00:00 [music]
00:06 With a 30-year history, it's no surprise Resident Evil has produced some of the best horror games ever made.
00:11 From exploring the creepy Spencer Mansion to surviving Raccoon City zombies,
00:15 or escaping vampire-filled castles and more, there's a lot to love.
00:19 Or hate, 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,
00:28 what are the best games overall?
00:30 It's that exact question we're going to answer now, as we take a look at the Resi games that have stood the test of time
00:36 and the essential must-plays it has produced over three decades.
00:40 [music]
00:42 "What the hell is this thing?"
00:44 [music]
00:47 Creating the foundation for a successful franchise is one thing.
00:51 Developing a successful sequel is something else entirely.
00:54 Resident Evil 2 took the suspenseful action of its predecessor and the suffocating atmosphere of the Spencer Estate
01:00 and draped it across a sprawling city under siege from the living dead.
01:04 It's an ingenious survival horror game combining meticulously crafted spaces
01:08 with perfectly paced scenarios to form an experience almost as gripping today as it was back in 1998.
01:15 It's simply one of the greatest sequels ever made, and the game that firmly established Resident Evil's place in history.
01:22 "Head to the station, I'll meet you there."
01:25 "Okay."
01:27 [music]
01:33 This was an astounding remake when it landed in 2002 and immediately became one of the best GameCube games ever made.
01:39 This redux takes the bones of the 1996 original and rebuilds it, adding in improved combat mechanics,
01:45 refined resource management and terrifying new threats like crimson head zombies.
01:50 It's overhauled visual design has also stood the test of time pretty well,
01:54 meaning one of survival horror's most formative experiences looks nearly as good to play today as when it was first unleashed upon the world.
02:01 [music]
02:09 This handsome remake makes some odd changes to the original story and flow, and fluffs a lot of the pace as a result,
02:15 but it's still a good little action horror hybrid.
02:18 Nemesis, for example, is a much more scripted set-piece threat compared to the PS1 original.
02:23 He's more a series of mini-boss battles now compared to, say, the ever-pressing threat of Mr. X's pursuit in 2019's Resident Evil 2 remake.
02:31 It also feels surprisingly short, with a breakneck 5-hour zombie-slaughtering quest to be had if you're quick on your feet.
02:38 But the mechanics are still solid, building on the template of the Resident Evil 2 remake.
02:43 It looks gorgeous, and when it does get things right, it absolutely nails the landing.
02:48 [music]
02:53 The most recent Resident Evil is a bit of a ramshackle rollercoaster ride that undoes all the work of Resident Evil 7's incredible reboot,
03:00 but it still has some great moments.
03:02 It's a fun, but a far more silly take on the series that leans into camp melodrama over actual horror.
03:08 Plus-side it introduces some iconic characters like Lady D, and a terrifying dollhouse section easily as good as anything the series has ever produced.
03:16 But it's also got bizarre pacing missteps, like a brief swamp section or some excessively trigger-happy shooting levels that, overall, rob this installment of some venom.
03:25 It has a strong opening half, though, that's well worth checking out, with only later wonky segments lessening the impact overall.
03:32 "Ethan Warchief."
03:35 Without Resident Evil 4, this video ranking the best Resident Evil games probably wouldn't exist.
03:40 Leon S. Kennedy's Spanish adventure reintroduced and rebuilt Resident Evil to incredible effect, reshaping all third-person games as a result for over a decade.
03:49 This wasn't just a sweeping reinvention of the Resident Evil framework, it's one of the greatest action games of all time.
03:55 Without this, everything from Gears of War to Dead Space would have turned out very differently.
03:59 Setting the undead slaying action over the shoulder of Leon, Resident Evil 4 is both perfectly placed and utterly relentless.
04:06 It's an experience designed to overwhelm from the first minute through to the last while remaining self-aware enough to revel in the ridiculousness of its own narrative arc.
04:14 It's a truly remarkable experience, and one that changed games forever.
04:18 The Resident Evil 2 remake is an incredible reimagining of one of the series' finest moments.
04:26 It's a game that manages to beautifully combine the methodical challenge of the original with the tight gunplay that Resident Evil 4 made as a video game standard.
04:34 It's a stunning love letter to the legacy of Resident Evil 2, but one that's fearless in how it updates what's needed refreshing.
04:40 It captures everything from the original perfectly, refrained for modern tastes without losing a shred of its terror or claustrophobia as you fight 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 had originally done, stealing all the good stuff from horror movies.
05:03 In this case, mid-2000s slasher flicks found footage and home invasion horror.
05:07 After years of increasingly bloated 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 and the diabolical Baker family as villains.
05:21 In 'Bakers', the series discovered some of its most effective antagonists, stalking the hapless hero Ethan Winters through their disconcerting Bayou estate.
05:29 The reduced cast created and enhanced some incredibly focused scares in a memorable story that utterly reinvented the series, while keeping all the familiar elements.
05:38 It's an outstanding retake on Resident Evil that put the series back on the horror map.
05:43 So what's your favourite Resident Evil game? Have we got the rankings right? Let us know in the comments below.
05:49 [Outro]
