Episode 13 - In My PJs - Resident Evil Requiem

The silent treatment, I hope. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline Resident Evil game and one that mechanically resembles the RE Engine games. Like, all of them, because this game is both a first person survival horror title as well as a third person action game at different points, and the balance between them and how you approach each is going to be the ultimate deciding factor if this game really works for you. Grace’s segments are slow and focused on enemy avoidance and puzzle solving, while Leon has a giant inventory and much more effective weaponry. Both are given their time to shine, with large sections dedicated to each (and a few to both, which I think is where the dual protagonist setup really sings), but I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel like one half was given a little more attention in development than the other. Visuals and sound are incredible in the way most AAA titles are like these days, with this games strengths lying in gruesome enemy art direction as well as punchy firearm sound effects. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with Resident Evil games, the narrative is a little flat, relying on the series’ long legacy to provide interest which it unfortunately doesn’t do particularly well. We’re going to be talking about the character divide and how sharp the differences really are, how both sides of the games handled their combat and boss fights, and the overlap between this and the Terminator franchise. Thank you for joining us again this week! I ended the last episode by asking Andy “can we pleeeeease do Resident Evil 9” and so here we are. As happens with big games that are overall enjoyable, we talked a lot like we hated this game’s guts, but really it is quite good, just handled less artfully than maybe we hoped. Were you looking forward to this game, and did you hope it would follow closer to RE7 or to RE4? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord channel! Next time, we’re going to be talking about one of the most unambiguously good games ever made, Super Mario World, so we hope you’ll join us for that.