00:00 With a 30 year history, it's no surprise Resident Evil has produced some of the best
00:10 horror games ever made. From exploring the creepy Spencer Mansion to surviving Raccoon
00:14 City zombies, or escaping vampire filled castles and more, there's a lot to love. Or hate,
00:20 depending on how you feel about monsters and running away from things.
00:24 But with all the mutations and transformations the series has undergone over the years, what
00:28 are the best games overall? It's that exact question we're going to answer now as we
00:33 take a look at the Resi games that have stood the test of time and the essential must plays
00:37 it has produced over three decades.
00:47 Creating the foundation for a successful franchise is one thing, developing a successful sequel
00:52 is something else entirely. Resident Evil 2 took the suspenseful action of its predecessor
00:57 and the suffocating atmosphere of the Spencer Estate and draped it across a sprawling city
01:02 under siege from the living dead. It's an ingenious survival horror game combining meticulously
01:07 crafted spaces with perfectly paced scenarios to form an experience almost as gripping today
01:12 as it was back in 1998. It's simply one of the greatest sequels ever made and the
01:17 one that firmly established Resident Evil's place in history.
01:33 This was an astounding remake when it landed in 2002 and immediately became one of the
01:37 best Gamecube games ever made. This redux takes the bones of the 1996 original and rebuilds
01:43 it, adding in improved combat mechanics, refined resource management and terrifying new threats
01:48 like crimson head zombies. It's overhauled visual design has also stood the test of time
01:52 pretty well, meaning one of survival horror's most formative experiences looks nearly as
01:57 good to play today as when it was first unleashed upon the world.
02:08 This handsome remake makes some odd changes to the original story and flow, and fluffs
02:13 a lot of the pace as a result, but it's still a good little action horror hybrid.
02:17 Nemesis for example is a much more scripted set piece threat compared to the PS1 original.
02:22 He's more a series of mini boss battles now compared to say, the ever pressing threat
02:27 of Mr X's pursuit in 2019's Resident Evil 2 remake. It also feels surprisingly short,
02:33 with a breakneck 5 hour zombie slaughtering quest to be had if you're quick on your
02:37 feet. But the mechanics are still solid, building on the template of the Resident Evil 2 remake,
02:42 it looks gorgeous and when it does get things right, it absolutely nails the landing.
02:53 The most recent Resident Evil is a bit of a ramshackle rollercoaster ride that undoes
02:57 all the work of Resident Evil 7's incredible reboot, but it still has some great moments.
03:01 It's a fun, but a far more silly take on the series that leans into camp melodrama
03:06 over actual horror. On the plus side, it introduces some iconic characters like Lady D, and a
03:11 terrifying dollhouse section easily as good as anything the series has ever produced.
03:15 But it's also got bizarre pacing missteps, like a brief swamp section or some excessively
03:20 trigger happy shooting levels that, overall, rob this instalment of some venom. It has
03:25 a strong opening half though that's well worth checking out, with only later wonky
03:29 segments lessening the impact overall.
03:35 Without Resident Evil 4, this video ranking the best Resident Evil games probably wouldn't
03:39 exist. Leon S. Kennedy's Spanish adventure reintroduced and rebuilt Resident Evil to
03:44 incredible effect, reshaping all third person games as a result for over a decade. This
03:49 wasn't just a sweeping reinvention of the Resident Evil framework, it's one of the
03:53 greatest action games of all time. Without this, everything from Gears of War to Dead
03:57 Space would have turned out very differently. Setting the undead slaying action over the
04:01 shoulder of Leon, Resident Evil 4 is both perfectly placed and utterly relentless. It's
04:06 an experience designed to overwhelm from the first minute through to the last while remaining
04:10 self-aware enough to revel in the ridiculousness of its own narrative arc. It's a truly remarkable
04:15 experience and one that changed games forever.
04:22 The Resident Evil 2 remake is an incredible reimagining of one of the series' finest
04:25 moments. It's a game that manages to beautifully combine the methodical challenge of the original
04:30 with the tight gunplay that Resident Evil 4 made as a video game standard. It's a
04:34 stunning love letter to the legacy of Resident Evil 2, but one that's fearless in how it
04:38 updates what's needed refreshing. It captures everything from the original perfectly, refrained
04:43 for modern tastes, without losing a shred of its terror or claustrophobia as you fight
04:47 to escape a zombie-ridden raccoon city.
04:55 This is the reboot that made Resident Evil relevant again by doing what the first game
04:59 had originally done, stealing all the good stuff from horror movies. In this case, mid-2000s
05:04 slasher flicks found footage and home invasion horror. After years of increasingly bloated
05:08 story excess, Capcom wiped the board clean and doubled down on claustrophobic dread,
05:13 with a focused story in a rotting Deep South mansion, with crunching first-person combat
05:17 and the diabolical Baker family as villains.
05:21 With the Bakers, the series discovered some of its most effective antagonists, stalking
05:25 the hapless hero Ethan Winters through their disconcerting Bayou estate. The reduced cast
05:30 created and enhanced some incredibly focused scares in a memorable story that utterly reinvented
05:35 the series, while keeping all the familiar elements. It's an outstanding retake on
05:39 Resident Evil that put the series back on the horror map.
05:45 So what's your favourite Resident Evil game? Have we got the rankings right? Let us know
05:48 in the comments below.
