Q: Least favorite creature?
A: Infected humans
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I was willing to accept a change in direction when Resident Evil 4 was released. As much as I love when things stay the same, you never know what else might be out there if you limit your options. It was the start of the more "action based" Resident Evil games, so a more intelligent enemy to go along with it made sense in a way. This certainly turned down the spooky aspect of it all, but it did provide more options when facing these types of enemies.
The human enemies that were first introduced were a nice hybrid cross of a human and a zombie. Ganado were slow, and primitive, using basic weapons like axes, sickles, maces, pitchforks, etc. But, they were smart enough to just be a bit more of a challenge than a slow and shambling zombie. They continued that trend into Resident Evil 5, and so it didn't come as a surprise to me when you fight similar "infected villagers" (Majini) throughout most of the game (in their many forms).
It was when they started to introduce the "heavy duty" humans where I began to lose my patience. When you get to the island in Resident Evil 4 and in the later chapters of Resident Evil 5, you start to see "military style" infected who have high powered weapons and riot shields. You also see the "Gatling Gun" Majini.. who much to your annoyance, never runs out of ammo. This was a game changer for me. An ever lasting negative stain on the franchise.
It no longer becomes about survival. It's no longer about that looming threat of a primitive monster who's coming to eat you. It becomes all about mowing your enemy down before they can kill you first. You have no opportunities for knife attacks, melee, or to simply run away to conserve ammo. The only reason these enemies are threatening to the "survival" aspect of it is because they require so many bullets to kill that you'll be hurting for ammo by the time you've finally managed to kill them. This shifts it from survival horror to a military shooter, which is not what I signed up for.
I was happy with Resident Evil 6 when I saw that there was an attempt made to include a wide variety of creatures, and that there was a return of the classic zombies that we have grown to know and love. But, I felt the same problems arising with the J'avo type enemies.. who were all some strange meshing of guerrilla soldier and insect. Even though I think a very honest attempt to scale it back to the level of classical Resident Evil was made, I couldn't shake my past negative experiences with how combat against these types of enemies had become. That ship had sailed, and combat against humanoid type enemies feels tedious.
