If they raise the amount of enemies and slow character movement, there has to be a power up to players to avoid the game becoming cheap and/or unplayable. The player always has to be more capable than the enemies or a game can't be beaten, and the more capable the character the less horror you feel.

While even with the slow enemies, fixed camera, and tank controls you're obviously more capable than the enemies, it still has tools to create dread that just don't exist with free camera and super smooth RE4 control.

All that the poor controls accomplished was damaging the whole experience. I can think of plenty of great horror games that have fantastic controls. Mentioning which, I really need to replay System Shock II.

Totally agree. RE4 was a great game, but not Resident Evil. It should have been a new IP. I think Zombi U is closer to Resident Evil than RE4 or any RE since.

I partly agree, but RE4 is a bad example. Despite Leon's enhanced mobility and firepower there was still a huge sense of dread when plodding through the levels and encountering what sometimes seemed like impossible odds until you knew exactly what to do, such as the initial horde attack in the village complete with crazed chainsaw guy chasing you down. It also featured genuinely scary enemies and bosses like the Regenerators / Iron Maidens.

RE5 on the other hand felt like Gears of Evil, and RE6 was just a joke on so many levels.

REmake on the GC is still the gold standard in survival horror IMO. I also wouldn't mind seeing a remake or update of the Clock Tower series... the the first game on PS1 was genuinely one of the scariest games I've ever experienced, moreso because of the point-and-click gameplay and your extremely limited amount of resources / ways to avoid Scissorman.

To me the original Resident Evil was so tense due to item and weapon management. If you kill every enemy you hit a wall and are screwed at certain points. Every room and every enemy meant something, I think having different controls would not change that aspect for me. The oppressive atmosphere would still be ever present. Compare that to Resident Evil 5 which was a fun action game with a friend, but I was never worried about decisions or ammo and or item management.

I agree on Zombi U. It found new ways to recreate the old tools of dread to make a real survival horror experience. To replace the tank controls and fixed camera we have a much narrower line of site with the flashlight, first person controls, and the total vulnerability when going through your inventory. Resource management is also handled remarkably well, with the risk to reward ratio of melee battling being as close to perfect as its ever been in the genre.

Man **** you for reminding me of clocktower lol. I was a wee little babby when it came out and it scared the crap out of me. Sometimes when I'm driving at night I swear I see the shears in my rearview mirror.

That said, RE4 was terrifying in the first village encounter because it was so different, but after you learn the art of stagger to mob clearing roundhouse, the game becomes a lot less scary, with the regenerators being the only creepy element left. Coincidentally, they're scarier when you don't see them because of that damn noise. Imagine them in REmake. You enter a hallway running towards the camera, halfway down the noise begins, and a little while later he steps into the frame.

Nope, disagree. The player becoming overpowered killed the genre and nothing else.

A weak character, limited resources and enemies that can kill you in one or two hits is the bread and butter of survival horror games. if they made a game with mario graphics and characters and put a player within those gameplay mechanics even that would become scary.

All survival horror games slowly turned into Gears of war or something.

Players became overpowered through better controls though. RE2 had ways of becoming laden with high tier ammo, similar to RE4, but that didn't completely remove the fear factor. For example the tbfp RE2 playthrough: Even though Pat had become super powered with his ammo, he still fell prey to lickers and naked zombies, which probably wouldn't have happened with the RE4  control scheme.