Dino Crisis 1 Thoughts

After playing a couple of hours of Dino Crisis 1, I think I am stopping out of boredom. The game is just so underwhelming in every respect. It's hard to really put my finger around it but the best way of describing this game is basically Resident Evil but if it was nothing but running away, puzzles and backtracking. The dinosaurs hardly ever show up and when they do it's just a game of running away to the next door or laser grid. Fighting them is frustrating since you hardly get any ammo and the dinos barely react to your pistol. And I am now understanding why older RE games had combat to begin with. It's to reward you for all the exploring you did. You found a crapload of ammo for your pistol, shotgun and heavy weapons? Well fire away on the enemies for your reward and see the enemies fall to your power.

There was a sense of satisfaction and empowerment which Dino Crisis 1 lacks. It's just non stop running away backtracking and puzzles, and it starts to lose steam very quickly. You can argue that running away from enemies is "scary" but I argue it starts to get boring when doing it for 2-3 hours and especially when it's your only option since you get little ammo and guns feel so awful. Also the inventory management is weird, you get no item box but instead a plug box that is scattered super far and is grating to manage your stuff since inventory is management is kind of like Silent Hill 4 where ammo doesn't stack. And it can lead to situations where you need ammo for stronger guns and you have no choice but to waste ammo in order to make room. I do think Regina herself is a decent and entertaining character, but everything surronding the game is so dull.

The map also really sucks and making backtracking a chore since the rooms are never named on the map so when you want to backtrack, it's often a guessing game, a walkthrough can fix this but I find playing games excessively using walkthroughs to be boring.

I can see why this game had lukewarm reception even at the time, it's just not that great of a game compared to Resident Evil.