Resident Evil HD Remaster

2024 Review played on the PS5:

I came into Resident Evil 1 fresh after recently completing the remake of Resident Evil 2 & 3 earlier this year, i have never played this game before but felt it essential in order to complete the series. I was aware that this game was based of a 2002 GameCube remake of the 1996 game so would not be on par quality wise with the newer remakes. I had concerns how i would get on with the tank style controls and non-third person over the shoulder view point.

First impressions upon loading the game was that the intro cutscene was very low resolution, it appears to be 480p at best. As the game loads you are presented with lots of loading % scrollbars which is rather old fashioned especially when run on a modern PS5 where you should have superfast load times (But dont in this game). The in game cutscenes appear to be better quality and at 1080p, the voice acting is dated but functional with some story elements needing to be read via text notes which is fine.

During the game i quickly adapted to the tank controls, it did however cause disorientation in some areas where the scene angle would change very quickly causing me to get lost. The graphics on the background scenes are fine and still hold up in 2024. Like Resident Evil 2 i enjoyed solving most of the puzzles in the game however some of the later game ones did require me to Google a few hints as the level of complexity increased quite a bit over earlier puzzles. This game also causes you to be frugal with your use of saves due to the limited quantity of ribbons and access to safe rooms. Throughout the game there are occasions where its highly critical that you save before attempting them otherwise the risk of loosing a lot of progress is incredibly high or it will cause you to re-watch non-skippable cutscenes. The story is enjoyable for the most part but i did always find it amusing how Barry always leaves the hard graft to you and manages to make it through to the most complex areas of the game without needing access to the inventory items you did to get there.

Now for some of the frustrating bits. I found a couple of areas of the game would lead to you dying and despite optimizing your save point it lead to you having to re-watch multiple non-skippable cutscenes before you could return back to the boss battle for another attempt. The amount of backtracking in this game is insane and is far worse then Resident Evil 2/3, the lack of inventory slots and broken doors often causes you to re-walk entire sections of the mansion just to get back to the area where you need to be stretching the game out. The door opening animations whilst charming in the first few hours soon become a frustration as they slow down the pacing. During the final boss battle i also encountered a bug that prevented me consuming health items past a certain cutscene leading to a more difficult final battle. Finally the load times of the game are very slow for something running on a PS5 and there is no automatic 'Continue' to reload your most recent save.

Overall i enjoyed Resident Evil 1 and completed the game in 21hrs 45mins (I explored a lot) so it was quite a long game however by that point i was really wishing for it to end. The mechanics of this game are now very dated but its worth a go if you are a hardcore Resident Evil fan, otherwise id wait for another future remake to get released before revisiting.