After the release of Resident Evil 5 many fans were left a little underwhelmed after so much of the hype and the fact that the game followed on from the awe inspiring and game changing Resident Evil 4. By no means was 5 a bad game, it was a very good and enjoyable game, but not a very good Resident Evil game. With Revelations Capcom have decided to go back to the drawing board and bring together the best elements of the franchise.Revelations sees the return of Jill Valentine as the main playable character along with a few supporting characters. The game starts off with Jill along with her partner Parker investigating the disappearance of fellow BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance agent Chris Redfield, this leads to the Queen Zenobia (a larger cruise ship).
I won’t go too far into the details of the story, but from here the horror begins as the player quickly encounters mutated enemies due to the T-Abyss virus. The game goes back to the franchise’s roots as the surroundings are very dark and constrained, without being linear. The hallways are dark and the texture effects of the torch you carry makes for a very eerie game, for the first time in a while a Resident Evil game feels like a scary survival horror rather than a action packed gorefest.
Aside from the exploring, the gameplay runs very much like a point and click shooting game, when you aim at an enemies the camera draws just behind your weapon, you can’t move whilst you’re aiming but it works because it means that there is always a sense of urgency, the variety of Arsenal that you can get at your disposal is impressive, so it’s always nice to see them put to use.
But a new and very welcoming addition to the game is the Genesis, the Genesis is a type of scanning device which you use to find items in your surrounding (as well as dead enemies you have killed). The device has a scanning metre and as soon as you reach 100% you get a free green herb. It adds something fresh to the franchise that hasn’t really been done before, it gives the player more interactivity to the games environment, it works because it doesn’t hinder the players experience but adds to it.
The same can be said for the underwater scenes, yes you heard it, there are times in the game where you get to swim underwater. The idea is certainly daring but it works, and because they occur at the end of the game they really add to the tension, I won’t spoil it for you.
There are few puzzles in the game and the ones that you come across are hardly going to tax your intelligence for too long, they consist of the usual Resident Evil putting things in the right slots (electronic wirings in this case). The item box returns, but only to stock and update up your weapons (throughout the game are custom parts that you can discover with your Genesis).
The graphics are beautiful and really show what the 3DS is capable of, and I found no fault with the cutscenes and voice overs, by Resident Evil standards they are very impressive. The final boss battle is a perfect illustration of this, and one of the best crafted I have ever seen in a videogame, you really do feel like you’re taking part in a movie scene, it is absolutely exhilarating.
Not all is perfect with the game however, the enemies whilst different and fresh at first soon get very dull, and there is quite simply a lack of variety in them, it seems as though the developers concentrated on the rest of the game and then left them to the last minute. In my opinion the game would have been best served if they reverted back to the original zombies that we faced in the early games of the series, the loactions and atmosphere would have been perfect for it.
For a game that is atmosphericly scary and challenging the healing system is far too simplistic, there are only green herbs, you can’t mix them with anything and they heal you completely as soon as you use them. The AI of your partner throughout the game is useless and do very little (other than stunning them their shots have no affect on enemies). And because the game is split into episodes you get a chance to play as other characters in their seperate parts in the story, including Chris and Jessica, whilst a good idea that adds to the game they came across as far too short to really appreciate.
The length is just about right, I completed it in just over 9 hours and it was worth every moment, you can then complete it on new harder difficulties with the same equipment from the previous game. Then there is the Raid mode, similar to the Mercenaries in previous games but mission based.
In conclusion the game adds together the best of the old and current elements of the franchise, it was good to play as Jill once again. With a few tweaks and a better focus on the enemies it would have been my 3rd favourite of the series behind 2 and 4, but now it will have to sit in 4th behind the 2002 Gamecube remake and level with Code Veronica.
8/10- Every 3DS owner should own this game
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