the part where I'm not playing it at all and I have no idea when I will. *00:02* Neither one of us are playing it. *00:07* But happy Zelda Day. *00:08* Look, I'm wearing my my Wind Waker t-shirt *00:10* An observation of this sacred day. *00:14* I know we you sent me in the interview thing earlier, but *00:17* We never really talked about the reviews or the performance. *00:21* We joked that it would be a bunch of tens, which it is. *00:24* I don't know what what how are you feeling now that it's out, the press is spoken? *00:28* There are dungeons in the game. *00:34* I don't know. *00:36* Where is it Zelda? *00:36* I don't know. *00:38* It's just a Zelda game to me. *00:38* Like usually this is like a huge monumental thing whenever a new one g game comes out. *00:40* It's like a pillar release for gaming as a whole. *00:45* And I'm not saying it's not for everybody else, but this is the first one that's come out where I've really just kind of like shrugged my shoulders and been like, okay. *00:48* And that's just because I've got other stuff to play. *00:55* And uh I think we call that being an adult. *00:59* Pretty much what it is. *01:03* There's a if this came out *01:05* Even if this came out when Breath of the Wild came out, you know, six years ago, I would have taken the day off of work. *01:09* I would have just like I would have been playing Zelda all day. *01:16* Even uh that one I didn't play on day one, I don't think. *01:20* Maybe dabble. *01:23* I did cause I had to work. *01:24* And that was Switch launch day, so there was just all this, you know, excitement. *01:26* But I did have to play that one for work. *01:30* But I remember Skyward Sword. *01:33* Parents wouldn't let me play skip church in the morning. *01:35* So I had to go to GameStop after church. *01:39* For which one? *01:41* For Skyward Sword *01:42* Oh yeah that was a Sunday. *01:44* I do remember going there after church. *01:45* Remember when they used to launch games on Sundays? *01:47* Was that a normal game? *01:49* I don't remember. *01:51* Yeah, no it was it was for a while there. *01:52* I think uh *01:54* I think Smash may have even launched on a Sunday. *01:56* Uh Brawl, I should say. *01:59* Uh see Brawl's timeline for me is weird because I lived on an island when it came out. *02:01* So like I got Brawl weeks after everyone else. *02:05* So it didn't really my brain didn't factor like the actual day in. *02:08* Sunday's such a weird day to launch a video game. *02:12* It's like the end of the weekend. *02:14* I like these Friday releases. *02:16* And I'm I'm cool with Tuesdays still, but. *02:19* Sunday's a weird day. *02:21* March 9th, 2008 was a Sunday, and that was when Brawl came out. *02:23* Weird. *02:28* Was it just a we era thing? *02:29* It was just something they did for a while with everything. *02:31* It wasn't just with Was it just Nintendo or was PlayStation and Xbox doing something? *02:33* They used to launch, I'm pretty sure this we launched on a Sunday. *02:37* I remember driving past a Best Buy on a Saturday and seeing people lined up and I was like, oh, they're there for the Wii. *02:41* I want a Wii. *02:47* And my dad's like, ha, too bad. *02:48* I was like, oh man. *02:51* Um yeah, they just used to launch stuff on Sundays all the time. *02:53* I know they did it with Skyward Sword, that's right. *02:56* They did there used to be Pokemon games that would come out and I'd be like, Dad, can we go to ch can we go to GameStop after church and go pick up the game? *02:58* And *03:06* Like, okay. *03:06* 'Cause I had already pre ordered the day for 'em like w weeks before or months before. *03:07* I used to like get birthday money and I used to go into the store and be like, uh, I would like to pre order in full this game that has not come out for *03:13* That will not come out for another however many years. *03:21* I think I bought I think I pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite like two years ahead of time or something crazy. *03:24* Just like straight up paid for it all. *03:30* And then I was like, okay. *03:32* Isn't that nuts? *03:33* Now we wait. *03:34* It's nuts like now like now it's weird because like I can't ever imagine doing that now because like *03:36* And games got delayed back then, but like games are shakier than ever. *03:42* It feels like when they're gonna like I mean Suicide Squad's a good example of that. *03:46* It was like *03:50* Oh, it's five or six weeks out from launching and it's delayed to 2024. *03:51* Like it was I always I always think back to Kingdom Hearts 3. *03:55* Because some people would have pre-ordered it, but the other one that I really think about is The Last Guardian, which was a PS3 game. *04:00* There were people at my local GameStop that pre-ordered it on PS3 and didn't weren't able to redeem said pre-order until the PS4 version came out. *04:08* I think I pre-ordered Destiny when it was first announced, which you probably get a kick out of. *04:16* No They're like it's the new game they're like, it's the new game from the Halo team. *04:21* They're blah blah blah and they're like, would you like to pre-order it? *04:25* If you pre-order it, now you get this poster and I was like *04:27* Alright, sure. *04:31* So like I threw five dollars down on it just to get like a poster and junk like that. *04:33* And then I think later on I was like, I I don't want that pre-ordered anymore. *04:37* I still got the game, but I don't think I I kept that order *04:40* I pre-ordered it I guess whenever the special editions went up, after maybe the Alpha or something. *04:45* Because I played the Alpha and then *04:50* It turn you know, I was hooked from the alpha on. *04:53* So I still have it. *04:56* I the game itself is worth nothing, but I think the box and Peter Dinklage's voice and my guardian is worth quite a bit. *04:59* Dinklebot. *05:05* Dinklebot. *05:06* Is that thing valuable? *05:07* I have no idea. *05:09* I it's not that valuable. *05:10* I mean it's kind of unique in the sense that it has his voice. *05:12* Uh yes. *05:17* What was it called? *05:18* Ghost? *05:19* Destiny Ghost Edition or something. *05:20* Yeah. *05:22* I thought the Ghost was the oh no, that's a sparrow. *05:23* The Ghost Edition for PlayStation 4, which is what I have complete in box, right now is like $137. *05:26* So the Xbox 360 one is the most valuable. *05:34* Speaking of Zelda, I just pulled it up here out of curiosity. *05:38* Uh *05:42* So my local game shop has a bajillion copies of Zelda and the Amiibo and Switch Ola and the Collector's Edition. *05:43* So there it is. *05:52* I wanna get the z I wanna get that physically eventually, but get what the game *05:54* Yeah. *06:01* Oh. *06:01* I uh yeah. *06:02* My local shop had it yesterday, big stack. *06:04* And then collectors editions, games, and stuff like that. *06:07* Were they selling it ahead of time? *06:09* Yeah. *06:11* They always do. *06:11* They always sell stuff early if they have it in. *06:13* I don't think my shop does do that. *06:16* Uh speaking of Zelda physically. *06:18* This showed up before. *06:23* You gonna do an unboxing? *06:25* Should I do a little ASMR unboxing? *06:27* I don't know. *06:29* I've already seen it. *06:30* It's just gonna be a box that says Zelda on it. *06:31* It'll be black and then you'll have to dig into it more. *06:33* I know. *06:36* I don't see that's the thing, because I'm moving. *06:37* It's like, do I really need to take this out right now? *06:39* I mean I want to take it out of this box. *06:41* And it would destroy its value. *06:44* It's actually heavy. *06:45* I guess it's the metal poster in there, but *06:46* I'm excited. *06:48* It finally showed up. *06:49* I forgot that thing was metal. *06:50* Yeah, weird. *06:53* It's uh the first collector's edition I've ever gotten a metal poster with it. *06:54* So that'll go up with my other Zelda posters that have been in storage for seven years. *06:57* I still want to do, I mean, I will say this. *07:05* This can maybe tie up our Zelda conversation here. *07:08* Um We've obviously been talking about this and such, but if there's anything that the *07:14* uh Tears of the Kingdom hype here did do it's that it makes me definitely want to do a Zelda season of this program. *07:22* At some point. *07:32* Which I know is something we've kicked around for a while now. *07:33* But it's more just made me think back on the uh older ones. *07:37* And like, think about like how much I like some of the older ones, like, oh, it's been a long time since I've played Wind Waker. *07:41* Oh, I've never fully replayed Twilight Princess, I don't think. *07:47* I've only beaten Majora once and you know Ocarina is my favorite game ever. *07:53* Like I just have a lot of fondness for those games. *07:57* I've been thinking of Wind Waker a lot lately. *07:59* Yeah, I'm not re I've not I think I've played that game twice maybe but I've never replayed the HD version. *08:02* I played it on Wii and I've played it on GameCube. *08:08* Never did that. *08:11* I've been thinking about it I haven't, but *08:12* I have 'em, but it's uh Yeah, I just haven't Haven't done it in a bit. *08:16* So I would I would like to do that at some point. *08:23* And I sent you that article earlier about the *08:24* how they're like, this is what all the games are gonna be like now and I was like not in context what he was saying. *08:27* So Yeah, I I know, and I think that'll still change in the future and what you said was like right, like this is just where the series is at now *08:33* But I do miss, you know, oh my gosh, I got the hook shot. *08:40* Now I can do this, that, and the other. *08:44* And in these these games it's more ability driven and less *08:46* Item driven. *08:53* It's more sandboxing now than like rigid, like you need this to do this, to do this, to do this, to do this, and access this and *08:54* I kinda I I don't know, like it's weird. *09:02* I was thinking about this earlier when I actually sent you that. *09:05* I was like, why do I want Zelda to stay the same? *09:07* It's weird because I well I feel like I'm always the person who's, you know, saying *09:11* Uh like I want I want different stuff. *09:16* Do different things. *09:19* I want to see change. *09:20* Like I'm screaming here about Naughty Dog. *09:21* Make a new IP. *09:23* Like I'm always the person pushing for people to do new things. *09:24* And this new format of Zelda with Breath of the Well and Tears of the Kingdom is obviously very new, but I don't know. *09:27* There's some sort of like comfort or just like *09:34* I just like the structure of all the old Zelda games. *09:38* And it is very formulaic and it is very they can make games like that for the next 50 years of my life before I'm dead. *09:42* Just a new Zelda game every five years in that same structure. *09:50* You gotta go to ten dungeons, and in every dungeon you get an item, and then the item you *09:53* There's a m or in the dungeon there's a mini boss, and then that's how you get the item, and then you gotta get a boss key, and then you use the new item you got to defeat the boss. *09:58* Like I just love that. *10:05* Like I it's it's just so *10:06* It's ingrained in your earliest gaming foundations. *10:08* I think that's just what it is. *10:12* I just like the I just like the format of it though. *10:13* I just like that each dungeon is centered around *10:17* an item and then they show you how to use that item and then they're like here's this item's purpose when it comes to you know traversal and getting around and how it interacts with puzzles and okay now let's introduce you to how it works with *10:20* fighting and what are its battle mechanics and how and here it is in the context of a boss fight. *10:33* Like it's just it's cool. *10:39* Like those the older Zelda dungeons are so well designed. *10:41* Um and I miss that a lot. *10:45* Well, you never know. *10:49* These new dungeons, who knows what they'll be like. *10:51* We're not going out, but *10:54* Slade! *10:55* He's like play Breath of the Wild, Dad. *10:57* No. *11:00* We're not going out. *11:01* You need to sit down. *11:02* Let me *11:03* Let me go get a package at the door. *11:05* And then I'll go. *11:07* Let me get this dog situated and then we'll get going. *11:08* We'll go *11:12* Oh my gosh, breaking news, breaking news. *11:13* Sit down. *11:21* You're gonna wanna I'm a standing desk kinda guy. *11:22* So just hit me with it *11:25* This is huge breaking news. *11:27* I can't tell if you're joking or not. *11:30* No, this is actually big news. *11:32* But tell me. *11:34* In the red carpet premiere *11:35* A Fast X. *11:37* Oh, at Rome. *11:39* Yeah, they're streaming it right now. *11:39* Yeah. *11:41* Vin Diesel just confirmed that Faxa Fast X is not a *11:42* One part of a two-part finale. *11:46* It is the first part of a three-part finale. *11:48* Vin, you dirty dog! *11:56* There's a fast trilogy. *11:59* Vin! *12:03* Vin! *12:05* You sneaky, sneaky man. *12:06* Wow. *12:09* There's always room for family. *12:10* I almost said I can't believe it, but I totally can believe it. *12:13* Of course they're doing another one. *12:16* Just so when I thought that the I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. *12:20* Oh my gosh. *12:26* Alright. *12:27* The now where's Dwayne? *12:28* If they cannot make amends by fast twelve *12:33* Oh my gosh, somebody said it should be fast X, fast X, and fast X for the final one. *12:39* Fast triple X, and then it crosses over with Vin's other first part of the first part of the three X's would be *12:45* 30. *12:53* Shh. *12:54* Shriple X is his other film series. *12:55* But that's not the one he owns outright. *12:58* That's Riddick. *13:01* I forgot he does own Riddick. *13:03* He traded a Tokyo drift appearance for it. *13:06* Dude, I I gotta be honest though, like *13:11* They gotta they gotta end it. *13:16* They gotta stop. *13:18* Oh no. *13:19* I they gotta stop. *13:20* I was perfectly happy with them ending on a two-parter here. *13:21* I hope it's not just them like elongating it out. *13:26* I hope it is something where it's like, oh, the story we want to tell. *13:30* Who am I kidding? *13:34* There is no story to *13:34* Tell here. *13:36* This is gonna be CGI Paul Walker. *13:37* I mean there is a story. *13:39* I mean, but you don't watch it. *13:41* It's not like *13:43* You know, when I th say, Oh, I hope there I'm s I the way I said that, you'd think it's like The Last of Us Part Three, like I only hope they make it if there's more story to tell. *13:44* Like *13:52* It's the reason they're making it is because it makes bajillions of dollars and a it's an action movie franchise. *13:53* Yeah. *14:01* So I'm fine with that. *14:01* Alright, let's go. *14:03* Let's do this. *14:05* Hello, everybody, and welcome to Chapter Select, a seasonal retrospective podcast, where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy. *14:07* For this season, season five, we are covering the Resident Evil franchise. *14:15* My name is Max Roberts, and I am joined, as always, by Logan Moore. *14:19* Hi, Logan. *14:22* We've reached a point that I never expected to reach. *14:24* Not saying I didn't think we'd reach this episode and do this, but *14:28* Resident Evil 6. *14:32* I had resigned that I would just never play this video game. *14:34* And here we are. *14:38* I've now played it. *14:39* Carried dragged each other across the finish line. *14:40* It truly was a cooperative experience of *14:43* You know, one one member would fall and be like, I can't go on anymore this game. *14:46* And the other would say, No, we have to do it and drag us across the finish line. *14:51* And *14:55* Quite literally, I literally had to carry you across the finish line of the final campaign 'cause you couldn't do anything. *14:56* This is true. *15:02* I couldn't open any doors. *15:03* I was a fign figment of Ada Wong's imagination. *15:04* And we we are going to talk about *15:07* All of that. *15:10* But yeah, we are. *15:11* We're here. *15:12* We're play we played Resident Evil 6. *15:12* The nearly the death of the franchise *15:16* Yeah. *15:21* I mean sort of. *15:22* I mean I feel like it's it's too it it was too it's too big to fail. *15:24* It's almost like we're just talking about fast and furiously like *15:27* It was the death of that era for sure. *15:32* It was definitely it definitely caused like a resuscitation in the franchise. *15:34* Just like what's weird is like, I mean there's a lot of things we could talk about with this game and I don't want to get too in the weeds here, but like there are still games in this style that have come about *15:41* that came about afterwards, you know, with like the Revelations games and stuff like that, which aren't as action driven. *15:50* They are a little bit more at the roots of older style resident. *15:56* But *16:00* But yeah, this for the mainline series, yes, this caused them to go rethink some things once again *16:01* Um Yeah. *16:09* Go go sit in the corner and think about what you've done, Capcom kind of mentality. *16:09* And what's funny is, and I'm pretty sure we've noted this over the course of this season, but a lot of the people involved with this game have also worked on a lot of the other *16:14* games in recent years. *16:21* So it's not like this game was made by like a B team within Capcom or anything. *16:23* It was just *16:28* as George Lucas says in the uh and the I don't know if you've ever watched that like episode one documentary that exists where it talks about how they made that movie, but I think at one point he sees like the final cut of the movie, the final like raw cut and he says *16:29* I may have gone too far in a few places. *16:43* That's kind of what they did with this game. *16:47* They just went too far and they needed to reel themselves. *16:49* Back in. *16:53* A smidge. *16:54* A little bit of a smidge, but. *16:55* Just a little bit. *16:57* Uh let's do the quick rundown here and then we'll get into talking about this game more. *16:58* Ad nauseum because there is uh quite a bit to break down, to be honest. *17:03* Um once again, developed and published by Capcom, uh Resident Evil 6 originally released on PlayStation 3. *17:07* Xbox 360 and it also came to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. *17:13* It launched on October 2nd, 2012. *17:19* The game director was Aichiro Sazaki. *17:22* The producer was Yoshiaki Hira Hirabayashi. *17:25* That's an interesting *17:29* Interesting one. *17:30* And then uh the music was done by Ehiko Narita. *17:31* And then this game has a Metacritic score. *17:34* I want to note this. *17:36* You noted the Metacritic score here for the PlayStation 3 version. *17:37* I was gonna bring this up, yes. *17:40* Well, the the yeah, so the PlayStation 3 version has a 74 out of 100 Metacritic score. *17:41* The 360 version though, which has almost double the reviews, has a 67. *17:46* So *17:51* It's about a seven, seventy in there, you know, after you average the two, I suppose. *17:53* Yeah. *17:58* The PC version also I think is like at 69 or something, so nice. *17:58* It's in the *18:03* there. *18:04* And then the user scores are also like in the five range, which I know doesn't matter on Metacritic. *18:04* Who cares about user scores? *18:10* But by all accounts this is *18:11* The worst game in the series. *18:14* We've never had one this low. *18:15* It's it's rare that we play any games this low, period, on this show, I feel like. *18:17* So far, yeah. *18:22* So far we've played well *18:23* Paper Mario had its times. *18:25* Paper Mario had some had some down times. *18:27* Banjo Kazooie had its dark day. *18:30* It did. *18:32* But uh it's rare for us to do an episode about a game that is considered outright, you know. *18:33* Not great or bad, you know. *18:40* So which is again why I mentioned the top of the show. *18:42* I never thought I would play this game. *18:45* I just *18:46* You know, this was the one we had this was the one we had circled at the start of the season is like, oh, that'll be an interesting one when we finally do that. *18:48* And it was. *18:56* It really, really was. *18:57* We *18:58* did the same thing that we did with Resident Evil V, which I actually before the the season started, I didn't think we would play both games entirely cooperatively. *18:59* I thought at points we would we would play separately and then and come back together, but we did play every *19:07* level every chapter together the whole time. *19:14* That's a lot of game. *19:18* We got all the serpent emblems. *19:19* We showed you where all of them were. *19:21* We popped that trophy together through thick and thin. *19:23* Even it and we even replayed the levels because some of them were one character only to our chagrin. *19:27* Let's start there. *19:34* I think that's actually a really good *19:35* Well I mean just broadly, this is a bad game, correct? *19:38* Oh, it's trash. *19:43* Yes, it's not good. *19:44* I mean, jumping off the Metacritic score here, I know we talked uh you did at least at the end of the *19:46* Or in the last episode we did, which was all about Resident Evil 5, you're like I just want to say it, I want to say it now. *19:51* I want to preserve it for the record *19:59* I am excited to play Resident Evil 6. *20:01* Okay. *20:03* I am excited to play Resident Evil 6. *20:06* And I was like, okay, we'll see how long that lasts. *20:08* And that first level or two, when you were learning about the mechanics and like the things you can do in this game, you were pretty hyped. *20:10* And then the same thing happened to you that happened to me the first time I played this game, which was like *20:17* The levels just beat you down with like they grind you to a nub. *20:22* I think it's the game design more than anything, which I mean we can get we can get it deeper into why I think this game is bad. *20:29* Um *20:35* That'll be the whole point of this podcast. *20:35* That's what this episode is for. *20:38* Yes. *20:39* Did you I gotta ask though, did you play this at launch? *20:40* Because you were into Resident Evil in 2012. *20:43* Yeah, I was. *20:46* So you stayed away from it? *20:47* I had played all of them, yeah, uh up until five, and I had obviously Yeah, I was like a huge Resident Evil fan, and then I saw this was coming out, I was like, oh crap, they just announced six, oh my gosh. *20:49* I remember um *20:59* I th I want to say I was at my girlfriend's house when they announced it and I was like on my phone and I was like, whoa, Resident Evil 6, and I watched the trailer and I'm like, that looks cool. *21:02* And then *21:12* Uh I don't remember which else, but I just remember like reviews came out and everybody's like, it sucks. *21:13* And I was like, oh, I'm not touching this then. *21:18* Because it was it, it was during that era where, you know *21:21* Don't have a lot of money. *21:24* I'm in high school. *21:25* I'm working at a minimum wage job. *21:26* Gotta be a little bit select like I had expendable income, but not to the point where you know I'm buying. *21:28* Every game. *21:33* Every game that's coming out. *21:34* So when I saw that it was trash, I was like, I will save my money now. *21:35* Okay. *21:38* And I just never got it back around to to getting it. *21:39* So *21:44* I gotcha. *21:44* Okay. *21:45* I obviously You never touched it at all. *21:46* I've I always had heard things about, you know, this being the downfall of the series, like and especially when seven com came out and rebooted everything. *21:49* you know, style-wise. *21:58* Well that's the thing that made it made seven stand out more critically. *22:00* So I've always our six stand out more critically. *22:03* So I I've always heard of it, but I've never never experienced it, never really understood what the game *22:05* was or tried to do and and now I know. *22:12* Well just to mention this again, I think I've mentioned this already in this season, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself. *22:14* But yeah, like I had obviously I did play Seven at launch. *22:20* I did play Village at launch. *22:23* So I had played every game in the series except for this one. *22:24* And so it was just like sitting there as the one I was like, dude, I should play this game just to say I've played all of them, you know. *22:27* It was kinda it hung over me for the past decade, to be honest, because of that. *22:35* Um and a few years ago, our friend Michael Ruiz and I decided to play it, and that was my previous experience with it. *22:39* We played through the Chris campaign and about half of the Leon campaign. *22:45* And then we got about halfway through that Leon campaign and just bounced. *22:49* And uh so I did have prior experience before doing it here for the show, but I had never gone back. *22:53* Um we played through the full game together here. *22:59* Um *23:02* So yeah, I I I I want to ask you the thing I want to ask you before though, um, because we have played both five and six together. *23:04* Let's do the same thing we did when it's in our five episode, which is just talk about this game's merits as a co-op title and how do you think they kind of expanded on what was in five and how you think the experience was of us playing this one together. *23:13* It's interesting. *23:28* I feel like they made some gameplay regressions in the co-op sense. *23:29* There's no giving of items between players. *23:33* at really any point, there's no healing, like group healing, right? *23:38* I don't recall us ever like standing next to each other and spraying a first aid spray. *23:41* I mean when you're on the ground you know you can give me some little Yes. *23:46* My little pellets. *23:50* So that was interesting that they they isolate you that way and don't let you kind of intermingle. *23:52* That also like item pickups are different for each other. *24:00* Like when we break a box, what you see and what I see are two different items. *24:03* As far as I could tell, you'd be like, ah, I got skill points again. *24:08* And I'm like, I got pistol ammo. *24:11* So that *24:13* It's hard to it's hard to like call out in the environment like, oh, there's some shotgun ammo over here if you need it. *24:15* Or there's because that's what it was in five, because like I knew, you know, that *24:19* You're running a machine gun style character, and I'm running a shotgun. *24:24* So if there's shotgun in ammo in the environment in five when we're playing, you'd be like, oh, this is over here for you. *24:28* You should come get this. *24:33* Or *24:34* And in this game, there's none of that, and we have the same weapons the entire time, except for you in the first couple of campaigns because of your previous experience. *24:35* Yeah. *24:43* So that was it's it's separate but together. *24:44* Like we're just existing in not even the same world because of those item differences, but we just *24:47* We're going side by side and there are doors at certain points where it just requires both of us to open it. *24:52* So it's it's like a single-player co-op game. *24:58* It's n it kind of reminds me of *25:01* stick with me destiny in a way where like I can go off and do my own thing in this shared world and you go do something in the shared world. *25:06* And sometimes we come together to complete an objective or or fight a boss. *25:13* And *25:17* I'm specifically just speaking of the open parts of Destiny, not so much going on a raid together or a, you know, um different task in that game. *25:17* So *25:25* Separate but together? *25:26* Yeah. *25:28* It's a little bit like um kind of remind me more of like Left For Dead. *25:29* Okay. *25:33* Kind of what I was thinking where it's like *25:34* The goal is just to mow down zombies and you work best mowing down zombies, you know, when you're working together. *25:36* But *25:43* You don't have to like somebody can play hero and go run around and do their own thing and that's kind of what it felt like to me. *25:44* But even Left 4 Dead, like you know, there's *25:51* consistent items throughout the environment, you know, like, oh, there's this over here and there yeah. *25:54* It was very strange that we both had different items appearing in each of our *25:59* own playthroughs. *26:03* I'm I'm not sure what the decision was for that. *26:04* And then yeah, some of the the removal of some of the um things that were in five. *26:07* Yeah, I I just I I guess that's the thing that I'm most confused about. *26:11* with this game is that there were already elements of five that were present and worked well and then they just removed them? *26:15* And I'm not sure what the decision was to remove them, you know. *26:23* Swapping swapping inventories between us. *26:27* Like, you need this, cool, here you go. *26:29* And um the inventory system as a whole we can talk about as well. *26:31* It's horrible in this game. *26:36* It's probably the worst one in the whole series, I would say. *26:38* Like It fills up very quickly. *26:40* It's hideous. *26:43* Yes. *26:46* Like if it's a wheel. *26:46* The wheel in Chris's campaign is probably the worst. *26:48* Like that circle UI is so confusing. *26:51* And *26:55* You can't man everything's linear. *26:57* It's almost like an XMB, like the PS3 XMB. *27:00* So you can't *27:03* You're not moving things around like to make space or whatever, but you you have to put things together or drop items, but your your grenades are on a the vertical row instead of the horizontal. *27:04* It's it's *27:14* It's an Remember when they when remember when the PS5 first came out and they changed how trophies were displayed and everybody was like, Why did you do this? *27:15* Like you c we can't see that *27:21* information like we can't see anything now. *27:24* That's what this felt like to me. *27:26* Like they had every other Resident Evil game has had a pretty good inventory system where you can see everything that you have on your character at a single time through the s *27:28* press of a single button. *27:37* Now you're like cycling through everything you have and you're having to trying to trying to figure out oh I found Magnum ammo here on the ground but *27:38* what should I what do I have on me and what should I drop and you're like ah and you're like scrolling through tabbing through everything it's like it's it's uh it's terrible I I don't know *27:46* And that and and that's what that's the strange thing is like there are so many pillars of this game, you know, that are core to the Resident Evil series, but they just went for the worse in this game, you know? *27:58* And the inventory system is a big one. *28:09* It almost feels like they tried to shake things up a little bit or reinterpret things for the sake of it. *28:12* Instead of refining or enhancing something, these all felt *28:18* Nothing felt additive in a mechanical sense, or I should say in the traditional sense, you know, the staples of the series. *28:22* There are some new things in this game that I actually think are great on a gameplay level. *28:31* That work super well, both as just a third person shooter, but also as a a co-op shooter and and things like that. *28:35* But this UI really drove me. *28:42* Baddie. *28:44* And I'm I I will say I did like the aesthetic choice of having each character have their own UI. *28:45* Yeah. *28:53* That fit thematically with what's going on, especially like Jake and Sherry. *28:54* having their UI swapped because their phones were taken away and like broken in the campaign. *28:58* So your UI switched based off the narrative. *29:04* That was cool. *29:07* It reminded me of *29:08* uh uh Sheva being only uh left-handed game yeah and sticking with that. *29:10* So this was kind of a cool world building thing *29:17* It's just they chose like the most obtuse UI possible and I don't I've it was frustrating to *29:19* manage it. *29:28* You and I were talking about this before the show started about another video game series, but it kind of reminded me of this. *29:30* I I think a lot of times *29:36* When new games or sequels come out, people want things to be different just for the sake of being different and I'm guilty of that, you know, like a like for instance, uh *29:38* Like Jedi Survivor just came out Star Wars Jedi Survivor and like I thought it was a really good game and I had fun with it but you know in the back of my mind I was like okay well this isn't like this like J *29:47* Star Wars Fallen Order 1. *29:57* 5. *29:59* Like I don't really feel like there's a lot of changes. *29:59* But then I play something like this and I see how many changes they do made they did make and they were all *30:02* For the worse, and it's like, oh, you should have just kept a lot of what was in five. *30:08* Like, why did you alter this? *30:14* And like, it's not flashy, I guess, to come into a sequel *30:15* with certain elements that have not been tweaked or changed very much. *30:20* I know that's and that's something that's been getting criticized a lot more. *30:23* I want to say like with the PlayStation side of things. *30:26* Like I know people were criticizing *30:28* Like Ragnarok leading up to that game's release. *30:30* Like, this just looks like the same one. *30:32* They're even using the same animations and stuff. *30:34* Like, oh my god. *30:36* Which was ridiculous and over the top. *30:37* But like *30:40* This game, yeah. *30:41* The change it this game I guess just shows to me like you don't want sequels to be fully altered in every manner because it can get worse. *30:42* There's a fine line, right? *30:51* Now *30:53* Look at this, you know, sticking with Resident Evil, look at seven. *30:54* Or look at the jump from three to four. *30:57* Yeah. *31:00* Those are sequels that do revamp the series entirely from a mechanical and presentation perspective. *31:00* for the better. *31:06* So it it There's differences though between, you know, like between six and seven. *31:07* Like you're you're jumping genres at that point. *31:12* Not horror, but like fur third to first person and stuff like that. *31:14* Right. *31:18* Like you're changing like huge *31:18* elements of those games to where they're completely different from one another and a lot a lot's gonna get tweaked in the process though. *31:21* But like five to six, they're both still, you know *31:27* Action third-person shooters with co-op elements at the end of the day. *31:30* So it's kind of what we've talked about. *31:34* We or at least I've pieced together throughout this whole season and through this series of games is *31:36* Resident Evil is kind of in different eras, and there's the kind of the zero through three era that eases into the Code Veronica through six era. *31:41* v more action heavy, less horror focus, those types of things, co-op eventually. *31:51* And then now we're in the the you know, the seven through presumably nine era. *31:56* coming up here in however many years and the remakes are sprinkled in there, but a new style of game and visual and and gameplay mechanics and stuff. *32:02* And this is just the end of that action *32:10* co-op era and it it definitely feels like a PS3 era game. *32:14* PS3 360 it it's big, it's flashy, tries to be at least and *32:19* It just doesn't it tries too much that doesn't land and that brings other pieces crumbling down. *32:25* If it was just the inventory and the mechanic side that wasn't good, but the story was great or the visuals were dope. *32:33* you know, that they could compensate or carry, but each kind of section of this game is a is a missing apart, has a crack in the foundation, and then the whole thing comes crumbling down by the end of it. *32:39* Yeah, I yes. *32:51* I totally agree with you. *32:53* There's a lot of areas we could go with this one. *32:55* Let's just kind of stick with w where we're at, you know, talking about some of the stuff that was changed. *32:57* And one thing I other thing I did want to ask you was just, you know *33:01* the herb system in this game and the health system as a whole having the different blocks of health and that was part of the inquiry problem, right? *33:05* You pick up an herb and it would take up a whole box. *33:13* And you would just get all these herbs and then you'd have to mix them, but it's only red and uh red and green. *33:17* You mix them together and they turn into pills. *33:23* And one pill fills up one health block and you have six health blocks. *33:25* And you can put a pill pit the pills in your dispenser, but your dispenser also caps out at like 12. *33:29* If for me it was like 16 or 17 or something weird. *33:36* Maybe you had a perk, a skill that maybe bumped that up. *33:39* But it was 12 for me for sure, at least in the final uh in the Jake campaign, because I remember filling that up and *33:42* Leaving it. *33:49* But then there's also first aid spray, but that exists on the vertical column instead of the horizontal, which is where the herbs existed. *33:49* So it's this *33:56* Weird. *33:58* And so if you combine two greens, you get, I think, three. *33:59* And if you combine that with another one, you then get six. *34:02* So like the math doesn't necessarily add up either. *34:05* And then a red and a green automatically gives you six pills. *34:08* And so it's just one-to-one. *34:13* There's no, this fills your health up halfway, this fills up your health all the way. *34:15* It is *34:18* You're just managing how many pills you produce, I suppose. *34:20* Yeah, and I did not I did not like that at all, personally. *34:23* Like I just prefer the broad like scene this is the first game I can think of *34:28* where you can see your health kind of laid out in that directive a manner. *34:33* Am I correct? *34:38* Because all of the others, obviously, you have. *34:39* Or well, I guess with the remakes, you can see your health. *34:41* Um but with *34:45* What do you think health bar? *34:50* What yeah it did, but I guess what I'm trying to say is like it would just say fine, caution, or danger. *34:51* There was not an exact, you know, no four bar to go off of. *34:57* Four had an exact bar because the yellow herbs you could increase the bar. *35:01* That's right. *35:04* No, that's true. *35:05* You're totally right. *35:06* Yes. *35:07* Yes, you're absolutely right. *35:07* I think from four onward, I would think five had a health bar. *35:08* I would think. *35:12* Yeah, it didn't. *35:13* I don't know what I'm talking about. *35:14* So no. *35:15* It absolutely did. *35:17* So I'm wrong. *35:19* Yeah, that's a good thing. *35:21* I'm wrong on the bar. *35:21* I'm looking at a picture of it. *35:22* Yeah, it was a circle. *35:23* Fairy Kingdom Hearts E. *35:25* It's it's just I think the difference is there's two things I think that make this more frustrating. *35:27* It's *35:35* finite in the sense that your health is very segmented. *35:37* Six blocks. *35:41* Yeah. *35:42* There's no range there. *35:43* Now your blocks can decrease in *35:45* percentages, I suppose, but you have six chunks, you fill it up very linearly. *35:48* And then I think it takes too many clicks *35:54* Too many button presses. *35:58* Yes. *36:00* To actually make the herbs and heal yourself. *36:00* You've got to combine at least twice and then move it into the pill dispenser, then exit the menu, then use the pill dispenser. *36:04* And you have to push the button however many blocks you want to heal at that time. *36:11* So it takes five plus presses to heal one square of health. *36:16* And it's just so cumbersome and in the heat of battle especially. *36:24* It's like the signing your death warrant. *36:28* Yeah, it's uh *36:31* Yeah, it's j it's just it's far more difficult than it needs to to be. *36:35* And I get that the idea is like you're dispensing the individual pills in your hand now. *36:39* One, two, three, four, five, six, eat them all or whatever the heck you're doing. *36:43* It's like a PES dispenser. *36:46* It's it was it was kinda like that. *36:47* Um again, just very similar to the item management. *36:49* The item management and the health system go hand in hand with me in this game of just like unneeded changes I'm not sure why they made and uh *36:53* Glad none of this stuck around in the i in the future, I I guess I should say. *37:02* Do you wanna talk about some positive *37:09* aspects of the game before we continue our bash fest here because I assume that's what this is largely going to be uh no matter where we go next whether it be *37:11* I do. *37:19* I do want to do that some positives. *37:20* I I know one positive that stands out to me in this dedicated melee button *37:22* That's part of it, I suppose. *37:28* I mean yes, having a dedicated melee button is good. *37:31* I wish the hit detection was a little bit better on it, because the prompt would show up when they were on the ground, and sometimes you'd swing the air instead of stomping on them. *37:34* But the actually the like melee combat is actually fairly satisfying. *37:43* It I think it is a progression from Resident Evil 5s punching things, especially strangely. *37:48* Really in the Jake campaign, Jake and Sherry. *37:56* I keep saying Jake because I played Jake and you played the Jack. *38:00* Yeah, you just I'm I not as much with Sherry. *38:02* She's she's got a little lightning stick there. *38:05* Yeah, but Jake has like a *38:09* charging palm strike and he's he's learned he's learned the basics of CQC from the boss in Metal Fair Solid 3. *38:11* Yeah, it's strange. *38:19* It his fists are actually a weapon in your your weapon line. *38:20* It's not a wheel, but your weapon line is *38:26* Fist, you can choose them and then which is so fascinating from a character gameplay, especially he was the third campaign that we played. *38:29* I like the the melee combat overall in this game. *38:37* It's satisfying that dedicated roundhouse kick button, as you you would joke about before we played. *38:40* I think the mechanics are all largely pretty good. *38:45* The melee stuff is fun. *38:48* I think the other thing with the melee stuff that I like is I mean you were kind of mentioning it with Jake, but *38:50* Even Bianjick, like all the characters have their own kind of different flair when it comes to the melee moves they can pull off. *38:56* You know, Chris is more of brute force and he'll d do a lot of uppercuts or he'll pick up a *39:02* enemy and chuck them across the room directly onto their head. *39:07* Um and that's really fun. *39:11* I know Helena uh when we first started playing I was doing some like *39:13* spin a root sp spinning around people and f throwing them onto the ground and you're you're like, what the heck is she doing? *39:17* Like she's doing some like luchador moves. *39:23* Leon kind of has some wrestling moves in his repertoire as well. *39:26* And so all of the different characters that are in this game across the various campaigns have some fun melee moves that I think even from *39:29* From the earliest stages of the game to uh our final minutes with it, I still thought that that was always fun to, you know, uppercut a zombie in the fa in the face and watch him go flying. *39:38* That was always *39:49* That was always very tactile and it felt it felt good to pull off those uh those moments. *39:50* Um and not only that, but some of the boss f bosses as well. *39:56* I think of like the Simmons fight, like you can just *39:59* tackle the guy and just wail on him, which is very funny. *40:01* Um so hand-to-hand stuff I think this is definitely *40:06* the best in the series on that front. *40:11* Like it it it's it's it's that's one of the that's one of the better elements of this game. *40:13* Mechanically as well, uh like the first level, the thing I talked about up front *40:18* Uh you were loving all the, you know, flipping around and rolling around you get to do and flying flying backwards and *40:23* And that stuff's all really fun. *40:31* I guess, and you can talk to more to that, but I guess my question for you though is like once you learned that stuff was there, how much did you actually use it? *40:32* Because that's the thing. *40:39* I would use it when I could. *40:41* Yeah, I'd slide and so the game has this mechanic where you can just dive, slide *40:42* Yes. *40:50* Sidle on the ground, like a shuffle on your back. *40:52* Like you can you can shoot from any position. *40:54* And it reminds me a lot of both Metal Gear Solid 5. *40:57* And max pain three. *41:02* Now, max pain three, bullet time, completely just slow-mo, dynamic. *41:04* You can dive, move, shoot, any way you want in that game, and it's great. *41:10* And then a middle of your solid five, you can you can dive, roll, slide, hide in a box, all this dynamic fluid movement through the world. *41:14* In this game, it it's like I t and I know both of those are third-person shooters to a degree, but this *41:24* adhere so tightly to the like Resident Evil style of a third person shooter. *41:33* Yes. *41:39* And I love it for that. *41:39* And you're so when you slide you can run and then slide on the ground and you're shooting as you're sliding, but then you'll stop moving and you can keep shooting or you could roll out of the way of an attack. *41:41* and then shoot from the ground and get back up and do a roundhouse kick. *41:53* You could uh quickly tap the shoot button and he'll just pop, you know, your character will pop the closest enemy to them. *41:56* Yes, that's always really fun. *42:03* There's a fluidity to it that feels so satisfying. *42:05* And when you told me that I could do that, it was in the beginning of that Leon campaign, and I was just *42:09* running and sliding and diving and jump you can jump backwards, which feels great. *42:15* It's just a a satisfying mechanic that I honestly wish *42:19* Like the remakes of these third person, you know, the of two, three, and now four kind of had to a degree. *42:24* I uh especially three, I think. *42:32* I think it would fit in four, but I feel like *42:34* If Jill was like diving and sliding, that would almost lend itself to that action over-the-top nature even more. *42:37* I really, really enjoyed that mechanic. *42:45* It feels so good. *42:48* That's the strangest dichotomy of this game to me is that like I think a lot of games when they are bad it's because they are bad. *42:50* mechanically first and then you know it's everything else kind of after. *42:58* This game mechanically I would say is quite good in a l in a lot of ways up front. *43:02* Like it is *43:07* The first again, the first couple levels, we were having some fun. *43:08* We were diving around all over the place, doing pulling off crazy moves. *43:12* And it's just *43:16* Those mechanics are undermined by just about everything else in this game, which is what's it what's so bewildering. *43:18* Like it it plays *43:25* like a very fun and it's a the mechanics are engaging too. *43:26* Like you can ha you can do as much or as little with it as you want. *43:30* That's kind of why I asked like how much did you keep using some of these abilities and stuff like that. *43:33* Because if you just want to play it, you know, like *43:38* The same way how four and five play, for instance. *43:40* Like you can do that in this game. *43:43* Like the but the mechanics are there for you to have more fluidity and more flair. *43:44* to what you're doing and uh in that in that regard I I yeah mechanically I i they really knocked it out of the park with some of the upgrades compared to the others because that that was the big *43:49* complaint about um five and five you cannot move while shooting shooting. *43:59* Yes. *44:05* No. *44:06* Or you can in *44:06* I think in five you still can't, if I remember correctly. *44:08* I think you definitely can in four. *44:12* But I'm pretty sure you can in five as well. *44:14* If I'm wrong about that, I'm sorry. *44:16* Either way *44:18* Just this game from a from five to six is like totally different. *44:19* Yes. *44:24* Like they are giving you people people are like, oh, I hate that I can't move while I shoot. *44:24* They're like, well how about we give you the ability not only to move but to do *44:29* flips and rolls and run on the ground and slide. *44:33* Like they give you all the ability to do you can do far more than just walking while shooting. *44:37* Like you can do a lot. *44:42* Um *44:44* But yeah, that's that's the strangest thing, is that despite all of that, the game is still not good. *44:45* Uh and and then it's it's gonna be everything else we're talking about here. *44:51* throughout the rest of this episode, I imagine. *44:55* Um I mean we'll say there might be a couple other positive things to say, but I really do feel like everything else just undermines this game. *44:57* Um *45:04* A couple things I wanna touch on. *45:05* I mean one thing kind of broadly I feel like we can touch on because I feel like it's a shorter conversation to have before we start getting into some of the more *45:07* Uh difficult elements of this game to break down is like just the horror aspect of it, um, which has just been completely thrown out the window. *45:16* No. *45:24* No. *45:26* It's not. *45:26* There is like this is more like John Wick than it is anything horror related. *45:27* It is *45:34* You know, five wasn't really all that scary either. *45:36* No, it wasn't. *45:39* It would try it sometimes, but it would try to present horror though, you know? *45:40* Like it would still *45:45* It would still try to create frightening moments or or try to I I don't know. *45:48* Like I think of some of those early stages in five where you're entering the village and stuff like that and it was trying to creep you out and trying *45:53* Trying to create a tense atmosphere and this game just really doesn't ever even try to do that very very much, honestly. *45:59* It's *46:07* It's a it's a bee horror that's different than the previous kind of bee horror that Resident Evil has thrived in to a degree. *46:10* This is uh *46:20* There's some like grotesque horror body horror of, you know, bodies transforming into to bugs or *46:23* hatching out of cocoons, but then there's also hatching out of body cocoons. *46:30* Yeah. *46:35* After catching on fire. *46:35* But then there's also that like *46:37* They try to make some of these cre specifically Ada and Deborah. *46:39* They just make flat out just like sexy horror, which is always a strange *46:44* juxtaposition to me within like a horror movie, some of them work really well, right? *46:50* You know, uh what's that Megan Fox movie? *46:55* Jennifer's Body. *46:58* Like that's a good that would be a good example of using *46:59* sexy horror in a way, or It Follows, which is literally using sex and horror together in a a creepy way. *47:02* But this is just a *47:10* We're gonna flash naked women in front of you and it's gonna be scary. *47:12* It just feels really weird and wildly out of date. *47:16* It does feel very much of the time, right, that *47:19* gamers play on X Xbox with your bros kind of era. *47:23* And this is the co-op game with your bros and you're you know you're gonna have fun. *47:27* So but it's weird. *47:31* It just doesn't feel right. *47:33* Every it even they *47:34* They even try to make Sherry sexy to a g degree. *47:36* Yeah, they give her some jiggles they give her some jiggle physics and then they make sure you see them by putting them in your face in a cutscene. *47:39* Exactly. *47:47* And it's *47:48* And is Sherry as the little girl from Resident Evil 2 that you you theoretically have saved yourself. *47:49* So like there's this weird *47:54* Dichotomy there, which is like she was a little girl just th five games ago and now she's an adult. *47:57* I get time if you actually had played two and then played six when it came out. *48:02* Your view on this has changed after you've been a father. *48:07* You're like, I don't want to think about *48:10* Yeah, it's really weird. *48:11* It is just off-putting. *48:12* And you and clearly it's not necessary because it's not in seven or eight or really in the remake. *48:13* I was gonna say that's the that's the other thing, is like they're n there's really not *48:20* those elements in any of the other games t too much, you know. *48:24* No, like there's like four with Ashley. *48:28* Well they try to present there is some in four with Ashley, yeah. *48:31* And they they always try to present Ada as like a sexy character, but they don't do it at the cost of like her like it's more like her *48:34* uh beh her mannerisms are kind of considered like sexy or whatever. *48:43* This is Ada previously was always just like *48:48* You know, she'd have like the slit on the dress, but then there's the gun holster there. *48:52* This is just I'm Ada, here's my deep V shirt and sweater with a scarf, and um here's me hatching out of a body cocoon. *48:56* Like *49:05* Ada it's different this time around. *49:05* It's it undermines her. *49:07* I mean, I guess if you are gonna hatch, you're not gonna hatch with clothes on. *49:09* So come on. *49:12* You gotta give them some I guess if you wanna be a realistic bug hatcher, I suppose. *49:13* It's *49:18* It's an undermining way to present it instead of a from a position of power and or or, you know, the character's own choice. *49:19* And it's it's weird. *49:27* It just doesn't feel good. *49:28* And it's it's something that *49:29* I feel like they would address when and if they remake this game someday, right? *49:32* Please no. *49:37* No, I'm saying this. *49:39* Well, I c assuming they continue on this trajectory, this is arguably the game out of all of them, except the old ones that needed a rework from a mechanical and presentation perspective, this is a fundamental would need to be *49:40* significantly changed. *49:55* It would almost it wouldn't even be the same game. *49:56* I think narrative to some degree. *49:59* Level length, like all the stuff that we're gonna talk about *50:01* All that has tightened way, way, way, way up and changed. *50:04* And so this I think that would be part of the things that they could address. *50:09* Yeah. *50:14* There's not much else to say about that stuff. *50:15* It's *50:17* It's there, but whatever. *50:17* Um We're talking about some of the characters. *50:19* I don't know if you just want to get into a full thing with the characters now or if there's anything else like broadly about the game you would like because I know we've been more from like uh *50:22* From a gameplay perspective, there's at least one more thing I want to talk about. *50:31* Gameplay is a good idea. *50:35* I feel like we should just talk about all the gameplay stuff now while we're doing it and then we'll jump into story and characters. *50:36* Um what did you want to talk about? *50:41* I think it might be the most frustrating part of the game, at least that we experienced, especially by the end. *50:43* the constant uh kill an enemy and then the enemy comes back, you kill him again and then they come back and then they come back and then they come back. *50:54* And I'm not talking about, you know, a boss that keeps reappearing, although that is annoying from a repetition perspective, but I'm talking just about normal enemies where you shoot them and then they transform and then you kill them again and then they transform again and just *51:02* So it's just constant. *51:16* They never die. *51:18* You shot my arm off. *51:19* Now I'll grow a shield or whatever. *51:20* Oh now you shot my head off. *51:23* Well now I'm gonna *51:24* turn into a brick of of a cocoon thing and something's gonna bust out of me. *51:25* It's like, oh my gosh. *51:30* Like yeah, there are so like the evolutions have always been in the Resident Evil games and I mean I'm playing four remake right now and that's *51:31* They they even introduced new ones in that game, like with their heads tilted to the side and stuff like that, which is intense. *51:39* I don't like that so far. *51:44* Anyway. *51:45* Um so this has like always been a thing within the series, but in this game they really go over *51:46* bored with it where like enemies can mutate like multiple times in different ways. *51:51* Like we were I shot his arm off. *51:55* Oh he grew a claw. *51:57* I shot his other arm off. *51:59* He grew another claw. *52:00* I I shot his head off. *52:01* Well now he's m mutating again and it's just like *52:02* Yes, I there are a lot of mutations and evolutions and I guess in that sense uh talking about the enemy variety as well, there is a fair amount of enemy variety, which I would commend the game for *52:05* There are two main types of enemies, zombies and uh Javo? *52:18* Juavo? *52:22* Juavo. *52:23* I think it's Spanish. *52:24* I don't know why it's Spanish. *52:25* No, they said they they said the J, because I said this while we were playing. *52:26* I'm like, oh you pronounce it with the J *52:30* Okay. *52:33* Well, there's two main types, yes, and they're there's really not a lot of zombies. *52:35* I think zombies are mostly in the Leon campaign, but really it's *52:41* It's mostly the Javo. *52:45* Which is Well, whenever you get into uh yeah, in the Leon campaign there's definitely a lot there in the opening area of uh Washington that you're in. *52:47* Washington and the graveyard when you get to the next spot. *52:55* So it's *52:58* A lot of zombies in Leonts, which is interesting. *52:59* But the rest of them mostly fight these bug people. *53:02* Yes. *53:06* Too many bugs. *53:07* C virus. *53:09* The Juavo are obviously from five as well, I believe. *53:10* Um stem from that, sure. *53:14* Yeah, they come from they come from five, so *53:17* Uh it's all similar stuff that we've been seeing. *53:20* It honestly that's what this game feels like. *53:22* It's it's they had the idea of like, oh, we've been doing this stuff with, you know, the *53:24* The Lost Plogust, the Jawavo, and then further back in the series, we've just got normal zombies. *53:28* What if we threw both at them? *53:33* And so *53:35* At that on that front, it's like, okay, I understand what you're going for here. *53:36* I understand what you're doing with this game, um, but it's just not *53:40* I don't know. *53:44* There is a there is a good variety of enemies I'll I will say, but it's never but th this is just the problem with the game as a whole. *53:45* I'm talking more about the design stuff. *53:52* It's just too long. *53:54* Like this game is too long. *53:55* The four campaigns *53:57* And maybe we can use this as a segue to talk about the story and characters and stuff here. *53:59* Sure. *54:04* But just this game's structure is its biggest flaw. *54:04* Not only did there not need to be I'll say this. *54:10* I don't I don't even think the four campaign idea on its own is a bad one, to be honest. *54:13* The problem is that the four campaigns recycle set pieces. *54:17* bosses like there were how many of these moments in the which I get the point is they want to show you the different perspectives of the characters when they cross over at various times in the campaign. *54:21* That's fine. *54:31* But how about we not *54:31* outright replay these sections where we're doing the same things. *54:33* Like when we got to the final campaign with Ada, I was like, Oh, here we go with Deborah. *54:37* I think we're gonna have to ride a minecart here again and I think we're gonna have to go down this big old tunnel again and it's *54:42* Like we've already done these things and so they're it's very strange to make to for them to literally make you replay the save sections of the game. *54:47* It's uh it's a poor reuse of assets and just bloats the game time, total game time. *54:58* There are games that *55:05* Do this, of course, like multiple protagonists, replays. *55:06* It's actually a staple of the Resident Evil series, is multiple playthroughs from different characters' perspectives, all the way back to Resident Evil 1 with the chill and crest *55:10* And that's cool, but I think where they falter is when the characters do intersect, when their stories do. *55:17* It's too often and not enough different things are happening. *55:26* I think primarily of like Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, where there are maybe three key moments where everyone is interacting. *55:30* at one particular point. *55:39* The rest of the time you are going through the worlds and other characters' actions may or may not impact the world, but you rarely are are crossing paths with *55:41* Terra Aqua and Ven. *55:50* This game it's I'm Chris and Nevins and then oh my gosh, here's Sherry and Jake. *55:52* Here's Nevins, actually, not Nevins. *55:57* Nivins? *55:59* Nevins? *55:59* I don't know. *56:00* Clearly, you know me. *56:01* I can't pronounce anyone's *56:01* name in this Pierce Nivens. *56:03* Piers. *56:05* But what what are what are the things that are happening when they meet up in China? *56:07* Oh, they're both shooting the bug people and the helicopter. *56:11* Like there's no gameplay differentiation there. *56:14* The thing that the one that stands out to me the most is being uh I mean not the most egregious, but one of the ones that I was just like, really? *56:17* Like there's no *56:23* How is there no difference of what is happening in this situation? *56:24* Is the one where uh Chris's campaign crosses over with Jake's campaign. *56:28* And there's the helicopter overhead. *56:34* And we had played Chris's campaign before, and in that part, your role is to shoot down the various Jaavo off the helicopter and stuff like that. *56:36* while uh Sherry and Jake are down below and they're trying to protect themselves or whatever. *56:44* But when you go to Jake's campaign, what is your objective? *56:49* It's to shoot the Juavo off the helicopter. *56:51* And it's like, well, shouldn't that be *56:54* Chris's objective since we already did that? *56:56* Like, why are we doing the same objective that we did in the Chris campaign when Chris and Piers are the ones? *56:58* You know what I'm saying? *57:05* Like, there should be like *57:06* variations of objectives amongst characters even if you're going to see the same set piece recycled. *57:07* Instead they recycle the objectives and the goals and stuff like that. *57:12* And that's what makes it very *57:16* frustrating to play all four of the campaigns. *57:18* Like when Leon and Chris's campaign cross over there at the warehouse and the door that stops you, what are you doing? *57:21* You're both shooting the little *57:28* v robot vacuum bombs. *57:29* Yes. *57:31* Like there's nothing different about getting to the intersection point. *57:32* It's the same rehashing the same thing. *57:36* And so as *57:38* You know, presumably Capcom wants you to play all four campaigns in a row, like together to get the full experience of the game. *57:41* Now you're just repeating the same thing over the course of twenty hours and so it makes that twenty hour experience feel like forty hours. *57:48* Yes. *57:57* It's just dragging its feet through. *57:58* Yeah, this is a 20-hour game that felt far longer than it is. *58:01* Um and there were some missions where we were just really *58:04* beating our head like Leon's campaign, the only saving grace I think, or one of the few saving graces of this game for you and I, is that after we beat Leon and Chris's campaign, I was like, well, the good news is the other two are shorter. *58:07* Like Leon's campaign r really *58:18* goes on far too long. *58:21* I think it was about a seven hour campaign. *58:23* It was pretty it was pretty lengthy. *58:26* Um and then Chris's I think was like five six and then *58:28* Jake and Sherry was like 3-4 and then Ada was like 2-3. *58:32* Yeah. *58:36* So Leon's is particularly lengthy and that whole section with the crypt and *58:37* Deborah and that whole sequ like that level it just feels endless and it like it just keeps going on and on and on. *58:43* I think there's something to be said about you just being having tighter sections and not dragging players around, you know, and *58:51* Um far too much in this game that is just bloat that could have been cut out completely, not only narratively, but gameplay-wise too, because it's just not *58:58* fun. *59:09* Like there are sh sections of this game where we were just really uh trying to get through it. *59:10* Um needed more needed more variety across all four of the campaigns to be certain. *59:16* So *59:21* This kind of brings me into my next point though. *59:21* I I told you I wanted to jump off talking about the campaigns and how the game's structured, and and this is something I um *59:24* This is something I told you before we record. *59:32* I was like reminding to bring this up when we record, and obviously I wasn't going to forget because it is such a core element of the game. *59:34* Um *59:40* We're in a point right now with the series with village having just ended, and we're trying to think about, you know, what are they gonna do next? *59:42* What would they do in nine? *59:51* And I I remember a few years ago um saying like, oh, I hope it's you know, I hope they bring back a lot of characters. *59:53* I hope we see Jill and Leon and *01:00:00* Claire, like bring back a lot of characters. *01:00:02* Let's throw in a lot of characters in Resident Evil 9 because we haven't seen so many of these people in such a long time. *01:00:04* And playing this game. *01:00:10* This was the ensemble game. *01:00:13* Like this, uh every Resident Evil game focuses on one or two characters kind of max, and then you don't really know what's going on with the others. *01:00:15* And uh *01:00:23* I think that's always worked well for the series, but people have always wanted to see, you know, what if we had a game where Jill and Chris and Leon and Claire and all everybody was all together and it's like, well this is kind of the one where they're like, sure, okay, well we're gonna do something like that. *01:00:24* And *01:00:38* It does not work. *01:00:38* And I think there are a lot of uh maybe it could work in another sense, and maybe that's something we can talk about uh later or on another *01:00:40* episode hint hint potentially if we do that. *01:00:49* Um but it just I it it's it's it's very *01:00:53* fascinating to go to this game and see it as an ensemble, see it as the Resident Evil game where they finally try to throw not all, but a lot of them a lot of the main cast of characters together into a single title for the first time and it just *01:00:59* falters completely as a result. *01:01:13* And I think a lot of that is because the characters are still too segregated from one another. *01:01:16* You know, the campaigns are largely independent from each other, which is *01:01:20* Fine to some degree, but then it's undermined by kind of what we were talking about before. *01:01:24* Like when they do cross over, those are arguably like the worst sections of the game when those crossovers happen *01:01:29* There's never a moment where they all unite together, right? *01:01:35* In a big ensemble game, a big party setting, you want everyone to come together and be united. *01:01:42* And that never really happens in this game. *01:01:49* I think the closest, and not in a united sense, but the closest we get probably is is when Chris and Leon meet at the warehouse. *01:01:51* and they have this like ten second fist fight before they realize who each other is. *01:01:59* Which is funny 'cause on the box you just see the two of them like pointing guns at each other, so it indicates some sort of conflict, and really there's no conflict between the two of them at all. *01:02:05* And I think it's they never are together, you know, in this sense of we are going to stop *01:02:14* This thing, you know, this evil. *01:02:22* The only time it the only time it re The only time it really happens is kind of the climax of the various campaigns where *01:02:24* Chris is like, oh, we're going to get Jake Muller, who we found is in this underwater thing. *01:02:32* Leon, you handle what's happening on land where they just launched a missile. *01:02:39* Yeah, but they're still separate, right? *01:02:43* In the sense of *01:02:45* Really Leon's Leon and Ada's campaign probably are the ones that intermingle the most, and then Chris and Jake's intermingle the most. *01:02:46* But the the overarching, you know, what is it, seven of them never *01:02:55* You know, we don't get a shot of them all lined up and ready to to take down the big bad. *01:03:00* Well that's the thing. *01:03:06* There isn't I mean there is a big bad, but there's also not, and there's like *01:03:07* Different ones. *01:03:11* Ada. *01:03:12* It's a it's a it's Ada, but not Ada. *01:03:13* It's uh what's her what was her real name? *01:03:16* Clara *01:03:18* Something like that. *01:03:21* It starts with a C, I know. *01:03:21* Clara or Carla. *01:03:23* And then there's Simmons. *01:03:24* Carla is what it is, I think. *01:03:26* Okay. *01:03:27* Um, and then there's Simmons, and then there's in Chris's campaign, there's ends up being the giant *01:03:27* Monster there at the end, which sure that's fine. *01:03:33* And then I'm trying to think of what's in Jakes. *01:03:36* Oh Jakes is Uncle Uncle Unc is what we *01:03:39* Call them, which is the best one. *01:03:43* Ubistunk? *01:03:45* It's Ustanak. *01:03:47* Ustinak. *01:03:48* Ubastank. *01:03:50* Ubastink's a band, isn't it? *01:03:51* Yeah. *01:03:53* Yeah, Huva Stank is chasing you down this whole game. *01:03:54* And he's the best one because he Uncle Unk is just like Nemesis Light. *01:03:57* Um I wrote Nemesis with a comb over. *01:04:01* Yeah, pretty much. *01:04:05* So everybody has their own bosses, which works out to some degree, but again, it it it prevents that sense of, you know *01:04:06* Cohesion to some degree. *01:04:13* And there are moments like uh Jake crossing over with Leon and all of them fighting Uncle Unk. *01:04:15* I'm sorry we're gonna call him Uncle Unk. *01:04:20* I know that's not his name, but *01:04:22* I made it I made it stick in that when we played it there at the end. *01:04:24* I was like, we gotta take out Uncle Unc and you just you were like, Who? *01:04:27* Like that guy. *01:04:31* I know it's something like that. *01:04:33* Yeah, there's there's there's too many villains, there's not enough focus, and I guess this is the large I mean we could talk about the *01:04:36* It's probably best to talk about the story too. *01:04:43* Like we need to. *01:04:45* This is the worst story in any of the games. *01:04:47* Like by a mile. *01:04:50* narrative padding. *01:04:55* For I don't know, two and a half chapters at least, Helena's like, We gotta make it to the crypt and the church and all then I'll tell you what's happening. *01:04:56* We gotta make it to the basement and then I'll tell you what's happening *01:05:05* Deborah and then I'll tell you what's happening And then you're like who's Deborah? *01:05:08* Like like that's the weird thing about the Leon campaign is she shows up and she's like oh no Deborah and you're like and did I miss something? *01:05:12* Like what is going on here? *01:05:19* Yep. *01:05:20* Chris dealing with PTSD and being a drunk and but but then Peter. *01:05:21* Piers Nevins shows up with his old compatriots and they're all in a bar and they're like *01:05:26* Commander, please lead us again. *01:05:31* And then you do a flashback with Chris and find out Finn McCauley died and *01:05:33* And then Jake, you have as the mercenary who's gonna sell his blood for is it five hundred million or fifty million or fifty thousand or fifty dollars? *01:05:40* The price changes so much. *01:05:49* Honestly *01:05:52* Jake and Sherri's probably makes the most sense. *01:05:53* It does off of the back of th and this is the thing I mentioned, I think, in our last episode is *01:05:58* In a lot of ways, five tied up all of the threads that had been in Resident Evil from the beginning. *01:06:02* And even a lot that were introduced, you know, there with four. *01:06:11* And it felt like a good, like everything that had transpired from the Raccoon City games into Code Veronica into 4 really tied off there with Wesker dying. *01:06:15* And then you get into this game, and it's like, well, what are they gonna do next? *01:06:26* It's the next mainline Resident Evil. *01:06:30* How do they continue the saga *01:06:31* And it's like, uh, Neo Umbrella and Simmons chief advisor, Derek Simmons. *01:06:33* And it's like, what who is who is Derek Simmons? *01:06:41* Like, what is *01:06:44* Like that guy, he's the worst villain in all of these Red Resident Evil games by a mile. *01:06:45* Like I pretty terrible. *01:06:51* I do not think that's even close. *01:06:52* They and they don't contextualize like who any of these people are. *01:06:54* Like *01:06:58* Everyone in the game knows who everyone is, but we the player don't. *01:06:59* I actually had to look up the like the motivation for Simmons *01:07:03* And Carla, aka Ada channel. *01:07:09* Yeah, they don't even do anything. *01:07:12* Like you just get to the Ada campaign and she's like, oh Carla, blah blah blah blah blah. *01:07:13* I'm like, who the heck is Carla? *01:07:17* Who's Carla? *01:07:18* What are we talking about? *01:07:19* And when we look it up, which actually I I f assume, 'cause clearly people got this from somewhere if they're fleshing out Wikipedia pages. *01:07:21* I assume it's from in-game collectibles which you get by shooting the medallions, and then have to go into this really slow menu to then read *01:07:29* But the the the gist of the villainous plot to bring down the entire world, infect it all, is this young female student wins like awards and is very smart and she tries to impress *01:07:37* The Simmons character, because she's infatuated with him and and wants to be smart. *01:07:50* And he's like a scientist dude, right? *01:07:55* Simmons, yeah, and is but uh becomes the chief security advisor to the president of the United States. *01:07:58* And Simmons just ignores her because he's crushing on Ada. *01:08:03* How does he even know Ada? *01:08:08* That's the thing. *01:08:10* She's like a black market mercenary for hire. *01:08:11* This desire for Simmons' attention and this obsession with Ada drives both of these characters to become supervillains essentially and infect the world. *01:08:16* So much to the point that Carla transforms herself into a clone of Ada, and then Simmons is like, ah, my Ada. *01:08:25* It's so And then somehow Helena and her sister get involved with all of this. *01:08:32* too which is never really made clear either. *01:08:38* She's just like Deborah's my sister and we were kidnapped or I don't know. *01:08:41* It's like And so this drives them to infect the entire world. *01:08:46* with a deadly virus. *01:08:52* At least Wesker's plot in five, his motivation was we evolution, we will weed out the weaken the next step in human *01:08:54* you know, evolution. *01:09:03* At least he had it. *01:09:04* And he thinks he's the top of the food chain, so he thinks he's gonna like kind of rule over all of this. *01:09:05* This is just *01:09:12* And that's all context that I got after playing the game and looking it up online. *01:09:14* This is we didn't know this during the game at all. *01:09:19* Yeah. *01:09:22* Yep. *01:09:23* So like I'm bad. *01:09:24* It's one of the worst stories ever. *01:09:26* And it's not a thing with I was gonna point to some of the previous games in the series. *01:09:27* Like it's not one of those instances where it's like *01:09:31* Oh, I like I might I'm I don't like new characters or I don't like when they introduce new villains in the series. *01:09:34* Like they don't have to have huge extensive backstories, but they have to be properly contextualized within the game. *01:09:39* Like *01:09:44* Code Veronica does that really well with the Ashford twins. *01:09:45* I would say uh what's the mercenary guy's name in three? *01:09:47* Uh Nikolai? *01:09:52* They do that well with Nikolai in three. *01:09:53* Like he's there for just a bit, but it's like, this guy's a scummy mercenary, or he's just willing to sell to the highest bidder. *01:09:55* Like like you you under like I don't understand anything about *01:10:03* Carla and Derek Simmons. *01:10:08* Like who are these people? *01:10:10* Where did they come from? *01:10:12* It's just *01:10:14* Adam's five. *01:10:16* They react as if the plot twist of Simmons being behind it all is so huge. *01:10:18* And like chapter two of Leon's campaign where they find out the national security advisor pulled off the attack and is framing Leon. *01:10:23* And we're just like, who? *01:10:31* What? *01:10:33* Like, there's no weight to any of this. *01:10:33* And it's it's honestly super confusing. *01:10:35* It doesn't help *01:10:38* that Leon's campaign literally starts with him shooting the president of the United States of America in the head. *01:10:39* I love that because it's so funny because Leon hesitates. *01:10:45* He's like, don't make me do it, sir. *01:10:47* I can't do it. *01:10:49* And then later on in the campaign, when Helena has to kill someone, I think kill a zombie or something that she knew, Leon's like, don't hesitate, Helena. *01:10:50* And here he was at the beginning of the game hesitating to shoot the president. *01:11:01* Yeah, it's it's real bad. *01:11:06* It's real bad. *01:11:09* It's rough. *01:11:10* It's a good thing they rebooted things afterwards. *01:11:11* Um wipe the slate clean. *01:11:14* Burn us the girl, wipe away the debt. *01:11:16* The question after five was very much where do they go from here? *01:11:18* And the answer is we don't know. *01:11:22* 'Cause clearly they did not know and they just made some sort of crappy narrative for the purpose of a co-op action third person shooter. *01:11:24* Um and it sold well *01:11:34* Did it? *01:11:37* Yeah. *01:11:38* I didn't look up the sales. *01:11:38* Yep, this game I believe was the fastest selling in the franchise. *01:11:40* Really? *01:11:46* Oh, sales, here we go. *01:11:47* They expected it to sell seven million copies by the end of the 2012 fiscal year. *01:11:48* Uh they lowered it to six. *01:11:53* Capcom announced it, it shipped four point five worldwide. *01:11:54* In October sold just I mean it got it got off to a hot start, I should say. *01:11:59* I don't know what the tail was that it had on it, but I think I think within the past month or two when four remake came out it was announced like oh *01:12:04* RE4 remake is the new fastest selling ever. *01:12:12* It passed Resident Evil Six. *01:12:15* I was like, oh my gosh, what? *01:12:17* Here's the uh the pertinent sentence. *01:12:18* Resident Evil Six became Capcom's fourth best-selling game by December of twenty twenty with a lifetime sales of *01:12:20* 7. *01:12:27* 7 million. *01:12:27* Um that's only three not even three full years ago. *01:12:29* So Resident Evil 6 has had a pretty good *01:12:33* leg of sales if it's their fourth best selling game of all time just of as of three years ago. *01:12:37* Um then you know 2. *01:12:43* 3 million of that is the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. *01:12:46* So *01:12:49* People keep buying it? *01:12:51* I mean we're guilty of it, I guess. *01:12:54* I mean f to be fair, I bought a second, you know, a used copy, so I didn't bump that metric. *01:12:56* Someone else did that *01:13:02* Is there uh while we're talking about the story here, is there anything you want to say? *01:13:04* We've talked a lot about the villains. *01:13:07* Is there anything you want to say more about like the protagonists though and their own arcs in this game? *01:13:09* Because I still feel like there's a lot to say about that, and maybe we can go one by one with the game. *01:13:13* campaigns. *01:13:17* Um I want to start with Chris though because I think he actually has the best one where it's just he's a d an alcoholic. *01:13:17* And he's just the drinking away in a bar and he's like, Oh I let my men die, oh my gosh, and he *01:13:26* Has he has the funniest arc in this. *01:13:33* The funniest, I'll say that. *01:13:35* I don't even know what Leon's arc is. *01:13:39* It's just like *01:13:41* I'm Leon Kennedy. *01:13:42* I gotta fight the zombies and Leon's is I love Ada. *01:13:44* Um Yeah, kind of. *01:13:48* Chris's campaign is *01:13:50* They try to be edgy with it. *01:13:55* I'm a drunk now. *01:13:57* I lost my soldiers. *01:13:58* I've got PTSD, amnesia, I don't even remember peers. *01:13:59* Yeah, yeah, I totally I totally forgot. *01:14:03* Finn Macaulay died in Edonia or wherever they're at. *01:14:06* Yeah, but then all of a sudden it it kind of snaps and and that gets washed away. *01:14:10* And and there's even a part though where he's like *01:14:13* punching the wall and banging things, he's like, no, I can't lose my mana. *01:14:16* I don't know, they just try to be serious about it and I think it gets over the top and corny really, really quick. *01:14:22* But that's kind of like the nice *01:14:28* part about it is because rather than laugh at. *01:14:30* Yes. *01:14:34* And then you've got Piers Nivens the whole time trying to talk him talk him up, like come on, you're our commander, blah blah blah blah and Chris will like lash out at him at various times. *01:14:35* I still think of one moment in the campaign where he's like, I'm going after Ada Wong. *01:14:44* You can come with me if you want to stay out of my way. *01:14:48* It's just And then by the end of the game he's like you're gonna be the next leader of our battalion. *01:14:54* And then you're the next generation. *01:14:59* It's just all very silly. *01:15:03* Chris's campaign I think is fun within that. *01:15:05* It's at least very straightforward. *01:15:07* Like I could wrap my mind around Chris's campaign in the way that I couldn't. *01:15:10* Like Leon's is just *01:15:14* Nuts. *01:15:16* Again, starts off, shoots the president in the face. *01:15:17* Cool. *01:15:20* Then we got Derek Simmons and we got Deborah's and we got Helena. *01:15:20* Who's Helena? *01:15:24* I don't know. *01:15:25* She won't tell us anything. *01:15:25* And then uh just Leon's is *01:15:27* everywhere. *01:15:29* And then we've also got him reset I think Leon's the one who says it multiple times. *01:15:30* I think Chris does too, but there's a couple line deliveries in this game of *01:15:34* It's Raccoon City all over again. *01:15:38* Like I liked Ada's It's a Raccoon City reunion. *01:15:40* Yeah. *01:15:44* There's a couple different lines over. *01:15:45* Claire and Jill, aka *01:15:47* Two-fifths of the group. *01:15:50* Yeah. *01:15:52* Yeah. *01:15:53* Jill's just the character that time forgot, apparently, or that Capcom forgot. *01:15:53* They just hate on Jill. *01:15:58* You gotta play the revelations. *01:15:59* Well put her in the case. *01:16:00* I will say yes. *01:16:01* I will say I haven't told you this. *01:16:03* This is uh but our friend of the show, Ricky Freck, actually played Revelations for the first time and he said *01:16:04* This is maybe one of my five favorite favorite Resident Evil games. *01:16:11* You need to play this. *01:16:14* So Oh my goodness. *01:16:16* I think you and I should play that one. *01:16:18* He said Jill's in that and she's real good and it *01:16:20* Good. *01:16:23* Good. *01:16:23* At least they give Jill something. *01:16:24* I they need to bring Jill back. *01:16:26* Jill for Resident Evil Nine or Riot. *01:16:28* Outside of I the one campaign I did want to touch on more individually though, and the one that's actually there to talk about more is Troy Baker's campaign, aka Jake's campaign. *01:16:32* Uh, cause he is the new character to this game. *01:16:42* And we have to also talk about how the final stinger of this game almost sets him up to be like the new protagonist of the series. *01:16:44* Like really quick, you saying Troy Baker reminded me, first of all, Sonic the Hedgehog reprises his role as Chris. *01:16:53* But we started with Leon's campaign and immediately I'm like, I know Leon's voice, and that turned out to be uh the critical role man, Ganondorf, and Matt Mercer. *01:17:02* And I'm like, this Helena sounds a bit familiar too. *01:17:13* And it's Laura Bailey. *01:17:16* And then you've got Troy Baker is Jake. *01:17:17* I'm like, this game's just missing Nolan North. *01:17:20* And um *01:17:22* Nathan Fillion and then we're all set. *01:17:23* So very much like that peak time for them all to just be in everything. *01:17:25* And I couldn't help but think of the fact that at the time of making this game *01:17:30* Troy Baker's not only doing Jake Mu Mueller in Resident Evil 6, he's also playing Booker DeWitt in Bioshock Infinite, and he's Joel in The Last of Us. *01:17:36* I'm like, what a range of performances. *01:17:48* and like stories and narratives. *01:17:50* It's clearly that Jake is definitely the one that he phoned in the most, I would have to imagine. *01:17:52* Because it just sounded in, but he just sounded like Baker. *01:17:58* It just sounds like him. *01:18:03* Yeah. *01:18:04* Yeah. *01:18:04* It just sounds like him with a little bit of a gr of a little bit of gruff in his voice. *01:18:04* And that's not a knock against Troy, it's just Troy has a distinctive voice and he's in a lot of games and Well Joel like you could not you could hear Troy's normal voice and then hear Joel and you'd be and you'd be like, Oh, it's the same person? *01:18:10* Like Yeah. *01:18:19* Jake the Jake and Troy though, it's just like, oh yeah *01:18:20* That's that's him. *01:18:23* Yep. *01:18:25* We immediately I was just it was very funny to to kind of have almost the entire gang together in one game. *01:18:25* Speaks to the production value. *01:18:32* They, you know, these are big name actors and still are, and they represented there. *01:18:33* But yes, Jake's campaign. *01:18:37* And being set up as the seven protagonist, essentially, at the end of it. *01:18:40* A deal's a deal, kid. *01:18:44* Fair's fair, that's what he says. *01:18:48* Fair's fair, and then he eats an apple. *01:18:50* Doesn't even make sense. *01:18:52* The secret son of Lesger. *01:18:54* That whole scene doesn't make any sense. *01:18:56* Why are there like twenty-five hunters outside of this little boy's house? *01:18:58* I don't And why does he trade? *01:19:02* Jake and Apple to kill them all. *01:19:05* I don't know, man. *01:19:08* It's so strange. *01:19:09* What did you think about Jake though? *01:19:11* And like the I mean, cause when we started this game, I was like, oh, and that campaign is about Wesker's son. *01:19:12* You're like, what? *01:19:17* Like *01:19:19* I think I I I will say, I think the idea of Wetzker having a bastard child that no one knows about *01:19:20* that still exists after his death because Wesker is one of the main characters of the series, and he is important. *01:19:28* So just going from five to six and you're Capcom's trying to think like, well what what are some of the things you could do? *01:19:34* I think the idea of Wesker having offspring *01:19:39* Is fine and it's a good one, actually. *01:19:43* I I I think Jake in theory is a pretty good idea. *01:19:45* It's more *01:19:51* the execution that I don't really like. *01:19:53* I don't know they don't really prove to *01:19:55* They don't do much with it. *01:20:00* It's just a way to resolve what happens in the game, like, oh, now we got Jake's blood, and up everybody's healed, and yay, crisis averted at the end of the game. *01:20:03* Like that's about all it really becomes, is he's just kind of a mcguffin more than anything that everybody's chasing after. *01:20:12* Including Uncle Unk. *01:20:18* Including Uncle Unk. *01:20:20* I *01:20:22* My issue with Wesker being his father more stems from Jake's reaction to this news. *01:20:26* First of all, he doesn't really seem to know like who Wesker is. *01:20:37* Like he just learns about who this is later on in, you know, through the game. *01:20:41* He's like, I think he just tried tried to destroy the world. *01:20:44* I don't know. *01:20:46* But I read some Jake, early Jake documentation that kind of explained his origins in the game. *01:20:48* And he was basically grew up with a a mother who was sick and *01:20:54* His father was never in the picture, and so he doesn't know that Wesker's his father, and he despises this absent father in his life, goes on to become a mercenary and and do all that sort of stuff. *01:20:58* And then he finds out that Wesker's his father, and suddenly starts acting like he he loved his father or loves the idea of his father, which I guess to a degree is a, you know *01:21:08* an orphan essentially because his mother does end up dying. *01:21:21* This idea of your father is crazy. *01:21:24* And then he he learns that Chris, one of the guys he keeps bumping into, is the killer of his father. *01:21:25* No, you better put a leash on that puppy and then just like threatens to kill Chris and it just feels very phoned in. *01:21:30* There's no depth *01:21:37* To why Jake would even care that Wesker was his father. *01:21:39* It's like, well, screw him. *01:21:43* He was never around in the first place. *01:21:44* I don't care either way. *01:21:45* Now, you do want my blood because of the genetic information Wesker left behind, but *01:21:47* Who k I don't know. *01:21:52* It feels like I I guess you would still I mean he the idea is that he still feels a sting because I mean Chris is the one who killed his dad. *01:21:53* So and his dad is his dad. *01:22:03* His dad was dead to him his entire life up until this event. *01:22:05* Yeah, but That's my problem. *01:22:09* It's like within the the span of twenty four hours he goes from *01:22:11* I hate my father, he left us, he didn't help my mother. *01:22:15* Forget him to You killed my father, how dare you? *01:22:19* Like it's just it's too big a swing. *01:22:24* I still think there's a part of *01:22:26* I mean I have I did not grow up fatherless or anything like that, but I still think there's even for people who are like that, you know, like my f my parents abandoned me. *01:22:27* I I resent them for that. *01:22:37* I think there is still part of them that is hoping to like *01:22:38* meet them and have closure with them or z or something or I I I don't know. *01:22:41* I I would guess there's like a a a wanting *01:22:46* uh or desire to interact with them to some degree. *01:22:50* Um so to find out that Chris is the one who robbed him of that, I I I I I think it makes sense the more I think about it, but I do agree it is a *01:22:54* He is kinda all over the place. *01:23:02* It's a heck of a and it's not within twenty-four hours, excuse me. *01:23:03* This game takes place over a span of six months *01:23:07* They go to jail in China for six months? *01:23:10* Okay, but the news the news of his father is essentially a short period of time. *01:23:13* Yeah. *01:23:19* Sorry, didn't mean to Did you like sh did you like Sherry's reintroduction though? *01:23:20* Or I think I think her bringing her back in the fold is actually a smart idea. *01:23:24* I I like Jake too, I should say, and I've said this in previous episodes this season, is *01:23:28* A core element of Resident Evil to me is introducing new characters. *01:23:33* Like that has always been a pillar of this series. *01:23:36* Um so to do so, whether that be, you know, with Sheba and Five, um, and in this game they decide to do it with *01:23:39* Jake, but they don't make him uh they don't put him alone, obviously, so they bring back a character that is not new but hasn't been around in some way in some time with Sherry. *01:23:47* And I think I think that I think that's a good dynamic, putting him with somebody that fans *01:23:56* No, but somebody that's not, you know, a Jill or something like that. *01:24:01* I do I do think that Sherry is a better partner than *01:24:05* a Claire or a Jill. *01:24:09* I I think her reintroduction fits. *01:24:11* It makes sense in this in this world and in this particular story. *01:24:14* It's cool to see her become *01:24:18* a BSAA agent for or not, no, she's just a an American government spy agent, whatever. *01:24:21* She works for Derek Simmons. *01:24:27* She works for Derek Simmons. *01:24:28* It's cool to see her trying to almost write the wrongs *01:24:30* of her parents from Raccoon City. *01:24:34* I do find it a little strange that like they brush over it in the game a little bit, but she has superpowers to like heal her body. *01:24:36* Yeah, they don't really do anything with that after they introduce it. *01:24:44* She's just like, oh, my dad like experimented on me or something. *01:24:47* So that was a little strange, but it's cool to see her try to to right those wrongs and bring Jake into the light, so to speak. *01:24:52* It's cool. *01:25:01* Definitely the best, I think, pair out of everyone. *01:25:02* I think Piers is *01:25:05* Entirely forgettable. *01:25:07* Well I think Piers is just yeah, Piers is Helena I think is the worst. *01:25:09* I I like Piers just because he's like *01:25:13* Captain! *01:25:15* Captain Redfield! *01:25:16* I just that's funny to me. *01:25:21* And that kind of leads into *01:25:22* even village where Chris is just still a captain of a force. *01:25:24* Like Nivens is just one of his boys in that sense that he presides over. *01:25:27* And I I I like that sort of *01:25:32* Uh I like Chris B just having his own little militia that he travels around the globe with and just peers as one of those guys. *01:25:34* Helene is horrible. *01:25:41* Um, I do think too, I mean we're talking about the individual campaigns here. *01:25:43* Jake's is the best though, like for sure, because there's a persistent threat from mission one to mission five with Uncle Unc. *01:25:47* Like there is some consistency there. *01:25:55* Um, I think the set pieces are the best. *01:25:58* I think that campaign is also the perfect length where it's like *01:26:00* three and a half four hours something in there rather than being closer to six. *01:26:03* Jakes is the tightest. *01:26:08* I think it does the best stuff with the narrative because most of it's new and it makes sense from the go. *01:26:09* Like *01:26:16* Here's Jake. *01:26:16* Why is Jake important? *01:26:17* Oh, it's his b like like Sherry is trying to track him down and get his blood and knows his value before there's ever like a big like *01:26:18* before China ever gets bombed or whatever later in the campaign, you know? *01:26:26* Like there is value, um, and that's explained. *01:26:29* Just by by all accounts, I think Jake's campaign is the best one. *01:26:33* Like it's definitely the one we had the most fun with. *01:26:37* It has the right amount of the over-the-top nature, especially toward the end there. *01:26:40* Really good co-op moments. *01:26:45* It's a great even the set pieces too, like they don't last too long. *01:26:48* I think of the motorcycle chase. *01:26:52* Like that compared to like the Chris driving sequence from his campaign, like *01:26:54* That driving sequence on the highway lasts way too long, way too bloated. *01:26:59* The motorcycle though, it's like the right length to be like enjoyable and it doesn't overstay its welcome, I don't think. *01:27:03* I the only thing in Jake's campaign that I didn't enjoy, and I know you didn't enjoy it either, was the dark snowy mountain. *01:27:09* Oh yes. *01:27:17* It's a big open area with there is a map, but it's useless. *01:27:17* And so *01:27:21* That was bad. *01:27:22* That area's a bit too aimless, a bit too difficult. *01:27:22* Even we bumped the brightness up all the way, which was only five more points, and it doesn't really help at all. *01:27:24* So besides that, Jakes is definitely the best. *01:27:30* I think followed by Chris's and then it's a toss-up between Ada and Leon's and Ada's is more of a structural problem than a length problem, or I mean her narrative is is totally confusing. *01:27:34* Well we could talk about I mean I wanted to talk about ADAS here anyway, so we may as well. *01:27:49* Um Let's do it. *01:27:52* Aidas is meant to be solely single player, which doesn't make any sense. *01:27:54* They then fold in the co-op and it's *01:27:58* Not good. *01:28:01* It was originally released as a bonus campaign after beating all three, and it was purely single-player on launch. *01:28:02* And then not a week later. *01:28:11* Uh, I guess just over a week. *01:28:15* October 10th, 2012, Capcom, right before Comic Con, New York Comic Con. *01:28:17* Clarified on-disc DLC versus online DLC. *01:28:23* Remember when that was a big deal when games would have content on it? *01:28:28* So like everything on the disc is free, we just have to unlock it with a patch or whatever *01:28:30* But this particular notice also said that Ado's campaign will have an update to add co-op, which *01:28:34* It's so interesting that in this co-op game, that the bonus campaign at the end would originally not have co-op. *01:28:43* But then when they add it, they add it in the lightest manner possible. *01:28:52* So much so *01:28:59* that the partner is just agent, and the agent cannot interact with objects, cannot open doors, is not in any of the cutscenes. *01:29:01* Teleports when Ada ziplines around. *01:29:12* It is purely a I was there to provide covering yeah, I was there to provide covering fire, and that was it. *01:29:16* And you had to do everything else. *01:29:25* And I I offered to switch halfway through so that we could both experience it, but you wanted to ride out being agent. *01:29:27* I was still the agent baby. *01:29:34* Agent Agent Agent to the end. *01:29:36* Frustrating and weird. *01:29:40* Yes. *01:29:42* Both as someone who was playing as Ada, and I can only imagine as someone playing as the agent. *01:29:42* It's just so *01:29:48* It is a second-class citizen co-op partner angle. *01:29:50* If you really shouldn't it we really should have just played Ada's campaign solo each of us to get the proper experience, but *01:29:55* Gosh darn it, we're we're united to the end. *01:30:02* It's one of the strangest co- implementations of co-op I've seen in a game that I can remember. *01:30:05* And again, it was added post-launch, but like if you're not going to add like just *01:30:11* No like some very obvious elements to it. *01:30:17* Like, why can I not open a door? *01:30:20* Why can I not do that? *01:30:21* The systems were there, right? *01:30:23* Clearly. *01:30:24* Because the other three campaigns support all of it. *01:30:24* So I'm just so I'm *01:30:26* I'm baffled. *01:30:28* I'm baffled by this. *01:30:29* I don't like to use this word often when it comes to like game development when that word is lazy, but it really did feel lazy. *01:30:31* Like they were just d throwing it in there. *01:30:38* just so that they could like check off a box and say like, oh well now the full game's co-op done but it's really it's not like you had you had to do everything as Ada. *01:30:41* And I was just like, okay, I'll stand in a corner. *01:30:51* And we kept joking that like *01:30:53* Agent's involvement didn't even make sense, and it was like Ada's imaginary friend that was running around with her, basically. *01:30:55* We imagine that Ada was actually losing her mind. *01:31:02* Outside of that, Ada's campaign, I did *01:31:05* Want to say is definitely one of the worst um even outside of the co-op problems, I would have to say. *01:31:08* Um just rehash like outside the first level was completely unique to Ada, yes *01:31:13* But then everything else was a rehash of other levels, which is the th exact thing we said we did not like about some of the other various *01:31:20* uh missions. *01:31:29* I mean not everything to a T, you know, like she goes to the church and her second mission and you do some things that aren't tied necessarily to *01:31:29* Leon and Helena, but then you're back through the same environments, you're doing the same things, you're fighting the same bosses, you're riding the same minecarts, and then you get to the next level, and it's like *01:31:38* You're doing the same sorts of things there. *01:31:47* So like you would just all of her moments in the game were tied to um *01:31:49* were tied to the other campaigns. *01:31:57* Which didn't make 'em make playing through it interesting whatsoever. *01:31:58* Like I thought her campaign was going to like *01:32:02* kind of tie all the other three together and shed light more on some big things and it kind of does. *01:32:05* Um but not really at the same time. *01:32:11* Yeah, I had to look it up after we beat the game *01:32:14* to truly understand who they were talking about, what they were meaning. *01:32:16* It's weird because you feel like her campaign should be the biggest of them all. *01:32:21* Not in terms of length, but *01:32:24* She is kind of the character at the center of this game more than She's definitely the linchpin. *01:32:27* She, yes, her and Jake are the two characters that are kind of vital to everything that is happening in this game because *01:32:31* you know, Simmons is evil because of Ada, but Simmons is also wanting Jake for his blood and stuff. *01:32:39* It works out well and Ada's is not *01:32:50* Not so much. *01:32:52* So it is poorly done and quite odd. *01:32:53* It's a big it's a big old bummer. *01:32:59* One thing I wanted to go back to quickly, um, I know we I feel like we've touched on largely everything about this game, but one thing I know we did not touch on was the bosses. *01:33:01* Um and I wanted to ask you about what you thought about some of them. *01:33:12* Again, there are in the same way as the same way we talked about like enemy variety and lots of mutations and evolutions in this game. *01:33:15* I think the bosses do the same sorts of things. *01:33:23* I think of Simmons and uh a Leon's campaign evolving into a T Rex and then evolving into a tiger or a panther or something like that, and then evolving into a giant bug ant thing towards the end there. *01:33:25* Like *01:33:39* There's a lot of different versions of these bosses. *01:33:39* You're fighting the same enemy over and over again. *01:33:42* It's not dissimilar to *01:33:45* Wasn't this an element in five to a degree? *01:33:51* There was a character that kept Am I mistaking that? *01:33:54* Wasn't there a character in five that *01:33:59* Kinda kept coming back or toward the end was no, I guess not. *01:34:02* I don't know. *01:34:06* It just feels like the regenerators in four? *01:34:07* No, this was more like a boss character that kept repeating itself, kept coming back in some version, one way or another. *01:34:13* I guess *01:34:23* Nemesis to a degree, but Nemesis is cool or um Birkin. *01:34:23* Yeah. *01:34:30* Again, I think Birkin actually is probably more similar in that way because it is pretty much the same fight *01:34:31* But Birkin's also not transforming into goofy yes animals. *01:34:37* This is true. *01:34:43* It's frustrating to it's exhausting really. *01:34:46* Not frustrating. *01:34:49* It's exhausting. *01:34:50* It's like, ugh. *01:34:51* We're fighting. *01:34:52* Well, but we killed Simmons. *01:34:53* We killed Simmons. *01:34:54* It's over, right? *01:34:55* It's not. *01:34:56* We actually got to the point where we were like, we knew they weren't dead. *01:34:57* We were like, they'll they will come back. *01:35:00* Even Uncle Unk melting in lava. *01:35:02* We were like, nah, he's not dead. *01:35:04* He'll be back. *01:35:06* That's the that was the weird thing about some of the cutscenes in this game too, is like you'd do a boss fight and then the cutscene would play and it's like they deliver the kill shot. *01:35:07* Like I think of the one with Simmons when you're on the train. *01:35:15* And I think Helena or Leon, somebody one of them shoots him directly in the head, like standing still right there, they blast him in the head and he falls over and it's like, Oh, we killed him. *01:35:19* There he goes. *01:35:29* And then that's like nope, you gotta fight him like three more times after this. *01:35:29* It's like, okay, well like *01:35:32* What is up with these like weird cinematic kill shot moments? *01:35:34* Like if you knew they were gonna come back for you and keep chasing you, kind of like like you did with uh Nemesis in three, like you knew he was never *01:35:37* Dead, like you are just trying to get away more than anything. *01:35:44* Um some of the bosses in this game they present them as if you've done away with them. *01:35:48* It's like, nope, just kidding. *01:35:52* I will say the Simmons turning into a T Rex was probably the coolest. *01:35:54* Maybe just visually, like come on, you're fight suddenly fighting a zombie dinosaur. *01:36:02* Like that is totally the most over the top *01:36:07* Goofy. *01:36:10* That kind of like that it is. *01:36:11* It is. *01:36:12* I kinda I I I'm like partway on it. *01:36:12* Like I like the over-the-top insanity of this series, and I've always said that, but that's almost jumping. *01:36:15* Jumping the T Rex for Yes. *01:36:23* Yes. *01:36:25* A little too far. *01:36:28* Like we need to let's reel it back in just a tad bit. *01:36:29* I think it fits in this particular game, given everything else going on. *01:36:33* Perhaps, yeah. *01:36:37* It's certainly the goofiest, but *01:36:38* Yeah, it's a weird one. *01:36:41* It's a weird weird game. *01:36:42* None of the boss fights in particular are like *01:36:45* Have left going, man, that was a blast, except Ustanak Uncle Unk. *01:36:49* He's good. *01:36:54* I do think that was good. *01:36:55* And again, that's that's Uncle Unknown. *01:36:56* The very end on the cart where they they zip away at like 300 miles an hour somehow don't fall off and then proceed to Yeah, how does he catch up with them? *01:37:01* Don't question on Columbia. *01:37:14* Yeah, he was he was great. *01:37:17* There were moments where you'd like shut doors and then you'd walk into the next room and he all of a sudden bust through uh now he's ahead of you. *01:37:18* It's so good. *01:37:28* That shows that they could keep doing more things in the sat that sort of nemesis style, I think, in future games. *01:37:29* Um which they obviously did with the three remake, but um I I think *01:37:35* We need uh I think Resident Evil needs a persistent villain again. *01:37:41* They do it a little bit in village with *01:37:47* Lady D, but it's only in that one level and it's not as threatening or omnipresent. *01:37:49* I think there need I I really would love to see them return to this idea of a consistent *01:37:57* Threat that is you can't kill it, it's always there over your shoulder until the very end. *01:38:04* I I think that's a good idea. *01:38:10* I was just gonna say, I think that's a good idea, and I I think we need a *01:38:12* through line villain as well in the same vein as Wesker, somebody who's not gonna show up in one game and die like uh Mother Miranda does or something like that. *01:38:17* that so but Mother Miranda was controlling everything the whole time. *01:38:25* Yeah, but we didn't know she existed until till the end. *01:38:29* Until the end. *01:38:33* Don't worry. *01:38:34* Wesker will come back in nine. *01:38:35* Let's talk about uh music here, which I don't think there's I actually do have some things to say. *01:38:37* Um but not again, similar co-op complaint of just we were talking most of the time, so I'm not *01:38:42* Hearing the music, we did compliment on Jake's credits theme, whatever that was. *01:38:50* That was about all I remember. *01:38:54* I just think that this nothing about this soundtrack feels Resident Evil. *01:38:56* Yeah. *01:39:01* It all. *01:39:02* Like that was my big takeaway. *01:39:03* Like I was I I told you like, oh, this theme song sounds like something ripped out of Batman Arkham City. *01:39:04* Like *01:39:10* Uh, which does not mean it has like Batman or superhero vibes. *01:39:11* It more just like it's going for like an orchestral type of big booming orchestral score, which again, I other or other Resident Evil games a obviously have too, but there's *01:39:15* The other Resident Evil soundtracks are more I feel like the the scores are more specific and like *01:39:25* Like, there's always an earworm or two in each of the Resident Evil games, I feel like. *01:39:34* And uh in this game, it's just going for big booming action set pieces more than anything else. *01:39:39* And uh *01:39:45* Yeah. *01:39:46* I felt like that was even seen with the m the music here. *01:39:46* Um so yeah, it's a it's a weird soundtrack for a for a weird game. *01:39:50* Yeah, i it I it compliments it in the weirdness, but it there's nothing there's nothing I would want to go back to. *01:39:56* And I think that's the bummer here because at least the other games have themes that stand out or or ride with the series, so. *01:40:07* It just doesn't feel like a residual soundtrack. *01:40:15* Like that's my biggest critique. *01:40:17* Like again, if does it match with what's happening on screen and what's happening um *01:40:18* And the story and stuff like sure. *01:40:24* Again, they're trying to go for a big summer action blockbuster type approach here, it feels like, but it just that's not *01:40:26* That's not Resident Evil. *01:40:33* And even with five when they were going in that direction, five still felt like it had music that was more in common with what we had seen in the previous games. *01:40:35* So yeah, I would agree. *01:40:44* What's this game's legacy? *01:40:47* I feel like it's a very simple one in some ways. *01:40:48* This is just the bad Resident Evil. *01:40:51* Yeah, it really it's the game that caused Capcom to reconsider the direction of the series. *01:40:55* It leads to Seven and Village and partially these remakes. *01:41:04* It it helped in in a f hindsight way it helped *01:41:09* revitalize the series by nearly killing the main line. *01:41:14* Not that, you know, Resident Evil was gonna stay around, but think about other games that came out around this time. *01:41:18* I think Operation Raccoon City was similarly close, also not so great. *01:41:24* Like the series was on a decline, and then *01:41:30* That caused Capcom to reconsider and then ultimately revitalize the series, bring it back to life like a zombie in a good way. *01:41:34* So *01:41:42* It's that it's the last, as we stand, co-op game. *01:41:43* It's the last, you know, only two real co-op entries, but it is the last of those, and it's the last time we've seen Leon. *01:41:47* Uh we've seen Chris since, but not Leon, so and Ada, I guess we haven't seen Ada. *01:41:57* Chris is the Chris is the only character that I mean Chris is kind of I've said this before in this season, but Chris is kind of like the main character of Resident Evil in all. *01:42:05* He's in one? *01:42:13* He's in he's in one, he's in the new mentioned in two *01:42:15* He's a mention in three. *01:42:19* He's teased at the end of three remake, even. *01:42:22* He's in Code Veronica. *01:42:25* He's in five. *01:42:28* He's in six, he's in seven, and he's in eight. *01:42:30* He is the guy. *01:42:34* Which is so funny. *01:42:36* Like, you would think Leon is, but Leon's only been in *01:42:38* Land's not been in that many he's in three he's been two, four, and six. *01:42:42* Yeah. *01:42:47* And then mentioned in a couple others, but yeah. *01:42:48* Weird. *01:42:51* Jill and Leon have the same count, I think. *01:42:52* And they're like the two most popular. *01:42:56* One wait, one, three, and Revelations, I guess. *01:42:58* Yeah. *01:43:04* Which doesn't really count. *01:43:04* The one other thing I want to say here is like *01:43:05* Credit to Capcom, though, with this game. *01:43:08* Um, even though this is the bad one in the series, you mentioned that this is kind of the turning point for the series, and it kind of set up what would come next. *01:43:10* Credit to Capcom *01:43:20* For not seeing the sales for this game, you know, and it doing well for their standard than saying, okay, cool, like this game is selling commercially well, let's ignore the reviews and push further in this direction *01:43:22* Like they listened more to the fee even though sales were high, they took the criticism from critics and fans to heart and were like, okay, we gotta *01:43:35* We've lost ourselves. *01:43:45* We've lost what the series is, and we need to go back to the drawing board and we need to find a new way forward, which they did. *01:43:46* excellently with seven. *01:43:56* Um and I really think a lot of other publishers nowadays, like at the time we're recording this, like Activision for instance, uh *01:43:59* Like like just one quick example. *01:44:09* Like Activision this year in 2023 was planning not to release a Call of Duty game at one point it was reported. *01:44:11* And then it was said that, oh no, they're actually going to release an expansion for *01:44:17* uh Modern Warfare 2 and then that expansion blew up into like a premium Call of Duty title, which like people didn't know what that meant. *01:44:22* And now *01:44:30* It's gone so far as they're there the new reports are like they're flat out releasing Modern Warfare 3 this year. *01:44:31* So I guess what I'm saying is like, yeah, Modern Warfare 3 is this year, supposedly. *01:44:37* No Russian baby. *01:44:42* It's crazy. *01:44:44* Um I guess my point there is just that like we're in a and this game obviously released ten years ago, but we're in a time where publishers *01:44:45* feel like they're chasing money more than anything else. *01:44:54* And I guess looking back at this game with eleven years of hindsight and seeing that *01:44:57* The money was there, but the critical response wasn't, and that was enough for Capcom to go change things. *01:45:03* It says a lot nowadays in an environment where I'm not sure that would happen anymore. *01:45:09* You know, because like Modern Warfare 2, again with the Activision example, people are disappointed with that game. *01:45:15* It didn't live up to expectations. *01:45:20* And what is Activision's response? *01:45:22* Well, here's another one. *01:45:24* We know you'll buy it. *01:45:26* You buy it every year. *01:45:27* So like it's kind of it's kind of impressive to look back at what Capcom did with this game and they're like, oh people bought it, but they don't like it. *01:45:29* So we need to prompt some change here *01:45:36* rather than just doing more of this. *01:45:38* Um because feasibly people would have bought seven if they would have kind of done new things in this same vein um rather than *01:45:41* Giving us the version of seven that we got. *01:45:50* So yeah. *01:45:53* Total props to them for listening and making the changes. *01:45:54* And uh honestly, it leads *01:45:59* Honestly, it has led to a better overall franchise. *01:46:02* Well, I was gonna say it's led to the most profitable *01:46:06* Critically respon like them choosing to do that has led to Resident Evil being bigger than ever, more profitable than ever. *01:46:10* Like that was and that that and that just shows that like *01:46:18* If you put quality above everything else, like the sales will be there. *01:46:22* I think that does it for Resident Evil 6. *01:46:26* We did it. *01:46:29* We've played all the mainline games. *01:46:29* It feels kind of good to be there. *01:46:32* We feels really one yeah. *01:46:34* We have one more episode this season, the Resident Evil 4 remake. *01:46:36* Logan's actually been playing it. *01:46:39* lately and I'm already done with it. *01:46:41* So that episode will be next year for Chapter Select, but thank you so much for listening to us talk about Resident Evil 6. *01:46:43* If you'd like to find our other seasons or *01:46:49* more information about the show you can head over to chapterselect. *01:46:52* com or follow the show at chapter select. *01:46:55* If you'd like to follow Logan, you can do so at Moreman12 and his writing over at comicbook. *01:46:58* com. *01:47:03* You can find myself at maxroberts143 in my writing over at maxfrequency. *01:47:04* net. *01:47:10* Uh thank you all so much for listening to the show. *01:47:10* You know, I haven't I haven't done this before, but maybe, you know, leave us a review in your podcast app of choice or or maybe like and subscribe if you're on YouTube or you know, just subscribe to the show here in your podcast player. *01:47:13* It would mean a lot to the both of us, but *01:47:24* Thank you all so much for listening and joining us here as we get ready to end season five. *01:47:27* And until next time, adios. *01:47:32* Chapter Select is a max frequency production. *01:47:35* This episode was researched, produced, and edited by me, Max Roberts. *01:47:38* Season 5 is hosted by Logan Moore and myself. *01:47:42* Season five is all about Resident Evil. *01:47:46* For more on this season go to chapterselect. *01:47:49* com forward slash season five. *01:47:51* Follow the show at Chapter Select and check out previous seasons at ChapterSelect. *01:47:54* com. *01:47:59*