VIDEO GAME REVIEW: resident evil: requiem
havent written something in a minute, i apologize. i havent used my typewriter because it was locked in this room and i had to look for a key that was behind a vault door and when i spun the wheel to open it it broke off. so i had to find a wrench and the wrench ended up being in a safe, whose code was stashed in the office behind the club door in the east wing. when i finally returned to the wrench, i realized that i needed a different kind of wrench. it got worse from there.
i don't really want to talk about it, you get the idea.
as a consumer parsing the value of his consumption, i can confidently say that resident evil REQUIEM is a good purchase. i might have left the game open and my computer on for a few days because it seems i have sunk over 100 hours deep into this game. if an hour were worth a dollar i'd have more than my money's worth.
thankfully i'm very slow when playing video games. this makes my playtime look crazy accomplished. but it is actually only with a lot of practice that i become quick to learn from my mistakes, let alone finish a game. i can be stubborn. but once i get there, i can be very impressive.
still, i can count on both hands (probably undershooting a bit here) the amount of video games that i have actually completed. i certainly do play a lot, but it is true: i dont always have the courage to audit my time at the end of a game. i should be able to tell right away if it’s going to be worth it.
when facing resistance in my reading habits, however, i pummel through. usually. but thats another story.
this one is good though, it's a lot of fun. it has absolutely everything that i love about resident evil. i think that the team were up to a monstrous task of trying to appeal to the two distinct flavours of resident evil gameplay: puzzles vs kicking ass. how could they possibly accomplish this without dramatic tonal shifts? well, simply, you don't worry about this, and you compound the drama.
with that said, there is also the matter tipping the balance in playstyles. in this case, REQUIEM does an alright job of not doing that. in my classic playthrough on classic mode, that is hard mode -- classic hard-mode with classic hard ink-ribbons (hard mode), i felt like it was very back-loaded with leon gameplay. in my second play through on noobie baby im scared of the dark hallways baby and the flickering lights tiny baby mode, i skipped all of the cutscenes (not that i didnt care about them, but i'll get to that in a moment) and it feels now like the gameplay is more balanced.
maybe im imagining this. it makes little difference anyways.
of all of the games in the series that i have completed, this by far has the most emotionally compelling story, up against resident evil 7. much curious was i to begin delving into the lore to find out what is up and where the fuck i am. it is also quite sad. there is many a memorable moment in the crying department. they do at least manage to elevate one of the "running" sections (perhaps my least favourite kind of story device in the series), by throwing us into a room to behold an absolutely unforgettable image (which i will not spoil for you here), and this you cannot find in the previous instalments featuring this location. this section, unfortunately, by taking from places that we have been to already, they take from the pile of my least favourite, so in this regard the game can't quite do it all for me.
REQUIEM has an abundance of fan-service. if you're somebody like me who reads the flavour text, there is a lot of really good stuff this time around. i remember being quite shocked at how bold the team was to drop certain lore nuggets. though, i am happy with the fan-service. i feel properly fed in the flavour text department.
in the gameplay department, i feel a bit stuffed. the callbacks are clear as day. it wants you, what it feels like, to be playing the previous games. this means killing updated versions of bosses we fought in the previous games and repeating some routines we may have become too comfortable with as a result of dying so many times. there are many moments where i wish we'd see characters from previous games, but the developers seem to love Leon more than anyone else, and this makes me a bit sad. where is jill. where is CARLOS for godsakes?
additionally when the boss roster is quite short, it's hard to not think that a little more innovation could have really done this game wonders. it's also hard to not appreciate these moments knowing the developers will return to being stingy again with the callbacks, if they ever return to this series at all. in that case, it seems it would have nothing to do with umbrellas or gross illnesses and the very scaffolding of the story that we know will be torn down. my source: i read that on some forum a while ago.
you can see the relationship i have with this REQUIEM is nuanced. nevertheless, it is one of my favourite instalments in the series. the puzzle-maze-key-card-vault-door-ink-ribbon-soda-pop-bolt-cutter-wood-panel-glass-door-up-down-left-right-up-down-left-right-a-b-start parts were good enough to result in more than just some of my contentment with the outcome of this game.
thinking that it will age a bit more poorly than some other resident evil installments, and thats okay. i find it very replayable outside of the rail riding parts.
next time, we can save the rail riding for rollercoaster tycoon 2 or something.