Resident Evil is back and better than ever. After remaking 2 through 4, Capcom feels like they’ve finally perfected their RE blend with dual protagonists Grace and Leon.
Before you start, you’re given the option to choose what perspective you play in with each character. The recommended perspective for Grace is first person and third person for Leon. You’re free to switch them around, of course, but I stuck with the recommended settings to get that RE7 and 8 feel for Grace and the more appropriate RE4 feel for Leon.
After choosing all your settings, the game opens up on Grace, our new clumsy, overly anxious protagonist, as she is forced to confront her past trauma. Not that she doesn’t have plenty of reason to be nervous in this game. In fact, the added character flaw of her being a clutz helps you feel just as nervous as she knocks things over and stumbles about.
If you do decide to play in third person, Grace’s light jog gets a little faster during chases, at the added cost that she will actually trip over herself every now and again. I think this is an interesting way of balancing her speed while making her third-person sprint look a bit more natural.
After stumbling around a derelict hotel for a little bit, surprise, surprise, zombies show up and it looks like there might be some kind of virus. Cue Leon S. Kennedy.
While Capcom might have waited a while before revealing he was in the game, they wasted no time letting you get a feel for how he plays. Prior to the Leon reveal it was said that they couldn’t make Resident Evil scary with him anymore, and they weren’t exactly wrong.
After his many feats it would be difficult to make a more experienced Leon struggle and make it believable. So instead they did the next best thing and made him play like the RE equivalent of the Doom Slayer, accompanied by his very own entrance track, and it’s beautiful.
To start, his segments are short and sweet. When the cutscene starts and you hear that music play, it does in fact bring a smile to my face. That smile does not fade as Leon rips and tears his way through groups of zombies, utilising a mix of his new trusty axe, which you’ll find yourself sharpening over and over, his old reliable roundhouse kicks, and whatever random objects he might find in the environment, including a medically certified chainsaw.
THE CARE CENTER
The difference in how the protagonists play does at times make it feel like two different games, especially with the two main locations you’ll find yourself in.
Grace takes the lead in the Care Center, which is a beautifully crafted building design wise and visually. It’s very reminiscent of the Spencer Mansion and RPD. Exploring here as Grace you get the classic Resident Evil experience. There is limited inventory space, storage boxes to manage said inventory, and if you go with the classic difficulty you’ll only be able to save at the typewriter if you have ink ribbons.
Making your way through the Care Center, you’ll encounter a variety of zombie types with the new mutated strain of virus. This strain leaves the zombies with some memories of their past life, making for more unique encounters and ways to deal with them.
One very early example is a zombie who is calling for lights out and flicking the light switch over and over. If you flick a nearby light switch he’ll switch his attention, allowing you to sneak around him. It’s a really cool mechanic, and you’ll find different notes on who some of these people were prior to the virus. I kind of hope this is something they’ll do again as it is a big part of what makes the Care Center section as charming as it is.
The other big mechanic you have as Grace is collecting blood. You’ll not only be able to collect it off the zombies you kill, but also out of the many buckets of blood lying around the Care Center. With this blood and various bits of scrap or herbs that you find, you can craft a variety of items once you discover the notes or blood samples for them.
One of the big items you’ll learn to craft is the Hemolytic Injector, which lets you stealth kill zombies. You can even inject them mid combat if you manage to stun the zombie. It is most definitely the most effective way to take them out as Grace, as it leaves nothing behind. That is something you might want to do with the very welcome return of the Crimson Heads. If you know, you know.
Nothing in this game feels like it outstays its welcome. Just as you’ve had your fill of wandering around the Care Center struggling to survive, you’ll find yourself switching back to Leon. This gives you that sense of catharsis as you get to dispatch any remaining zombies with ease and quip a few one-liners.
These moments in the Care Center are short and sweet, leaving most of the Leon segments to the second location of the game, Raccoon City.
RACCOON CITY
Now I will say that Raccoon City has a lot less charm than the Care Center. However, it is visually hard to match that charm when the city itself is in ruins.
They do, however, get a lot sillier here in the best ways possible. I had multiple moments where I asked, “I wonder if we’ll be doing this thing,” and we sure did. There are multiple encounters with past Resident Evil tropes and characters here and it definitely plays on your nostalgia once you reach a certain point. But much like the rest of the game, nothing ever outstays its welcome. Each area you go to has something different for you to do.
This part of the game is where you’ll probably see the most division between fans, as inventory management and limited saves no longer become an issue. It becomes much more of an action game.
Leon has his massive briefcase that he can fill to the brim with items, and you’ll find laptops around that you can save on. Instead of the item box you now have a shop box, and each zombie you kill gives you points toward buying new weapons and upgrades.
This does mean you can’t carry every weapon, however. You’ll find yourself having to sell one to clear some room when buying another, but you generally have room for every different weapon type.
You still have to be aware of managing ammo and heals at the very least, but you’ll generally find yourself getting plenty of it when you need it.
STORY
Storywise I really enjoyed it, the writing and the voice acting especially by Grace’s voice actor was phenomenal. It felt like the perfect blend of seriousness and silliness with some great reveals throughout. The story did almost everything I wanted it to do, there were a couple of characters I was hoping to see but I think it would have done nothing to serve the plot and really taken the spotlight off some of the big reveals and our new protagonist. The only issue I could see in the plot was the motivations of a certain character, however with the rumoured upcoming remakes we might see a slight change in this character or it might be explained in the age of the character.
The game isn’t the longest with my final playtime showing as only around 10 hours, 40 minutes, however the final playtime doesn’t seem to take into account inventory management and note reading and according to REnet the average first playthrough takes about 16 hours which sounds about right for the average player. Then when it’s all over you unlock the insanity mode and the bonus content that you can spend points from achievements on to unlock costumes, new guns, charms or modifiers like infinite ammo and infinite hatchet durability, giving you some fun reasons to replay the game, which I found myself almost immediately doing.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, the game felt like the best Resident Evil has been since Resident Evil 4. From the charming horror filled Care Center to the more action packed Raccoon City, the game is constantly switching up what you’re doing with constant highs in the gameplay and story. It’s the perfect blend of action and horror that opens the door for bringing the classic Resident Evil characters and feel back.
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