First, a brief history of Resident Evil and how it even came about in the first place. You might have heard of a Famicom game known as Sweet Home – but it’s more likely you haven’t as it was only released in Japan, although there is a fan translated version out there.
Capcom released Sweet Home in 1989, a game based on a Japanese horror film with the same name, which is set within a mansion full of monsters (are you seeing the resemblance yet?). It’s up to the player to make their way through the house using survival-horror RPG mechanics. Players must utilize item management and solve puzzles, another hint as to why this game lent itself to Resident Evil in so many ways.
The Sweet Home box art, showing off some monsters players encountered throughout the game.
It wasn’t until the mid 90’s when development on a horror-survival game began, which of course was Resident Evil. At the time, the term “horror-survival” wasn’t a solid concept, yes there were games such as Alone in the Dark that loosely started the genre but it was Resident Evil that completely redefined it and made it a staple in the industry.
The man behind its creation is industry veteran Shinji Mikami, who wanted to make a genuinely scary game that made use of zombies and other monsters – it is known Mikami was solely let down with the Italian 1989 film; Zombie, and wanted to make a product such as Resident Evil to counteract the things he didn’t like within the film.
Whilst Sweet Home had its appropriate impact, the actual zombies were down to George A. Romero’s films, mainly Night of the Living Dead, which also saw a group try to survive in a house whilst zombies constantly threatened their survival. Resident Evil, or Bio Hazard as it’s known in Japan, was released in 1996 for the PlayStation, eventually making its way to other systems such as PC, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo DS.
The characteristics of zombies in Night of the Living Dead were slow, vulnerable to fire, and completely brain dead – something clearly apparent in the Resident Evil zombies.
So why does this game have such an impact on the gaming industry? Let’s get to it…
Camera Angles
Up until now, gamers could easily see where the enemy was and where it was coming from. Resident Evil changed that – camera angles were purposely designed to only show certain parts of an environment, giving room for horror and anticipation as you could hear the shuffling of zombies or the heavy footsteps of a hunter, but often couldn’t see them. This encouraged you to cautiously navigate a room, making sure you didn’t die because this is survival after all.
Ink Ribbons
Of course there was usually a penalty for dying in games before Resident Evil, but players were truly tested in terms of how they use the crucial Ink Ribbon item, which were used to save progress at typewriters scattered around the map. If you hadn’t saved your game in a while, and you had no ink ribbons, it would mean you’d pay the price of death and would have to start way back from where you last used a typewriter, which often lead to frustrating thoughts of “I have to do all that again!?”. Yes you did, and it made players really think about how often an ink ribbon should be used – use them too much and you’ll run out, use them rarely and you may die, resulting in the famous “You Are Dead” screen. This truly reinforces the idea of survival and brutally reminds you that you are trying to survive, and no mercy will be given.
Item Management & Herb Mixing
Yes, many games contained item management but the importance of having certain items in your inventory in Resident Evil would determine whether you live or die. Whilst it could be an irritant when you realize you’ve made it so far and have left a crucial key behind, the real danger was not having the appropriate herbs at your disposal within your limited inventory space. Herbs played a massive role in surviving, you could mix them, making for greater healing or create herbs that would cure specifically poison – if you found yourself in the poisoned status and had no blue herb to use, you would quickly find out the hard way that you’re practically already dead. Making use of the items gathered throughout the game was massively important, and promoted a new train of thought when playing a game – instead of mindlessly killing enemies, you had to actually tactically decide what you’d take with you.
In some way or another you can see the features mentioned above used in games released after Resident Evil such as Dino Crisis, Parasite Eve, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, and many more. Without Resident Evil, we very well may not have more modern titles such as Dead Space, The Last of Us, and more favorites. So if you haven’t already, it’s highly recommended you play through Resident Evil and think of the mechanics you see in other survival-horror games – that’s when you’ll realize why Resident Evil was and still is such an important game for the genre and the gaming industry as a whole.