Resident Evil: Biohazard gripes

I'm a complainer when it comes to gaming. If you ask me to find flaws in something it is really easy for me to do. It probably seems like I am a pessimist but mostly I am just a realist. There is no such thing, for the most part, as a "perfect game" and even though I like most of what is going on here in Biohazard there are still some things that I really don't like about it. I will detail that here.

Keep in mind that I still consider this to be one of the best Resident Evil games ever or at least in the top 3 out of all of them.

src

Ethan, the main character, moves like he has glue on his boots

I like the main character even though his motivation to go out here in the woods all by himself is pretty silly. I know that if I was somewhere looking for someone who had been kidnapped then got word where she was I would probably at least bring some friends with me. Then when things started looking super creepy and dangerous I might reconsider going at it Han Solo.

You are ill prepared for what you encounter once inside the house and you have to do a lot of running away from stuff especially the guys that you actually can't kill and since just like all RE games, ammo is scarce. Therefore, it gets really frustrating that Ethan, who is presumably scared for his life, runs like one of his legs is broken at all times.

src

Most of the truly interesting enemies will pursue you relentlessly and can't be completely killed at all. So running is important. If these faster enemies have you in their line of sight they are going to catch you. I understand that the idea is to hide and avoid them, but it would be nice if this guy had the ability to run a bit faster than molasses.

Nearly no enemy variety in game at all

I suppose I don't need a huge variety in enemies in a game but I am about 80% of the way through the game and I have only encountered 2 enemies that are not bosses or sub-bosses. They are just two varieties of one another as well.

src

While I am happy that they didn't return to slow moving zombies and things that don't actually make much sense like giant mutant spiders and sharks, I did find it a bit dull that they only have 2 enemies in the entire game (there may be more later, but I haven't seen them.) There are some insect enemies that I haven't included here but I don't think that those are actually meant to be anything more than just annoyances, they don't do much damage and I think you would have to stand there for ages and not defend yourself for them to actually kill you.

These black enemies are simply bullet sponges too and it doesn't really take any skill to take them down once you understand their very predictable hitboxes.

Inventory is constantly full

This doesn't just apply to this RE game, it applies to almost all of them.

src

There are a ton of things to pick up in RE as you would expect and some of them are actually really interesting such as the VHS tapes that when played will take you to a sub-game that is really interesting and shows a lot of very helpful information about what is coming up later in the game. One such tape entitled "Happy Birthday" is the only reason why one particular part of the game is something that you would even be able to figure out without looking it up online. I ignored picking up this particular tape at one point because of the fact that I was constantly struggling with inventory management.

I was especially annoyed when I got to the end of a particular section where the item that I was there to find was right in front of me, but I couldn't pick it up without throwing something else out. I had to make a choice between getting rid of ammo or health items in order to pick up a thing that is required in order to get past a certain section. Backtracking to pick up these items later after visiting a storage locker would take absolute ages because of the first gripe I had in this list.

Gates you can't possibly get through that in reality would be very easy to bypass

This isn't specific to Resident Evil and appears in a lot of games. One of the silliest ones that I can think of is the latest Final Fantasy games where an area that is beyond a waist-high fence can't possibly be accessed.

RE does this in several places but this is the silliest one of them all.

src

This gate simply says "it is locked on the other side" when you get to it. When you do finally get to the other side and unlock it, the lock was simply a latch that could have easily been accessed from the other side simply by reaching your hand through. Their reasoning for not allowing you to take this shortcut until later is sound, but they could have made the barrier a bit more realistic. There are several instances of this throughout the game but this one was the most silly.

That last gripe was a bit nitpicky but still a valid complaint that I thought was rather stupid.

Overall I have really enjoyed playing this game and will likely complete it today. The story is great and unique and very different from all of the other ones that have come before - which is something that is probably becoming more difficult to pull off from Capcom's perspective seeing as how there are only so many virus oriented themes that you can possibly have in a game.

Despite my gripes, the goods in this game far outweigh the bad and it is one of the better games that I have played from a story perspective in all of 2023. The controls are a bit sluggish and combat isn't really that involved but the good aspects of the game more than make up for it. Now that I think about it, had they corrected all the things on my gripe list I probably would have just found other things to complain about because that is just the kind of gamer that I am.