During Resident Evil 1's development, there were enough developers that wanted to see the game take on more action mechanics like charged attacks and sidesteps that director Shinji Mikami allowed them to do a test run, but thankfully, they all saw the light when they witnessed how goofy it looked having Chris Redfield charge at zombies.
This comes straight from Hideki Kamiya, planner of the original Resident Evil, director of Resident Evil 2, and PlatinumGames co-founder. In a series of machine-translated tweets (via Automaton), Kamiya explained that Mikami's vision for Resident Evil 1 as purely a horror game clashed with devs' ideas for action elements.
"During the development of Biohazard 1, there were voices within the team saying, 'I want a sidestep,' and 'I want a charged knife slash', said Kamiya. "Mikami-san was skeptical but watched over the test implementation.
"However, once the charged slash was actually implemented, zombies completely ceased to be objects of fear... Mikami-san: 'See?' ...And so, it was scrapped, and we gained a significant lesson."
According to Kamiya, Mikami repeatedly stressed that "the theme of this game is fear" during Resident Evil 1's development, which is why the animation you see when you retreat from enemies looks burdened and labored. Kamiya said this was done specifically "to express 'backing away in fear' with low mobility, all for the sake of 'fear.'"
"That test implementation of the knife charge slash... The image of Chris holding the knife, charging up with a 'GyuUUUUU!' and then slashing with a 'ZUBAA!' was pretty much ruining the atmosphere and made me laugh," Kamiya said. "It got so fun going to take down zombies that I was like, 'Oh, this is no good'.. lol"
Notably, Kamiya also made sure to clear his name by pointing out, "it wasn't me who suggested the sidestep or the charge slash," which makes me chuckle.
Even wilder than charged attacks and sidesteps, Kamiya also shared that there was a time during Resident Evil 1's development where "Chris was strutting around with a Western sword," "totally ready to take down zombies," but thank goodness that idea was canned because "it was too heroic."
That said, Resident Evil would eventually make a full-blown embrace of action mechanics in Resident Evil 4, which Mikami also directed. Meanwhile, Kamiya's vision for Resident Evil 4, which ultimately became Devil May Cry, was inspired by that sword-wielding Chris Redfield, as well as Kamiya's many years shackled to the horror genre.
"That image from back then stayed in my mind for a long time, so when I started working on my version of Bio 4 (and later DMC), I decided, 'This time, let's ditch the 'fear' and go all-in on action,' and the very first thing I decided was to adopt the sword… I remember being thrilled, thinking, 'Finally, I get to use a sword!'"
While Resident Evil 4 is undoubtedly one of the best action horror games ever, I'm happy that these days Capcom has largely shifted back toward strictly horror-focused Resident Evil games with the utterly terrifying Resident Evil 7. While Resident Evil 8 was a great, but temporary, return to action-horror, Resident Evil 9 seems to be yet another strictly-horror entry, with Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi back at the helm.
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