Anti Frustration Features / Resident Evil

• All Resident Evil games after the first (but including the 2002 Remake) have tweaked their item systems to prevent needless frustration:
  • Any games that feature poison as a status ailment will have planters of blue herbs growing in areas which, while you can't take any with you, can be used as many times as you want to cure poisoning. This addressed an issue in the first game where it was actually possible to use up the game's finite supply of blue herbs and then get poisoned, leaving you unable to cure it and nearly rendering the game unbeatable as your health will constantly drain on its own until you become a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
  • You can now use healing items immediately when picking them up, without having to add them to your inventory first. This addressed one of Resident Evil's most frustrating occurrences: a full inventory, being low on health, and finding a herb you can't use without first making a mad dash past some enemies to get to a frigging item box.
• Resident Evil has the battery found near the end of the game, which you need one free item slot to pick up and use to power the nearby elevator. This in turn leads to the signal flares that you need to use to alert Brad to your location so that you can escape. If you were able to reach the flares while having a full inventory, you'd be in a deadlocked game since you can't discard items. The flares themselves also guarantees that you have space for the rocket launcher in the final boss fight, which is required to beat said boss if you're on the path to the good ending. The same mechanic would be used in Resident Evil 2 in scenario B where the player is required to pick up a key item that takes up two slots to ensure they have enough space to pick up the rocket launcher later.
• The 2002 remake of Resident Evil, like the original, has the Blue Gemstone hidden on a statue on the 2nd floor Dining Room balcony where it isn't clear you can obtain it since the item doesn't sparkle and, while you can push the statue, it's not obvious that you need to push the statue off the balcony. However, knowing that many players struggled to realize there was an item there in the original game, the Blue Gemstone is no longer a key item and instead gives you access to some shotgun shells rather than the Wind Crest (which was needed to reach The Residence). Furthermore, if you miss this item, the statue will have been smashed for you with the item sparkling and obtainable in the Dining Room when you return from The Residence.
• Resident Evil 2 has Sherry Birkin, a 12 year old girl that has only a First-Aid Spray and nothing else to defend herself with against zombies and zombified dogs. On the plus side, Sherry has the most health out of all the playable characters to compensate for her lack of weaponry and slow running speed and zombies only attempt to vomit on her (which does considerably less damage than their bite).
• In Resident Evil 2 (Remake), Mr. X is normally an Implacable Man; there's nothing that can put in his way to prevent him from chasing the player character. However, there are certain "safe" rooms where Mr. X can't follow, both to keep the difficulty at an un-frustrating level and to give the player a moment to catch their breath.
  • The game will also offer you the chance to continue in assisted mode if you die several times in a row on higher difficulties.
  • If you happen to die to or near Mr. X and restart from a recent checkpoint, the game will spawn him far away from you, giving you time to build up a lead.
• In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis battling the Nemesis anytime he appears is an option, but he tends to be quite difficult unless you are very good with the game's tank controls and have mastered the dodging mechanic as they tend to take place in tight quarters. So when battling him is mandatory, the game goes out of its way to make it less frustrating and more of a fair fight:
  • The first mandatory battle against Nemesis takes place in a large area with plenty of paths to take and no dead-ends to get trapped in, meaning you can continually keep running and gunning without getting trapped. Also by now you'll have found the Mine Thrower which, while typically useless against normal enemies, is incredibly useful against Nemesis since you can quickly hit him with one and run away, relying on the delayed explosion to slow him down and make him vulnerable for another shot. Also, since Jill will be fully healed after the fight, you won't need to bother using curative items and can take as much damage as you like so long as you survive.
  • The second and third mandatory battles are both Puzzle Bosses where you have environmental hazards to use to inflict damage on him and, again, have large open areas making it difficult for him to trap you.
• Resident Evil 0 allowed you to drop items anywhere to be recovered later, rather than needing to use item boxes. Items will be marked on your map so you know what room you left a plot-relevant item in, and you find a Door to Before late in the game that quickly allows you to access every area in the game to recover and consolidate all your dropped healing items or ammo before challenging the final area. Any item that was dropped on the train will also conveniently be found on the floor in the area where the train crashes, too.
• Resident Evil 4 features different difficulty levels, and the game will change this difficulty depending on how well you're doing. If you consistently die in the same area, the game will get easier until you pass it. Conversely, doing well in these areas without much trouble makes the game harder. It's designed so you'll eventually find a difficulty that's not too easy, and not too hard. Of course, speed-runners have learned to "game" this system, that is intentionally doing badly during the easy parts so they can rush through the difficult parts faster. Professional mode locks you into the hardest difficulty level, however.
• Resident Evil 4 (Remake):
  • Though the original just barely touched on it with the village and Wesker's silenced handgun, the remake added practical stealth mechanics to the game to balance out the increased difficulty when compared to the original. Like the original enemies don't become aware of Leon until they get eyes on him, hear him, or hear their allies calling out Leon's presence, but now Leon has a Back Stab move that he can use to One-Hit KO an enemy, silently and without expending ammo, as long as no enemies in the area know he's there.
  • The player no longer needs to brandish a knife and take aim to smash crates or barrels. Leon simply does it with the push of a button.
  • The game now has gunpowder as a possible drop from enemies. Now, rather than having to rely entirely on the Random Number God for ammo drops from barrels and enemies, the player has some flexibility and can use gunpowder to make the ammo they actually want or need instead of getting 50 more bullets for the TMP they never bought.
  • All of the cutscene Press X to Not Die moments were removed, preventing a lot of the cheap deaths the original had. Any that remain take the form of button-mashing or counter moves that happen during actual gameplay, and none of them lead to instant deaths anymore but instead just cost you some health if you fail them.
  • Ashley is now a little more capable. She can still die but no longer has a health bar, instead working on an incapacitation system. She'll die or be captured if you don't get to her in time, but getting to her "revives" her no worse for wear. Furthermore, she can be ordered to follow close or "loosely", with close being how she followed in the original and loose meaning she keeps her distance and runs a little more freely, and when following loose she has a lot more common sense in avoiding danger on her own. Enemies, for their part, also have the sense not to deliberately attack the main lynchpin in Saddler's Evil Plan, so they won't aggressively target Ashley the same way they do in the original version, and if they do manage kill her it's clearly an accident (Armaduras are the sole exception, but they canonically don't have a human brain for Saddler to precisely control and are much dumber than the Ganados).
• If you messed up a Quick Time Event enough times in Resident Evil 6 by pressing the wrong buttons, it will silently accept the wrong button press so long as it's pressed in time. Amateur mode always does this for you.
  • Dying and restarting will refill your health to max, extremely useful considering how annoying it can be getting healing items. This does not apply in No Hope difficulty, however.
• For the first three games, when you have used a key or similar item on every door it can be unlocked with, the game tells you that the key is no longer useful and gives you the option to throw it away. Likewise for the remake of the second and third games, key items that are no longer needed will have a red checkmark on them to let you know that you can safely discard them.

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