Last night I started RE1 with the intention of using my grown up mind to beat it, which I could never do as a kid. See, every attempt I made at it was thwarted by poor inventory management, I would always wind up out of ammo with no way to progress. No way would this happen to me as an adult!
I did not run out of ammo. I made good progress up until Plant 42. Except I used the Red Book to enter the plant room before I had destroyed the roots. I did not realize this would softlock me out of beating the game!!! $^!?* and of course I only had one save file going.
I played this for about an hour last night and you just gotta be careful during cutscenes because any auto-text will blip and you miss it but this patch absolutely owns.
Yeah it has much more Arcade/Famicom lineage than you expect. You aren’t supposed to succeed your first or second or third time. It’s not a linear experience. Much more a Video Game.
Also which version you tried? Lots of folks on these forums have said weirdness about the most recent REMake releases.
I am with you brother, I have no clue how all these other people have managed to ever complete RE 1 as it feels like a game designed to screw you at every turn unless you know exactly what it expects from you at all times. I still have a save… somewhere in the middle right when the aggressive fast new monsters show up that can straight swipe your head clean off your shoulders that I picked away at for a time in the hope that I could figure out how to become adept enough at the knife to survive long enough to get back to a storage container or find more ammo, but it is simply beyond me. Even if I could advance as far as the next save point the limited saves makes that a questionable proposition, it really is a spiteful experience.
One day I will likely break down and watch a full LP and try and replicate it move for move just to be forever free of it, of course that last run went sideways because I used too much ammo on a boss battle as I committed the cardinal sin of finding it difficult and not being great at it, as good a reason for a near soft lock as any I guess.
Maybe the knife is more effective than it seems as like… in the first two Silent Hill games I managed to lean on the crowbar or whatever the melee weapon is through the first half until I was more comfortable actually using ammo in the second. Then again not allowing myself in SH2 to use ammo unless utterly necessary made parts of said first half an utter slog, so maybe that is a bad comparison.
I guess it comes down to some people being bad at playing the game of “blindly guess how many bullets you can use here”, or at least not finding said game particularly enjoyable? Also maybe other RE games are better about it, the only one I ever actually finished was RE 4 which gave you enough stuff to kill everything that moves.
the knife is garbage. the strategy is just about discerning which zombies really ought to be killed and which ought to just be avoided. that way you save ammo and potentially herbs. and if you’re wasting too much ammo and health without progressing through the mansion puzzle, you basically should reload and do it better with your new knowledge.
Part of the thing with RE4 is also that was the first one you could actually properly aim at shit, rather than look to the heavens and wait for the zombie to get close enough that you can actually hope to achieve a head shot.
it was rough not having group attacks until i got a whip for the thief but now at lv 12 hero and priest each have a group spell so i’m not missing a wizard anymore.
thief feels broken? free group attacks with whips and boomerangs plus mine rolled as a swole as fuck tomboy, good physical defence since agility governs that in this one, great utility spells, free items, what’s not to love
I feel like the best tip for playing earlier RE games is to treat them as the anti-Doom Eternal. You don’t need specific weapons for specific monsters, you should use specific weapons for specific situations. Sometimes blowing a zombie in half with a shotgun shell is the most appropriate use of that shell just so you can get past it.