Resident Evil: Is It Still Fun Today?

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2:30You may have heard that this year is IGN's 30th anniversary. As part of that celebration, we thought it would be good to do a few Is It Still Fun episodes on games from 1996. So to kick things off, we're starting with a game that itself kicked off an entire genre, started a franchise that is still going strong, could be argued is doing better than ever today. We are about to revisit the original Resident Evil from 1996.

3:02ages I think the last time I genuinely played this game was near its launch window and my cousin had it on his PlayStation and I was much too young to play it so the second that like FMV cutscene of the zombie or it's the CG cutscene of the zombie turning around I got way too scared and ran out of the room I was like no I'm not doing this I can't handle this I got a weak constitution I gotta go uh but you know I'm ready to face my fears and Michael you actually played this on your own earlier this year, right? I did. I was getting excited for RE9, aka Resident Evil Requiem, and I've been doing a whole playthrough of the series, so I did start with the original.

3:39I played the remake, though, but I think for this I am going to play the original PS1 or find a way to play the original PS1 version. Also came to Saturn, so if you have a Saturn lying around... I super don't. I've got one out there. I will say, the one thing I'll say is that I think I'm getting to the age in which I am finding games, old games with clunky controls to be fun. So, okay. That might be my answer already. As long as you know what you're getting into, the challenge comes from the controls, right? Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. 1 ,000%. Sam, it is known to Scoop Nation that you love Resident Evil.

4:11When did you last play the original? Yeah, so I, weirdly, probably a rental, but at my cousin's house. Like, that's exactly what happened to me, too. I was between liking video games at the time, and so I wasn't super into the PlayStation 1. But I do remember these games having black compact discs instead of silver, and it blew my mind. And then I remember thinking the FMVs were just so bad, and I couldn't believe that people were into this game. And then I played the remake on GameCube, and of course, I fell in love with that game and Resident Evil Zero at that time. I don't have a lot of experience playing the actual PS1 version.

4:53I 100 % have it on disc and I have a PS1 I also have a PS3 that can play PS1 games the you know 60 game one I think so I gotta figure out how I'm gonna pull this off if not what do you recommend well I'm gonna play there's a 2015 HD remaster I have it on Playstation it's also on PC so I can play it on Steam Deck as well and that's technically the GameCube one right so that's where I'm playing that oh and Nick you're playing on PS1 actually you're gonna capture it in 4K right for all of our B-roll so we're gonna have a beautiful B-roll thanks to Nick Thanks to the power of IGN and One Dave Tool, I've managed to hook up the IGN office, or he managed to hook up the IGN office with a RetroTink 4K.

5:32So I got my PS1 connected to that RetroTink. So now it's just, I really want to play it with scan lines, but I'll do a test footage and see whether or not that looks good on your YouTube video. Because the scan lines are just so pretty on the RetroTink 4K. It's true. What do you do? Is it just RCA output? Or is there like S video? Like, what do you do? I am currently doing the RetroTink has RGB. RGB, I have a modded PS1, so I can do RGB out. Oh, you have a modded one. Yeah, you're all set. It's going to look really good. It's going to look very good. As good as a game on compact disc from 1996 can look.

6:01Very crispy. Yeah, yeah. So we have all played before. Some people had commented on the first video that we should have someone on the panel who has never played the game before, so they're not influenced by nostalgia. I count. I didn't play a lot of it. I didn't beat it. Well, I just want to say, that's a great idea that we'll definitely implement in future episodes. All right, Resident Evil, the original one. It has a 91 on Metacritic. EGM gave it an 8, a 9.5, a 9, and a 9. So definitely well received at the time. We are going to enter the Spencer Mansion and replay Resident Evil 1996. We're shooting this cold open right before we head out for a holiday break.

6:33So we'll be playing over the holidays and shooting the full episode early in the new year. It is time to find out if the OG pre-rendered backgrounds, tank controls, hilariously bad dialogue, and jaggy polygons of Resident Evil 1996 are still fun today. You are almost a Jill sandwich. Thanks, Barry. Astro of Unlocking. Resident Evil. Resident Evil. So, you want to learn a new language, but you're struggling to get beyond the basics. Stuck on free apps aimed at cheap dopamine highs? Well, then it's time to try Babbel, the language app that makes grammar fun and is really worth your time. Learning a language with Babbel is all about small steps, big wins, and progress you can actually track and feel.

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9:35Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. And we're back. It's a whole new year. We spent the holidays turning rooms green in order to determine whether or not the original Resident Evil is still fun today. And I think we're all in agreement that it sure is. Although my recommendation comes with a little asterisk. Let me paint you all a picture. It was the nights around Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring except Damon on the couch, lit by the light of the Christmas tree, cat in lap, steam deck in hand, headphones on, playing Resident Evil. And I had a blast.

10:05This style of Resident Evil game totally holds up, even feels refreshing because no one is making games like this anymore. We'll dive into all the details, but my high-level takeaway is, yes, still fun, especially if you played the old style of Resident Evil games back in the day. If you didn't, and all you know are the modern-style games from RE4 onward, there are a couple big caveats that I would warn you about. But let's dig in. I played the 2015 remaster of the 2002 remake, which is readily available on modern platforms. I played as Jill. Sam, you played the same? Yeah, I did. I played as Jill.

10:31It was great. And I played on my Steam Deck by the Christmas tree with a cat in my lap as well, if that's what you're asking. Jill's right, man. Goose Camp Birds of a Feather. Now, Michael, do you play the 1996 version over the holiday? Man, I wish I did, but I did not. Because I played it on Switch, the version that is available on the Switch eShop, which is the 2015 remaster of the remake. And yeah, turns out it's still fun. But like you, Damon, there are some caveats that I will tell folks who want to play this version, because I do think it is essential, especially if you are getting into Resident Evil or if you have some gaps in the series, you have to play this version, but you gotta know what to expect.

11:17Yeah, I would agree with that. But Nick, you really went all out because you played, you did two runs of the 2015 version and also the 1996 version and you captured them all, so all the footage you see here is captured by Nick. It's great. No judgment on the gameplay because man, those dogs are a real pain in the ass. No, yeah. Yeah, Resident Evil 1, as I talked about in the cold open, which was now, you know, prior to Christmas, it was a big blind spot for me. And I was like, you know what? I'm Nick Lamone. I got to play all of these games just to see. Plus, I'm Nick effing Lamone. Yeah, and I'm a big sucker for just that early polygon, like PlayStation style.

11:54And I think that a lot of people my age in general are really have nostalgia for. You know, we see games like Crow Country that are evoking original Resident Evil. and I couldn't think of a better thing to just check out the one that started it all. And I had a blast. Granted, I did only play through Jill campaign on the 1996 version, but I played the original version of the game. No DualShock, no director's cut, just that one. And man, and then I did another Jill run and then Chris in the 2015 remake on PC with the help of some lovely fans who did a beautiful job with the RE stored mod that upscales all of the pre-rendered backgrounds up to 4K.

12:38And so all the footage that you're looking at is in glorious 4K. Even the PlayStation 1, which I had connected to a Retro Tink 4K, and it's beautiful scanline. So enjoy all of the lo-fi beauty that you are going to see. But yeah, I love it. I wanted to mention that I did try to get this up and going. I have the Director's Cut, which we were just talking about, has the DualShock upgrades to it and a few other things. It's, of course, on the black CD-ROM disc for people that don't remember how cool PlayStation was for doing that. But I ended up playing the remade version, which I think has so many improvements.

13:17But I also, one other thing I wanted to mention about playing along with this game is that I used a strategy guide for large portions of it and spent that time updating our strategy guide. Because if you're out there and you're playing this, I actually meticulously went through a paragraph by paragraph and made sure that the writing and stuff and the puzzle solutions were up to snuff. And it was a lot of fun. So I had a fun time writing and playing. Dude, that's that brand synergy we're all about here at IGN. So people who watch this episode, you use the guide and you're going to get a definitive 2026 experience.

13:51Yeah, and I do think mastered the guide. It was helpful. But Damon does have one tip for playing this game, which he already mentioned. And what is that, Damon? Turn the rooms green. If you are turning the rooms green, you're playing Resident Evil, man. So, okay, a hot take here. I never once considered doing that, playing Resident Evil, because I'm just like, yeah, I got the item I think I need. Let's get out of here and go. Like, I'm not trying to spend more. It's too creepy, man. I'm not trying to spend more time in these rooms. It's funny because when you play it that way, it adds a different type of fear to the game.

14:24Because what you're doing by doing that is making sure you get every single plant and ammo when you don't have any inventory room ever. So that's already difficult, right? So you're juggling that. And then also while you're doing that, you probably expend some of that very plant juice and ammo, plant powder, I don't know what it is. And you're just getting everything. So you really, it comes out of wash. You're like, I'm gonna make sure I have all the ammo so I don't run out. And then it's like, you spent all this time backtracking and what happens? Bunch of dogs come through a bunch of windows and you're bowed.

14:55dude those dogs i swear they're in devil may cry and i'm just in a resident evil one game those dogs are those dogs are so fast and basically every death i had in the game was because of the dogs in both the original and the remake one dog is gonna bite you if they're if if the math is there's more one or more dogs in a room one of them is gonna bite you it's just gonna happen you can aim your your gun downwards up into a corner it doesn't matter it's gonna hit the dog after it bites you.

15:28Alright, let's talk a little bit about the graphics. I think this 2015 remaster is very pretty. I was actually kind of stunned that it still looks so good. Everything from lighting, shadows, candles flickering, lightning flashing through the windows. Capcom, they did a really good job of making good use of their pre-rendered backgrounds and foregrounds. In that main hall, one of the angles is jill you know and those candles like up up real close to the camera it looks great i couldn't believe how good this looks it's like the cinematography right they've just like oh wait movies have come out we know movies let's do that and uh there's just so many like things that stand out to me there's like beautiful shots where the second time you fight the yawn snake boss there's a part where you're entering the hallway and it's the camera is just outside the window of the mansion and so the window is in the foreground with jill in the background just like this is just so beautiful or when you're walking through the graveyard they just take so many interesting angles and honestly i know that people have their gripes about the tank controls combined with the fixed camera angles but i think that it's a beautiful blend of tension and art direction where this angle switch combined with the tank controls is the tension when you are trying to fight an enemy and the fact that you sure hide zombies in every single corner when you have five camera angles to dang room and that's the best part because you know a zombie's coming towards you so you do the thing that every horror protagonist does where you back up and it was like i think i have a big enough vantage point here and you're just holding your gun out like waiting and it's like such good dramatic effect because you wait for the zombie to get as close as humanly possible to pop off a shot and you're gonna do a little bit more damage and potentially headshot it yeah yeah that's a that's another thing too is that when when i think about the pre-rendered backgrounds and especially what the limitations were of the era of the PS1 and the 32-bit era is that there's a lot of intentionality with fixed-tech camera angles and like you might think of it as dated design but that is like that is how that game was made the puzzles are centered around the idea that you're looking at your environment in a very specific way certain items glint in the corner of rooms and that like piques your interest like oh okay like I need to see that out but there's a gate here and And then I need to think about when I go to this room, what's it emphasizing here?

17:51So there's so much intentionality with having pre-rendered backgrounds that they can make them look as artistic or as nice as they want. But it's also conducive to what you're supposed to be doing from room to room or from whatever part of the room that you are currently exploring. So that ties into, I'm going to probably be mentioning this a lot, is that not just because it has pre-rendered backgrounds, but as also as sam mentioned uh before we got on here it's like the cd-rom era of games point and click adventures were kind of the that was like the hottest stuff on pc especially and having replayed this this game is like you know we think of resident evil as an action survival horror franchise but playing through re1 this almost feels a lot like a point and click adventure game especially once you start trying to rack your head around what the puzzle solutions are what items did i miss what room should i go to next what what room what doors the does this key even apply to and then i found myself like backtracking a lot and you know getting a little frustrated here and there but once you find a solution you're like oh my god i'm a i'm a genius and that's a consequence of the game to being designed almost like closer to a point and click adventure game And that also plays to how the game is stylized.

19:14It really is. It's like the CD-ROM era of that. You have like Seventh Guest, is that what that was called? When you have games, and then there was, of course, Return to Zork and Mist and stuff like that. These games, you have an inventory that you fill with like pieces of a crank, and then you combine them and then you use them. That's the entire gameplay of those games. This adds some basic shooting and running around and avoiding things and action elements to it. That's the innovation, right? The rest of it is really drawing from those point and click, from the, what's it called, Scum Engine, LucasArts games, taken into the 3D era.

19:55And I wanted to mention one thing about the graphics. I think that there's, we already talked about camera angles. They can get bad, right? Like they're not good all the time. Oh yeah, for sure. You go down a hallway, then you reach, go back down that hallway, go down and go back down it over and over again. Cause you're trying to find which way is forward in the hallway. And then there's also a contrast issue. That's just kind of even in the HD remake or whatever, the, the, the drawings, they don't show where like a staircase down is very well or where a door is very well. You end up, you really, that's why I ended up using the map so much.

20:28Right. Just because like that really tells you. But until you have a map, it's really hard because there's this kind of this muddy single camera perspective. And it doesn't work for me all the time, but it's pretty funny. And then one last thing about the graphics. The doors opening is ridiculous. And it's not necessary anymore. And it's very funny that we have to go back and forth through our doors. I was going to say that I like that. So there's a loading screen in between every room. And they show the door. And I appreciate that every door is bespoke. It's the door you're opening. the stairs are bestowed even if it's an elevator you see what you see the exact thing that you've traveled through i appreciate that if you go outside this doors are metal i i love i i really like the doors i i will i love the remakes don't get me wrong but i do lament the door transition because i think it's such a a great way of building dread like what am i about to see next kind of thing they're in the remake and you can't skip them i know that's what that i recommend in the re2 remakes and stuff like that oh yeah yeah uh but real quick i want to go back you see it's a skip button like you don't need to load the room a little silly to me i want to go back a little bit to what you guys were talking about with the point and click adventure because 100 it reminds me of very like evocative of the king's quest era of like sierra uh point and click stuff but i'm doing a little bit of research you know i read the uh book itchy tasty which is kind of a recounting of the development of all the re games along with um i checked out the sphere hunters channel on youtube which she's fantastic she does a lot of like long form uh survival horror video essays and she's fantastic uh and then i did some some of my own independent research and one thing that stood out to me is that for the original 1996 resident evil it was created by a man named tokuro fujiwara who is the director of sweet home which was a famicom survival horror RPG so turn based Final Fantasy horror game but he went on to he wanted to remake Sweet Home on the Playstation 1 as a first person shooter so RE1 was originally going to be a first person experience but then he ended up like they lost the Sweet Home rights and they handed it over the reins to Shinji Mikami his prodigy and he was like oh this dude's a scaredy cat so I want him to make a scary game and thus he did that and also for all the for the scoopers out there uh tokuro fujiwara was the director on bionic commando oh my gosh ghouls and ghosts oh my gosh wow so it's all coming from good pedigree and if i may go on one super quick tangent because i'm never going to be able to do this in my entire life sweet home is a video game adaptation of a movie in japan uh that was produced and directed by two of my favorite japanese filmmakers it was directed by kiyoshi kurosawa who's done uh the modern masterpiece called cure and it was produced by juzo itami who's made one of my all-time favorite japanese films called uh tom popo so it's really fun to trace all of this pedigree back and be like man they had some really cool people working on over at Capcom on all this stuff.

23:50Okay, let's talk a bit about the music and sound and the voice acting. First of all, how about that save room music? Oh, it's so good. It's good. I just, every time I go to save room, I'm just going to chill here for a little bit and listen to this. it's it's and it's atmospheric and i'm i love i think everything they did with the soundtrack in the re1 remake the 2002 to 2015 remake is phenomenal music-wise like it's it's a very full score like you can really just uh you hear all the instruments is what i'll say is it the same savor music in the 1996 version it's a similar you can tell it's the same song but i think i prefer the original playstation one whatever i'm not sure if it's red book audio or blue book audio on the PlayStation 1.

24:46I think it's, especially for like all the lo-fi kids out there, that combined with the early polygons and Jill's very cute idle animation in the original game, it just all comes together to be like, yeah I just want to I want this to be like a splash screen lo-fi beats to hunt zombies to or something yeah yeah since you can't look around a room sound is really important in this game and I think they're smart about it every time you go into a room since you can't necessarily see what's in front of you depending on the angle there's always an audio cue right either you hear the footsteps or you hear the and you learn something you learn what enemy is in the room even before you see him because that's how distinct all of the sound design is you're like oh I know that there's uh what are they called the hunters yeah uh hunters are in here it's like oh that's that's really clever that the game teaches you this stuff implicitly yeah i like there's like a there's kind of a scored violin uh like suspense like just tone just like do and then that'll happen until and it might crescendo while you're fighting a zombie and then if it's not fully dead it won't go fully silent so but once everything in the room is dead it's dead silent which is also just a really smart cool effect yeah um yeah dead silent you mean like the ds game resident evil deadly silence yes there's also a particular tune that plays in a puzzle room that's also really good uh so they the the original um famously has really hilarious voice acting it has the you're almost a jill sandwich this mansion is gigantic we could get into trouble if we get lost we should start from the first floor okay and jill here's a lock pick it might be handy if you the master of unlocking take it with you jill you the master of unlocking take this they re-recorded it for the 2002 remake so obviously they were a little bit embarrassed by the clunkiness of it but it's still terrible right like i i think three i think three quarters of the performances are pretty good i think near the end once you get into the laboratory i'm like okay something happened here they're like we gotta get this game out on tuesday it does get worse and like the very end like the finale when you're like at the rush away from the tyrant and it's you and and barry and chrissy it just it just gets laughably bad i do i mean the kenneth part is really embarrassing he's like whining the whole time and sniffling and then you heal him and he just like lies in the floor i was like bro i thought you were special forces what's going on yeah i read in the manual that like you like got fired from the military badass and here we are sniffling on the floor there's a hilarious moment with barry like halfway through uh when he's like oh this mansion's starting to get to me i'm gonna step outside for some air it's like what he's like no don't do that you ran into the mansion because you're being torn apart by dogs outside also like dogs are you're like trapped in this nightmare mansion trying to find a way out i'm just gonna i'm gonna step outside and get some literally so in the big difference between art there's a lot of like drastic differences but my favorite is when you open the front door in the original game that you come in through at the start of the mansion like at the very beginning of the game in the original you just get a cut scene of cg dogs trying to jump at you but if you open the door in the remake the dogs enter the foyer and you now have to deal with like three dogs at once and it's like oh jesus that's so smart so good jill barry i heard someone talking oh you heard i think age is starting to take its toll talking to myself is becoming a bad habit talking to yourself you all right what's gotten into you I'm getting you worried, aren't I?

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31:06Okay, controls. They updated the controls in the 2002 version. Are they better than the 1996 original? Are they easier to grasp? The tank controls are borderline the same. That said, if you're going to play the Steam version, the 2015 HD remake, just do the alternate controls. it's so much better yeah is yeah okay go ahead michael i was gonna ask if this was one of your i i think uh for so if you're coming into this from a modern sense yes i think it'll make a lot more sense to use the the modernized controls but there's uh kind of going back to the like when we talk about fixed camera angles and intentionality yeah tank controls listen they will take maybe an hour to get used to it takes some work try like i know explain what tank controls mean to people so tank controls that's not a term we just throw around yeah absolutely um so if you know regardless of where the camera is pressing forward or up on the d-pad will move your character forward whichever direction they're looking and then you change the direction with left and right and then you press up to move forward regardless so instead of you know using a joystick to move left right up down whichever direction you want and the character will respond to the according direction so the the sense is that you need to like shift the character to the direction you want to go and then press up which sounds extremely inconvenient but hear me out the way the original resident evils were built with the camera angles the fixed camera angles and the way enemies pop up at certain points and the way you navigate certain rooms pressing up to just go straightforward regardless of where the camera is going to shift is i i almost want to say it's my preferred way to play the game although it does take some getting used to and maybe also because i'm so speed run pilled with the resident evil games but like speed running the speed run community always uses tank controls when you uh play these games but it is also once you get used to it it it's easier to navigate like i found it easier to navigate boss fights because in rooms where the camera is changing a lot and you have to be quick on your feet and like you want to like dart to certain points in the room and you like sometimes you might stumble like oh the camera's gonna change this way so then you need to like instead of pressing up you gotta press left to keep moving forward um it's little things like that where i think it does matter if you want to have like that true experience of resident evil when you think about intentionality with how the game is designed again again i'm not saying like oh if you play with modernized controls you're playing it wrong it's like no no you're do you're perfectly fine the fact that you are engaging with the game on any level it's perfectly fine with me but i do when i did play this game replay this game i took a moment be like do i want to do tank controls um and then once i got once i gave it like half an hour to an hour, I'm like, okay, yes, this is kind of how I need to be playing this game.

34:01So that is something that I would at least encourage. Try it out, yeah. Even the modern controls, there's some uncomfortableness with it, because let's say Jill is facing the camera down a hallway, so you would press down on the controller for her to walk, but then as soon as the camera switches, now she's moving to the left and you're still holding down. You still have to wrap your head up. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's also probably important to realize that a lot of people are probably trying to replay the original re1 to get not gaming literacy but to get some sort of understanding and like kind of center yourself in a time and place of the the time that this was made and probably not a lot of people are going to be a weirdo like me and play all of the games back to back so i i think there there was that moment of revelation i was like whoa it didn't have to always be like this kind of thing but no yeah the only reason they're planning is to know what happened in raccoon city dude what happened in that what the heck happened in that Spencer Mansion.

34:57Captain Wesker, where's Chris? Stop it. Don't open that door. But Chris is... What is it? Maybe it's Chris. Now, Jill, can you go? I'm going with you. Chris is our old partner, you know. Okay. Let me handle this. Yeah. I think the one thing that will trip up people returning to this game is not the directional controls. It is the aiming of the gun. I was going to ask about that, too. It's fine with me because I remember the first time I played this on GameCube and I was like, this is so stupid. I cannot believe how stupid this is. And then I played Resident Evil 4 and then I loved it so much. And now I go back to him like, I understand this is a product of its time.

35:50But you really don't expect to aim in this game. The most aiming you're going to do is like kind of being stuck in a corner and like either pressing up or down where you just shoot a wildly wrong direction. And the thing reacts to it anyway. You don't it's not it's more like an adventure game where you're just clicking to shoot. Yeah, you're just clicking to shoot. It's a very generous auto aim. Right. So even if you're sort of if I if you're the zombie, if I'm going to hit you, if I'm shooting like this. right and there is something satisfying too because of the auto aim in the remake uh where when you wait for a zombie to get really close and you have a shotgun you aim up yeah you're gonna nine times out of ten shoot their head off and it is so satisfying the the like you said like when we talk about sound design when it comes to like the guns and like just like like gushy sound of getting a headshot with a shotgun is so disgusting i kind of love it it rules yeah yeah Yeah, so then the other big control-based thing, I think, is the inventory.