Capcom
Resident Evil Rebirth

I will be brief: Resident Evil Rebirth, the remake of the original title released for Playstation and released for Nintendo GameCube in the now distant 2002, is undoubtedly, a masterpiece. Anyone who, like me, played the first title and consequently became passionate about the entire saga (I believe I'm among the few who appreciated even the latest episodes) cannot deny that this game, even though it's a remake, is truly a great title.

Remake to a certain extent, because Mikami himself stated that the Nintendo version was 70% different from the original, with improvements not only graphic, as it obviously should be, but in terms of gameplay, environments, cutscenes, and extras. For the rest, it remains the same, identical, superb game: the story, the setting, the music, everything is exactly the same, enhanced to the highest degree for the player's benefit, who, if they have already played the title released 14 years ago, won't be able to hold back tears of emotion. All this obviously if we exclude the fact that there will be extra defense items (like knives) and it will be possible to do a 180° turn as happened after the debut of Resident Evil 3, but all this doesn’t simplify the player's life at all, because the average difficulty, already high, here increases steeply: corpses can come back to life in a more resistant and voracious form if you don't find a way to burn them (and kerosene supplies are very limited) or blow up their heads, something that for example was removed in the prequel Resident Evil 0, no one knows why, because if the developers' goal was to increase tension, well, the trick works terrifyingly well.

Fear, indeed, is what you breathe throughout the entire game, mixed with a sense of alienation and nostalgia that takes us back to our first encounters with this game when enemies were just a faded mass of pixels. With the usual 2 playable characters, the venerable Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, you can choose at the beginning from a few game modes (easy or normal), which will have different paths depending on the chosen character: Jill has 2 extra slots in the inventory but is weaker to attacks, while Chris exactly the opposite, for example. Once the game is completed, and here’s the beauty, numerous extra modes will be unlocked, besides the customary alternative outfits, which will make the adventure very enjoyable; one above all, the so-called "Real Survival". What does it consist of, you might ask? Well, simply, the mode is set to hard but the trunks are not interconnected and the enemies are much more resistant than usual; the other, "Invisible Monsters", simply consists of being unable to see the enemies, including bosses (still, they will always be in the same original spots), which does not make the journey easy at all; while the last possible, "A dangerous Zombie," is the classic game with a delicious addition, so to speak, a very powerful version of a deceased agent's zombie full of dynamite that will blow up the entire mansion if it even gets struck with a knife.

In short, completing the game 100% (something I absolutely recommend doing, as a personal thank-you message from Mikami himself will appear!) is a tough but fun and stimulating task, which will make this game even more long-lasting, despite the adventure being fairly short, like almost all Resident Evil games. Is there more to say? If you have a craving for a bit of retrogaming, get yourself a GC and play this title, absolutely a Killer Application of the era, and if you've played the original and want to relive the same emotions you felt back then, then act accordingly, because as a fan, I consider Resident Evil Rebirth the best chapter of the saga along with the unforgettable Resident Evil 2, one of the best sequels in video game history. And that’s saying something, being "just" a remake.