Don’t like it quite as much as the original but still a fantastic remake. Gameplay manages to feel just like classic RE despite all the changes, which is pretty impressive. This is mostly due to resource and enemy balancing which is spot on. Was a bit worried about the removal of ink ribbons on standard difficulty but this didn’t seem to make much of a difference in terms of tension or strategic gameplay.

Storytelling gets an upgrade in a lot of ways which makes this feel less like a schlocky b movie and more like a James Cameron film. I still enjoyed the story and appreciated the game going for a different tone but I imagine this might be a turn off to some.

Overall enjoyed it a lot and think it’s really cool capcom was able to largely replicate the gameplay experience of the original despite changing so much.

With my completion of RE8 I’ve come to the end my Resident Evil marathon, which consisted of me playing through every mainline game and a couple of spin-offs over the course of 4 weeks. With that context, it’s going to be very difficult for me to not constantly compare RE8 with other Resident Evil titles in this review, so I’m not even going to try to avoid it. If RE7 can be thought of as a modern successor to the original Resident Evil, RE8 can be thought of as a modern successor to RE4. RE7 was fantastic in a lot of ways but due to balance and design choices that weren’t always suitable for a classic survival horror experience, it’s gameplay was unable to live up to that of the titles it was emulating. RE8, on the other hand, does a significantly better job at being a fitting successor to RE4.

Balancing of weapon power, resources, healing items, and currency in RE8 is nearly perfect for the action horror Resident Evil formula. You’re much more agile in this game than Leon was in RE4, but to make up for this, the enemies are significantly faster and more aggressive as well. RE8 has by far the most aggressive enemies in any Resident Evil game I’ve played. Because of this, there’s a tension to combat, a feeling that you could be overwhelmed at any moment that’s present in RE8. This was also present in RE4 and was one of the keys to making its gameplay feel like action horror as opposed to just action. RE8 also changed up its gameplay at various points which keeps things fresh. I won’t spoil it because doing so would be a tragedy but there’s a section of this game that goes full survival horror and it was (for me at least) probably the most scared I’ve ever been playing a video game. The presence of an open hub world with optional bosses and treasures that gradually opens up as you collect more key items was also a really cool way to intermittently change up gameplay. Exploring this hub world and gathering new items to access additional areas created a similar emotional / reward experience to exploring in a metroidvania or the legend of zelda.

One of my biggest problems with RE7 was its lack of enemy variety, which while making sense as a design choice, just made the game really boring in the 2nd half. RE8 thankfully has a ton of different standard enemies, bosses, and mini bosses, all of which behave differently and demand the player approach them strategically if they want to prevail.

Story and writing in RE8 takes on the same serious tone as it did in RE7 but is overall less effective. I don’t have a ton to say about the story and writing - it’s totally serviceable and enjoyable save for one instance where a character behaves in a really confusing and irrational way that will probably annoy most players. RE8 didn’t really take full advantage of its serious tone and atmosphere like RE7 did, which got me kind of wishing it had gone the classic RE route of being a campy schlock fest. I mean a game where the primary enemy type is a werewolf is the perfect opportunity to go full horror b-movie. That’s just me though. I love that stuff enough that I would have been totally happy if Wesker had been nonsensically brought back from the dead to be this games surprise antagonist.

— (takes off sunglasses and twirls black leather trench coat) “Once I had reached my true power not even hell could contain me, Redfield!” —

I have more to say on this game but feeling very lazy at the moment so going to cut it short. Opinion is that this game is very enjoyable and does a surprisingly good job at being a spiritual follow up to RE4 despite it never reaching the same heights as that game. In my opinion this is also the only non remake Resident Evil game post RE4 that feels like a really solid and fulfilling experience instead of wasted potential.

Actually enjoyed this way more than I thought I would having been aware of this games less than stellar reputation going in.

People sometimes refer to the original RE3 as an awkward cross between classic RE gameplay and action RE gameplay, which I definitely disagree with. RE3 (1999) despite having slightly more abundant resources than previous games along with the dodge mechanic always felt like OG Resident Evil and created the same tension and need for strategizing that the other classic games did. The same can’t be said for RE3R and the awkward in-between descriptor does fit it pretty well IMO. Combat mechanics and the scale of encounters are very similar to RE2R but now with very linear levels and significantly more action oriented resource balancing - you will be truly flush with ammo and healing items for your whole playthrough on standard. It seems truly impossible to run out even if you decide to fight every enemy the game throws at you. This is a far cry from classic RE games and even from RE2R, which has at times very strict resource balancing (I actually fully ran out of resources and had to reload because of the jail segment on my second scenario playthrough as Leon - something that’s come close to happening but has never actually happened to me in any other RE title.) All of these design choices make RE3R feel more like the post-game 4th Survivor mode in RE2R (a linear enemy gauntlet) than a modern take on classic RE gameplay.

That said I did enjoy my time with this game - it just definitely wasn’t what I (and apparently most fans) wanted from an RE3 remake. Some of the positives - this game like RE2R fleshes out the story with lots more character dialogue and adopts a similar James Cameron-esque action movie tone. This all works pretty well. I enjoyed Jill and Carlos’s relationship and the way they were characterized. Was also just glad to see Jill Valentine get more characterization and dialogue than in the original game since she’s probably my favorite RE protagonist. Side note this is for the dumbest reason ever: her outfit in the REmake with its beret and goofy shoulder pads was so charming to me that she instantly became my favorite RE protagonist. Very glad they put that outfit in this game and I switched over to it as soon as possible. On a somewhat related note I’m glad they changed Jill’s default outfit in this game to something less ridiculous. It fits the more serious tone of the game well, and the original one always struck me as a kind of annoying attempt at giving gamers that good ol’ low poly PS1 T&A, which I always find distracting and condescending to the audience when it doesn’t fit the tone of the game - which I didn’t think it did in the original.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of any post-game bonus modes, which is a staple of the Resident Evil series and something I always appreciate. The only game I can think of that doesn’t have any sort of bonus mode is the RE (2002). Most versions of the 1996 original didn’t have any bonus modes although the sega saturn release did have a post-game battle mode. The original RE3 was actually the origin of the beloved mercenaries mode, so it was disappointing to not see anything like that here. There technically is the bundled in online game Resident Evil Resistance, but I don’t really consider this to be the same thing as a bonus mode since it’s a totally separate piece of software from the main game. The devs apparently included this in lieu of bonus modes due to RE3R having less content than most RE games (take that justification with a grain of salt given the presence of micro-transactions in Resistance), but I definitely would have preferred a mercenaries or survivors mode instead.

Well anyway: I enjoyed this game far more than I expected. Was a short and fun romp that’s held up by the excellent combat mechanics of RE2R but now utilized in an action setting which is overall successful. I of course wish the devs had gone the pure survival horror route with this game, but what we got isn’t half bad.

Some quick notes after finishing this:

Nothing special in terms of gameplay mechanics - would even go as far as to call the gameplay systems kind of boring at points - but more than makes up for it with some of the most masterfully rendered ambience I’ve seen in a game.

Truly frightening and unsettling throughout which really surprised me. Does this without relying on shocking horror imagery or jump scares but through masterfully designed environments, sound design, and oh man the camera angles in this game are so unsettling. One of the only games I’ve ever played to make use of forced camera angles for emotional effect. Seeing the camera zoom out to an unnatural angle made my heart race almost every time which is kind of astounding.

Very clear Twin Peaks influence (see the fantastic ending credits and a lot of the brilliantly composed and produced music for reference), but this is more than welcome.

Will probably have to play a second time before I can comment on the story. Told in a rather fragmented and disorienting way, which was a good choice for this game I think, but this caused me to spend most of my energy trying to piece together what was happening. I don’t think I comment on presence of effective symbolism or subtext without going in a second time already knowing the broad strokes of the plot.

Overall a really special game. Not one that I had a blast playing but one that I have a lot of respect for and certainly deserves its reputation as an incredibly creative, artful, and effective piece of horror media.

Easily one of the best FE games in terms of gameplay balancing as well as main story. Main story has a very high level of emotional complexity and thoughtfulness that isnt as present in other FE titles. First FE game where the themes actually stuck in my head and i found myself contemplating them for weeks afterward. The themes in this game - unlike what some people say - are much more nuanced and complex than just furry racism is bad. This is one of the games biggest themes but its actually tackled in a way that feels unexpectedly nuanced and insightful. Weakest point is the writing in support conversations, which can be great and nuanced but are more often overly silly and one note.

This game is an absolute mess but an incredibly charming, glorious mess in all its self-indulgence, bombast, and wild over-ambition. I pretty much always love media that meets these criteria even if that makes it by definition a failure - favorites of mine for those curious are the films Mother and Under the Silverlake (dying to see the original 3 hour cut that got booed at Cannes).

This is a game with a lot of really great ideas and one of the most stylish and creative combat systems I’ve ever seen in a shooter but it’s also a game that’s incredibly frustrating and dull at times - especially as the game weakly stumbles across the finish line with Ada’s campaign. There are so many bullshit and incongruous design choices in this game that it almost seems like it’s trying annoy and confuse the player. The constant QTEs, the linear cover shooting arenas that are totally at odds with the games combat mechanics, the AI partners that can seemingly defeat bosses all by themselves, and that fucking hidden ladder in Leon’s story. All of it makes playing this game a frustrating slog about 50% of the time.

As for the story: RE6 has the most ambitious story in any Resident Evil game and goes full on Fast and Furious in terms of absolutely outrageous action set pieces, indestructible main characters, and unabashed sentimentality. I will fight anyone who compares this to Michael Bay due to the fact that his films are deeply misanthropic, which is the opposite of what this game is. RE6 is relentlessly life affirming and brazenly, at times embarrassingly sentimental. Resident Evil stories have always been dumb fun and I can’t think of a better, more heartening tone for the biggest and dumbest Resident Evil story to take. It’s one of the main reasons I find this game so charming despite being more often than not frustrated and bored while playing.

This is a legitimately mediocre, at times bad game but one where I find its problems so charming and lovable that I’m honestly glad it’s such a mess. Every time I got dragged into another tedious and pace breaking QTE where a character survives multiple unsurvivable injuries in quick succession I felt annoyed but I also had a big dumb smile on my face. I have a great deal of affection for this game but also definitely never want to play it again.

Easily one of the most underrated JRPGs in terms of gameplay and writing. It’s a shame that it’s mostly only known amongst Megami Tensei fans because it truly deserves to be regarded amongst games like FFVII and Chrono Trigger as a must play for JRPG fans. This game has IMO the most compellingly portrayed characters and most nuanced and engaging branching story paths in the MegaTen franchise. I would go as far as to call it one of the best JRPGs of all time in this regard. This is one of the only JRPGs to make me actively agonize over the choices I was making and really contemplate their effects on a personal level. This complexity and realism of character choice is something JRPGs don’t often attempt or execute well. Devil Survivor pulls it off almost perfectly.

The gameplay isn’t quite as strong as the writing but is still fantastic. It’s challenging, complex, and very fun to master.

As an aside, I understand the art style turning people off and making them think it's going to be some vapid anime harem game, but it’s truly not. Everyone who likes JRPGs should give this game a try. Its absolutely fantastic.

N.B. - Overclocked, due to it being a 3DS game is unfortunately not nearly as accessible as vanilla Devil Survivor. While overclocked stands as the definitive version of the game, imo, by adding content that enhances the game, the vanilla version is still fantastic and worthy of being played if you can’t get your hands on overclocked. Everything good about overclocked still applies there.

Tbh the first true survival horror game I’ve ever played and holy hell what an amazing introduction to the genre. Feels legitimately perfect from a gameplay perspective. Cohesive in its design to a degree I don’t think I’ve ever encountered previously. Absolutely everything - the backgrounds, the camera angles, resource scarcity, health pool, carry capacity, the save system, the crimson heads - works in concert to create an experience of constant tension and uncertainty for the player. An experience where you have to really think about every item collected, every item left behind, and every route taken because making the wrong decision means losing significant progress. RE requires the player to respect its gameplay systems and in return it respects the players intelligence and their time; deaths absolutely never feel cheap or unavoidable. Honestly worth playing just to see how well designed it is even if you - like me - don’t have a ton of interest in the survival horror genre.

Mixed feelings and wasted potential is really the name of the game for these mainline releases post RE4 for me. Has episodic structure like Revelations 1 but does this in a way that doesn’t break the flow of the story with constant and unexpected character switching. The two different narratives and playable characters actually make the story more engaging, which I don’t want to explain further lest I spoil the game.

Gameplay is some of the most fluid feeling of any of the 3rd person action RE games. Game can be surprisingly challenging at times both due to enemy balancing and lack of resources, which is certainly welcome. Controls and movement are good enough that you always feel capable of tackling these challenges.

Joint narratives are also nice with Barry’s characterization as a gruff but loving father being a standout despite being a bit cliched. Claire Redfield felt underutilized from a character perspective and also didn’t feel like she had even close to the same personality as she does in the other games.

Biggest problem with this game is that it seems to severely lack any identity. This makes it hard for me to have any affection for this game despite thinking that it’s pretty solid experience. It borrows heavily from The Last of Us with the abandoned and overgrown soviet factory town you’re exploring, the stealth mechanics, the crafting mechanics, and Barry’s storyline where he has to take care of a surrogate daughter figure. Revelations makes a pretty decent game out of these borrowed ideas but one that doesn’t feel particularly memorable or impressive despite being a quality experience. Definitely easy to like but hard to love. I can imagine almost any Resident Evil game - even 6 and Rev 1 - being someone’s favorite in the series since they all bring something unique to the table. Most people dislike RE6 but it’s indisputably a very unique game with a lot of personality and ambition behind it. For anything that distinctive there’s always going to be people who love it. I have a very hard time imagining anyone loving this game.

Fantastic, exhilarating gameplay. Some of the most satisfying adrenaline rush fun I’ve had playing a video game.

Story and characters are insufferable and are unfortunately an integral part of the Neon White experience. This is one of the only games I’ve ever played where the writing is so obnoxiously bad that it's impossible for me to ignore it in service of quality gameplay. Remembering the dialogue in this game legitimately puts me in a pissy mood as ridiculous and embarrassing as that sounds. I’d be giving this a much higher score if it weren’t for the writing.

Pleasantly surprised to see how many people on this site think this game is better than the first Bioshock. Bioshock 1’s greatest strengths are its atmosphere, novelty, and presentation. My opinion of the story and writing, which was very positive when I was a young teen, has definitely lowered with time. Bioshock 2, while lacking the novelty that made the 1st game feel so special, is superior in terms of both writing and gameplay. Bioshock 2 definitely benefits from its more human and character driven story. Once you know the twist and general premise of the first game there’s really not a lot to sink your teeth into. There’s a lot more emotion and depth to engage with in B2. Gameplay improvements aren’t huge but can make a significant difference. Hilariously, one of the best things B2 changed about the gameplay was removing that fucking hacking minigame. I would love to meet somehow who genuinely enjoys that minigame so I could convince them to let a team of doctors and psychologists study what makes them tick. I think it would be a real boon for our understanding of the human psyche. Overall this game is definitely somewhat of an under appreciated gem. Would highly recommend to anyone who enjoyed the first game and hasn’t gotten around the playing it. I’d also recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed the atmosphere and gameplay of bioshock 1 but was turned off by the story and writing.

The dialogue written for the teen girls in this game is some of the most unintentionally cartoonish I’ve ever seen in a teen drama, regardless of medium. This is like faith-based movie scaremongering about the lifestyle of modern teens cartoonish. It actually boggles my mind and makes me kind of depressed to think that this is viewed by the gaming industry and a large portion of the community as a serious and insightful examination of… I don’t know what exactly.

I have nothing against dialogue that’s kitschy or cartoonish as long as that quality lends itself to the overall effect of a piece of media. I also have absolutely nothing against media that many consider low-brow. That’s not my critique here. When you put cartoonish writing in a piece of media that takes itself intensely seriously and that quality of the writing isn’t intentionally used to a worthwhile end you get The Room or Doug Walker’s The Wall or well… Life is Strange.

I really don’t know what else to say. This game and the fact that people like it broke my brain. Is this a case where people who like this game like it in spite of the bad writing? I guess I could see how that’s possible, but what is there to like in spite of its writing? I just really don’t get it / would definitely appreciate someone explaining it to me.

The nicest thing I have to say about this game is that the setting is quite cozy and nicely designed. I’ve spent some time in the Pacific Northwest and the game’s representation of a medium sized town in that region feels fairly accurate. I can also understand people liking the music, which mostly consists of indie folk that feels heavily influenced by the Bright Eyes album “I’m Wide Wake It’s Morning.” I adored that album as a teenager, so the music kind of worked for me (although it mostly just made me wish I was listening to Bright Eyes instead). Lucky for me the publisher did pull out the cash to license an actual Bright Eyes song so I did get my wish for a couple minutes.

Another positive - Life is Strange contains the most unintentionally hilarious NPC dancing I’ve ever seen in a video game. Please go onto YouTube right away and look up gameplay from the Vortex (?) party to see for yourself - I promise you won’t regret it. Video games - especially 7th-gen and earlier almost never get NPCs dancing at a party to look natural or convincing (big props to devs of Hitman 3 for absolutely nailing this though). The dancing in life is strange is something else though - it has to be seen to be believed.

Those are pretty much all the nice things I have to say. I probably would have liked this game had I played it when I was a precocious 13 year old back in 2009, who felt very cool for listening to Beach House and Animal Collective and who desperately wished the Max Caulfield of his school would walk up to him on the bus and ask if he wanted to share earbuds to listen to the Juno soundtrack. Unfortunately for me I played this game as a somewhat cynical 20-something , and the adolescent indie vibes only served to make me realize that the mindset that would have allowed me to be won over by them had been inevitably left in the past.

So I suppose I can understand people liking the vibes in spite of the writing. I like plenty of things that are quaint and twee but not this. For me, the writing is bad enough and disruptive enough to prevent me from genuinely enjoying anything in spite of it, and the vibes simply aren’t appealing to me at this point in my life. The vibes would definitely be more appealing if characters spoke like actual teenagers.

I’d still very much appreciate hearing from someone who loves this game. People’s enjoyment of it has been frankly puzzling to me for years, and I’d like to have this cleared up.

Absolutely fantastic stealth game whose influence can be very clearly seen in more recent games. Sound design is the star here. This is probably the only stealth game I’ve ever played where sound is the primary signal of enemy location. Due to the excellent sound design this works surprisingly well and is really fun to take advantage of. Extinguishing a candle and then listening to enemy footsteps in the dark so you can plan exactly when to pop out with your blackjack is incredibly immersive and satisfying. This game really makes you feel like you’re in Garret's shoes.

My biggest critique is regarding the presence of levels that don’t really lend themselves to a pure stealth experience, which is where this game excels. There are quite a few instances where the game either forces you to break stealth and run from / fight enemies or fills a level with enemies that can’t be effectively avoided using stealth. The resulting gameplay can still be fun and challenging due to Garret being relatively weak in combat, Theif's fluid and satisfying movement, and the abundance of places to hide and shake off pursuing enemies, but it’s not nearly as enjoyable as the pure stealth segments. These segments end up feeling more like you're playing a survival horror game or a Tomb Raider style action adventure game with immersive sim elements as opposed to a stealth game. (A quick note on this, Thief can be surprisingly scary during some of these segments. The noise that undead enemies make when they're nearby creates a powerful sense of unease. Hearing a Hammer Haunt close by but not knowing exactly where it is can be frankly terrifying. These are some of the most powerful enemies in the game being both lightning fast and able to kill Garrett in only a couple hits, and their sound and visual design definitely reflects that - it's great. So while Thief is at its best when it's a pure stealth game, it's able to pull off the other genres it leans into surprisingly well.)

Gold adds a few levels on top of the ones from Thief’s original release. These are all fairly large levels, but they’re surprisingly intuitive to navigate and offer multiple avenues for players to approach their goals. These levels can drag on a bit due to their size - taking me around an hour a piece, but they’re thankfully all pure stealth levels. The thieves guild level in gold is a bit infamous from what I've seen, but I actually enjoyed this level - mostly due to the open ended map design and the player needing to look / listen for clues to figure out where to go in this sprawling maze. The Mage's Towers level was the one that really started to drag on for me. The central keep area is great - it's very open ended and fun to explore - but the towers quickly became a slog due to their incredibly linear design and emphasis on platforming, which are two things that don't compliment Thief's mechanics or controls very well.

Overall this is an excellent stealth game and truly a must play for fans of the genre. Thief's sound and light based approach along with its open ended levels and unique visual aesthetic creates an experience that you really can't get anywhere else. While Thief does have its flaws and definitely has some levels I don’t like, the majority of the game is excellent. I’m looking forward to doing a replay at some point on a higher difficulty so I can experience the additional quest objectives present on hard and expert.