What makes Resident Evil great? [25th Anniversary Celebration]

Resident Evil was first released on 22 March 1996. In honour of Resident Evil's 25th Anniversary, Gaming: The Podcast presents you the final of three episodes focused on the game's legacy, influence and design.

Indie By Design has already covered the game's Spencer Mansion location and its design and implementation of 'safe rooms', and in this episode we take a step back and look at the game as a whole - discussing how and why it has stood the test of time to become one of the most iconic games ever made.

[Sonic-and-Crash]

40 minutes podcast and didnt understand what make RE1 so great...i ve commented here in N4G about this 1000 times what are hte elements that make RE 1 the best in the series (only the original RE1 on PSX/Saturn was great , Remake lost it a bit )

original RE1 was great because specific reasons
1) Its Plot is based on realistic Sci -Fi horror scenario that makes the threat more believable so more easily affects/scares you
2) Its character progression and profiles are based on Masterpiece 80 s movies (specifically Aliens 2 /Predator 1) where the protagonists are a veteran squad of marines/special forces and come up against unexpected dangers but still believable for our world
3) the perfect atmospherically dark but very colorful in the same time environment .... each area creates its own emotions and feelings which stay memorable to player s mind forever
4) Its very well made animations/models (gunplay, movements ,aiming guns , monster s animations etc) with proprietary physics that make you feel the weight of your actions and immerse you with its realism
5) the almost adventure nature of gameplay which is a hybrid betweed Adventure and action game making you studying your items and searching your surrounding in order to solve puzzles and progress
6) its exhilarating nature of battle (splattering with hyperbole you enemies ,decapitations , exploding bodies after the continuing stress you feel from the horror enviroment)
7 )its absolutely perfect soundtrack (original RE1 only not the Dualshock clown music ) .
8) its proffessionaly made direction /writing the series of events that we must NOT credited them all to Shinj mikami but also to his codirector/writer Kenichi Iwao (director of Parasite Eve 2)
9hte intruduction of survival horror gameplay (scarse ammo/health items ,using your provisions wisely , not need always to fight but also to evade and run etcetc

Unfortunatley Remake and RE2 lost Kenichi Iwao from the team and didint manage to recapture the RE1 feeling again ...RE Remake also made a lot of mistakes implementing a lot dark/black filters and colors to immitate holywood cheap horror movies and destroyed the RE1 environment

P.S. to me the real sequel of RE1 is Parasite Eve 2 as it was made by many people who worked on original RE1 and recaptured perfectly the survval horror element

[CrimsonWing69]

Man, I didn't get most of that through my experience.

Specifically, Points:
1 (Plot was as believable to me as Night of the Living Dead was.)

2 (I mean, yea, those guys from the movies went in guns a blazing with the most can-spray machismo I've ever seen and didn't make it through... I didn't really get the same feel/impression from the S.T.A.R.S. team like that, at all.)

4 (We talking about the same game, here?)

6 (Yea, popping a zombies head was fun, but I didn't feel exhilarated from shooting, running back, turning, shooting some more, running back, turning, shooting. If anything I'd do my damndest to run by everything.)

7 (The soundtrack is good, but it's not like exceptional. Don't get me started about the Director's Cut sad clown using a kazoo theme)

8 (the writing was cheesy in the best of ways though).

I just thought the game was fun to play and I got invested in the dumb, but fun, lore. I'll admit the survival horror formula of obtuse puzzle solving, back-tracking, using resources wisely makes the game compelling to play through and I miss that from 4-6.

[fsfsxii]

bruh, Remake has unmatched visual and audio atmosphere. its literally the standard of horror games.

[NapalmSanctuary]

The original on ps1 is one of my favorite games of al time. Its one of the first games I bought on ps1 (my favorite console of all time). That said, Remake elevated everything about the original, making it feel like an incomplete game to me.