Resident Evil: Director's Cut Review

Honestly from a guy whose never played the original game and only played REmake. This game was a surprisingly good time. It's easy to see where REmake improved upon this game but the original I feel is still a good time. As overly milked Resident Evil is today and how much I dislike the discourse of the series overall, by playing this game it's easy to see why RE is the franchise it is. Certain aspects of the game you could argue are dated from the visuals and the so bad it's good voice acting and dialogue but other aspects of it still stand the test of time.

What this game does super well is the level design particularly the level design of the Spencer Mansion. It is so interconnected where it feels like you are solving mini puzzles on top of an even bigger one. It's easy to be filled with wonder trying to figure out what unlocks next and what item does which function. Exploring and backtracking through this location is so satisfying to do as you build a mental checklist of what you found and every locked door and every area of interest. The game rewards you for constantly keep track of all these things with items, puzzle solutions, ammo or new weapons. The item management while tedious at times does add a layer of decision making of what to take with you and what not to. You always need at least two slots open to carry items but if you know the game super well, you can just carry one weapon and just carry a bunch of items. The controls work well even if I am not the world's biggest fan of tank controls but they work for this game. The combat is also really satisfying something that people often overlook and what games like REmake 2 and 3 also overlook is that while this game doesn't require you to fire away at enemies like a shooter, however firing the weapons feel pretty satisfying and gives you great feedback. Shotgunning an enemy in the head, firing a magnum or using the grenade launcher gives such great fullfilment in doing and it's an aspect of the franchise the sequels would start to focus more on. The combat in this feels tame too where other fixed camera angled games have an issue of relying on auto aim that often makes you guess if a shot will land and enemies hitting you offscreen, in this game, enemies die so quickly that those issues aren't even much of an annoyance. The voice acting and dialogue is also hilariously bad and adds to cheesy late 90s charm of the game and admittedly where REmake doesn't improve on. In REmake it feels more dry and dull compared to how hilariously awful it is in this game. It made me wish I got to unlock more Barry scenes in my playthrough since I am not sure what I was supposed to do to unlock them but his voice acting and dialogue in particular is so bad, that he makes me want to unlock those scenes.

The negatives is that the map in the game really sucks, REmake would greatly improve this by marking all the places you haven't been to, locked doors and all the items you haven't picked up where in this game the map is more of a rough guideline of where you are rather than being geniunely helpful. It's why I often had to rely on pure muscle memory a lot of the time, it's an aspect that does hold the game back for and makes me appreciate REmake more. The inventory management while good most of the time can get tedious with how many treks back to the save rooms you got to do. This is an aspect where RE7 and even REmake 2 is improvement over where you unlock more item slots the more you play the game, it makes it so you don't have to backtrack every 5 minutes and it rewards you for playing the game more.

Overall, for a first game in a long running series, this game is pretty good if dated in some aspects but it's easy to see with this game why RE took off to begin with in spite of me and the fandom not seeing eye to eye on many things about the franchise as a whole.