Retro Blog: Resident Evil

Amidst the mixed reviews of part 6, let's celebrate that there was a time when the franchise was untouchable; enter REmake. Praised with global critical acclaim, even if you started out with the original PSX version, or happened to play it for the first time on the DS, most of us will agree that the GameCube version is the definite one.

As my first horror game as a young teenager, I believe it's this game that brought me into all the horror media really good, including films, books, myths and stories. I remember the really scary parts with Lisa Trevor and the zombies/hunters breaking the doors just to fly in.

I was definitely frozen in terror by this. Not to mention that extremely haunting soundtrack, Resident Evil´s scenery seen in here remains beautifully scary. The hanging man from the residence area is one event I´d like to remind everyone that this game knows what it represents.

Fear of the unknown, of horrible creatures and of survival horror. Unless you play on Easy, the game´s amount of supplies is just about right, given the circumstances. You simply cannot attempt to kill every creature encountered, because that goes against the nature of the game.

Resident Evil has graphics which will probaply never look old enough to view, especially the backgrounds. After a decade, I replayed this, and I managed to beat it again, with tension and enjoyment for the eighth time. It´s my most beaten one out of anything else.

The plot, the characters, the mansion, I will probably remember them forever. This is a masterpiece and a classic comprised of two discs. Capcom managed to remake Resident Evil with such stunning results, that the impact can still be felt by me.

Gone are pretty much any cheesy lines from the original, in comes professional voice acting. Combine that with new areas to explore, new enemies, several changes and more bonus content plus a challenging difficulty on almost every mode, and you get REmake. 

It still is one of the scariest games I have ever played, but most importantly, it´s such a joy to have played through all of the different modes. Invisible Enemy, Real Survival, One Dangerous Zombie and Hard modes, combined with two characters.

Even if everything was crafted extremely well with this, I still applaud Capcom for making the decision to go revolutionary with Resident Evil 4, changing the course of the franchise dramatically. And while Resident Evil 5 and most likely 6 as well aren´t entirely true towards the horrific nature of the earlier games, at least the gameplay remains terrific.

Whatever the course of future titles will be, Capcom will always be able to look back at this and be able to remember that REmake is a great example to follow with inspiration. Revelations was a great direction, let´s see what´s coming up next.

Rating: 9.4