We celebrate 23 years of Dino Crisis, the beloved dinosaur horror series, with 5 interesting themed trivia.
Dino Crisis turns 23! The famous Capcom saga conceived by Shinji Mikami, the father of Resident Evil, debuted on July 1, 1999 in Japan, and then appeared a few months later on the North American and European shelves.Today, this title could say very little to younger players. but in the golden age of survival horror, Dino Crisis caused quite a stir, thanks to the presence of a concept capable of combining the classic mechanics of the genre with the iconographic suggestions coming from films of the caliber of Jurassic Park.
After the publication of two sequels and a spin-off, the series was definitively shelved in 2003. Yet there are still those who are still clamoring for a return of Regina’s adventures , even if only to be able to breathe those same atmospheres again, in a modern key and with the power of the new generation consoles.
To celebrate more than two decades of one of the most beloved cult games of all time, we have collected 5 curiosities about the history of Dino Crisis for you.
References to Jurassic Park
After the release of Resident Evil and its sequel, Shinji Mikami decided to devote himself to a totally new project. At the time, the survival horror genre was depopulating and the players wanted even more, but Mikami had no intention of reviving a title in zombie sauce, so he decided to focus on something new.
The inspiration came from Jurassik Park , a film that perfectly mirrored his intentions, which was to lock up a poor victim in a place where cunning, gigantic and ferocious predators would hunt her down. So in 1999, came what was considered to all intents and purposes as a strongly horror response to the adventures brought to the big screen by Steven Spielberg a few years earlier.
The similarities between Dino Crisis and Steven Spielberg’s film work stand out more in the settings and in some elements of the plot. Although these are fundamentally different stories (in Jurassic Park the dinosaurs are genetically created while in Dino Crisis they are teleported from the past), they both blend science and high technology with the myth of the dinosaurs.In addition, both narrate in a different way an adventure full of action and adrenaline in which characters of the present time face creatures from the Jurassic. The similarities are also confirmed by some episodes during the game, like when in the first Dino Crisis there is a line of the character Rick who at one point says: “ I feel like I’m in a movie “.
Dino Crisis? “A Resident Evil with Dinosaurs”!
When Dino Crisis debuted on PlayStation, many people noticed the presence of strong similarities with Resident Evil , both for the formula and for the atmosphere, capable of recalling the sensations experienced in the corridors of Villa Spencer. Of course, Regina’s movements were slightly more dynamic than those of the Resident Evil characters, for example there was the possibility of moving and aiming the weapon simultaneously and instantly turning 180 °, and some narrative crossroads were inserted to push to replaying the adventure several times to see all the endings, this was not enough to prevent the press from defining Dino Crisis as a trivial “Resident Evil with dinosaurs”
Regina and mistress Alex
An alternate version of Dino Crisis 2’s ending was for Regina to emerge from the Time Gate to jump into the arms of her lover Alex , a SORT officer. The developers imagined the scene with Regina running into the arms of her lover, kissing him intensely after surviving a real Jurassic hell. The team dubbed this ending ” Kiss Demon “. As we know, however, the idea was later discarded in favor of a completely different ending.
Shinji Mikami called Dino Crisis a “Panic Horror”
When Mikami conceived Dino Crisis, his idea was to move away from the traditional concept of survival horror to embrace a genre that he himself called “panic horror” : the game, in fact, should have kept the player in a constant state of tension. Mikami stated that Dino Crisis for him had to be like a roller coaster ride and for this reason he chose to forgo the pre-rendered backgrounds of Resident Evil to employ a real-time graphics engine that could allow him to experiment more with directing, abandoning in certain circumstances. fixed shots in favor of greater dynamism.
The creators of Dead Rising were about to make a new Dino Crisis
It appears that a new chapter in the Dino Crisis series was in the works at Capcom Vancouver prior to its closure. According to reports from Game History Secrets, the Dead Rising studio had at least seven new titles in the pipeline, including some projects related to old Capcom IPs. Some developers have reported that between 2013 and 2014 a series of bankruptcy projects were presented at the Japanese headquarters of Capcom. Among these is also the new Dino Crisis.
The project, however, never went beyond the creative phase and was rejected by the Japanese office after two months of work. According to the reports, the developers did not believe that Capcom would invest in the technology required to carry out the project.