For my upcoming fourth book on horror design, I went and revisited some of the most well-known (and not so known) examples of horror on the market. I had the chance to go through and not only replay all the Resident Evil games in my collection but visit the ones I haven’t played before. With RE 5 in the books, I can now say that I’ve played every main game entry and almost every spin-off. With that time spent, I wanted to share my thoughts on how I would rank them and why.
The Review Process
We’re going to be focusing on the franchise starting in 2000 and their appearance on consoles outside of the PlayStation 1 and working with the single player driven spinoffs. I have not played the Darkside Chronicles, Dead Aim, Operation Raccoon City, Umbrella Corp, or Resident Evil Gaiden, and will not be ranking them.
The reason why I’m not going to be spending a lot of time on the original three is that I feel rating them next to the more evolved examples wouldn’t be fair and confuse the list. However, for those that are wondering, I would rate them quickly as so:
Resident Evil 2—Having the biggest story and reasons to replay with both Leon and Claire’s different stories and the introduction of the alpha antagonist with Mr.
Resident Evil 3 Nemesis—Adding new elements to the formula with the quick dodge, Nemesis being part of the main story, and having an open-ended element to it with exploring the city. Bonus points for also being the first game with “The Mercenaries” mini game.
Resident Evil—Simply being the oldest and the foundation for the other two games.
In terms of ranking these games, I’m going to focus on the general gameplay, how well the design holds up, and if the game keeps with the tone and aesthetic of the Resident Evil franchise. With that said, even the bottom tier games I wouldn’t call them outright “bad”, but they did miss the point of being a Resident Evil title in some form.
11. Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil 5 earned a lot of disapproval at launch for doubling down on the action-horror design of RE 4, and its depiction of Africa. Unlike the previous game that played things a little loose in terms of where the game took place, the enemies in RE 5 are most certainly Africans. The back-half of the game is just killing waves of tribal men who wear masks and throw spears at you.
From a gameplay perspective, you can tell that Capcom was trying something new and didn’t have all the kinks worked out yet. Having a partner who also shares all ammo and item drops with proved to be very cumbersome. Without having a coop friend, the AI doesn’t seem to use grenades and is not really equipped to handle advanced challenges. If we didn’t use a fan patch to get things working on the PC version, I don’t think it would be possible to casually play the game on veteran difficulty solo.
Speaking of the game throws so many more enemies at the player as a way of compensating for having two people, but you’re still using the slower-paced controls of RE 4. I will say two nice things about RE 5. Having the slower control scheme made combat a lot more interesting, and I liked how my friend and I got into back-to-back standoffs with different groups of enemies. From a narrative standpoint, it was good that the game continued the overall story of the games and catching up with Chris, Jill, and of course Wesker. With that said, I would like to make a vote for Ludwig being the worse RE antagonist, which if you played the game, you know why.
The greatest moment in all of videogame history
The greatest moment in all of videogame history
One aspect that slightly redeems RE5 is the Lost in Nightmares DLC. In a better timeline, we would have gotten a full Resident Evil game similar to this: It’s slower-paced, more about exploration, and using coop to fight the monsters. It’s a shame that it was so short, as it was to me, the most enjoyable part of the game.
Resident Evil 5 is at the bottom of the list as the gameplay just doesn’t work without having a coop partner, compared to the later entries that the AI could at least help out. Every Uroboros fight except for 6–2 was a colossal pain, and I couldn’t imagine doing them casually by yourself. Not only that, but the coop design was handled better in RE 6, despite that game having a weaker story. Too many enemies are thrown at you that it would be impossible for one person to fight them confidently without already knowing the game inside out. A final point on RE5, this game may have some of the worse QTE sections I think I’ve ever seen in a game and proof positive why that design was phased out over the past decade.
10. Resident Evil 0
It’s strange looking at some of the older RE games in light of where the series would end up. Resident Evil 0 would be the first time that Capcom experimented with having multiple characters at the same time, something that from RE5—on would become the standard design. Resident Evil 0’s issue for me is that it’s just a forgettable game. The story has no stakes to it, nor does it introduce anything major outside of the dual-player system which in itself was more annoying than innovative. The problem is that controlling two characters and having to pass inventory items and resources around was cumbersome; a lesson we also saw in RE 5. The general survival horror side does work better than the previous games and why it ranks higher.
Unnecessary slow mo for an unnecessary game
Unnecessary slow mo for an unnecessary game
The problem is that Billy and Rebecca don’t offer any real difference in terms of gameplay other than who is used for what in terms of puzzle-solving and being separated due to the plot. When we come to Resident Evil Revelations 2, that game shows a far better model of controlling two characters and making them legitimately different. What drops the game down to the bottom of the list is that the developers have a tendency of throwing boss fights and situations where the two are forced to split up. It’s very easy playing this game casually to enter a soft lock situation where you can’t proceed because the character you’re using doesn’t have the weapons you need.
The biggest shame I feel is that if this game had a true two-player coop system or came out a few years later when online play was possible, the idea of playing a coop survival horror Resident Evil game would have been amazing beyond the Outbreak series.
9. Resident Evil Revelations
Resident Evil Revelations like RE 5 is a game where the developers were still messing around with a new formula and didn’t quite get there. Having to work around the limitations of the 3DS and the episodic nature of the game meant that things had to be sacrificed. In a compromise compared to previous titles, while you still always had a partner with you, they were immortal and could be used as a distraction from the enemies.
If I had to see it, you have to see it
If I had to see it, you have to see it
Story-wise, the game’s tone feels more like a rip-off of a 24 clone, with multiple flashbacks, betrayals, and characters that just distracted from the main plot aboard the Zenobia. As a setting, a massive ship will all the crazy designs of past games was great, but I don’t feel the game made the best use of it. The T-abyss stricken enemies are some of the most annoying in the series thanks to having little reaction to your attacks. Tying “dodge” to just pressing in a direction at a time was unreliable for me on PC. With all that said, I did like the weapon parts for upgrading your weapons, and this game did introduce the Raid mode that would be expanded on in the sequel.
Just like RE5, you can see the foundation of a good game that would be expanded on with the next entry in the series. And if I can vote Ludwig as the worst antagonist, I would like to vote Jessica as the worst protagonist in the series and winner of the “most impractical scuba suit” award.
8. Resident Evil 3 Remake
The first of the contemporary games to make the list, and not in the best rank. When I did my review of Resident Evil 2 remake, I warned that Capcom had better avoid the temptation to just remake the games in that style, and to do something legitimately different. With RE3R, we ended up with what could have happened to RE2R: a remake that removes the charm and greatness of the original and ends up being worse for it.
To be fair to Jill, I’ll at least show her at her best
To be fair to Jill, I’ll at least show her at her best
So many of the problems with the remake stem from failing to learn anything about what worked and didn’t work from RE2R. The game is shorter, far less memorable, and cut major areas out of the original. The first RE3 was great for providing the most nonlinear game space in the series at the time. This one relegates it to only the first quarter and was far shorter. The very fact that Nemesis was downgraded so much compared to the original and Mr. X of RE2R was a failure by the developers. The game feels like a tale of two titles: the first quarter being the closest to the original in terms of space and threat levels, and then going downhill after the train ride.
Everything about RE3R feels less than its predecessors: Fewer areas to explore, less bonus content, no Mercenaries minigame. There was so much more potential here as this was Capcom working with a proven and successful concept after RE2R. As the saying goes, it’s better to under promise and over-deliver than the opposite. No one expected RE2R to succeed so well, and if RE3 truly got a similar treatment, it could have ranked so much higher.
7. Resident Evil 6
Our next two games are somewhat special for this list, as they represent kind of the final branches of their style of gameplay. Resident Evil 6 is the game that unceremoniously ended the mainline RE franchise for five years. I didn’t play it at the time of release as I heard nothing but bad about it, and just experienced it for the first time in early 2021.
What I found is a game whose mechanics certainly work, but the story and structure are just not a Resident Evil experience. Mechanically speaking, the game is miles above RE 5, the fact that QTEs could be turned off, for the most part, was a real help, and ammo being instanced instead of shared made coop play a lot smoother. However, the more action-structured gameplay kind of robs the game of that same sense of having to team up to fight enemies.
I don’t remember suplexing zombies as part of the survival horror manual
