Resident Evil 4 destroyed almost everything the Resident Evil name represented. RE4 is an awesome game in itself, but a terrible, terrible Resident Evil game.

Gameplay looks like Dead Island, which is not a good thing for a RE game. The other part with the family around the table was more to my liking, looks like a brand new direction, their recent turn towards pure action has ruined the franchise. RE 5 was a good action shooter, as a coop title anyway, but RE 6 was pure and simple shit.

Still hesitant to believe Capcom will create something worthwhile again with this franchise, but I sure wouldn't mind since I grew up loving it to bits.

Agreed as the series was going downhill before RE4 even people in Capcom didn't want to work on the series because it ran into a wall, RE4 gave the series a new boost. The only problem was that Capcom choose the wrong approach with the following games with the exception of Revelations.

Fair enough if you consider rescuing the president of the United States of America from some Spanish island while karate'ing some humanoid infected people, parkouring through some deadly lasers and taking down a whole military base with the aid of an helicopter the "very welcome upgrade to the series [...] still filled with Resident Evil atmosphere", but for me it's the biggest travesty ever and it certainly destroyed the Resident Evil name.

That is absolutely the same vibe I got from the trailer. 

You can like Resident Evil 4 all you want, but it's really, really silly to call it a "RE game on the core" when it's absolutely different than the previous entries in every single approach of its design.

I'm sure the series needed some kind of renewal after the brand was slowly dying, and that's exactly what brough Mikami to throw away his original design philosophy for Resident Evil and just go for the biggest action-paced angle they could (Scaryness vs Fun factor). The director himself knew just how much different Resident Evil 4 would be as far as it could ensue sales; that should really tell you all you need to know about how much RE has RE4 in its core.

But really, what is it here to discuss? I said Resident Evil 4 is damn great game. I see no reason why people should defend it being the game that destroyed what Resident Evil was because that's precisely what it did, though. Like I said, it's almost entirely different than previous games. No connection whatsoever to the overall franchise (EDIT HERE: I forgot about Leon's passing comments at the prologue regarding Racoon City) arc outside Leon (now being a secret US agent rescuing the president's daughter, lolwut) and random Ada showing up (Was Wesker even on the original GC game outside his cameo in Mercenaries, or was he half-assed added later on the PS2 version to at least give some more coherence?). A completely different gameplay system, one that rewards action more than careful advancement and dealing with crowd-control, coupled with a fully different camera system. A fully different breed of enemies, who for the most part are humanoids with conscience and capable of strategizing against the main character. Enemies dropping ammo, money and healing items. In-game collectibles that were made so that you gather even more money. A different inventory system altogether, one that could also be expanded upon. Purchasable and upgradeable weapons that add to the action-focus of the game (though I guess this was somehow started with RE3's ammo creator system). Quick-time event system, going as far as to even add some sort of QTE-boss fight (1st time fighting Krauser). And let's just not forget Ashley; the "protect your partner" system that added yet another layer of different flavor in comparison to its predecessors.

The fact that it was so widely liked and that it introduced a lot of players to "Resident Evil" further made it destroy Resident Evil.

It's not a "problem" that it destroyed Resident Evil, it's just what it did. You know very well just how if Resident Evil 4 had been named anything differently people would have never associated it with Resident Evil altogether, it is how it is.

Way to go in circles.

Resident Evil 4 is loved because it's a fantastic game to play, not because it's a Resident Evil game. It doesn't feel anything like a Resident Evil game, especially not when the director behind it fully knew he was making a different breed of game with a different philosophy (and for the most part, design philosophy is very important among japanese videogame makers), and even less when you realize just how much different it is from the previous games. Like I said, had the game not bear the Resident Evil name, no one would have associated it.

It destroyed it. People not enjoying 5 more than 4 is the result of people liking more what they played in 4 than what they played in 5, not the Resident Evil brand behind it, since it was already destroyed in 4.

Oh, sorry, I guess the circles started now.

It's not starting nothing, really, it's the way things happen whenever we discuss something. Regardless, I'll take the "Game director knew he was doing something different and approached it with a different philosophy, plus the actual game being extremely different to the previous ones, as complete evidence that this game fully disregarded the foundations of the franchise (heck, something Mikami ACKNOWLEDGES) - and by becoming the most popular entry, properly destroying it -" rather than your non-explained "an awesome Resident Evil game".

The series weren't killed, since more games were produced afterwards. It's just that the Resident Evil brand was tarnished and destroyed forever, since the most "representative game" at that point was nothing like what Resident Evil truly was.

To say Resident Evil 4 has a focus on puzzles is dumb, as well. The puzzle quality of Resident Evil 4 is laughable at most, and their presence in the game is barely meaningful (unless moving twice the Salazar symbol constitutes as a complex, hard puzzle-solving scheme); really the only worthwile puzzle I can think of is Ashley's, where you have to solve an actual moving puzzle. Exploration? I guess that'd be true, despite the game's linearity. Need to manage ammo? When enemies drop ammo themselves? Did you ever had any ammo problems in this game? Because I certainly didn't. And the game is balanced to actually calculate whether to give you ammo or not, so it's not like you risked being without ammo unless you were very very bad at the game (EDIT: and let's just not forget that the game becomes easier the lesser your % accuracy is). The heck is "the major point"? And what atmosphere, I ask again? The game's first minutes are extremely great, but then everything is throw away. Unless you can somehow tell me with a straight face that raiding a military base with the help of an helicopter, fighting some religious zealots in a big church and then some other weird shit, like going full speed while on a minecart (and making a blind jump to get to the safe point after dealing with some crazy dude with a chainsaw), fighting against some kind of superhuman dude who's keeping a medallion that prevents you from moving on, and let's just not forget the running away from a giant, mechanic statute that is trying to crush you, as "heavy atmosphere and feeling like a Resident Evil game", then I don't even know what to tell you.

The game just turned out to be so fun and cleverly designed, that's why it got critical acclaim; as every element the game is praised for is not what the previous games were praised for (further indicating just how vastly different and alien RE4 was to the franchise). There's no upgrade because the game disregards almost everything from the dogma of the previous games, so it's effectively destroying it to put something new and different in its place. Resident Evil VII can pretty much be critically acclaimed if it turns out to be an awesome game, regardless of its name (after all, this is not the first time Resident Evil has done so, look at Resident Evil 4!); would you call it Resident Evil when it does so? Or you just wait to see if it scores mediocre to say "See, that wasn't Resident Evil!".

But like I said, Mikami knew what he was doing, and the game itself is proof of it. We're going in circles? Try deepening your arguments a bit more instead of just saying things that don't really correlate on how Resident Evil 4 displays them.

It wasn't condescenting, this is the first time you're opening up with this discussion instead of making simple and short assertions, which coincidentally makes this not going into circles.

Before going on here, the analogy of Tidus is really, really bad, as I pointed out several gameplay sequences that are an integral part of the game (and the philosophy design behind it), whereas the thing you said is just a simple twenty-second video cutscene. Not a valid point of comparison.

I already made a reasoning backed up with the videogame director's view on it; there's nothing "fixated" on anything, and it is equally petting calling this out (might as well say we're both fixated, or neither, but can't be held one accounted for without the other since we fall on the same principle here). There's no essence here to be found of Resident Evil, neither in its action-oriented design (let's not forget the QTE staple added to it, which is yet another layer of player-action input), nor in the way the character interacts with the enviroment at all; especially not in the way you interact with enemies, being able to use not only weapons, but your body to defeat them, and resort to damage them in vital areas only to cause some sort of critical attack afterwards in a melee mode, just to name an example; monster bosses are also guilty of it, I'll go for it later. I'm not sure how you ran out of ammo at all, as someone who has beaten the game several times on the hardest difficulties, I've never found myself in that predicament. I think I've never had to resort to the knife save for breaking boxes or to try it around (never even used it to cheese the Krauser battle, even).

I don't really think how it made it more tense; if anything, the game itself realized just how goofy its premise was and rolled with it on its design. Big giant El Gigante thing? Just bring it to its knees, then press a button to see Leon climbing it and start attacking its root with a knife (though you can shoot it from below, but still). Later in the game they must have thought "what's better than one El Gigante? TWO EL GIGANTE!" and you have some really awkward fight on top of a lava place, cleverly placed so that you throw one into a pit. It's always the same, the game designs their bosses so that you always have some sort of action approach onto them. Salazar's bodyguard? Push around some nitrogen bottles. It? Drop the ground you're standing on! Krauser? Well, no point mentioning the Krauser battle, that's the goofiest of battles I'd say, especially since Leon can maneuver around him like he's some chinese action star.

I really haven't attacked RE4, as I've mentioned plenty of times how good the game is. As a Resident Evil, though? Nope, that's not Resident Evil. It is the downfall of the franchise in itself (because Resident Evil stopped being Resident Evil with it, and thus carried the name being something entirely different), but the good thing is that it is a fantastic game, so there's that at least. When you bring in a new game that bears absolutely no resemblance to previous games (and don't even bother establishing a proper link between them) and you can pretty much tell it's not the same if it had been called something different, then it doesn't really have much to say about how much it's disengaging itself of the traditional dogma and doing its own thing, effectively disregarding what was before it.