On March 24, "Resident Evil 4: Remake" produced by "Cold Rice King" Capcom was officially launched. So far, the game has achieved 97% "rave reviews" on Steam.
Horizontal comparison of the performance of several 3A models on Steam in recent years, it is enough to see the success of the remake of "Resident Evil 4: Remake": "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" has a 96% praise, "The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim" has a 94% praise, "Wolf: Shadow Passes Twice" has a 94% praise, "Red Dead Redemption 2" has a 90% praise, and "Grand Theft Auto 5" has a 77% praise... While Steam reviews alone are unfair to a game's evaluation, some older games are difficult to compare directly for a variety of reasons. But in the simple and crude way of Steam's praise, "Guan Gong vs. Qin Qiong" can still have the power of a battle, and the achievements of "Resident Evil 4: Remake" cannot be ignored.
So, how exactly is this classic action shooter Resident Evil 4 made? What are the past feuds between Shinji Mikami, the "father of Resident Evil", and him? What was the production process like for Resident Evil 4: Remastered? This article will serve as a chronicle of the production of "Resident Evil 4", and will sort out the stories behind the past and present lives of the classic "Resident Evil 4" that have been repeatedly remastered and transplanted.
1. The crisis and opportunity of "Resident Evil"
When talking about "Resident Evil 4", I have to mention "hot man" first. There is no doubt that the pioneering work in the history of Japanese TV shooters released in 1978, "Space Invaders", is Shinji Mikami's "enlightenment teacher" for understanding games. At that time, a game of controlling a spaceship to shoot alien creatures, which cost 100 yen at every turn, planted a seed in Mikami's heart in middle school. And after he visited the arcade hall, this fanatical love for games made Mikami out of control of the game.
In 1990, at the age of 25, Shinji Mikami graduated from Doshisha University in Japan. Since he was a graduate of the Faculty of Business, Mikami also submitted many resumes of financial companies at that time, but unfortunately they all ended up in the sea. As if fate played a joke on Mikami, when he held a flyer for Capcom to hold a party, he was finally chosen. Recalling the past, Mikami also said, "The written test in the entrance examination was 'beautifully' eliminated. But in the end, he was still admitted to the company, and I still don't know why. ”
Although he finally joined the company, Shinji Mikami's workplace nightmare clearly began - experiencing how sad it is to work under Kenzo Tsujimoto, the president of Capcom who is a real "crazy boss". After joining the company, Mikami had to work overtime until 5 a.m. every day for three months in a row, just for the development of a Nintendo Game Boy competitive quiz game. With the idea of leaving, he was led to arrange the development of Game Boy games based on Disney IPs such as "Aladdin" and "Goofy Family" in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".
Despite his busy and painful work, it was clear that this work experience was honing Shinji Mikami's character, which led him to slowly cultivate a fanaticism that was almost paranoid about polishing the game. At the end of 1994, Capcom backbone Tokuro Fujiwara, who was originally in charge of the remake of "Sweet House" - "BIO HAZARD (Resident Evil)", went to help go to the branch to help plan the new PS game. At this time, the production plan of "Resident Evil", which was facing premature death, fell to Mikami, who has always been fond of European and American horror movies.
However, Shinji Mikami's reforms were too bold. Putting "Sweet Home" to let players "unarmed" horror game successful production experience do not want, but let players in the game with a gun to get full firepower, what kind of horror is this? As a result, not only the creative team's internal concept on belly slander, but even the upper echelons of the company "only" have a psychological estimate of 500,000 copies of "Resident Evil".
However, the reality is that the original "Resident Evil", released on March 22, 1996, achieved more than 5 million copies in sales, and created a series of IP that has been popular for 27 years. This move not only allowed Capcom to successfully get rid of the "Sword of Damocles" called Financial Crisis hanging on his head, but also made the little-known Shinji Mikami a hit and won the honorific title of "Father of Resident Evil".
The success of the market did not make Shinji Mikami get carried away, and the "Resident Evil 2" he was in charge of was drastically pushed down and redone on the 70% completion of the progress, and this version is the "Resident Evil 1.5" that players talk about. As a result, Resident Evil 2, released on January 28, 1998, continued to be a commercial and word-of-mouth success, selling more than 5 million copies worldwide.
Since then, the original Dinosaur Crisis, a third-person horror survival shooter based on the Resident Evil engine, by Shinji Mikami, has also sold 2.4 million copies. However, Mikami did not participate in the February 3, 2000 release of Resident Evil: Codename Veronica, and achieved "only" 400,000 copies of sales on DC, making Resident Evil 4 Capcom's biggest effort to save the series.
2. "Hydra" and the pinnacle
"Resident Evil 4" is undoubtedly a huge shift in the history of the series - from horror to successful action. It's no exaggeration to say that Resident Evil 4 can be described as making the entire series "make biohazard great again".
As early as 1998, Capcom was already preparing for the development of Resident Evil 4. In 2000, Hideki Kamiya, who was responsible for the development of the first edition, led a team to Spain to fully study the local Gothic style architecture, and the story will revolve around the two twin sons of Oswell Edward Spencer who is behind the series. Unfortunately, it was abandoned because the overall style of this version was very different from the atmosphere of survival horror. But after losing the East and reaping the harvest, this product full of excellent creativity turned out to be the prototype of "Devil May Cry", which will also be popular around the world in the future.
In 2001, the baton was handed to Hiroshi Shibata (background designer of Resident Evil 3). At the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) in the spring of 2002, players saw a new trailer known as the "Fog Edition": an unknown monster infected by the progenitor virus of the black fog that followed Lyon as it infiltrated the European headquarters of Umbrella.
Later, at the 2003 E3 show, players saw a new trailer called "Resident Evil 3.5": first, Shinji Mikami appeared to warn players "not to be scared into peeing your pants", and the range of survival horror in it all the time also whetted the player's appetite. Although the background rendering was superior, the "Silent Hill like" style of the world setting undoubtedly made this version as difficult to fit with the original worldview as the previous version, so both versions made by Shibata were ruthlessly abandoned.
After a long period of changes and revisions, Shinji Mikami had to personally take charge of the production. However, by then Capcom had gradually lost patience with Mikami. Just like the discord between companies and producers that are now very common, Mikami was responsible for "P.N.03", "Red Hero Joey", "Killer7", "Viewtiful Joe" and other works in 2002 successively "thundered", which has made Capcom "kill the killer" and let Mikami "take the initiative" to resign as the head of the fourth development department.
Years later, Shinji Mikami recalled Capcom's pressure on him to develop Resident Evil 4: "If it doesn't sell well, cancel the entire Resident Evil series." In fact, at this time, Mikami has already developed a sense of deliberation, and the relationship between management and labor can be described as freezing point. But Mikami still plans to use "Resident Evil 4" to make a complete footnote for his more than ten years in Capcom.
As Resident Evil 4 says on the back of the Nintendo GameCube (NGC) box: Forget everything you know about Resident Evil.
Under the leadership of Shinji Mikami, "Resident Evil 4" boldly broke through the original setting, the most famous of which is the action elements. And even more than a month before launch, the game is still polishing the reloading details.
Although "Resident Evil 4" on January 11, 2005 made many old biochemical players scoff, it cannot be denied that "Resident Evil 4" did successfully save this IP that frequently "stepped on the thunder" on "Resident Evil: Codename Veronica" and "Resident Evil 0". The data doesn't lie, the market is voting with its feet, and now that multiple versions of Resident Evil 4 have been released, global sales have exceeded 11 million units.
But "Resident Evil 4" also completely exhausts the mutual trust between management and labor. Before the release of Resident Evil 4, Shinji Mikami had a deal with Nintendo that the game would monopolize NGC - because Mikami did not trust Sony's PS and Microsoft's XBOX. Reflecting on the past, Mikami said: "I think in the future, Nintendo may be the only platform company that will provide games for people - not only for children, but also for adults. That's what I thought at the time, though completely wrong. ”
So much so that Shinji Mikami publicly shouted at the time: "Resident Evil 4 will only be logged in on the NGC platform, and if it is ported to other hosts, I will cut off my head." When President Capcom Tsuji spoke face-to-face about whether he could post a consultation on other platforms, he even more voiced: "Of course, but you have to fire me first." ”
But as Capcom "ruthlessly" ported "Resident Evil 4" to PS2 in hopes of gaining greater sales, Mikami's "Mountain Alliance Sea Oath" instantly became a fancy banter that players gave him the title of "Nine-Headed Bird". A year after the game's release, Mikami left the company he had dreamed of starting, along with the rest of his widows.
3. Timeless remake
In recent years, Capcom has frequently put its classic IP back on the screen and started various fancy remakes/remakes, especially the "Resident Evil" series. With sales of Resident Evil 2: Remastered on January 25, 2019 exceeding 11.2 million units, and Resident Evil 3: Remastered on April 3, 2020 exceeding 6.4 million units, Resident Evil 4: Remastered was put on Capcom in early 2021.
Not only that, in order for the remake to be as acclaimed as "Resident Evil 2: Remastered" (shortlisted for TGA's six nominations for the best game of 2019), Capcom pulled its production team Division 1 into the development of "Resident Evil 4: Remake". Among them, Yasuhiro Anyasuhiro, who participated in the development of the former, and Kazuken Moni, were included in the development team.
"The original Resident Evil 4 has been a legend throughout the history of the Resident Evil franchise and throughout the game's history, and I knew it would be very difficult to successfully remake this title, and if we made inappropriate changes, it would cause fan dissatisfaction," said Yasuhiro Security. Kazuken Moni added, "When I first heard about the remake of Resident Evil 4, my first reaction was that the original was a masterpiece and that remaking it would be difficult, so I didn't really want to participate. ”
By today's standards, if the game framework, presentation and gameplay content of any old game cannot be aligned with the rhythm and proclivities of the current player, the ultimate failure of the game is actually unpredictable. So what is the solution of Yasuhiro Security and Kazuken Moni? The answer is positive change and innovation!
In addition to the necessary screen updates, in terms of gameplay, a certain "QTE" mechanism is replaced by a bullet knife mechanism, and a wider explorable area is added to the original linear Great Lake and other levels; In terms of battle, in addition to the necessary additions and deletions of scenes and boss battle settings, more stealth elements and new props have been added, and players can interact with the scene with more gameplay; In terms of plot, it not only enriches the game world view, but also makes Ashley Graham, Louis Serra, Ida Wang and Jack Crowther more organically linked and natural with the protagonist Leon...
In short, in the words of Kazuken Moni, he and Yasuhiro Yasuhiro believes that the team has sifted out elements that need to be improved or redone, recreating the best parts of the memory for fans, and removing outdated designs from the original. "If you're going to make a game, you're going to experience it over and over again during development, and you may get bored with it eventually," says Yasuhiro Security. But during the development of Resident Evil 2: Remake, no matter how many times I played it, I never got bored. This is an important core factor. "Now, after 18 years, the blockbuster "Resident Evil 4: Remake" has returned strongly, successfully igniting another wave of biochemical frenzy.