Now Playing: Resident Evil Remake

I played the original Resident Evil at release, and I played the original Remake on the GameCube in 2002. It’s a game I’ve enjoyed playing multiple times throughout the years across multiple platforms, and when the PC version was on sale recently, I decided to pick it up and play it through again.

Resident Evil is one of the few games I’d describe as a ‘timeless classic’ – it never seems to get old. The movement and shooting may be a little wonky, the story may not make a lick of sense and the dialogue may be absolutely terrible, but there’s a charm to the game that never seems to fade.

 

You play as either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine as they enter a mysterious mansion. Your choice of character will change various story and gameplay aspects, making it worth playing through with both at least once. Chris is the more ‘difficult’ character in the sense that he has less inventory space and unlike Jill, can’t rely upon the legendary Barry Burton to help him out of trouble.

Inventory management is key in Resident Evil. With limited slots, you have to pick and choose what weapons, ammo, health items, keys or puzzle items you carry with you. I’m not going to lie – it can be tedious when you have to backtrack to an item box to retrieve an item you needed but forgot to take. But once you’ve played through the game at least once, you’ll remember roughly what you need and where and can plan ahead accordingly.

 

It’s been so long since I played the original version of Resident Evil that it’s hard to compare it to this Remake. The game didn’t just get a visual overhaul, but many tweaks to gameplay and various revisions to the puzzles, plot and environments. The one thing I’ll never forget about the original though is the so-bad-they’re-good live action cut scenes, which are replaced in the Remake with CGI.

Graphically, the Remake still looks good today. The pre-rendered backgrounds may look a little fuzzy even in this ‘HD’ version, but the character models are still decent, and all the monsters you’ll be tangling with are clearly defined within the environments.

It’s not a very long game – even taking your time, you’ll probably have it wrapped up in six or seven hours of play. But with two characters to play as, multiple difficulty settings and a couple of ending variations based upon your actions during the game, there’s more replay value to Resident Evil than you might think.

 

I’m not sure what else I can say about Resident Evil. It’s the granddaddy of survival horror, a game that spawned countless sequels and spin-offs and a series of terrible movies. I must admit I kind of lost interest in the games after RE4, as the series shifted to a more action focus.

But the return to its survival horror roots in RE7 was a real return to form and seems to have revitalised the series as a whole. I played a demo of the recent Resident Evil 2 Remake and I’ll certainly be picking that up soon.

If you’ve never played the original Resident Evil I can understand why you might not take to it today. But if you’ve played and enjoyed RE7 or the new RE2 then it might be worth picking up to see where it all began.

8/10