Review - Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS)

In some of the earliest days of the BSAA, Chris Redfield disappears while investigating a lead concerning the return of a Bio-Terrorist group. His last known location put him on the Queen Zenobia, an abandoned ocean liner adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. Longtime partner Jill Valentine and fellow BSAA agent Parker Luciani are sent to investigate their disappearance, and slowly begin untangling a web that began one year prior....

The 4th Resident Evil game for a handheld system, and 2nd that has anything real to do with the series, Resident Evil: Revelations was promised to be a return to the roots of the series; survival horror instead of action horror. After experimenting with the 3DS platform with Mercenaries 3D, Capcom finished this game up, and teased it with an interesting marketing campaign. Many fans, including myself, were looking forward to this game. But did it live up to the hype?

Gameplay
If you played Resident Evil 4 and 5, you'll be able to get into this game EASILY. It's all basically the same controls and roughly the same button layout. There are a few improvements, and a few differences (not just controller differences), some more annoying then others. One notable improvement is the ability to strafe, you can safely walk around corners now, and that is greatly helpful. Another difference, only an improvement depending on your style of play, is the option to use a first person camera while aiming rather than over the shoulder. The biggest advantage of this comes from using the gyroscopic sensors for aiming (like you can use in Ocarina of Time 3D.)
Oh yeah, and you can run and shoot at the same time finally.
The game itself isn't as combat centric, for the most part. There are some instances of it (and limited ammunition makes it all the more harsh) but it definitely tries to focus more on exploration and puzzles. I almost think if this was able to be a bigger game there would've been more of both worlds; exploration and action. The exploration was a little disappointing, you could have almost everything in the ship explored at the halfway point of the game, barring maybe a few doors you had to wait to get keys for. Backtracking for stuff was well worth it, but there wasn't enough to backtrack for. The puzzles were disappointing too, all the unlocking stuff with the touch screen was the same puzzle over and over again until right near the end, otherwise it was simply key-fetching and switch-flipping through a maze, really basic stuff. It returned to its roots and was atmospherically scary, especially when a boss just nearly killed you, you're out of heals and ammo, and going up against another boss around the corner, but seems to lack some of the more complicated "guide dang it" puzzles.
Combat is where the most annoying differences in control schemes come in. They give you quicktime moments to dodge enemies' attacks, but don't prompt you for it, the window for dodging is incredibly small and sometimes you can barely see something you can dodge. Another is that, due to technology, it might be a little harder to aim, especially using the circle pad (even at max sensitivity), which can have you wasting a bit of ammo on the more movement-based enemies, especially the water based ones, or you might not kill them as quickly. It's a lot harder to daze your targets for a finishing melee as well.
Swimming movement was fun, a little scrappy, but even games that are ONLY swimming levels are scrappy.
The touch screen worked into the game very well. It's a quicker way to switch weapons and reload, gives a reliable mini-map (as we've come to expect from most action games on DS and 3DS), and an all around good HUD.
Speaking of the HUD, it doesn't display your health. The closer you get to dying, your screen gets edged with blood and colour begins to drain from your vision. That was enjoyable; it adds to the scary factor of the game.
The AI is..... Difficult. Your partner can barely do squat with anything, which blows especially hard when you have to rely on them for cover. Meanwhile the enemy AI is kinda rubber band, it's either really stupid and will just stand there for your target practice, or it borderline cheats and will move faster then you can react. This doesn't really apply to bosses so much, most of whom are incredibly easy to kite, but can close the gap rather quickly to make up for it. The wolf BOWs have the worst case of it. You'll get swarmed by five, one will just sit back, two will charge in and actually hurt you, three will charge in and just sit there like they want to get pet. The stealth water enemies were an unpleasant experience too for the same reason, and because they'd seem to cheat and just teleport around. "Just run man." Were the words that came out of my mouth after wasting my shotgun ammo on the second one.
I liked the gun customization much better. Collecting materials instead of money, and using those materials to augment certain things, or even get features like burst-fire on guns. Admittedly, some are impractical, while others are awesome, or necessary.
The Genesis is the most useful tool in the history of the series. If you use it properly you can get a free heal on a boss, or just an extra one scanning a bunch of lesser mooks, and you can keep yourself at more than enough ammo throughout the game if you're thorough (and assuming you have 90%+ accuracy.) If at all this game doesn't seem like a survival horror game, it's because of this, but it's a welcome addition.
TL;DR: Gameplay is fun. A lot like Resident Evil 4 and 5, but unique in it's own way, and a little slow and frustrating at times, but fun.

Aesthetics
Revelations is a relatively small game, which I kind of expected from a game of its kind on a hand held system, especially a newer handheld system. It's not at all limited by its size though. There's a good variety of level design despite the fact you're in the same place the entire time. It's the fanciest cruise ship ever, really, and it makes for the scariest ghost ship too. Overall, it manages to maintain a really creepy feel, whether you're in the mansion-looking cabins, the run-down promenade, the bowels of the ship, or even the casino. There's a severe lack of variety in enemies, that's almost a relief gameplay-wise but design wise it's really boring. Especially because these "zombies" all look the same anyway. The character design behind the bosses and supporting characters on the other hand is cool, and Jill's costume just makes her look fantastic.
The graphics rendering is BEAUTIFUL. Capcom did an amazing job of taking advantage of the 3DS hardware. They push it too far in some cases; some sections, especially during in-game loading, get extremely laggy. It doesn't really hinder gameplay at all except maybe in a few places, but that depends on your personal lag tolerance. Everything about the atmosphere has the graphics renders to thank for sure.
The music is fantastic. It does exactly what video game music needs to do - captures the mood and atmosphere of the area you're in and adds to it. From playing a simple, eerie melody when going through the cabins, dodging zombies, to a majestic song in the hall, especially fitting when you first enter.

TL;DR: It looks and sounds as good as (or even better than) it plays.

Story
It's a pretty standard story as far as Resident Evil games go, at first. As the story goes on it becomes a tangled web of twists, and stuff you might not be expecting. Admirably, all of them are tied up by the end of the game. Contrary to what the name implies, it doesn't really reveal anything, "Revelations" being more of a theme and specific to the story of this game. That was a little disappointing, as, even organized in Umbrella Chronicles, Dark Side Chronicles, and an archive on Resident Evil 5, the story web of the games is still a little messy and could have used its own revelations. What stands out is how they completely avoided mentioning Albert Wesker and only mentioned Umbrella, Racoon City, and (the original) T-Virus in passing. Even Resident Evil 4, which had NOTHING to do with any virus, couldn't avoid that. The characters were likeable; Jill's status as the bride of Captain Obvious is played up at first but toned down over the course of the game, and I found myself liking the newer characters better than Chris and Jill at times. Especially Quint and Keith, who kind of serve as the dynamic duo (e.g. Timon and Pumba) comic relief (albeit, Keith is badass about it, dual wielding machete and all.) As expected, there seems to be a villain set up for Resident Evil 6 (coming in November) but I won't say much more than that. The execution of the story was marvelous, it played like a TV show. Each "level" of the game is sorted into episodes, all of them taking place in roughly the same settings, some with multiple acts to showcase different points in the story, some as flashback episodes, some just as a "meanwhile..." setting. This was made all the more complete with a "Previously On..." intro to each episode. It was skippable, which is good as it made you watch the cut scenes you just saw again, but it made the "plays like a TV show" thing all the better.

TL;DR: One of the greatest Resident Evil stories ever told, and a good set-up for RE6.

Bottom Line is yes, it did live up to the hype. When Capcom first announced this game, they promised a return to the series' survival horror roots, as opposed to the one/two man army's war on zombies it became in 4 and 5. They ended up doing both, and they did it well enough. Therein lies the problem I'm having with it. I LOVED the story, but the game itself met expectations, it didn't go beyond. Capcom is my favourite developer because I usually can expect them to go beyond, but not this time. Anyway, I really enjoyed this game. It's still no Resident Evil 4, but it's fun, it's entertaining, and it's nice to play as Jill as the main character again.

Score? Ummm.... 5 Emeralds out of 7.