Hideki Kamiya says 1.5 sucks! WTF!?

[Joehrex]

Here is the transcript of me Joehcool talking to the Resident Evil 2 director PG_Kamiya:

1. PG_Kamiya: It was unfinished in many ways. RT @Joehcool: Is Biohazard 1.5 more gorier and more realistic than today's Resident Evil 2?

2. PG_Kamiya: But 1.5 is shit. RT @Joehcool If I ask Capcom Japan about buying Biohazard 1.5, what will they say? I want to have it with voices and more..

3. PG_Kamiya: U'd better not... RT @Joehcool I know. It's different from today's Resident Evil 2. But I wish to have the 1.5 version on my birthday...

Kamiya can be nasty at times.

[Darkmoon]

That's something a number of Capcom staff have said, although the reasons they give for it being shit tend to be...watery.

They could be right. Most of us have only seen videos edited to make it look the best it could be, after all, and we've no idea of the flaws in the game, so it could be awful. I don't think it is, and personally suspect that it's more to do with the creators feeling insulted over fans demanding what they consider and inferior, unfinished product when the better, released version is available to all.

[News Bot]

He's been saying it was terrible since 1997. Nothing new. He's not being nasty, he's being truthful. It takes balls to admit you hated your own work.

In other non-news, Kamiya is the fucking man.

[Rick Hunter]

Nothing new here. But it's the only "old-school" resident evil game we haven't played yet and there probably won't be any other.

[Pikminister]

That's something a number of Capcom staff have said, although the reasons they give for it being shit tend to be...watery.

They could be right. Most of us have only seen videos edited to make it look the best it could be, after all, and we've no idea of the flaws in the game, so it could be awful. I don't think it is, and personally suspect that it's more to do with the creators feeling insulted over fans demanding what they consider and inferior, unfinished product when the better, released version is available to all.

Nah, I think most of us have been guilty of having very fancy wet-dreams about what 1.5 is SUPPOSE to be like. Based on our assumption that it MUST be better than RE2 in every conceivable way. It just has to be, right?

IMO, a lot of ppl suffer from "El Dorado" syndrome. Where they keep looking for it and brush aside facts about that story being nothing but crap.

Like News Bot said, Kamiya is saying nothing new about the fact that 1.5 was shit. Because unlike us, he's not seeing 1.5 with tinted glasses.

I still remember when Sven from Capcom-Unity was forced to ask them about 1.5 (because the forum users kept telling him to ask about it), and when he did, everyone at Capcom Japan went "Aw, not that shit again!". LOL

[Joehrex]

When I asked him about getting 1.5, he said "Ask Capcom."

[Vector]

Why is this a surprise? It's called 1.5 for a reason, because it's not 2. Because 2 was better. And because 1.5 sucked and was scrapped.

[Reston]

Capcom is not gonna even address your question. They may give you some QA type of response but nothing that will answer it. It's not going to happen. If anyone actually has a RE 1.5 disc or program laying around, you'd think it would've been leaked on the net in some way shape or form. Truth be told, your chances of playing 1.5 or Capcom releasing is harder then winning last weeks North America Mega Million lotto.

[News Bot]

When I asked him about getting 1.5, he said "Ask Capcom."

That is his default reply to any stupid questions that aren't related to him.

[Darkmoon]

I think most of the 'saner' 1.5 fans aren't expecting the game to be perfect. It was scrapped for a reason, and so long as that reason wasn't some bullshit internal politics fiasco then we have to assume the team believed that starting almost from scratch for the first sections of the game was a good idea. The only issue I have is I haven't heard a really good reason why they felt scrapping it was the best option. 'It was crap' only goes so far, after all - it's Resident Evil. It's not that different to the game we get in gameplay terms. If anything it looks a bit too heavily into the action, with larger numbers of iffy looking zombies.

I'm not expecting the game to be the best ever. Just different. Different plot, different characters, different places. That's all. And that's what I'm interested, the 'could have been' of it. I'm pretty sure they'll turn out to be elements that I prefer from 1.5 over the retail, and parts I like more from the retail. But we shall see. One day, we'll get a version, and at least find out more.

[News Bot]

I think most of the 'saner' 1.5 fans aren't expecting the game to be perfect. It was scrapped for a reason, and so long as that reason wasn't some bullshit internal politics fiasco then we have to assume the team believed that starting almost from scratch for the first sections of the game was a good idea. The only issue I have is I haven't heard a really good reason why they felt scrapping it was the best option. 'It was crap' only goes so far, after all - it's Resident Evil. It's not that different to the game we get in gameplay terms. If anything it looks a bit too heavily into the action, with larger numbers of iffy looking zombies.

I'm not expecting the game to be the best ever. Just different. Different plot, different characters, different places. That's all. And that's what I'm interested, the 'could have been' of it. I'm pretty sure they'll turn out to be elements that I prefer from 1.5 over the retail, and parts I like more from the retail. But we shall see. One day, we'll get a version, and at least find out more.

Kamiya went a bit more in-depth into why the game was bad a while ago, though I forgot most of what he said. Only one I remember is that nobody really liked the story, even Kamiya, who wrote it. It was too similar to the first game, had no Zapping System and so on. They removed armor because the game was meant to be about survival, not gearing up and increasing health.

[Rick Hunter]

When it comes to survival, "gearing up" and wearing some kind of armor sounds like a clever idea. You wouldn't want to run naked in a zombie infested town.

[News Bot]

When it comes to survival, "gearing up" and wearing some kind of armor sounds like a clever idea. You wouldn't want to run naked in a zombie infested town.

Not a clever idea from a gameplay perspective, when being limited is what truly adds to the survival aspect. BH2 ended up being one of the greatest games ever, so it worked out well. It wouldn't have if they released BH1.5 in its place. Barely anyone on the development team or CAPCOM management liked the game.

[Darkmoon]

The story is relatively similar, from what we know - there's a huge fuck up in Birkin's lab and the city gets infected. It's the characters that were mostly different, in that we got to see more of the side cast, and Umbrella was already on the way out...which would have been a much bigger change if RE4 hadn't killed it in a prologue. I know they apparently felt the story would have made the series a trilogy, but without more details I don't see why.

Personally, I liked the idea of the armour system, especially if clothing was damageable as rumoured. I don't see it being any different from upgrading to bigger, stronger guns.

Don't get me wrong - Resident Evil 2 is my favourite in the series, and I don't believe 1.5 is better simply because of greener grass syndrome. But I also don't see a reason to believe that it's as shit as some of the staff claim, given what I've personally seen.

[Joehrex]

I guess you're right, guys.