Played in anticipation of the remake and it's just a total blast from start to finish. You can feel the trailblazing done with the over-the-shoulder third-person perspective and aiming style; wonderful transition of the series into 3D. Tank controls seem like they'd be a nuisance with the environment and movement system here but the game, enemies, and loot are designed around them beautifully.
Every single gun is both viable and fun to use, which makes longer engagements quite fun as you switch out weapons quickly through the inventory. Because of the combat pacing here, inventory switching felt almost humorous, giving the sense of actually setting a briefcase down on the battlefield to switch guns every two or so shots depending on the engagement. There are actually very few enemies that exist as bullet sponges, so Leon feels especially powerful.
The script and character writing is perfectly aware and campy fun, with the level design really shining in the village. The game slowly transforms into a straight action shooter but the team shows they still knows horror. There are even a couple moments as late as island that ramp the horror up a bit in the lab with the Regenerators.
For a 20 hour game, the pacing is mostly pretty great, only fizzling out towards the end of Island, despite Castle being relatively long. Shooting, looting, buying, and even just moving feels fun here in a way very few games achieve. Also, a shoutout to the most high-effort HD fan project I've ever seen. It was incredible playing through with it.
Every single gun is both viable and fun to use, which makes longer engagements quite fun as you switch out weapons quickly through the inventory. Because of the combat pacing here, inventory switching felt almost humorous, giving the sense of actually setting a briefcase down on the battlefield to switch guns every two or so shots depending on the engagement. There are actually very few enemies that exist as bullet sponges, so Leon feels especially powerful.
The script and character writing is perfectly aware and campy fun, with the level design really shining in the village. The game slowly transforms into a straight action shooter but the team shows they still knows horror. There are even a couple moments as late as island that ramp the horror up a bit in the lab with the Regenerators.
For a 20 hour game, the pacing is mostly pretty great, only fizzling out towards the end of Island, despite Castle being relatively long. Shooting, looting, buying, and even just moving feels fun here in a way very few games achieve. Also, a shoutout to the most high-effort HD fan project I've ever seen. It was incredible playing through with it.