Resident Evil 9 Requiem - No Spoilers

Okay so RE9 released just over a week ago, and I said I would post my thoughts of the game here earlier this week. I decided to wait a few days, a couple more playthroughs, and having watched playthroughs from a few other RE players before posting my opinions. This will be my first time posting something like this, so I hope I do it well. I will try to do this will no story spoilers, any story content written here is already known through game trailers or press releases prior to the games launch. I definitely didn't want to give this game the CoD treatment of it being the greatest thing in a rushed assessment just to change my mind shortly after.

Just little history about the Resident Evil franchise for those who may be unfamiliar. This year marks the 30th anniversary for Resident Evil. Over these 30 years Resident Evil has release the following:

30+ video games (including remakes), 12 movies (live action & animated), 2 TV shows, 13 books, 10 comics, and 3 plays.

I mention all of this because RE9 is basically one big love letter to the fans of this franchise. It has references, easter eggs, surprises, and aura farming that mostly long-time fans will catch. If you've at least played the most recent RE remakes you should pick up on some of these. The RE story is very well known for being all over the place and is consistently retconning itself with the remakes and other media releases, so I'm more than happy to answer any questions people may have about the world after reading this or playing/watching the game(s). With all that being said let's get into this.

Story/Gameplay

The opening sequence in Wrenwood is probably one of the best opening sequences in a RE game. Grace Ashcroft being sent to the Wrenwood Hotel to investigate the 5th death of a Raccoon City survivor and face her past with her mother's death at this location. She then finds herself being thrust into a situation she is greatly unprepared for and gets abducted. The new villain is introduced, Victor Gideon, who believes Grace is the "key" to his work and orchestrated everything to abduct her. Leon Kennedy arrives just in time to find said villain carrying Grace down the street, who then proceeds to infect the people walking around to escape forcing Leon to eliminate all infected before the outbreak spreads. This opening sets the tone for the story moving forward and the blended gameplay experience of survival horror and action you will find. Survival horror and action gameplay has about a 50/50 split overall but it comes at different times. The movement and gun play are super smooth and well-polished and have a natural feel, as expect. At this point I'll break the rest of the game into the locations the game takes you to.

Rhodes Hill

Grace at Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center is your classic RE experience and the character you will play as most during your time here. You play in a first-person perspective as Grace (This can be changed to third person, but I wouldn't recommend this for a first playthrough). You have to avoid enemies, if possible, solve puzzles, and uncover the secrets this facility has just to try and get out alive. The atmosphere in this setting is amazing. When it comes to sound, there is rarely any music as they focused on the natural environment of an infected medical facility to carry this place. The sounds of the infected roaming the halls and rooms, the creaking of doors opening and closing, the storm raging outside, Grace's breathing and whimpering, etc. Every step you take and corner you turn is unnerving because you never know what may be waiting for you. Resources are scarce and you can easily find yourself in a bad situation if you aren't careful with your actions. Death will find you fairly quickly as Grace is not very durable and generally dies in 2-3 hits depending on the enemy. Leon is your modern action oriented RE experience. While his gameplay in this part is extremely limited, it is a nice tease of what you will get to experience later. I will say while normally the switching back and forth between characters in games normally takes you out of the experience, I never once felt this way with how they manage it in this game. There is a thing called zapping in this game. This is where the things you do as one character directly impacts your experience with the other. It's feature that makes sense to have with the switching between characters in the same setting, but it can take away from either characters gameplay experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my entire experience at Rhodes Hill and was on the edge of my seat for most of it. The design and visuals of Rhodes Hill are amazing, and there wasn't any section that I dreaded having to do on subsequent playthroughs. This section will take most people between 4-6 hours to complete for their first time. I would say more but I would have to start telling the story and I don't want to do that here.

Raccoon City/RPD

Here we are. The moment all of us RE fans have been hoping for but never thought it would actually happen. The return to Raccoon City and the RPD. This is where a majority of nostalgia farming takes place, but it is done is a way that makes sense to the story being told and never once feels out of place. This part of the game was an emotional experience for me, especially walking up and into RPD after playing in this setting for so long in multiple other RE games. I still get chills every time I come up to the RPD in this game. There is something so devastatingly beautiful and haunting about this place in its new post-apocalyptic look. Also, the remixes on the Raccoon City & RPD themes that play in the background are the perfect mix of old & new. This is also the part of the game where you only play as Leon and the action kicks up to 10. There are a multitude of enemies, new and old, and even the return of one bioweapon we haven't seen in this form since I believe RE0 released in 2002. Boss fights are straightforward and simple in this game, shoot the weak point until they die, and I wish they made them more challenging. Maybe add in some environmental feature or something along those lines like they have in past titles to defeat the boss or at least expose their weakness instead of it just being there already. The battle music in this game is close to something that you would find in Doom and make combat that much more intense feeling. There is a supply box which acts as the shop/upgrade station. You earn credits by killing enemies and collecting "combat data" for the encounters. To me this the most lore accurate way to do this since in past RE games a big narrative around these bioweapons is collecting their combat data to sell. I feel like this part of the game was an apology for RE3 remake and what we missed with it. I do wish the city was expanded and had more of a playable area, which is probably just me being greedy. While I liked the one the rails bike scene to get from the outskirts of the city to the RPD, I would've preferred to have to traverse the city ruins on foot to get there. Overall, this section is a 10/10 for me and gave us way more than I thought we would get out of a post-apocalyptic Raccoon City if we ever did go there.

Side note: Just because I've seen this question come up a lot in comments about this game. Capcom retconned how Raccoon City was destroyed years ago, long before RE2 & 3 remakes. Originally the city was wiped out by a nuclear missile strike. This was changed to the city being wiped out by a thermobaric missile strike, which is why we are able to return to the city 28 years later.

Ark

Now this wouldn't be a Resident Evil game if we didn't have a secret Umbrella lab show up at some point. You play and even split of Grace & Leon here. This is the final set piece of the game and it's just about how you would expect it to go. Umbrella lab with a ton of bioweapons that are loose and you have a navigate through them to ultimately stop the bad guys from reaching their goal. For an Umbrella lab I really like the design of this place and it's all bright white interior, and the bioweapon pods littered throughout the facility that leaving you guessing as to when and which pod a monster will come out of. This lab is much more significant than past Umbrella labs but that's for you to find out through the story. There are human enemies in this part that you engage in several gunfights with as Leon, but it's fitting and not overdone like past games. Overall, a good section I have no complaints with.

Ending

Resident Evil 9 has two endings, like early RE games. Good ending and bad ending. Now without going into any details the bad ending is, well, bad. I don't just mean bad as in the non-canon ending where things don't turn out as they should. I mean it's BAD. For a game that took its time to tell a carefully crafted story with the intricacies and surprises it has within it, they really dropped the ball with this one. It feels like an afterthought they threw in just for shock value and a rushed wasted effort. If you choose this ending at the end of your first playthrough they actually prompt you after the credits to go back to the moment before you make a choice to revisit the "correct" ending, something I've never seen before. Normally you have to play through the game again to view the other ending(s). If they actually took the time with this ending and put thought into it, like everything else, it possibly could've been at the very least a more meaningful "bad" ending.

The good (canon) ending is WAY better and thought out. It wraps up the story nicely and gives you a little of the aftermath with the characters. There are a few things left open to keep the story open to continuing and there has already been rumors of potential story DLC coming later this year.

Post-Game Content

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and for RE9 post-game content is where it falters.

• There is no true New Game+ mode. You start a whole new game every time with all the basic starting gear and the only changes being that the supply box appears at the start and a modified data bracelet for faster credit earning for Leon to buy/sell/upgrade his equipment.

• You unlock Insanity difficulty. New difficulty mode that presents a tougher challenge in stronger enemies and item locations change.

• Finishing challenges that you may have missed to unlock bonus content. Bonus content consists of character skins, weapons, infinite ammo, charms, collectable maps, extra weapon tunings, etc.

That's pretty much it. Replay ability is pretty low as the game sits with post-game content right now. Hopefully they will add a Mercenaries mode, a true new game+, and other features that will improve on replay ability.

I really enjoyed RE9 and think it's a great addition to the franchise. I think all of the characters in this game are incredible and the actors/actresses who play them did an incredible job (especially Grace). The locations you visit are well designed and a joy to move around in. They story keeps you hooked from the start and the jumping back and forth through the timeline of this game never feels forced and out of place. It's a story both longtime fans and newcomers can easily enjoy and for the latter maybe even intrigue them enough to go back and visit past titles to catch all the things they may not have understood and their significance. I think Capcom is using this game as a benchmark for their future plans with the franchise and what they have planned will be huge. I think this brings about another wave of RE remakes, including coop games, to continue to bring the older games to modern times and put them in the hands of players that normally wouldn't take the time to go play an outdated game.

If you are a fan of the Resident Evil franchise this is a must buy game. If you aren't a fan but still interested in this game, I still highly recommended getting it but completely understand if you wait until it goes on sale. Either way its money well spent.

Again, due to not wanting to spoil the story for anyone I left story details vague on purpose. I can make a separate post going through this games story or just have a conversation in discord with anyone interested to know more without spoiling it for others. If you have any questions, please post them here or send them to me in discord.

Thanks!