Resident Evil Requiem

Resident Evil Requiem, aka. RE 9, gave me that nice feeling of playing something new while also warming my heart as an old fan because of the nostalgia and many references, especially when the game brings us back to classic places. The atmosphere is rich and very well done, and even though I still think RE 7 is the scariest game in the series, Requiem gets very close.

One thing I really liked is that it feels like getting 2 games in 1. We can play with Leon and Grace, and they offer very different gameplay styles and challenges. Grace is more about survival, with limited resources and more tension. Leon is more focused on action and gun combat, and his combat in particular feels instinctive, dynamic, and very fun. The combat system in general is accessible and enjoyable, and the weapons are very good too.

The graphics and cinematics are stunning, with high production quality. The game also lets us switch between first-person and third-person camera. I think this is a great technical achievement and many fans will like it, even though for me personally it doesn't matter much which view I use. Another nice detail is the zombies. The normal zombies still keep a bit of their human personality, and that creates some funny moments sometimes.

I also liked that the challenge and reward system was simplified. It makes things easier to understand and more practical. The story of the RE franchise is honestly a bit confusing if you try to connect every loose end, so I appreciated that this game seems to try to fix some of that. The campaign is quite linear, but I think that works well here. The length is also ideal for me, around 10-15 hours.

I played it in parallel with my wife, with each of us having our own save, and we both had a great time. I also think the game is good for newcomers, although it's probably better if the person has played RE 2 at least. Another point is that I found Requiem a bit easier than some other games in the series, but not in a bad way.

My main negative point is the price because it wasn't a cheap game. I also got annoyed by some controller decisions. This is a small detail, but at least on PlayStation, I'm almost sure some recent RE games, possibly RE 4 Remake, changed the crouch button from L3 to Circle, which I thought was great because I had stopped pressing it by accident. In this game, they changed it back to L3, unfortunately.

The other control issue is worse. I really didn't like the shortcut on L1 to recover health because you only need to press the button instead of holding it. The situation where this bothered me the most was when I wanted to press Triangle and then L1 to open the crafting area, but if I pressed too fast, or if Triangle didn't register properly, my character would recover health by mistake even when it was not needed. An easy solution would be forcing the player to hold the button for 1 or 2 seconds, like Days Gone does, or simply not allowing health recovery when the life bar is already full.

Even with these problems, I still think Requiem is an amazing game and surely one of the best RE games ever made!