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[VGEsoterica]

Sure Resident Evil will always be the king of survival horror games and a LOT of games in the 90s/early 2000's copied their formula...calling everything a "Resident Evil clone" never felt fair considering a lot of these games brought a lot of different concepts and stories to the table. Yet so many of these decent effort games just got written of because they WERENT Resident Evil

Enter Carrier...a total B tier effort from Jaleco...a company known for B tier efforts. The game releases and basically got eaten alive as an RE clone and written off to the "also ran" category of survival horror games of the era. Which is such a bummer because for what Carrier actually IS...it's an absolute cheesy B movie style blast of a survival horror game. Solid graphics, a fun movie style story, terrible voice acting (always fun) and some solid gameplay hooks and puzzles. But none of this EVER gets remembered...it just gets called an "RE clone"

But that got me thinking...what are the BEST RE clones? The games that whole cloth borrow the Capcom formula but make something wholly it's own that was much better than the "clone" moniker it was saddled with? Because I always love hearing others recommendations too

 

[VGEsoterica]

If you've somehow never seen Carrier. The voice acting...pure gold!

 

[Sleepwalker]

Always thought this was a pretty good re clone. A combination within old and new. Too bad it launched a couple months after RE4 and got blasted for it lol

 

[The Cockatrice]

I loved this game when it came out lol. That intro always gave me goosebumps.



Good times.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I loved this game when it came out lol. That intro always gave me goosebumps.



Good times.

It was actually really good for its time, I had it on the OG xbox and remember thinking the game looked so good. Played it a ton, alas it failed badly and the studio went under lol

 

[VGEsoterica]

Always thought this was a pretty good re clone. A combination within old and new. Too bad it launched a couple months after RE4 and got blasted for it lol

That's one I have yet to play. Def gotta get on it

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

Chaos Break! Got stumped on a puzzle lol but what I was able to beat so far...pure survival horror

 

[fart town usa]

Sure Resident Evil will always be the king of survival horror games and a LOT of games in the 90s/early 2000's copied their formula...calling everything a "Resident Evil clone" never felt fair considering a lot of these games brought a lot of different concepts and stories to the table. Yet so many of these decent effort games just got written of because they WERENT Resident Evil

Enter Carrier...a total B tier effort from Jaleco...a company known for B tier efforts. The game releases and basically got eaten alive as an RE clone and written off to the "also ran" category of survival horror games of the era. Which is such a bummer because for what Carrier actually IS...it's an absolute cheesy B movie style blast of a survival horror game. Solid graphics, a fun movie style story, terrible voice acting (always fun) and some solid gameplay hooks and puzzles. But none of this EVER gets remembered...it just gets called an "RE clone"

But that got me thinking...what are the BEST RE clones? The games that whole cloth borrow the Capcom formula but make something wholly it's own that was much better than the "clone" moniker it was saddled with? Because I always love hearing others recommendations too

Vampire Hunter D on the PSX is a great RE clone, quite possibly my favorite one out of the B-Tier clones. It's kind of like a beta of Devil May Cry.

Fixed camera angles, prerendered backgrounds, melee action, spells, items to collect, minimal puzzles, and voice acting that is worse than OG RE. It also has a really janky z-targeting type system.

It's funny too cause the game released incredibly late in the PSX lifecycle, at least in NA. I think it came out like a month before the PS2 released and it just looks rough as hell. It was also published by Jaleco but not developed by them.

It's definitely not a "good" game by any means but it's 100% playable, isn't too difficult and is only a few hours long. It has a fantastic OST also.

I have the video cued up so it goes right into gameplay.




I think the best RE Clone is T.R.A.G, I think it's called Hard Edge in Europe. This game gets constantly trashed and I have no idea why. It's such a hybrid of so many genres; fixed camera angles, prerendered backgrounds, tons of puzzles, multiple characters that you can change to on the fly (that's a big element of the puzzles), it has guns, beat-em-up style melee. It's just a really cool game and reminds me of Mega Man Legends and Resident Evil. For some reason everyone says it's terrible though.


video is cued up so it's right into gameplay.

 

[BlackM1st]

Cold Fear was great. Played it on PC.

Also, not sure if it can be called a RE clone, but whatever:

I had fun with it too

 

[PeterBazooka]

Illbleed for Dreamcast

So scary that "You'll shit with fear..." apparently.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

Countdown Vampires?

 

[Badlucktroll]

I had this on Dreamcast when i was a kid, didn’t know what i was playing or was supposed to do lol. (I think it’s still in the bin i threw all my dreamcast games in. edit: it is!!” Deep Fear on the other hand…

 

[SaturnSaturn]

Illbleed for Dreamcast

So scary that "You'll shit with fear..." apparently.

Trailers where so much better before, this is hype

 

[VGEsoterica]

Illbleed for Dreamcast

So scary that "You'll shit with fear..." apparently.

I love Illbleed but damn is it a frustrating and confusing game

 

[BennyBlanco]

Illbleed for Dreamcast

So scary that "You'll shit with fear..." apparently.

This game was sick.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

For the time and being it was quite entertaining. I had fun with it.

 

[deriks]

Cold Fear was great. Played it on PC.

Also, not sure if it can be called a RE clone, but whatever:

I had fun with it too

Definitely no

 

[fart town usa]

I had this on Dreamcast when i was a kid, didn’t know what i was playing or was supposed to do lol. (I think it’s still in the bin i threw all my dreamcast games in. edit: it is!!” Deep Fear on the other hand…

Deep Fear is really cool, I was playing through it a few weeks ago, probably 75% through, need to go back to it. The combat system is really ahead of it's time for being able to move and shoot, graphics are fantastic too considering it's a Saturn title. The voice acting though, lol. Holy shit. RE always gets labeled as having the worst VA but it's light years better than some of the other games from that time period.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

So many little hidden gems on Dreamcast.

 

[Hydroxy]

This is a recent one. There's also a sequel in development.

 

[bender]

 

[Badlucktroll]

I wish Jaleco was still a thing.

 

[Beechos]

Blue stinger for dreamcast boy that game sucked

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

I am one of those few who like tank controls. Idk, just never had a problem with it. Doesn't take much time to get into it.

next to Carrier I believe Deep Fear deserves a mention as well. Both undeniably RE clones, but with enough charm and little tweaks to stand out.

 

[Duchess]

I was about to mention this. I only got so far when I played it myself, back in the day. Can't remember why I stopped. Either because the game overall was crappy or because the bit I was trying to get past was. Not sure

 

[bender]

I was about to mention this. I only got so far when I played it myself, back in the day. Can't remember why I stopped. Either because the game overall was crappy or because the bit I was trying to get past was. Not sure

I played it and don't really remember anything about it.

 

[nush]

Sure Resident Evil will always be the king of survival horror games and a LOT of games in the 90s/early 2000's copied their formula...calling everything a "Resident Evil clone" never felt fair considering a lot of these games brought a lot of different concepts and stories to the table. Yet so many of these decent effort games just got written of because they WERENT Resident Evil

Enter Carrier...a total B tier effort from Jaleco...a company known for B tier efforts. The game releases and basically got eaten alive as an RE clone and written off to the "also ran" category of survival horror games of the era. Which is such a bummer because for what Carrier actually IS...it's an absolute cheesy B movie style blast of a survival horror game. Solid graphics, a fun movie style story, terrible voice acting (always fun) and some solid gameplay hooks and puzzles. But none of this EVER gets remembered...it just gets called an "RE clone"

But that got me thinking...what are the BEST RE clones? The games that whole cloth borrow the Capcom formula but make something wholly it's own that was much better than the "clone" moniker it was saddled with? Because I always love hearing others recommendations too

He's a fact nobody knows, the European cover of the Dreamcast version is actually from a rejected concept art pitch for the cover for Resident Evil 2.

 

[VGEsoterica]

Deep Fear is really cool, I was playing through it a few weeks ago, probably 75% through, need to go back to it. The combat system is really ahead of it's time for being able to move and shoot, graphics are fantastic too considering it's a Saturn title. The voice acting though, lol. Holy shit. RE always gets labeled as having the worst VA but it's light years better than some of the other games from that time period.

Deep Fear is legit awesome. Terribly voice acting but 10/10 gameplay

 

[fart town usa]

I was about to mention this. I only got so far when I played it myself, back in the day. Can't remember why I stopped. Either because the game overall was crappy or because the bit I was trying to get past was. Not sure

Extermination is pretty cool, kinda janky but definitely worth looking into, I have a copy somewhere still.

Extermination is actually loosely connected with Deep Fear. It was initially pitched to Sega as a sequel to Deep Fear but was rejected, and some of the people who worked on Deep Fear also worked on Extermination.

 

[MasterDerico]

Also The Ring, Illbleed and Blue Stinger...All on DC!