When Resident Evil hit the original PlayStation in 1996, nestled in its gigantic cardboard box with a hilariously-stressed out Chris Redfield on the cover, I was 14 years old. It was perhaps the best time to be exposed to the series.
When else could someone truly forgive the campiness, the terrible yet infinitely repeatable overacting, the rampant horror cliches? Truly I was of the right maturity to fully appreciate the game which somehow, despite all its clunkiness, not only spread the survival horror genre to the masses but ended up being one of the finest examples of it.
It's much more than the sum of its parts but today it’s easy to forget what a unique title it was on release. Horror had certainly been done before (Alone in the Dark and Capcom's own Sweet Home are clear successors) but the idea of scaring gamers really hadn’t been explored on consoles before, and Resident Evil’s malevolent zombie dogs bursting through the windows at you were one of the first examples of a jump scare in a game that most remember. Pre-rendered backgrounds allowed the characters models to utilize more polygons and look absolutely stunning for the time, and the plot was charming in its own absurdity. Plus, there was Barry Burton. Oh, Barry.
It was an enormous hit and with Capcom being Capcom, they soon released a Director’s Cut version a year later, followed by a Director’s Cut Dual Shock version a year after that. I, being who I am, bought both of them. (The Dual Shock version came out with a Resident Evil 2 demo, after all!)
In 2002 the game was remade completely for the GameCube. The backgrounds were redrawn, the characters updated with high-poly models. There were locations added to the game and the infamous opening mansion got completely jumbled up, with items and enemies appearing where you didn’t expect them to be. It was pretty ingenious, as it preyed on your memories of the first game and made it way more exciting to traverse what’s basically the same game.
If you need Resident Evil in your library- and really, you do- this is the version to pick up. Just don't expect it to be some (ahem) revelation.
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Resident Evil Remastered was reviewed on the PS4 via a code provided by Capcom. It's also available for PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. (Now where's our remake of Resident Evil 2?)
