On the occasion of the recent release of Resident Evil 3, we organized an internal vote on our favorite installments in the saga.
Surely many fans of the Survival Horror genre are playing, have played or will soon play Resident Evil 3, the complete reimagining of the classic from the first PlayStation released last Friday. With its arrival, the Capcom saga not only receives a new quality installment – with special emphasis on the "new" given its numerous licenses – it also rekindles the eternal debate about which game is the best. That? No, not that. What do you know? It is this other. And so. You know how all this is going, but it is fun, which is why we have not resisted making our own version in the newsroom and soon you will be able to see the results.
Resident Evil 3 itself does not enter at the moment due to the need of many to catch up with it. For those who want to value their place for themselves, the game is now available in various digital formats, such as on the PlayStation Store, where we can buy the full version for € 59.99 from the comfort of our home. And if we have been far from the excellent remakes that Capcom has set itself, the Raccoon City edition is also available on the PlayStation Store, which includes our game of the year 2019 – the remake of Resident Evil 2 – along with the third installment at a price € 77.99 as part of the store's spring sale.
Despite this absence, it is undoubtedly temporary, the rest of the list is full of great games, so if for any reason you still have any of them pending, that also serves as a recommendation now that due to force majeure we all spend more time in House. That said, and without further delay, we are going with the top 10 of FreeGameTips's Resident Evil (at least in the middle of a pandemic, we reserve the right to change our mind when we get fresh air again).
10. RESIDENT EVIL ZERO
We start at the end because the intrigue is at number one and because we are not going to go crazy with the structure either. Zero is also the first in chronological order. Located shortly before RE1, it was initially designed to take advantage of the faster charges of the Nintendo 64 and to allow on-the-fly switching between characters located in different rooms. This desire to experiment spread to storage, which returned more literally to its origins – specifically to Sweet Home, which served as the inspiration for RE1 – and discarded the trunks to force us to drop items on the floor and cleverly use the double inventory. of the protagonists. Following the move from the project to GameCube, Zero benefited from the graphic and playable advancements of the remake of the first installment, although he was received with less enthusiasm precisely for that turn – some would say unnecessary elaboration – to exploration and management. Even today it is a divisive delivery, but it wins the queue because, more or less like its approach, it is undeniable that it retains the kind of setting and design that made Resident Evil great in the first place.
9. RESIDENT EVIL: REVELATIONS
There was a time, not far enough to need this expression, in which Resident Evil stopped being a Survival Horror saga to get fully into the Third Person Shooters. It was such a dramatic change that while some of the resulting games reached high levels of quality (spoiler: one has even sneaked up on the top of this list), alienation from a good percentage of fans was also inevitable and Capcom did. I knew. Although timid, her first response to this was the creation of a new subsaga, with a lower budget and initially portable – since it premiered in 3DS -, dedicated to recovering some of that tension lost by increasing scale, action and spectacle. . Revelations continues to have plenty of shootings, especially if we revisit it now from the perspective of the post-RE7 Survival revival. But in its original context it was a refreshing slowdown thanks to the moments of solitude and the ship's oppressive atmosphere. For the opposite reasons, and incidentally illustrating the duality of the game, its assault mode also deserves mention for being one of the richest post-games in the series.
8. RESIDENT EVIL
It all started with him. Like any other three-dimensional game from 1996, the original has aged pulling regular and coming back, it misses some modern conveniences – and not so modern, but also implemented by its immediate sequels on PSX. But he deserves a lot of respect and not only for being the family's youngest. The design of the mansion, the puzzles, the pressing need to optimize the use of inventory or to manage scarce ammunition are transcendental elements for the rest of the saga that still work like clockwork in this specific installment. Now we can make jokes about Jill's sandwich or series B intro with actors as real as amateurs, but the exploration remains tense even with the lights on. As his remake showed years later (new spoiler: we'll talk about it again), there was room for improvement in technology and small details. But in terms of concept and development, Shinji Mikami's team nailed their first attempt in such a way that there are still lessons to be learned from it.
7. RESIDENT EVIL 3: NEMESIS
Delivering in a kind of second youth now that the remake has put her back in the spotlight. At the time it was going to be a spin-off with a lower budget, shorter and with a greater emphasis on action, but in the final stretch it was decided to change the title and expand the scale – it is hard to imagine a version that ended up in the tower of the clock, but that was the plan. The result may seem continuous and even limited compared to Resident Evil 2, but behind that facade hides an intense and highly replayable title thanks to elections that alter development, puzzles with variable solutions game by game, rooms with rotation in the disposition of enemies or a powder system that makes multiple weapons viable according to our choice. And of course, then there is Nemesis, who squeezes with his presence and introduces a risk-benefit mechanic with the goods he leaves by knocking him out. It did not shake the foundations of the saga like other installments, but it has definitely remained an example of what can be achieved by focusing on developing a series of very clear ideas.
6. RESIDENT EVIL 7
If Revelations was a timid response to RE5, Resident Evil 7 was quite a coup d'etat after RE6. Despite the good sales of the pure action titles, the sixth installment left the image of the franchise touched and Capcom reacted immediately with a reboot that surprised both locals and strangers. The change to the first person –with important emphasis on its use for VR–, the predominance of the Baker family, the absence of zombies or the abandonment of the recurring protagonists of the saga was a disruption that did not take place equally among all. But once they got to the core, after overcoming the densest stretches in scripts, the game recovered the purest and most intimate terror. The derivative of wandering empty hallways afraid to turn the next corner. To find a simple enemy and realize that the charger we have may not be enough. To open the map and scrutinize where the key we just got is used or where we need the one we need right now. With one perspective or another, it's Resident Evil.
5. RESIDENT EVIL CODE: VERONICA
Like Revelations, Code: Veronica was left without a number to wear in the box, but by now there should be little doubt that this is as main a delivery as any other. With Raccoon City freshly pulverized, the game took the zombie survival out of the American territory to reunite Chris and Claire Redfield in the middle of Antarctica – not without first solving a few hours of puzzles and backtracking in Europe. As a fully 3D first installment, its stages may not have the level of detail of the pre-rendered backgrounds, although it was also a feat of the moment and makes good use of a less rigid camera system and lighting with impact on the environment – no it is by chance that Claire's first object is a lighter. More contentious among the community tends to be Steve's role as a co-star or a foretaste of the changes to come with a Wesker who had seen the Matrix too many times. But at the level of convoluted design few cough it, and the setting of Rockfort Island is as distinctive as it is sinister.
4. RESIDENT EVIL 4
Despite the large number of directors who have participated in the saga over the years, the biggest turning point after the original Resident Evil came again from the hand of Shinji Mikami. After the discreet sales of his remake and Zero, on the GameCube he turned to the board to refresh things a bit. The result, as we all know, was one of the best action games of the time, and also a new mold that still continues to manifest its influence in games as recent as the Resident Evil 3 remake this month. Like Survival Horror, it eliminated or lightened to the extreme some of the most basic pillars, but in return it offered a rhythm worthy of study, abundant variety throughout a kilometer campaign, and tactical gunplay with highly reactive enemies. Not everyone liked the formula and its consequences, and not everyone liked Survivals with tank control and brainy puzzles. But if you want a horror-tinged action adventure, it's still hard to beat Resident Evil 4.
3. RESIDENT EVIL 2 REMAKE
RE7 may have made a 180-degree turn in the descent of the saga into the most populous action, but it was the next game that gave him a springboard on his return to Survival Horror to catapult her back to Olympus. Chosen as our GOTY last year, the Resident Evil 2 remake reimagines the events of the 1998 game from a new perspective, taking advantage of some comforts from the action side, but soon plunges us into an atmosphere so dense that it is cut with a knife. The police station is complex and full of possibilities, the second half is redesigned in depth to do it more justice, the combat moves away from the frantic shootings to give value to each bullet and the two characters multiply a replayability that is so fine-tuned for careful exploration as for races to the ranks. It is the quintessential modern Survival Horror, the missing link that Mikami failed to find during the creation of RE4. The game that demonstrates that all the virtues and sensibilities of the first days of the saga can be recaptured in a much more practical and flexible mold.
2. RESIDENT EVIL 2
That being said, it is clear that there is still a lot of charm left in the original experience, and that's why its inspiration has ended even higher. Resident Evil 2 is the only exponent of the PSX trilogy that manages to sneak into the top half and takes a silver medal despite the stiff competition planted by more recent games. The reason lies in a combination between the impact of his time, where he lightened the formula of the original without going astray – it has more action and more drama, but also abundant terror, exploration and management -, and its almost infinite replayability through shorter campaigns, but better differentiated, scenarios B and the zapping system. In that sense, Hideki Kamiya's game continues to surprise more game by game, and even makes us consider some decisions that will not have consequences until the next. It was also the first installment that squeezed the range system and rewarded us with the extra Hunk and Tofu modes as a sherbet to have between main courses. Eternal then, eternal today.
1. RESIDENT EVIL REMAKE
Here we are already, and number one is … number one. As we discussed when talking about the original, the first Resident Evil accuses the passage of time in aspects such as graphics, dubbing or fluidity of control, but its level design and development are the quintessential genre, so the opportunity to rebuild it a more advanced engine resulted in an absolute masterpiece. The remake is also a game that subverts your expectations and introduces substantial changes without desecrating its essence. New rooms are added, puzzles are rethought, exploration order is altered, his enigmatic mansion is made more of, and eliminated zombies are revived to create a more hostile environment even before the introduction of the Hunters. On a visual level, the combination of hyper realistic pre-rendered backgrounds and the meticulously studied camera layout also serve to create something as stunning as it is terrifying – even more so than Zero despite coming out earlier. If you like old school Survival Horror, there is nothing better than this game. It just doesn't exist.
