In the wake of the Resident Evil 4 remake absolutely rocking, we’ve come up with the definitive list of other Resident Evil games that Capcom should remake, but only because holy shit they suck and those of us who’ve gone through the effort of surviving them deserve our memories replaced. Welcome to our bottom 8 Resident Evil games.
#8 — Resident Evil 0
Some developers of Resident Evil 0 must have looked at the riveting 3D take on the Metroidvania style of overworld the mainline series made everyone love and thought “lol, lmao” at a time when there was no adult in the room to stop them. This game looked just like the spectacular RE1 remake that had come out just a few months prior, but the otherwise gorgeous forced entry in the mainline series gets bogged down by a myriad of unnecessary problems. First, there’s the linearity dictated by the decision of making most of the game take place on a goddamn train. Second, the traditional inventory system is ditched, and players are forced to drop on the map whatever they don’t have space for to retrieve later. Mandatory backtracking is already awful enough; it’s extra evil to make players feel guilty for your own cruel design choices. To cap it all off, players also have to swap between two different playable characters in real time, leaving the character we’re not using at the time at the hands of the CPU. Yeah, there’s no co-op option for a mechanic that feels 100% made for that.
#7 — Outbreak File 2
The original Outbreak wasn’t great, so what can we realistically expect from a game that’s mostly composed of missions that weren’t good enough to make it into the first game? The main draw of Outbreak was allowing players to team up online and try to escape Raccoon City. A cool idea, sure, but only if the game itself is memorable. Sadly, it feels more like an afterthought that brings no new elements to the story and features no memorable set pieces — oh, wait, is that the one with the Zombie elephant? OK, I take that back. That must be so scary for all of the gamers out there who happen to be made out of vegetables.
These games were even worse for anyone playing in Europe, as they only featured online play in the US and Japan. Now imagine living in the parallel universe where Capcom didn’t betray Nintendo and this ended up being the RE title PS2 owners could play while GameCubers were enjoying RE4 exclusivity.
#6 — Resident Evil Deadly Silence
Unlike the gorgeous RE1 remake for the GameCube, this one is for people who wanted a remake of the original game that still looked like crap. It’s officially a Nintendo DS remake of the original game, but we could totally get away with calling it just a weird port whose only real additions are a few mechanics upgrades and a pretty tasteless big-boobies Jill skin.
#5 — Re:Verse:
This one sucks because it’s bad, yeah, but also because it’s not Resident Evil. Oh, that’s not valid criticism anymore because whiny Star Wars fans have exhausted it? OK, but this really is a zombie and monster-free deathmatch featuring only the Resident Good characters. You’re better off just playing, god forgive us, Fortnite instead. Editor’s note: Fortnite rox.
#4 — Resident Evil Resistance
One would be very wrong to assume destiny could provide no better inspiration for a Resident Evil game than a goddamn global pandemic. While we were all enjoying being terrified in the comfort of our homes, Capcom decided to give us REsistance, an online game that allowed players to gather online and fight off hordes of zombies. We totally love Capcom for trying to both fill that vacuum left by Left 4 Dead for the power move of trying to re-gain control of the zombie genre, but this just wasn’t it. The thing about trying to take Left 4 Dead 2’s throne is that you really gotta do something that surpasses a game that’s nearly 20 years old, and it didn’t. Back 4 Blood didn’t do it either, so just go play Left 4 Dead 2 on steam right now. We don’t know when you’ll be reading this, but there are like 30% chances that Steam is selling it for $5 right now.
#3 — Resident Evil 1 Director’s Cut
Resident Evil 1 Director’s Cut is just a cash grab that Capcom pulled in response to the unprecedented success of the original game. Interestingly, RE Director’s Cut doesn’t merely not improve upon the original in any meaningful way, it actively destroys any possible immersion players could experience in the game. The problem? Capcom removed RE’s classic soundtrack because they decided to hire legendary deaf composer Mamoru Samuragochi to come up with an OST worthy of making players want to cut up the director, or whatever. The DC OST sucks ass to a degree that forces me to ask our readers to listen to this and then promise you that I’m not making this shit up.
The only good thing RE Director’s Cut ended up giving us was an unintentionally awesome epilogue. You see, 20 years later we found out that Samuragochi wasn’t deaf nor the guy who came up with the score. This resulted in him losing much of the clout he had enjoyed for so long.
Still, do not, I repeat, do not pay the 50 bucks that retailers are definitely still asking for Resident Evil Director’s Cut if you already own the original game.
#2 — Resident Evil Survivor
Thought the Resident Evil series had all it took to go toe to toe with The House Of The Dead series in the highly lucrative light gun arcade market (i.e. zombies, great voice acting and superb movie adaptations)? Think again, as Survivor marks the only moment in history when abandoning the on-rails format and giving players free-roaming capabilities proved a great mistake. Due to the processing limitations of the original PlayStation, players felt lucky whenever they found a single enemy to kill on screen, then would feel unlucky again because of the combat’s incredibly low speed and high clunkiness. Oh, also, did we mentioned that the US version of this light gun shooter didn’t even have light gun support?
#1 — Resident Evil 6
To be entirely fair, Resident Evil 6 isn’t the worst game in the series. We have just lied to you, yes, but it’s just too late for you to back out now, isn’t It? Allow me to prove my point. Regardless of what position it should occupy on this list, RE6 is the greatest disappointment in the history of the series, and also pretty close to being the worst, actually, yeah.
This massive endeavour tried to give players a multitude of campaigns that offered a variety of play styles and the return of most of series’ protagonists, but it ended up a clunky bloated and still unfun mess.
But some context is warranted. Resident Evil 6 came out during Capcom’s gas leak year decade, a time when Capcom decided the development of their ever-beloved franchises was better off outsourced to random development companies. All in all, considering how much budget, effort, and hype was spent on this game, I declare this the biggest blunder ever associated with the RE name – Yes, wacky CGI and Paul Anderson movies included.
PS: Also, the “6” on the logo totally looks like someone sucking off a giraffe.
