Rating of
4/5
This Works On a Handheld
dbarry_22 - wrote on 08/02/13
With good visuals and an easy to use control scheme, Resident Evil: Revelations proves that this series can be done well on a handheld.
This story behind this entry of the Resident Evil series is overly complicated and not worth going into too much detail. It takes place between Resident Evil 4 and 5 as you follow Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield onto a large cruise ship in the middle of the ocean tracking down and eliminating a new infection and bio-terror plot. There's a ton of deception, characters not being who they are suppose to be and all that nonsense and at times isn't worth trying to follow. All of these "revelations" during the game didn't really seem to be bombshells to me. Fortunately for me, when it comes to zombie horror shooter games, the story is low on the priority list. Just give me an evil foe plotting to destroy the world and I'm good.
The gameplay is solid. You still have your basic set of weapons that you would get in any modern RE game. Pistols, shotguns, rifles, and yes, the rocket launcher makes an appearance too. You pick up weapons parts along the way and can add these extras to your weapons at various points along the way. This was a good way to upgrade weapons without having to use the cheap and overly used gold scheme. Enemies don't drop ammo, you have find it along the way by exploring and scanning areas of the ship. The scanning routine can get repetitive, but at least by scanning enemies you can obtain herbs every now and then. You still have your melee attacks and grenades (and other explosive and enemy attracting devices). There's also a dodge mechanic which doesn't always work but in general helps you survive.
After purchasing the circle-pad pro for Kid Icarus, I decided to use it for this game as well. It works well. The extra joystick is useful and gives you greater movement. You can also shoot and move at the same time. You can change weapons by using the D-pad or by touching the desired weapon on the touch screen. If you thought this game would be difficult to control on the 3DS, you'd be wrong. However, if you like to invert you Y-axis when looking and aiming, you will get disoriented when swimming because the inversion doesn't follow that. Why I have no idea.
The graphics look good, even better in 3D. It's true that's there's not a whole lot of color and it can appear bland at times, but this is Resident Evil. I made sure to watch all of the cut scenes in 3D, even when I was trying to save battery life by playing in 2D.
This game isn't too difficult, which is always a good thing on a portable. Having to require precise aiming and quick reactions on a small screen is unnecessary. A few of the bosses were still pretty challenging and it wasn't a cakewalk so I give the difficulty a thumbs up.
The game also features a Raid Mode, a cooperative challenge that you can unlock after beating the first few episodes in the game. You basically go throughout various stages of the story mode killing all of the enemies as quickly as possible. And, as you progress you obtain more and better weapons while upgrading the level of your character. You receive "money" from defeating these stages which you can use to buy upgrades, weapons, or ammo. It's pretty fun. I wish they would have added coop for the story mode too, though.
This is pretty much what I expected from a 3DS version of Resident Evil. The story mode will take you somewhere in the 10-15 hour range and Raid Mode will keep you coming back for more. Hopefully Capcom will bring another one to a handheld someday.
4/5
