Just finished Resident Evil, the original PSX game (US version). I got used to the tank controls and fixed cameras in mere minutes, and found very little of the experience to be dated or obtuse. Absolutely holds up today.
I followed some recommendations to play as Jill for my first playthrough, which I believe was the right move after my experience and reading up a bit on the differences. While some have derided her as the "easy mode" and insist on Chris as the only valid option, I think they're forgetting just how punishing the game can be your first time, and particularly how much it rewards meta knowledge of item and enemy placement. Jill comes with 2 more inventory slots than Chris for a total of 8, as well as a lockpick which enables her to get past doors requiring the sword key and cabinets requiring small keys, access to the powerful grenade launcher, and some assistance from Barry, particularly in acquiring an early shotgun. These benefits certainly put Jill over the top compared to Chris' increased health and run speed and access to the flamethrower, but they by no means trivialize the game. Instead, I see Jill as the introductory character allowing you to familiarize yourself with the mansion layout and its challenges, while Chris is better for repeat playthroughs as his drawbacks (particularly inventory capacity and need to lug around keys) lead to an interesting optimization puzzle where you have to strategically eliminate enemies and open up various areas of the mansion while managing limited resources and lugging around key items. Like many modes that change up gameplay, the choice of character seems intended more as a vector for replayability than as a straightforward difficulty selector.
I was rather impressed with the mansion layout, particularly how much agency you're granted to explore and indeed to make mistakes that have long-term consequences. Early on I was too conservative about saving my progress and found myself having to redo somewhat lengthy sequences because of my stingy use of ink ribbons, and it took a while before I had a comfortable supply of ammo and healing items to fall back on. Inventory space was always at a premium because I wasn't yet confident enough to run around without extra ammo for my guns, and because I always kept ink ribbons on hand in case I found a typewriter without a nearby item box. You're required to take the initiative to explore the second floor on both sides yourself, and I'll admit the music you hear upon entering the upstairs rooms, in tandem with the dragging footsteps of zombies around the corner, filled me with some dread about venturing forward. It's for that reason I forgot to explore the rest of the upstairs section for the grenade launcher until much later in the game, which also made the first half of the game more challenging. I'd take a different approach now that I know what the game has in store, but the fuzzy uncertainty about what you'll need to face murky unknown threats in the future is quintessential to the horror experience, and I found the game struck a satisfyingly tense balance between power and vulnerability, even as it gave me multiple ropes with which to metaphorically hang myself.
The guardhouse was a nice miniaturized chunk of explorative gameplay in the same vein, and had a few great scares to boot. The shark was unnerving and memorable (fun fact, its intro cutscene only occurs if you take a counterclockwise route in the room), but the real star of the show was the spider encounter in the parlor. I've discovered over time that I have a uh, healthy amount of arachnophobia, and was frozen with fear when I walked in and saw the giant spider crawling on the ceiling. My adrenaline went into overdrive when it dropped down and a second spider joined it, startling me and sending shivers down my spine as I frantically evaded them. It took a minute after they were both dead to totally calm down; something about enormous spiders creeping around on eight legs just freaks me out (see also Thief and Arx Fatalis). In any case, I managed to stock up on shotgun shells, kill the area boss, and grab the helmet key to open the last few doors in the mansion. Time to head back.
This is when Resident Evil becomes truly brilliant. On your return to the mansion, a first-person cutscene plays of some extremely fast monster tracing your footsteps and chasing you inside. You're met with a hunter, a reptilian creature that slowly stalks forward before leaping into an assault with its sharp claws. It takes a lot of high-powered ammo to kill, doesn't stagger easily, and can quickly slash you to death from full health. And the worst part is, the mansion is now absolutely filled with these guys. You spend all this time in the beginning getting to know the layout of the mansion, after which you go off to the gaurdhouse for a while, where you'll probably collect a decent amount of supplies. When you get back, the whole place is crawling with new and terrifyingly deadly enemies (including giant spiders in the old dog ambush room, fuuuuuuck). Now you have to use your previous knowledge of the mansion to chart out efficient routes to the final remaining locked rooms, clearing as few enemies as possible to conserve ammo while avoiding their lethal claw swipes. You kill a boss and drop into the mansion basement, which is pretty basic but still frightening as you're in uncharted territory without a safe room in sight, and the music theme (original release, NOT the DualShock version) is absolutely bone-chilling from the first notes you hear entering the door. You have to make your way back up to the mansion proper and deal with more hunters that you likely previously left alone before you can save and restock.
Eventually you find the battery and can move onto the underground section, which was the biggest low point during my playthrough. It's mostly a sequence of linear corridors which offers only the most minimal exploration and puzzle solving and is mostly just populated with a glut of hunters to ruin your day. I was very low on resources, including ink ribbons, so I had to run past a lot of them and ended up having to endure several cutscenes 3-4 times until I finally got through it all in a tedious exercise in trial and error. The laboratory is the final section of the game and is more like the guardhouse; a miniature exploratory section with some tough enemy encounters and puzzles to solve, and fortunately you're showered in ink ribbons to give you a breather once you gain entry to the safe room. There's a side objective to use 3 items you could have found in earlier sections on terminals scattered throughout the level (one of which puts you in the path of the most deadly and persistent enemies in the game) to unlock the good ending, which I managed to accomplish. The "final" boss was the second-worst part of the game after the Underground section, not because of its actual challenge, but because of the lengthy unskippable cutscene that occurs right before it, making the fact that the boss can easily stunlock you into a corner and slash you to death very frustrating. There's a short escape sequence and a true final boss (if you meet certain conditions, apparently) which I defeated with only 10 seconds and a scrap of health remaining. Very satisfying, and appropriate for a game inspired by horror flicks.
Resident Evil is a solid title that is surprisingly accessible, cleverly designed, and indeed scary at times, even 24 years later. I didn't mention any of the campy dialogue, but it adds a lot of charm and complements the game's rich atmosphere. While I'm interested to see what the remake has to offer, I must say that the original visuals and music possess a unique atmosphere that it doesn't capture, and I'm glad I decided to play the original first. Particularly since I think the original will be a better segue into the other PSX titles in the series that I'll be playing next. Definitely recommend. And don't play the DualShock version, it butchers the best music track in the game:
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