The unabridged version of this review can be found on the Summit Reviews website.[summitreviews.biz]

Resident Evil Requiem is a landmark title for this long-running survival horror franchise. Ten years on from Capcom’s restructuring, fourteen since the controversial 6th entry that last dealt with the mainline narrative, and thirty years since the series began, Requiem is a celebratory title that refines successfully brings together all of the contrasting elements of the franchise into one quintessential title. While I think 4 and 7 are better overall in how they commit to their specific styles, 9 is nonetheless guaranteed to satisfy all types of Resident Evil fans.

Requiem is primarily a follow-up to the core narrative of Resident Evil 2 and 3 surrounding Raccoon City and its destruction. It sees the timid newcomer Grace Ashcroft team up with everyone’s favourite one-liner machine Leon Kennedy to uncover the mysteries behind a resurgence in T-virus infections, and how this connects to both Grace’s mysterious past and Leon’s previous trip to the city. While Resident Evil is largely known for campy writing without much emotional or thematic depth to it, I think Requiem made great strides towards telling a more substantive narrative that has moments which will stick with you on more than a comedic level.

This is greatly helped by the very high-quality character performances; Nick Apostolides returns to voice Leon after the remakes of 2 and 4, handing in a pretty beaten-down version of the character that still has all of the charisma he can muster, despite being at the most vulnerable point in his journey since the outbreak first began. Angela Sant’Albano voices Grace, and she delivered arguably the most realistic performance in the franchise, of someone who feels completely out of their depth in a terrifying situation. The storytelling somewhat falls off during the ending, but the higher standard Requiem has set here is a great indicator that more time will be invested in it for future entries.

Requiem’s gameplay covers both of the franchise’s recent gameplay styles in one package through the dichotomy of playing as Grace versus Leon, and both sides of this coin have largely been polished to a brilliant shine.

Grace’s survival horror-centred sections adopt the expected formula of exploring an internal space in order to find items that will allow her to escape, whilst avoiding or eliminating the many dangers which may prevent her progress. Almost every enemy she comes across is threatening and unsettling, and eliminating threats takes careful planning every time you initiate or are forced into an encounter. The default first-person camera adds plenty to the tension, as it puts into perspective how even the most standard zombies are a force to be reckoned with, whom cannot easily be overpowered outside of a sparse shot of the Requiem revolver.

As for Leon, this is the strongest we’ve ever seen him. He’s a bit weightier to control, but still has high manoeuvrability and fast weapon switching that allows you to go from a pistol and shotgun shot to a hatchet parry in an instant. He also has even more close combat abilities this time around, as a contextual melee press near a wall or object will usually cause him to smash his target against them, eliminating them from play on most occasions. Gun-wise, he has few different pistols, SMGs, rifles and shotguns to play with, alongside hand grenades to take out larger crowds at a moment’s notice. It’s not an especially inspired gun roster, but they all feel supremely satisfying to use, and enemies react appropriately whether you want to bring them to their knees by blasting them off entirely, or send a few well-aimed headshots their way.

In terms of how these playstyles come together, structure was a big part of this game’s advertised identity, where Grace’s parts were intended to create tension, and Leon’s sequences would function as the release, and you’d switch back and forth between them in a sort of rollercoaster type deal. And while I wouldn’t say this identity is misleading, I wasn’t anticipating how this structure was going to be executed. Without delving into specifics, one act has you play as one character for 90-95% of its duration, and another act is exclusively focused on playing as someone else, to the point where, in this dual protagonist game, one of them takes a surprisingly extended backseat. It gave me plenty of great horror and action in long stretches, but I would point to 4 and 7 for titles which had a more delicate blend between these two aspects.

However, I do take issue with this game’s familiarity level and how resource management was balanced. No section for either character broke new ground for the formula, and I very quickly had more bullets and currency than I knew what to do with which did considerably reduce my level of tension. Hardcore in 4 felt like pitch-perfect difficulty balancing, whilst in 9, the balance is tilted far further towards the action side of equation than I was expecting, and I think it the game would have felt more rewarding if that balance wasn’t so lopsided in one direction.

From an audiovisual perspective, Requiem is simply best in class for a single player experience. It demonstrates that we have essentially reached the peak of what is possible for graphical fidelity in a big budget title, as there are no characters, no environments, no small objects in the game which ever took me out of the experience. It paints a pretty dilapidated picture of this world’s state, and only occasionally breaks from its noir motif with cleaner internal spaces which put a spotlight on the few areas that ended up largely unscathed by the apocalypse. Simply put, it’s stunning to observe all the way through.

Audio design is similarly excellent. The gun sounds are the crunchiest they have ever felt for an RE game, where even the basic pistol fires a booming shot that makes you wonder just how many other enemies could be attracted as a result. As the zombies in this game had a tendency to retain some of their last memories, many of them actually say a handful of words relating to the role they had before they were infected, and coupled with their generally disturbing grunts and growls, makes nearly all of them sound completely unique and similarly discomforting.

Requiem took me twelve and a half hours to beat on the Standard Classic difficulty, and I then spent an additional ten hours hopping between save files and starting new runs to clear up all of the achievements, all of which provide completion points to unlock cosmetics and gameplay content, including new weapons and infinite resources. While this was my second fastest completion time out of the modern RE games, it’s hard to complain about wanting much more when it constantly delivered a premium experience in terms of the quality and polish of the content on offer.

Resident Evil Requiem feels like the perfect capstone for everything Capcom has been working towards since 2017. Its execution of action and horror is masterful, it’s a step up in terms of character performances and storytelling, and all of this is wrapped into an incredibly well-paced journey with not a single bit of fat to trim. While I think its partial retreading of scenarios and increased linearity holds it back from being the best the franchise has delivered thus far, it is the perfect game to mark 30 years of one of gaming’s most important franchises.

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The unabridged version of this review can be found on the Summit Reviews website.[summitreviews.biz]

Replaced made such an arresting first impression on me when it was revealed in 2021. By blending a 2D retro-cyberpunk aesthetic with a cinematic, action-heavy platformer, it presented such a unique and confident identity to the world that could only be neatly compared to, of all games, the as-of-yet unreleased sister game The Last Night. After a few delays of varying lengths, Replaced finally made it over the finish line, and I am beyond happy to write that it came together brilliantly. Its art direction is consistently breathtaking, and the gameplay supporting it is always simple but nonetheless engaging. It doesn’t always put its best foot forward, but it is a package that impressed and surprised me far more than it left me disappointed.

This cyberpunk story is set in alternate history 1980s America, where the tech-focused Phoenix Corporation has taken a stronghold over the lives of much of its inhabitants. You embody Reach, an AI who has inadvertently trapped themselves inside the body of a Phoenix Corp employee, and end up going on a sprawling cinematic journey across the city to try and return to their natural computer habitat, uncovering a deep conspiracy in the process. This description may sound formulaic, but it’s the fantastic scene-to-scene writing, deft exploration of many core cyberpunk themes, and a couple of neat twists that make it a standout story for the genre. Reach contends with not only the backstory of their creation, but how this links to the person within which they inhabit, makes them naturally ponder what it means to be alive, and how to take control of their pre-written destiny. Intriguing environmental storytelling and references to real-world history also help to properly ground this story within a believable reality. I think some may lament the lack of voice acting, but stellar cutscene cinematography and perfectly-timed soundtrack cues smartly worked in tandem to evoke emotion from me.

Replaced casts a reasonably wide berth in terms of the gameplay department, covering combat, point-and-click sections and platforming. This latter part is probably the dodgiest of the bunch; there are plenty of well-designed movement sequences that require everything from jumping up and across platforms and swinging between poles, to using a pickaxe to hold onto broken parts of the wall. Most of the time, this all flows together nicely, but there was some noticeable clunkiness in the controls that made certain movements far more difficult to execute than they should have been. This part of the package generally feels less polished than everything else.

Combat fares much better and has a solid amount of depth. Like any good Arkham-inspired model, it mixes hard-hitting melee attacks with counters, dodging, and a limited and chargeable ability set that can give you the edge during overwhelming moments. The main difference here is that there’s no combo meter, a deliberate choice to encourage the player not to relentlessly attempt to keep combat flowing. Certain enemies also require armour to be stripped with your pickaxe before they can receive damage, and one type can’t be easily hit without executing a triple counter manoeuvre beforehand. There’s a good amount of enemy and ability variety that’s progressively introduced as the game goes along, and most encounter designs have unique pacing that isn’t a direct repeat of a fight you’ve already had. Repetition does start to set in near the end of the game, but the model holds up pretty well until that point.

The final part of the equation comes in the form of this base camp that you’ll visit and return to after many of the game’s levels, slowing the game down to a level that feels almost point-and-click adjacent. You can blast through these pretty quickly if you want to, but there are a few quests and collectables to gather in these areas that house some pretty critical upgrades. There are even three arcade games with a cyberpunk flair to them, inspired by some classics I’m sure everyone will recognise. I quite enjoyed these sections, even though their presence is a bit lopsided towards the start of the game.

The main thing I should stress about Replaced is that it does take a while to get going. The first 2 hours felt wholly different to the game I’ve described above; its combat and platforming were really basic, and the first non-prologue area you do all of this within completely lacks what is interesting about all of the game’s later sections. From Chapter 3 onwards, it very rapidly shifts up to a higher gear of quality, just be aware you may be left wondering what the hype’s all about until reaching that point.

The big-ticket item above all else for this game was its visuals and art direction, and I think Replaced actually overdelivered here. Nearly every one of its major levels has a completely different location motif in mind, yet the overall direction nonetheless remains coherent. The city biome seen in much of the advertising is easily the standout, displaying an incredible sense of scale without skimping out on the fine details for everything that inhabits this space. The internal areas and quieter outdoors locations are also impressive in different ways, with plentiful within-biome diversity that makes even the less potentially exciting areas like the sewers still fascinating to move through. And even when an area isn’t particularly loud due to its subdued colour scale or less complex backgrounds, you can guarantee the lighting will still give you a show, piercing through the scene to demand your attention towards specific parts of the screen, whilst heavily contrasting with the darkest spots of the environment in a remarkable fashion.

Its visual identity is also perfectly in tune with its sound direction, most notably due to its diverse electronic soundtrack. Its combat themes are booming and adrenaline-inducing, never feeling repetitive or annoying, even when they repeat themselves. But it’s the slower tunes that I can see myself returning to the most; every return to the hub level is like an auditory warm blanket, mixing relaxation with melancholy in equal measure to really make you feel as if you just returned home after an arduous journey.

As for overall content, Replaced is much longer than I was expecting it to be. It took me nearly 11 hours to complete it on hard, tackling all of the side quests and mopping up nearly every collectable along the way. And with the recently added chapter select, my final 100% time sits at 12.5 hours. Even if you focus on the story and finish it in 8 hours, that’s still 25 to 50% longer of a game than many people were expecting. It feels like the absolute perfect length for what it was trying to be.

Replaced lived up to the expectations I had for it. It’s a compelling cinematic platformer that boasts effective Arkham-style combat, an incredible variety of locations and scenarios, and one of the most standout art styles the industry has seen in ages. I have grievances about certain encounters, the controls can be clunky even when you get used to them, and the finale is a letdown compared to the rest of the package. But, I can nonetheless easily recommend it if it caught your eye in the past. Sad Cat Studios delivered a great debut effort, and I can’t wait to see what they make in the future.

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A key was provided by the publisher for this review.