lindbergh said:
Everyone remember the Resident Evil 2 port on the Gamecube? I wonder why Capcom did not put the same effort that they did with Resident Evil 0? I was hoping that they would have given the same treatment for RE2. It's very disappointing to say the least.
Do you think that Capcom just got lazy with this title and hoped to make a quick buck?
Yeah, I knew about the Gamecube version of Resident Evil 2, however, it was just a straight port, and not a remake. Which was upsetting, as it was my favorite Resident Evil game, and I really wanted to see it get the REmake treatment. Resident Evil 2 had already gotten ported over to the N64. So a straight port wasn't wanted on the Gamecube too.
However, the reason Resident Evil 2 was just straight ported over instead of being "REmade", was because of the poor sales of REmake and Zero. It was originally going to be "REmade", but, because of the poor sales numbers, they didn't want to "waste" money by 'remaking' part 2, and instead, just ported it again, as they felt it would sell 'as bad' as the other two. In fact, those same poor sales numbers of REmake and Zero also changed Resident Evil 4 from being a paranormal ghosts and demons (with a haunted castle, no less), as well as still having straight zombies, and making it a full on 'horror' game with some 'Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem' styel effects too,.... to instead just turning it into the more "action-oriented" game that we all know and love today.
Now, I liked Resident Evil 4. It's one of my favorite Resident Evil games. However, being a horror movie fanatic, I would of liked to have played the 'haunted castle with ghosts and demons and Eternal Darkness effects', version for myself. That could of been cool. It definitely would of been more "survival horror" than the more action oriented games that came afterwards.
Also, Resident Evil 4 wasn't just going to be a Ghost/Demon filled Haunted Castle game. No, it went through more changes than that. In fact, Leon wasn't even originally in the game...
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Resident Evil 4 was originally going to be the FINAL game in the series. Yep, the "FINAL" game in the series. They wanted to 'end' the series, as the last several games didn't sell well. But, since 4 became such a huge success, they continued on with the new storyline of bio-weapons and no long just straight up zombies. Eventually, the game went through several different ideas. Some even spawning other games.
Here are the other original ideas for
Resident Evil 4, before we got the game that we got....
1st Version - This version was an 'action-oriented' mystery game meant to be an exclusive to the PS2. It starred a new character, not Leon, who had superhuman powers because of some bio-experiments on him. He was supposed to find out what happened to him and how and why, and things like that. His name was supposed to be Tony, and he had his own backstory, and things like that. Meanwhile, his new superhuman powers allowed him to do things, and survive things, that no normal human should be able to do or survive from. This version is what made them change the camera angles from being the traditional 'static' images and set camera angles, as seen in all of the previous Resident Evil games, and changed it to the 3rd person 'dynamic' camera, that can move with the player. However, this version was later scrapped, but the camera idea was kept.
2nd Version - This version, they changed his name from Tony to Dante, and they added demons and what not. And then, later, just turned this game into what's become popularly known as "
Devil May Cry". Yep, Devil May Cry was originally Resident Evil 4. I'm sure most of you are familiar with that game, so I won't go deeper into that.
3rd Version - After making "Devil May Cry", they had to restart work on Resident Evil 4 again. This version brought back Leon. However, this time, Leon has become infected with the virus himself, and because of the infection, he now has supernatural powers. Similar to what Tony had, from the first version. Tho, Leon was not going to be as "invincible" as Tony would have been. This version also had a castle filled with zombies, and other things. And there was NO Ashley. There was a different girl, but it wasn't Ashley, and she had her own storyline, and she wasn't as "important" to the story as Ashley was.
4th Version - This version is the version that I first described up above. It was a castle, with zombies. Only now, it was a haunted castle, with ghosts and demons. The girl was changed to become Sherry Birkin. Who, if you remember, was the little girl from Resident Evil 2. So, instead of Leon being infected, and having super powers. He was now trying to rescue Sherry Birkin, who had gotten deeper into the whole Umbrella situation than her father did. Also, this version also brought back Chris and Claire as playable characters, alongside Leon. Only, Chris and Claire's 'story' followed a slightly different path than Leon's, similar to how Chris and Jill's 'story' was different in part one, and how Leon's and Claire's 'story' was different in part two. Also, this version added in the 'Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem' effects. They were going to go all out on this version, and try to make it as scary as they could.
5th Version - Eventually, they had to scrap the last version, as it just got too big, and too expensive, for Capcom. They weren't going to be able to do everything that they wanted to do, and release the game how they had planned on it. So they decided to tone it down, and change it up, for budget's sake. So, Chris and Claire were taken out. The Eternal Darkness effects were taken out. The ghosts and demons were taken out, in favor of traditional zombies only. They also added the mutated dogs back, but made them the "B.O.W." dogs instead, along with some other BOW enemies. ("Bio-Organic-Weapon", which has been a mainstay in the Resident Evil series after Resident Evil 4). There were some BOW-human enemies as well, but they hadn't been fully fleshed out yet.
6th Version - They ended up changing the game so much, that they weren't happy with it being a full 'Resident Evil' title. So, instead, they just decided to tweak it some more, and change it entirely. So, this game got turned into the PS2 title, "
Haunted Ground". Yep, "Haunted Ground" was originally Resident Evil 4, just like Devil May Cry was originally going to be Resident Evil 4 as well.
7th Version - This version is the version that we eventually got. They decided to make it on the Gamecube instead of the PS2 (tho it later got ported to the PS2 after they saw that it got great reviews and sold well. They literally saw "$$$" signs and decided to port it over, as they hadn't had a big Resident Evil hit in a while, so naturally, they wanted to cash in on it, like any company would). Anyways, after making what turned out to be Devil May Cry and Haunted Ground, they eventually narrowed down their new ideas to what eventually became known as Resident Evil 4. They had already taken out the ghosts and demons and Eternal Darkness effects, and Chris and Claire. Among others. Tho they kept the castle idea for part of the game. But, since Chris and Claire weren't in it, they decided that they didn't need Sherry Birkin either, since they had tied their storylines together. So they changed Sherry into Ashley, who still had to be rescued, but they gave her her own backstory and reason for needing to be rescued by Leon. Tho, they didn't use every idea from this version. Some ideas that they omiited from this version they ended up saving and eventually used them in other Resident Evil's, like 5, 6, and Revelations, instead. Mostly the B.O.W. stuff. And, you know the rest of what's in Resident Evil 4, I'm sure...
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So there you go. Resident Evil 4 had tons and tons of revisions. It spawned 2 other franchises during it's development. And, the version we ended up getting was caused by two major factors. 1.), Resident Evil: REmake and Zero didn't sell as well, turning Resident Evil 4 into more of a fast paced 'Action-Oriented' style game, and 2.), due to budget restraints (seeing as how the game was turned into 2 other franchises instead, so lots of money was spent on the development of a new Resident Evil game, yet, there was no new Resident Evil game), so they had to scrap all of their 'haunted castle, ghosts, demons, Eternal Darkness effects, previous characters and story lines, etc,etc.. and narrow it down to a "simpler", more "straight forward", and "stream-lined" game.
And... there you go.
