What happened to Dino Crisis? The Jurassic survival horror of yesteryear

Many old school gamers remember several video games that allowed us to know the legendary PlayStation in the mid-90s, thanks to this console, there are many video game franchises which we can see today, however, others did not have the same luck, being completely forgotten by their developers, as was the case of Dino Crisis.

Before the creation of Dino Crisis, a video game was developed which provided the basis for its creation, this was Resident Evil. The person responsible for giving birth to this project was Shinji Mikami, with a not so numerous development team he created the first video game of the franchise which was a complete success.

This opened the doors for the creation of new sequels, each of which was very well received by the gamer community, in addition to receiving excellent reviews from specialists. Thanks to all these details, Capcom would receive a huge amount of money in profits, creating an unforgettable saga in history.

After the release of Resident Evil 2, Shinji Mikami had in mind the creation of new projects, one of them was to make a spin off of the previous mentioned game which would become Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, and the second one was an adventure based on survival horror designed by him, but focused on a story full of dinosaurs, inspired by the movie Jurassic Park from 1993, that project was called Dino Crisis.

Dino Crisis was released in 1999 for the first PlayStation and became one of the best video games of its time. Its plot relates the events of an intelligence agent named Regina, who together with 2 other colleagues is conducting an investigation at a base located on Ibis Island.

When they arrive at that place they notice certain things that make the place a little strange, finding beings that were extinct, they were dinosaurs. This makes Dino Crisis the first survival horror to break away from the classic zombies and use the dinosaurs to enter a high quality survival mode.

Unlike Resident Evil, the technical section of this video game was superior, one of the things that stand out at first sight was the design of its levels, which were no longer made with prerendered graphics, they were now completely in 3D, allowing better camera angles or forming continuous tracks on the character's back.

In the gameplay also incorporated new things, the most relevant was to move while pointing the gun, remember that in Resident Evil at the time of pointing at an enemy our character was totally static, this in Dino Crisis was improved, giving a better experience in all senses.

All these features and many more made this videogame a complete masterpiece of Shinji Mikami, opening the doors for a future sequel which would reach the first PlayStation again, however, it would be the beginning of the end for Dino Crisis.

One year later (2000) Dino Crisis 2 would be launched, continuing the story of our beloved agent Regina, however, this would completely change the concept of Survival Horror, it was now an Arcade-type game in which we eliminated the dinosaurs by accumulating a series of combos or points that allowed us to acquire improvements or new weapons.

Despite the sudden change, Dino Crisis 2 was not a bad video game, you could spend hours playing it because of its addictive gameplay, however, the basis that gave its first title disappeared completely, the main cause of this was that its main creator did not participate as a director in that project, instead it was Shu Takumi who wanted to give more action to the game instead of suspense and terror.

Then in 2002 Capcom decides to launch a kind of Spin off for PlayStation 2 called Dino Stalker. This game would pass without any glory because of the horrible gameplay. It was a first-person shooter where we had to eliminate dinosaurs again, but in this case using the GunCon peripheral.

At this time the Dino Crisis saga was going through its worst moment, Capcom didn't know what to do with this franchise, instead they were 100% dedicated to Resident Evil, which by that time were premiering the GameCube exclusives, which had an outstanding success in those years.

Then in 2003 the strangest video game of the franchise was released, Dino Crisis 3, exclusively for Microsoft's new platform called Xbox. There was nothing good to say about this game, a futuristic space story with dinosaurs, poor gameplay, an argument that was separated from his previous games, in conclusion, a complete disaster.

This would be the last Dino Crisis game to be released on a console, suggesting that Capcom had no plans to revive the franchise, leaving it in total oblivion. Today many are excited to see the first Dino Crisis in the current generation due to the Remakes craze.

It's sad to see how an excellent video game and such an innovative idea at the time was totally forgotten by a development company. Perhaps the main problem that Dino Crisis had is living under the shadow of Resident Evil, comparing it to this game at all times. At the moment, all those gamers who had the opportunity to play it will have it in their minds as one of the best video games ever released for PlayStation and Dreamcast.

Would you like to see a new Dino Crisis? Tell me your opinion in the comments section.

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