Resident Evil Preview – With Love to ’96

I’m sitting here, late at night, wondering just how to start a preview of a game I first played via import back in 1996. In fact, it feels doubly odd after reviewing Shinji Mikami’s latest game, The Evil Within, to go back to one of my all time favourite games for the first time in years, on a brand new generation of consoles, with shiny new visuals and a modern control scheme.

So many questions spring to mind. Why now? Is it even relevant? Does anyone care?

Answering that last one first: obviously I care, because my excitement when this was announced was probably on par with if Square Enix had announced a Final Fantasy VII remake. It’s the kind of thing that will never happen, yet here I am, having played the opening hour or so of the game, and I have come away impressed and excited to play more.

Excited to play more. Yes, of a nearly twenty year old game. Stay with me here.

Now, it’s important to note that this is the Gamecube game, not the original PlayStation title. And it’s hard to say whether my memory has truly dulled that badly over the years, or if the new-fangled visuals made me forget myself. Aside the standout moments (that first fucking Zombie turning to reveal its face still sends shivers down my spine), this is exactly the game you remember, just with better looking visuals, widescreen aspect ratio, and that new control scheme.

Of course, that’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? Tank controls are unpopular, but many will cling to the ideal that they made Resident Evil. That’s nonsense, apparently. And it’s a funny thing to have something you held dear torn down within ten minutes, because that’s how long it took me to realise that the new controls don’t ruin the experience. They don’t remove tension, but neither do they enhance it. In fact, it’s going to be purely down to your preference as to how you play. I stuck with the modern scheme, and Jill, because I’m a chicken-shit. What of it?

To answer another of my questions (is it even relevant?), the answer is a resounding yes. To folks who love it, Resident Evil is one of the greatest games ever made. At the time it was released it was groundbreaking. A visual masterpiece (again, this was 1996), and a truly scary game. This was one you played alone, so as not to make a complete idiot of yourself in front of a girl you’d been sweet on for years. No. Does it look truly incredible, visually? Not really. It looks like a game that is coming to both last-gen and new-gen, but it still looks bloody good.

It’s more relevant than ever, actually, because horror games are undergoing something of a renaissance. Gone are the third-person games, with only the likes of Mikami’s Tango Gameworks championing them. It’s all about first-person jump scares, these days. Resident Evil HD Remaster Remake (I honestly don’t know what we’re calling it at this point) is a reminder of what made it so special. Like The Evil Within, Resident Evil’s art design and direction are magnificent.

At every turn, there’s a maleficent air. You enter a door after a Zombie encounter and the camera pulls in tight, Jill is right in your face and you don’t know what’s behind the camera. You walk forward and… it’s nothing; there’s nothing there. We’re just messing with you again. It’s like Capcom deliberately decided to tart up the Gamecube remaster, just to mess with my aged brain that remembers the original’s details over anything else. Resident Evil remains a love letter to the gamers that adore it, that’s for sure.

Why now? That’s the question that remains, scratching around my brain. To be honest with you, I can’t really answer that, either. It feels strangely personal, as after Resi 6 I began chomping at the bit for a reboot. Let’s start it all again, and go back to basics. Let’s make this series great again. Weird as it sounds, this remake and Revelations 2 could well do that. A return to actual survival horror. A return to tension over shooting.

I want to play more. A game from 1996 I played countless times, and I want to play more. Is it still relevant? You bet your bottom dollar it is.