![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/yellowherbs.jpg\")
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I\u2019m not entirely sure what brought on this train of thought, but I was thinking about the\u00a0Resident Evil<\/em>\u00a0series.\u00a0 Namely the fact that aside from first aid sprays being a way of replenishing health, there are medicinal herbs scattered throughout the fast locations throughout the series.<\/span><\/p>\n Seriously, if you apply the growth of herbs to the real world, then herbs are pretty much the most versatile plants on the planet, as they\u2019re able to grow\/exist in not just Raccoon City, but as well as in the Spanish countryside, Chinese ghettos, African shantytowns, war-torn Eastern Europe, as well as extreme climates such as Antarctica and an active volcano.\u00a0 Oh, and pretty much 2,000 leagues under the sea as well.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But this post isn\u2019t to discuss the absurdity in how unbelievably resilient herbs are, it\u2019s really about how there\u2019s absolutely no consistency in which the herbs are used throughout the Resident Evil series.\u00a0 In later games like 5 and 6, there are actual character motions that show how they\u2019re used, but they\u2019re completely different from one another.\u00a0 In earlier games in the series, herbs are used in the menu screen, and therefore it\u2019s left completely ambiguous to how they\u2019re actually applied.<\/span><\/p>\n Regardless, I find it silly, and a little bit absurd that the series, despite it being entirely continuous by the same creators (for the most part), could never really nail down one consistent method of how to apply such an iconic and trademark concept such as medicinal herbs.<\/span><\/p>\n Quick crash course in RE Herbology:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, Code Veronica, Zero \u2013 raw and \u201cpaper\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Herbs in the earliest iterations of the series were left to the player\u2019s imagination to how they were used, as they were only usable while within the ambiguous confines of the inventory menu.\u00a0 When you find a green herb or a blue herb individually, they appear in the inventory as the physical plants.\u00a0 If used in this state, how is it used?\u00a0 Are Jill, Chris, Leon, Claire, Rebecca, Billy, Carlos and Ada eating them?<\/span><\/p>\n Imagine that, taking a few seconds out of shooting zombies or flamethrowing hunters or bazookaing lickers to cram a plant into their mouth.\u00a0 Like straight raw, they don\u2019t even get a chance to wash them or anything.\u00a0 I guess when you\u2019re injured or poisoned, and want that relief immediately you don\u2019t have much choice, but still, wolfing down herbs doesn\u2019t sound like the most delectable thing to be consuming regardless of the circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n But when you combined herbs, it becomes way more vague.\u00a0 Combining any two compatible herbs visually results in a nondescript piece of brown paper with the colors of the combined herbs overlapping each other now in some sort of liquid or powdered form.\u00a0 A full green\/blue\/red combination for some reason turns brown, for that matter.\u00a0 Regardless, this creates an even more ambiguous form that leaves the player clueless to how it\u2019s applied.<\/span><\/p>\n Is it eaten?\u00a0 Do Jill and Rebecca fold the sheet of paper like a taco shell and bottoms up it, like the remaining crumbs out of a bag of potato chips?\u00a0 The fact that it\u2019s a pile of matter on a sheet of paper have also led to a decade of jokes from people, claiming that they\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to be rolled up into a joint and smoked for their medicinal purposes.\u00a0 Ironically, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily an invalid hypothesis either.<\/span><\/p>\n But we would never know in the initial generation of the RE series how herbs were used.<\/span><\/p>\n Resident Evil 4 \u2013 raw and \u201cbeaker\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Resident Evil 4 is clearly revered as the game that reinvented the series, as the game was redesigned to no longer utilize tank controls and locked camera angles.\u00a0 In terms of herbs, it was also the game where blue herbs were dropped, along with the notion of poisonous enemies.\u00a0 However, RE4 was the only game to have yellow herbs, which increased the maximum health capacity of the user, whether it\u2019s Leon, Ashley or Ada.<\/span><\/p>\n Finding a green herb on its own still appeared in the attach\u00e9 case as a physical plant; like in all of the preceding RE games, use of the item was solely done in either the inventory menu, or if the inventory was completely full, it was possible to use them upon picking up; either way, there\u2019s no visual representation in how they\u2019re actually used.<\/span><\/p>\n Mixing any two herbs however, appeared in the inventory as a three-segmented beaker, with each segment containing the color of whatever is in the mixture.\u00a0 The beakers can then be used with two herbs, or can have a third one added prior to use.\u00a0 But again, it\u2019s completely ambiguous to how they\u2019re\u00a0 used, but at least the lack of a pile of powder or goo on rolling paper eliminates the age old joke that they\u2019re being smoked for health purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n Resident Evil 5 \u2013 herb spray<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n RE5 was the first game in the series to depict how herbs were actually applied: as a spray.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter if you were using a singular green herb, or a red\/green mixture, everything was immediately converted to a beaker visually, and when used, the player would spray it on themselves, and if your partner were close enough, they too would enjoy the healing benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n After all the prior RE games, after all these years, we finally had answer to how herbs are actually applied.<\/span><\/p>\n Right?<\/span><\/p>\n Resident Evil 6: herb mints<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Despite the fact that RE5 had\u00a0finally<\/em>\u00a0established a manner in how herbs were actually used, for whatever reason, RE6 decided that they weren\u2019t going to adhere to establishment and just go off in their own direction for really no discernible reason.\u00a0 I guess there is some logic behind it, but at the same time, it\u2019s not like the game would have been any easier if were kept in the same vein as RE5\u2019s spray.<\/span><\/p>\n But anyway, in RE6, the use of herbs was transformed into herb pills, or as I liked to call them, herb mints; because whenever you had to use one, it looked like your character would whip out an Altoids tin and pop one into their mouth while trying to be discreet about it.\u00a0 A singular green herb would be instantly converted to three herb mints, each of which would restore approximately one block of health.\u00a0 Mixing a green and a red herb would result in double the number of mints, giving you more health to restore over time.<\/span><\/p>\n Nevermind the video game logic of wondering where Leon, Helena, Chris, Piers, Sherry and Jake find the time to instantaneously convert solid plant matter into neat little pills that fit into a premade pillbox.<\/span><\/p>\n My guess to why this was the case was that simply spamming one green herb between two characters might have seemed a little challenge-reducing in the overall span of RE5.\u00a0 RE6 was notoriously more difficult than its predecessor was, and the fact that herbs in general were pretty weak in terms of regenerating health, since you had to spam the herb button repeatedly while evading an attack in order to get a substantial amount of health back, I think they accomplished their goal of nerfing herbs.<\/span><\/p>\n But still, they could have just kept it as a spray, but made sure that it only affected whomever was actually using it, regardless of proximity.<\/span><\/p>\n Nope, because nobody tells Capcom what to do, regardless of logic.<\/span><\/p>\n I wonder what\u2019s going to be next, if there is actually going to be another RE game in the series?\u00a0 With the original creator gone, as well as Capcom\u2019s publicly noted financial woes, who knows if there will actually be one in the future, but it\u2019ll be interesting how herbs are utilized if there is.\u00a0 Maybe syringes next?\u00a0 Or maybe it will be like\u00a0Secret of Mana<\/em>, where regenerative candy is depicted as nothing but a drop of water falling on your head.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m not entirely sure what brought on this train of thought, but I was thinking about the\u00a0Resident Evil\u00a0series.\u00a0 Namely the fact that aside from first aid sprays being a way of replenishing health, there are medicinal herbs scattered throughout the fast locations throughout the series. Seriously, if you apply the growth of herbs to the … Continue reading Resident Evil and herb application: can we get some consistency?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,15,39],"class_list":["post-37926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-observations","tag-og","tag-resident-evil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37928,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37926\/revisions\/37928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n