An impressive, independently strong, and high quality RE game that got me interested in the RE series.
The Top 5 Best Things about Resident Evil: Revelations
1. Solid and Robust Story Mode that stands strong on its own. From the brief beginning when Agents Valentine and Parker set foot on the creepy cruise ship, the Queen Zenobia, to their ending showdown with the final demon zombie, the game's story is a deep and broad plot involving many twists and turns that keep you interested and wanting to go further. The story is robust because each mission will take about a thirty minutes to an hour to complete. When you start each story "mission", a TV-style review cut scene of the previous mission takes place. Of course, the entire story mode, including review cut scenes, are fully voiced and very realistic. And, to make things even meatier, the entire story is complete and strong on its own, even though it is based on the events between Resident Evils 4 and 5. Personally, I've never played Resident Evil 4 or Resident Evil 5, so I had no prior knowledge of the overall story of the series. However, I understood, connected, and was engrossed by Resident Evil: Revelation's remarkable story mode.
2. Decent "Raid Mode" outside of the Story Mode. You see, outside of story mode is a separate, free game mode called "Raid Mode", which is basically a free "shoot-em-up" option to fight random zombies. The mode is limited, unfortunately; you move across pre-selected locations and fight specific zombies, so it's not so wild or free as you might over-assume. However, it is admirable that the game publishers at least made the effort to try to add replay value to the game - separate from the story mode.
3. Smart Ammo and Gun Usage/Implementation. First of all, ammo isn't unlimited and guns start off rather weak. While you might assume that this kills the fun of the game, I'd like to correct you by saying that Resident Evil: Revelations implements challenge into the game well, without damaging it. For instance, even though ammo isn't unlimited, it isn't that hard to find. Often times, you will have full ammo, but will then go through long periods of ammo scarcity. Therefore, the game encourages smart shooting and discourages crazy, "rambo-like" flying of bullets. Secondly, although the original pistols start off rather weak, you find newer weapons soon enough that punch holes through the minion zombies. Of course, none of these weapons are overpowered, and neither are the enemy zombies, so the gameplay feels very balanced and works well.
4. Good variety of enemies and bosses; immersive survival experience against these enemies. For example, imagine being knocked out, then waking up with a zombie stumbling towards you. YIKES! And to make matters more challenging, your weapons are missing! In one mission, this situation happens and you are forced to hide and run between the zombies in an effort to find your weapons and your partner-agent. Even when you find your weapons (which are a small knife, weak pistol, and stun grenade), you face eerie zombies that stumble towards you as you shoot them about five times. Some zombies stumble towards you and hit you. Others shoot body fluids and parts at you. And others use bioweapons against you. All of them are creepy, yet inspire your adventure. Like the time you find a journal of a scientist, on the Queen Zenobia, who found himself locked in one of the ship's closets and slowly mutating into a zombie himself. You then accidentally release him and he stumbles towards you in horrifically mutated intimidation. It takes nearly all of your ammo, for both your pistol and rifle, to take down the enemy. And that's on "easy" difficulty. As you can see, the game really puts you into a state of fear and exploration, and genuinely challenges you.
5. Beautiful, yet ominous music that is totally appropriate for the game's setting. Oh, my, god, The music in Resident Evil: Revelations is great. It's soft and eerie, at times, with elegance and a sense of adventure. Go look up "Resident Evil Revelations Music" and decide for yourself.
The Top 5 Worst Things about Resident Evil: Revelations
1. (Truthfully) Lack of Replay Value after beating the story. While the game's Raid Mode offers an attempt to break the post-story mode boredom, it isn't that free and great, as mentioned. Therefore, also as mentioned, there isn't that much to do after beating the story mode. Again, the game developers have made another good attempt to fix this by allowing you to replay the story mode with all your upgraded and powered weapons. However, this still feels old and I personally got bored of the game after a few months. However, with all that being said, I can't deny the sheer mastery of this game, overall.
2. Lack of varying environments. As mentioned, the story starts on the Queen Zenobia Cruise Ship: infested with tons of sinister rooms and creepy zombies. However, that's basically all that's available. The whole story mode is basically a continuous trek through one zombie cruise ship. True, there is an arctic location, as well as another cruise ship (unfortunately EXACTLY the same as the Queen Zenobia - its "sister ship"). However, that basically means there is no variety of environments, or locations for gamers to explore.
3. Enemies are usually too durable and you use up too much ammo on each of them. For example and as mentioned, one of the boss zombies requires literally all of your pistol and rifle ammo to take down. And a few missed shots, and you got to get in there and knife it down. Did I mention that this is all in the easy mode? That's right. So I don't even think I would have beaten the harder modes, given how durable (and potentially frustrating) the zombies are. Sigh...I miss the days when video games were about giving the gamer the feelings of ultimate power and utter destruction of environments and exploding, gooshy enemies....
4. Puzzles sometimes seem insignificant and don't add to the game much. These puzzles include rewiring a control panel, using the touch screen, and finding key items, across the Queen Zenobia. To be honest, I felt these "challenges" were just "fillers" used to keep the gamers busy and doing something else besides murdering zombies. However, with that being said, these puzzles all work nicely and are fairly smart, so I can't complain that much about them.
5. Ending of the story's plot seems weaker than the beginning.
This is truthfully very minor, but I just thought I should include this to explain that the story mode is, overall, very good but not strong the entire time. The beginning of the story mode is breathtaking and excellent, but towards the end, the situations get kind of unrealistic, unbelievable, and insignificant. For example, towards the end, another cruise ship is introduced, (the third one,) but it is exactly identical to the Queen Zenobia. Plus, this ship is only in one mission, so I can't help but think, "what's the point of that?" Also, the final boss fight involves fighting a demon zombie mutated from the arch villain. However, the fight is actually a bit dull and the only challenge is the unbelievable durability of the boss - requiring you to empty your guns and throw all your grenades.
The One Most Memorable Thing about Resident Evil: Revelations:
The Solid and Robust Story Mode that impressed me right away, stood strong on its own, was balanced, yet challenging, and sparked my interest in the Resident Evil Series.
This was the very first Resident Evil Game I ever played. Therefore, I think of it as an instant classic.