Resident Evil (HD remaster for Xbox One

[ptdebate]

This year, I resolved to play old classics that I somehow missed the first time around. Believe it or not, that list includes Resident Evil.

Released for GameCube back in 2002, this remake of the 1996 classic has aged like a fine wine. Intricately detailed environments that impressed back then still amaze thirteen years later presented in full HD with higher-quality character models. I'm not sure I can imagine a survival horror game being better than this. Closer to the classic adventure games than modern action adventures, Resident Evil builds tension through scarcity of resources and the constant promise of a gruesome death around every corner. The basic thesis statement of RE is a game design principle I hold very dear: it's mechanics, not convoluted stories or cinematic qualities, that can make a game truly scary. It's turning that next corner with limited visibility not knowing whether or not that last zombie you killed is all the way dead (in which case it will come back with more power and speed), in which case you might run out of bullets and get chased down and have to restart all the way back at the last point you happened to come across an ink ribbon and a typewriter (save point). Death only matters to the player if it has consequences, and it can't be scary if it doesn't matter.

To those of you who haven't played this immortal classic, you can't beat this edition for price ($20) and quality (through the roof).

[Vexer6]

As someone who didn't grow up with the original Resident Evil I have very mixed feelings about this game(I certainly would not call it the best survival horror game of all time, not even close) while it does look decent enough, there are a number of game mechanics which I feel are very outdated, like having key items take up space in your inventory (I much prefer the inventory system in later games where key items don't take up valuable space in your inventory) which leads to a lot of annoying backtracking with you having to repeatedly drop and pick up items just to make room for required items, it got tiresome very quickly and that's one thing that IMO really should've been changed for this version.

Also puzzles were something that I never felt that the Resident Evil series did very well(the Silent Hill series was much better in that department), and I did not like the puzzles at all, I found them annoying and tedious to do and dreaded them more then anything else in the game. Also this is just a personal thing, but having played the later games first, I found it difficult to get used to the fixed-camera angles in this game, which for me made combat feel rather awkward, that said I did like the story in the game and the gameplay was still decent enough to keep me interested, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing updated re-releases of other early RE games.

[ptdebate]

I totally get where you're coming from. I too agree that Silent Hill's puzzles are more interesting but man...there's just something about this game. It's very subjective, of course, but RE1 just hits all the right notes for me. I also hope for updated versions of RE2 and RE3, and a version of RE4 for new consoles would be more than awesome. I think this edition sold unexpectedly well so maybe there's promise.

[Vexer6]

I see where you're coming from, for me the one game in the series that hit all the right notes for me was Resident Evil 6, I understand why that game has polarized people, but I don't think it deserves all the hatred it's gotten.

[Vexer6]

Also forgot to mention that I HATE the save system in this game where you can't save unless you have a certain item and you can only save in specific spots, to me that just feels like fake difficulty, that's one game-play mechanic that I feel was a terrible idea to start with and it's one trend that i'm very glad has not popped back up in games(the last game to use it was Obscure: The Aftermath).