Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D Message Board

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Posted by Joystiq Jul 28 2011 16:30 GMT
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Capcom has reported financial results for its first fiscal quarter of 2011, which ended June 30. The company reported sales of ¥11.95 billion ($153.7 million), down from ¥19.04 billion ($244.91 million) during the same period last year -- a 37 percent decrease. Despite the dip in sales, Capcom managed to pull in a net income of ¥338 million ($4.35 million), up by 58 percent from ¥213 million ($2.74 million) during the same period last year.

Sales of "consumer online games" fell sharply, with Capcom stating that Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Monster Hunter Freedom 3 and Monster Hunter Frontier Online Forward "basically" met sales projections.

Specifically, The Mercenaries 3D - available since June 2 in Japan and since June 28 in the US - moved 400,000 units. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade, only available as DLC for a few days in June, sold 300,000. Monster Hunter Freedom 3, still managed to move 100,000 copies despite releasing all the way back in December.

Meanwhile, Capcom's arcade sales were up eight percent despite the difficulties faced after Japan's earthquake earlier this year. Social games are also doing quite well for the company, cresting 19 million downloads largely on the back of Smurf's Village.

Posted by Joystiq Jul 05 2011 01:45 GMT
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If you've purchased a used copy of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and been thwarted by Capcom's bizarre save-locking procedures, hope is not lost. In fact, we've got two great methods to remove the save data -- if it really bothers you that much.

1. Toss the game into a campfire.

Pros: The save data is gone. Like, way, way gone.
Cons: Liquified cartridges are notoriously hard to insert back into systems.

2. Purchase the NDS Adaptor Plus, a doodad that can be used to back up save data to PC, and to eradicate save games.

Pros: The game can still be played.
Cons: Campfires are free, and the NDS Adapter Plus will cost you some money.

We'll let you ruminate on this one for a bit.

Posted by Kotaku Jul 04 2011 18:00 GMT
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#savingface The uproar over Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D's permanent on cartridge save files has caused Capcom to reconsider doing something quite that stupid in the future. More »

Posted by IGN Jul 04 2011 15:55 GMT
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Over the past decade or so, the second-hand games market has been slowly transforming the video games industry. What begun as a niche dominated by specialist stores like the UK's CEX is now a standard retail practice not just in game stores like GameStop and on eBay, but in supermarkets and high-st...

Posted by Joystiq Jul 04 2011 16:45 GMT
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Speaking with Capcom Unity last Friday, Capcom USA VP of Strategic Planning & Business Development Christian Svensson said that, given the upheaval and generally bad reaction caused by Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D's peculiar save system, it's unlikely that we would "see something like this happening again."

He also maintains that there was "never quite the malicious intent the conspiracy theorists out there would have you believe," and that RE:TM3D's inability to reset saves was a conscious design decision aimed at maintaining the "arcade fighter" feel of the title. Regardless of why they did it, it's good to hear the team claiming that it won't happen again. We're just dying to reset our Mega Man Legends 3 saves.

Posted by Kotaku Jun 30 2011 21:00 GMT
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#internlab So we here at Kotaku (and by "we" I mean "the Interns") were going to briefly demo Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D's Co-Op gameplay for you-but being the forward-thinking young professionals that we are, we thought, why not kick it up a notch? More »

Posted by Giant Bomb Jun 30 2011 19:00 GMT
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2 out of 5

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D--the first handheld RE game since Deadly Silence--faithfully captures the gameplay nuances and visual aesthetic of the most recent console releases in the franchise. Having achieved this respectable feat, Capcom has opted to utilize this technology in a supremely disappointing way: by recycling the content of an unlockable mode from those games into an entire retail-priced game. Less of a port and more of a compilation, The Mercenaries 3D dutifully recreates the Mercenaries modes from Resident Evils 4 and 5, and that's just about it. Even if you previously enjoyed the Mercenaries mode, you'll find little to be excited about here; there are no new maps to explore, no new enemies to fight, and you'll have exhausted the game's meager offerings before you know it. With virtually nothing new to offer and not enough content to justify the price, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is a straight-up bad deal at $40.

Wesker is cold-blooded.

This modern version of The Mercenaries was introduced back in 2005 as a feature unlocked upon completion of Resident Evil 4. The Mercenaries strips out the traditional Resident Evil story structure in favor of an arena-based, score-focused survival mode. Players will come to blows with hordes of Resident Evil 4 and 5’s not-zombies, trying to rack up as many kills as possible within the time limit. To maximize one’s score potential, players must quickly kill enemies in succession to build and extend a kill combo throughout the match. Completing certain score milestones will unlock the usage of additional playable characters, complete with unique weapon sets, which can impact the ways in which you can take down enemies. In contrast to the typical Resident Evil experience, The Mercenaries is more akin to an arcade game, focusing on playing and replaying short levels to obtain high scores.

Console-to-handheld ports can be tricky, and rife with control compromises, but The Mercs 3D makes the jump to the 3DS with relative ease, thanks to the fact that the modern Resident Evil games are built around single analog stick controls. Movement and turning is mapped to the circle pad, holding the R button brings up your weapon sights for aiming (and, in RE tradition, locks you in place) and the face buttons are used for shooting and utilizing context sensitive prompts. While the top 3DS screen displays the core action, the bottom screen serves as a quick-select inventory screen, allowing players to quickly switch between weapons, reload guns and use healing items.

In perhaps its most notable advance, The Mercenaries 3D finally brings the RE games in line with more modern third-person shooters with an alternate control scheme that allows players to move and shoot at the same time. In this mode, the circle disc will handle movement and strafing while the four face buttons are used for aiming (similar to the way shooters have been adapted on the PSP). It's not a perfect substitute for a second analog stick, but that’s the price you have to pay in order to bring a little modernity to RE. The Mercenaries 3D plays about as well as the series’ console counterparts, with very little of the gameplay nuances sacrificed in the translation.

Even on the 3DS, Chris Redfield has monstrous guns.

The problem with The Mercenaries 3D, however, has to do with the content. Specifically, there isn’t enough of it. All eight of the game's maps come directly from Resident Evil 4 or 5, and these aren’t full Resident Evil campaign levels, complete with the some of the best interactive cutscenes, set pieces, and boss fights found in modern action games. These are small, corridor-heavy maps that don’t last more than three to six minutes. The only noteworthy addition to The Mercenaries 3D is the skill system, a Modern Warfare-style perk structure where players can take up to three passive enhancements into each match. The skills level up as you accrue skill points from completing rounds, but the bonuses aren't so impactful as to dramatically affect your chances of success in-game. It's not long before you’ve exhausted the few available maps on the cart, and if you've ever played those Mercenaries modes before, you'll be familiar with virtually all of the content in this game.

As if to add insult to injury, you won’t actually get full access to the eight maps and eight playable characters when you start the game for the first time. Instead, players will be forced to complete a series of missions so disjointed that it does injustice to the word “campaign.” There is zero context for these missions, so if you’re playing through the campaign, you’d better really love Resident Evil’s combat.

The missions are almost all identical, and they don’t necessarily do the best job in instructing you how to deal with enemies or move effectively through the map. The only significant departures from the core Mercenaries gameplay are a penultimate boss fight against the Popokarimu bat monster from Resident Evil 5 and a final boss fight against... that bat monster again. That the game actually runs a full, unskippable credit sequence after the second bat boss fight feels like some kind of cruel, miserable joke. The whole campaign can be completed in less than two hours and and amounts to little more than a slog through soulless, boring content. The campaign problems are further emphasized by an awkward menu structure that makes progressing through missions more of a hassle than it should be.

Rebecca Chambers, as you might imagine, starts each match with extra herbs.

The series’ high quality visuals haven't had the smoothest translation to the 3DS. Capcom’s MT Framework engine recreates the environments, character models, and effects of the past two console RE games onto the platform, and some assets have made that transition better than others. Character models for the playable Mercenaries, the Ganados cultists, and Majini infected look sharp with striking animation and detailed texture work. Mercs 3D also utilizes the 3DS' stereoscopic visuals to good use with a pronounced-but-not-overwhelming depth enhancement that I was happy to leave on as I played the game. Textures in the actual environments, however, can appear blurry and muddled (not unlike the RE4 port to the PS2). The game's weirdest visual quirk, however is its habit of cutting out frames of animation on enemies in the distance. Enemies move stiffly until they cross some determined point in the environment relative to the player, upon which their animation fills out the missing frames.

The sound design fares even worse than the visuals. The Mercenaries 3D features plenty of music tracks and effects from the other Resident Evil games and those sound fine, but the vocals--from both Mercs and not-zombies-- feature some of the lowest quality sound recording I've heard in any modern video game. Though the low-bit rate recordings of the vocals may have been a result of low storage space, the vocals in Mercs 3D sounds like bad digitized voice circa the early 90's. It's awful stuff.

Not even Barry Burton's rugged beard can salvage this game.

The Mercenaries 3D also ships with local and online co-op, allowing you to team up and work together on maximizing your scores. Like much of Mercs 3D, the online functionality is identical to that found in RE5, though, like the visuals, it hasn't arrived without problems. In testing the game, lag issues popped up sporadically, resulting in enemies teleporting to new positions in order to catch up, as well as enemies taking too long to register bullet collision and death. In a game mode entirely based around skillful weapon and ammo management, watching ammo wasted on enemies that have already died can seriously mangle your strategy and timing. On stable connections, the feature is functional, but if you’re looking for online co-op versions of The Mercenaries, you should go back to play Resident Evil 5.

And that’s the reaction I come back to over and over again as I played through Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. If I wanted to play the Mercenaries game mode, why would I pay $40 for this handheld version when I could ostensibly get both Resident Evil 4 and 5 for way less? The gameplay in Mercs 3D has been competently recreated on the handheld, but it’s all to recreate an experience that is done (mostly) better and way cheaper on other platforms. Not to mention the fact that both of those games come with supreme single-player campaigns. If you’ve never played the modern Resident Evil games, you could pick up both Resident Evil 4 and 5 for less than the price of this cart. And if you have already played Resident Evil before, than the only worthwild additions in Mercs 3D are portability, a present-yet-inessential skill system and the opportunity to play as several characters who have never been in a modern RE game--hardly $40 worth of additions. Even on a platform suffering a from a drought of software, The Mercenaries 3D still feels like a bad deal. It’s simply too much money for too little original content.


Posted by Giant Bomb Jun 29 2011 21:46 GMT
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If you pick up a used copy of Mercenaries 3D, someone else's progress will likely be there.

You can't erase your saved data in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a decision that's provoked a vocal controversy regarding the rights of consumers and the issues surrounding trade-in games.

GameStop had originally started telling its stores to not accept the game as a trade-in, but a statement released to IGN said that policy had been reversed. VG247 contacted UK retailer HMV, who said it would not be stocking used versions of the game.

I've contacted both retailers for more details.

Capcom, however, was not willing to comment on any of this.

"It is Capcom policy not to comment on the choice of retailers to stock any particular product," said the company in a brief statement.

Capcom claims the decision to lock data was not made in response to used games, insinuating it's a technical issue of sorts. That's something many people have taken issue with.

"Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision," said the company, "so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer. In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users."

Capcom expanded on this response through its community site earlier today, too.

"There was no intention of lessening the experience of the game," said Capcom community specialist Sean Baxter. "Essentially, RE Mercs was treated like an arcade fighting game. You unlock characters, levels, etc and they just stay unlocked as they would in an arcade machine. There was no hidden motive to prevent buying used copies. It's not some secret form of DRM. It's simply the way we designed the save system to work with the arcade type of gameplay."

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D went on sale for the 3DS earlier this week.


Posted by Joystiq Jun 29 2011 18:40 GMT
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Used games retailers across the globe have adopted a number of uncharacteristic policies regarding sales and trade-ins of Capcom's one-save-only title, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. When news of the game's unrestartability first surfaced, North American Gamestops announced they would not accept the game as a trade-in -- a policy which reversed today.

Speaking to IGN, a Gamestop rep explained, "GameStop did ask the U.S. store base to stop accepting trades on Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D as we evaluated the save system for the game." The representative added, "Upon further review of the process with our publisher partner, Capcom, GameStop will resume taking trades on the game effective Wednesday, June 29."

Overseas, British retailer HMV has ceased taking trades for the title -- and EB Games Australia has apparently stopped stocking the game altogether. A representative on the EB Games Facebook group explained, "If you would like to purchase it with us then of course we will sell it to you, it will be a case of an order with our store." They added, "We made the tough decision to remove it from sale because we have everybody's best interests in mind, and don't feel its fair that you guys would be paying $60 for what is essentially a one use game."

Video
Posted by GameTrailers Jun 29 2011 02:17 GMT
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Is this arcade-style Resident Evil experience the zombie slaying fix you're looking for?

Posted by IGN Jun 28 2011 23:10 GMT
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Retailer GameStop has reversed its decision in not accepting trade-ins for Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. After learning the game included an un-resettable game save file, the company chose not to sell used copies. This has changed, however, as GameStop will now accept trade-ins starting tomorro...

Posted by Joystiq Jun 28 2011 23:30 GMT
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Capcom managed quite the paradoxical feat when designing the past two main entries in the Resident Evil franchise: It built the games' combat on fundamentally flawed ideas without making them fundamentally flawed. While other third-person shooters prioritized smooth, streamlined action, Resident Evil 4 and 5 deliberately hobbled the player's adroitness, and made holding off the oncoming zombie (or Ganados, or Majini) hordes a cumbersome chore. And it worked.

By severely limiting the player's locomotion, those core Resident Evil titles maintained the delicate balance between power and vulnerability -- a necessity for a great horror title. There was method in your sluggishness, as the player was forced to consider both short-term and long-term survival with every enemy encounter. Each indolent battle had context in a much, much larger campaign, and for that very reason, Capcom made a bad thing good.

Unfortunately, every last shred of that context has been stripped away from Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D.

Posted by Kotaku Jun 28 2011 21:00 GMT
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#gameplaypreview If you've already picked up your copy of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D for Nintendo 3DS, then you've also probably already played the preview of Resident Evil: Revelations, which is included as a special feature. If you haven't, the preview is about five minutes worth of gameplay, and it's a great peek at what we should be seeing next year in the full game. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jun 28 2011 19:00 GMT
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#ghostlysaves The inability to start fresh on a copy of The Mercenaries 3D after someone has played it was a design decision that had nothing to do with second-hand game sales, Capcom tells Kotaku. More »

Posted by IGN Jun 28 2011 15:00 GMT
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Ever since Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D was announced, fans of the series wondered if Capcom could pull off making what is effectively a mini-game feel like a full release. Introduced in Resident Evil 3 and enhanced in subsequent releases, The Mercenaries places you in familiar Resident Evil lo...

Posted by Giant Bomb Jun 28 2011 04:26 GMT
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Capcom says the lack of data reset isn't driven by used game sales, but it's hard to believe them.

Say you spend a dozen hours with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and hand the cartridge to your buddy, who decides he'd like to start from square one. Delete the data, move on, play. Logical.

Except...

That option's not included in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. There's a line in the manual that makes this abundantly clear:

"Note: Saved data on this software cannot be reset."

The narrative that's been building amongst fans is how this represents a move on Capcom's part to push back on used game sales. If you want to have your "own" progress in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, you need to buck up and purchase a brand-new copy of the game at $39.99.

As Tiny Cartridge points out, some Japanese shops are reportedly selling used copies of the game for very low prices because the data can't be reset, lowering the incentive for users to sell.

Capcom's issued a statement to me disputing this, however.

"Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision," said the company, "so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer."

If used games aren't the issue, what is? Is there a technical reason that's preventing them from including data reset? That part's not totally clear, but here's what Capcom said.

"In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset," said the company. "The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users."

I've followed-up with Capcom and will let you know what I hear back.

Regardless, if personalized progress is important, a used copy is out of the question for now.


Video
Posted by GameTrailers Jun 28 2011 02:29 GMT
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Barry Burton busts some serious caps in the Mercenaries Co-Op mode.

Video
Posted by GameTrailers Jun 28 2011 02:29 GMT
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Hunk shows off his skills in the Mercenaries' Co-Op mode on 3DS!

Posted by Kotaku Jun 27 2011 20:00 GMT
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#cantbeunseen Used Copies of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D might not be worth your money because Capcom made it impossible to for anyone to erase game save date from the game card. More »

Posted by IGN Jun 27 2011 13:48 GMT
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Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D - on sale this week - won't let players delete any saved data. The 3DS survival shooter doesn't offer secondary save slots either, meaning there's not a chance for other players to start their own games...

Posted by Joystiq Jun 26 2011 15:40 GMT
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It'd probably be more difficult to propose with a solitary princess-cut Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D cartridge, though. According to the above box-shot provided by NeoGAF forums user Vyse The Legend, it appears as though TM3D saves cannot be erased. This means that A) your actions in the game can never, ever, ever be taken back, just like in real life, and B) that your save files can't be reset by the frugal gamer that buys your old cart from GameStop.

Some speculate that this seemingly arbitrary limitation has been implemented by Capcom in order to discourage used game sales, and seeing as the Japanese version can be bought used for as little as six bucks, we can't imagine US gamers getting much for their trade-ins when the time comes.

Video
Posted by GameTrailers Jun 25 2011 02:09 GMT
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Attack the robed members of a possessed cult!

Video
Posted by GameTrailers Jun 25 2011 02:09 GMT
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Take aim with your bow and arrow! Break free from the nasty zombie!

Posted by IGN Jun 25 2011 00:25 GMT
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As crazy as it sounds, two new entries in the Resident Evil series are heading to Nintendo's newest handheld. Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D drops next Tuesday, and Resident Evil: Revelations is currently slated for a 2012 release. With two RE games headed to the same system, it's only natural th...

Posted by Kotaku Jun 24 2011 17:00 GMT
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#eyecandy This custom 3DS case came to Kotaku from Capcom along with an embargoed copy of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. More »

Posted by IGN Jun 23 2011 00:06 GMT
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After a long software drought, Nintendo's new portable is finally on track. The last few weeks brought us The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, as well as tons of goodies on the 3DS eShop. The next big game on the horizon is Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, which hits stores on June 28...

Posted by IGN Jun 02 2011 19:48 GMT
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It's become something of a Resident Evil tradition to provide alternate costumes for in-game characters. From Leon's pimp outfit in RE4 to Sheva's leopard-spotted bikini in RE5, players have had the chance to dress up their favorite RE characters in a variety of silly, cool, and even embarrassing costumes...

Posted by Kotaku Jun 02 2011 06:00 GMT
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#culturesmash Late last week, Capcom held a typical and somewhat ho-hum press conference for Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D in Tokyo. The bright spot was when heavy metal band Aldious took the stage. Unfortunately, they weren't they're to play music, but games. More »

Posted by Joystiq May 28 2011 04:00 GMT
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In case you were wondering just how many hired guns are jam-packed into Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D for Nintendo 3DS, this latest trailer from Capcom gives us a quick rundown.

Posted by Kotaku May 28 2011 01:00 GMT
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#watchthis Remember the time you gunned down all of those terrifying, pasty monks? Or when that unhinged fella with the chainsaw chased you down the alleyway? Man, that was really fun. More »