The horror genre lives a sweet moment after the resurrection of the Capcom saga, but many classics have been relegated to oblivion.
Every saga has its ups and downs, even the most renowned ones. Resident Evil lived its lowest moment in the sixth installment, at least in terms of the response of the press and the most staunch fans. In FreeGameTips we rate it with a 7.5 / 10, but the average score of the Xbox 360 version narrowly exceeds 65 over 100 in Metacritic. Capcom noted the reactions and settled on the change in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Later, Resident Evil 2 Remake opened the way to a reimagination of the classics, which will be consolidated with Resident Evil 3 Remake:
The lights give way to darkness. The rain hits the ground, mixed with the fog and mud. From a distance, closer and closer, you can hear the hissing sounds of something approaching. You shine with the flashlight, but on the horizon you only glimpse the most infinite darkness. And then, out of nowhere, a creature appears, ripping your flesh off with crows and mangy dogs. The last thing you hear is the growling of the zombies, the footsteps of Nemesis. Then you wake up again, but you are no longer yourself, but a jumble of guts and entrails. That's what awaits most Raccoon City residents, but not Jill Valentine, who stars in the third installment of the franchise.
The return of Resident Evil 3 Remake shows that the classics can once again achieve the glory and status they had before some ideas changed part of their essence. The same can happen with other sagas, either because they were stopped or because the last installments did not reap the desired success or quality. After the cancellation of Silent Hills, there are many who expected the return of the franchise, but at the moment there is nothing official (despite the fact that the rumors sound insistent). It is not the only intellectual property that remains fallow.
Resident Evil 3 Remake.
Silent Hill, the town you always want to return to
PlayStation was a particularly prolific console when it comes to games of the survival horror genre, not so much in quantity, but in the quality of its proposals. Resident Evil (also in Sega Saturn) and Silent Hill appeared on this console. The latter was betting on psychological terror, which worked, in large part, thanks to the compositional talent of Akira Yamaoka. The Japanese musician, who was in charge of the soundtrack and sound design, was one of the main architects of the spooky atmosphere that arose around the video game. Even in the first installment, very aged due to its graphics, the combination of music and sound achieved surprising results.
Graphics were not a drag on subsequent deliveries. Silent Hill 2, and especially the third installment, demonstrated a very high visual level. And if not, tell the "old man from Silent Hill", one of the characters who became a meme even before the arrival of social networks. Subsequently, the Japanese created a fourth chapter, Silent Hill 4: The Room, which was controversial for the change of direction it marked. In fact, after this installment, the Silent Team was dissolved forever.
Silent Hill 3.
Konami, like other Japanese studios, had difficulties adapting to the new generation of that time, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Faced with hardware challenges, the Japanese company made the decision to outsource some of its developments. Back then, it no longer had a dedicated Silent Hill team in Japan, although Akira Yamaoka was still under Konami's command. Climax Studios, a British team that was commissioned to develop a PSP video game, was the studio responsible for Silent Hill: Origins, a product that respected the essence of the classics. Her reinterpretation of the story of the first game was done with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, a highly regarded installment.
Silent Hill: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Downpour were less fortunate, the first developed by The Collective and the second by Vatra Games. The Japanese musician left the saga after Homecoming, which has been orphaned on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The hopes placed on the project by Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions evaporated with the cancellation of the project and the subsequent departure of the creative, who left Konami. when his contract expired in late 2015. That Christophe Gans, director of the Silent Hill film, confirmed that he has a third feature film in the works, may be the sign that survival horror will one day return. Meanwhile, we will have to wait.
Silent Hill Downpour.
Dino Crisis, dinosaurs are still extinct
Shinji Mikami is the creator of Resident Evil, but it was not the only survival horror he designed for the first PlayStation generation. The Japanese director is the father of another of the most beloved classic horror sagas, Dino Crisis, an action and horror game that is set in 2009, although it was released ten years earlier. The formula kept parallels with that of his previous project, since inventories and puzzles were part of the gameplay. Even so, the first installment did not bet on pre-rendered funds and added a dynamic camera system.
After the alleged death of Dr. Edward Kirk, Regina investigates what happened as an agent of the special forces. You will soon discover that nothing is what it seems, and that the scientist is working on a project that puts humanity in check, "the third energy". Through technology, it is able to manipulate time and bring back some creatures that should not walk on Earth, dinosaurs. The beasts, faithful to their instincts, cleaned the island and killed every living being that crossed their path.
Dino Crisis 2 marked a change within the saga. The game abandoned the 3D backgrounds and opted for the pre-rendered ones, so the fixed cameras and the tank control made it quite similar to Resident Evil. Regina returns in her leading role and goes on a journey through time with the aim of rescuing the survivors. If this second part came out in 2000, the players had to wait three years to get the glove on Dino Crisis 3, which marked the final decline of the franchise. It occurred to Capcom that galactic dinosaurs were a good idea. They certainly didn't learn from Jason Voorhees, the lousy bad guy on Friday the 13th, who went into space and left the series at its lowest point. Since then, Dino Crisis has remained in the drawer.
Dino Crisis.
Forbidden Siren and the crazy villagers
Keiichiro Toyama wrote and directed the first Silent Hill, but his career was not cut short after the release of the Konami game, so he continued to delve deeper into the survival horror genre. The veteran developer, designer on projects like Snatcher or International Track and Field, left the ranks of Konami to join Sony Computer Enterainment (now Sony Interactive Entertainment). Forbidden Siren —Siren in its Japanese version— was the proposal they launched on the market, already at the time of PlayStation 2.
Hanuda is a fictional village located in very remote Japanese mountains. There, several survivors will be isolated and surrounded by dangers. For three days, the game offers different points of view depending on the characters, which introduces us to a supernatural story full of terrors. The nightmare is embodied in the figure of the shinobito, the inhabitants of the town, who do not hesitate to attack and kill outsiders. The oppressive atmosphere, which certainly reminds one of Silent Hill, does not correspond to the gameplay, where stealth prevails over combat. Weapons help us knock down the shinobites, but we will not be able to defeat them. After a while, they get up again. The most unique mechanic is that the characters are able to see through the eyes of these creatures.
Forbidden Siren.
Toyama was also in charge of developing the sequel, which follows the foundation of the original installment. What changes, mainly, is the location. We left the town of Hanuda to suffer the horror of the island of Yamijima, where its inhabitants disappeared without a trace. Twenty-nine years later, in 2005, a journalist and others flocked to the island to carry out a journalistic investigation. A gross mistake, since the Shibito and Yamibito anxiously await the arrival of the survivors.
Siren: Blood Curse for PlayStation 3 is to date the latest video game in the series. It is a reinterpretation of the original title, although many elements vary, starting with the game structure. Sony opted for a product divided by episodes, although the crossing of stories and characters was not lost. There is no news about a possible return of the saga, but who knows, PlayStation 5 is just around the corner.
Siren: Blood Curse
Alone in the Dark, you will fear the dark again
Searching for the pioneers of a genre is always a complex task. Practicing video game archeology, that is, investigating the products of the past, allows us to discover the origins, but the limits of the genres are not always crystalline and labels are what they are, labels. It is true that adaptations of classics from the eighties such as Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street were born directly from slasher movies, but it can be said that Alone in the Dark was the precursor with Sweet Game (Capcom) of modern survival horror, the one that we all know, with Resident Evil and Silent Hill at the helm.
It was in 1992 when the late Infogrames commercialized this video game, which had three-dimensional characters and pre-rendered scenarios, a technique that was used by many video games from the 1990s, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy (VII, VIII and IX), among many others. The series evolved over different chapters: Alone in the Dark 2, Alone in the Dark 3, and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. Infogrames, which changed its name to Atari, tried to restart the series on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The attempt ended in failure, since the bugs were in charge of sinking the project. And from Alone in the Dark: Illumination, better not to mention.
The hopes of seeing a new Alone in the Dark are, paradoxically, quite high. THQ Nordic, a company that has expanded with the studio purchase, has taken over the rights to the series. Maybe in a few years we can revisit the terrifying worlds of this mythical saga.
Alone in the Dark.
Clock Tower, the clock marks the moment
In a distant year 1995, Human Entertainment designed a project that today is considered one of the forerunners of the genre. Clock Tower was not a survival horror like Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark, but it does have elements of terror and action. Despite this, its game system resembles that of graphic point and click adventures. The work went on sale for Super Nintendo and stars Jennifer Simpson, a young woman who is adopted along with her friends, who are going to live in a huge mansion. Unfortunately, death crouches and the protagonist will have to face numerous challenges.
Although the original game was marketed on a Nintendo console, the following chapters were developed for PlayStation and PlayStation 2. The name change according to the territories can be confusing, since in the West the sequel was known as the Clock Tower. in Japan it came out as Clock Tower II. After a few years, the studio went bankrupt and Capcom acquired the rights, but only developed one installment, Clock Tower III. Since then, there are no signs to indicate his return. Maybe one day. Maybe.
Original cover of Clock Tower.
There are many games that are missing from the list, titles like Parasite Eve, that Square Enix has not rescued since the PlayStation era. Yoshinori Kitase himself, producer of Final Fantasy VII Remake, acknowledged that it would be a mistake to waste the characters, but that he was not aware that the company was working on a project in the saga.
