(Switch version)

Weird jumble of bits I absolutely love and bits I absolutely hate. The cruise ship is such an inspired setting, and it does get one really great scare with the comms officer. Incredibly disposable plot, despite having the insane twist of introducing a secret Atlantean utopia that existed once without anyone mentioning it before. Jackass and Grinder are some of the worst comic relief I've encounted in media. Probably the best game in Resident Evil's stagnation era by virtue of it being so short.

has a few moments for sure, but incredibly flawed on average otherwise. i was surprised by how much of what i disliked about RE7 cropped up here (which in hindsight makes sense since the director is the same) first. bland main enemy type with poor combat feedback (this admittedly has more enemy variety than 7 still, thankfully), a ship/tanker setting wasted on boring level design, a so called "return to form" horror framing which serves bad action sequences/combat instead, and so on. any segment where you swapped to play as someone other than Jill on the tanker fucking sucked.

raid mode is pretty great but i've always preferred mercenaries in any of its iterations so i'm not left with a ton. the weapon parts were interesting and i wouldn't have minded seeing those transferred to a mercenaries mode instead of set loadouts.

(Played on PC actually, which is not listed on this page of some reason)

Ooooh, this one. I had an RE marathon in 2020, and Revelations seemed interesting enough - I distinctly remember people lauding this as a "return to form" back when it came out, though I'm now convinced that the franchise was sunk into such a blur of an action-fest, that anything remotely resembling survival horror was seen as a breath of fresh air. Brace yourselves, I have a lot to talk about this game.

I... really didn't like Revelations. It really, really wants to evoke the classical REs and in some, very brief moments, it kinda succeeds: getting to the ship's main hall is a great moment, and I remember thinking "ok, this is it, this where the game actually begins". Nope. Here's the thing:

• No inventory management. No no, instead you get a limit of 5 herbs you can carry (can't combine them, don't get any crazy ideas), and a limit on how much ammo you can carry on each clip. This game drowns you in resources, BUT you can't pick anything up because you're most likely full. So you have to leave a lot of stuff on the ground because the game decided you can't have them. In the classic games this supposedly evokes, you could just run back to an item box and dump stuff there to make room for a new item. Here, if you're full and wanna get the ammo, you need to... spend the ammo already on you. It's "resource scarcity" by artificial limitation, and it is utter crap.

• There's "item boxes". Though not really. They look like them, but it's just for changing your guns. Not a huge deal, but it's just another example of this game pretending to be like classic RE.

• Puzzles, heh. Instead of a stone to move a statue to get an amulet to open a box to get the key to the other side of the room, complete with ridiculously convoluted contraptions that should not be in a cruise ship, it's just go this way, kill a bunch of enemies, maybe a boss, get a key, go back and open the door.

You know, just like RE4 and 5, but... without the fun action. You know how satisfying it is to land a headshot in RE4 and 5? Forget that, gunplay is now super unsatisfying and lacking any oomph. The enemy designs are all incredibly boring. And the first boss, good lord. It's like the tight corridors of RE1's mansion, but now with infinitely respawning enemies (literally, they don't stop coming until you kill the boss) and a bullet sponge of a boss! Also, forget about killing enemies to get money to upgrade your weapons. That gameplay loop was too much fun I suppose.

The game also punctuates the already boring Jill sections with amazingly bland corridor-fests with other characters. Think of the most drab third-person shooter, and here it is. I actually youtube'd the rest of the game, and found out there's a turret section later on. I'm not really surprised come to think of it.

Man I haven't even talked about the scanning mechanic, the most pointless thing I've seen in a while. I still don't understand what they were going for.

The best way to describe this game, is that it feels like a random mid-budget third-party company attempt at replicating Resident Evil. A bootleg in other words. It completely fails at being a survival horror, it completely fails at being an action game. Nobody wins here. I am completely baffled that people can find real enjoyment at ANY aspect of this game. When I dislike a game, I can usually see "yeah ok, I get why you'd like this"

I'm drawing a blank on this one. It has a modestly high metacritic score, and it's sitting at a generous 3.2 average here in this site, and I honest to God have no idea why.

If you actually like this game, I urge you to reply to this review explaining to me why that is. I'm legitimately curious.

Oh, and the story is stupid. Not fun stupid like RE4 or 5, just dumb really. RE6 is the better game, just saying. That one is a disjointed mess, but it can at least be a fun action game at points.

I think this is a pretty underrated game. I wasn't amazed by the little I played of its Wii U port, but the original 3DS version is much more interesting. It pushes the handheld to its absolute limits despite being one of the first games on it, just really impressive to see it running so well on there all things considered. I much prefer the first person aiming of this version, shooting feels much better than I ever expected it to and the touch screen is used for a variety of things. It's way better to me with circle pad pro turned off because then it just plays like a portable RE4 (and the N3DS' nub is not suited for that movement at all). Enjoyed the ship setting and it ended on a good note with a challenging final boss. I had a lot of fun overall

Not really special but the level design is uncomplicated enough to avoid the tedium of the lesser Resident Evil games and it delivers a ok horror action experience full of goofy looking enemies, a suprinsly engaging plot, a ridicolous amount of character switches, a weird looking jill valentine, shockingly good swimming controls (good = not awful) and some of the most horny designs for the female characters in the whole series. And of course there is the raid mode. A fine time waster, even if i don’t like how much of that mode ist statbased and how they force you to choose certain characters by giving them negative stats for different weapons. Example: Jill has higher fire rate and reload time for pistols and machine guns, but has worse fire rate and reload times for shotguns and rifles. Some characters have high enough boni to make noticable difference but most of the time it more feels like you get a disadvantage instead of an advantage.

TL;DR - Just go play 4 unless you're playing this on an actual 3DS or want a quick game to beat.

This game was the definition of mediocre but was only 6 hours long, so I feel like a shorthand review is more fitting than the longer ones like I tend to enjoy doing. I played the HD version on PC instead of the 3DS version, but I feel like the criticisms still apply since apparently not much changed. Resident Evil Revelations was probably great for the time back in 2012 when RE6 just came out. Rev is at least a semi-horror game compared to 6, but in 2022 this game feels like everything I didn't like about 6 cramped down into a 3DS-sized package. I didn't have super-high expectations for this game and it still kinda left a disappointing taste behind.

Weird, spongey, and/or annoying standard enemy design with low and uninspired variety, an unnecessarily twist-filled and mind-boggling (in a bad way) plot that makes RE5's plot look good, oddly first draft feeling dialogue even for Jill and Chris, awkward controls that feel like a bad attempt at RE4's control scheme, a spotty dodge mechanic that works half the time, a ridiculous amount of 2012 overzealous horny that it's very obvious someone at Capcom had their dick in their hand designing the characters, and a pattern of quoting Dante's Inferno because... apparently the boat is hell or some shit like that, I don't know, I think the writers thought they were gonna get points just because they quoted Dante.

There are a few good things to say about this game. Like, the guns sounding and acting visceral despite the bullet-spongey enemies not reflecting that. The cruise ship setting being an incredibly good and interesting choice with it's pretty decent atmosphere. The swimming sections were oddly soothing except for 1 near the end. There's a few entertaining characters (not the two stooges or Jessica) and 1/2 of the boss fights are actually pretty fun.

But even with all that... just go play RE4. Or 7. Or 8, 2R, 3R, REmake, literally just any other game in the series unless you want the novelty of playing this on an actual 3DS, doing raid mode, or need a game that's quick to beat. You're not missing much since the story of this game has 0 impact and those games are much more satisfying to play.

The Silent Hill ass Oozes feel so bizarre for the series, but I like their goofy asses. The bosses are better though, particularly the ones that show that they retain some humanity. I actually loved that quite a bit.

The Jill parts are the best but there's a lot of distractions that, while enjoyeable, just aren't as good as the main event. I like the ship a good bit too.

The gameplay is pretty solid but it lacks the impact of RE4 and RE5. I really dig the weapon modding system tho, because it doesn't have the issue that RE4 and specially RE5 had with weapon upgrades. In those games I ignored new weapons because I had already used up money on old ones. Here I can just swap the mods around. Evade is jank (why did they try to imitate RE3's?) and bosses can be lame but I actually really liked the final boss (also the one time I could consistently use evades).

Story is kinda meh. I like most of the new characters but for a game called Revelations, it sure as fuck didn't reveal shit. It's all self-contained and feels completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, at least right now. With how they fucked up Jill's face, she might as well be a new character too, which made me feel an extra disconnect from the rest of the series. Story is also just kind of a clusterfuck, but I found it pretty entertaining and naming a virus "T-Abyss" goes hard ngl.

Still, I enjoyed it a good bit overall. Probably gonna put a lot of time into RAID mode now because that looting RPG shooter bullshit is my kinda bullshit.

Note/Rant: I dunno why anyone calls it a "return to form" tho. It's not scary and it's actiony as fuck, not unlike 5 which people whine about. Then again the series has always been actiony as fuck and not scary to me. 1-4 were scary only because I live in Venezuela and I feared power going out randomly between save points and nothing else, and you're a killing machine in all of them after the first hour. I've never really got those complains in general, anyway.

A technological feat on the 3DS, on all other systems it's just okay. Honestly thought this was better than Resident Evil 4 until I deeply familiarized myself with Raid Mode, where it became apparent that a game fit with bullshit 100-0 capable instakills and a clunky, outdated movement system doesn't really work with an unconscionably grindy RNG-fest looter shooter that rips off fucking Borderlands, of all games. This story is also the worst of the series so far imo, as if they honest to God didn't even try. Still, the Queen Zenobia is equal parts cool and creepy to explore - and it's nice to see Jill and Chris back in action. I even kinda dig the diet ZOMBI scanner thingy! Not to mention the enemies in here really highlight the series' strength of pitting beauty up against the most grotesque, merciless warping of human/animal flesh you've ever seen - there are walking melted blobs, enemies with a fleshy crossbow rotted into their arm, decaying wolves, even a fat beast with one humanoid head and one massive lamprey-like mouth that pukes toothed bear traps and has a motherfucking chainsaw arm. Pretty sick! I just wish there weren't only... like three colors between all of them.

Having started Revelations 2 today, I thought I'd quickly give my impressions of the first.

Revelations is a frustrating experience for how close it comes to greatness. The game is mostly split into two styles, survival-horror/action-horror + exploration with Jill Valentine and linear action with Chris and others. Jill's sections are solid, with good level design and a strong atmosphere (achieved both visually and auditorily), and with a decent mechanical framework that plays a bit like a stripped down version of the Resident Evil 2 remake. However, they could have been far better without the mission structure undermining the potential for non-linearity, and the constant interruptions between chapters.

The linear action chapters are terribly bland, and increase the scale of the plot by such ludicrous degrees that they serve to suck all the tension from Jill's chapters. This is not helped by the oh-so-serious tone, which renders the dreadful writing completely without charm.

Unlike some, I do not consider the Revelations games to be main series. They are almost definitionally spin-offs, side-stories with lower budgets and atypical release methods (i.e. handheld and episodic, respectfully). That this so-so middle-ground was being held up as a return to survival horror is telling of the disappointment fans were feeling toward the main series at the time. I'm glad we've since moved past this era.

Special notes before the review of this game. I own the "Revelaitons" misspelled cover version of the game which was hilarious at the time. Also, the 3D effect when you have the 3DS slider cranked all the way to the max setting will give one of the most impressive 3D effects of the system (and at the same time likely induce headaches because it's that intense!).

Revelations was a decent non-mainline (spinoff?) RE game combining the 3rd person shooter view of games like RE4, 5 and 6 but focuses more on a survival horror type of gameplay with slower-paced sections, less ammo, and overall enemies and level design geared towards this end instead of the action-based gameplay of other 3rd person view RE games.

The story was particularly bad from a RE fan point of view, but if you step outside of RE fandom, it has some interesting elements that touch on corporate corruption and some interesting developments as you progress through the game.

Review gets bonus points for starring Jill and Chris, two beloved characters for RE fans of the series. Level design is decent but it's really dependant on the level you area playing on (i.e. ship level is great, cave levels not so much).

My first exposure to Resident Evil was watching a neighbor play the original on PlayStation. At the time, even as a fan of the zombie genre, I wasn’t that intrigued. It wasn’t until the rerelease, Resident Evil: Rebirth for GameCube, found its way into my home that I finally dove into a Resident Evil game. I was hooked, and played it through a few times. I was ready to consume all things RE.

Fast forward and, after wrapping up RE4, I was caught up on all the series had to offer at the time. By the time I had the opportunity to play RE5 I had heard enough about the frustrations of the AI partner and the mixed reviews, and I decided to skip it. Then RE6 came along and snippets of info was enough to scare me away from that one. It just felt like a strange deviation from what attracted me to the series.

Once RE7 was announced I had grown eager to return. This is a game that reminded me why Resident Evil is one of my favorite series. It looked and felt amazing. The environments were truly terrifying, and I actually jumped a few times. It defined what survival horror should always be.

Which brings me to Resident Evil Revelations. Purchased for PlayStation 4, I figured I would give it a shot. Knowing nothing about it, I placed my order.

Here’s where it fell flat:
It’s far too linear, with extremely straight forward puzzles (if you can even call them that).
The episodic format is just plain annoying. Why does Capcom feel the need to interrupt action with an archaic grading system? Do we really need a “previously on...” after every short level? This isn't an arcade game.
The story frequently jumps around between characters, locations, and times haphazardly. Consequently, the story is slow and dry, and you never get to identity with any of the characters.
For survival horror, it’s missing the “horror”. Everyone is such a silly Hollywood action caricature and the monsters are so casually tossed in from the start that there is zero suspense, zero fear, and zero sense of danger.
The dialogue is cringe worthy and speckled with blatant sexism. And the women are highly sexualized in a way that is absurd.
You are hit over the head with guidance, even in the most obvious of situations, in the form of map markers and NPC chatter. This kills the sense of discovery.
Having an NPC partner adds little to the game. Enemies mostly ignore them as they fire shots that seem to do little to no damage. There is a formula that is reused throughout the game where the NPCs point you in the right direction, follow you, wait at a place you need an item to engage with, and repeat.
Ammo reappears in locations you have already been. It's an immersion killer.
The scanning mechanic is tedious. You kill an enemy and scan it, and then scan the entire room, over and over again.

This wouldn't be the first time that a Resident Evil title let me down. Zero and Outbreak were also let downs, just for different reasons.

There is a bright side to Revelations, however. At least, I think so. I just played the first hour of Revelations 2, and I'm amazed at how much of an improvement it is in so many ways. I was gripped from the start, and felt the horror that was missing in its predecessor. The team mechanics are sensible, the monsters more terrifying, and the environments are engrossing. While it still is more linear than I prefer my RE games, it gives a better sense of being free roaming. My only beef with the sequel, thus far, is that it clearly was influenced with many of the mechanics and feel of games like The Last of Us. To be fair, those mechanics weren't all original on their own, and have become commonplace. All in all, I have high hopes for this sequel.

Usually I can pinpoint what I don’t like about a game but for once I’m at a bit of a loss. Yes there are things I didn’t like in Resident Evil Revelations, but I can’t figure out exactly what made the game un-enjoyable for me. It’s a solid little horror action game that looks fantastic on the 3DS and mixes up it’s story with multiple playable characters and locales. The controls may suck and there are some other annoying little features but on the whole, it’s an impressive title. But a title I just couldn’t get into for whatever reason. Despite only being 9 hours long, it felt like it dragged on way longer than that and I really did struggle to find the energy to complete it.