Damien on January 24, 2012 at 04:52 am

dj_damien

DJDamien

buy xbox now

DJDamien

The Resident Evil series follows the classic Capcom route of being so relentlessly diluted, that I pretty much give up following it.
Only when information or news on a Resident Evil game is unavoidable, I pay attention (the announcement of Resident Evil 6 is an example of this).
Because of this, the already second 3DS entry in the survival horror series bypassed my radar. I’d heard of it, and that was about it.

Yesterday I switched my 3DS on to find that a demo of Resident Evil: Revelations had become available.
I decided to give it a play, and was rather impressed by both the production quality (akin to a Gamecube Resi game), and the fact that (the portion in the demo at least) feels far more survival horror-ish than 4 or 5 managed to be.

One huge negative did strike me, though. The controls.
They didn’t seem intuitive enough, so after finding myself still fumbling with the wrong buttons 5 minutes after loading the demo, I went into the options menu to see what other calibrations there were.
It was then that I remembered there was one thing I remembered about Resident Evil: Revelations, it was a flagship game of the hideous “Circle Pad Pro” boat.
The extra analogue stick option would make Jill’s (the playable character in the demo) movements smoother, and shooting more intuitive. This would however involve buying an add-on that would reduce the portability of my supposed handheld console.
Revelations went from no expectations, to impressing me, to disappointing me in five minutes.
Hopefully this is not the way 3DS games are going, and if it is, Nintendo works out something better than the Circle Pad.

I won’t be picking up resident Evil: Revelations in a hurry, but for those that are interested, the game’s out in Japan and Europe later this week, and in North America in a couple of weeks… along with the boat.

4 COMMENTS

Resident Evil, 3DS, circle pad pro,

Vale on 24-01-2012 11:33

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I think this is a part of the main series (Like how Code Veronica was, despite not having a number) so I guess I’m going to have to play it at some point or other. But yeah, the circle pad pro strikes again it seems. I like how it isn’t *essential*, in the way that the PSone analogue controller was for later games, but it’s still a bit of a jip that Nintendo basically backpedalled after the Vita managed to improve itself from the PSP.

Questionmarktarius on 24-01-2012 12:24

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It’s no big secret that Nintendo is ‘revising’ the hardware sometime soon to include two analogs (and presumably the extra shoulder buttons).

Random on 24-01-2012 17:56

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I’m getting it, and the circle pad, just because I want to play the game really. I wont take my circle pad out on the road with me, but then Resident Evil isn’t a game I’d play when outside of my house anyway. I’ll probably sit at home and play through it in several long sessions.

Damien on 24-01-2012 18:05

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The whole appeal of this game to me would be a real Resident Evil, but portable. I play my 3DS on the train (when I get a seat), and on breaks at work. Don’t see myself paying for/willingly sitting down at home and clip[ping on the boat to play anything. It negates the point of the game for me :{