Capcom developer Koji Oda is currently hard at work onMega Man 11, but he started his career working on classics likeSuper Ghouls ‘n Ghostsand even the firstResident Evilgame. Now Oda has revealed that the firstResident Evilgame was originally in development for the Super Nintendo instead of Sony’s PlayStation.
Oda revealed this to Game Informer, which visited Capcom’s offices in Japan to cover theMega Man 11announcement. Besides revealing the game’s original console, Oda also let slip some other interesting tidbits about the early development of the survival-horror game that would come to be known asResident Evil.
According to Oda,Resident Evilfor the SNES was set in a “hellish place,” as opposed to the realistic mansion setting used in the final game. Oda also pointed out that the limited hard drive space on the SNES meant that the team couldn’t create the cheesy cut-scenes that helped createResident Evil’s B-movie atmosphere. Ultimately, development on the project - then known by its codename “Horror Game” - would move from the SNES to the PlayStation, resulting in theResident Evilwe know today.
“If we had actually completed it on the SNES, I’m sure it would have been considerably different,” Oda said. Oda doesn’t elaborate on this point beyond the different settings, but since the game was originally conceived as a successor toCapcom’s Famicom horror gameSweet Home, one has to imagine that the gameplay would have been more in line with that title.
SinceSweet Homenever released outside of Japan, some fans may be curious about how it played.Sweet Homeactually shares many common gameplay elements withResident Evil, including resource management and puzzle solving. However, the key difference between the two games is the way players fight enemies, withResident Evilbeing a third-person shooter andSweet Homeusing turn-based RPG combat.
At the end of the day, it’s probably a good thing that development onResident Eviltransitioned from the SNES to the PS1. After all, the Super Nintendo’s hardware limitations would have meant that some of the game’s classic cut-scene moments would never have materialized, and it’s possible it wouldn’t have developed such a dedicated fan base as a result.
Resident Evilis available now for PC, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo DS.
