What was your first Survival Horror experience like anon?
And what would a modern game would need to do to create that first time experience?

When I see newcomers play they usually struggle with health and ammo but every cultist here says that Resi have so much ammo it's not an SH game. It has a lot if you're good sure.
Truth is that for newcomers these games are hard, I once saw someone waste 5 shotgun shells on a non blocking zombie at the other side of a room and it made me physically ill. Noobs are used to power-fantasy games and do not understand SH games. So they run out of resources even if they can find it.

>>11874071 (OP)
sittin on my dads lap as a little kid and watching him play Resident Evil 1 and being scared absolutely shitless the entire time. It was often too much for me to handle

>>11874075
Lol, nice.
I noped out of the game when the rotweilers jumped through the window and haven't touched the game again for more than a decade.
But I was also attacked by one as a kid so I was not a big fan of those dogs anyway.

I'm a third world poorfag who was playing games on a Famiclone at the time but when we visited our relatives they had a PS1 with RE2, I watched my brother play it and thought it was kinda tense. Then when my mom bought me my own PS1 I played SH1 and it scared the living shit out of me even though I didn't understand anything. Still to this day I think it's scary as shit and that's coming from someone who doesn't find horror games to be scary aside from maybe Fatal Frame 3 and Silent Hill 3 and even these don't come close

I believe it was Resident Evil 2. It may sound really dumb right now, but when I was 8, that stuff was very traumatic to me, specially seeing the death scene with the zombies eating your character. I also hated the jumpscares like when the Licker breaks the window of the interrogation room. Even if it was my brother playing the game in the other room, I jumped everytime I heard that noise.

I've managed to finish both discs multiple times after that.

>>11874094
>>11874095
I recall a thread on the old Assembly Forums where a lot of people said RE2 was their first experience with this kind of game when they were kids, and they got nightmares after playing the game.
I somehow dreamed of zombie rabbits after playing it, because I used to raise rabbits when I was a kid. I don't know how I conflated both of those things.

>>11874101
RE2 was popular as fuck, I think it's the best selling classic survival horror game actually.
>I somehow dreamed of zombie rabbits after playing it, because I used to raise rabbits when I was a kid.
That's interesting

>>11874101

>>11874107
Combining unrelated things in your dreams seems like a thing someone experiences every once in a while. After renting RE2 for the first time, I had a spooky dream where this girl with a bandana (I think she was from a movie) would appear out of complete darkness and grab me. Then another, and another. They all looked the same, but they were wearing shorts, and the shorts had different colors. They grabbed me and tackled me to the ground, just like in the game when the enemies kill you... but instead of eating and blood gushing out, they did something I don't understand.

Now that I recall it, it probably was an early wet dream. I was like 6 or 7 back then, so I had no idea what it was. It still left a pretty big impression on me.

>>11874121
I hadn't watched that movie yet back then. I think the nightmare about the zombie rabbits was because a few of our rabbits started to die from a neurological disease (it's pretty common in very big populations). The rabbit would lay down, have a seizure, get really stiff and die foaming at the mouth. So, I think the nightmare came because when I caught one of the rabbits by the leg to throw over the fence, its leg came off with a *RIIIIP* sound.

>>11874126
Rebbeca maybe?

>>11874134
Oof that's pretty brutal

Watching my cousin play RE1 when it was new, I remember feeling such a relief when he ran into the fountain room. The game over screen horrified me.

>>11874071 (OP)
My father and I bought the Alone in the Dark double pack on CD. Which came with three games. It was really neat. However it wasn't the first game that made me feel spooked.
That would be Forbidden Forest, and then Wolfenstein 3D which for some reason always made me feel really unnerved, depressed, and claustrophobic.

my significantly older sister had a ps1, one day when i was alone in her house i sat down and tried each game that she had.
i played RE1, got to the zombie head turn, and immediately ran out of the room.

>>11874223
Oh yeah reminds me of doom being really scary sometimes as well.
Wolfenstein is depressing, and claustrophobic now that I think about it. I just got used to it.

Playing RE3 as a little kid. I was too scared to go out into the alleyway where the zombies were so I just spent hours in the first room.

Call me a zoomfag but Condemned: Criminal Origins. No game will ever be nearly as scary.

>>11874606
>Condemned: Criminal Origins
That's a good game.

>>11874242
Basically this but with an older brother and sister.

>>11874606
Great game. Such a shame the steam version has some kind of memory leak and is unplayable on a modern PC.

I've honestly never played any.
What would be a first entry?

>>11874071 (OP)
>Your first survival horror
Ecco The Dolphin
Flashback on the mega drive

>>11875387
RE1

>>11875387
For retro games only: Resident Evil1 or its remake. Or a less resource management oriented alternative is Silent Hill 1 or 2
Condemned or Cry of Fear as honorable mentions.

But otherwise Resident Evil 2 remake (which is a modern game) is a great choice for a first timer.
If you're on a budget the fake retro game Nightmare of Decay is also a great choice.

>>11875387
Resident Evil, either PSX longbox version (original release) or Saturn version so you get to play it in normal difficulty rather than easy difficulty, like how everyone who fell in love with the game and the genre did

>>11874071 (OP)

>>11875378
I downloaded the RG Mechanics torrent many times over the years and had no issues

RE1. I rented it because there was lots of blood in the pics on the back of the cd case and it looked cool. Ps1 was fairly new to me and I came from Bing bing wahoo Snes games because I was only 8. It took me forever to just understand how to move with tank controls, how to shoot, how to use the inventory. The concept of just running past enemies to save ammo was new to me when youre used to just shooting everything on the screen. I didn't understand that the voice acting was just terrible so it made every character sound suspicious or evil or something but it was just bad writing but it felt very unsettling. The mansion had an ugly 70s look which made it feel old and lived in and creepy as well. I also remember the first zombie cutscene when he turns his head gave me nightmares. I slept with the light on for 2 days petrified but I couldn't put the game down. It was one of the first ps1 games that really put in my head that gaming is changing to a more mature kind of medium and games can be alot more than just platformers or collectathons. It took me over a year to beat it without a guide too, what seems so simple now seemed like an impossible task back then. The mansion felt gigantic and I felt a real sense of dread leaving the safe room and was pissed that the characters couldn't just stick together. When you're young you also use your imagination alot more to fill in the blanks so it was the perfect time to experience this game, rather than play it at 30 for the first time

>>11875646
Piracy>Steam
For preservation.

>>11874071 (OP)
aitd demo on a 386
i didn't realize it was survival horror and wasn't even afraid since i played in daylight with my siblings around trying to figure out controls/what to do on the first screen (we couldn't)

>>11874075
Yeah I think his "lap" was too much to handle for you.

>>11876109
Neat!
I think low poly grapix also help with the imagination.
That is why I love that look.

>>11874071 (OP)
Luigi's Mansion probably. If that doesn't count the Silent Hill Origins. I've since gone back and played most of the classics though.

>>11875545
Meatwad!

aitd was fire too bad my gogs of it don't run on the newest macos for some fucking reason idk but back in the day that shit was like woah

>>11877436
someone left the projector on

>>11874071 (OP)
Does Splatter House count? My parents got me a Genesis for my 6th or 7th birthday, and they just thought all video games were kid shit, so they gave me that and Shadow of The Beast. A few years later, they got my brother and I a PS1 for Christmas, and gave us RE1 directors cut, and Crash bandicoot. Splatter house and RE1 freaked me the fuck out. Good times thinking back, but holy shit what were they thinking!?

>>11874071 (OP)
Resident Evil 1 on playstation. I was such a little rulefollowing faggot that the warning before the title screen already got me spooked thinking I was doing something really bad playing it, and when I got that first cutscene of the zombie turning around and looking at you it freaked me the fuck out.

I don’t think you can replicate that level of fear as an adult

>What was your first Survival Horror experience like anon?
Well, AitD1. But I'm sure the second one was Ecstatica and that thing truly scared the shit out of 10 year old me (compared to AitD).

>>11880157
Splatterhouse is awesome but it's a sidescrolling beat-em-up that happens to have a horror setting. It has no relation to survival horror.

>>11874071 (OP)
Funny enough, it was Alone in the Dark for DOS, but it was not scary to me probably because of how silly the attacks looked alongside the sound produced when connecting with the enemies. The lady's kick was especially funny with it's lack of form, and punching like a full bodied slap that I pretty much melee everything I possibly could in the early game, until the pirate which can take infinite kicks but does fucking backflips if you can time it right to hit before getting hit back. I guess I am easily amused as that is still funny to me to this day. There may be some early failures, for sure but I liked the games enough that I could repeat the early game in needed anyway. Similarly, when I first play the original Resident Evil, I couldn't afford a memory card, so I got good enough to knife everything and get through the game without much issue. To recreate that first time experience, I suppose developers should try to give unexpected physical comedy and a interesting gameplay loop that has the possibility to to speed run or sequence break away from the early parts keeping the engagement.

Shareware of Alone in the Dark when I was a child. It was just the very first room IIRC. Never actually played the whole game until I was 20, it was pretty good but really easy to softlock yourself at the end.

>>11874071 (OP)
Clocktower on PS1.

I've posted that s before in other threads but I'll do it again. The mummy for ps1 and PC , I had the PC version as a kid.,my first horror game. Scared the ever living shit out of me and my brother and the neighbors kids when I invited them over so that they can watch me play it. Even when you put in the disc and that godawfull mummy screaming sound used to terrify me and I used to cover my ears so I don't hear it. Just watching the intro creeped me out. A great movie though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1FnZ7uu1oU

>>11874071 (OP)
Fatal Frame 1 is the only Survival Horror where ammo and health are genuinely in very short supply if you dont play right. Game throws a massive difficulty spike at you near the end of the second night and never lets up. Random bullshit enemies appear all over the mansion on the 3rd night, Himuro Master is one of the nastiest bosses out there and you have to face him twice. You are just a rat in a maze of ghosts who drain 1/3rd to a half of your health in a single attack.

Resident Evil 2, thought it was great and after all that i've played and seen its still one of the best games ever made

>>11875387
I'd reccomend Clock Tower The First Fear on SNES or PS1, its the first true survival horror game that was actually good, after that just go with the classic Resident Evil games and Silent Hill 1 on PS1, if you want more i'd highly reccomend the Fatal Frame games (especially 2) and Silent Hill 2-3.

>>11881643
That sounds really good. Will definitely check it out!
Truly tense survival horror games are rare once you understand the concept and know how manage resources. I wish someone would invent the concept of difficulty levels, so we can have a tense experience as veterans in survival horror games.

>>11881768
>its the first true survival horror game that was actually good
Better than Alone in the Dark doesn't mean "good". Those games amplified some of the worst adventure game tropes.

>>11874071 (OP)
RE1 was my first real "survival horror", the long box version was the second game I got for my PS1 after Jumping Flash.

First game that actually scared me was Mystic Defender for the Genesis. Those floating monk enemies that would grow spider legs freaked me the hell out.

>>11878975
>Silent Hill Origins
Excellent game. Deserves to be upheld with the first four games. Even if it's not Team Silent they captured the feeling perfectly.

>>11884097
nah they tried but it was mediocre
whereas all other 3rd party shs didn't try and sucked ass

>>11874071 (OP)
Resident Evil 2.
I just played easy and used the machine gun.
I was like 10 so it took a lot out of me to get used to the controls before playing normally and move to 1 and Nemesis.
I remember not beating Claire B because I played normally and had no health to kill the final Tyrant battle.

>And what would a modern game would need to do to create that first time experience?
Tank controls and pre rendered backgrounds.
There is a modder who does stuff like the RE Survicor 3D mod. Its my fav game so I hope he finisit.

>>11880318
Cold Fear is shite.
Play Extermination instead and maybe Forbidden Siren if you can stomach bad controls.

>>11881405
I remember getting this when I had no idea I could burn my own games.
Surprisingly fun back then.

>>11874071 (OP)
This weird game called D on playstation.

>>11875387
RE4 unironically. It's the most accessible tank controls game out there because it lacks fixed camera angles and I'd say the resource managent is about the same level as RE2 perhaps just a tad easier as long as you aren't playing the original NTSC or Japanese GameCube releases that has a weaker knife, lower stats weapons and not as much money for upgrades so you can't min-max every weapon in a single playthrough and enemies will be at the highest level of aggression from the onset. Just beware that even though dynamic difficulty will ensure you never truly run out of ammo you will most often get handgun ammo before any other type even if you're running low on something else so the pistol is the weapon you should most often use. It's still a good idea to knife ganados whenever you can in the first chapter though and always melee in the entire game to conserve ammo.

>>11885027
>I'd say the resource managent is about the same level as RE2
Bullshit.
Whenever I play this I have so much ammo that I have to sell it to get some space.
Not to mention enemies will drop whatever you are running low amounts to.
Remake 4 is actually tighter when it comes to that.

>>11885220
>I have to sell it to get some space
That's part of the resource management process but the drops are only really generous for a couple of weapons namely the handgun and the shotgun but mostly the handgun. I've had to conserve rifle and TMP ammo on several occasions because they just wouldn't drop for quite a while even when I was running low or ran out. With the rifle I've had to game the merchant to get free ammo sometimes which helped. Mine thrower darts and magnum ammo are comparatively even rarer.

Comparative to the length of the games and the amount of shooting you do in both of them I would only put RE2 slightly ahead in terms of how difficult the resource management part is especially for beginners to the genre or maybe RE3 with the ammo crafting mechanic but it's been a long while since I played that one. SH1 and SH2 might be even better comparisons since there's also a lot of emphasis on melee in Silent Hill games as a way to conserve ammo as well and the first two games are pretty generous with resources.

>>11885027
RE4 is action horror not survival horror.
The hardest part of RE4 is to find space in my inv for all the ammo I get. Maybe for a newbie it's gonna be different but the dynamic difficulty will not let you run out of ammo anyway.

>>11885792
If the gameplay loop is designed around resource management and it's an action/adventure game in a horror setting then that makes it a survival horror. It doesn't matter if the resource management is easier than some other titles in the genre, the melee system is there for the same reason it's there in Silent Hill or Alone in the Dark. If you exclude RE4 you may as well exclude something like SH1, SH2 and most of the Fatal Frame games which are also fundamentally action games.
>dynamic difficulty will not let you run out of ammo anyway.
Dynamic difficulty prioritizes certain types of ammo before others. It's like in Fatal Frame 2 onwards where you have an infinite amount of your weakest camera film, but the stronger the type of film, the rarer it is to come across so you conserve and use the weakest film whenever you can against a single of the weaker enemy types, preferably not in a group of 2 or more.
>The hardest part of RE4 is to find space in my inv for all the ammo I get.
That's the thing: by excluding RE4 it makes no sense not to include RE6 as a survival horror according to this logic because it limits the amount of ammo you can get by a lot more even with its drop rates. The only resource management centric mechanic in RE6 though is not being able to infinitely stack ammo just like all the other games but you will never be able to find more weapons than you can carry with you in any of the campaigns unlike RE4 or RE5.
But curiously the ammo scarcity in RE6 is never acknowledged by the same people who claim RE4 is action horror just for not being too difficult with its resource management aspect.

I believe Fade to Black on PS1, if that counts as survival horror. If not, than maybe RE1 or SH.

>>11886484
>If the gameplay loop is designed around resource management and it's an action/adventure game in a horror setting then that makes it a survival horror.
And what kind of resource management is when you can't run out stuff because all those item pinatas keep running at you? It makes the game much more action focused since you do not have to scavenge that much around the map. Its a false sense of resource management not an actual one.
>the melee system is there for the same reason it's there in Silent Hill or Alone in the Dark
Not sure what you're getting at with this I'm not saying having melee makes it action horror since it's just a way to trade HP for dead enemies. HP is a resource.
>Dynamic difficulty prioritizes certain types of ammo before others.
It still won't let you run out of ammo, yes magnum rounds are rare and all but it's still essentially infinite resources.
>RE6
Never mentioned it and never played it but you convinced me to play it so thank you my friend.

For me Survival Horror is:
-Horror theme action adventure
-Goal is mostly to survive, combat is mostly avoidable in some way
-Resources are acquired mostly through exploration rarely from enemies
-Resources are scarce (Heavily depends on player skill)
For me Action Horror is:
-Horror theme action adventure
-Goal is mostly to kill, combat is rarely avoidable
-Resources are acquired mostly through killing
-Resources are infinite (May not be obvious tho)

I'm curious how would you define action horror.

>>11885027

>I'd say the resource management is about the same level as RE2
So lots of ammo and healing items?

>>11886484
not that anon but your right on RE6, I've run out/low on ammo/health lots of times just playing it on normal, its a lot harder than some of the other RE games

AITD1

>>11874071 (OP)
RE1
>>11874094
Yeah, the beginning of SH1 was spooky.
>>11874095
Yeah, death scene was scary as fuk, I would turn it off or run out of the room. When playing the game at night there was a mirror above the tv and it would reflect the hallway. The end of the hallway was dark and I would keep looking to see if the boogieman was there and my imagination would play tricks on me like there was the outline of a face. One time someone knocked on the window when I was playing and it scared the shit out of me. They rang the doorbell after and I wouldn't go open the door.
Alligator part in RE2 had me scared to go in the shower for months because the water didn't drain properly and when it started to rise I thought the alligator would come out and get me. Started speedrunning showers to get out fast as fuk before the water rose above my ankles.

>>11874126
I had a dream where I was tempted into sex with a promiscuous girl in the lobby of a movie theatre in front of other people. I stuck my dick in and the camera cut to inside her, and her hole was like a big gaping maw with teeth that resembled one of the Parasite Eve monsters. To add to that, inside her was a zombie dog (Chihuahua for some reason) ready to bite my dick off.
>>11874186
Same, didn't want to leave safe rooms or rooms with other characters.
>>11874242
That scared the shit out of me. I also died many times and kept switching characters hoping to get past the first few zombies.
>>11874598
I remember when the guy locked himself in the trailer, I was like yeah, that's the right thing to do, that's what I would do.
>>11880268
For replicating that fear, go look for a haunted building in your area. I went into a pitchblack underground morgue alone with nothing but a phone as a flashlight. The level of fear was unreal just walking down the hallway and peering into rooms, and how you can only see one direction, and there was actually some shit still there that scared the fuk out of me even more.

>>11887824
>And what kind of resource management is when you can't run out stuff because all those item pinatas keep running at you?
Resource management is more about making sure you have health/ammo when you need it such as for tougher enemies or bosses where the handgun is near useless. Fatal Frame perfectly embodies this principle and is also considered a survival horror despite having literally infinite ammo. Think the Tyrant fight on the plane in CV where you're pretty fucked if you've wasted too much of your bow gun arrows even though it's completely possible to do a knife-only run too if you're skilled enough. It's probably totally possible to do a pistol/knife-only run in RE4 if you're really good and get lots of practice in but you can't really judge games based on how good an individual can be at exploiting it. They weren't meant to be played that way.
>yes magnum rounds are rare and all but it's still essentially infinite resources.
It's only unlimited in theory, not in practice. Try selling your pistol and using your TMP in place of it the entire game and see where that gets you.
>combat is mostly avoidable in some way
Where did you get this info from Youtube? TV Tropes? 4chan? Reddit? Survival horror isn't stealth. Combat being avoidable is a result of loading screens more than anything. There was unavoidable combat in all of the AITD games because enemies could follow you through every room since it was an old PC game.
>-Goal is mostly to survive,
That's the goal of every game with a death mechanic though.
>Resources are acquired mostly through exploration rarely from enemies
>rarely from enemies
Very curious you would word it like this after I brought up RE6. If you can gain resources from enemies at all what difference does it make if it's common or not? So you can claim that it adheres to some arbitrary set of rules that you've made up in your head?

>>11887824
>Resources are scarce
Resource management != scarce resources because scarce resources = having to avoid almost every encounter by necessity, especially in games like classic RE that doesn't have as big of an emphasis on melee attacks and requires practice to master the knife which most people simply don't have the patience for. You don't have to avoid combat even if you're low on ammo in the games with better melee so it was never a rule.

According to your rules only RE1 DC and RE0 (IIRC) qualify; FF1 is the only Fatal Frame that counts as survival horror; SH3 and SH4 are the only Silent Hill games that counts as survival horror and every other classic RE, Fatal Frame and SH1 and SH2 doesn't count as survival horror purely because resources aren't scarce and they don't count as "action horror" either because combat is mostly avoidable in all the games and you don't gain resources by killing enemies either.
But they're still action games and they're still horror games, so what are they if not action horror or survival horror? They're not purely adventure games either, that would be Clock Tower which is an example of a survival horror that isn't an action game at all.
>I'm curious how would you define action horror.
I've already told you. RE6 barely misses the boat on being a survival horror because it's purely an action game, not even a linear action adventure.

The gameplay loop in a survival horror has never been about avoiding combat from the genre's inception; avoiding combat is a byproduct of technical limitations, speed runs and is just another way for you to conserve ammo with especially in RE where your only other means of defending yourself is with a tiny knife.

Claiming it's about anything else is because your only experience with and understanding of the genre starts and ends with Resident Evil which didn't even invent it. Even before RE, AITD clones were a thing such as Doctor Hauzer, Ecstatica, Bioforge and Team Innocent.

>>11887824
Clock Tower's only form of resource management is the stamina/sanity meter but you have an infinite amount of it that regenerates over time by standing still but that was enough for it to be considered a survival horror retroactively. There are other more modern examples of this such as Amnesia or that Slender Man game. If you run out of stamina/sanity at critical moments, you die in those games. IIRC the sanity meter was also a thing in Eternal Darkness but I don't know if you die if you run out in that game compared to the others.

>>11890571
>>11890560
>>11890546
There is nothing wrong with action horror btw RE4 isn't any less for being a different subgenre. I like it, I just find the power ballance of survival horror very engaging, the threat of a softlock lingering in there is even better.
>Resource management is more about making sure you have health/ammo when you need it
Yeah duh. The issue here is what dynamic difficulty and ammo pinatas lead to. It makes the gameplay loop combat oriented like it's a modern doom game or something, yes you had infinite freebies at savepoints in FF1 (or cold fear) but you still explored the map for goodies the free ammo points included while taking risk running into an enemy you had run past previously. You weren't an unstoppable force of nature that harvested the souls of spaniards for ammo and health. The goal was to "survive" and not to "slay". Having infnite ammo at a save point is different than getting it infinitely from the supposed threats. Running the risk of an empty magazine when scavenging for supplies hits different.
>Survival horror isn't stealth.
Just because there isn't any vision meters and red exclamation marks popping up that doesn't mean you have to kill every enemy. If you want to beat the Tyrant you mentioned in CV you better save your resources for it. The best way save ammo is to run when you can. Try Resi2Remake you run/sneak past most enemies if you play it right, but it wont become Metal Gear all of sudden.
>avoiding combat is a byproduct of technical limitations
Exactly. Technical limitations defined many genres. In modern survival horror games enemies could follow you to the end of the world and yet they don't. Saving ammo is it's own reward.

>>11890546
>>11890560
>>11890571
>Doctor Hauzer, Bioforge and Team Innocent. Hurr durr my great survival horror experiences no one had!
Where did you read that stupid bullshit Plebbitor? Since when is doctor hauzer a survival horror it doesn't even fit the definition you set in your first post. It is point and click adventure where you use the dpad instead of a mouse. If you would have actually played you would know that.
>According to your rules
False. As stated before resource scarcity is heavily dependent on player skill. Just because you can wipe out the map in RE2 doesn't disqualify it, many newbies would still struggle with ammo and health in it not to mention RE3 and the Nemy.
Silent hill is psychological horror. If you wouldn't be such a brainlet you would see that survival horror is used as a marketing term. Few game studios have the balls to call a game a different name or genre than an already estabilished entry. It was used for fallout, doom and resident evil alike. Don't beleive everything you read, especially shit that stupid karens write at marketing.
>RE6
You duped me into playing that piece of garbage I don't even wanna hear about it anymore.
>Cock tower to be considered a survival horror retroactively.
Idk much about that game. But by that definition Amnesia and Penumbra Black Plague is also survival horror.

I feel like there can be more genres than just survival horror and spoopy walking sims in horror. It is just simply different to struggle for survival and make plans for your last 2 shotgunshells versus hunting down half of spain to get more loot. It is a different core gameplay loop.
I see now that for a newbie RE4 can be a struggle for survival too, but on that notion Doom 2 is also survival horror.

>>11874075
Kek why would he make you watch

If Clock Tower is survival horror then so is this.