Resident Evil 6: Flails Post the First!
Oct. 4th, 2012 11:53 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arcanelegacyAH.
AHHHHHHH.
Played through all of the first chapter on Tuesday and most of the second chapter yesterday, so I'm going to break it down by chapter.
As an additional note I AM FINALLY NOT CO-OPING WITH THE AI ALONE. I HAVE A PARTNER. IT IS FANTASTIC. We started with the Leon/Helena campaign, and I'm Helena. (This seems to suit; I'm not an aggressive player [because that tends to get me killed] and Helena seems to lack the melee weapons Leon usually comes equipped with. Means I just have to extra-careful with my ammo, though.)
SO. GAME.
Tutorial
Much to my surprise the game actually opened with a brief, interactive tutorial. Like, before you even got to the chapter selects and the character selects kind of open. They've really overhauled a lot here - there's a lot of quick-time events that weren't there before, which I actually like so far. It gives the whole game a much more cinematic feel. Still took me a few minutes to master the timing on those quick-time events - clearly I am not used to playing with them.
Chapter 1:
First: YAY LEON YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE AGED and YAY HUNNIGAN YOU'RE BACK I LOVE YOU and Hi Helena you're...okay so far? Like YOU HAVE EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWNS AND TALK TO YOURSELF WHEN YOU'RE ALONE AND ACTUALLY SEEM LIKE A HUMAN BEING compared to the angst-bucket that Leon is, but I am not sure how I feel about you withholding pertinent information under the assumption Leon will not believe you. I am even more sad that LEON BUYS THIS EXPLANATION.
Graphics are fucking fantastic; vast improvement over the previous few games. Dark as hell in places which I'm not sure I like - but then compared to the blown out look of RE5 I think I'm willing to accept the darkness. It at least manages to feel like more of a survival horror game because of it. It's also incredibly ambient and Capcom's done a good job of giving the game a "return to its roots" feel.
So the game starts out in a college hall decked out for a presidential rally - pretty cool, way amazing graphics. Lots of textural detail, even if it's not always completely up to par. Some of the food stuffs on the tables were looking pretty flat. XD
Canth and I wasted tons of time in here trying to figure out what all we could interact with. TURNS OUT YOU CAN PUSH THE BALLOONS OUT OF THE WAY. :D Later on, you get to shoot them, WHICH IS THE BEST THING EVER. I love games that let me randomly interact with random things. Seriously. Having fish and a hamster was one of my favorite random moments in Mass Effect, and now I think I'll have to throw "Popping balloons" up there as well.
Most of this section was pretty in line with RE4 and RE5 gameplay - we're mostly just trying to get somewhere specific...because of reasons. Helena says she'll explain, BUT WHO THE HELL KNOWS IF WE'LL EVER GET THE WHOLE PICTURE. Dammit, Capcom. (We do get some detail in Chapter 2, but it's vague. I'm hoping there's more after the boss is dispatched.)
THINGS CHANGE THOUGH
THEY CHANGE WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE
BECAUSE then it turns into something way more Left4Dead-like, with just masses and masses of zombies you need to kill. THERE WAS SO MUCH FLAILING INVOLVED. There's a lot of newish zombies coming out already - there's one that spits acid, another that puffs up and calls more zombies with its scream, and OH YEAH THEY CAN DRIVE CARS NOW. I got slammed by the back end of a sedan within seconds of walking out onto the street, but by some miracle didn't kick it right there (poor Canth just had to deal with me wailing and spluttering because THAT'S NEW, THAT'S VERY NEW).
Most of this stage was just fighting and flailing and fighting and dealing with the zombies that can throw weapons and have guns (which they're not too good at using...yet) but then there was something that can only be described as the horrific love-child of a regenerator and a licker. I DO NOT LIKE THAT THING ONE BIT. It's a hard kill - gotta shoot its heart - and it LEAPS AT YOU to attack. Like a frog. Our first encounter with one involved a lot of mutual OH GOD WHAT IS THAT OH SHIT AHFDISFSDKJ; which is why I am enjoying playing with Canth. MUTUAL FLAILY TIMES.
So we beat that and we look like we're in the clear. We're on a roof, all is well and then --
AND THEN.
BOOMER
I WISH I WERE SHITTING YOU, BUT IT WAS A GIANT, FAT ZOMBIE. Didn't spit acid - that was another zombie entirely - or do anything that called other zombies to it - that was yet another zombie - BUT GIANT. FAT. NIGH INVULNERABLE THING.
We flailed wildly over it and I kept squawking BOOMER and giggling and then I got trapped on the roof (because I am an idiot) and should, by all rights, have been dead twice over BUT I LIVED, DEAR GOD I LIVED.
And then the bus we were escaping on blew up.
Chapter 2:
Oh. Man.
If I thought chapter 1 was bad chapter 2 is only worse. There's vague hinting at larger things through here - Helena actually starts talking a bit about why she's dragging you to the cathedral to begin with.
We end up in a graveyard with open graves - the best part was that Canth and I were talking about how likely it might be for Helena to die before the end of this game, because she seems like she's on a Death = Redemption arc...and then I, Helena, fall into an open grave. LOLWHOOPS? ALSO POSSIBLE ACCIDENTAL FORESHADOWING?
More creeptastic zombies through the cemetery - these ones have no skin, but they're more skeletal and taller than the others. They tend to carry shovels and things they can throw, which they like to do JUST BEFORE THEY LEAP ON YOU.
The game is now Left4Dead on steroids. JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT MIGHT BE GETTING EASIER, ANOTHER SWARM. And these guys tend to swarm - the longer you linger in an area, the more guys generate. It only gets worse when we reach the cathedral - our goal - because then there's a swarm that also includes the REGENERATOR!LICKER THINGS. Cue a TON OF SCREAMING. It's not even fear-screaming so much as it is THAT THING IS SO GROSS AND NASTY screaming.
But we get inside the church and fight angel statues (that shoot arrows from crossbows, because looking like the statues from Dr. Who isn't enough apparently, and all of them have laser sights that they use to target you) and grab a key and then the worst enemy ever appears.
Take the Dead Hand from Ocarina of Time, but with really skinny legs and actual hands. Give it a Licker-like "brain on the outside" for a head. And then cover its stomach in sea sponge-like projections that spew gas that zombifies everyone around you. Then make it coo a little like a child, while doing the little flaily arm-movements of the Dead Hand while it walks.
Then make it capable of climbing.
Then make it nearly invulnerable.
And you have the miniboss we fought before going into the SECRET TUNNELS below the church.
....I wanted to cry fighting it. (Worse still, we ran into a dead one later. Lots of "IS IT GONNA GET UP WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH AMMO FOR THAT FUUUU" followed)
So we get downstairs again and Helena starts talking about things "not being like this three days ago" which really doesn't bode well for either her character or the current situation and then we wind up in this facility and there are chrysalis pods everywhere. Like butterfly cocoons, but human-shaped. Sometimes contorted into poses of pain. Some of them even look like they're reaching for someone. Others are suspended in tubes, and if you look down through the metal floor you can see more of the tubes, each one inhabited by someone - something - else.
We enter an area that is obviously the main experiment room. And there's a VHS tape sitting next to a TV.
(A VHS tapethat we're still debating and speculating over but.) on it, it says Happy Birthday Ada Wong and then when you put it in the convenient VHS player YOU GET TO SEE A CHRYSALIS PERSON BEING BORN AND IT'S ADA GODDAMN WONG. And Canth and I promptly started screaming - that tape was in the trailers, but it did NOT say Ada's name at all in those trailers, so either Capcom changed it to hide the truth of the game OR they changed it at the last second.
Either way it looks like there might be Ada clones or some shit.
I dunno! I SAID AT THE OUTSET THE ONLY PERSON I'M OKAY WITH HAVING CLONING PLOTLINES IS WESKER, because for a long time my headcanon was that Wesker would clone himself in order to "have kids". This kinda got ruined by RE5 though, after Wesker's whole talk with Spencer (and then again with the reveal that Jake Muller is Wesker's biological son, though I don't know yet how THAT happened), but it's still technically my headcanon.
It's hard to say - there was a lot of speculation at the beginning that Ada might have a clone who was originally a woman named Carla Radames who miiiight just have been Helena's sister...but now that looks like it's been Jossed. I'm wondering if that Happy Birthday Ada might not have been a message for Ada herself, like a passive-aggressive, evil as fuck "hey, I know you hate me, but I just cloned you, so call me maybe (and we can talk about this)" moment? I DON'T EVEN KNOW. It just seems strange. Ignoring the fact that it was on a VHS tape that was obviously very, very old (no seriously capcom what the fuck)...well, this reveal basically undoes everything we collectively know about Ada.
So unless there hasn't been a real Ada in...decades, I don't know. I suppose that's possible. Maybe there was once a real Ada, but...hell, maybe it's got something to do with T-Veronica. That's my best guess at the moment - that whole virus screamed insectoid to me (of course it did, having come from a Queen Ant), and maybe this is just more tweaking of that particular nasty virus(which might then explain why one of the baddies later looks a liiiiiitle bit like Steve Burnside, and if all of this is true then GOOD LORD CAPCOM REALLY DID FIRE ITS MARKETING TEAM, because by the release of RE5 the only real mystery was how Jill got to be working for Wesker in the first place, and most of us guessed some kind of mind control relating to her infection with the T-Virus in RE3 right off.)
Arrrggghhh all I have is rampant speculation right now and I DON'T KNOW.
So, anyway, after flailing we manage to get to the lowerish levels of this underground place thing and LO, THERE IS DEBORAH. And then Helena(!!) carries her downstairs while Leon shoots up the place, which is a real change from what I expected and I loved it...
Right up until Helena burst into FUCKING FLAMES and then crystallized into one of the chrysalis pods. FUUUUCK. And then Not!Deborah starts wiggling her way out of the chrysalis and there's a lot of wailing and then ADA SHOWS UP. Like, legit Ada Wong maybe? WHO KNOWS RIGHT NOW.
Then you get the weirdest, grossest boss fight and we had to stop there. MUTANT CLONE DEBORAH TOUCHES HERSELF AND MOANS A LOT. And then stabs you with tentacle-leg things she's got growing out of her back. I DO NOT KNOW, YOU GUYS.
I JUST DO NOT KNOW
IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE
BUT I DON'T WANT TO STOP I WANT TO PLAY ALL OF THE TIME. I am disappoint Canth and I both have Real Jobs and a social life to maintain. D:
MY APOLOGIES for the lack of cohesion. I play with my jaw halfway to my lap most of the time, and so much happens it's hard to fit it all in.
AHHHHHHH.
Played through all of the first chapter on Tuesday and most of the second chapter yesterday, so I'm going to break it down by chapter.
As an additional note I AM FINALLY NOT CO-OPING WITH THE AI ALONE. I HAVE A PARTNER. IT IS FANTASTIC. We started with the Leon/Helena campaign, and I'm Helena. (This seems to suit; I'm not an aggressive player [because that tends to get me killed] and Helena seems to lack the melee weapons Leon usually comes equipped with. Means I just have to extra-careful with my ammo, though.)
SO. GAME.
Tutorial
Much to my surprise the game actually opened with a brief, interactive tutorial. Like, before you even got to the chapter selects and the character selects kind of open. They've really overhauled a lot here - there's a lot of quick-time events that weren't there before, which I actually like so far. It gives the whole game a much more cinematic feel. Still took me a few minutes to master the timing on those quick-time events - clearly I am not used to playing with them.
Chapter 1:
First: YAY LEON YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE AGED and YAY HUNNIGAN YOU'RE BACK I LOVE YOU and Hi Helena you're...okay so far? Like YOU HAVE EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWNS AND TALK TO YOURSELF WHEN YOU'RE ALONE AND ACTUALLY SEEM LIKE A HUMAN BEING compared to the angst-bucket that Leon is, but I am not sure how I feel about you withholding pertinent information under the assumption Leon will not believe you. I am even more sad that LEON BUYS THIS EXPLANATION.
Graphics are fucking fantastic; vast improvement over the previous few games. Dark as hell in places which I'm not sure I like - but then compared to the blown out look of RE5 I think I'm willing to accept the darkness. It at least manages to feel like more of a survival horror game because of it. It's also incredibly ambient and Capcom's done a good job of giving the game a "return to its roots" feel.
So the game starts out in a college hall decked out for a presidential rally - pretty cool, way amazing graphics. Lots of textural detail, even if it's not always completely up to par. Some of the food stuffs on the tables were looking pretty flat. XD
Canth and I wasted tons of time in here trying to figure out what all we could interact with. TURNS OUT YOU CAN PUSH THE BALLOONS OUT OF THE WAY. :D Later on, you get to shoot them, WHICH IS THE BEST THING EVER. I love games that let me randomly interact with random things. Seriously. Having fish and a hamster was one of my favorite random moments in Mass Effect, and now I think I'll have to throw "Popping balloons" up there as well.
Most of this section was pretty in line with RE4 and RE5 gameplay - we're mostly just trying to get somewhere specific...because of reasons. Helena says she'll explain, BUT WHO THE HELL KNOWS IF WE'LL EVER GET THE WHOLE PICTURE. Dammit, Capcom. (We do get some detail in Chapter 2, but it's vague. I'm hoping there's more after the boss is dispatched.)
THINGS CHANGE THOUGH
THEY CHANGE WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE
BECAUSE then it turns into something way more Left4Dead-like, with just masses and masses of zombies you need to kill. THERE WAS SO MUCH FLAILING INVOLVED. There's a lot of newish zombies coming out already - there's one that spits acid, another that puffs up and calls more zombies with its scream, and OH YEAH THEY CAN DRIVE CARS NOW. I got slammed by the back end of a sedan within seconds of walking out onto the street, but by some miracle didn't kick it right there (poor Canth just had to deal with me wailing and spluttering because THAT'S NEW, THAT'S VERY NEW).
Most of this stage was just fighting and flailing and fighting and dealing with the zombies that can throw weapons and have guns (which they're not too good at using...yet) but then there was something that can only be described as the horrific love-child of a regenerator and a licker. I DO NOT LIKE THAT THING ONE BIT. It's a hard kill - gotta shoot its heart - and it LEAPS AT YOU to attack. Like a frog. Our first encounter with one involved a lot of mutual OH GOD WHAT IS THAT OH SHIT AHFDISFSDKJ; which is why I am enjoying playing with Canth. MUTUAL FLAILY TIMES.
So we beat that and we look like we're in the clear. We're on a roof, all is well and then --
AND THEN.
BOOMER
I WISH I WERE SHITTING YOU, BUT IT WAS A GIANT, FAT ZOMBIE. Didn't spit acid - that was another zombie entirely - or do anything that called other zombies to it - that was yet another zombie - BUT GIANT. FAT. NIGH INVULNERABLE THING.
We flailed wildly over it and I kept squawking BOOMER and giggling and then I got trapped on the roof (because I am an idiot) and should, by all rights, have been dead twice over BUT I LIVED, DEAR GOD I LIVED.
And then the bus we were escaping on blew up.
Chapter 2:
Oh. Man.
If I thought chapter 1 was bad chapter 2 is only worse. There's vague hinting at larger things through here - Helena actually starts talking a bit about why she's dragging you to the cathedral to begin with.
We end up in a graveyard with open graves - the best part was that Canth and I were talking about how likely it might be for Helena to die before the end of this game, because she seems like she's on a Death = Redemption arc...and then I, Helena, fall into an open grave. LOLWHOOPS? ALSO POSSIBLE ACCIDENTAL FORESHADOWING?
More creeptastic zombies through the cemetery - these ones have no skin, but they're more skeletal and taller than the others. They tend to carry shovels and things they can throw, which they like to do JUST BEFORE THEY LEAP ON YOU.
The game is now Left4Dead on steroids. JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT MIGHT BE GETTING EASIER, ANOTHER SWARM. And these guys tend to swarm - the longer you linger in an area, the more guys generate. It only gets worse when we reach the cathedral - our goal - because then there's a swarm that also includes the REGENERATOR!LICKER THINGS. Cue a TON OF SCREAMING. It's not even fear-screaming so much as it is THAT THING IS SO GROSS AND NASTY screaming.
But we get inside the church and fight angel statues (that shoot arrows from crossbows, because looking like the statues from Dr. Who isn't enough apparently, and all of them have laser sights that they use to target you) and grab a key and then the worst enemy ever appears.
Take the Dead Hand from Ocarina of Time, but with really skinny legs and actual hands. Give it a Licker-like "brain on the outside" for a head. And then cover its stomach in sea sponge-like projections that spew gas that zombifies everyone around you. Then make it coo a little like a child, while doing the little flaily arm-movements of the Dead Hand while it walks.
Then make it capable of climbing.
Then make it nearly invulnerable.
And you have the miniboss we fought before going into the SECRET TUNNELS below the church.
....I wanted to cry fighting it. (Worse still, we ran into a dead one later. Lots of "IS IT GONNA GET UP WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH AMMO FOR THAT FUUUU" followed)
So we get downstairs again and Helena starts talking about things "not being like this three days ago" which really doesn't bode well for either her character or the current situation and then we wind up in this facility and there are chrysalis pods everywhere. Like butterfly cocoons, but human-shaped. Sometimes contorted into poses of pain. Some of them even look like they're reaching for someone. Others are suspended in tubes, and if you look down through the metal floor you can see more of the tubes, each one inhabited by someone - something - else.
We enter an area that is obviously the main experiment room. And there's a VHS tape sitting next to a TV.
(A VHS tapethat we're still debating and speculating over but.) on it, it says Happy Birthday Ada Wong and then when you put it in the convenient VHS player YOU GET TO SEE A CHRYSALIS PERSON BEING BORN AND IT'S ADA GODDAMN WONG. And Canth and I promptly started screaming - that tape was in the trailers, but it did NOT say Ada's name at all in those trailers, so either Capcom changed it to hide the truth of the game OR they changed it at the last second.
Either way it looks like there might be Ada clones or some shit.
I dunno! I SAID AT THE OUTSET THE ONLY PERSON I'M OKAY WITH HAVING CLONING PLOTLINES IS WESKER, because for a long time my headcanon was that Wesker would clone himself in order to "have kids". This kinda got ruined by RE5 though, after Wesker's whole talk with Spencer (and then again with the reveal that Jake Muller is Wesker's biological son, though I don't know yet how THAT happened), but it's still technically my headcanon.
It's hard to say - there was a lot of speculation at the beginning that Ada might have a clone who was originally a woman named Carla Radames who miiiight just have been Helena's sister...but now that looks like it's been Jossed. I'm wondering if that Happy Birthday Ada might not have been a message for Ada herself, like a passive-aggressive, evil as fuck "hey, I know you hate me, but I just cloned you, so call me maybe (and we can talk about this)" moment? I DON'T EVEN KNOW. It just seems strange. Ignoring the fact that it was on a VHS tape that was obviously very, very old (no seriously capcom what the fuck)...well, this reveal basically undoes everything we collectively know about Ada.
So unless there hasn't been a real Ada in...decades, I don't know. I suppose that's possible. Maybe there was once a real Ada, but...hell, maybe it's got something to do with T-Veronica. That's my best guess at the moment - that whole virus screamed insectoid to me (of course it did, having come from a Queen Ant), and maybe this is just more tweaking of that particular nasty virus(which might then explain why one of the baddies later looks a liiiiiitle bit like Steve Burnside, and if all of this is true then GOOD LORD CAPCOM REALLY DID FIRE ITS MARKETING TEAM, because by the release of RE5 the only real mystery was how Jill got to be working for Wesker in the first place, and most of us guessed some kind of mind control relating to her infection with the T-Virus in RE3 right off.)
Arrrggghhh all I have is rampant speculation right now and I DON'T KNOW.
So, anyway, after flailing we manage to get to the lowerish levels of this underground place thing and LO, THERE IS DEBORAH. And then Helena(!!) carries her downstairs while Leon shoots up the place, which is a real change from what I expected and I loved it...
Right up until Helena burst into FUCKING FLAMES and then crystallized into one of the chrysalis pods. FUUUUCK. And then Not!Deborah starts wiggling her way out of the chrysalis and there's a lot of wailing and then ADA SHOWS UP. Like, legit Ada Wong maybe? WHO KNOWS RIGHT NOW.
Then you get the weirdest, grossest boss fight and we had to stop there. MUTANT CLONE DEBORAH TOUCHES HERSELF AND MOANS A LOT. And then stabs you with tentacle-leg things she's got growing out of her back. I DO NOT KNOW, YOU GUYS.
I JUST DO NOT KNOW
IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE
BUT I DON'T WANT TO STOP I WANT TO PLAY ALL OF THE TIME. I am disappoint Canth and I both have Real Jobs and a social life to maintain. D:
MY APOLOGIES for the lack of cohesion. I play with my jaw halfway to my lap most of the time, and so much happens it's hard to fit it all in.
