I still feel like Resident Evil should have taken the same anthology approach Silent Hill did years ago, in order to be able to tell a fresh story and make new enemies without the need of changing the tone to action. Only adding sprinkles of connections here and there, which is exactly what RE7 did, and it worked fantastically.
I think the first person view is a good compromise to keep some action elements, but retain the horror and intensity that would have been lost otherwise.
Which btw, playing it in VR is an entirely different experience. The game is far more detailed than I had thought until playing it that way. I just couldn't play it all the way through since VR makes me dizzy as hell, but you get a sense of just how detailed things are, and everything is scaled so perfectly.
I wouldn't say Capcom saved Resident Evil here...they responsibly revived it. Making the decision to remake 2 and 3 was where they truly started saving it...I'm hoping RE8 is a godsend of triple A Horror.
That said, I no longer despise RE5 as much, and have actually found myself disliking RE4 less on a replay, not by much mind you, and more likely just because I played it so many times...I wish the village in RE4 had taken majority of the game, and the castle hadn't ever been part of it. The island at least had a lab and regenerators, despite going balls to the wall whacky with army men. It's always a chore to get through the castle, and takes up so much time, and doesn't really get spooky again until Verdugo and U3 or whatever his name was.
As for RE5, playing it with a friend for the first time in a true co op mode, without the stupid AI has really upped my opinion of that game. Yeah, it's less horror than RE4, but its gameplay is more fluid, where I can quickly shortcut to weapons, not having to pause and take the immersion away.
And yeah, I like the story so much better over RE4 now, mostly because of how campy they made RE4's story...I still feel RE5 copied and pasted too much from RE4, particularly boss fights.
Also, there are no regenerator or invisible bug equivalents, but they do make up for it by using the Lickers, which is one of the best sections of the game when you have to separate from your partner on a platform to go and push a box while they slowly approach you.
Doing that section, with a real friend is more satisfying too. Especially when they don't like horror...haha.
Not sure where I was going with that, but I enjoy every entry for what it is, rather than as a whole. Which, had RE just been an anthology, I don't think anyone would have hated Capcom for dropping the Raccoon City and Umbrella storyline as much but that's just my opinion.
Horror games work best when things are unknown, and continuing enemies and storylines from previous titles naturally diminishes the potential of horror.
