When it comes to video game remakes, you usually get something that’s either impressive, or just the same game with some pretty graphics. Some of the best known and best love remakes of all time are Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Grim Fandango, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Super Mario 64 DS, and Pokemon: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. But, there is one remake that I love more than any other. You all probably know what it is, and you all know the impact that it had. After playing this remake, not only did it improve the original, but it’s impossible to enjoy the original after this game. And that is a great Gamecube exclusive (Before being remade as a Remastered game), Resident Evil Remake… Or Biohazard if you live in Japan.



I have a huge history with the Resident Evil Remake. When I got the Gamecube, I had three games. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Tony Hawk’s Underground. However, my older brother came by one day with some new games. These games were Viewtiful Joe, Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition, and Resident Evil 4 and the Remake. When my brother played this game, not gonna lie, I screamed. And I cried. Cried like the fat pudgy six-year-old that I was at the time. This game even scared my dad when he played it. It was funny. However, my brother got stuck because he didn’t know where he was going, and then died. My brother was a noob at horror games. So, when I finally got the courage to play it… I got scared after five minutes. But, besides that, the Resident Evil Remake was the very first horror game I ever played. But, before we talk about the Remake, let’s go over the original one, all the way back in 1996. A whole twenty years ago. How does it hold up today? ….. Not good at all. Back then, this game, with it’s bad voice acting, cheesy one liners, polygon graphics, and laughable story were considered the scariest games of all time… No joke. I mean, for it’s time, it was pretty creepy. But this game has aged so badly. You can find videos of the hilariously bad voice acting everywhere on Youtube, and it’s just as funny as you’d expect. So, with the Gamecube being created, Capcom wanted to remake the game… and that lead to possibly the greatest idea ever.



Resident Evil follows the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team in 1998, when bizarre murders begin taking place out the outskirts of the small town of Raccoon City. They travel to the Arklay mountains to investigate the murders, after S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team loses contact. After finding their crashed helicopter and barely escaping with most of them dying, the remaining members of Alpha Team, Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker (Who is totally not evil at all, I swear it guys!), and Barry Burton- the best Resident Evil character ever. Hands down- barely escape with their lives from a back of zombified dogs, with Wesker just barely saving Chris’s life from one (And at that moment, Wesker made the biggest mistake of his life). Not wanting to die, they take refuge inside of a giant mansion on the mountain, and this is where the game begins. So, the story of this game isn’t the best when it comes to horror games… I mean the idea of zombies is pretty silly, if you ask me. But damn if they don’t make it terrifying. So, in this game, you have a choice as playing as two characters, Jill and Chris, with things being different with whoever you play as and however you play as it. Since I was a dumb kid and wanted to make the game harder for myself, I chose to play as Chris, so we’ll start with him.



When you play as Chris, you have less space in your inventory, so expect to run back to collect things every now and again. He also isn’t able to pick locks as well as you’d expect. However, unlike Jill, he can carry a lighter in a separate pocket to help save space, and he can take a lot more damage, as well as deal more towards zombies. He’s more of a powerful character, which we can see in RE5 when he beats the shit out of a boulder. Sadly, Barry isn’t anywhere in Chris’s story, so I gotta take some points off. Jill is there at the start, but is later trapped and gone for the remainder of it. Thankfully, we have another girl that is helpful and probably untouched by Capcom’s sexualization era. That character is Rebecca Chambers, who is one of the survivors of Bravo Team, and a lot more is known about her when you play Resident Evil Zero. I have not played Resident Evil Zero, so moving on. She is usually there to help Chris solve puzzles, like the piano one, and heal him when he’s low on health. She isn’t the best at fighting though, I’m afraid, since she is mostly just a doctor. She is even able to help other characters, like Richard if you're fast enough, and even Chris after he gets bitten by the giant snake. She’s kind of a great character to have around. You have to fight bosses on your own, though, like Plant 42, but it could be worse. Now, let’s move on to Jill’s side.



Jill is a lot more cunning than Chris is. She isn’t able to take as much damage, and she is a lot weaker than Chris (Oh, that probably sounds sexist in some ways). However, what she lacks in strength, she makes up for in keeping you from backtracking as much. She has more inventory space than Chris does, and thanks to being the “Master of Unlocking”, she is able to get through doors easily and not have to find keys or go around other ways. It’s pretty useful. Chris is missing from the very start, however, but thankfully, we get an even better character. Barry Goddamn Burton. That’s probably his actual middle name. Anyway, Barry isn’t able to heal you as much as Rebecca… but damn if he isn’t funny. Okay, but seriously though, Barry does manage to be a very helpful character throughout. He always manages to come in and help you with bosses, like with Plant 42 or Lisa Trevor, and manages to pull you out of sticky situations such as some traps or puzzles. He even sides with you near the end after the main villain (WHO IS TOTALLY NOT WESKER), says that his family is held hostage. It’s easy to understand, and pretty nice that he’d still stick with you. Maybe I should do a whole article on Barry… Yeah, let’s do that… But first I need to talk about the rest of this game.



So, after you choose your character, and go to explore the mansion, you get to experience the first zombie in the game. This scene is one of my favorite in any game. Just seeing that zombie slowly turn to you in a subtle way and showing just how creepy it looks with that close up. It’s so damn scary. Also, in Jill’s side, if you let Barry kill the zombie, it will just get right back up and walk off. And all you can do is hear it move… If that isn’t the most disturbing first five minutes of a game, I don’t know what is. The zombies in this game are amazing. Sure, there not that different from most zombies. They stumble, groan, and bite a chunk of flesh off every time they grab you, but what makes them scary is that you’re in dimly lit corridors, without any way of avoiding them. You either take a chance and run past them, with an 80% chance of getting bitten, or you use up ammo, which let me remind you, is a scarce item in the game. You have to save as much ammo as possible if you want to survive this game. Oh, and the zombies get even scarier when they become Crimson Heads. When you kill a zombie, the body will always stay there, and not move. You need to either set the body on fire with kerosene and a lighter, destroy the head, or in rare cases, blow up it’s ankles to keep it from turning. If you leave it there, the body will eventually get right back up as a Crimson Head, faster, louder, and more dangerous versions of their former selfs. I like to call them Chumbawamba, because if they get knocked down, they’ll get up again.



Of course, no Resident Evil game would have JUST zombies. There are plenty of scary monsters in this game too. There’s Cerberus, zombie dogs that leap at you and always come when you don’t want them to. I remember once opening the front door and letting a Cerberus in. Probably one of the dumbest decisions of my life. Some other ones are bosses, like Plant 42, which is a giant plant. Yaan, a giant snake. Black Tiger, or a giant spider.Why it’s called tiger, I won’t ever know. There’s the Hunters, which have become as iconic as the Lickers in Resident Evil 2. The Chimeras… Weird… monkey versions of The Fly, I think. Lisa Trevor is easily my favorite Resident Evil monster for her lore and how she can chase you. It’s just so creepy, but I love it. And then the final monster of the game, Tyrant, who is just so awesome looking. I love him. The game is filled with monsters, all of them residing within this giant mansion, and all of them are just so creepy in their own way. Oh, and speaking of the mansion, I love the Spencer Mansion so much. The designs of it are beautiful, yet cary at the same time. It’s like a gothic horror setting, and you know that I love that kind of stuff. You have the usual mansion, than you have a courtyard, a graveyard in the back, a house that you can find in the back of the mansion, an underwater cavern complete with sharks, a mining area, and an underground lab that has become a major part of every Resident Evil game. Their all so creepy and gorgeously macabre. I love it. I love everything about this game. I may just be blinded by nostalgia on this one, which is a rare thing. Wind Waker may be my favorite game of all time, but even I can find flaws in that. You call finding those eight Triforce pieces a real quest, YOU BASTARDS! Well, I guess the writing in Resident Evil’s story is kinda silly. It is zombies, but, you already know my opinion on that. And Wesker, while not a bad villain… we already know he’s the villain. I mean, he wears sunglasses… IN THE DAMN DARK! Unless your Arnold Schwarzenegger from Terminator, if you wear sunglasses in the dark, you’re clearly evil. But, those two things are more nitpicks, and all that I can find, really. This remake is just too good.



The remake manages to do everything better than the original game, and more. The graphics are better, the music is creepier, the characters behave like actual people, and the game is ten times more scary than the original. And with this game, there has a whole lot of bonus content to get. You can unlock special costumes for Jill and Chris, unlock more powerful weapons, and play through different modes, like having a zombie with a bomb chase you, or have zombies be invisible… Why you’d want to play that mode, I don’t know. So yeah, Resident Evil Remake is good. It’s perfection. And now that the game has a remake of the remake, you can play it on Xbox and Playstation. Complete with jiggle physics, oh boy. Take care.