More resident evil than Resident Evil, is this the canonical sequel to the series?

Players who know a little about the game's producers are believed to be unfamiliar with the name "Shinji Mikami". The man, dubbed the "Father of Resident Evil," finally founded TANGO Studios in 2010 and released Possessed by Evil spirits in 2014 after a storm with Capcom.

As the company's first-time cry, this game is an interesting game in every way, and overall it looks like Shinji Mikami's response to his old club and the Resident Evil series. Especially compared with the "Resident Evil 5" such an off-track action shooter sequel, "Evil Possessed" content and gameplay have a traditional "Resident Evil" flavor, accurately speaking, it should be Mikami's own taste.

First of all, the world view is different from the virus and parasite terrier of "Resident Evil", "Evil Spirit Possession" uses the story blueprint of the player being pulled into a world of consciousness experiment to find the truth and escape in it, and then the overall difficulty and rhythm hope to let the player have an appropriate and sufficient difficulty and survival experience before the mid-term, so the game experience can be said to be a little subtle in the initial situation without inheritance.

For example, the protagonist has an endurance point for running, and the setting that cannot run for a few seconds in the early stage makes the player feel slightly tricky in the face of enemies such as villagers in the case of limited resources in the early stage. For example, there are traps in the game that make it impossible for you to explore easily, and you must tense your nerves and move forward. Compared to the Resident Evil series, even early works that emphasized survival can be used to run and move, or use weapons to make some responses to zombie enemies, so the pressure and discomfort caused by the early stages of "Evil Possessed" can be imagined.

The story of this game is also very suspenseful, and even after completing the level, the player may not be able to fully understand what the story is about, what does Mobius want to do? What is the protagonist's wife doing? What does Leslie's final shot represent? Did Ryuvik really disappear? And other questions, people are full of doubts and reverie (although the second generation of these foreshadowing and suspense, all because of some considerations and comprehensive simplification and rewriting).

Then compare monsters or bosses like Resident Evil 5 with some of the uninvited monsters, and "Evil Possessed" can be said to be quite fresh and even impressive. Whether it is a smiley tribute to the chainsaw man, or the Sadako sister and safe head exclusive to "Evil Spirit Possession", or even the chilling ghost Luvik, all of them have impressed those who play this game.

The picture atmosphere and scene creation of "Evil Spirit Possession" also has its own set, compared to "Resident Evil 5" and Takeuchi Jun naked ghosting what the horror under the sun (in fact, in the bones hindered by sales and market pursuit, want to completely move towards the action shooting drama), "Evil Spirit Possession" is full of gloom and darkness, and even has a lot of bloody and disgusting pictures to add to the sense of oppression. Unless you're the kind of neurotic or experienced person who likes to compare specific works (such as dead space), the horror atmosphere and tension and oppression of "Evil Possessed" is definitely the T1 level in the industry.

Compared with the early stage of repressive survival, from the middle to the late stage, as players become more familiar with the game and the increase of resources, their fun and adrenaline secretion feelings are becoming more and more intense, and a "Resident Evil 4" feeling also comes to the fore. There are many places in the game that will make veteran Resident Evil players smile, such as: the early village with the chainsaw man, the mansion in the ninth chapter, the action shooting sense at the end of the game, and bridge sections such as the iron door dodge, the cable car, the staircase monster and so on.

In terms of system gameplay, it is a typical TPS, that is, a third-person shooter, accompanied by a resource collection and upgrade growth system, where players upgrade various abilities and weapons through map resources and brain juice obtained by defeating enemy bosses. However, perhaps because of the overall survival experience, the melee action of "Evil Spirit Possession" has only one kind of melee action and the effect is average, unless you pass the high difficulty to obtain the finger tiger, which is another experience. Overall, this is a work that only if you can survive the first three chapters of the wilderness period can you appreciate the meaning and fun of the overall design of the game.

Due to the high-quality performance of the "Evil Spirit Possessed" generation and the good results of millions of sales, TANGO Studio naturally developed the second generation and released it in 2017, but compared to the first generation, the second generation is somewhat prohibitive. The second generation made a lot of adjustments, and also introduced some familiar designs and mechanics, such as picking up resources to upgrade the workbench, and trying to semi-open maps before the middle of the game, and the director was changed from three to John Johanas. The plot is very straightforward from a generation of somewhat obscure thinking route to a simple and direct search for a daughter.

It can be seen from all aspects of the changes, Mikami they are trying to change so that the game can become a series or even a hot sale, on the one hand, because TANGO Studio was acquired by Bethesda (B Society) after the capital became more, so they can try more, but if there is no commercial achievement, everything will be very cruel.

The results of the changes made to cater to the market can be imagined, "Evil Spirit Possession 2" can be said to be a complete failure in the commercial sense, the sales volume is extremely unsatisfactory, the price reduction promotion began shortly after the release, and there is no follow-up DLC plan at all, until now after years of accumulation to reach the million level. This embarrassment makes people realize that three generations is almost impossible, and this situation is somewhat difficult for people like me who expect this series to be evergreen, and I hope that there will be good news in the future.