The survival horror classic that started the entire genre. But what is it exactly that made this game so great?

Now I don't wanna talk about the story in case someone hasn't played this yet, so I'll be focusing on other things in this review, that being the actual gameplay.

Well, first of all, the atmosphere. It's always there, starting from the first minutes of the game. The spooky dark ambient soundtrack, the first person door opening scenes. You'll never know what's lurking on the other side of the door and it can lead to your death countless times before you start to get the hang of the "tank controls".

That leads to the next thing that makes this game the memorable classic it still is to this day, which exactly are the controls. Basically, you press up (W on PC, obviously) to go forward regardless of the camera angle, which keeps changing all the time and messes with your mind at first. Believe me, if you've never played this game before, you will have a hard time getting used to them at first, but once you do, it's not really a hard game, and it feels so rewarding to finally beat it. Now there is an alternate control scheme for this remaster, but imo, it just made it harder to play. Honestly, I couldn't really figure out how you're supposed to play the game with this new control scheme, even though I was new to the series. Everything was just the opposite from what it should be, or I'm just stupid. Whatever the case is, the only useful thing I found about the alternate controls was that you don't have to press shift to run, but that's not much so I'd rather play this with the og tank controls anytime. Besides, in a game like RE, running automatically can often lead to your death more easily, or that's how I felt anyway when I tried that control scheme. Not for me, that's all I can say.

Now the most important thing that makes this game the unique piece it is, and the number #1 rule of the game you could say, is that everything is limited: ammo, saves, item slots (prepare to use item boxes a lot, you only have 8 item slots), gas (you need that and the lighter to burn the corpses so they won't turn into Crimson Heads. Now what is a Crimson Head? That you'll have to find out yourself if you don't already know it, but a little hint for you: you might not want to find out, so I'd recommend to just burn every corpse you can). You use "ink ribbons" to save your game. These are items that can be found throughout the mansion, but like I said, they're limited too. So once you'll remember to not use too much ammo or too many ink ribbons, you should be fine (when you get used to the controls first, that is, whichever control scheme you prefer). Keep in mind that this is a remaster of the 2002 GameCube remake and not the original game. I've never played the original one and I had to restart this game once because I was wasting too much ammo and using too many ink ribbons on my first playthrough.

And last but not least, the thing I enjoyed the most: The puzzles. Some of them are easy, but some of them really make you use your brain. I admit that I was stuck for hours multiple times during this game, but that's what made it an interesting experience for me. A lot of these puzzles require quite a bit of backtracking due to the limited item slots.

So, my final verdict for this game, if you haven't played a lot of horror games and you want to start with the classics, here it is for you. A true masterpiece of the genre, I'd recommend this to anyone. Even if you're not into horror yet, who knows, it might change your mind? Give it a chance I'd say, I enjoyed it a lot and I can totally understand why it has such a huge fanbase. Highly recommended if you're even the slightest bit interested about the survival horror genre or zombie games in general.