Resident Evil: R-E-V-E-L-A-I- ARGH

Resident Evil: Revelations was released for the 3DS yesterday and I bought it.

After playing over 30,000 hours of it I feel prepared enough to record some initial impressions. It’s good! Guys, this game is really fun! It looks good, it plays well, it has good intentions, and best of all, it’s already better than Resident Evil 5. This title is a perfect blend of RE’s more recent action based endeavors with the classic slow paced gameplay of the older titles. The first time I found a locked door marked with an emblem of an anchor I felt like I had finally come home from Iraq or some more apt analogy. You see, I’ve been wandering around on a boat looking for a key with an anchor on it. There’s actual exploration and backtracking in this game and it’s great.

Worth pointing out before I run off to my real job that I’m financially obliged to pay more attention to…. this game is delivered in an episodic fashion. If you’ve played the non-Nintendo release, Alan Wake, then you know what I’m getting at. Progression through the game’s story is delivered in these bursts of gameplay lasting about 20 minutes or so. The start of a new episode starts off with a recap of the story so far and some semi random quote from Dante’s Inferno: The Game: The Poem. While I appreciated the episodic delivery in Alan Wake because of how it made the game feel like the Night Springs tv show the game continued to reference, here it is incredibly functional. This is a handheld game with the same robust depth and story of a console based RE title, yet it knows how to pace you through the adventure as it realizes that most people don’t have the opportunity to play a handheld title for several hours on end.

Ok, so this technically isn’t a review, but I don’t care. Buy this game.