Dino Crisis it’s a bit like pizza on a Saturday night: you don’t quite know why, but you know you have to eat it and you want to eat it. The title distributed by Capcom back in 1999 was, and in some ways it still is, one of the cult products of the videogame medium, resulting in a product that is as simple and genuine in its conception as it is complex and ambitious in its creation. After all, Mikami he never spared expenses and never backed down, although, in reality, precisely with the first Dino Crisis he had to submit to various blocks imposed by Capcom, which also partly contributed to the departure of the brilliant director from the brand . Net of that, Dino Crisis is one of those products that hardly go unnoticed. As a big fan of dinosaurs and the various Jurassic Parks, I can’t help but admit that, right from the start, the Capcom title aroused an irresistible appeal to me and, although I was very young (in 1999 I was about 12 years old), I gave a damn to be able to play it. In the company of my trusted companion in a thousand videogame adventures (my older brother), I let myself be carried away by the charm of a title that even today I would do anything to be able to relive with the same emotion and, although the subsequent chapters have not been able to maintain the level of the project on the same wave, it is undeniable that Dino Crisis is still a milestone in the gaming sector. And precisely in this regard the rumors, increasingly widespread (but continually denied), on the possible arrival of a new title themed or a remake of the first chapters of the series have become a real catchphrase. Will Dino Crisis Really Come Back? I hope so, and I want to try to make you understand why this series deserves to be experienced by the new generations of gamers as well.
Dino Crisis: the charm of an immortal title
The first Dino Crisis is never forgotten! No, it’s not a romantic slogan. It is undeniable how much the first chapter of the series is the most successful and most symbolic one, also thanks to Mikami’s supervision and to his revolutionary ideas, both on a technical level and on a narrative and thematic level. Mikami’s brilliant ideas meant that the title arrived on the market with a very proactive, almost revolutionary creative attitude, which is already a strong sign of how much ambition there has always been behind the project. Dino Crisis was a bit like the first ring of a career that later turned out to be incredible and was able to somehow reflect all the authorship of its creator. In the very near future, on the imaginary island of Ibis, the ambition and madness of a scientist – believed to be dead – have brought back to life one of the most fascinating animal species in history: dinosaurs.
For this reason, the recovery of the infamous Dr. Kirk becomes a top priority for SORT, which sends its best agents to secure one of the most feared criminal masterminds. Just among the members of the team in charge of the mission is Regina, the charming and resolute protagonist of the first two chapters, as well as a symbol of the entire franchise. Regina is a character who seems to be from a different era, which is why it has always been easy to connect with her and become her armed wing in the fight against the horrors of the island. And going right back to talking about the island and its secrets, it is immediately clear that this is precisely one of the cornerstones of the success of the first Dino Crisis: the horror, the feeling of impotence, that constant sense of danger that grips the player throughout the adventure, skilfully mixed with a story yes from the dictates of an American movie of the 90s, but still able to come up with various interesting ideas, thanks also to the great care placed in the cast and its evolution.
Dino Crisis 2: A less inspired, but still fascinating sequel
The dozens and dozens of game hours spent trying to take home the skin and at the same time admiring the beauty of a game world as fascinating as it is dangerous have meant that the arrival of Dino Crisis 2 was one of the things I most awaited in my life. I couldn’t wait to get back into the shoes of that character who has by now become a bit of a symbol of my videogame life, despite the fact that I’ve never been a real fan of sequels, even of the works I’m most attached to, and for I was even right in some ways. Dino Crisis 2 is an excellent game, but for various reasons it has not been able to repeat the sometimes visionary success of its predecessor. This time the development path did not pass through the hands of Mikami, who walked away from the project leaving it in the hands of the rest of the team, and in particular Shu Takumi who, among other things, decided to somehow alter the formula of the game, proposing a product under various aspects different but still functional.
Dino Crisis 2 has a decidedly more action soulin which the dark tones are felt more in the narrative and thematic line that accompanies the game than in the actual vision of the product, which also largely frees itself from those typical dictates of survival horror. The new chapter of the brand is a more dynamic and “caciarone” title but narratively speaking it retains all the darkness of the themes of the first chapter. This time the threat looming over Regina and the whole world is decidedly greater and goes beyond the borders of the island of Ibis, sinking its roots in far more substantial and frightening catastrophic hues. Although everything works properly, Dino Crisis 2 has however left a few “holes” too many, from different perspectives and, as far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t had the same devastating impact as its predecessor. This was certainly a first alarm bell for a series with enormous potential, but which has begun to lose its shots from chapter to chapter.
Dino Stalker: the non-sequel sequel (spin-off) that few know
It took about two years to see the series in action somehow return, albeit in a different way. Officially arrived as the third chapter of the Gun Survivor series, and therefore with the dogmas of a stark spin-off, Dino Stalker somehow set itself on a narrative level with the second numbered chapter of the seriesand more precisely with some of its characters and their destiny, which remained pending a few years ago with Dino Crisis 2. Being a title in the Gun Survivor series, the first major break with the past, so to speak, lies in the gameplay, which obviously here assumes the dictates of a purer first-person shooter, with decidedly intriguing survival horror hues.
Although the title is in any case more modest in terms above all narrative, at a playful level it has still been able to have its say, proposing itself as a sort of lighter version of what was seen in the main seriesresulting in a perfect mix between action and pure destruction, the daughter of a full-bodied variety of enemies to face and defeat with fewer thoughts and more desire to jump into the fray, among dinosaurs of all shapes and morphological connotations.
Dino Crisis 3: that third chapter that few remembered
Did you think it was over here? But no, because Dino Crisis has continued to exist in Capcom’s mind and desire to continue to strike the hot iron of a brand that has always been loved, net of what has been said above. This is how Dino Crisis 3 arrives on the market, which however, unlike the second chapter, marks a much more evident groove with the pastespecially at the narrative level. The game is in fact set five hundred years after the timeline of the first two chapters, but collects the pieces of the narrative framework of the series by carrying on that same terror towards the fearsome opponents, albeit with a completely different setting and environment.
Dino Crisis 3 is set in space, with the ship Ozymandias which becomes the theater of a new and more menacing horror, but at the same time also, probably, one of the most important building blocks towards the end of the brand as we knew it. Dino Crisis 3 struggles to create a convincing narrative structure around its characters, and despite having more tools (even in terms of technological power) on the play level, it can’t handle the impact with its predecessors, placing itself on the market as a decidedly more modest product and in many respects colorless.
Dino Crisis: what future for the brand?
For all the reasons and for everything I wrote above, it is clear that the love story between Dino Crisis and his community cannot end like this. Unfortunately, it is undeniable that the creature of Mikami and Capcom has taken on less and less convincing and pleasant features over the years, which is why the sense of emptiness that has been created over the years in the community of enthusiasts has grown dramatically. And, not surprisingly, despite the many years that have passed, Dino Crisis continues to be talked about, incessantly, with a very large group of fans (including yours truly) who are clamoring for the return of the series, in any way, as long as it is still a convincing return and capable of bringing the brand back to its former glory. To tell the truth, imagining the return of Dino Crisis, in the era of remakes and remasters, isn’t even such a complicated scenario. But is it really all doable? In recent times, the rumors about a possible return of Dino Crisis, precisely in the form of a remake or remaster of the first chapter in particular, have become increasingly frequent, although in any case almost always without official or at least unofficial evidence.
Capcom still does not respond to the voice of the many fans, ignoring the request of the fans for reasons that, honestly, we struggle to understand. Let me be clear, moving in this direction is not easy at all, nor can it guarantee the Japanese company an obvious success, but I am convinced that, precisely for the videogame era we are currently in, this choice could be more than successful. To tell the truth, many enthusiasts would be satisfied and would have been satisfied even with a simple inclusion in the catalog of titles of the great classics on PlayStation Plus Extra, another rather frequent rumor in recent months and always denied. In short, it always seems that something is bound to go wrong when it comes to Dino Crisis, but I do not lose hope. On the other hand, in recent years Capcom has been demonstrating that it knows how to work very well, with its times and its ways, and that it always knows how to resurrect the ashes and I am convinced that, sooner or later, the screech of the velociraptors that I and we miss most will come back stronger than before, and it doesn’t matter if it will be a remake or a remaster. We need Dino Crisis, and I’m sure one day they will too!
