That's the thing, people that complain about the controls are probably trying to play it with a control stick, where the controls feel clunky and 'wrong'.
Switch to using the D-pad on the controller, and the controls just make sense.

Yep. Works better with "digital" input.

After all, that's what the games were developed for anyway.

I always thought RE2's opening section is Capcom trying to teach the player to conserve ammo and run away from enemies if they don't need to fight. You only start with one pistol magazine. That's enough to kill 2-3 zombies but you are already facing way more than that in just the first room. However, there is a lot of room to get around them if you run, thus you will probably subconsciously decide to do that instead.

This is a survival horror game after all. When you're given limited resources, it's important to conserve them, so it's best the player learns this straight from the get-go.

To this day I think fixed cameras with tank controls create some of the most immersive atmospheres in gaming.

Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dino Crisis, Fear Effect, Onimusha and so on.

I remember watching a live or a video essay, something like that, from Mathemattosis explaining correctly that we "do not enjoy moving the camera" in games, as it is no fun in itself.

You may enjoy watching the scenario - but then that's not enjoy moving the camera, its actually observing the game art.
You may enjoy moving your character with fluid movement - but then that's also not enjoy moving the camera, but feeling the feedback and control in a game's world.

Good made fixed camera (or cinematic fixed/moving cameras like in Silent Hill) with good perspectives focused on player immersion is just the best. I'd even say that fixed camera is good for many games that nowadays use player controlled cameras.

I know that fixed cameras is not the topic, but since those two, fixed cameras and tank controls, were normally tied to each other back then, it seems to me they are almost the same in terms of gaming design, otherwise some problems emerge.

An example of this is how in Devil May Cry, a game with fixed camera and non-tank controls, each camera angle change would make you try to realign the stick to the direction Dante would face and then see him spin in his own axes changing directions creating player confusion.

This didn't happen in Onimusha, another hack'n'slash, though, as the tank controls in that game is completely tied to the combat, aiming, blocking, and so on.

In the case of Devil May Cry, that's just first person movement. We control the character relative to our viewpoint which is constantly variable. In the case of Resident Evil, it's actual third person movement.

Most contemporary games are first person in all but perspective, they feature movement that is viewpoint dependent instead of absolute, like with tank controls. Not only have those classic controls schemes become unfashionable, but the whole concept of third person play has gone downhill since then. Folk love the pretense of third person, but prefer absolutely everything of substance to be done in the first person.

The funny thing is I don't remember the game being quite this hard when I was a kid playing it when it first came out. Then again I'm guessing I had much better reflexes nearly 30 years ago.

i think i replied to the wrong post here as i got off a flight from a con go into item menu Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Aim. use this. its an old cheat from the pc port idk if it works on gog it might be of some help to those finding issues with the harshness of this old gem if it doesn't work then keep trying, as for tank controls and fixed cameras? i dont know what can be done about that other then memorize controls in the options menu before you start the game tank controls are not easy son but once you learn em it will become second nature

Makes sense. In the end its a matter of player preference.
To me, using your explanation as a base, 'third person controls with third person perspective' (tank controls), to this day, feels more cinematic than any other camera design. Onimusha combat (which is TPS, as you explained) is so good and precise, but of course Devil May Cry 3 (FPS, as you explained) and above also have nice combat - but I somehow feel that Onimusha combat is more precise because of the tank controls - though one could argue that in practice the only thing that changes is the aim system in the end.

Taking Metal Gear Rising, for example, with its fluid and nice free flow combat rewarding player freedom and expression - the camera in this game is atrocious. Although being very fun to play, there are many instances where the forced camera adjusts are terrible. I'd say MGR would be much better with a fixed camera like DMC1, so the player would only need to care about positioning and enemy direction aiming.

"First person" games with forced cutscenes, which used to happen a lot in the PS3/Xbox 360 era, although trying to be cinematic, end up being unfun and annoying, too, most of the time, simply because removing the player control over their character for scripted cutscenes doesn't mean necessarily that the game will be more cinematic. If people want to watch a movie instead of 'play a scene like in a movie', they will just watch a movie. This doesn't necessarily happen in MGR though. Just explaining about this era.

Cinematic gameplay tends to be accompanied with player control over mechanically enriching real time gameplay action or build up of immersion. That's why Resident Evil HD Remaster (For GameCube and PC) feels so cinematic to this day with its camera angles and atmosphere to me.

Absolutely, games since the late 2000s have aged, and are going to age, poorly because of that. Some would call it the Call of Duty phenomenon, but it was also heavily influenced by Valve's ambitions with Half-Life 2. The former with its intrusive, context-sensitive animation interruptions and the latter with its drawn-out, "living" dioramas.

In the 90's, the main point of games were to be hard. Tank controls only take 20 seconds or so to get used to for newcomers, so it wasnt really a problem anyway. I think most gamers are way too soft these days. It's completely changed.
You wanna see a game that's unfriendly? Try beating MKII arcade version...