The game that started it all.
First time i played this was when I was about 6 i tink, and that was the day that i was hit by the light! That day was the day that took me in to the world of RE and thus started my addiction to the greatest game franchise ever.
First playing at my age of 6 it was obviously an incredibly hard experience and I have to admit resorted to a guide to help out. I'm not ashamed, after all I may be good at games but i obviously wasn't that good back then as I am now. Etheir way i completed it with both Chris and Jill and sort of let it rest for a few years until RE2 came out.
After completing that then i would move back onto the original then back onto RE2 to compare and to mainly enjoy.
Now anywhoo, stepping quickly out of memory lane and into now...street...or sumin....aaaaanywhoo....
Resident Evil is of course one of the founders of old school survival horror.
So all the basic ingredients are here, scene setting camera angles, too many enemies too little ammo, number of puzzles to complete and keys to hunt down, unintentionally hilarious dialoque lifted back up by a serious and enjoyable storyline and of course the overall feeling of horror.
Resident Evil is 3rd person viewed game where you must solve why the mansion you have stumbled in is full of undead creatures and to find the remnants of the bravo squad of STARS.
As Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine you will have to explore the mansion by yourself all the while trying to survive the horrors of the mansion with a limited ammo supply and low amount of healing supplies.
It all adds to a very tense experience sometimes really fearing for your characters survival. Throughout though more weapons will become available and ammo isn't totally scarce so you will be able to defend yourself against most enemies, though still its not such a good idea to shoot everything that moves and if an oppurtunity arises avoid combat.
Moving through the story unlocking doors and solving puzzles you will encounter boss battles which of course have to be settled through combat, they are the enemies that which you should best be saving your ammo for.
The boss battles are all varied and require you to think how to battle them, sure it only takes you to repeatidly fire at them with whatever weapon, but each boss has its own speed and varying damage in attacks so figuring out with weapon is best and what is a safe distance really sets the boss' apart.
Besides the combat as I've said you will do a much more amount of exploration with you needing to search every room to find what you need to do next, though linear in what needs to be done how you do that task is up to you. Such as a door that requires 4 emblems to unlock, you may search and find these emblems in whatever order you wish. So exploring the mansion isn't just for fun, it is required to be able to move onto your next task. To get to a certain item needed to move on, a puzzle maybe needed to solve, they are fit the Mansions eerieness and don't seem out of place though still rather peculier, while most traps are harmless though some do may have the ability to hurt your character if say you made a wrong move or choice amidst a puzzle, but all n all it mix's well with the exploration and the undead battling.
The story that motivates it all while filled with awful dialoque overall has a serious and enjoyable tale woven in that would start the massive arc of the RE franchise. I doubt anyone these days doesn't know the story behind RE1, but still just incase you do happen to be oblivious to what goes around you and would hate to have this review spoil anything for you....as a member of STARS (Special Tactics And Rescue Squad)Alpha team you have been sent to the Spencer Mansion in search of the Bravo team, who were sent their earlier to check on dissapearences in that area, who too have gone missing. As Chris or Jill, you arrive in the surrounding forest to be ambushed by severly hostile canines that maul one of your teammates. Which leads you to take shelter in the Spencer Mansion, though strangly one of your team has gone missing, and so you must then search for the remnants of the Bravo team and also keep an eye out for whoever of the Alpha team has gone missing (Barry goes missing as Chris, and Chris goes missing as Jill).
The sound is indeed the steppind stone to all the survival horror titles these days, the music is different in certain areas though all falls into the creepy violin and piano tunes to really set the mood. The voice acting though, is in short 'atrocious' so much that is indeed intentionly funny and can really drag down supposed to be serious situations. Still this will become one of RE's trademarks so if your not used to by now you better quick if this your first outing in RE.
Onto graphics is a little unfair as this game 'is' 12 years old now and a little hard to decipher how great looking it was, as i was 6 i can't really tell much about the standards, but I spose i after observing other 1996 titles that RE was a pretty good looking game overall.
The replay value of RE though sadly is rather short, completing the game with both characters will probably last you 6 hours and there is at least some funky costumes to unlock(another RE trademark) and a secret weapon and besides you can;t just simply play through it once with each character, RE is a classic and deserves multple play throughs just to remember and enjoy the good old days, but without nostalgic and classical value it is a rather short game.
But all that type and done, if you haven't purchased this and you consider yourself a RE fan, its a no brainer as to what you have to do....now...like this very second...BUY THE GAME DAMMIT!!!!
Final Score:9.9