There are some very small nitpicks I had with this game, like extremely small, but I felt like rating this game a 9.9/10 was just being petty. It's a 10/10 for me, for sure.

The graphics are amazing. The sound design was fantastic. Grace and Leon's gameplay were both phenomenal for entirely different reasons. I loved the story. The acting was great.

They completely fixed the vast majority of issues I had with RE8. The action was in third person and the horror was in first (by default, and I would recommend keeping it that way). No segment felt like it dragged on for too long. Resource supply was perfectly balanced, even when I was worried it wouldn't be which rides that line so well. My BIGGEST complaint would be that there is no FOV slider, and if that's the worst thing about the game you know you've got absolute gold on your hands. I get that it is a stylistic choice so you feel more claustrophobic and stuff but if I were playing it on my monitor instead of my TV I don't think I would have been able to play for very long intervals.

Some might find Grace to be a bit annoying, but I found her endearing and by far the most "human" protagonist an RE game has had so far. She's not a badass by any means. Even before and during the "traumatic hotel incident" when she was a teenager, she is shown to be quite the oddball, to say the least. That only gets exacerbated when we see her going through crazy shit as an adult. I like her! Her gameplay is reflective of her not being a badass at all and I think they did a great job with it.

In contrast, Leon is as badass as one can possibly get. He kind of reminds me of Dante. Capcom knows how to make 'em, that's for sure. I preferred his gameplay segments to Grace's, but that doesn't mean I hated Grace's at all. I'm just more of an action gamer than a stealth one. I actually died more in Leon's segments, funny enough. In Grace's, there were a lot of times where I felt so much tension and even genuine fear, which is very much welcome as I felt none of that during RE8 whatsoever.

There are a few parts in the story that feel a little bit nudged in the direction of making an interesting gameplay moment, but that's still getting into nitpick territory I think because it's hard to blame a game for being a game. I can imagine some people pointing out things that seem like bigger plot holes but I don't think they are... there are multiple layers of conspiracy going on in the story with characters believing things that aren't true in actuality. Things are not what they seem on the surface at all. I don't want to spoil anything but if you play it for yourself maybe you'll know what I'm talking about there.

On top of everything else, this really did feel like an homage to all the previous Resident Evil games. You had the ever-expanding layout of a key location from the original trilogy, the over-the-top action of 4-6, and the more overtly horror-centric first person design from 7 and 8. All jam packed into one game in a way that felt really good the overwhelming majority of the time.

I was kind of stuck between giving this a 9.5 and a 10, but I just couldn't find enough wrong with it to warrant taking off that much and I don't really like grading things with such precise decimal values. I leaned more towards 10 so I decided that's what it would be. I think it's completely deserving of that. My favorite RE game by far, all things considered. I still think RE7 was way scarier, and the bosses from RE8 were a lot more involved, but there genuinely is not a lot to complain about here.

Due to how much stuff from the older games this has in it I honestly forgot SO MUCH it was embarrassing. I thought Natalia was in RE2 instead of Sherry because of a mod I saw that switched them, I forged an entirely different Kendo cutscene in my head, I got Claire and Jill mixed up... I feel like I'm going senile. Then I have to remember it's been 7 years since I've played RE2 Remake and way longer than that for the others. Revelations 2 really came out over a decade ago. So much shit has happened in my life since then man, the mind is a fickle thing.

It's going to be really hard to top this game for me this year. I want to be optimistic about Pragmata, but I don't have THAT much optimism about it. I think it will be a good game but not quite to this level. If there are Star Fox and Zelda games actually coming out this year, per the leaks, and they are done well then those *might* take the cake. RE9 just feels very much like a generational game though, and I'm extremely glad I played it. Will be doing another playthrough at some point for sure.

Plus, I mean... come on. MILF Sherry.

#beardgamereview