I never gave this game a fair chance before honestly and only played Leon's campaign, wasn't a fan and called it a day. The game is often considered not only one of the worst RE games, but also one of the worst AAA games of all time and honestly while I agree it's bad, it's far from the worst game I've ever played, it is more of a mix of good and bad to me and despite not being a huge fan I am glad I gave it a chance. I have a lot to say about this experience so brace yourself.
Apparently at the time this game had the biggest budget of any previous Capcom game and honestly it shows. The presentation is pretty incredible. Everything from the sound design to the action set pieces, environments, cinematics, graphics and character models were all top notch and some of the best PS3/Xbox 360 had to offer and even holds up very well to date.
The story is pretty good, I like how it shows you the perspective of multiple characters and slowly interweaves all these tales together and oh boy a lot happens in the story, a new virus, the most powerful yet is unleashed, the president of the US is killed, 2 new criminal organizations are revealed, multiple city wide infections occur etc. This is basically a Michael Bay movie in game format and If nothing else something is always happening in game, but that's not necessarily always a good thing and the non-stop action can feel fatigue inducing with no breaks in between.
The characters all have decent depth and good arcs, both old and new and are easily my favorite part of the game. Chris is now a PTSD ridden rage induced war vet who is constantly at the throat of his partner Piers Nivans who acts a lot like Chris did when he was younger and less punished, I enjoyed watching their relationship develop. Leon and Helena had an equally compelling relationship as they try to clear their names of being fugitives as they were blamed for the president's death. Though my fave story was by far Jake Muller, Albert Wesker's son he never knew he had and federal agent Sherry Birkin, these two have a lot in common both being kids of past RE villains and I like how that commonality helps develop their relationship. I also have to commend the voice performances of the main cast which is very professionally done and features a pretty star studded cast of everyone from Eden Riegel to Matt Mercer, Troy Baker and Laura Bailey.
The enemy design is great and how the basic enemies evolve as you shoot them really shows just how terrifying the C-Virus is. The bosses are extremely mixed, most are just forgettable, a couple are outright awful and a couple are amazing and some of the best in the series (Specifically the fight with the invisible snake in Chris's campaign and the final fight in Jake's campaign)
So as I said the game is a mix of good and bad to me and so far I've mostly just been praising it, well here comes the bad. The gameplay is where the game falls apart unfortunately and gameplay is pretty important for a uh game.
First let me start off with saying on one hand I like how each individual campaign plays differently (right down to the UI/Inventory looking different for everyone), Leon's delivers a semi-survival horror classic RE 4/5 experience, Chris' plays like a Gears/CoD military shooter, Jake's has the most emphasis on hand-to-hand action combat even being able to do combos and Ada's is stealth based. That said while I like this idea on paper, it's also extremely jarring because there's no cohesion and moving from campaign to campaign doesn't flow well at all, it's almost like you're playing 4 different games at once.
Also while I like how the characters stories tie together from a narrative point of view, but the actual gameplay is super tedious having to replay certain segments with almost no variation other than being a different character. Though the thing I hate the most about the gameplay is how 90% of the game is just an endless horde mode and it's so boring and tedious. The reason why the shootout segments in RE 4 & RE 5 work as good as they do is because they're well placed and there's good variety in between them, but in 6 every other scene is a big shootout sequence where you have to defend a location against an army of enemies and that wears out its welcome very quickly. Oh and don't get me started on the vehicle parts, controlling the vehicles always just felt awful, at least those parts still looked cool though. Last but not least I don't think I've played another game in my life that has as many QTEs as this game does and it's absolutely obnoxious.
However there is also some great things about the gameplay, like how this was the first RE game to remove tank controls and implement the ability to walk and shoot at the same time, I like that and it fits the more action based gameplay of this title. There's also some cool John Woo like slides, flips and rolls you can do while shooting. There's more emphasis on melee combat, you have a combat action bar which is actually my fave feature in the game because melee combat is so powerful and fun to do. Oh and most importantly the co-op is back and the single player partner AI is much smarter than than RE 5.
Overall the game has a ridiculous, but solid story with great characters, killer enemy design and incredible production values, but the clear lack of direction in gameplay style, tedious overuse of QTEs and waves of enemies, plus lackluster boss battles and a slightly bloated campaign have earned this game its poor, but fair reputation and due to that I just can't in good faith recommend it to anyone other than the most hardcore RE fans.
Apparently at the time this game had the biggest budget of any previous Capcom game and honestly it shows. The presentation is pretty incredible. Everything from the sound design to the action set pieces, environments, cinematics, graphics and character models were all top notch and some of the best PS3/Xbox 360 had to offer and even holds up very well to date.
The story is pretty good, I like how it shows you the perspective of multiple characters and slowly interweaves all these tales together and oh boy a lot happens in the story, a new virus, the most powerful yet is unleashed, the president of the US is killed, 2 new criminal organizations are revealed, multiple city wide infections occur etc. This is basically a Michael Bay movie in game format and If nothing else something is always happening in game, but that's not necessarily always a good thing and the non-stop action can feel fatigue inducing with no breaks in between.
The characters all have decent depth and good arcs, both old and new and are easily my favorite part of the game. Chris is now a PTSD ridden rage induced war vet who is constantly at the throat of his partner Piers Nivans who acts a lot like Chris did when he was younger and less punished, I enjoyed watching their relationship develop. Leon and Helena had an equally compelling relationship as they try to clear their names of being fugitives as they were blamed for the president's death. Though my fave story was by far Jake Muller, Albert Wesker's son he never knew he had and federal agent Sherry Birkin, these two have a lot in common both being kids of past RE villains and I like how that commonality helps develop their relationship. I also have to commend the voice performances of the main cast which is very professionally done and features a pretty star studded cast of everyone from Eden Riegel to Matt Mercer, Troy Baker and Laura Bailey.
The enemy design is great and how the basic enemies evolve as you shoot them really shows just how terrifying the C-Virus is. The bosses are extremely mixed, most are just forgettable, a couple are outright awful and a couple are amazing and some of the best in the series (Specifically the fight with the invisible snake in Chris's campaign and the final fight in Jake's campaign)
So as I said the game is a mix of good and bad to me and so far I've mostly just been praising it, well here comes the bad. The gameplay is where the game falls apart unfortunately and gameplay is pretty important for a uh game.
First let me start off with saying on one hand I like how each individual campaign plays differently (right down to the UI/Inventory looking different for everyone), Leon's delivers a semi-survival horror classic RE 4/5 experience, Chris' plays like a Gears/CoD military shooter, Jake's has the most emphasis on hand-to-hand action combat even being able to do combos and Ada's is stealth based. That said while I like this idea on paper, it's also extremely jarring because there's no cohesion and moving from campaign to campaign doesn't flow well at all, it's almost like you're playing 4 different games at once.
Also while I like how the characters stories tie together from a narrative point of view, but the actual gameplay is super tedious having to replay certain segments with almost no variation other than being a different character. Though the thing I hate the most about the gameplay is how 90% of the game is just an endless horde mode and it's so boring and tedious. The reason why the shootout segments in RE 4 & RE 5 work as good as they do is because they're well placed and there's good variety in between them, but in 6 every other scene is a big shootout sequence where you have to defend a location against an army of enemies and that wears out its welcome very quickly. Oh and don't get me started on the vehicle parts, controlling the vehicles always just felt awful, at least those parts still looked cool though. Last but not least I don't think I've played another game in my life that has as many QTEs as this game does and it's absolutely obnoxious.
However there is also some great things about the gameplay, like how this was the first RE game to remove tank controls and implement the ability to walk and shoot at the same time, I like that and it fits the more action based gameplay of this title. There's also some cool John Woo like slides, flips and rolls you can do while shooting. There's more emphasis on melee combat, you have a combat action bar which is actually my fave feature in the game because melee combat is so powerful and fun to do. Oh and most importantly the co-op is back and the single player partner AI is much smarter than than RE 5.
Overall the game has a ridiculous, but solid story with great characters, killer enemy design and incredible production values, but the clear lack of direction in gameplay style, tedious overuse of QTEs and waves of enemies, plus lackluster boss battles and a slightly bloated campaign have earned this game its poor, but fair reputation and due to that I just can't in good faith recommend it to anyone other than the most hardcore RE fans.