Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom

Resident Evil is a frustrating classic, its various systems a conglomeration of deliberately obtuse design. Back in 1996, I can definitely see where the appeal came from; however, the years since have not been kind, and in hewing so close to that original blueprint, Shinji Mikami’s remake fails to be a worthwhile endeavor.

The rot sprouts chiefly from the gameplay, its tendrils manifesting in multiple ways, beginning with the lack of genre certainty. Resident Evil made headlines back in the day for pioneering survival horror, yet you’d be hardpressed to guess that in light of the confusion on display. See, survival games entail avoiding enemies as much as possible whilst conserving ammunition; RE, on the other hand, gives you NO method evading foes for most of your playthrough: you can't hide, you can’t distract, you can’t even stealth past. Instead, you’re stuck facing zombies in cramped corridors that, 90% of the time, provide no wiggle room for maneuvering around, forcing you to either take a hit as you try and squeeze past them or, you guessed it, shoot the bloody bastards. If that weren’t enough, you’re often privy to enemies (Crimsons, Dogs, Hunters, etc…) who are significantly faster and consequently warrant constant skirmishing. Combined with the plethora of available handgun magazines (on normal) and you’ll never be at a loss as to which strategy to employ.

Some of you may be thinking well Red, what’s the issue with RE being more action thriller than tiptoe nightmare- if it works it works. Sure, but the problem is Mikami was not interested in going that route either courtesy of the number of handicaps he’s put on the combat. For starters, zombies take a lot of firepower to knock down, and unless you get lucky with a critical shot (+) or waste inventory space (much MUCH more on that later) on gasoline, you’ll inevitably have to redeal with them when they revive. Shooting in tight spaces with slow discharge speeds also gets infuriating as zombies are very liable to reaching you before you break them down. On top of all this, the pistol is utterly useless against the stronger variants described above, meaning you’re heavily obliged to pull out your stronger weapons if you wish to avoid a premature death; weapons with nowhere near the amount of collectable ammo as your sidearm.

As you can see, when both halves come together a strange in-between is catalyzed that’s far from enjoyable for either side -- the survival horror is too action-oriented, and the action horror too diminutive; you can’t go in guns-ablazing nor play hide-and-seek; enemies must be engaged with yet that engagement is crippled. It’s as though the creators didn’t know what schematic they were going for and opted to throw in a bit of everything, only to unintentionally spoil the broth- you’re not playing Doom and you’re not playing Clocktower, but their deformed offspring.

Credit where credit is due, every location after the initial mansion does greatly open up to the point where you can dash about (specific) enemies, but considering you’ll be spending at least 2/3s of your time in the iconic manor, it’s slim pickings in the long run.

Still, I might’ve been able to tolerate all this were it not for the sheer number of quality-of-life deficiencies that had NO business being there considering the GameCube’s hardware. The first thing you’ll notice are the many many MANY loading screens -- every single door, I kid you not, every SINGLE door prompts a fade-to-black animation as the game renders the next space, the limning taking a good 4-6 seconds EACH time. Should this have occurred between locales or even wings, I would’ve understood, but why the bloody hell do I have to wait for the f!cking closet next door to open? For a title released the same year as Sunshine, Wind Waker, and Metroid Prime, it’s inexcusable and feels like it was done purely as an authentic (read- outdated) throwback to the OG release.

Next are the short backpack slots I alluded to above. Now, as everyone knows, inventory management is an integral facet of most survivor games; however, REmake unfortunately makes this aspect more aggravating than tensive by way of mandatory occupation: that is, you’re only granted six slots and four of them are replete from the get-go -- your pistol, clips for it, a secondary ordnance, and ink ribbons, leaving a meager two for ALL REMAINING quest items/collectables. Why are those four compulsory? Well, I’m so glad you asked- on account of the unavoidable combat, you need your revolver; on account of brawnier foes arising out of nowhere you need a stronger weapon; on account of [weaker] enemies taking five shots/piece you need extra bullets for at least one gun; and on account of typewriters (RE’s version of checkpoints) not always having an item box nearby, you need ink on hand lest you wish to risk losing your gleaned progress.

As you may expect, all of this feeds into the third worst feature of the game; the sheer amount of backtracking. Having to run between chests and rooms turns into routine clockwork as you’re essentially only working with two free spaces, neither of which are sufficient for the countless quest items you’re required to pick-up, and I just don’t understand why the devs didn’t bother creating a separate placeholder for such trinkets. Inventory management should ideally be relegated to vital resources (healing herbs, mags, weapons/tools)- putting a cap on that whilst allowing unlimited slots for the others would’ve gone a long way towards making the game enjoyable.

Nonetheless, I know plenty of people will argue any horror stockpile must encompass every collectable, in which case there were still other options available like stationing multiple item boxes on a floor or giving players the ability drop objects (seriously, I don’t understand how this wasn’t a thing- include a disintegration contingency if you really wanted to discourage this).

We’re not done with the backtracking complaints. One of the grand innovations of REmake is the presence of locked doors with their own keys and unique loot, meaning you’ll often come upon chamber upon chamber that you cannot access until a later point in time. That’s all well-and-fine, but the problem is the map doesn’t indicate which key unlocks which (or even which room is which), meaning, unless you explicitly jot it down elsewhere (or rely on a guide like moi), you’re going to be darting everywhere like prime Usain Bolt.

Fourthly, there’s the fact that there're, as stated earlier, checkpoints, and not just checkpoints but checkpoints with limited save slots. I’ve never been a fan of their presence in non-2D platformers due to it being an antiquated carryover from the arcade era that doesn’t accommodate the lives of adult gamers; however, even if I accepted it as a critical component of the RE experience, throwing in a finite amount of tokens that waste inventory space struck me as vexing for the sake of being vexing. I get the intent was to avoid save scumming, but considering the backtracking and number of cheap deaths here, such a measure would’ve significantly counterbalanced things.

Finally, we need to talk about the fixed camera angles, a style that made RE stand apart from the crowd but appears out-of-place by modern standards. All cards on the table, I didn’t have an issue adapting; however, the shifting slants do get tiresome during firefights as the constant cuts can change your field-of-view to the point where a previously visible enemy is rendered hidden. I have no idea why Mikami thought singular rooms needed 4-5 perspectives when 1-2 would’ve sufficed: for fresh acolytes out there, expect the Taken 3 fence experience during exploration.

Puzzles constitute a large part of RE’s experience, and while not bad, the lion’s share of them falter in funness due to the aforementioned flaws -- some necessitate backtracking to get a key sited elsewhere, others contain lethal consequences for inputting the wrong combo (a particularly degrading factor in light of save states and healing material being few and far between).

Much has been made about the horror atmosphere REmake pioneered, and unfortunately even on that front things remain mixed. Because of the aforestated annoyances with the zombies I personally found myself more nettled than thrilled- having to dance around a table with a biohazard as I pushed an armoire or instantly evading a foe via clicking a door, for example, weren't scary in the slightest.

Still, I’d be lying if I said there aren’t some genuinely creepy moments and superb jumpscares out there, and I believe a large part of that has to do with the score (++) by Shusaku Uchiyama, Makoto Tomozawa, and Misao Senbongi. If there’s one thing Mikami and his team did masterfully, it was the sound editing as the music beats are superbly integrated into the game. You’re not hearing a constant treble in your journey, but rather specified cues that play depending on certain triggers (i.e., location, story beat, status, etc….). The tracks themselves are excellent, walking that fine line between unsettling harmony and sense of discovery (boss tunes being the exception of course), with morose bass instruments seeing a lot of usage. I was a particular fan of the trio’s save room melody, which sounded like a warped rendition of the Zelda theme from Ocarina of Time.

SFX is a lot more limited in non-cinematic scenes, with the baseline zombies boasting that stereotypical yawn pop culture has come to associate with them. Other enemies don’t fare any better, and I can’t say anything stood out: things are adequate, not exemplary.

Still, it’s miles above the horrendous voice acting here, which, alongside, the script, truly comes across as AI generated, and I’m not just saying that to make a relevant techno reference. Literally listen to any scene on YouTube and it’ll resound like one of those artificial conversations some user-generated algorithm concocted. Part of the reason I began this review with the gameplay is that there really isn’t anything to talk about with the story- a security ops team is sent in to find their missing comrades who disappeared after investigating cannibalist occurrences in Racoon City. Arriving at the venue, the members find their comrades dead, before hauling ass to the adjacent manor after attracting the attention of several Cerberus hounds. Following this, the group decides to split up, with you having the option to take control of either Jill or Chris; their stories offering some, but ultimately inconsequential, differences as they uncover the secrets of this abode.

It sounds like a decent premise, but the reason I say there isn’t anything to talk about is because of how awful the storytelling is. Your protagonist wanders around seeing and learning about the horrifying stuff that went on, but doesn’t bother commenting on it, reporting on it, or outright suggesting they call-in back-up and get the f!ck out of this place. It also never made sense to me why Jill or Chris were wasting time uncovering the secrets of the chateau when it becomes clear something dreadful is occurring and that their teammates are not who they appear to be (+++). I kid you not when I say the game has less than 20 lines of dialogue total, a good chunk of that deriving from the intro cinematic: no one phones in anything, no one acts like a professional, heck no one seems human.

And it’s a shame because the lore you find strewn throughout residence is absolutely enticing, chockful of stationary detailing a juicy backstory involving some inhumane experimentation and mentally ill scientists. If there was ever a pristine example of how to divulge a game’s mythos without being overbearingly expositiony, it would be REmake without question- I just wish Jill would have responded to at least ONE of these journals as they deserved some canon reciprocity.

Regardless, it goes without saying that I don’t recommend the Resident Evil remake. Outside of the above lore drops, there really isn’t anything enjoyable- the combat is irate, survival horror nonexistent, and QOL failures abundant. It seems clear the majority of the production budget went towards the visual redux as this truly is a stunning title that holds up in 2023: textures (at a distance) are stringent, interior design immaculate, and the character animations exact- I’m not lying when I say REmake may have the most naturalistic poses for its figures as your protagonist moves, climbs, and holds firearms like an actual human being would.

But graphics only go so far. Reading the Wikipedia summary will garner better delight than playing this title.

NOTES
-I cannot stress enough how beautiful the game is. Enemy animations, foggy grounds, and decaying wallpaper add to the atmosphere.

-Some artisan at Capcom found the time to program jiggle physics for Jill. Wish that same effort had been put towards alleviating at least one of the flaws.

+Yes, I know a shotgun aimed up can do a one-hit KO at close range, but that takes up precious slugs and serves to highlight the insipidness of the combat system- there’s even a part in the story where Jill (the person I chose) learns about crushing zombie skulls as a means of permanently stopping them and does EXACTLY that in a cutscene, only to be unable to do it during the actual gameplay (on that note, what was even the point in having an aiming system when it doesn’t help 90% of your weapons?).

++The hall of mirrors always left me uneasy, even when I got past the point of no enemies, and that most definitely had to do with the accompanying arrangement.
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SPOILERS
+++So it turns out Wesker and Barry were both traitors working with Umbrella to kill off all S.T.A.R.S units deployed to investigate. My question is, why didn’t they bother offing Jill and Chris during the MANY opportunities present to them? It made no sense to let them meander about Umbrella’s halls on the off-chance of unearthing the truth.

I will also say that Wesker’s voice actor (Peter Jessop) is actually quite good compared to, well, everyone else, but given his minimal lines (the majority of them delivered before his death), it’s ultimately a waste.
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