A (3:03)

And Michael, you actually played this on your own earlier this year, right? I did.

B (3:06)

I was Getting excited for RE9 aka Resident Evil Requiem and I've been doing a whole playthrough of the series. So I did start with the original. I played the remake though. But I think for this I am going to play the original PS1 or find a way to play the original PS1 version also came to Saturn.

A (3:23)

So if you have a Saturn lying.

B (3:24)

Around, I super don't.

A (3:26)

We've got one out there.

B (3:27)

I will say the one thing I'll say is that I think I'm getting to the age in which I am finding games, old games with clunky controls to be fun.

C (3:35)

So.

B (3:36)

Okay, you know, that might be my answer.

D (3:38)

As long as you know you're getting into the challenge comes from the controls, right?

C (3:42)

Yes.

B (3:42)

Oh yeah. Yeah. 1,000%.

A (3:43)

Sam, it is known to scoop nation that you love Resident Evil. When did you last play the original?

D (3:48)

Yeah, so I weirdly probably rental but at my cousin's house, like that's exactly what happened to me too. I was between liking video games at the time and so I wasn't super into the PlayStation 1, but I do remember these games having black compact discs instead of silver and it blew my mind. And then I remember thinking the FMVs were just so bad and I couldn't believe that people were into this game. And then I played the remake on GameCube and of course I fell in love with that game and Resident Evil 0 at that time. I don't have a lot of experience playing the actual PS1 version. I 100% have it on disc and I have a PS1. I also have a PS3 that can play PS1 games. The 60 gig one, I think. So I got to figure out how I'm going to pull this off. If not, what's you. What do you recommend?

A (4:40)

Well, I'm going to play the 20. There's a 2015 HD remaster. I have it on PlayStation. It's also on PC so I can play it on Steam Deck as well.

C (4:47)

And that's technically the GameCube one. Right.

A (4:49)

So that's where I'm playing that. And Nick, you're playing on PS1 actually you're going to capture it in 4K, right. We're going to have beautiful B roll.

C (4:56)

Thanks to Nick, thanks to the power of IGN and one Dave tool, I've managed to hook up the IGN office or he managed to hook up the IGN office with a RetroTink 4K. So I got my PS1 connected to that retrotink. So now it's just. I really want to play it with scan lines but I'll do a test footage and see whether or not that looks good on your YouTube video because the scan lines are just so pretty. On the RetroTink 4K, what do you do?

D (5:20)

Is it just RCA output or is there like S video? Like what do you do?

C (5:23)

I am currently doing The RetroTink has RGB. I have a modded PS1 so I can do RGB out.

D (5:29)

Oh, you have a modded one?

B (5:30)

Yeah.

D (5:31)

You're all set. It's going to look really good. It's going to look very good as a game on Compact disc from 1996.

B (5:36)

Good luck.

C (5:36)

Very crispy.

B (5:37)

Yeah, yeah.

A (5:38)

So we have all played before. Some people had commented on the first video that we should have someone on the panel who has never played the game before. So they're not influenced by. Influenced by nostalgia.

D (5:46)

I count. I didn't play a lot of it. I didn't beat it.

A (5:48)

Well, I just want to say that's a great idea that we'll definitely implement in future episodes. So. All right. Resident Evil, the original One, it has a 91 on Metacritic. EGM gave it an 8, a 9.5, a 9 and a 9. So definitely well received at the time. We are going to enter the Spencer Mansion and replay Resident Evil 1996. We're shooting this cold open right before we head out for a holiday break. So we'll be playing over the holidays and shooting the full episode early in the new year. It is time to find out if the OG pre rendered backgrounds tank controls hilariously bad dialogue and jaggy polygons of Resident Evil 1996 are still fun today. You were almost a Jill sandwich.

B (6:24)

Thanks, Barry.

D (6:25)

Master of Unlocking Resident Evil.

C (6:30)

Resident Evil.

A (6:34)

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D (8:04)

The longest part of the process, I'm.

B (8:06)

Thinking, is gonna be staying on hold.

A (8:08)

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D (10:09)

Yeah, I did. I played as Jill. It was great. And I played. Oh and I played on my Steam deck by the Christmas tree with the cat in my lap as well, if that's what you're asking.

C (10:17)

Yeah, Phil's right man.

A (10:20)

Goose Camp. Birds of a Feather. Now Michael, do you play the 1996 version over the holiday?

B (10:26)

Man, I wish I did, but I did not because I played it on Switch. The version that is available on the Switch eShop, which is the 2015 remaster of the remake. And yeah, turns out it's still fun. But like you Damon, there are some caveats that I will tell folks who want to play this version. Cause I do think it is essential, especially if you are getting into Resident Evil or if you have some gaps in the series. You have to play this version, but you gotta know what to expect.

A (10:57)

Yeah, Yep, I would agree with that. But Nick, you really went all out because you played. You did two runs of the 2015 version and also the 1996 version and you captured them all. So all the footage you see here is captured by Nick.

C (11:09)

No judgment on the gameplay because man, those dogs are a real pain in the ass. No, yeah, Resident Evil 1. As I talked about in the Cold Open, which was now prior to Christmas, it was a big blind spot for me and I was like, you know what? I'm Nick Limone. I gotta play all of these games just to see. Plus Nick F ing Limone. Yeah. And I'm a big sucker for just that early polygon like PlayStation style. And I think that a lot of people my age in general really have nostalgia for. We see games like Crow country that are evoking original Resident Evil. And I couldn't think of a better thing to just check out the one that started it all. And I had a blast. Granted, I did only play through Jill campaign on the 1996 version, but I played the original version of the game. No DualShock, no Director's Cut, just that one. And man, and then I did Chris and then I did another Jill run and then Chris in the 2015 remake on PC with the help of some lovely fans who did a beautiful job with the restored mod that upscales all of the pre rendered backgrounds up to 4K. And so all the footage that you're looking at is in glorious 4K. Even the PlayStation 1, which I had connected to a Mr. I'm sorry, a RetroTink 4K. And it's beautiful scan line. So enjoy all of the lo fi beauty that you are going to see. But yeah, I love it.

D (12:36)

I wanted to mention that I did try to get this up and going. I have the director's cut, which we were just talking about, has the DualShock upgrades to it and a few other things. It's of course on the black CD ROM disc that don't remember how cool PlayStation was for doing that. But I ended up playing the remade version which I think has so many improvements. But I also one other Thing I wanted to mention about playing along with this game is that I used a strategy guide for large portions of it and spent that time updating our strategy guide. So if you're out there and you're playing this, I actually meticulously went through a paragraph by paragraph and made sure that the writing and stuff and the puzzle solutions were up to snuff. And that was a lot of fun. So I had a fun time writing and playing.

C (13:22)

Dude, that's that brand synergy we're all about here at ign. So, people who watch this episode, you use the guide and you're going to get a definitive 2026 experience.

A (13:31)

Yeah.

B (13:31)

And I do think that's helpful.

D (13:33)

But Damon does have one tip for playing this game, which he already mentioned. What is that?

A (13:38)

Turn the rooms green. If you are turning the rooms green, you're playing Resident Evil, man.

C (13:43)

So, okay, a hot take here. I never once considered doing that, playing Resident Evil because I. I'm just like, yeah, I got the item I think I need. Let's get out of here and go. Like, I'm not trying to spend more. It's too creepy, man. I'm not trying to spend more time in these rooms.

D (13:59)

It's funny because that become the way when you play it that way, it adds this. It adds a different type of fear to the game because what you're doing by doing that is making sure you get every single plant.

C (14:09)

Yeah.

D (14:09)

And ammo. When you don't have any inventory room ever. So that's already difficult. Right. So you're juggling that. And then also while you're doing that, you probably expend some of that very plant juice and ammo plant powder. I don't know what it is. And, you know, just getting everything. So you really. It comes out of wash. You're like, I'm going to make sure I have all the ammo so I, you know, don't run out. And then it's like you spent all this time backtracking and what happens? Bunch of dogs come through a bunch of windows and you're bound.

C (14:35)

Dude, those dogs, I swear, they're in Devil May Cry, and I'm just in a resident EV1 game. Those dogs are. Those dogs are so fast. And basically every death I had in the game was because of the dogs. In both the original and the remake.

D (14:48)

One dog is going to bite you. If there. If, if. If the math is there's more one or more dogs in a room, one of them is gonna bite you. It's just gonna happen. You can Aim your, your gun downwards, up into a corner. It doesn't matter. It's gonna hit the dog after.

E (15:08)

All.

A (15:08)

Right, let's talk a little bit, a little bit about the graphics. I think this 2015 remaster is very pretty. I was actually kind of stunned like that. It still looks so good. Everything from lighting shadows, candles, flickering, lightning flashing through the windows like Capcom did. They did a really good job of making good use of their pre rendered backgrounds and foregrounds. Oftentimes in like that main hall, one of the angles is Jill, you know, and those candles like up real close to the camera. It looks great. I couldn't believe how good this looks.

C (15:35)

It's like the cinematography, right? They just like, oh wait, movies have come out. We know movies, let's do that. And there's just so many things that stand out to me. There's like beautiful shots where the second time you fight the yawn snake boss, there's a part where you're entering the hallway and it's. The camera is just outside the window of the mansion and so the window is in the foreground with Jill in the background. Just like this is just so beautiful. Or when you're walking through the graveyard, they just take so many interesting angles. And honestly I know that people have their gripes about the tank controls combined with the fixed camera angles, but I think that it's a beautiful blend of tension and art direction where this angle switch combined with the tank controls is the tension when you are trying to fight an enemy and the fact that.

D (16:24)

You sure hide zombies in every single corner when you have five camera angles to a dang room.

C (16:30)

And that's the best part because you know a zombie's coming towards you. So you do the thing that every horror protagonist does where you back up and do it like, I think I have a big enough vantage point here and you're just holding your gun out like waiting. And it's like such good dramatic effect because you wait for the zombie to get as close as humanly possible to pop off a shot and you're going to do a little bit more damage and potentially headshot it.

B (16:52)

Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's another thing too, is that when, when I think about the pre rendered backgrounds and especially what the limitations were of the era of the PS1 and the, the 32 bit era is that there's a lot of intentionality with fixed camera angles and like you might think of it as dated design, but that is like, that is how that game was made. The puzzles are centered around the Idea that you're looking at your environment in a very specific way. Certain items glint in the corner of rooms and it like piques your interest. Like, oh, okay, like I need to see that out. But there's a gate here. And then like I need to think about like when I go to this room, what's it emphasizing here? So there's so much intentionality with, you know, having pre rendered backgrounds that can make them look as artistic or as nice as they want. But there's. It's also conducive to what you're supposed to be doing from room to room or from whatever part of the room that you are currently exploring. So that ties into. I'm gonna probably be mentioning this a lot. Is that not just because it has pre render backgrounds, but is also, as Sam mentioned before we got on here, it's like the CD ROM era of games. Point and click adventures were kind of the. That was like the hottest stuff on PC especially. And having replayed this, this game is like, you know, we think of Resident Evil as an action survival horror franchise. But playing through Re 1, this almost feels a lot like a point and click adventure game. Especially once you start trying to wrap your head around what the puzzle solutions are. What items did I miss, what room should I go to next? What, what room, what doors does this key even apply to? And then I found myself like backtracking a lot and you know, getting a little frustrated here and there. But once you find a solution, you're like, oh my God, I'm a, I'm a genius. And that's a consequence of the game being designed almost like closer to a point and click adventure game that also plays to how the game is stylized.

D (18:54)

It really is. And it's like, it's like the CD ROM era of that. You know, you have like seventh Guest. Is that what that was called? You know, when you have games. And then there was of course Return to Zork and Mist and stuff like that. These games, you have an inventory that you fill with like pieces of a crank and then you combine them and then you use them. That's the entire gameplay of those games. This adds some basic shooting and running around and avoiding things and action elements to it. That's the innovation, right. The rest of it is really drawing from those point and click from the. What's it called? Scum engine LucasArts games taken into the 3D era. And I wanted to mention one thing about the graphics. I think that there's. We already talked about camera angles. Like they can get bad, right? Like they're not good all the time.

B (19:44)

Oh yeah, for sure.

D (19:45)

You go down a hallway, then you go back down that hallway. You go down it, go back down it over and over again because you're trying to find which way is forward in the hallway. And then there's also a contrast issue that's just kind of. Even in the HD remake or whatever, the drawings, they don't show where like a staircase down is very well or where a door is very well. You know, you end up. You really. That's why I end up using the map so much, right. Is because like that really tells you. But until you, until you have a map, it's really hard because there's this kind of this muddy single camera perspective and doesn't work for me all the time, but it's pretty funny. And then one last thing about the graphics. The doors opening is ridiculous and it's not necessary anymore. And it's very funny that you have to go back and forth through our doors.

A (20:30)

I was going to say that I like that. So there's a loading screen in between every room and they show the door. And I appreciate that. Every door is bespoke. It's the door you're opening.

C (20:38)

The stairs are bespoke.

A (20:40)

Even if it's an elevator, you see the exact thing that you've traveled through. And I appreciate that.

D (20:45)

If you go outside, the doors are metal.

C (20:47)

I love, I really like the doors. I love the remakes, don't get me wrong. But I do lament the door transition because I think it's such a great way of building dread. Like what am I about to see next kind of thing.

D (21:00)

They're in the remake and you can't see.

C (21:01)

Skip them.

D (21:02)

I know, that's what I Recommend in.

C (21:04)

The RE2 remakes and stuff like that.

D (21:06)

Is what I do.

C (21:07)

But real quick, I want to go back.

D (21:08)

See, it's a skip button. Like you don't need to load the room. A little silly to me.

C (21:12)

I want to go back a little bit to what you guys were talking about with the point and click adventure because 100% it reminds me of very like evocative of the King's Quest era of like Sierra point and click stuff. But I doing a little bit of research. You know, I read the book Itchy Tasty, which is kind of a recounting of the development of all the RE games along with. I checked out the Sphere hunters channel on YouTube, which she's fantastic. She does a lot of like long form survival horror video essays and she's fantastic. And then I did some. Some of my own independent research. And one thing that stood out to me is that for the original 1996 Resident Evil, it was created by a man named Tokuro Fujiwara, who is the director of Sweet Home, which was a Famicom survival horror rpg so turn based Final Fantasy horror game. But he went on to re. He wanted to remake Sweet home on the PlayStation 1 as a first person shooter. So RE1 was originally going to be a first person experience, but then he ended up like, they lose. They lost the Sweet Home rights and they handed it over the reins to Shinji Mikami, his prodigy. And he was like, oh, this dude's a scaredy cat. So I want him to make a scary game. And thus he did that. And also for all the. For the scoopers out there, Tokoro Fujiwara was the director on Bionic Commando.

A (22:34)

Oh my gosh.

C (22:35)

And Ghouls N Ghosts.

A (22:36)

Oh my gosh. Wow.

C (22:38)

So it's all coming from good pedigree. And if I may go on one super quick tangent because I'm never gonna be able to do this in my entire life. Sweet Home is a video game adaptation of a movie in Japan that was produced and directed by two of my favorite Japanese filmmakers. It was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosaw, who's done a modern masterpiece called Cure. And it was produced by Juzo Itami, who's made one of my all time favorite Japanese films called Tampulpo. So it's really fun to trace all of this pedigree back and be like, man, they had some really cool people working over at Capcom on all this stuff.

A (23:30)

Okay, let's talk a bit about the music and sound and the voice acting first of all. How about that Save room music? Oh, it's so good.

D (23:37)

It's good.

A (23:37)

I just. Every time I go to Save Room, I'm just gonna chill here for a little bit and listen to this.

C (23:42)

It's. It's. It's atmospheric and I'm. I love, I think everything they did with the SoundTrack in the RE1 remake, the 20022015 remake is phenomenal. Music wise. Like, it's. It's a very full score. Like you can really just. You hear all the instruments is what I'll say.

A (23:58)

Is it the same save Room music in the 1996 version?

C (24:01)

It's a similar. You can tell it's the same song. But I think I prefer the original PlayStation 1. Whatever. I'm not sure if it's Red Book audio or Blue Book audio on the PlayStation 1. But. I think it's especially for like, all the lo fi kids out there that combined with the early polygons and Jill's very cute idle animation in the original game, it just all comes together to be like. Yeah, I just want to. I want this to be like a splash screen. Lo fi beats to hunt zombies to. Or something. Yeah, yeah.

A (24:45)

Since you can't look around a room, sound is really important in this game. And I think they're smart about it. Every time you go into a room, since you can't necessarily see what's in front of you, depending on the angle, there's always an audio cue.

B (24:56)

Right.

A (24:56)

Either you can hear the footsteps or you can hear the. And you learn something.

C (25:00)

You learn what enemy is in the room even before you see him. Because that's how distinct all of the sound design is. You're like, oh, I know that there's. What are they called? The hunters. Yeah, Hunters are in here. It's like, oh, that's. That's really clever that the game teaches you this stuff implicitly.

D (25:16)

Yeah. There's kind of a scored violin, like suspense, just tone. Just like do. And then that'll happen until. And it might hit crescendo while you're fighting a zombie. And then if it's not fully dead, it won't go fully silent. So. But once everything in the room is dead, it's dead silent, which is also just a really smart, cool effect.

A (25:39)

Yeah.

D (25:40)

Yeah.

C (25:41)

Dead silent. You mean like the DS game Resident Evil? Deadly silence.

A (25:47)

There's also a particular tune that plays in a puzzle room that's also really good. So they. The. The original famously has really hilarious voice acting.

B (25:56)

It has the.

A (25:56)

You're almost a Jill sandwich.

D (25:58)

This mansion is gigantic.

B (26:01)

We could get into trouble if we get lost.

D (26:04)

We should start from the first.

A (26:05)

First floor.

C (26:06)

Okay.

B (26:07)

And Jill, here's a lockpick.

D (26:11)

It might be handy if you. The master of unlocking, take it with you.

A (26:15)

Jill. You the master of unlocking, take this. They re recorded it for the 2002 remake. So obviously they are a little bit embarrassed by the clunkiness of it. But it's still terrible, right?

C (26:26)

Like, I. I think three. I think three quarters of the performances are pretty good. I think near the end, once you get into the laboratory, I'm like, okay, something happened here. They're like, we gotta get this game out on Tuesday. Hur.

A (26:37)

It does get worse. And like the very end, like the finale when you're like at the rush away from the tyrant and it's you and Barry and Chris, it just. It just gets laughably bad.

C (26:46)

I do.

D (26:47)

The Kenneth part is really embarrassing. He's, like, whining the whole time and sniffling. And then you heal him, and he just, like, lies on the floor. He's like.

C (26:56)

He's like, bro, I thought you were Special Forces. What's going on?

D (27:00)

Yeah, I read in the manual that, like, you, like, got fired from the military. Badass. And here we are sniveling on the floor.

A (27:07)

There's a hilarious moment with Barry, like, halfway through when he's like, ugh, this mansion's starting to get to me. I'm gonna step outside for some air. Like, what? He's like, no, don't do that. You ran into the mansion because you're being torn apart by dogs outside. Also, like, dogs are. You're, like, trapped in this nightmare mansion trying to find a way out. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna step outside and get some, man.

C (27:28)

So the big difference between our. There's a lot of, like, drastic differences. But my favorite is when you open the front door in the original game that you come in through at the start of the Mansion, like, at the very beginning of the game. In the original, you just get a cutscene of CG dogs trying to jump at you. But if you open the door in the remake, the dogs enter the foyer, and you now have to deal with, like, three dogs at once. And it's like, oh, Jesus, that's so smart, Jill.

B (27:55)

Barry.

C (27:56)

I heard someone talking.

B (27:58)

Oh, you heard?

D (28:02)

I think age is starting to take its toll.

B (28:05)

Talking to myself is becoming a bad habit.

C (28:08)

Talking to yourself. You all right?

B (28:11)

What's gotten into you?

C (28:15)

I'm getting you worried, aren't I?

D (28:17)

But don't.

B (28:18)

I'm all right. I guess this creepy mansion has gotten to my nerves. Anyway, I think I'll go outside, get some fresh air for a change.

E (28:28)

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A (30:18)

Okay, controls. They updated the controls in the 2002 version. Are they better than the 1996 original? Are they easier to grasp?

C (30:26)

The tank controls are borderline the same. That said, if you're gonna play the steam version, the 2015 HD remake, just do the alternate controls. It's so much better.

A (30:38)

Yeah. Okay. Go ahead, Michael. I was gonna ask if this was one of your nitpicks.

B (30:41)

I. I think for. So if you're coming into this from a modern sense. Yes. I think it'll make a lot more sense to use the, the modernized controls. But there's kind of going back to the. Like when we talk about fixed camera angles and intentionality. Yeah, tank controls, Listen, they will take maybe an hour to get used to. It takes some work. I know.

D (31:03)

Explain what tank controls mean to people.

A (31:05)

So tank controls, it's not a term.

D (31:06)

We just throw around.

B (31:07)

Yeah, absolutely. So if, you know, regardless of where the camera is, pressing forward or up on the D pad will move your character forward, whichever direction they're looking. And then you change the direction with left and right, and then you press up to move forward regardless. So instead of, you know, using a joystick to move left, right, up, down, whichever direction you want, and the character will respond to the according direction. So the sense is that you need to like, shoot, shift the character to the direction you want to go and then press up, which sounds extremely inconvenient, but hear me out. The way the original Resident Evils were built, with the camera angles, the fixed camera angles, and the way enemies pop up at certain points, and the way you navigate certain rooms, pressing up to just go straightforward regardless of where the camera is going to shift is I, I almost want to say it's my preferred way to play the game, although it does take some getting used to. And maybe also because I'm so speed run pilled with the Resident Evil games. But like speedrunning, the speedrun community always uses tank controls when you play these games. But it is also, once you get used to it, it is easier to navigate. Like, I found it easier to navigate boss fights because in rooms where the camera is changing a lot and you have to be quick on your feet and like, you want to like, dart to certain points in the room you like, sometimes you might stumble like, oh, the camera's going to change this way. So then you need to like, instead of pressing up, you got to press left to keep moving forward. It's little things like that where I think it does matter if you want to have like that true experience of Resident Evil when you think about intentionality with how the game is designed. Again, again, I'm not saying like, oh, if you play with modernized controls, you playing it wrong. It's like, no, no, no, you're do. You're perfectly fine. The fact that you are engaging with the game on any level is perfectly fine with me. But I do, when I did play this game, replay this game, I took a moment be like, do I want to do tank controls? And then once I got once I gave it like half an hour to an hour, I'm like, okay, yes, this is kind of how I need to be playing this game. So that is. That is something that I would at least encourage you.

C (33:18)

Try it out. Yeah.

A (33:20)

I mean, even the modern controls, there's.

C (33:21)

Some.

A (33:23)

Uncomfortableness with it because, like, let's say Jill is facing the camera down a hallway, so you would press down on the controller for her to walk. But then as soon as the camera switches, now she's moving to the left and you're still holding down. You still have to switch it right over.

B (33:37)

That's what I mean.

C (33:37)

It's also probably important to realize that a lot of people are probably trying to replay the original RE1 to get not gaming literacy, but to get some sort of understanding and like kind of center yourself in a time and place of the time that this was made. And probably not a lot of people are going to be a weirdo like me and play all of the games back to back. So I, I think there, there was that moment of revelation. I was like, whoa, it didn't have to always be like this kind of thing.

D (34:02)

But now, yeah, all the reason they're playing to know what happened in Raccoon City.

C (34:06)

Dude, what happened in that. What the heck happened in that Spencer mansion? Captain Wesker. Where's Chris?

D (34:15)

Stop it. Don't open that door.

C (34:18)

But Chris is.

D (34:22)

What is it? Maybe it's Chris now.

A (34:27)

Jill, can you go?

C (34:28)

I'm going with you.

B (34:30)

Chris is our old partner, you know.

D (34:33)

Okay, let me handle this. I think the one thing that will trip up people returning to this game is not the directional controls. It is the aiming of the gun.

A (34:45)

I was going to ask about that too.

D (34:46)

It's fine with me because I remember the first time I played this on GameCube and I was like, this is so stupid. I cannot believe how stupid this is. And then I played Resident Evil 4 and then I loved it so much. And now I go back to him. Like, I understand, like, this is a product of its time, but like you really, you don't expect to aim in this game. The most aiming you're going to do is like kind of being stuck in a corner and like either pressing up or down while you just shoot a wildly wrong direction and the thing reacts to it anyway. You don't. It's not. It's more like an adventure game where you're just clicking to shoot. Yeah, you're just clicking to shoot.

A (35:21)

It's a very generous auto aim. Right. So even if you're sort of. If I were. If you're the zombie, if I'm. I'm going to hit you if I'm shooting like this. Right.

C (35:28)

And there is something satisfying too because of the auto aim in the remake where when you wait for a zombie to get really close and you have a shotgun and you aim up, you're going to nine times out of ten, shoot their head off. And it is so satisfying. The, the.

B (35:43)

Like you said, like when we talk about sound design when it comes to like the guns and like just the gushy sound of getting a headshot with a shotgun is so disgusting. I kind of love it.

C (35:52)

It rules.

A (35:53)

Yeah.

D (35:54)

Yeah. So then the other big control based thing I think is the inventory. And there's. There's a good thing that the inventory pauses the game. That's not in every Resident Evil game. And thank goodness that it does because you have to do a lot in your inventory system and you have to manage your inventory by running back to item boxes. And at least for the first part of the game, the save rooms are not easy to get to, they're annoying to get to and they're far away. So saving is also a pain in the butt because you have to have an Ink ribbon, you have to take it out of a box, take it over to save, then put it back in the box so it doesn't take up an inventory slot. All that stuff is nonsense, right? Like, it doesn't need to be in the game. Doesn't make it scarier, but it's a holdover. And you'll learn a little bit about this game this way. But back to the inventory beyond the ink ribbon part. Like, a lot of this game is you don't have enough inventory slots.

A (36:40)

That's it.

D (36:41)

And then when you have the inventory thing that you need, you don't know when you need it. And you always need to go in your inventory and look at it closely. So it's like there's just a lot of things that you're not going to know because no games do that anymore.

A (36:54)

I was going to bring that up as one of my big gripes. So let's jump to the wrap up here. So this is a Metroidvania, right?

D (37:13)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the way, remember, it's because it has lots of platforming.

C (37:20)

Yeah. Wait, hold on. We gotta start using terms to define these things. Yes. What is it? Metroid Dread is a platformer. Damn it. I would say this is a. This is. This is a puzzle game. You gotta bring the right tool for the puzzle.

A (37:36)

Okay. But the basic gameplay loop is you're starting from a save room. You're gonna see how far you can make it in the mansion. You either make it to the next save room or you have to backtrack, which is the exact same loop as Symphony of the Night.

D (37:47)

I love it, Damon. I love it.

A (37:49)

I was tying it back to that for you, Sam. You're constantly pushing outward on the level.

C (37:53)

Usually in Symphony of Night, you get abilities that change how you move about and interact. What are your.

D (37:58)

You get new verses. You have to run around the corner perimeter of every room just to make sure you've 100% in that room and found all the doors. In Metroidvania, you gotta go whip all the corners.

C (38:08)

In Metroidvanias, you get new verbs that you interact with the environment with. But I would argue in Resident Evil.

D (38:14)

You become the master of unlocking.

C (38:16)

But it's just a glorified key, right? Like, that's all. That's all it all is. It's just a permanent key. Every item is a key. I could see it if the weapons interacted differently with the environment. But. But this is where I draw my line in the sand. Right here.

B (38:30)

I'm with Nick, I gotta draw a line. Come on. Y' all are too old to be doing this. Y' all should be gatekeeping these terms.

D (38:36)

No, we get the troll because we were there and we thought that we're stupid to begin.

C (38:40)

I'm. I'm all joking, though. It genuinely is. And I think that's my favorite part of Resident Evil games in general, because there is this idea where you are operating within the very confined inventory space. You know exactly where you need to go, you have the items you need, and there's just this flow state you enter where you're guiding and flying through enemies, and you're just wishing past them. You're wishing past the Crimson Head dude who you swore you've killed like four times at this point, but you're still making it through. And that's what always stands out as being. Feel good to me about Resident Evils when you know where you need to go and you have the tools that you need in order to fulfill something. And that's. Nothing is. Feels better than that in these games.

A (39:21)

And I like how you can settle into this gameplay loop, going from room to room, picking up items, using items to unlock the next area. But then Capcom will sprinkle in little surprises, like, very early on, Jill. I'll just say, because I was playing as Jill, she rounds the corner. You can't see what's happening. The game takes over, Jill backs up, and a zombie comes out.

C (39:37)

It's so classic.

A (39:38)

Moments like that, for the most part, enemies can't follow you through doors, but once or twice they can. So it's like, what the f. Boom.

C (39:44)

Boom.

D (39:46)

It's such a good sound effect.

C (39:47)

There is a lot of subversion of expectations coming from. From the original to this, whether it be the addition of new areas, the addition of the crimson heads, which didn't exist in the original game, the burning of the bodies, all that stuff is pretty clever. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of the burning Bodies system, but it's just.

A (40:06)

Another thing that takes up two inventory slots.

C (40:09)

That's why that goes into my rant that I had this realization that I've had over the holiday break of like, Kris is the best. It's the most fun way of playing the game. Yes, he only has six inventory slots compared to Jill's eight. But I would argue that the game's design and the way the map is laid out, because in place of the lockpick, Chris gets mini keys that are disposable keys that you use to unlock doors that would otherwise be lockpicked but the route that the game takes you through as Chris, I would argue that its designs make it so that you actually never have the situation that you often run into Jill where your inventory is full and you need to go backtrack because you got to dump stuff.

D (40:47)

Because they made the almost the procedural unlocking of the mansion logical with Chris. But then with Jill, they're like, we're going to make an alternate route. She was always like the B route.

C (40:58)

When you have more room, you end up using that room. And then you kind of. It's not soft locking, but that's kind of what I call it when it's like, okay, the frustrating part of this game is where I have to go back, hike all the way back.

A (41:08)

That's the whole thing.

C (41:08)

In the RE1 remake you mentioned earlier, in the west wing of the mansion, the door that leads into that save room will break after a while.

D (41:18)

It's the east.

C (41:18)

It's the east that's not in the original game. And I'm like, one, what a clever thing to add to this remake. But two, what a colossal pain in the ass.

D (41:28)

Such a troll. It becomes one way at least you can get to the room, but you can't get back. And that's the final area of that part of the mansion. So you're in that area a lot. And then you have to go up and around over and over again.

C (41:41)

It's very clever, though. I like it.

A (41:42)

The restrictive inventory, I would say, is the biggest sort of like, warning to anyone who's going to play this game who hasn't played it before. Because. Because it's so limited, you can't take much at all with you. You do have an item box, but you know you have to dump it in there. So you're heading out to explore more of the mansion. You can take maybe your pistol, your keys and a green herb. You make it far. Then you get to the next, like, place where an item needs to be used. Oh, I need the crank. And there's no way of knowing what you're going to need.

D (42:10)

Yeah.

A (42:10)

So that you end up either backtracking or just loading your save. Right.

C (42:14)

I want to. There's no way. And this is all joking, Sam, but I would love a modified guide where it's just like, don't tell me what to do per se, but just tell me what at every point in the game. Just tell me what items I need to have in my inventory and then I'll figure out the rest.

D (42:29)

I definitely did that as part of the Chapter heads or as like before you leave the saver, you need to take this. But you could just do that. It would make the game a lot more fun. My big recommendation is, I think it is fun to use a guide for this game, but my biggest recommendation is play another Resident Evil first. Don't start with this. And I used to always say play four first, even though it was the most different. But now you can play two or three remake. And then why I'm saying that is because those are a lot more. They will condition you to things like save rooms and inventory management and puzzle solutions and keys and the types of like the kind of flow of weapons through a game which is like you have a handgun, then you have a shotgun, then you get a choice from like a bunch of different things and some of them are kind of crappy. Like you need to know these kind of Resident Evil essentials. And then you can go play. The annoying stuff in this game will be far less annoying than just going and be like, well, I'm going to start at the beginning. Don't do that.

B (43:20)

Yeah, there's a, there's a certain like design language that comes with Resident Evil that is consistent regardless of what, which, which one. Which entry you play. There's some things are consistent. So when you work backwards and when I came back to the original Resident Evil, I'm like, like, okay, like there are certain things that just haven't changed. And like I, I like that there is a consistency that you see a lot in RE7 and Resident Evil Village. And I, I, from what I've, from the little I played of Resident Evil Requiem still consistent to this day. And I, I love that you know, as much as Resident Evil change. You know, I had had a, had a dark time with five and six. I would say that is it kind of like it, it gained its, it remembered what it was about out. And so when you, if you go back to Re 1, you're like, oh, this is the origins of it. Yeah, it's frustrating.

D (44:07)

So fun.

B (44:08)

Yeah. But like the, the, I think it's important and as, as I get older, I've valued the friction that came with older games. Yeah, like not, and I wouldn't say the inventory stuff makes, makes the game what it is. Like that stuff is very frustrating. And I don't say like, oh, like you should play this game the way it is intended and you're supposed to like it. It's like, no, I, I, I did not like that stuff when I replayed this game, but it's Important to engage with it, to know what that game was at the time and how far it has come around. And like, part of it is like, hey, you get a better appreciation of where games were and where they are now. So as frustrating as that stuff might be, it's like, gotta eat your vegetables. And you know, it's. And when you ask, is this game still fun? Like, I think the core, the game itself is still fun. But I also think that in the process of playing the game, it is also fun to, you know, to know what it's like when games came out at the time. And it's a kind of a relic of the past that has been modernized in some sense. But I think that is also fun to look back and be like, oh, the series that I really like, that's where it was. And now I have that institutional knowledge. Now I have that design language as a series continues. Because again, this is a series that's going on to this day. 20 years at this point. Still going strong.

D (45:29)

I eat a lot of vegetables in my games. I love going back and playing crappy old games. I know Damon does this a lot too. He'll roll the dice on like an old system and try to play something you never played and just suffer through it a little bit. I love doing that. This game is a lot more fun. It is the ketchup of vegetables as Ronald Reagan.

B (45:48)

Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah.

D (45:50)

It is 100% just a down and out, great fun experience. I will recommend it to anybody and I will not recommend, you know, chubby Cherub to anybody. Daniel is a very unfortunate side scroller.

A (46:05)

Yeah. Two observations before we wrap things up. I think the actual scariest part of the game is the sharks. Something about 100% like waist high water. Waist high water with a giant shark chasing me.

C (46:16)

Both the 96 version and this one filled me with such dread of, like, it's the Subnautica thing, right? When I'm in a body of water, I move slower and I know something's after me. And it's just that, again, I was terrified of sharks as a kid. So it's just. It just evokes this, like, primal fear in me that I truly cannot explain. But the sharks are really good looking in the remake.

A (46:36)

Yeah, they're good.

C (46:38)

And that one explodes real good too.

A (46:39)

I love how you, like, you run through the water and then you go up the stairs and you're in the sort of control room and you go down and then there's like a porthole and you can see the sharks swimming around in there. It looks so cool.

C (46:48)

The one thing.

D (46:48)

And then when you try to like, you know, do your. They start ramming the glass when you're in that rim. And it's really good. It's a great moment in the game. I'm trying to think the scariest moment is. And I think the sharks are scary when they're out of the water too.

A (47:02)

Because you're like they're flopping around.

D (47:03)

This is Resident Evil. Are they just gonna bite me? Because they're flopping around and then one's huge. Like there's just like a huge one.

C (47:11)

That's a good set piece. That's a really good set piece.

B (47:13)

Yeah, good stuff.

C (47:14)

One thing that you guys missed though because you played as Jill in the remake, right? Did you all play as Jill? Is Chris. And what's a dude who faces the giant snake when you're playing as Jill?

D (47:26)

That's Kenneth.

C (47:26)

That's Kenneth. So Kenneth has an incredible death against the Neptune shark where it's basically like that scene from Deep Blue Sea where Samuel Jackson gets ripped apart by the shark and it's that. But Kenneth and his arm gets lopped off and you get to use his semi automatic shotgun once you. Once you find it and it's like hell yeah.

D (47:46)

Great death.

A (47:47)

Resident Evil predated Deep Blue Sea by three years.

C (47:49)

Well, there you go. Deep Blue Sea stole from Resident Evil. You heard it here first.

A (47:54)

Finally, the funniest part of the whole game. I hope you caught this, Sam. When you get down to the labs and you find a photo of the the team of scientists that made the T virus incredible. They're all wearing their white lab coats and one of them is Wesker. He's wearing his white lab coat with his sunglasses.

B (48:08)

Sunglasses all store.

C (48:11)

It's incredible.

D (48:13)

You know he has his infinite Magnum under there too.

C (48:16)

And he can teleport too. You just don't know it yet.

A (48:20)

This is a really fun one. That's the best part about this show. A great excuse to revisit old games. There you have it nicely. Job Capcom. The original Resident Evil is still fun today, especially if you played it back in the day. If you've never played the pre render Resident Evil, just know the controls might take some getting used to. And expect to do a certain amount of backtracking if you're not sure what items you'll need next. But Sam did just update the IGN guide. So thanks for watching. We have more. Is it Still Fun Today? Episodes planned. More games from 1996 in celebration of IGN 30th and also games from other years as well. I will not rest until we know whether or not every game is still fun to play. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. To Tayo, working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon, and we'll see you on the next one. Jill, you did a fine job.