Resident Evil (2002)

Released in 2002, Resident Evil was not only the franchise's first remake, but also one of the best remakes ever made.

This is a huge upgrade on every front: More content, better controls (the ability to change directions with the c-stick is a blessing), new plot elements, and more scary moments make this the definitive way to experience the Spencer Mansion.

But the best part is that the soul of the first game is here. The gameplay, while better, still uses tank controls, the mansion has new rooms, but they feel so natural you won't notice the difference unless you played the original version, the puzzles are still here (although some of them were changed, but they follow the same style), and the atmosphere is even more creepy and tense, so you will feel the horror of a hunter following you as soon as you open a door just like in old times.

There is so much care put here that I would recommend playing the original and the remake side by side so you can spot the differences and be amazed at the improvements. It's no wonder people prefer playing this version and skipping the old one, especially when the canon of future games follows the new storyline.

However, I'd say this isn't necessarily a replacement, as there are elements that are missing here, mainly the cheese factor, as you don't get the live-action cutscenes or the awkward but charming dialogue, so everything feels more serious and gloomy here. So, for me, Resident Evil 1 (1996) is like a B-movie while Resident Evil (2002) is a more serious horror movie with a big budget.

In conclusion, if you consider yourself a survival horror fan you must play Resident Evil (2002), so don't be scared of the tank controls, because there are bigger and scarier threats ahead.

Truthfully, this is the first Resident Evil game I have ever played. A buddy of mine when I was a kid had RE3 Nemesis and we played through it together (partly) like kids used to do back in the day, but that was a long time ago, with no hands on experience myself.

I don't even know where to begin, I absolutely loved this game. Enter the mansion, the main play area right after the opening cut scene, and just start exploring and figuring stuff out. It's full on survival horror, puzzle solving, back tracking, itemization and it does it well. Some metroidvania, action RPG'S or survival games get so obtuse or tedious that its annoying to figure stuff out. This game cuts out all the BS, and you don't need a guide. This door has this engraving. Find a key with this engraving. Examine items, and play around with them, and things happen. Makes you think a bit without diving into annoying territory. I played with the tank controls off and opted to go "free run" or whatever its called. I understand why tank controls make sense, but I hated them. You can easily control your direction and camera with little issues (save a few annoying parts) by having them off, and to me its a huge quality of life improvement. The game has some good jump scares too, and a creepy, horror atmosphere throughout which is great.

There is lots of trial and error on your first run. What's in this room? Where is this key? Do I need this? What items should I keep on me? These aren't things you can answer easily your first time around because things happen and change and you don't really know what's needed where, but a quick trip back to a safe room you can solve those problems. My total playtime (including dying many times) was edging up to 20 hours, which could easily be knocked down to 6-8 on a subsequent playthrough, or even less if you are moving quickly. That's the beauty of this game. The first time, its lots of figuring out, and its all fresh, new and exciting.

I was very paranoid thinking I would run out of ink ribbons to save, or having enough healing items because I had previously heard that it can happen if you are not resourceful. As it happens, I had tons of leftover gear, and almost found the game to be pretty easy? I played on the "I like to go on a decent hike" difficulty, whatever that translates into, but I took to mean "Normal". There were some mistakes made along the way that ate up some time, but they resolved themselves fairly quickly.

The writers at Capcom aren't winning any awards here, lets be honest. You are given almost no background for what's happening and end up in an old decrepit mansion and decide to start exploring it? Then things get weird, because zombies start coming after you, so you just... keep going? I said it was fun, not Shakespeare.

Overall fantastic game. Highly recommend to anyone who likes the third person, survival horror type game. Really at this point, Resident Evil has a following. I don't need to explain what you are getting. More so that if you skipped RE1 along the way for whatever reason, you shouldn't over look it! As for it being my first, I am really looking forward to RE2 Remake.

This is a spoiler-free review of the game, going over some general stuff and its key mechanics.

1. The story is a bit more fleshed out, it's still pretty bare-bones but it does enough to set things up, you get more lore about the progenitor of the T-virus and the creation of the mansion. Voice acting and character animations are better too. I still somewhat miss the goofy ass voice acting they had in the original
2. The game has a perfect balance of giving you just puzzles that are just the right difficulty, it's not too easy but not too overly up its ass that only a 4th Dimensional being would understand.
3. Resource management is still a thing, but the game gives you enough ammo and options to get through major encounters. Don't have enough ammo to kill Yawn the giant man-eating snake, let Richard shoot it down for you. You would have to go out of your way to waste things to truly end up in a bad situation. Push comes to shove you always have the knife.
4. The game looks amazing, the pre-rendered backgrounds add so much to the atmosphere, combined with the way they set up the camera angles is just perfect. It makes it look like you're being watched or stalked. You'll see camera views from under a bed or table, through a window, from behind a corner. it's horrifying and I love it.
5. They made some great scares thanks to those fixed camera angles. You can never be too sure what will be just around the corner and you will be reminded to keep your guard up.
6. This is my highest praise for the game. The Crimson heads were something this game desperately needed. In the PS1 RE, you would clear the room of zombies and never really worry about being jumped again unless you triggered some kind of event. This time, however, if you didn't kill the zombie with a headshot or burned (be weapon or kerosene), the body will stay on the ground and become a ticking timebomb. If you never properly dispose of the body, the zombie will rise as a "Crimson head". They attack faster, hit harder, are way more aggressive, and most importantly, they run at you. Adds a layer of tension to the game when going through already-explored rooms. Even the kerosene provided to you is limited and to top it off. You need to carry both kerosene and lighter to burn, so your inventory is 2 slots taken away. You have to pick and choose zombies to kill and whether they are worth burning or not.
7. The game introduces "Defensive Items", basically when you're grabbed by an enemy, at the press of a button, instead of letting a zombie munch on your delicious flesh, you stab/tazze them instead, a great quality of life upgrade.

I highly recommend playing the game blind, you honestly don't need a guide for this game. If you still want to have an easier time in the game, then I recommend Jill. She carries a lockpick which allows her to open doors that would require searching for rusted keys like Chris. She has more inventory slots. A whopping 8 whole slots. She also gets access to one of the strongest weapons of the game pretty early which can make fighting bosses and enemies a breeze. The only downside to Jill is that she has less health (4 bites will kill her) and she's slower than Chris. All in all, it's a fun game.

Gameplay - cameras are constantly against you, but but otherwise it's....fine? Lol

Graphics - pretty solid for the time. I have a lot of respect for all those door designs.

Setting - there are different buildings, with the mansion being huge. Being able to use the map as a way to see if all the items in a room was picked up.

Story - story doesn't kick in to the end for Chris' story but the notes with tidbits here and there are cool.

Horror - with the random enemies and zoms reviving is nice for people to appreciate horror.

8/10 for something of it's time (might change after another playthrough)

So... I did start this three months ago. I got to the first zombie encounter, and got all frantic and panicky, unable to think straight or do anything except smash every button on the controller. (As I said in my previous status update, I'm BAD at horror games.) My boyfriend tried to help me by giving me instructions, but as I wasn't familiar with the controls that just made it worse, and I ended up having a massive fucking panic attack. Not fun.

Today we decided to give it another try, but this time we'd utilize the magic of teamwork. So basically he kills the zombies and I get to do what's fun for me, exploration, puzzles, enjoying the atmosphere (and the scares, but at a comfortable distance). I know this isn't "the real way" to experience this game. The killing and the intense scares are the meat of the horror dish after all. However this is the only way I can actually experience the game at all right now, and I'm actually enjoying it a whole lot! Maybe I'll even do a zombo murder by the end of the game! Maybe.

Resident Evil Remake (2002) is in my opinion the best horror game of all time. The mansion setting inside a forest in the dark is some of the best atmospheric setting i can imagine for a horror game, the sounds and the music themes really set the mood for exploring this mansion and uncovering its secrets. (Excellent Atmosphere) (Excellent Sounds)

The story is not really deep but its there, figuring out what is happening and discovering the hidden conspiracies was more than enough, coupled that with memorable characters even with their minimal lines of dialogue and characterization which i feel was the weakest link in the whole game, but guess what? I still liked them, Jill and Barry in particular, i liked them, their design is also beautiful. (Good Story - Decent Characters)

The Visuals are updated and playing the new HD remaster is a great experience, highly recommended. (Good Visuals)

The Gameplay is very much engaging, i had my doubts with the old control style, it had a strong aspect to it and its setting directing angels to surprise and scare the player which was neat, but moving can be tanky and annoying at some time, but with the recently released HD remaster they handled it better, especially with a controller. Taking that away, the puzzles are clever and i enjoying solving them, the backtracking gameplay was really good, engaging and smart, the inventory is annoying though so i hope they had some items to increase it a bit, combat is the late 90's early 00's horror era, which is basic but does the job. (Great Gameplay)

This game is what great remake looks like, its strongest point are the atmosphere/setting and figuring out the puzzles and what to do and uncovering secrets, and it does them better than every other horror game (yes including Silent Hill 2). To me the only rival it has in the horror genre is Amnesia The Dark Decent, but that game is a totally different sub genre and its limiting in some ways, which is why this one is slight above it.

My favorite Horror game of all time. It has some flaws but 5/5 is not flawless, 5/5 is masterpiece, its a game i really loved, and oh boy! I loved this one.

...I just can't do it. I can't force myself to finish this game. I think the fact that I have exactly zero nostalgia propping it up just kills the original Resident Evil for me.

The gameplay isn't fun. The puzzles aren't fun. The controls and camera angles feel broken. The inventory management is definitely not fun. The writing is bad. The graphics on the REboot -- meh, they're okay.

This doesn't feel like a game; it feels like a chore -- a chore where I'm strictly restricted to using a toolset from 25-30 years ago.

While this game got scrapped, I'll still try the newer games, since I had a good time with RE4 and RE7.

Trying on the medium "riding a bike" difficulty. This is my first experience with this original Resident Evil. Everything about this game feels like I'm just beating two rocks together. Zombies are impossible to kill. The 6 item inventory is absolutely crippling. Simply walking around is terrible, with the random camera angles. Only 3 ink ribbons for saves? Come on!

Am I just doing it all wrong? Giving it a third try on easy mode this time. Having a hard time liking this game at. all. without any nostalgia to prop it up. Hopefully the RE2 Remake I just bought is better.

[Jill, easy]

The graphics, sound and atmosphere are unnerving and incredible. Gameplay is tense and often requires careful strategizing with resources and routes across the map. However, the story is fragmented and laughable, and there's next to no direction or even intuition on where to go next. This isn't a complaint about hand-holding: you have to bumble your way into a room on one side of the map, find an item you can barely see and then take it to a seemingly random room on the other side of the map. Aside from the main goal of "find your team and escape", most of the game is spent in trial and error. When you can figure out what to do, it's exciting and exhilarating to play, and I enjoyed the campy dialogue and ridiculous monsters.

Yet the game is so directionless. I enjoy the game in retrospect (the atmosphere, the puzzles, the strategy) more than I did on average playing it.

I can't review the Resident Evil Remake on the GameCube and have brand new points to make, so I just won't review it at all. This game though, it is survival horror at it's absolute finest. Please play it if you haven't already. Maybe buy it digitally so that Capcom knows that this is what a Resident Evil game should be like.

u wer almost a jill sanwich

Played during free trial of xbox pass. I missed this game as a kid, RE2 was the first I played back in the day, so it has been at the top of my wishlist and was thus one of the first games I played for my free trial of xbox pass. I drew a paper map of the mansion with the locations of zombies that I had not slain so I could best decide where to go. It also came in handy for keeping track of which keys unlock which doors, which the in game map sadly does not.

There were a few enemies that I left alive when I judged I did not need to kill them. I killed most though, and tried to conserve ammo by using the knife often. Melee combat in these old games is terrible and I did not want to invest the time in learning the trick in how to do it, so I just shot zombies until they fell down and then ran up to finish them with the knife. This worked most of the time though sometimes I ended up taking damage. I remember one time where doing the knife animation caused the scene to change and that delay was enough that I could not kill the zombie before it stood up.

The more modern controls are much better than the old tank controls and made the game more enjoyable. The star aspect of this game is the terrifying atmosphere and tension. There were so many times that I was on edge thinking something was going to jump out at me, even if I had been through that area several times already. This game is an amazing classic. Its flaws are mostly in terms of user friendliness, like the aforementioned lack of map detail. I think the most annoying part of the game is the severely limited inventory, which creates a lot of unnecessary backtracking if you want to horde all the supplies.

Playing this for the first time on the Game Cube and having a blast!

If you've never played it and are planning to, I urge you that you use the original tank controls. You get used to them quickly and they make the game way more fun! They make it harder to avoid zombies thus making everything more tense and scary, the way a Resi game should be 3:)

I also think that the 3:4 format works better with the game. Mannn are those pre rendered backgrounds gorgeous! If you're into cinema or photography they really are a treat, and should be appreciated without cuts to make them fit a 16:9 screen :)