In CAPCOM’s newest addition to the Resident Evil series, players join the fan-favorite character Leon S. Kennedy and new character Grace Ashcroft for a dual adventure that leads them into both old and new locations. The story follows the two in their respective journeys to uncover something. Grace, in her attempt to investigate her mother’s mysterious death and its strange circumstances, leads her to being captured and experimented on by the main antagonist of the game, Dr. Victor Gideon, while Leon’s revolves around his search for a cure for the dormant T-virus he contracted during the Raccoon City incident (often referred to as Raccoon City Syndrome) in the events of Resident Evil 2, as well as the lingering survivor’s guilt he experiences from the Raccoon City events. The T-Virus being what originally caused the zombies in the original Resident Evil games.
The gameplay for each of the two characters brings back two main playstyles for fans who enjoy different types of Resident Evil gameplay. For Grace’s gameplay, she’s focused on being chased by a stalker play style from games like Resident Evil 2, 3 and 7. Grace is extremely limited in her combat equipment, mainly using knives that break easily, bottles thrown for distractions and a weak handgun. Early on, in their first encounter, Leon gives Grace an extremely powerful revolver. However, ammo is extremely hard to come by and can only be crafted using very rare materials.
Leon’s gameplay is a stark contrast in comparison, channeling the Resident Evil 4 and 5 type of gameplay with more fast-paced, large group encounters while juggling many types of weapons like several handguns, shotguns, sniper rifles and explosive weapons. Leon also has a hatchet that is unbreakable, but instead becomes dull and unusable after enough use, meaning he’ll have to sharpen it after most uses. Leon’s weapons can also be upgraded at supply boxes, unlike Grace’s, which stay the same throughout the game.
Personally, throughout the game, I looked forward to Leon’s section of gameplay because it was a bit more fun for me since Grace’s sections felt too slow-paced for me. I also liked working towards new weapons for Leon and using them because it felt like I was progressing. With Grace, there isn’t that much sense of progression. The game takes more weapons away than it adds in Grace’s close-to-end game sections, like giving up the revolver Leon gives her, while still adding more enemy types like lickers and more damage-resistant zombies.
Speaking of enemies in RE9, this game has one of the best and one of the worst antagonists in the series. The best being Dr. Gideon, who was a scientist at the Umbrella Corporation, the same company that created the viruses and monsters that plague the protagonists. Gideon’s background and actual character performance were astoundingly good, and his ending boss fight at the end of the game was one of the coolest set pieces in the series. On the other hand, the secondary antagonist Zeno is a disappointment. Seemingly based on and a clone of the previous series antagonist, Albert Wesker, Zeno is a cool-looking character rocking shades and an awesome white suit who gets cool moments and is made up to be this force to be reckoned with, though he dies an unceremonious death at the end of the game, thanks to Dr. Gideon, Zeno doesn’t even get a boss fight.
Overall, Resident Evil 9 is one of the, if not the best, Resident Evil games in recent memory. The mix of survival horror and action adventure is perfect, and not only that, the music and variety of gameplay is the best it’s been. Additionally, the numerous challenges provide players with reasons to replay the game. Allowing them to unlock multiple bonuses, such as infinite ammo for all weapons, costumes for Leon and Grace, and 3D models of every character and enemy. It’s already been announced that DLC for RE9 will be released in the near future and frankly, I’m excited.
Also, I believe that both characters had equally good stories. At the start of the game, Grace had the better side of the story but that was mainly because you played as her more. I really enjoyed piecing together why Dr. Gideon would kidnap Grace and try to get something out of her. On the other hand, revisiting Racoon City as Leon was really cool. Resident Evil 2 is one of my favorite games in the series, and reexploring a now dilapidated Raccoon City Police Department and Kendo’s gun store was almost nostalgic. I also really loved the exploration of Leon’s survivor’s guilt from Racoon City. Leon, as a character has only started to actually be explored instead of him just being a generic action movie guy and further in the game, in the final industrial section, it shows his resilience and constant need to help. Near the end of the game, before the final boss fight Leon is closer to death than he ever has been, yet he insists on helping Grace. Depending on which of the two endings you get, Leon could die while trying to save Grace in the bad ending, or be cured from his ailment in the true ending.
RE9 left many questions unanswered for both characters and left them both in a good spot for whatever happens in the future. I’m confident that if CAPCOM keeps this level of quality in the series, then Resident Evil will become a household name in the horror game world once again.
