Finished my second completed playthrough of Chris’s scenario, and honestly after being so harsh on it for the past two years I think I understand it a lot more now.
It’s fair to say that most people usually enjoy Jill’s scenario far better than Chris’s, and for valid reasons too. This includes me too, actually, as it’s just a more comfortable experience to easily blast through while also starring BARRY BURTON, who couldn’t love that. She gets the bazooka, which decimates most enemies, she has a lockpick, getting the best ending is far easier, she has an easier time getting the shotgun, everything is just wildly convenient for her, and it is fun! The low difficulty of her scenario makes it more revisitable while also shorter, and I’ve played through it about 5 times now, including a run where I used no ink ribbons while finishing the game in less than 3 hours, which was a rewarding experience. But it is suspiciously too easy.
Entering Chris mode with this same mindset is like being hit with a reality check, he has it rough here. Smaller inventory, no bazooka, no lockpick, no Barry bailing you out to get the shotgun early, none of that. On paper, literally the only advantage Chris has is that he has far more health than Jill, which can be shrugged off by most players, but in my opinion it actually serves a key purpose during the early game. Since ammo for the handgun is rather sparse, and you’ll want to save most of your shells for the mid-to-late game, taking advantage of Chris’s larger health pool is actually very handy for essentially damage boosting areas with zombies that you are never gonna revisit, and believe me, Chris (at least on the standard difficulty) is REALLY tanky, and I was surprised during this revisit at how handy his durability was for this function. It also makes purely knifing some early area rooms in favor of wasting the handgun a valid strategy, because Chris can take quite a beating if your knifing is sloppy. I don’t ever see this brought up but I find it quite unique and rewarding in this context.
Chris overall I think has a better overall emphasis on the core inventory management and survival aspects of the game. Because of what little Chris can hold at a time, there were several trips I took with literally nothing on me just so I could pick everything up in an upcoming area. It was tense and in some cases could look extremely unsafe and stupid, but I find this technique very rewarding and suspenseful because I was making a major risk in favor of gaining more reward by not needing to backtrack, rather than keeping a weapon, it’s ammo, and 1-2 healing items on me because it feels more comfortable. The uncomfortability here heightens the tensity of the situation, which I would say is important in a horror game.
Despite all this praise I do have to knock the third “chapter” of the game for being extremely tedious and frustrating, that being the second mansion visit where all the hunters are occupying the area. As Jill, it's a breather because this is a perfect spot to unload all of your grenade and acid rounds on the hunters, but Chris has no such luxury, and it becomes unbearable as a result. The infamous stunlocking and instant kill attacks that these battletoads offer make for a spot that, last year, made me drop my entire Chris run. You WILL be punished here if you wasted a lot of your shells before this section (I circumvented this by beating Plant 42 with only the handgun). Now, you do get the magnum in this part of the game, which is a one hit kill on every normal enemy type in the game, but since ammo for it is rather sparse, and you most definitely want to save it for the final boss(es), it’s best to get rid of like 2-3 hunters using it in this entire section and either trying to outrun or use the shotgun on the rest. And also last to mention is the inconvenience of trying to find Rebecca when re-entering the mansion before the invisible timer goes out, which if you play poorly will result in a guaranteed bad ending and Rebecca most certainly… without a head on her shoulders to confront you.
That aside, I found this scenario to be a tightly designed and overall rewarding experience. It can be frustrating, and it will kick your ass if you play poorly. But managing to get through it gives me immense satisfaction, and I certainly plan on trying to perfect my runs in the future, because Chris’s scenario is an interesting facet of how good Resident Evil 1’s design truly is. It’s Resi 1 at it’s most tense, because of having lesser resources while also dealing with a more punishing difficulty curve. I’ve already got most of what I’ve wanted in challenging myself playing as Jill, so I find this to be the best next step. Definitely give this mode a try if you found Jill’s scenario too easy and need something to quench that thirst of needing a nore challenging experience.
It’s fair to say that most people usually enjoy Jill’s scenario far better than Chris’s, and for valid reasons too. This includes me too, actually, as it’s just a more comfortable experience to easily blast through while also starring BARRY BURTON, who couldn’t love that. She gets the bazooka, which decimates most enemies, she has a lockpick, getting the best ending is far easier, she has an easier time getting the shotgun, everything is just wildly convenient for her, and it is fun! The low difficulty of her scenario makes it more revisitable while also shorter, and I’ve played through it about 5 times now, including a run where I used no ink ribbons while finishing the game in less than 3 hours, which was a rewarding experience. But it is suspiciously too easy.
Entering Chris mode with this same mindset is like being hit with a reality check, he has it rough here. Smaller inventory, no bazooka, no lockpick, no Barry bailing you out to get the shotgun early, none of that. On paper, literally the only advantage Chris has is that he has far more health than Jill, which can be shrugged off by most players, but in my opinion it actually serves a key purpose during the early game. Since ammo for the handgun is rather sparse, and you’ll want to save most of your shells for the mid-to-late game, taking advantage of Chris’s larger health pool is actually very handy for essentially damage boosting areas with zombies that you are never gonna revisit, and believe me, Chris (at least on the standard difficulty) is REALLY tanky, and I was surprised during this revisit at how handy his durability was for this function. It also makes purely knifing some early area rooms in favor of wasting the handgun a valid strategy, because Chris can take quite a beating if your knifing is sloppy. I don’t ever see this brought up but I find it quite unique and rewarding in this context.
Chris overall I think has a better overall emphasis on the core inventory management and survival aspects of the game. Because of what little Chris can hold at a time, there were several trips I took with literally nothing on me just so I could pick everything up in an upcoming area. It was tense and in some cases could look extremely unsafe and stupid, but I find this technique very rewarding and suspenseful because I was making a major risk in favor of gaining more reward by not needing to backtrack, rather than keeping a weapon, it’s ammo, and 1-2 healing items on me because it feels more comfortable. The uncomfortability here heightens the tensity of the situation, which I would say is important in a horror game.
Despite all this praise I do have to knock the third “chapter” of the game for being extremely tedious and frustrating, that being the second mansion visit where all the hunters are occupying the area. As Jill, it's a breather because this is a perfect spot to unload all of your grenade and acid rounds on the hunters, but Chris has no such luxury, and it becomes unbearable as a result. The infamous stunlocking and instant kill attacks that these battletoads offer make for a spot that, last year, made me drop my entire Chris run. You WILL be punished here if you wasted a lot of your shells before this section (I circumvented this by beating Plant 42 with only the handgun). Now, you do get the magnum in this part of the game, which is a one hit kill on every normal enemy type in the game, but since ammo for it is rather sparse, and you most definitely want to save it for the final boss(es), it’s best to get rid of like 2-3 hunters using it in this entire section and either trying to outrun or use the shotgun on the rest. And also last to mention is the inconvenience of trying to find Rebecca when re-entering the mansion before the invisible timer goes out, which if you play poorly will result in a guaranteed bad ending and Rebecca most certainly… without a head on her shoulders to confront you.
That aside, I found this scenario to be a tightly designed and overall rewarding experience. It can be frustrating, and it will kick your ass if you play poorly. But managing to get through it gives me immense satisfaction, and I certainly plan on trying to perfect my runs in the future, because Chris’s scenario is an interesting facet of how good Resident Evil 1’s design truly is. It’s Resi 1 at it’s most tense, because of having lesser resources while also dealing with a more punishing difficulty curve. I’ve already got most of what I’ve wanted in challenging myself playing as Jill, so I find this to be the best next step. Definitely give this mode a try if you found Jill’s scenario too easy and need something to quench that thirst of needing a nore challenging experience.