An excellent game. It's a great example of crafted game-making. The art and sound design are well suited to the game, and whilst the UI does get a touch cluttered, and some movement is clunky it hangs together very well. Text size could be bigger - playing on the Steam Deck via a TV required frequent use of the magnifying glass. The puzzles are quite varied and rarely too difficult. The immersion is pretty much there, with just a few unanswered questions. My only criticism really is that as the game progresses your botanical knowledge increases and some puzzles require reading through this data which takes more time as the game progresses. There are a couple of issues with the gameplay loop (in one case having to remember the previous day, which in my playthrough was five real-world days earlier, in another case getting to the ending without realising I'd missed something leading to frustration).

The narrative works, which is something I find far too uncommon in video games. It's simple, branches a few times, and you lack much in the way of agency but the yarn does add to the immersion, as does the map.

Overall, it's well worth the asking price and well worth the six or seven hours it takes to complete a run. I can certainly recommend it.

The horrible controls and tepid story are entirely forgivable as the game is an absolute classic. I say this without hyperbole simply because it is unique, at least to me, insofar as it created an atmosphere of pure terror and unmitigated tension. My muscles ached, I woke during the night and had nightmares. It's been a long time since a game has given me such a visceral response. I'm only a quarter of the way through and I'm scared to play again
And so, on the basis of it being so entirely immersive and fresh I give it full marks.

Note: this is the first Resident Evil I've played.

There's a lot of depth to this game, particularly for those wanting to focus on getting a powerful or specialised build together. For me though, the narrative and adventure was the main draw and here I found the execution a little jilted and rough. The main story beats were hitting, but the emergent narrative didn't seem to hold together. There were numerous times where motivations and emotion seemed to cohere. For example, at one point we had a battle for a reasonably well laid out motive. But at the end of the battle, having lost one team mate, the gameplay just continued without any conclusion, at that point. It just ruined the immersion for me. A solid game though and I'm sure for those who are deeply invested in the combat mechanics, this will be great.