As a fan of old-school RE, I love it. It's very heavy on backtracking, but it's some of the best backtracking ever seen in a game imo. It's very satisfying to turn such a complex environmental puzzle (and one that literally re-orients itself halfway through) into a streamlined, economical sprint. It's also one of the more interesting games in the series from a story point of view.
Thanks for the advice. I guess what did it for me 10+ years ago was that barrier of entry: I find there's tremendous enjoyment in learning and mastering a game but to do that, the game has to rope you in in the first place.
Coming from 5 RE playthroughs, this slope should be less steep, particularly as I've come to appreciate minimalism when it comes to inventory and killing enemies. I still suck at dodging zombies though.
This game (mechanics) really hasn't aged well, no hot swapping of weapons or reload outside of a menu is a chore. Heck, even pressing A to select combine and then selecting the weapon is a mission, what's wrong with pressing X to select and combine.
I wish they would have added a few modern flourishes (opinial, of course) to the modern control scheme. Aiming just feels dumb, either shoot the floor, ceiling or anywhere in front.
I'd have been very happy with classic and RE5 controls.
I'm currently stuck with a full inventory and no sure where to go, got killed with a spinning spike shield. Enjoying the game but controls just feel wrong in 2015.
I think there are a few things the game never spells out that you have to learn on your own and assuage most of your concerns. This is IMO of course but:
- you don't really need hot swapping as you don't really need weapons 80% of the time. Honestly, there's maybe 15-20 enemies in all the game that you need to kill to make things easier. Half of them are in the last level.
- as a result, you don't really need to overburden yourself with weapons and ammo. Typically, I'm absolutely convinced the handgun is useless outside of killing a couple of dogs to get the collar. That means potentially 2 slots freed - gun and ammo. Another example is the courtyard and residence: it's entirely possible to do them without a weapon (if you use V Jolt as Jill, otherwise, you'll need one for that boss).
- outside of the shotgun where I tend to put it upwards, I totally ignore vertical aiming. I still believe aiming is a bit of a red herring in this game.