Somewhere around ten years ago I took a look at my CD collection and realized something: I owned significantly more Weezer albums than any other band. Up until that moment, I wouldn’t have even claimed to be a fan. Sure, I liked their hits, but who didn’t? Weezer wouldn’t even crack my top 50. But there I was, looking at The Blue Album, Pinkerton, The Green Album, The Red Album, Make Believe, Raditude, and Hurley thinking “maybe I need to re-evaluate this.”
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I had a similar realization. In the early months of quarantine I quickly played through the new Resident Evil 3 remake, went back to finally play Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, replayed the Resident Evil 2 remake, and started a replay of the original Resident Evil‘s GameCube remake. I found comfort in the franchise during the pandemic. Much like real life, I spent my gaming hours stuck in a confined space with a omnipresent viral threat looming. But in the games, I could shoot said threat in the face. Catharsis.
But that wasn’t the only reason the games appealed to me during that time. The truth was that the Resident Evil games were like a comfy blanket. I’d been returning to them for much of my gaming life, never realizing how important the franchise was to me. I honestly can’t remember if the epiphany was my own or if Sean brought it up, but I realized that Resident Evil wasn’t just a series I enjoyed. I was a fan. It was formative for me. I was invested. I cared about the characters and even cared about the story. Resident Evil was as important to me as Zelda, Metal Gear, and Metroid. I’d played almost every game in the franchise and replayed some of them as many as four times. I just somehow never realized how important the series was until I looked back at it as a whole.
So that brings me to this. My Resident Evil Retrospective. For REvisited, I’m going to go back and replay the mainline Resident Evil games, their remakes, and a few of the spinoffs like Revelations 1 & 2. I hope you decide to join me for this personal journey back through the franchise, as I enjoy all the scares and silliness it has to offer. I’m by no means a RE historian/expert, and I’m not going to try to be. I’m just a fan, and I’m going to make mistakes and get a few things wrong. The project will evolve as I get into it and I’m excited to see where it goes.
It’s time to disclose something that might disgust some purists out there. I’m going to use a few modern conveniences where I can, like save states in the PS1 classics. This project is a hobby and I have plenty of responsibilities in my life. My goal here is not to become an expert RE speedrunner (yet…). If I have a chance to grease the wheels and keep the project moving without sacrificing the spirit of the games, I’ll take it. And don’t tell me Ink Ribbons are essential to the spirit of the games. We’ll get into it, but no. They aren’t. I’m also not likely going to playthrough both the A and B campaigns of the games that have them. It’s just a time thing.
Everything is subject to change, but I have 16 games on my list and plan to play through them in order of release.
- Resident Evil – 1996 (PlayStation)
- Resident Evil 2 – 1998 (PlayStation)
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – 1999 (PlayStation)
- Resident Evil – Code: Veronica – 2000 (Dreamcast)
- Resident Evil: Remake – 2002 (GameCube)
- Resident Evil Zero – 2002 (GameCube)
- Resident Evil 4 – 2005 (GameCube)
- Resident Evil 5 – 2008 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
- Resident Evil: Revelations – 2012 (3DS)
- Resident Evil 6 – 2012 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
- Resident Evil: Revelations 2 – 2015 (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita, Windows)
- Resident Evil VII: Biohazard – 2017 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows)
- Resident Evil 2: Remake – 2019 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows)
- Resident Evil 3: Remake – 2020 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows)
- Resident Evil VIII: Village – 2021 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
- Resident Evil 4: Remake – 2023 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
There are some other things that I hope to jump into someday, but I want to focus on this list for now. With that, I’m off to start Resident Evil 1 on PS1! See you soon…
