Resident Evil Requiem review – The culminating pinnacle of 2 distinct styles of horror

2 hours ago 6

I would not assume that it’d be an easy task to encapsulate 30 years of storytelling and several gameplay styles across dozens of releases, but Capcom was up to the task when it comes to Resident Evil Requiem.

With Requiem, Capcom is set to close out an entire era of the franchise while highlighting the variety offered over the past few decades. From humble PS1 beginnings to third-person action, then first-person fear, Resident Evil Requiem pays homage to them all in an exceptional display of everything that makes the franchise so great for those who love it dearly.

Cower in fear

The ninth mainline title in the Resident Evil series stars co-protagonists, the first of which is series newcomer Grace Ashcroft. She’s an FBI agent and the daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak character, journalist Alyssa Ashcroft, and she’s unfortunately connected in some way to the grand scheme of evil within.

Through Grace, RE9 is best played as a first-person survival horror. Though you can swap perspectives for both characters at any time, Capcom recommends her segments be played as a horror FPS, akin to previous titles Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village. Grace is similar to past protagonist Ethan Winters in that she’s out of her depth in this nightmarish adventure, which begins with her revisiting the site of her mother’s murder eight years prior.

Survivors of the Raccoon City incident, the catalyst for all of the series’ events, have begun dying with a mysterious illness, and Grace is sent to investigate. This sets off a number of horrifying happenings with Grace at the focal point, forced to do anything she can to survive unimaginable and monstrous terrors.

Grace’s gameplay segments are survival horror to a T, ratcheted up to 11, and arguably the best in the series, refined from the gameplay of RE7 and Village. Grace is not prolific in combat, and that’s what makes playing as her so fear-inducing. She must sneak, scavenge, solve puzzles (I wish there were more) and survive with whatever she can find because she is easily overpowered by the most basic of zombies.

While she’s armed with a basic handgun and the occasional makeshift knife, ammunition is scarce for Grace even on the game’s base difficulty level, meaning she has to pick and choose which enemies to fight and which to run from. Each enemy can take Grace out, especially if she runs out of ammo, forcing her to sneak or run past them to stay in the fight. She also has an item that can one-shot zombies if you sneak up on them, plus Leon’s Requiem hand cannon. These help even the odds at times, but the ammo for the massive weapon is rare.

The bulk of the enemies in RE9 consist of freshly turned zombies that sadly retain memories of their past lives. Grace must contend with a hulking chef, mindlessly chopping away at meat and patrolling the halls of a medical clinic. She comes across a maid clawing at a mirror in a bathroom, endlessly trying to clean it like she once had. Some areas contain the unfortunate soundtrack of a zombified former singer who melodically moans and shrieks haunting notes in the distance. The one that got to me the most, though, was a random woman, who sorrowfully says “I’m sorry” as they take their final breaths. All of this creates a truly woeful tone throughout the story, as the overarching themes of the franchise’s earliest events and the repercussions since come to the forefront.

The biggest terror Grace must deal with, though, is a massive monster known simply as The Girl, featured heavily in the promotion for the game. This giant beast stalks Grace throughout several locations and is a constant source of fear whenever she appears, echoing the vibe of RE2’s Mr. X, RE3’s Nemesis, RE7’s Jack Baker, RE8’s Lady Dimitrescu, and others.

Grace’s scenario sports an incredibly dire, uneasy tone throughout, and it’s some of the most satisfying survival horror gameplay I’ve experienced in quite some time. With the lessons learned in RE7 and RE8, Capcom has mastered the claustrophobic, overwhelming fear that the genre is known for, and I highly recommend you play as Grace in first-person.

Up close, RE Engine’s visuals have never looked better. I played on PS5 Pro, and the game ran flawlessly and looked gorgeous or nauseating depending on the horrors on the screen. The sound design is also top-notch, and I recommend playing with the best headphones money can buy to truly hear every zombie gurgle, blood-curdling scream, and spine-chilling gasp or yell from actress Angela Sant’Albano who puts in some truly excellent work as Grace.

Aim, fire, swagger

The foil to Grace’s weakness and inexperience is series veteran Leon S. Kennedy, star of Resident Evil 2, 4, and 6, returning to the series’ timeline for the first time in over a dozen years. Leon, now a grizzled 49-year-old veteran of kicking zombie ass, is one of the Raccoon City survivors afflicted by the illness that’s killing everybody, so he’s in a race against time. But that does not at all stop him from stylishly wrecking zombies and monsters in his way as he is wont to do.

The gameplay for Leon’s sections could not be any more different from Grace’s. The rookie cop-turned-government super agent has just as many weapons as he has quips and one-liners whenever he explodes zombie heads across his action-packed scenario. It’s the most fun action gameplay in the series, surpassing even RE4. It feels like a more action-oriented evolution of the gameplay in the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 remakes, without quite being as over-the-top as RE6, and it feels like it strikes a good balance.

I can’t emphasize enough how enjoyable it is to play as Leon again, “aura-farming” as the kids call it, while dicing zombies up with his hatchet and roundhouse kicking them into oblivion. He’s even able to contextually pick up the creatures’ discarded melee weapons or gas tanks to throw at enemies for maximum effectiveness, and it is pure action-packed bliss.

Leon and Grace cross paths several times throughout the game’s events, and both of them have to deal with a new enemy: a former Umbrella scientist named Victor Gideon, who serves as the main antagonist with some secretive objectives after encountering Grace early on.

But there’s also a new, yet familiar baddie that ends up being one of the biggest main threats in the game: Blisterheads. Eerily similar to Resident Evil 1 remake’s Crimson Heads, these zombies mutate and transform if you dispatch them without taking off their heads and leave them lifeless for a while. These scary-quick variants are tankier, faster, and are much more dangerous, making them a massive problem for Grace and a minor inconvenience to Leon and his full arsenal of weapons.

Leon is packed to the teeth with all sorts of weapons and ammo, and his ever-present hatchet melee weapon makes very few foes feel like an actual danger. He can use it to parry enemy attacks, finish off weakened zombies by slicing off their heads, and use it as a basic melee weapon, whereas Grace needs a flimsy and breakable knife as an item to do the same. This takes away from some a good amount of the tension Leon faces, especially since the hatchet only loses durability but never breaks, and can be sharpened at will. But when contrasted with Grace’s survival horror focus, it works, especially as he eventually makes his way to the ruins of Raccoon City for reasons I leave you to find out for yourself.

Nick Apostolides returns to voice and mocap Leon, and he has evolved with the character he’s portrayed in two remakes prior to this one. He sounds almost unrecognizable compared to his performances in RE2 andRE4, and that’s a compliment: this Leon is withered, older, been through it all, and sickly. It’s a stellar performance that hits the right notes for the age and era the character has entered in his life.

Some players may take issue with the pacing of the back-and-forth between Grace’s survival horror and Leon’s action horror, but I found it balanced and refreshing. If someone enjoys one style way more than the other, it could become an issue. Not me, though. I love the series’ dual identity, and both are on excellent display in RE9.

For the fans

RE9 feels like a detailed love letter to longtime fans of the series. Those who have been invested in the storyline, the memes, and the overall culture of the franchise will find some incredible fan-service moments that I cannot wait to see reaction compilations for.

Several iconic moments in this game’s story will be remembered for a long time. There are also a number of musical reprieves featuring themes and songs from early games in the franchise, and they tugged at my heart as someone who’s played every mainline entry from the beginning, experiencing the fear of RE1 over my uncle’s shoulder, and asking for a PS1 and RE2 for my birthday in 1998.

And 1998 is a key point for Requiem, considering that’s when the Raccoon City incident took place. It’s where it all began for both Leon and the massive shift in the franchise’s world, where militaries were eventually armed with bio-organic weapons to deploy on battlefields across the planet. RE9 illustrates the effects of the governments of Earth having 20-plus years of BOWs as a military tool better than most RE games, and it’s a key part of its overall themes.

The option to play in either first-person or third-person adds further value to Requiem, as does the variety in balancing play-time between the two different characters: in my first 16-hour playthrough on the game’s “normal” difficulty, I’d estimate the full length split is about 55 percent Leon, 45 percent Grace.

I can’t recommend enough to play Grace in first-person on your first playthrough to ratchet up the immersion, but third-person is also phenomenal. Playing with the camera behind both characters allows you to see some incredible animations, like Grace’s shuddering fear, or how Leon will stick his flashlight under his chin and pin it against his chest to hold it steady while reloading. There are so many cool little details that I love to keep an eye out for.

I like to think of RE9 as the Metal Gear Solid 4 of the franchise, in mostly good ways. It’s a culmination of several games and events before it, it’s full of fan-service that will make some roll their eyes, and others pump their fists in excitement, and in the end, it’s all about the ailing hero and gaming icon at the center of it all.

While some of the narrative decisions toward the end of the game left me scratching my head a bit, it did little to take away from the fact that this is a borderline masterpiece, and one of the best overall Resident Evil games when it comes to pure quality. You don’t need to be a massive RE fan like myself to appreciate that this is an excellent game developed in the highest of AAA polish, but if you are, this will be an even more unforgettable experience.

Read Entire Article