beat re9! holy shit what a mess. first half was solid but i think doesn't quite reach the highest highs of the similarly designed re7/8 in anything except scares during certain segments. design-wise it isn't as compelling and interconnected as the main puzzle environments found in RE1/2/CV/7/8 and you're given too many resources. weapon variety is low as grace presumably to amp up the scare factor but since the game's still easy it just makes encounters more boring. bringing back crimson heads is cute but the care center is far from being an RE1-quality map that you'll be zigzagging around and planning intricate routes in so they aren't nearly as effective as a mechanic. the blood system is fun though and i like having multiple strong enemies around the map you can take out for bonuses. the themed zombies are also really cool and im sad they disappear in the second half.
speaking of, the leon stuff, especially in the latter half, just kind of outright sucks. his moveset is fun and all but the enemies you fight aren't very interesting, they amped up the stagger resistance even more than RE4R so the enemies feel too spongey and you're just pumping bullets into them instead of doing fun action movie shit. everything from raccoon city onwards is excruciatingly boring to play from any perspective other than "i like to see things that i know what they are". victor gideon is a very well performed villain but is given jack shit to do and a generic finale you could pull straight from like half of the other RE games. why is there a wesker clone you don't even fight him he just does nothing and dies. why is hunk in this game. why did they bring back Mr. X and a bunch of other old enemies for 5 seconds. it felt like having a warehouse's worth of keys jingled at me to distract from the fact you're playing the most boring levels ever
also the economy is really poorly implemented. you think with RE8 and RE4R back to back they'd realize how fun the merchant/treasure stuff is but no they get rid of it completely for grace and drastically streamline it for leon, you don't have to think about what you're buying or your inventory space at any point whatsoever while playing as leon, they might as well have not put a shop system in the game at all
anyways first half is first person RE but not as good and a little scarier. second half is the MGS4 of resident evil. i had fun despite it all though so i'll give it a 7/10 to keep it real.......... (worst RE engine era game outside of 3R. my favorite RE engine game is still 8. thank you for reading 🙇)
