If you take anything away from this review, I want it to be that unless you are a glutton for punishment and difficulty, you should choose Jill in your playthrough over Chris. The biggest debuff and the most painful one is the restriction to only having 6 item slots instead of 8, a choice that jumpscares me more than any zombified creature ever could. Yes, he has more health than Jill and is a bit better at handling weapons, but I promise you won’t be noticing that once you’re in the thick of it. On top of having more slots, her lockpick is also much better than Chris’ lighter. Having to expend an item slot for one-use keys is a luxury you can’t afford with Chris, yet sadly you are given no choice. So, expect a LOT of backtracking and having to make hard decisions on what to have on you at all times. Keep in mind none of this is communicated to you beforehand. If you already chose and chose wrong, may God have mercy on your soul. I managed it mind you, but it definitely played a huge part in my enjoyment.

Past that though, let’s talk about the actual game, content-wise. All due respect to what is the progenitor of many gaming tropes we see today, this entry just does not hold up well, remake or not. Resident Evil (2015) is a prime example of an instance where the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. The dark and gloomy manor, the unique movement design, and a great deal of freedom on where to go make for what sounds like a decent time. That notion is shattered when you take a deeper look and consider the full picture.

Similar to many survival horror games after it, Resident Evil made the design choice of handicapping you in certain aspects to increase claustrophobia and challenge. The problem is they lay it on far too thick. Since I played Chris, I’ll speak only from that perspective. Hearing that Chris has better combat stats than Jill disheartens me greatly, because his attack potency was trash. Every little annoyance you could have with a game, technically speaking, is dialed up to 11 in Resident Evil. Most obviously, zombies take too many shots to kill, and it’s not something you can ignore or MLG shoot away.

Ammo is sparse already, and with the RNG critical hits, zombies just eating your shots like candy, and a wonky-jawed control scheme - one that I don’t mind otherwise by the way - it makes for a painful time that slows momentum to a halt. Add to that the backtracking to store items in an already very unhandholdy game in terms of progression, itself compounded by door transition cinematics, which is the one of the worst mechanics I’ve ever experienced. Whoever decided to keep that antiquated loading scheme from the original game should be given a stern talking to. There is no need to take five seconds every 30 seconds to load an empty room or hallway.

Suffice it to say I was starting to lose patience rapidly with this one. In fact, if item boxes didn’t share a universal storage, I would have probably put down the game completely in an act of stubborn defiance. Story on the other hand was a pleasant contrast. Not convoluted or unsubtle like later entries but enough to be intrigued by the world. Wesker definitely being the highlight of that. Though with how a few times I got stuck for a while before figuring out where to go, I sometimes forget the game even had a story until I got to whatever the next cinematic was.

Look, I heard through the grapevine that this REmake was going to get a remake soon. If I were you, I would just wait for that before playing this one. Seeing how successful and well-received the recent batches of remakes have been, I have high faith that they’ll do it justice this time. If you simply can’t resist, know you can do a lot worse. The game’s high points are there, they’re just buried underneath a pile of clunkiness. Just remember the two p’s: patience and picking Jill.