Game Review: Resident Evil: Requiem | Raccoon Shitty

I bought Resident Evil Re9uiem, REquiem, RE9 — whatever the hell we are calling this game. I bought it day of release and completed it within 4 days.

I have a lot of thoughts about this game, many of which seem to be in contrast to what many others seem to think about it. So, here I am with a review, for those who didn’t think the game was flawless and want some validation that they’re not completely crazy.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

I have a long history with the Resident Evil franchise. I played the original game when it first released back in 1996 and have stuck with the series ever since — through each of the main entries, some of the side games, and the ups and the downs that came with each of them.

Resident Evil has become a bit of a T-virus infected beast of a franchise since that fateful day we were introduced to the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team. Resident Evil has had a presence in every generation of gaming since the first PlayStation. Even on consoles it had no business being on. Why was Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64? Why even bother to put Resident Evil 1 on the fucking GameBoy Color!? Resident Evil has become a staple in pop gaming culture. And 30 years on, it is still going strong. So naturally, for something so popular and long-lasting, there have been some bops, some flops and divisions of the fanbase as a result. But even Resident Evil’s flops aren’t complete flops. Resident Evil 6 is widely considered the worst main entry in the series, but it is still one of the best selling games in the franchise.

Of the numerous times that I have posted about Resident Evil on Claire Redfield’s Internet I have compared it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because there are so many parallels between the two — which I will highlight throughout this review. Namely, both the MCU and Resident Evil have grown in scope beyond what was originally intended. So now, each entry has to be a patch on an ever growing tapestry, which has to honour a bunch of the older patches, whilst also making room for future ones. Trying to balance the roots and origins of a thing, whilst trying to accept what it has become over time is tough. Resident Evil has become so many different things, that trying to please every RE fan just isn’t going to be possible. Requiem is one of the first Resident Evil games to try and address this issue and hold all of the different identities of the franchise, and present a way in which they can exist together in one game. It doesn’t quite work. But Capcom sure as hell tried.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Despite being an RE fan since the days of live-action intros, Jill Sandwiches and ‘I hope it’s not Chris’ blood’ — I am not a purist who feels that Resident Evil should remain as one thing. Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 are my favourite Resident Evil games and they all play differently from one another and offer different takes on what Resident Evil is. This incredible run of games showed that Resident Evil games can be different, but still feel definitively Resident Evil as long as they understand what the essence of Resident Evil is. Resident Evil 5 and 6 didn’t understand this. But Resident Evil 7 did. The Resident Evil 3 remake didn’t get it at all. Resident Evil Village kinda understood it, but also really wanted to be Resident Evil 4. But Resident Evil Requiem definitely remembers it, and nails it…until it doesn’t.

It’s so crazy to me to play a Resident Evil game which manages to really remember its roots and also strike a great balance of different RE play styles at the start, and then forget them by the end. It’s also really annoying. Because I’m like ‘For fucks sake Capcom, you were THIS close. You had it.’

What Requiem does is have you play as 2 characters: Grace Ashcroft and Leon S. Kennedy. Rather than pick a character, the game has you jump between them at specific points in an overlapping / intertwined story. But Grace and Leon play VERY differently to one another. Grace’s gameplay is more akin to the OG Resident Evil and Resident Evil 7. Where-as Leon’s gameplay is basically Resident Evil 4 — the game that kinda changed everything.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

A massive issue with the Resident Evil franchise is that it’s had a bit of an identity crisis, and we could argue it’s still having one. And a big reason for this is that pesky Resident Evil 4.

Resident Evil 4 pushed the franchise in a bold new direction. A direction which was not only critically and commercially successful, but ground-breaking to a point that it changed the landscape of gaming, which also changed the course of Resident Evil. This not only fractured the fanbase, but the franchise itself. Ever since RE4, the Resident Evil pendulum has continued to swing. It swung so far into action / adventure that the resulting games didn’t feel like Resident Evil at all. And it’s swung so far into isolated survival horror in the purest sense, that those who liked the action, missed it. So, the idea to create a game which centres both play styles makes a lot of sense — even if I wasn’t a fan of RE7 and this ‘Different styles in one!’ approach gave me RE6 flashbacks. And RE6 is an apt game to mention here, because Requiem does veer into RE6 territory. And I also think Requiem in many ways is a test for how an RE6 remake could be approached. But we’ll get to that.

I was sceptical as to whether Requiem could pull off the balance of two distinct RE play styles and vibes, because it could feel like whiplash. But Requiem makes a great case that it could work. I say ‘could’, because Requiem doesn’t get it all the way right. And there is a clear point in the game when it stops working and really starts to fall apart.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Whilst initially I had thought that the two halves of this game were Grace and Leon, it’s actually Wrenwood / The Rhodes Hill Clinic and Raccoon City. Half of the game takes place in Rhodes Hill Clinic, whilst the other half takes place in Raccoon City. And this is where what I thought was a sure formula for Requiem really fell apart and lost me. Because the gameplay style and tonal shift which occurs when the story switches to Raccoon City is HUGE and massively undoes so much of the great work the game had done up until that point.

There is such a clear tone and direction with Requiem when it takes place in Wrenwood / The Rhodes Hill Clinic. It’s very noir-esque, which is very Resident Evil when you think about moments from some of those earlier games. Zombies are back again. YAY! And they have character and personality here which makes encounters with them fun, unnerving and scary in all the ways they should be in a Resident Evil game. I think the shift to more cognitive enemies who weren’t slow, didn’t shuffle and weren’t zombies was exciting at first, but got old really quick. And the whole mould thing? Girl, no. So a return to zombies was a welcomed return. And whilst it may have seemed like the action oriented direction of RE made zombies unfeasible because they are too slow for Leon — Requiem says ‘Oh, really bitch!?’ and shows you this is not the case. Pretty much at the start of the game, Leon is thrown into the street in the midst of an outbreak and you quickly realise how easy it is to be overwhelmed. Zombies may be slow, but in numbers they are dangerous. And zombies are also predictably unpredictable. You think they’re slow, but then when you least expect it, they lunge. And just when you think you have a situation under control, you lose it. Requiem’s opening does such a great job at showing that zombies are not too slow and too dumb for post RE4 Leon. And Requiem also does a fantastic job of making zombies interesting again.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

I also thought that the contrast between Grace and Leon’s play styles would be too stark. But the starkness is what makes it work. Playing as Grace, you have to be stealthy. You do not have the means to take on every zombie. And you also have to be cautious of Blisterheads, which are Requiem’s version of the Crimson Heads from the Resident Evil 1 Remake — dead zombies with their heads intact, who come back to life…again. So, taking down a zombie with a gun where head shots are rare will have you run the risk of that zombie mutating later, which can make certain sections difficult if you shot down a zombie in an area you will have to pass through later on. One way to remedy this is to use an item called the hemolytic injector. If you sneak up on a zombie, or you stun a zombie — you can inject it and it will explode, leaving nothing to be reanimated. But of course, hemolytic injectors aren’t just handed out willy-nilly. They are a precious commodity which must be crafted.

And because Leon will eventually roam the same locations Grace did, zombies you did or didn’t kill will either make life easier or more difficult for him. So you have to be really strategic. Because a temporary problem for Grace, will become a problem for Leon. And which problems you didn’t roundhouse kick to permanent death as Leon, could become a real problem for Grace.

And when you switch to Leon, you may think ‘Oh, I can just run amok and fuck shit up’. And sure, you can. But stealth pays off with him too, because Blisterheads take A LOT of shots to go down. Ammo for Leon is in better supply than it is for Grace, but you can still run out of it if you’re careless. And whilst Leon is a seasoned action hero with more moves at his disposal then Grace, he can still get overwhelmed. Leon’s hatchet allows for stealth kills which will always take off a zombie’s head. So the better tactic for Leon is to go for stealth kills, which prevents Blisterheads and also saves you ammo.

Despite Grace and Leon playing very differently, the level of strategy you have to have for both is quite similar. And you have to be mindful that choices you make as one character will affect the other. It’s really clever. And the game does a great job of shifting between characters at the right moments — without any one character outstaying their welcome. So it’s unfortunate that once you leave the Rhodes Hill Clinic, this balance is lost and Requiem becomes something different.

Fucking Raccoon City.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Raccoon City is where it all started. It’s an iconic location in Resident Evil history, but so much of the city hasn’t really been explored throughout the franchise. I mean, sure. We got to explore it in Resident Evil Outbreak, but that was just a side game. Although given the inclusion of Alyssa Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem, I guess it’s actually canon now. And the original Resident Evil 3 took you on a trip around different areas of Raccoon City, but the 2020 remake stupidly chose to cut a lot of that. Exploring Raccoon City post nuking is not quite the same as exploring it when the city was still jumpin’ jumpin’ and the T-virus was full blown. But, still. There’s something that could have been made of this. But Requiem doesn’t really do anything with it. You go back to Raccoon City sure. But the part of Raccoon City that you end up spending the most time in is not recognisable nor interesting.

This is where the failings of the RE3 remake hit further in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Because had that game actually allowed a greater exploration of Raccoon City, then there would have been a greater sense of nostalgia at going back there in Requiem, even if you hadn’t played the remake, because you would remember the locations from the original games — as per the R.P.D. And from a production standpoint there would have been more assets for the Requiem team to reuse. It’s actually crazy that Leon gets to explore more of Raccoon City than Jill did in the RE3 remake, considering Raccoon City was her home and that the original RE3 had you explore more of the city. And to have Jill’s dusty S.T.A.R.S. beret on her desk in the R.P.D. in Requiem was an insult to injury.

This creates a weird situation though, because the remakes exist on different tracks, with the remake bringing in a whole new audience who have never played the originals. So a lot of the callbacks are primarily for those who played the RE2 remake. But there is also a callback which is for OG RE2 fans. So, it’s kind of a mess. But we’ll get to that.

The result of this is that Raccoon City feels hollow, because we have no real connection to any of the locations there aside from the R.P.D. Sure, there is a gas station. But it’s not THE gas station from Resident Evil 3. And the remake didn’t let you go there anyway.

A big part of the better Resident Evil games are the locations having character and being as important to the games as the characters themselves. And Requiem knows this, because it showed us this. The Wrenwood hotel had character. The Rhodes Hill Clinic had SO much character. So for Raccoon City to have no character at all is crazy to me. And yes, I get that it got nuked and quarantined, so there’s only so much that can be done with the look of it. But even so, more could have been done than just Mad Maxing the whole city and having the entire thing be so beige and boring. There could have been a moment when it rained and there was a storm, which could have washed away the dust and given us a glimpse at the colour that Raccoon City used to have. They could have changed the time of day. Or, I dunno… MADE US SPEND LESS TIME THERE.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

It also doesn’t help that nothing really happens in Raccoon City either. It would have been cool if you came across B.S.A.A. agents who were still alive and struggling to make lives for themselves there. Or if there were still survivors who managed to hunker down and survived both the initial outbreak and the nuke blast. There was a real opportunity to still give Raccoon City some sort of character, but Requiem didn’t do it. Everything was just ‘Oh, the police station’. But no effort was made to make Raccoon City still feel like an actual place, even in a post apocalyptic state. The zombies in Raccoon City suffer in the same way. Just beige and characterless. There are B.S.A.A. zombies. And civilian zombies. And that’s it. It’s a complete contrast to the zombies we had seen at the Rhodes Hill Clinic. And sure, I get that the zombies at the Rhodes Hill Clinic and in Raccoon City are many years apart and at different stages of infection. But for the Raccoon City zombies to just have NO real character to them at all!? Why is the zombie at the police station the only one who still has most of his clothes intact and the only moment where we are reminded ‘Oh, right. They used to be people?’. The least Capcom could have done was given the rest of the zombies some different outfits, so that we have some visual remnants of their lives before they were infected — which I thought was not only part of the distinction of the zombies in Requiem compared to other games, but also part of the point of returning to Raccoon City. But it becomes clear that the return to Raccoon City is just because ‘nostalgia’ and Leon. There is no actual substance to any of it which makes actual sense in the greater context of the story. Requiem really didn’t need to feature Racoon City at all. But it does, because 39th anniversary of Resident Evil…I guess. I’m surprised they didn’t throw the Spencer Mansion in this bitch too.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Raccoon City features a lot of fan service, but it doesn’t all hit for me. As soon as you get there, you fight a giant spider. Which I guess is all because fans have been wondering where the giant spiders were in the RE2 and RE3 remakes. So ‘TA-DAH!’. Here’s a random giant spider for you to fight in Raccoon City.

I did not care for it.

The return to Raccoon City was billed as this big momentous moment, but it felt so empty. The return to the R.P.D. didn’t hit for me at all. I was so sick of Raccoon City and fully checked out by the time I got there, that I was just ready to move on. But the shit just kept going…AND GOING. And I feel that the need for throwbacks gets in the way of Requiem specific plot points and characters being centred. For instance, Mr. X turns up at the police station…AGAIN. And he even returns back to the rooftop to the helicopter where you first encounter him in the RE2 Remake, and a boss battle with him ensues. Why are we fighting Mr. X here instead of Gucci Gideon? This would have been a great point to bring him back for a boss fight, instead of just having him be absent for this big-ass chunk of the game and then have him turn up right at the very end as the final boss, to then transform into an asset re-use from the RE3 remake. We all knew that when his motorcycle dragged him across the floor, took him off the bridge to plunge hundreds of feet and then blow up right in his face that he wasn’t dead. Why rob us of a moment with a cool villain who already feels under utilised in favour of some silent deadbeat in an incorrectly shade-matched foundation and a trench coat? I was already pissed that Paris Fashion Week Wesker had come into this story and pulled focus away from Gucci Gideon. Then the game goes and hands what should have been a boss battle with Gucci Gideon over to Mr. X.

Mess.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

And there is this weird thing about the nostalgia play of the R.P.D., in that Requiem makes it clear that the RE2 Remake is THE canon version of RE2 — which makes complete sense. But the music in the police station foyer is from the original Resident Evil 2, which is weird considering that the remake didn’t feature this piece of music by default — it was bonus content. I guess it works two fold, because if you played the 2019 RE2 Remake, you’re familiar with the location. And if you only played the original, you’re familiar with the location AND the music. But the nostalgia does still feel a bit half-thought through, because Requiem is trying to create nostalgia for those who didn’t play the original games and nostalgia for those who did. But the combination of the two feels kinda messy. It’s a realisation of how vastly different the value some of the stuff from the original games hold to the different people who make these RE remakes and new entries.

Also, so much of the nostalgia pertains only to Leon — when Requiem is a story which is bigger than just him and involves other characters with connections to Raccoon City.

Sherry has so little to say about the R.P.D. or the orphanage, despite her experiences there and the weight they hold for her. And to not have Grace be present to experience Raccoon City felt weird to me too, because she also has a history with the place — given that Alyssa lived there and wrote for the local papers. Oh, look. Yet another instance of the RE3 remake fucking things up in a way which had an inadvertent knock-on effect on Requiem, because The Raccoon Press office was a location in the original RE3. And it would have made sense for it to be included in Requiem and for Grace to have visited there and had a moment with Leon, where they both sit in having to face their pasts. But there was no asset for it to be reused, and we’d have no connection to it if it were newly added here, because it’s not a location we saw in the RE3 remake. And a question from many of us would be ‘Wait, so why didn’t we get to visit this place in the remake?’. So, that’s that.

Mess.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

And speaking of Grace, you do not play as her at all for this entire Raccoon City section, and you really feel her absence, because the Raccoon City section is so damn long. I’m sure there is probably a general consensus that Leon’s gameplay in Requiem is more fun. But I actually enjoyed Grace’s sections far more than I had anticipated. Also, the game had established this back and forth thing between Grace and Leon at a decent pacing. So when the game just says ‘Yeah, we’re gonna bench Grace for this sizable chunk of the game’ it’s noticeable and results in a Leon section outstaying its welcome. And the Raccoon City section is so damn boring, that it doesn’t even do Leon’s play style any justice. You’re just fetch-questing, with these occasional moments where a group of enemies jump you. And it just isn’t as fun as it was in RE4, the RE4 Remake or at the Rhodes Hill Clinic.

I am so curious to know at which point in Requiem’s development that this Raccoon City section was introduced. Because I feel as though the original structure was The Girl with no Edges dies. Emily transforms into Vaginal Fly Trap Blob. Leon coughs. Grace walks off. Gucci Gideon turns up and we’re introduced to Paris Fashion Week Wesker. Leon then goes after them. He arrives at Raccoon City. Sees the dead B.S.A.A. soldiers. We get the revelation about who ordered the nuke strike. He wanders around for a bit and finds a motorcycle. But, OH NO. It needs petrol. (I’m a Brit). Now, Leon heads to the gas station. But, OH NO. A spider. Leon fights it. Kills it. Then you get to the gas station. But, OH NO. A zombie ambush. Then you get the petrol and head back to the motorcycle. Vroom, vroom. It’s the motorcycle sequence, and everything from here plays out the same. But the director probably thought ‘This is too short. We need to pad it out’. So, the Raccoon City section became this drawn out fetch quest for detonator parts. But, OH NO. We don’t have a merchant character. Fuck it. Throw a giant trunk in a tent with some Internet, because apparently Raccoon City still gets 5G coverage.

So much shit in this section feels slapdash. Just having Leon open some chest and upgrade and buy shit via a terminal is lazy. Having a B.S.A.A agent as a merchant would have been so much better and made far more sense.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

The Raccoon City section is such a shift from everything in the first third of the game. It feels bland and generic in the ways that the Resident Evil films do. And given that Grace has an alternate outfit inspired by one of the films and that the Resident Evil 4 remake also pays homage to a moment from one of the films — it wouldn’t surprise me if the films had an impact on this Raccoon City section too.

The return to Raccoon City is just half-arsed and lazy. Raccoon City is to Resident Evil Requiem what The Great Sea was to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It’s just this big nothing thrown in the middle of the game to shamelessly pad it out. And it affects the pacing, momentum and play experience so significantly, that it holds the game back from being as good as it had the potential to be. It’s crazy to me that so many reviews of Requiem said nothing of the Raccoon City section, because it is such an obvious dip in the game which TO ME is so significant that it ruins it.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

So, back to the MCU comparisons. Another issue Resident Evil shares with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a villain problem. They just pop up for one game and then they’re done. And you don’t always find out enough about them to ever feel invested in them. Resident Evil Requiem is no different. You have Gucci Gideon, who you’re introduced to pretty much at the very start of the story, and Requiem wastes no time with the ‘Is he, isn’t he’ bullshit. Immediately, the game is like ‘This is the villian’. And he’s a cool character, with his Gucci Python coat and Dior jewellery. But then Paris Fashion Week Wesker shows up looking like a Kingdom Hearts character. So, I guess he’s the main villain!? Allegedly. We barely know anything about Gucci Gideon, and then this Organization XIII member who looks a bit like Wesker shows up, and I’m like ‘Am I supposed to know who this is? Did I miss something?’. And then Gucci Gideon is ‘killed’ — although we all knew he wasn’t dead and that he’d come back and mutate. So, this new guy is the new villain now, I guess. And he’s with Grace now.

It’s a mess.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

The main villain should have just been Gucci Gideon. The only thing about Paris Fashion Week Wesker that I like is that the game completely subverts your expectation of fighting him, by having Victor show up at the very end (like we knew he would) and unceremoniously kill him. That shit was funny. BUT…I do think it was weird to not fight him at all. He would have been a good boss battle for Grace. To not have her play any part in a late game boss battle was bizarre, considering the stakes she has in the story and what Gucci Gideon and Zenonort have done to her. Given his similarities to Wesker and that Grace can craft injectors, I thought that perhaps she would have a boss battle where she has to sneak up on him and inject him to overdose him, kinda like that Wesker boss battle in RE5. But, nope.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Requiem doesn’t manage to recapture any of the magic of the first third of the game once it hits Raccoon City. You got from drab streets and some shit out of The Last of Us to yet another Umbrella lab which looks TLC’s “No Scrubs” music video. And there was actually a chance for Requiem to bring elements of the Rhodes Hill Clinic back. We could’ve had lab and transport staff in the facility as zombies, with outfits, specific behaviours and personalities. But instead, we get Lickers — because nostalgia. Zombies that look like putties from Power Rangers. And regular mercenaries with guns.

Oh, joy.

The Umbrella lab features a couple of cool looking rooms. But they are just cool looking rooms. It’s like Umbrella teamLab. Just cool rooms you walk through. Cool things for the sake of looking cool. But there’s no real character behind any of it really. Kinda like a K-pop music video. The Blade Runner looking room is cool. The archive room is cool. But it’s just aesthetic. Nothing more.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

The story in Requiem is…interesting. It takes some pretty big swings which has HUGE implications for many of the characters and the world of Resident Evil as we know it. So it’s going to be interesting to see where the sequels take things. Although given the age of some of the characters now, it wouldn’t surprise me if we got games set in the past. Because as per the MCU, Resident Evil hasn’t had a great time establishing new characters and bringing them back. Ethan was a non-character and he’s dead now anyway. Nobody cared about his daughter Rose. Also, her having supernatural powers was some bullshit. Grace however, is a great new addition to the series. But in true RE fashion and as per Charlize Theron and Harry Styles in their MCU post credit sequences, we probably won’t see her again, even though it would make sense for us to, given her occupation.

Prior to Requiem’s release there was a lot of speculation as to who would appear in the game. Some fans seem to have been lobbying for portals to open up in Raccoon City and for Jill, Barry, Brad, Enrico and everybody to jump through, as Chris says ‘On your left’ in Leon’s ear piece and flies in on a B.S.A.A jetpack. This does not happen. But there are couple of cameos in this game. Mr. X is one. Sherry is a returning character. And also you get a boss fight with a popular Umbrella mercenary, Hunk. But there is no Claire, no Ada, no Jill, and I like it this way. Cameos should be meaningful. Not just for the sake of it. I was adamant that Ada would probably show up, because…Leon. But I like that she was nowhere to be seen and that we have finally stopped the trope of ‘Where there is Leon there is Ada’. Both characters deserve more than this. Also, I’m kinda tired of their whole thing anyway.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Talking about graphics in a Resident Evil game in this day and age feels kinda redundant. Because it’s a given the shit looks good. Every Resident Evil game to date has looked great, and Requiem is no exception. I played this game on Switch 2 and was in a constant state of ‘I can’t believe I am playing this game on a Switch 2’. There are some iffy graphical moments. Hair doesn’t look too hot. For some reason item pick ups look like raggedy PNG’s. But these are minor things that I quickly forgot about. The game looks great.

The voice acting is also top notch.

Unfortunately, since the shift RE made from 4 onward, soundtracks haven’t been all that memorable in RE games — a real shame, given how good the soundtracks were for OG RE1, 2 and 3. In RE5 and RE6, everything was super cinematic and scored like a movie score. And then Capcom decided that silence was more ambient and mood setting than music — which is absolutely not true and a trend I would like to see end. Quickly. And this is made all the more annoying by Requiem featuring some really cool pieces of music. The score has this 80s synth like vibe, which is an interesting and new direction for an RE game. But it really works and gives Requiem a distinct flavour from other Resident Evil games and feels like a direction the RE soundtracks could and should go in. It’s just a shame that the use of music feels so limited and isn’t as much of a constant presence as it used to be in Resident Evil games. I really wish that Resident Evil games would embrace music again and have it play during gameplay instead of just reserving it for jump scares and cut scenes.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Something that Capcom needs to accept is that, much like the MCU, Resident Evil has become too big and too many different things — to such a point that fans within the fandom have preferences. The approach of trying to please everybody will always cause problems and alienate some fans, so Capcom may as well stop trying to do it and just accept that each new RE game will need to commit to a style, and that fans will just have to deal with it. Because the reality is, if the game is good and everything is executed well, fans will like it — even if they have a preference for a different type of RE game. Resident Evil 4 (SURPRISE SURPRISE) is an example of this. We were all sceptical of the shift initially. But there was no denying that RE4 was so well crafted and the shift was so well executed, that many of us liked it and accepted the change.

Capcom tried to do this ‘please everybody’ approach with RE6 and it was a mess. And they’ve tried it again with Requiem and it’s also a mess. Not as much of a mess as RE6, but still a mess. Requiem’s lack of commitment to…anything is what hurts it. The back and forth between playing as Grace and Leon works really well in the beginning and is well-balanced, but Capcom does not commit to it, and the balance is completely lost half way through the game. The Resident Evil 2 scenario / zapping feature is sort-of thing, which makes you aware that choices you make as one character will impact another. But Requiem does not commit to this either, with the Racoon City section not featuring any element of this whatsoever, because you only play as one character. The play style for Grace specifically is based around learning enemy behaviours and the uniqueness of the zombies and their distinct personalities. But Requiem does not commit to this, and all of this is no longer a factor once the game moves on from the Rhodes Hill Clinic. And much like the film Captain America: Civil War, new locations and switches to characters come with big title cards, but Requiem does not commit to this either. Where was the title card for the Ark? The only thing Requiem commits to is stalker enemies — which have become a tired Resident Evil trope now. I am tired of them. I am already dreading Code: Veronica making infected Steve a stalker enemy in the Code: Veronica remake.

TIRED.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Requiem seems so sure of its identity and its approach at the start, and I was really digging it. But then it all unravels by the end and I’m left unsure of what I even played. There is such a clear line drawn in Requiem: the Rhodes Hill Clinic and after the Rhodes Hill Clinic. And everything after the Rhodes Hill Clinic is some bullshit, at which point the game starts to unravel and becomes something different from what it started out as.

The Raccoon City section is the definitive part of the game where it turns to shit and stops being fun and interesting. Requiem feels a bit misleading, because all of what we were shown for the most part in the trailers and gameplay footage was stuff at the Rhodes Hill Clinic. But all of the cool gameplay elements we were shown for this section of the game are pretty much confined to this section of the game. Requiem tries to bring it back during Umbrella’s No Scrubs lab, but it doesn’t work the same way, because the layout of the lab is boring. The lab looks boring. And the enemies are boring.

People calling this game of the year and citing it as one of the best RE games is truly wild to me. But, each to their own. That Capcom money clearly talks.

Resident Evil: Requiem | Capcom

Requiem has some truly great ideas. But the lack of commitment to them and never developing them throughout the game is a huge problem. If Requiem had focused more on forging its own new path and realising how good a thing it had going on at the Rhodes Hill Clinic, instead throwing it all away for a sloppy and boring nostalgia dump, it could have been something special.

👍🏾 Great graphics
👍🏾 The first third of the game is really good

👎🏾 Everything falls to shit from Raccoon City onward
👎🏾 Resident Evil is still having a bit of an identity crisis

Verdict: Gucci Gideon is a homosexual. HAPPY PRIDE.