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While the endless remakes had me feeling a little burned out on the direction of the series in recent years it's hard for me to not get excited for a new resident evil game and this one looked really cool. i caught this reveal live while in a hotel in France last year during one of those Geoff showcases. i was there to see distant worlds and the memory has been a very fond one for me, sitting in a pretty snazzy hotel and eating the coolest snacks we could find at the local supermarket. the game does manage to live up to that fondness too. it's one of the better games the series has given us in the past few gens and i think it represents the best possible middle ground between the two era's the series has had.

now the big thing about requiem that i like is the flexibility the game offers with its playstyles. you can choose to play Leon and Grace in first or third person, though the game very clearly is mostly made with third person in mind i find. it plays better that way, looks better that way and i find it's a lot faster and more fun in third than first. you even find yourself missing fun details in first person, like how grace stumbles when she runs, it's a gameplay detail entirely missing in first person and it makes her chase sequences so much less tense due to her slow walking speed in first person. i find the stealth is a lot more fun in third person in general. in first person it can often be a little boring but in third person it's a lot more tense and easier to navigate around without being blinded by cover. Leon too is just a lot less fun, first person shooters just aren't as fun or fast as third and he doesn't have the same fun movement and momentum in first person. the game is still good even if you chose first for both though, but i just couldn't bring myself to do it for any more than an hour to test

Grace is the newcomer and her playstyle is closer to something like resident evil 7 or village. less ammo, ink ribbons for saving on the higher difficulties, hard to kill stalkers and a lot of sneaking and running. she gets given Leon's magnum early on and it's the games big namesake. it's pretty rad but it doesn't get much ammo so she's mostly stuck with things like her pistol, a push move, some consumable items and a knife . she also has stuff like grenades and a cool instant kill stealth item she can use and craft from blood laying around. she has some other mechanics too like some escort segments that are pretty tense where she needs to carry another person, she can find stat upgrades around which were fun to look for, there's a crimson head style system for corpses which was always really scary and it's so nice to see it back in a mainline entry. there's even a boss that can turn his minion zombies into crimson heads if you aren't careful. her segment is also where you notice the changes in the enemies, they act in a really creepy way that reminded me a lot of the shibito from siren. they still act and speak like normal humans and it's really creepy. stuff like a singer still singing, a maid still cleaning up blood or a cop trying to tell you to run away. they're probably the scariest the grunt enemies have felt in any of the games for me in any game for a long time and i think they're neat. there's so much variety in behavior and look to them all. i think that it's the best the horror gameplay has felt since the classic titles, it even managed to make me enjoy the stealth that i didn't care for in 7 but never feels like as much of a closet simulator that 7 can feel like at times. it's a good middle ground between 7's style and 2 remake's style and i think it's a solid step foreword. you're still able to fight back and you can kill every one of the stalker enemies you encounter with enough skill and planning which you could never do in 7 since they would just wake up again. though you never quite have enough ammo to just gun your way through the place, especially later on.

Leon however plays much closer to how he did in resident evil 4 remake. it's remarkably close, for better and for worse. this style of action resi is something i feel mixed on, i think it's fun and it works but i also think that it's a huge downgrade in control and depth compared to the likes of resident evil 5 and 6. those games perfected action resident evil and i think 4 remake, with its worse aim, less in depth melee, parry mechanics and weighty slower movement just hinders the action and it leaves it overall less fun than either of those games. it is better than 4 though at least in some ways. for a start the parry is a lot easier to do and the game is a lot less reliant on it, you can beat the game more easily while not engaging with it too much and the windows are a lot better telegraphed with more margin for error and the hatchet can take a lot more damage than the hatchet can. you can even repair it on the fly with a flint so it's not a pain to replenish it like it was in 4. i even found myself having fun with it on some of those later boss fights unlike in 4, being able to parry the claws of a tyrant is cool enough that even i can have fun with it. you even unlock an alternate version of the hatchet with more generous timing later on, though i wish it was acquired earlier. it's still a mechanic I'm not that fond of though and i do hope they do away with it in future games.

he also gets far more weapons than grace. there's some fun shotguns, a few pistols, some SMG's, your usual grenades and a very useful set of sniper rifles which you can use scoped or unscoped, i mostly stuck to using them unscoped. the bolt action rifle, the silenced pistol and the police shotgun you find in kendo's place ended up being my favorites as well has his one other base kit weapon, requiem which he shares with grace. there's more though in the postgame, like some extra magnums, a machine pistol for grace, an assault rifle and even the infinite bazooka. that's not all that his kit has though, he can pick up and throw dropped items at enemies, attack them with melee kicks, slash with the hatchet as well as instigate finishers on downed enemies and at one point use a chainsaw for a while.

there's some solid boss fights too! the highlight for me was the bike segment where you fight dogs and dodge rockets, it felt like the game channeling resident evil 6 and it was just a delight to watch. Leon also gets some cool fights with a tyrant, a huge spider boss that's part chase, the earlier mentioned crimson head making boss, a large fat zombie you fight in an attic, a fight with HUNK which is probably the best fight in the game and a pretty fun double phase fight that reminded me of the final boss of resident evil 3. his fights are generally all solid, even the lesser fights are still at least fun. grace has a few too! mostly her stalker enemies like the light-fearing woman, her own version of the huge fat zombie and some smaller encounters like the butcher or the singer. the final fight with the light fearing monster was my favourite, it was super fun scrambling to turn on all of the lights to take her down.

there's also shared things between them like the store system, Leon gets a system similar to resident evil 4 where he exchanges points he earns for killing for items at a box where grace has to collect hidden coins around the environment she can trade in the casino room for buffs and new items. it's neat how the two are different and you can almost entirely miss graces if you aren't looking for it. crafting is also back and it's fine, it's there again and it's okay. Leon can combine items he finds and grace can collect blood from buckets or corpses to use in hers and i think i prefer this second one. it was always so tense having to collect it. the game is pretty long for what it is, it'll run you anywhere from 10-13 hours depending on difficulty and stuff and i don't think it's too hard a game wither. it has some tougher segments like the mine or the lab but it's pretty manageable and has very good difficulty options to get you through if you find the game tough. i think it's easier than the remake titles, if that gives you any indication.

there's a few major zones here and they're all mostly pretty interesting. the highlight for most is going to be the Rhodes hill medical centre. it's a sprawling hospital filled with enemies you can't easily kill, tons of variety in its rooms and wings with some areas being more hospitally and others like the bars or offices or the fancy lounges, large side areas all with their own distinct themes like the mines, a guardhouse zone with a small lab and the attic. it's huge and it takes up most of your playtime. it pretty easily justifies it though. it's one of the more well made areas in the recent games and can easily stand up there with the likes of the spencer mansion, the ecliptic express or the raccoon city streets as one of the best areas in the entire series. it's just so fun to explore and full of fun things to do, it's got some really nice puzzles and hidden secrets that it felt so fun just walking around and seeing what i could find.

it even has those side areas too! like the mines which have a fun gimmick involving having to stay in lit areas to avoid a monster weak to light and needing to change the power to light different areas and open doors. it's got some down points but i did love exploring this area. there's a small leon segment in the attic that has a super fun boss fight. there's a fun guardhouse too with a really detailed office full of easter eggs and a nice lab segment down below with a unique weapon you get to use in it (i loved exploding the zombies with it). the other areas are solid but don't quite match up. the burned out hotel at the start is an amazing area and very impressively detailed but it's too short to really reach its full potential since it's just a tutorial. i would have loved to have seen more of this area. grace also gets a small segment later in the lab but I'll talk about that more later.

Leon has some areas in racoon city that are fun as well as some segments in the rainy city and the care centre. there's a cool skyscraper level that has some really fun set pieces like an elevator ride with zombies charging you from above and a section where you have to walk over panes of glass and try not to break them, it felt very disaster report to me. the train station is really neat and i liked how it reminded me a lot of the subway from outbreak. i also loved the spider boss fight you deal with just before it. there's also a cool underground parking garage and a fun hotel segment that has you dodging mortars and a really cool fight in a gas station that's on fire that's probably the games most difficult part. the whole segment is like a mini open world for you to explore and i had fun doing it, though it's not the most interesting to look at and i don't think it quite matches up to graces segments. i love the idea of it though, a dead city where only things capable of surviving a nuke still live in. it really feels like anything could be there waiting for you and i felt a real sense of dread walking around the place even though it was in broad daylight.

sadly the game does go out on its worst note though. Leon's last part in raccoon city just falls at least a little flat for me. i enjoyed the destroyed look of the RPD but it had already been done before in umbrella corps and i just didn't feel super excited to explore it again even with the new makeover, the nostalgia just didn't hit for me like the game expected it to. i was also disappointed that it was too focused on remake nostalgia and i would have loved to see maybe some side areas from 3 or outbreak to explore. maybe spending a little bit in the hospital or the clock tower or the zoo, though you can find a reference to the zoo hidden in the station alongside a really fun easter-egg of a findable saturn with a bunch of old capcom games. both of those made me smile. it's not a bad segment though and i did still enjoy the set pieces as well as the boss fight after. the lab too could be better. it's just another lab without much to set itself apart. i like some parts like the licker rooms with grace and i think it has a really solid design with all of the clean plastic and how the blood in the environment stains it in a way that i think looks really cool. it's hard to dislike it though, these kinds of sterile labs have almost began to feel kind of cozy as the series has went on. they're familiar in a comforting way and I'm happy it's here. there was also an orphanage flashback that was pretty cool, it was very much like an improved version of the sherry one from 2 remake but it's also not really very standout.

now i'll be getting into heavy spoilers here so if you haven't played the game yet. please go do so!

the story i feel a little mixed on, but i generally enjoyed it. it feels like it wants to be a nostalgia filled swan song for the series as it is and as it used to be. it's less a legacy sequel and more an attempt to bridge the gap between some of the different eras of the series with some nostalgic throwbacks in there. resi has always been a series focused on nostalgia with its side games and so it makes sense to see a mainline game like this eventually go all in on it. this will likely be my last mainline game given capcoms proclivity towards AI and their main platform abandoning physical media so to go out on a note like this, that looks back so much, it works for me and it hit me pretty hard emotionally. i mean it's not all perfect, while i love grace and her story starts out really well, but at points it starts to feel like a re-tread of things already done in village and it's DLC. i think in the end it ends up managing to be its own thing with the twist about her just being normal and it eventually redeems itself. the RCS virus too felt like a little bit of a missed opportunity to have more of the wider cast come in for this one, considering Claire, Jill, Ada and the rest of the outbreak cast were in the city you would think one or two of them would get a mention or something. the outbreak cast beyond Alyssa being entirely absent especially feels like a missed opportunity. at least throw in a mention for someone like Yoko who had a shared ending with Alyssa in the first game. it's especially weird since the RCS virus is very reminiscent of the virus plotline from outbreak anyway, that was an entire mechanic in those games. I'm also not really a fan of how the game kills off Alyssa. I get why it's done and it's at least giving the series some real stakes for once but i would have at least liked for her to have a bigger role in the game.

for a game so focused on nostalgia i also felt a little weird how it was really focused only on 2 and even then really only on Leon, other parts of the series get pretty ignored or relegated to easter eggs. the game does do a good job with Leon though, i think his revisiting of the past is handled really well and the sections in raccoon city with him coming to terms with things is one of the games strongest points. i loved seeing HUNK show up in a mainline story too, that was really cool. i don't think the game is as cynical as some have accused it of being either. like i said before, it's a series that's always been steeped in nostalgia for itself. even back on the PS2 and PS3 we had tons of games remaking levels and areas the series past so i think accusing this game of being a cynical nostalgia bait game is a little naive to me. it feels like it's criticism brought from people who don't know as much about the series as they think they do. games like darkside chronicles, outbreak, op racoon city, 0 and umbrella corps all had their own remakes of levels from 2 already, so this game isn't really unique there. beyond racoon city the lore for the care centre is really interesting and i think the new virus is a really good idea that the game does a lot with. it has some of the most fun notes to read out of any game in the series. it even managed to get me really emotional a few times, like with Alyssa, the Emily fight or the ending with Leon. the Emily fight especially is heartbreaking to play out. that said there's also some retcons i feel a little weird about. i like the connections plotline a lot and i think it's really neat, but making them be behind things like the racoon city nuke or the events of 6 just feels like it's a little much. these events probably should have been left alone, i know the connections thing was set up in 7 and village and you could argue the racoon city twist was foreshadowed in outbreak file 2, but it just feels like a total reach to me and I'm just not into it.

the villains aren't as fun as in some of the more recent games but i like them! victor is really unsettling and his design is cool, i love how goofy he is during the bike segments and i think he's really unsettling in the games early hours. i think Zeno is cool too, his Wesker-lite thing works well for me and i think he has one of the best looking weapons in the series. you also have Leon, who's more angry and bitter here but he still gives his one-liners and he's always good to be around, his more bitter, sad mood reminds me a lot of how Chris was in RE6 and i think it's a neat direction for his character. sherry has a few scenes too as this games' hunnigan, she doesn't do a ton but it was just nice to see her since adult sherry was one of my favourite parts of 6, she looks really cool and has some of the games best lines. i wish she got to appear more in person though. grace is the standout cast member though. She's the most interesting protagonist the games have had in a while and she gets a ton of good development. i like her relationship with Alyssa a lot and i think her story with Emily is really sweet. she's i think the most relatable and human of the series protagonists, at least the closest i would say the series has some to that since the outbreak games and she has a lot of growth over the course of the game. you can see her going from being afraid and anxiety ridden to this cool monster killer in a way that feels real and interesting .it feels like something really new for the series. i also really like the development it gives spencer, it's something i never expected from the series but i think it's a really interesting direction, the final twist about elpis is really fun too. it caught me off guard in a way that i think is really clever.

the designs i feel mixed on, same as with all of the RE:engine games. i like some a lot though. i think the older version of Alyssa looks great! grace looks cool in her default outfit with the glasses, though i wish she kept it for longer. some of the enemies have really cool designs like the singing zombie or zeno (who just looks like Wesker mixed with Ryuji goda) and there's some neat bosses in there. Leon though, i feel super mixed on. capcom have gotten better at not messing up their attractive male leads at least a little, they learned from DMC5 and what it did to Dante and Nero. Leon looks a lot better than those, but compared to how he looked in 4 remake and especially 2 remake. it's a downgrade in design, though I'd be lying if i said i wasn't still at least a little into him. he looks like a hot ojisan you would see in a J-drama.

the OST is decent, it follows the trend from the post-6 games and is a lot more focused on being ambient and cinematic over being more listenable and catchy. it's fine and it's better than the likes of 2 remake, 7 and village but it doesn't stand up to the classics or even something like resident evil 3 remake that focus more on capturing that early era of music. the OST was worked on by a few people. the lead composer was nao sato, who you may also know from monster hunter rise, kunitsu-gami as well as resident evil village and it's DLC. also involved was Masahiro oki, known for dragons dogma 2, monster hunter stories 2, teppen and monster hunter rise. Lastly was Shigeyuki Kameda, known for K-1 world grand prix, street fighter 8, gundam battle: gunplay warfare and a ton of capcom ports over the years. for standout tracks i would say "forboding", "night haze" which is a particular highlight, "reccuring nightmare", "Lament" which is another highlight and i feel similarly about "respite", "baptism by blood", "lost soul", "memories", "whatever it takes", "hope", "ambition" and "through the darkness" is a fun vocal track.

even a few months on the game has held its price, it'll run you around £40-50 to get a copy but it's still readily available both used and new. the platform also doesn't make a huge difference for it either, they all work fine, though the switch version does seem to be a key card so that version is probably unideal compared to the other versions. as far as updates go there isn't any major DLC so far, though it is rumoured. what was added was a small time attack mode called "leon must die forever". it's based on the other "Must die" mode from 7's DLC but it's a lot more fun here. it's a difficult score attack roguelike where you run through segments from the main-game with new things added, different buffs and weapon pickups and a time focused scoring system. you run through branching paths based on the main levels that you can go between using red doors and there-in you collect weapons and sometimes fight a boss until you reach victor at the end. it's fun but it's no mercenaries or raid mode and i don't think it'll have much staying power. you can get a few hours of fun out of it though finding all of the weapons, seeing all of the routes and checking out the cool modifiers the game has, there's even a few difficulty options if you find it too easy.

the game was directed by Koshi Nakanishi who has a stellar track record, while he did the very dissapointing resident evil 7. he also worked on games like way of the samurai, resident evil 5 and revelations, samurai western, shinobido, kamiwaza and the first badman game! the guy has a killer resume. the team itself, much like a lot of modern games, just lists capcom as the developer, which isn't very useful for crediting a team, though it does share a lot of staff with resident evil 4, dragons dogma 2 and pragmata. the game is an easy reccomend, i mean i was never not going to reccomend a new resident evil game but i think it's a solid entry with some really solid ideas and i think it sets up a solid foundation that could work really well as a new start for the series with that duel perspective system. it's just a shame i may not stick around to be able to experiance that, for people who do though i expect they'll be in for a great time.