The Save Rooms

About to shoot the shit about safe areas in the Resident Evil series. Stay awhile and listen…


Oops, wrong game.

Same energy though, you know? I was sitting down to attempt to Frankenstein my thoughts together involving the Resident Evil 3 remake, and figured it would be appropriate to catch a breather, so to speak, in the spirit of the energy the save rooms of Resident Evil fame have to offer, and the magic imbued within. Obviously, other games have similar moments of respite, the encampment from Diablo 2’s first area springs to mind, and even something like Mario 64’s Castle act as moments of relief amidst the chaos that ensues when exploring the madness found within.


“Wow! What a mansion!”

The Save Rooms from the Resi series probably maintain such a warm place in my heart due to the contrast between what they represent, and the gameplay inherent within the titles themselves, especially pre-Resident Evil 4, as the series morphed into something else entirely from that point on. The Save Rooms (great band name, by the way) come equipped with calming themes of atmospheric backdrops that let you know everything was going to be alright for a few brief moments, reinforcing the notion you were completely safe from harm or needing to make any life or death decisions for a few precious minutes. Of course, the save rooms also came packing with the good old reliable safe box, which housed the breadth of your saved inventory, healing goodies, key items, badass weaponry galore, but also the typewriter (of legend), which allowed one to save their progress, so they could safely reload and live to fight another day once more.


*Slaps ink ribbon* You can fit so many gruesome
realities in this baby

While I am not usually on the generational vibe train that comes with waxing philosophical while looking back at the nostalgic feels of yesteryear, it behooves me to mention that The Save Rooms in all of their ambience inducing glory, are indeed strong with the force of 90’s energy. I find that, at least in the realm of video games, those strong kind of feels are really all one needs to win over the adult kids now a days, as drudging apathy and inane monotony of the everyday howls so relentlessly, any reminder of an enjoyable summers day gone by that may be evoked from something like the sound of a save room theme is all one needs to find chill in this hectic, chaotic mess we call existence, just to give ourselves a well needed moment of zen.


Both Redfields and Valentine agree: Save Rooms
are the way to be! (Leon unavailable for comment
as he was too busy being a real police dude at the time)

Plus, the save rooms also totally ruled when you were summoning the last of your energy, montage style, in getting all of your best equipment out of the safe box, gearing yourself up in a moment of excited rally to take down the final boss at like 5 in the morning while getting totally hyped.


Groovy

So yeah, there’s a little bit of a revelry of warmth from yours truly. I get carried away sometimes with an intense focus on being perhaps, too methodical in my approach to deconstructing games or overly analytical in breaking down their finer components in relation to design or the overall ethos at large that dictates form or fashion, but for once, I figured I would think with my heart and feel with my brain, and reminisce about the cozy feelings found within The Save Rooms.

~Pashford

Raccoon City Limits Pt.2

When life imitates art…


We all see bad box art Mega Man in the mirror

During my recent attempts at writing about replaying the Resident Evil 3 remake, in regards to my annual observation of the significance involving September 28th, I’ve been detailing elements of the game I feel just don’t quite hold a candle up to the original. Not because I dislike the game on any real level, mind you, but the fondness I have for classic Resident Evil throbs in my veins to this day, and that sort of energy is harder to beat into submission than a Nemesis that just won’t take the hint.


It sucks when someone misses out on hints of subtleties

While I have enjoyed the bite sized addresses to the elements I speak of, and they have fittingly run alongside the track of the days involving the demise of Raccoon City itself, it also comes at a time when my schedule has turned completely upside down, with me waking up mere hours before midnight to complete a list of activities I prefer to have done by midnight, so my time conjuring thoughts on Jill Valentine and her heroics involving tenure as a S.T.A.R.S member have been not unlike the nightmare of keeping a schedule in order while fighting against the hordes of the undead.


The textbook definition of no chill

I plan on doing some compartmentalizing of my thoughts into one super-cut article here in the next day(?) to tidy everything up a bit, given that I’m nearly out of time to write anything of long winded merit here, but I will leave you with yet another point of disinterest related to why the remake of Resident Evil 3 was kind of a step down from the original in another regard, as the game reduces a players autonomy by dispensing of the branching story options of emergency the original provided. While some were of small note in their implementation, others provided large deviation to the overall pacing of the narrative at hand, and in terms of how you went about navigating the back alleys of Raccoon City.


I hate when they don’t include the relevant number
of self-defenestrations needed when navigating a map

Just another element I’ll have to roll up into the eventual equivalent of a Resident Evil 3 Remake burrito for your enjoyment. To be continued…

~Pashford

Raccoon City Limits

Last time, on Resident Evil Z!


The crossover you never knew you needed

As I was saying yesterday, due to the exuberant vibe emanating from within me to celebrate September 28th by starting a replay of RE3 (remake), I was still of the mind to take the game to task on some of it’s failings, so that we may collectively find benefit in the experiences blemishes. The pacing issues are of a wild sort from moment one, and the game never fully recovers from that point of ingress. I know that modern day Resident Evil, even the remakes of the classic titles that possess a more survival horror oriented bent, tend to trend repping the RE4 formula, more boom than bump in the night, but the totally absent build up to the eventuality of Nemesis’ appearance is such a fall from grace for what should be the main contingency of the entire foundational merits of the game in itself, one can’t feel the developers were off the mark from moment one.


Not all Kamehamehas are created equal

And perhaps I’ve erroneously pegged Resident Evil over the years as being narratively driven, as the game marched forward in the spiritual wake of Night of the Living Dead in the virtual interactive space as the flag bearer for what was, but the complete lack of re-canonization involving the nittier, grittier details in the wake of the Arklay Mansion facilities demise, and the soon to be obliterated Raccoon City seems as if such an embarrassingly wasted opportunity in setting the record straight for the series moving forward. If nothing else, the time when one looks back on the value of life and the quality imbued with the merits of the very soul of an individual, should be within the last moments of remembrance involving the eulogy and the day of mourning, and October 1st leaves nothing but a Raccoon City crater sized hole in the heart of Resident Evil history.


The cost of corporate hubris

To be continued…

~Pashford

Speedrunning The Apocalypse

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.


Law is a matter of perspective

I was looking forward to doing a more comprehensive write up on my replay of the Resident Evil 3 remake, but time has not been on my side the last two days. I’m so crunched for it at the current moment, it feel like I have negative minutes at hand in order to do share my thoughts, which is beautifully ideal, obviously. Though the notion of even starting another game when I just started Echoes of Wisdom, and The Plucky Squire, and Cult of the Lamb, and the expansion of Elden Ring…etc.. seems like a self-defeating idea, I never claimed I was a smart man.


But I do know what love is

Plus, yesterday was September 28th, the day Jill Valentine staged her iconic escape from the destruction of Raccoon City, so starting a replay of RE3 felt appropriate. I won’t say I’ve made it an official tradition of doing so, but it has come up so often around this time a year, it has become something of a previously unrecognized habit of sorts. Playing the remake reminds me of a few brief points of what frustrated me about it vs…at least the Resident Evil 2 remake.


Which isn’t what you might think, though there is a heavy irony
in the RE2 remake pulling off stalker gameplay better than RE3…

Firstly, RE3 has no sense of decency in terms of how to pace events like the original, to the point where it feels like the game is attempting to speedrun itself. It feels like before the game even starts, it’s like: remember Brad Vickers? Well here he is and he’s already dead. Didn’t forget Nemesis, did you? Well he already punched you through a wall. You recall Carlos Oliveira, right? Too bad, because you both already have 12 children together and have been married 39 years. The RE3 remake has absolutely no sense of pacing, and it totally butchers the suspension of the survival horror involved, and the general vibe.


Not unlike a rigged game of Russian Roulette

Honestly, there was more I thought I was going to have time to discuss here, but the negative minutes I had to share here are already up. To be continued…

~Pashford