Resident Evil: Revelations Review (LordSithaniel)
Review
Initially a 3DS game I absolutely didn’t expect anything from it. Whether or not you like the course Resident Evil went with RE4,5 and 6 this one tries to play more like the original except being a third person shooter. Tries is a good word as it doesn’t, yet considering it was a mobile game it’s pretty neat.
Gameplay
At its core the main goal of the game is figuring out why you’re trapped on a ship full of monsters and how to get off of it. Those monsters are a one-off version of the original zombie virus, making monsters mostly into snail looking humanoids, fitting the situation being on the ship. Those come in different forms, there are also older ones, but not a single regular classical T-Virus zombie to be seen.
You explore the ship and find various keys or items to proceed further, while sometimes backtracking. Although no inventory management, but you do have an item box that is used to modify or swap out weapons. The game starts more or less horror focused with low amounts of ammo which in the later stages of the game changes to more something you see in RE5, explosions and combat everywhere.
Its more linear but you also have to backtrack sometimes because the mission says so or can go back to get a new item. It holds your hand way much more than RE1-3, mostly because people probably played this on the go, making the mission objective always clear is a good design choice in that case.
Its relatively clear where to go most of the time, the ships’ structure is not in any way resembling the design of the first two originals, although it does have a few keys here and there and some interconnectivity later on.
In order to pad the gametime, you also play different characters set in the present or the past that correlate to the story more or less. In those scenes the horror atmosphere is more or less completely dropped.
Combat is pretty okay, having also the rare melee attack and a few grenade types. Biggest difference is the ability to scan enemies, which only purpose is to dispense healing items. Movement doesn’t have anymore tank controls but rather more to what we seen in RE6 or Raccoon City.
There are weapon mods to find, although when playing the main characters at some point you can carry up to three weapons, meaning you drop the pistol relatively quickly.
I enjoyed my playthrough, it’s a very simple horror game in the resident evil universe, more memorable would have been that the AI you are constantly with, could also be played by another player. Game has aside raid no coop.
Raid mode is pretty fun for a while, being a grindy coop shooter where you level up buy and upgrade new weapons, although the amount of loot can at some point be overwhelming, the grind too.
Story
Not really sure what is ment with revelations, but it more or less serves as a tie in towards resident evil 5. Not really that memorable but better than nothing.
Sound
I really liked the ost. Not only does it create a lot of suspense and dread but also fits towards the nautical setting a lot. For such a game the length and variety of the ost is absolutely bonkers.
Also fully voiced in a couple of languages, making second playthroughs always more interesting to switch things up a bit.
Graphics
Its clear that it looks like a mobile game. Due to the HD port on the pc everything looks pretty but the textures and colours itself aren’t that great. On the other hand I’m absolutely impressed what they put onto the 3DS.
Conclusion/TL;DR
This is definitely not a must have game. While it does offer some horror atmosphere its more for people who wanted to see how the 3DS port turned out and for completionists. Its not a bad game and especially the raid mode is rather interesting. Its just a bit mediocre compared to the other games out there. What sets it apart is the still neat atmosphere, especially due to the soundtrack and interconnected design that requires backtracking of the ship´s structure. Probably a way much more impressive game on the 3D, solely an interestening one on the PC
Above average third person shooter with some survival horror elements.