What makes a game "Survival Horror"? / Alisa Review 

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If me and under the mayo ever get into a fight, I’m bringing out a sliding puzzle to make it an easy win

I talked to one of the voice actors who participated in Alisa and he told me : "I received two instructions from Casper Croes about what I had to do : 1) you have to purposely do very bad acting. 2) your character must have a spanish accent and a voice that is close to Micolash from bloodborne. Actually this was the first time I had to do bad acting on purpose XD (and it was surprisingly hard XD) I ve send him 4 tests with different types of voices. Casper picked the second one saying it was perfect. I think Casper s intentions was to make a reference to the first RE game which had terrible voice acting. In fact I think that each area of the game has a reference to a diferent RE game. For example : to me the chapel and Albertus were a reference to RE4 . ...It was quite fun doing this voice."

"Puzzles of a style I don't like kill a puzzle game's flow" You REALLY need to take a step back, admit that it's just something you're absolute shit at, and stop using your own failings as a reason to knock a portion of a game.

The original Resident Evil holds a special place in my heart. I'll never forget the first time I played it at my friend's house. The cutscene where you meet your first zombie hooked me!

Good stuff man! With the whole Silent Hill not using a lot of the mechanics of survival horror thing, you gotta keep in mind Silent Hill was developed to be an offshoot of the genre called psychological horror. a new sub genre that Team Silent dreamed up. It used Resident Evil as an inspiration, but also went in a different direction with the gameplay. Regardless though, I'm just happy to hear someone in a video preaching the truth! RE4 will never be survival horror!!!!!!

Damn this was pretty interesting to see a ton of his opinions on different games all in one video

For me, the quickest disqualifier for survival horror is if enemies drop ammo

What? Slide Puzzles are my favorite! They have a general rule of thumb that you can follow to complete it, and once you learn how to, you'll basically be able to complete ANY slide puzzles you ever encounter.

Man, your opinion on slide puzzles sure struck me as bizzare. What do you mean there's no logic involved in solving them? Logic is exactly what you need to use to solve them! Even then, you only need very basic insight into how sliding puzzles function to be able to solve them effortlessly. You could teach yourself how to do it in 10 minutes and never have to struggle with them again! I generally agree with a lot of what you have to say regarding game systems, but I sincerely hope this section was parody, because man it was hard to listen to an adult whine about basic slide puzzles.

The point of a slide puzzle is exactly logic mayo lol

the term Survival horror seems weird when you include actually survival elements with elements like horror. Like is Project Zomboid a Survival horror game? It has Survival elements wayy higher than conventional survival horror and it can have some horror and a lot of horror with mods but the game itself is so much different yet honestly fits the term survival horror more. I feel like these games should be called resource management more considering how deep some survival games get like The Long Dark , Don't Starve , Project Zomboid etc.

Just seeing Resident Evil remastered just makes me wish we got that exact same treatment for RE2. I liked Remake but I just wanted the original game gussy up like RE1.

Fixed camera adventure games are really fascinating. It makes mundane, tedious stuff like backtracking and cryptic puzzle solving add to the feeling that you're watching a movie about a struggling protagonist.

Here are the most essential mechanics for Survival Horror: 1) Limited armament. You have just enough offensive power to be barely on-par with whatever the standard-level enemy is, at first, or even a disadvantage, though not an intractable one. As things progress, you have some breathing room of higher offensive power. 2) Limited Resources. You have just enough healing supply to prevent death if you mess up. No situations force you to take damage, however. Sometimes this greatly depends on your own Gamer Skill. You have enough munitions to engage in necessary combat. You MAY NOT have enough to kill EVERYTHING, however. 3) Limited Capacity. You must ration all space for Important Things, Healing Supply, Weapons and Supporting Ammo, and possibly more. 4) Dangerous Enemies. Even the weakest of them should be a serious threat. Stronger ones should give the player SERIOUS pause and reason to consider NOT fighting if they can. The balance should slowly shift towards the player, however it needn't actually favor them. 5) Puzzles. Logic-based ones should be favored over ridiculous riddles. Inventory Involvement should be used carefully. Riddles, however, can make more sense in the right environment or with the right lore. They should be solvable, and shouldn't leave players constantly stumped trying to figure out something that has no clues to it, or some way to find the answer. Here are the most essential plot elements: 1) Horrific enemies. Whether one explores the horrors of Man, Nature, Science, or Magic, the enemies should evoke dread, fear, or terror. Resident Evil used bio weapon Zombies and other man-made horrors. Dino Crisis used predatory Dinosaurs. Silent Hill _more or less_ used mystical terrors of incomprehensible Eldritch origin. Aliens could also be used, as could myriad other things. Whatever it is, the player should be made to fear dying by it. 2) Isolation. The character must be as isolated as possible. Fear is less intense if you have a team, or back-up, or even just someone to talk to. Isolating a small group, as was done in Left 4 Dead (an action title by most standards), can also evoke the same dread, if done properly, such as in Hard Rain, where the goal is infiltration, acquisition, and exfiltration - yet, the team was isolated, and failure meant immediate or future doom. If L4D 1 and 2 had been done as a cooperative Survival Horror title, this would have stood out as a better example. 3) Realism-within-Lore The plot elements should all make sense within the Lore of the game. If it's set in modern times with modern things we see every day, a high degree of immersive realism should be retained for mundane objects, to bridge the connection between the player and the character. Going "Hey, I have something like that," is a very immersive moment. 4) State of Survival Make it clear that the characters are hanging on by a thread at first, and must "make room" for themselves within the horror that awaits them. Establishment or reaching of temporary respite (Resident Evil's Save Rooms) is part of this, as is expansion of one's own controllable area. Something to give the Player a sense of progress, while still retaining an air (not a beat-you-over-the-head statement every five minutes) of being "in trouble" no matter what the progress. 5) Salvation as Goal Make it clear that there is an ending to this. Make the best ending, if you want multiple, to be upbeat and rewarding, even if the Lore dictates that, say, there's more Survival to be had, as a larger area is in danger than just what you saw (planetary apocalypse, regional mega disaster, city-wide emergency). Or, make it clear that escape means true safety. Give the players a ray of light at the end, a carrot on a sitck. Make it a tasty carrot, even if they're staring at a nuclear wasteland afterwards, or something. Make it feel like surviving all of that, that they just went through, was worth it, and either just saved THEM, or saved something more.

Your definitions of survival horror, action horror, and stealth horror are all really fair to me. Survival puts the emphasis on *surviving*, not just making sure you have everything you need in your inventory (healing items, ammo, and story items) but also to avoid combat and make it a last resort. Action WANTS you to get into fights. And stealth has no combat to speak of, it's *only* hiding and running away. Combat's not even a last resort. You are defenseless.

How to fix aim: Mobs should have larger hitboxes, and more importantly, there should be a time delay (fraction of a second) before the successful aim indicator "deactivates" so there's a grace period. This is not uncommon in games to make things feel smoother.

Playing Darkwood in those last days I can say that yeah, it feels very much like survival horror more than just survival

I legit thought you were trying out a 90s game, was pretty shocked when I found out this actually came out in 2021. That's really cool the developer made something so faithful to the time period its inspired from. I also like the angle you took this review. Nice video.

I can't overstate how much Mayo really understands all the topics he makes videos for. All of them. A lot of understanding goes into the old school, movies and games, and I can't praise it enough when most of RU-vid leviathans are all about "top tens." Keep it up man. I love your stuff..

I agree with you for the most part except the bit about slide puzzles. To me your argument sounds a lot like, "Dark Souls should have an easy difficulty because I can't beat [insert boss name here]".

Damn, just seeing clips of this game hits nostalgic buttons in my brain so hard. It's really a shame games like this stopped being made.

Yay, you took my suggestion! Even if by coincidance

Resident Evil 1 Remake is the GOAT. It's the shining example of the genre. Puzzle-y, tough, scary, beautiful art style, camera work. *Chefs Kiss*.

I almost jumped out of the bed when I heard Mayo talking about Outlast. It's my favorite game of all times and I really wanted him talking about it yeah, it was very brief and he didn't really said much, but it's enough to see what he thinks of the game. So thank you, Mayo!

Please play Darkwood, you´ll love it for sure and it is cheap

Also, Fun Fact: You can solve the RE4 slide puzzle in about as little as 5 seconds, the pieces are arranged in a hilarious way at the start where they can literally be solved like that.

I laugh abit at the the slide puzzled part. I feel your pain first time doing that shit I spent hours trying to solve. And when you bring it once you saw it your like "can't do it imma take a nap". I know that's not exactly what you said but it felt like it 🤣

I would really like to see you make a video on Darkwood!

I agree with Mayo, Alien Isolation is the only true survival horror game

Nice video. We are making a survival horror, RE inspired actually, and demo is out. Helpful analysis.

Lol i agree with everything you have said. I would like to see games stick to genres more. There are simply to many games out, so we really only buy niche games(unless ur rich). So sticking to a specific checklist of things should be staple when deving a game. Thanks for another good watch mayo!

Very early when Alisa had been released, I streamed the game. I noted the constant stun-locking bosses and later monsters would do. Get hit over and over cause you can just get stun locked. The final boss is only difficult *because* he stun locks you so much. So when I finally beat it, I didn't feel relief, I felt thankful that this obligation was finally over. I tweeted at Casper Crows about it, and they just said "lol git gud." 🙄 If this is how a budding game dev takes player feedback, I CANNOT recommend their works.

I've watched this video 3 full times now and I love it. Like you I'm also an afficiando of proper old-school survival horror. Isn't it a real crime that games like Alisa pass under the radar whilst Resident Evil Village fools the masses with it's "immersion" and total lack of exploration and decision making? I can't tell you how many people have told me that I'm missing the point of Village and that I'm being too nostalgic about the original Resident Evil game. When I illustrate the obvious flaws in Village I simply get told that "things have moved on" and "games change" - lazy retorts that do nothing to address the issues I've highlighted. You said yourself in your Village video that the franchise could be in big trouble because people will simply accept this crap until games ask them to do nothing at all asidd from follow the set paths and click prompts like a good child; sadly, it seems like they already have🤦‍♂️

What do you mean by "Slide puzzle doesn't involve logic" The whole point is that you need to think ahead before moving the piece to complete the thing

You, a casual: Under the Mayo Me, an intellectual: Beneath the Mayonnaise

Im also confused on what is "Psychological Horror" also. Some says it relies on jumpscares, but I dont consider it a Psychological Horror itself.

Another great video, and I'm glad you took time to discuss more about the Survival Horror genre and how it's quite overrused as a term when games are not about survival. Thinking about RE, have you played the first "The Evil Within" ? If not, I recommend it to you, it has many similarities to RE4 and the first game at least is worth your time I think :D

slide puzzles are some of the most fun puzzles

Have you ever played Propagation: Paradise Hotel? It's a VR survival horror, heavily inspired by RE1. You need to scrounge for ammo, health, and batteries for your flashlight, enemies don't drop resources, and it has a heavy emphasis on exploring a large hotel with tons of rooms. It's a pretty short game, so there's a small handful of puzzles, but they were pretty cool from what I remember (there's no sliding puzzle).

I found this video thanks to my friend. I understand your points and why you make this video in this first place. Thank you, have a nice day.

The more I listen to you talk about the exploration, item based progression and map reliance mechanics you like in survival horror games the more I want you to give metroidvania games a shot.

What makes a game a survival horror ? *Shinji Mikami* !

One interesting idea to explore is knowledge. I mean character's awareness of the world around him/her. I might be wrong, but i think in RE1 remake you need to manually use a key if you haven't examined it. And if you examine it and learn that it's a particular key (Sword Key, for example) - then the game will automatically unlock doors matching that key upon interaction. If not - that would make a perfect sense then to have such feature in a game. Something similar might be interesting to do to certain puzzle pieces. Who in their right mind would pick up a wooden emblem the size of a human head in a situation like Resident Evil and carry it around just in case? But then you find a slot where this thing is needed or maybe a replacement for that emblem and now things start to actually make sense. Marking investigated items/doors is something I wish OG resident evil games had. Just a little note that says «needs an Armor Key» when you hover a cursor over it after you've interacted with it for the first time would make the game soooooo much better imho. Also something I don't see people talking about (sorry for off-topic) is how POW affects the perception of the gameplay. The way RE1 plays makes a lot of sense because you're experiencing a game as if it was a movie rather than an actual game. It's basically a quest with action and horror elements. The way guns in old RPGs (and strategy) games work makes sense because you're so «far away» from the character that upgrading a weapon skill (or a unit in strategy) feels more like upgrading the aim. Hit an enemy for 1hp with a shotgun? Well, seems like just one pellet hit the enemy in the ear, your character should learn how to aim better. Or maybe make his/her gun rifled so that bullets fly steady. In contrast, in modern action games with active control over aim, especially in FPS, gun skills and upgrades are just stupid. You lay down headshot after headshot after headshot, clearly seeing blood splatters from the forehead but still deal 5hp damage. But then you upgrade your gun/weapon skill and now deal way more damage. That's stupid and only works with cold weapons and melee because better sword means it's sharper and more balanced, allowing to actually deal more damage with less force. And the skill is literally the ability to properly hit an enemy. And I'd also love to see the time you take to «aim» actually affect the critical hit. Like if you aim an enemy that's a few meters away for a few seconds - then it's a headshot, otherwise the character goes for a body shot because it's easier to aim at a bigger target. They've explored it a bit with Chris, but in a different direction. He's a «sharpshooter» so he lands a critical headshot way more often than Jill. But Jill is an expert in lockpicking and that creates an interesting balance between two stories. This is more about «awareness» idea: each character has their own strong sides and weaknesses and it directly affects the gameplay.

In fact by creating a new genre off of one thing, it can help us categorize other PREVIOUS MEDIA with the same genre in order to not only better categorize them, but also encourage media PRESERVATION, which is a really good thing, especially if you think something old & forgotten shouldn't go unheard of, it can give us the incentive to preserve hidden masterpieces or things we already appreciated greatly, before the genres inception so that we can always enjoy in the present & beyond into the future! :D

TLDR : if u hav 2 survive and u scared (u go “AHH” a lot)

While I don’t like your video review of Alien isolation as some of the points you made were valid,most of it just came off as nit-picky. But I liked this video and feel that it is a fair definition of survival horror,action horror and stealth horror and how they are important to each other like without survival horror there wouldn’t be action or stealth horror,without stealth horror,there wouldn’t be a revitalization of survival horror and so on

I think Doom 3 should be classified as an action shooter horror Nowadays the term survival horror is saturated, anything that has a little bit of horror is called survival horror

I've only got one thing to tell you: Thank you ever so much for this video! This is literally everything I wanted to say about Survival Horror games!

Tbh I don’t mind survival horror rewarding action because that leads to more unique enemies that are harder but reward a player who takes the time to learn their pattern and find a more effective way to kill em I like re1-4. 4 was action yes but it did pressure u like horror survival horror at times and that’s wat I liked about it I wish capcom just did the same with re5-6 they had the action right but they didn’t execute the horror. Re4 in a sense to me is semi survival horror tbh I just like the idea of having some action pack character dealing with abnormal things while just only being at peak combat condition and experience it just adds more surprises and a better scare factor as u have all the options available for u but still are at a serious disadvantage if capcom just found a way to mix the horror of the older titles and the action of re4 but this time made the obstacles ur action pack character faces more challenging and make him entirely a normal person like u in comparison to all this u would get a lot of horror from it. Like imagine u got to a new area with enemies that are dangerous u can use ur skills with ur action packed character to either avoid em or try to take advantage of ur skill to find a way to get rid of em without using too much resources. I hope some game does this or brings back the horror cause re7 and 8 aren’t going in the right direction one bit and ppl praising those games are just bad shit insane but then again this generation never bothered with the originals so idk

Ok I hate slide puzzles too. I really do. There was one in wind Waker I was stuck on for hours. But just because you suck at slide puzzles doesn’t mean that they’re bad for the game. Or that they aren’t fun to some people. They aren’t bad puzzles. They have solutions. And there’s people that can work out those solutions by looking at the puzzle for awhile, and they find the process fun and rewarding. It’s just type of puzzle we happen to suck at

One of silent hill's issues as a survival horror game, is that the enemies pose no risk to the player. All of them, including the bosses, are ridiculously easy to take down, even on hard mode.

is dead rising survival horror based on those criteria?

Being this harsh on the sliding puzzle was a little too unnecessary bro. Idk about your history of bad puzzles from other games but It’s the first puzzle in the game and simple so what? You want it to be idiotically complex at the start? Pretty sure that’ll turn off newcomers that want to play this game

Can we please have a top 10 worst slide puzzle playthrough video next?

“I hate slide puzzles” I do too. I hated the circuit puzzle in the RE2 Remake for this reason

Thank you for this video. I think the "survival horror" genre needs to be re-evaluated, because a lot of horror games tend to call themselves "survival horror", but lack the adventure game elements that I feel is closely integrated in the genre.

you can kill everything in the game in pretty much every resident evil game even without infinite weapons though.

I’d disagree for Dead Space, while it is combat heavy it’s a terrifying game and the Necromorphs are made too be tanky and hard too kill making the game feel very scary especially when it forces you too consider what you should spend on and use more, up until the final chapter of the game but other then that i agree with everything else, good video Mayo

My opinion on this is that survival horror as a genre is based on similarities to a title rather than its features. To explain this, I'll use the easiest comparison i can think of, imm sims. Immersive sims, was a marketing gimmick/self imposed genre that applied to one game(pretty sure it was deus ex), and everything stems from that game. System shock 2, made earlier, is often coined as immersive sim (and funnily enough a survival horror) as it has many similar elements to deus ex; the "emergent systems", RPG elements via discoverable modules, etc. Some say they are not as it doesn't accommodate player agency and playstyles, lacking a stealth unlethal playthrough, etc. Bioshock is inspired by system shock 2, and is also often called an immersive sim even though it takes out a lot of supposed "imm sim qualities", the sequels more and more turning into a simple linear shooter. This came to the point where, as described in the video with survival horror, certain features put into completely different feeling games, are called imm sims. These completely different games have features present in it's derivatives but not many with the originator of the genre. Some say plasmids and first person make an imm sim cause when they think imm sim they think ss2 and bioshock, others think that is completely wrong as ss2 is a survival horror and bioshock is an action game and were never imm sims. Survival horror has this problem, re4 is a resident evil game it's "inspired" by its predecessors, so it must be a survival horror, so dead space, inspired by re4 must also be a survival horror and so calypso protocol must be a survival horror as it's inspired by dead space. Even though it's so far removed from re1 that started it. Genres like roguelike have got out of this phase having concrete features while immsims, survival horror and metroidvania are probably going to have arguments forever.

This is largely akin to the “definition of rougelike” discussion - on the one hand the criteria seem logical, on the other it largely misses the point of the most basic definition. Eventually the concept of “rougelike” largely came down to the randomization between game sessions, and things such as “no permanent progress” or “turn based movement” mattered little, despite all the outcries. Furthermore it made the genre much more flexible and led to interesting combinations. For the survival horror it is likely to eventually be reduced to “it is possible to fight enemies but they can and often should be avoided”, because most of the criteria you described come down to “this is the first game/game I like the most in this genre, so the genre will be defined as games that are similar to this game”. FPS shouldn’t be just doom clones, RPG are not just Baldur’s Gate clones, etc.

Hey should have a pneumatic tube system set up for a resident evil game. Like at the bank. Send all your items to a main safe through tubing systems and that way all can be accessed from any chests, hell, set the game in a 25 story bank. That'd be cool.

You should keep an eye for SCORN ! It's a surreal survival horror.

The ending for the game left it open for potential sequels so it’s possible that we could see an Alisa 2 come out someday and hopefully this guy gets a team of people who are interested in order to help him cuz this game does have potential and PS1 style horror games have seen a resurgence in popularity thanks to games like Alisa which is based more on classic Resident Evil and Murder House which is based more on Silent Hill 1 and Murder House got home console ports to the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S this past April.

Hey mayo, your review and analysis of games are awesome. Therefore what are some of your favourite games?

I like your point about games like Silent Hill bend the rules established by Resident Evil but fit the Survival Horror genre, through when you say SH doesn’t have limited saves or inventory, you imply that there is nothing to those systems, while I’d argue that they find other ways to implement decision making. Since saves and inventory are unlimited in SH, the challenge comes from having save rooms in inconvenient locations, or no item box to fall back on if you run out of healing items. In fact, I’d say that is one thing RE4 has that previous RE games don’t (not saying better or worse); the fact that your main inventory is your ONLY inventory, and any healing items you intend to use have to be carried on you at all times. To me, the puzzle element of survival horror is simply about finding non-combat ways to challenge the player (you'll probably agree on that). Also, as someone who does not struggle with sliding block puzzles, and who solved the RE4 sliding puzzle in less than a minute on my first playthrough, I can definitely say- these things are a waste of time, and they belong in Professor Layton games only.

I still consider Dead Space and all of the RE games even the OG as a Survival AND Action Horror game purely because how it starts off a standard Survival Horror where you'll start off with limited supplies and you gotta manage your resource safely to survive and then by the second half of the game,you'll be swimming in with better weapons,larger supplies and better health thus you'll feel much safer,comfortable and that's where the moods shifts from Survival to a more Action oriented. Games like Silent hill or Fatal Frame is more lenient towards the Psychological Horror category because of its story structure,Setting,Atmosphere and Characters and it heavily relies alot on making you feel disturbed,anxious,dreadful and unsafe and most importantly the main twist of the said game's story where you managed to puzzle all of the main pieces and finally understood what the story is all about and then you'll feel this shock,cold and shiver down up your spine ...That's what make games like those Psychological Horror.You'll never feel comfortable by the end of these games and you'll be only left with wanted more answers and askings questions and then there are Stealth based Horror games,Games like Alien Isolation,Amnesia,Outlast,Penumbra are all purely Stealth based and you are 100% powerless towards any forms of enemies and you can't defend yourself forever,Games like these purely focuses on Jumpscares,Cat and mouse segments where all you do is just hide 80% of the game while some games adds extra flavor by adding some focus on Puzzle aspects.Not my thing tbh and they are my least favorite when it comes to Horror games. Long Dark,Don't Starve,Project Zomboid,7 days to die is what i call Standard Survival Games with huge empathizes on resource management and honestly there is no better explanation until you actually play it yourself.They are super complex while also easy to grasp into when it ticks,Plus it's for fun with friends and equally dreadful when playing alone. TLDR :- I Love how Horror games can be so unique and Diverse when it comes to Varity,It's like a Dish for anyone with a specific taste...No wonder it's my favorite Genre.

I really like old survival horrors, I think I'll give it a try. Nice video !

Thank you I needed this

Slide puzzles aren't that bad; they just take time. The one puzzle I absolutely hated was the one in RE2 remake. The one with the liquid in the 4 tubes that you had to swap around and transfer. The first time I played Silent Hill 1, I had no idea how to solve the riddle in the school. I find some of those puzzles to be brutal, and I'm not always in the mood for a puzzle. If it takes longer than 30 minutes, I tend to look at a guide. And I don't enjoy it when I do that.

I didn't grow up with survival horror. I grew up with Sonic, Mario and Zelda. Only in recent years have I come to appreciate the genre. I played the latest version of Alisa for the first time on my Switch a couple of weeks ago. I gotta say, I was really impressed with how well it turned out. The voice acting is most definitely intentional and a throwback to those old games. I even find a few of the lines, usually from Alisa herself to be kinda adorable. I personally really enjoy each of the boss fights and the enemy variety is surprisingly varied for one of these games. To the point that there are multiple unique enemies, encountered only in one location. The big guy in the kitchen and the giant ballerina duo for example. I also didn't have any issues with the combat. You can purchase an auto aim modification that really helps. I mean sure, in the beginning it's a bit of pain to get used to, but I only got better as I played. And I say this as someone who used the saber against most enemies. I even really like the idea of a reticle for landing your shots. Of course, I wasn't using tank controls cause I don't care for em'... Puzzles were also really well balanced for me. Whereas in Tormented Souls I felt there were too many and a few of them were much harder than they needed to be, I found most of the puzzles in Alisa to be confounding enough to make you stop and scratch your brain, but not to the point that you were ever stuck on them. They were the right amount of difficult, enough to break up the action and they weren't too pervasive, in my opinion. Though I'm with you on the slide puzzles thing. I don't like em' either. That one in Silent Hill Homecoming is pure torture! I don't find Alisa to be all that horrific, but then again I don't find the original PS1 RE games to be very scary either. I do think Alisa succeeds in creating a bizarre atmosphere, however, and I believe that can work just as well within the genre. Item management, while not as extensive as in the RE games, is still very much a thing. This is in the form of limited carrying space for weapons and also deciding what to spend your toothwheel currency on, which in a given playthrough can greatly impact how the game is experienced. This is greatly due to how many weapons and resources are slowly divvyed out. To get everything takes multiple new game plus runs. I know, cause I played through three of them in a row to get all of it. I really love how Alisa really incentivises the player with so many unlockable costumes, weapons and modifications. The Devil Wheel in particular has some neat little treats, including a life steal costume (by far my favorite) that makes repeated runs so much more manageable. In general, I really like the idea of adding costumes that boost stats in different ways, really allowing the player to tailor the experience to how they want it to be. It adds a neat lil' rpg like mechanic that I personally want as a staple in the genre going forward. Besides the creepy main dollhouse hub, the individual areas are also visually unique and very engaging, especially the funhouse. It doesn't last long, but I dug that "smoke and mirrors" room! All in all, I think Alisa was an absolute success in virtually every way. There is one thing I can criticize, however, and it takes no effort to come to mind. I could have done without the "stalker" enemy in this one. Not every survival horror game needs this element. Tormented Souls did it as well and I didn't care for it then either. The problem with both of them, is that all you have to do is leave the room to avoid it. In Alisa, there's even a noticeable change to the music to signal it's arrival. As soon as you hear it, just go back through the door you just came in through. You may or may not have to do this a fair few times before it goes away, which really just makes this "stalker" more of a pace breaking irritation than a genuine threat. Other than that though, I got nothing but praise. For such a quality love letter to the genre, and a genuine survival horror one at that, to come from mostly one guy, is pretty impressive. Suffice it to say, if there's a sequel, I'll be on the lookout!

Excellent video as always man, but what's your opinion on sliding puzzles?

i think you could call outlast and amnesia survival horror. you make decisions between running and hiding. there's pretty much no hiding in RE1, just running or fighting. cutting them out of survival horror seems to make it a bit too narrow when theres fundamental survival decisions being made in both. as well as resource management. a game doesn't have to be an RE1-like to be survival horror.

One scary thing about Alisa: a girl's first thought would be "who the hell had their hands as all over my unconscious body to dress 👗 me up like Alice from Madness Returns😳 ? Not to mention that it's hard to feel "empowered" when you've been "sissified" or "dolled up" .

I can get behind this, personally I'm a bigger fan of the action horror in Dead Space. But it's a good distinction to make.

Erm... what are you talking about how the game doesn't suggest a boss battle is coming? The Edminston fight has a whole large wall come down with a large machine in the next room and strange colors. The Edith fight has a giant empty room you have to walk across and a large petrified monster. Again, the garden boss fight had a giant empty room before voluntarily interacting with a strange giant figure sitting on a throne.

i know jill and Capt Redfield will always be Legends but i hope that many will never forget the infinite awesomeness that ALONE IN THE DARK a NEW NIGHTMARES is Ed Carnby is also epic Legends

Heaven Dust 2, I recommend that game as isometric Resident Evil love letter.

Great to see you mention Darkwood!

Is mayonnaise a survival horror? Loved the vibe and classic feel of Alisa from the ominous music to the classic bad voice acting. 😊

Im very curious of what you would think of Tormented Souls. Like Alisa its a love letter to survival horror but with some modern quirks, try the demo out and see if you are hooked.

i tend to play a lot of the nancy drew games, which are very puzzle heavy, and i agree on the slide puzzle thing, i always use a guide for them because my brain just cant comprehend them

I think genres are created when something is groundbreaking & popular enough to give us the idea that something like this has something to offer much greater than the scope of the original product/thing/phenomina, Resident Evil may not have been the first Survival game to implement Horror elements, but the developers DID combine elements of Survival & Horror really well & clever enough to deeply impact us with that very same strong appreciation we've had before about other things to define THEIR genre.

While I do agree with almost everything you said I do think that the slide puzzle rant is a bit exaggerated

I probably harped about this title quite a few times but I wonder if the panther style combat seen Splinter Cell Conviction could blend with survival horror conventions and agile stalker like enemies.

I remember struggling to play through SH Homecoming and as soon as I got to the slide puzzle I quit playing entirely lol

mayo, just wanna say you're a really cool dude. I don't agree with everything you say but you make great videos and you care about those that watch them. Bless You Bro

I think what makes a Survival Horror game a "Survival Horror" game is the emphasis on not handing the player any sort of power fantasy and actively discouraging combat when possible. That's not to say you can always run from things, but merely that everything comes at a cost. Ammo is not an infinite resource you can restock by respawning or replenishing through an infinite ammo chest, so something like WWZ or Left 4 Dead wouldn't be a Survival Horror game despite having horror elements and explicit zombie themes like Resident Evil; those are action shooters with a coating of horror on them. Likewise, combat is a necessity and should hurt your inventory as you'll either be spending ammo, health, or utility in order to get through sections; weapons are not weapons, they are extensions of puzzle solving. This is what separates it from something like Outlast where your immediate solution will ALWAYS be to either run or hide, whereas in Resident Evil or Silent Hill you can stare at an enemy and immediately have to consider what the wisest decision is; "I don't have much ammo but I DO have two nutrition drinks, it might be wiser to just take the hit and run past them... But I also can't see anymore enemies and this is a multi-turn hallway and I might end up taking more hits than expected... Maybe I should just play it safe and use my grenade if that happens...", this kind of thought process does not happen in other games. Outlast's decision making is frantic, sure, but limited; you will ALWAYS have to run, the only consideration is whether or not you're running in the right direction. And lastly, and ironically, I actually don't think Survival Horror necessarily has to be.. Well, "Horror". Horror ELEMENTS definitely have to be there, things to put pressure on the player and create situations that induce dread or panic, but not everything needs to be as stomach churning as Silent Hill either. My Friendly Neighborhood is a good example of this, it will certainly give you moments of panic and catch you off guard, but it's just not exactly scary.. Yet undoubtedly a Survival Horror game. These nuances are important to address because we live in an age where videogames have stopped being these niche hobbies for interested parties and bros looking to have fun, they've become commodified and at every turn corporate executives are taking control and trying to maximize profit margins at whatever the cost. Take Resident Evil 4, for example. It's NOT a Survival Horror game, for all of its other merits; it actively incentivizes combat as you are rewarded for it and there is almost always going to be a means of keeping your ammo stocked for one gun or another unless you are just an awful aim. It's fun, action packed, and does have a horror aesthetic or a few cheeky moments like with the regenerators, but to call it "Survival Horror" or even "Horror" would be stretching it a bit. Still, Capcom's upper echelons SAW how popular it was and for a good decade and a half THAT was Resident Evil. When Konami disbanded Team Silent, a team that succeeded IN SPITE OF THEM, the first thing they did was try to chase the big bucks with the Silent Hill movie, Origins on the PSP which they'd hoped to pick up more traction but never did, and Homecoming which released on all consoles only to then be followed up with Shattered Memories which (just like the movie) tried to rewrite the franchise. And you know what? None of those games are Survival Horror. Two encourage combat to better or worse effect while stripping the horror away as a result and primarily center around beating the stuffing out of your enemies (even with your fists like in Origins) and Shattered Memories just turned every enemy encounter into a running segment where you have to flee like in Outlast and THAT has been Silent Hill for us fans for the last 20 years. I would mention Downpour but it's probably the most forgivable of the four while still having plenty of issues. These nuances need to be talked about because Survival Horror is FAR from the only genre to suffer from this, because I am ALSO a Fighting Game fan and Smash Bros did tremendous damage to the state of Fighting Games as a whole all because people couldn't differentiate between a "Fighting Game" and a "Brawler". "But there's fighting in it", then Resident Evil and Silent Hill are "Fighting Games" too. "But it has combos", so does God of War. Fighting Games don't have platforming, random items, traversable dynamic stages, more than two active Players, death entirely determined by Ring Outs, etc. And I think this conflation with Fighting Games has done more damage to Smash than good because Smash is a fun game that everyone loves and the tournament scene just boils down to stripping EVERYTHING that made it unique away in a vein, prideful attempt at making it play like a Fighting Game... And the rest of the market listened. More Brawlers came out more focused on Esports than being fun, the rest of the Fighting Game industry honed in on a casual focus and actively dumbed down things lifelong fans LOVED for the sake of trying (and largely failing) to get broader appeal, free Supers and other flashy features that distracted from core gameplay ran rampant, etc. Not everything was an absolute disaster as Guilty Gear Strive proved, but we are only just now getting out of this period with Street Fighter 6 and this phenomenon hurt EVERYTHING to some degree; Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter (5), etc. if your mentality is "Why do you care so much", start caring more. The sh*t you love wasn't made by people who didn't care and if you want things to remain good then you need to have STANDARDS and VOICE THEM to devs either directly or with your wallet, otherwise you deserve every p*ss poor game and move you get.

So slide puzzles to Mayo are like the Marauders to Skill Up.

Hey Mayo, great video. Which definition of survival horror are you going off of? Ive seen so many "definitions" that are personal opinion, or are so broad that they're useless. Is there a specific article/definition you go off of?

Awe, the mayo can't ketchup with the young mustards and their slide puzzles

I might check out both Alisa and Tormented Souls once they go on sale. I'd like to see Capcom release HD Remasters for the classic RE PS1 trilogy. Maybe actually release RE Directors Cut with the original superior 1996 soundtrack and uncensored cutscenes.

Mayo :- Praises Horror games for having Puzzles based on Riddle Solving,Item finding, equence based,Mazes etc. Also Mayo :- Complains about Slide Puzzles and wants it to be removed from the same genre. You're lucky this game lets you take your time on doing this Slide Puzzles cus usually in most horror games,it'll give you a set tries of sliding till you got to start all over from the beginning or worse a trap will go off and ironically enough Slide Puzzles are one of my favorite because it gives me the same satisfaction of solving a rubix cube.

Long before you talk about this, I was wondering if Prey(2017) is a survival horror. Now it's maybe a YES, because it still has the same disign philosophy even though it has a structure of immersive sims. Roadway management, item management, puzzles, connecting spaces, high risk low payment combat and so on. All these elements make player calculate the value of every choice, and fell nervous about the coming things unknown.

Can't wait to see your review of Tormented Souls if you ever put one out

Are you playong the OG resi 1 using the classic rebirth? Bcuz if it is its amazing and for me you should try the og resi2 and resi3 nemesis using the classic rebirtj dll.

Would love to see you cover Subnautica since a lot of people reffer to it as a : Survival Horror". Good job on this video tho.

don't forget that the toothwheel curency is also balanced by SPOILERS...................the fact that the more stuff you buy,the more health the final boss will have.

Was anyone else surprised that the game doesn't explain how to block and riposte with the sabre? This was easily one of its best features and it's not even communicated on the button config screen!

great content man !