Resident Evil Remake Has Always Secretly Been The Best Resident Evil Game
The original was iconic, but Capcom knew they could do better.
Nobody is ever going to agree on what the best Resident Evil game is. Hell, the series has reinvented itself so many times, few people will even have the same understanding of what it “is” or should be.
It doesn't help that so many of the main entries have been amazing, either. The original defined survival horror, the second gave players Leon and Claire, Resi 4 not only transformed the franchise, but third-person shooters in general, while 7 reinvented the wheel yet again with a new first-person perspective. There’s probably even people who think Resi 5 is amazing. Probably. I’ve never met them, but they've got to exist.
With so many great titles to choose from though, it’s the remake of the original Resident Evil that’s the peak of the series.
Like the most recent release, this 2002 title is less concerned with delivering a prettier version of a game that already exists, but presenting the original game how you remember it being. On the one hand, there’s a superb attention to detail when it comes to recapturing the atmosphere, visuals and geography of the original title, but on the other, the developers weren't afraid to shake things up, remixing puzzles, making subtle quality-of-life changes to the map itself and even adding in completely new story and gameplay elements.
It could have gone oh so terribly wrong, but it ended up creating perhaps the best distillation of why everyone loved Resident Evil in the first place.