A few weeks ago, we were able to get our hands on 3 hours worth of RE9 goodness. Yup, on the same day that the Resident Evil Showcase streamed, we were able to try out the game and it was a session that wasn’t part of what already had been revealed to the public like the one in Tokyo Game Show or in Thailand Game Show. Even better, it was significantly longer than any of the sessions we’ve had with the game so, after all the hype, we finally got a good sense of what the full game will be. So now, the question is “have our impressions of the game changed since the last time?” and my take is that RE9 is indeed a promising return to the game’s roots but it did leave some new questions and worries on how the game will fare. Here are my Resident Evil Requiem hands-on impressions.
In the 3 hours that we played, I can say that we roughly spent 2.5 hours playing as Grace and around 30 or so minutes playing as Leon. Our playthrough starts off right after the sequence we experienced with Grace where she freed herself from being tied up and tried to escape from some hag-like monster. Here, Leon arrives at a hospital to investigate Dr. Victor Gideon as part of his role as a agent of the DSO (Division of Security Operations). After things go haywire all of a sudden, Leon fights off a bunch of infected doctors and, by chance, runs into Grace who Leon rescues from the monster. They both introduce themselves to each other but are quickly separated once again as Dr. Gideon closes a divider between the 2 and you then switch control over to Grace. You then proceed to navigate through the medical facility’s new infected inhabitants as well as the various puzzles as you try to get out. Control will then switch to Leon once you’re done who will make his way through the very same halls and corridors that Grace went through. This is, of course, an oversimplification of what happened so as to avoid spoilers but this at least gives you an idea of how our playtime was roughly structured.
As I mentioned earlier, Requiem shows a lot of promise in terms of how it returns to the roots of the game. You’re back in a close quarter experience like how it was in RE1 and 2. Hell, the facility’s layout kind of even reminds you of the Mansion in 1 and the Police Station in 2 (and to some degree, the house in 7 where you have big central area where a puzzle blocks your way out and you go to various areas to find the key items that will set you free.
Grace’s playthrough features a lot of resource management and being very strategic and selective of what encounters you engage in. You don’t have a lot of gear when it comes to her. The facility is filled with a lot of zombies and your ways to take them out are quite limited. Trying to off every single undead you come across will run you the possibility of being stuck with you actually do need to fight your way out of a situation. You really have to sneak and run past certain enemies as much as you can and save ammo. I even resorted to the old RE4 tactics of ammo conservation by shooting things in their legs so that you can perform a melee attack on them when they’re staggered. This feeling of helplessness can really amplify the fear factor of the experience especially if you add in just how clumsy Grace’s movements are. The RE9 experience is new and still familiar to the greatest hits that the franchise started with.
My only real complaint was that sometimes, the fear and eerie vibes of the game would get replaced by a feeling of tedium and frustration at times. You see, Grace’s inventory space is obnoxiously small. I could be misremembering but her inventory has like 6-8 slots (and that was WITH the additional inventory slots that I picked up in the middle of her scenario) and sometimes, that makes looting kinda complicated. I remembered from my gameplay that I would have to make multiple trips to the storage chest just to deposit stuff, run back to where the rest of the loot was while dodging zombies again, pick up a few items, dodge zombies again, and the back to the chest and so on. I just wish she had a bit of a bigger inventory (maybe just 2-3 more slots) just so that I won’t have to keep doing that and the feeling of fear doesn’t fade in the midst of all the tedium.
And then… there’s Leon. And hey, don’t get me wrong. Leon’s mah boi, but dayum, I will admit that I sometimes thought that maybe Leon shouldn’t have been a playable character for RE9. Because Leon is COOL and his kit (as you may have seen from the previews) mows down any threats. Yes, he is fun to play as but, at times, I can’t help but feel that he kinda trivializes what Grace goes through. Like when I’m playing Grace, seeing two zombies in the same room will already give me pause and have to really think about how I’d like to approach the situation that can lose me the least amount of bullets while clearing a path for me to progress. Leon though? If I see 5 zombies in the same room, it will ALSO give me pause but only because I start feeling sorry for the poor bastards as I remind them that THEY’RE trapped in a room WITH ME and not the other way around.
Earlier I said that when Grace’s section ends, it switches over back to Leon. Imagine the tonal shift when I proceed to massacre everything that I was avoiding as Grace along with the fact that Leon’s inventory space could house a family of 5 along with 2 more generations of relatives and their pets. Cuz look, I didn’t really count but if I were to give an estimate, Leon seemed to have like 30-40 inventory slots when I looked it over. Yes, I’m joking about it now but that’s kind of my point. It almost felt hilarious with how different the experience was with Leon that I felt that this might affect the game’s vibe as a whole.
However, even with that, I do still want to reserve judgment until we get to really play the game fully. I mean this was just a 3 hour slice of the whole game and the sense of horror could come the story telling and narrative of the game. We did an interview with the devs and they did mention that, when it comes to Leon, he kind of feels like he’s sick of situations like these (which to be fair, given his past, is a valid take) but he will face something in Requiem that will really take him to his limits.
While the dangers are there, in terms of overall quality, this is definitely something that I still heavily look forward to playing. RE9 looks and feels great and has a lot of stand out moments – both from the action and horror side of it. It really is indeed a promising return to what made the franchise into what it is today. Hopefully, whatever doubts I felt can be proven wrong as more of the plot is revealed.
February 27 can’t come fast enough.