Mixed feelings on this one. Before I get into it more, I just wanna add the context that I did enjoy the game and thought it was worth the time I spent on it.

I think the tone is a fair bit worse compared to the original, it felt a bit confused as to whether it wanted to be campy fun like the OG or if it wanted to be more grounded like RE2R.

I'll also say that (with the risk of minor spoilers) some of the villains get a fair bit less screentime and I think that's a shame.

With that being said I could easily see the gameplay being preferable to a lot of people. The enemies are a lot more aggressive which is a good change, there are new enemy types and most of them are fun to fight, and the game does an excellent job of giving you just enough ammo and no more. It keeps you on your toes which is what I wanted. Of course, the original was good at this too, but I felt that the remake was, even if just a little, more successful at this. I enjoy that they even brought the knife into this. None of your attacks are disposable, everything draws from a finite resource, and I think that adds a lot to the game.

I wish they hadn't buffed Leon's defensive abilities so much, his movement is a lot less restricted with the ability to move and shoot, and to turn instantly without regard to where the camera faces. This isn't a huge issue on its own but it's very easy to notice in a game that invites so many comparisons to the original. The enemy aggressiveness offsets this somewhat, but in general I think the game would be a lot more tense if you didn't have as many tools to avoid getting overwhelmed. It's less a flaw and more a missed opportunity.

In general, it feels you're a little less incentivized to put yourself at risk, and you have an easier time escaping if you do. Leon's kicks feel like they have a smaller hitbox, which means they're not quite as effective as a means of crowd control. The shotgun's blast also feels less wide than it once did. You're more encouraged than you previously were to keep your distance, and Leon's new defensive options make this easier to do. The parry in particular was a bit too powerful if you ask me. I also dislike how easy it is to trigger without proper timing, if you just mash the knife button when you think you're about to be attacked.

None of this is to say the game is easy. I actually found the game refreshingly difficult. The aforementioned increased enemy aggression adds a lot, and I did feel the enemies were generally more numerous too. I just think it could've been all the more thrilling if they changed these small things.

I felt the pacing to be a bit preferable in the OG although it really depends on what you value. This version of the game, while still very combat-heavy, falls back onto exploration and puzzles a little more often than the OG. These diversions aren't bad by any means but I think the original had a bit more forward momentum. I could easily see this being a positive for a lot of people, though. Of course, I do appreciate that at the very least, its downtime doesn't feel like an unfun waste of time. A lot of current games have an understanding that you need downtime to make the action more intense but they insist on filling downtime with the most boring pieces of content possible.

I'd also like to add that I very much appreciate that they were faithful in how quickly the action starts. Within less than ten minutes the player is thrust into the iconic village fight, and that sequence is still genuinely intense even on a repeated playthrough.

I tend to spend a lot of time in these reviews complaining, but as I said before, the game is fun, and worth playing if you're into the genre. It's not a replacement for the original by any means if you ask me, but I don't regret playing it and I'm glad it exists. I just hope Capcom keeps both this, and the original available in future console generations. The only versions of RE1-3 on current platforms are the remakes. I think that's a real shame, and I hope the same doesn't happen with 4.

I really enjoyed playing this but its flaws are very obvious. The combat's been talked about pretty much every time somebody's talked about this game so it should be no surprise that I didn't like it either. Even so, I wouldn't mind it as much if the game didn't have forced combat encounters. For most combat encounters you can run away and I think that works fine, but there are a few times where you're forced to fight and they're consistently bad. I'll also point out that, as much as the game's art style appealed to a lot of people, it did cause different bits of the game to be less distinct from each other than I'd like.
The main fun the game offers is optimizing your route from end to end of the level and avoiding interrupting your momentum. The game works very hard to encourage this play style and when it happens it is very enjoyable.
It's a shame the sequel was a downgrade compared to this one. It's exactly the kind of game that needs a sequel.

There's very little to complain about here. There's a few obtuse (optional) secrets and I'm not really fond of the cutscenes and voice acting, but the gameplay is very refined and enjoyable. Konami was really at the top of their game here. Even in the modern age, with so many good indie action-platformers releasing every day, this game's level design and action holds up astoundingly well.
Occasional obtuseness aside I appreciate that it's willing to hide such major chunks of content from the player, I wish more games would do this. Like half the game's content is secret levels and it's awesome.

The game's still in early access so it could still shit the bed in the last third of the campaign but as of right now Ultrakill is my favorite of this new wave of retro-inspired shooters.
I appreciate the emphasis on weapon design and the usage of your arsenal in creative ways. The arsenal is small but each weapon is highly specialized and situational and all of them feel useful in their own way.
Enemy designs are also quite good and are generally solid at making you fight at least a little differently for each one. The bosses are a particular highlight, which is a welcome surprise in a genre where they usually, to put it bluntly, suck.
I'm appreciative that Hakita realizes that shooters are just action games at the end of the day, and taking inspiration from what other types of action games do well is wise.

Very, very enjoyable.

like doom 2016 if it snorted like 5 lines of meth mixed with cocaine with 3 heroin needles in its arm and then it fucking died of an OD at 3am

It's interesting in how it essentially intensifies both the flaws and the strengths of the 2016 game. the combat is genuinely very fun, and the increased emphasis on keeping your resources stocked is nice. it does a good job of making you constantly pay attention to your health, your ammo, and your armor.
the game has some truly fantastic intense combat encounters, and they're in some truly obnoxious levels. the platforming, exploration, and progression systems have an increased focus here, and they're even worse than they were in doom 2016.
I'll also add that the weak point system doesn't really work too well. You're never really incentivized not to go for an enemy's weak points, so it's less a new way to fight enemies and more the only way to effectively deal with them. You're not given a new option to consider, you're given a win button.
I have a lot of complaints in this review but I did enjoy the game. In fact, I probably enjoyed it more than doom 2016. I just hope Id software pulls the focus back onto their more interesting elements in their future games.

This game really came out at the perfect time, huh?
Everyone was pretty sick of the singleplayer shooter landscape at the time and it really took some reminding that shooters can be stupid fun.
In terms of the game itself, the combat's quite fun and I give it credit for keeping the focus on that. It has quite decent pacing in the sense that it keeps focused on the interesting part of the game most of the time.
The issues start to seep in when that focus is momentarily drawn away. Awkward platforming, uninteresting exploration, and levels that look identical to each other don't make for compelling gameplay. As I mentioned, the game wisely doesn't focus on these too much, but I'm left wondering why they exist in the first place. The exploration is particularly baffling because the rewards for it give you skill points for a very pointless progression system. Most of the praises for this game were directed at it bucking modern design trends in order to be the most fun game it could be. In light of this, the presence of upgrade points are disappointing, but only a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
The tone is rather enjoyable, the music is good, and it's overall a fun game. Most of what it's done has been done better, but it's probably worth a shot if it looks interesting to you.

This is probably my favorite survival horror game of the past few years. It takes most of what I enjoy about the older Resident Evil games (the exploration, usage of enemies as level design, and management of resources) and expands on them. It makes intelligent additions in places that make sense. Enemies can repopulate the map, fixing the issue where killing too many enemies could make the map feel safer, but it still feels fair and retains the permanence of enemies by having enemies spawn in ways that can be predicted and avoided by the player. Mister X also helps to keep things from ever feeling truly safe.
I will say the first half was significantly better than the second. Similarly to the original version of RE2, there's an increased focus on action. I don't dislike the game's action but it's not as compelling as what the first half focused on.


Ada's section can fuck off though.

pretty fantastic. I really enjoyed the AI and the emphasis on light and darkness. In terms of raw stealth mechanics this might be the best stealth game ever made. Some of the levels are designed better than others (the bank is a particular highlight), but overall it's an enjoyable ride. I'd be remiss not to also mention the fantastic original soundtrack by Amon Tobin.
It's frustrating that ubisoft won't make more games in this series. If you ask me, they don't have far to go from this game if they wanted to make pretty much the best execution of this premise possible. Make a game like this, but with more emphasis on non-linear objective-based levels like the bank. hitman already did the same thing with blood money, and now it's one of the most successful stealth game series.

pretty solid gameplay but it's really dumb that a game that's so insistent that you should "play your way" punishes you for using like half of your options. you get a worse ending for using a pretty huge chunk of the abilities you have and that is quite dumb. to be clear, i don't mind the idea of alternate endings, but if you're gonna literally label one of them as the "correct" one and if you're gonna market your game as one that gives you a lot of choices i'm gonna be annoyed.
With that said there is a lot to like here. The level design is actually quite good. The areas all have a really tangible sense of being real places and the game does a good job of providing a lot of ways to accomplish your goals. The really key thing here is that it does this by letting you do things that make logical sense given the areas you're in rather than just giving you multiple rigid routes with little room for creative play.
It's a shame that stealth loses a lot of its tension by how powerful your combat powers are but it hardly ruins the game
It's worth playing if it interests you but do yourself a favor and ignore the part where the game tells you killing bad and just play in the way you enjoy instead.
Or, y'know, play deus ex, because a lot of stuff this game does well is stuff deus ex did first.