[h1][i]“Me and my old age.”[/i]
~Barry Burton[/h1]
Resident Evil. The game that invented the survival horror genre with its tank controls and fixed camera... says, like, every kid who used to have a PlayStation 1 back in the day. And, of course, it's bullsh*t. You hear that a lot, but it's still bullsh*t. And no, I'm not talking 'bout 3D Monster Maze. I'm not even talking 'bout Sweet Home—even though, yes, RE was originally supposed to be a Sweet Home remake. Actually, you know what? Lots of the elements are still there. Take those nasty boulders that can one-hit kill you, for example. Those came directly from Sweet Home. The character profiles did the same, too. Rebecca Chambers, for example, is obviously a reskinned Emi.
Let's start from the beginning, though, to avoid things being confusing. Dafuq is Sweet Home? Well, Sweet Home was a Famicom game based on a movie of the same name. It was a JRPG with a horror motif that followed the original movie. Means that, yes, technically RE is a movie-based game too. Anyway, what was cool about Sweet Home was that it wasn't just [i]based[/i] on a movie; it was developed alongside it. Both were released on the same day, while the game's director, Tokuro Fujiwara, got full access to the movie set. Exactly why lots of parts were instantly recognizable. Still, Fujiwara-san needed to make a lot of changes in order to make it a good game. Thanks to that, every character got their own specific role. Emi, for example, used to carry the keys, Akiko (who acted as some sort of a surrogate mother to Emi in the movie) used to be a healer (a function that somehow ended up being merged into Rebecca too), etc. And by looking at the characters in Resident Evil? You can clearly see it was supposed to be the same thing there, too. It was originally supposed to be some sort of horror take on Ultima Underworld, with a movie-inspired party in it and lots of first-person shooting. What happened? Well, the director, Shinji Mikami, played Alone in the Dark. Simple as that.
Years before Resident Evil became a thing, Alone in the Dark introduced us to exactly what I mentioned at the beginning of this review: tank controls and a fixed camera. In a spooky mansion. Mikami-san was instantly impressed. “That!” he thought. “That's exactly what we need in our game!” Most of the stuff that was planned for the Sweet Home remake was instantly dropped, and RE the way we know it was born. Means that, like I already said, it was anything [i]but[/i] the game that created the new genre. If anything, Mikami-san and his team took too much stuff from AitD, with the biggest difference in their game being the fact that we didn't control just some mere citizens (in AitD we played as private investigator Edward Carnby and the mansion owner's niece, Emily Hartwood). We were badass dudes from something called the Special Tactics and Rescue Service, who knew their way around heavy guns. We were still free to choose between a male (Chris Redfield) or female (Jill Valentine) lead, though. Because you know. Alone in the Dark.
That was pretty much it. Does that mean that RE is overrated? As a revolutionizing title—sure. As a game, on the other hand? Totally not. It's a bit hard to put a finger on what exactly made it so great. When looking at its components one by one, they sound like a bad thing. Take tank controls, for example. It's something nobody in their right mind would miss. Especially when combined with fixed camera angles, which confuse the heck out of you and even contribute to some game overs. The FMV elements that were supposed to pay tribute to the original home-video roots? Those were rather cringeworthy. And so was the voice acting (as you can see on the store page, this specific version, aside from the English language, also supports French, German, and Japanese, but exactly like it was on PS, all of those are subtitles-only). Nods to Sweet Home in the form of those door animations and smaller elements, some of which I already mentioned? Those were rather annoying.
Yet all of those combined, together with the PS1's signature visuals, surprisingly deep characters, and a story that revolved around the conspiracy? Let's just say there's a very good reason why RE is still considered the king of the genre. It has that certain survival horror magic nobody can properly explain. You're all alone (in the dark, wink, wink) in a completely alien and unknown place that holds some dark secrets. Evil lurks behind every corner, awaiting its time in the shadows. And all you have is your boomstick (yes, there are gonna be nods to Sam Raimi's movies here, too) and a few shells. While not being punishingly hard (soon after you get comfortable with the tank controls, you'll be fine), the game does make you feel like you're fighting for your life. And honestly, I can't even think of a better setting for a horror game than an old mansion. As we all know, there's nothing scarier than a closed door. And this game? It sure lives by that rule. One of the many reasons why, 30 years later, you should still play it.
Now. Will you be able to? I mean, again, this here is a 30-year-old game. Will it work on your fancy new rig? The answer is yes, because this exact version is slightly modernized. It's a bit tricky, though, since the original game had a heck of a lot of different versions. Let's keep the technical stuff short. The original Japanese version for the PS1 had auto-aim of sorts. The original Western release removed it to make things harder for renters. Then, after CAPCOM realized it was a bad idea, they made the so-called Director's Cut, which brought the original experience to the West. Then there was the so-called DualShock Edition, which, as the title suggests, added DualShock support, but also replaced the original eerie orchestral score with a new synth-heavy arrangement most of the fans hated.
Which one is this release based on? Neither. It's based on the Windows port. Which was pretty much the original Japanese version that suffered from some PC-related stuff, but also supported PC controllers [i]and[/i] allowed us to skip the door animations (which, despite playing it smart and adding to the atmosphere, were originally just disguised loading screens). Means that, despite the fact nobody ever liked PC controllers back then and most of us just played with our keyboards, the PC port was actually quite good for a change. Also, unlike the PlayStation version (in the US at least), it wasn't censored (the US version had the movie-like violence heavily reduced in FMV scenes) and even had some exclusive content.
That's exactly what we've got here. An old PC port properly fixed to work on modern systems, as GOG versions (this here is just GOG version coming to Steam) supposed to do. Great news, though: the original PC controller support was replaced by a modern XInput feature. Means that the game will instantly recognize your Xbox controller “out of the box” with no third-party tools needed. There's a catch, though: the rumble. That's my biggest complaint here. With the series turning 30 years old this year, it was hard not to expect better treatment. Some sort of all-in-one release that combines everything that was good about the original version, but also throws in things from later ports (Saturn and DS ports had their own unique features) and—why the heck not—the optional soundtrack from the DualShock Edition. Yet they didn't even add rumble, which, up to this day, keeps being a PS1 exclusive.
Also, the PC port was quite lazy, and this version did not bother to change that. For example, the only way to exit the game is to press F9 (yes, even if you're playing with gamepad), which isn't even mentioned anywhere on the screen. So yeah, it's hard not to feel a little bit disappointed here, but at the same time? The PC port was better than most of the Western PS1 releases, and this release does it justice. So, if we accept it for what it is? It's good. Dixi.
