It's been a little under a year since I played through Resident Evil 4 for the first time, and while I am still incredibly glad that it served as my introduction to both this franchise and the survival horror genre as a whole, there's still some part of me that wonders how differently my opinion on both of these things would have been if I decided to start off with the first game in the series. Over the years, I've heard a lot of great things about the GameCube remake of that landmark title (as well as its HD remaster), and while I technically could have went out of my way to buy it for the PS4 at some point, I already had access to the director's cut of the original PS1 game through the PlayStation Classic, so I decided to go with that version. Despite how it pretty much singlehandedly created survival horror as we know it (even to the point where it coined the genre's actual name), I was surprised by just how easy Resident Evil was to jump into, understand, and have a good time with, and while there were some elements of the game that I really wasn't a fan of at all, my eight-ish hour run was still a pretty positive one.
For the most part, the gameplay loop of Resident Evil can generally be boiled down to either exploration, puzzle solving, or combat, and it's good that all three of these elements of the game were fun in their own ways. The first two aspects of this game are pretty much intertwined, as going through every nook and cranny of the Spencer Mansion and its subsections not only rewards you with more items to use during your playthrough, but also different kinds of documents that reveal more and more details about what is going on. Although the game only features a few different kinds of weapons, the action in Resident Evil managed to feel good while still making its combat encounters tense thanks to the limited ammo, steer-heavy controls, and increasingly powerful enemy types, and the combination of these led to several occasions where simply running away from whatever was facing me was the best option. Each of these elements of the gameplay were solid on their own, but what made them even better for me was the game's strong atmosphere, as the cinematic fixed camera angles, ominous score, and detailed models made the moments where Resident Evil was legitimately trying to throw me off guard work quite well while also having the minute-to-minute gameplay feel tense in its own right.
From a gameplay standpoint, Resident Evil was already pretty solid, but my favorite aspect of the game was easily its story moments. Despite how the actual plot merely gets the job done and not much else, the infamously bad voice acting and dialogue was what elevated it to the point where I really looked forward to each cutscene. Even when putting the classic lines regarding Jill sandwiches and being a master of unlocking aside, pretty much every line that the characters say is funny in some way without ever actually trying to be, and that made Resident Evil feel like a playable zombie B-movie (which, in my eyes, is a huge compliment). I had quite a lot of fun with Resident Evil, but I won't deny that some of its design choices left me with mixed feelings. For me, the worst part of Resident Evil was easily the constant backtracking, as the limited inventory space makes it so that you have to constantly go back and forth to swap items from the unmarked storage boxes that are scattered across the map. Having to decide what to keep and what to leave behind is an interesting concept, but its execution here felt tedious rather than strategic, and I much prefer the inventory management system that was used in Resident Evil 4. There were also some elements of the game that felt odd and unnecessary rather than outright frustrating, with the decision to limit saving your game behind a consumable item sticking out in my mind. Despite those flaws, I still enjoyed my time with Resident Evil, and I'm now interested in checking out the original versions of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in the near future.
For the most part, the gameplay loop of Resident Evil can generally be boiled down to either exploration, puzzle solving, or combat, and it's good that all three of these elements of the game were fun in their own ways. The first two aspects of this game are pretty much intertwined, as going through every nook and cranny of the Spencer Mansion and its subsections not only rewards you with more items to use during your playthrough, but also different kinds of documents that reveal more and more details about what is going on. Although the game only features a few different kinds of weapons, the action in Resident Evil managed to feel good while still making its combat encounters tense thanks to the limited ammo, steer-heavy controls, and increasingly powerful enemy types, and the combination of these led to several occasions where simply running away from whatever was facing me was the best option. Each of these elements of the gameplay were solid on their own, but what made them even better for me was the game's strong atmosphere, as the cinematic fixed camera angles, ominous score, and detailed models made the moments where Resident Evil was legitimately trying to throw me off guard work quite well while also having the minute-to-minute gameplay feel tense in its own right.
From a gameplay standpoint, Resident Evil was already pretty solid, but my favorite aspect of the game was easily its story moments. Despite how the actual plot merely gets the job done and not much else, the infamously bad voice acting and dialogue was what elevated it to the point where I really looked forward to each cutscene. Even when putting the classic lines regarding Jill sandwiches and being a master of unlocking aside, pretty much every line that the characters say is funny in some way without ever actually trying to be, and that made Resident Evil feel like a playable zombie B-movie (which, in my eyes, is a huge compliment). I had quite a lot of fun with Resident Evil, but I won't deny that some of its design choices left me with mixed feelings. For me, the worst part of Resident Evil was easily the constant backtracking, as the limited inventory space makes it so that you have to constantly go back and forth to swap items from the unmarked storage boxes that are scattered across the map. Having to decide what to keep and what to leave behind is an interesting concept, but its execution here felt tedious rather than strategic, and I much prefer the inventory management system that was used in Resident Evil 4. There were also some elements of the game that felt odd and unnecessary rather than outright frustrating, with the decision to limit saving your game behind a consumable item sticking out in my mind. Despite those flaws, I still enjoyed my time with Resident Evil, and I'm now interested in checking out the original versions of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in the near future.