Resident Evil Requiem does a lot. I said it in my review, it plays like a highlight reel of all the best moments of the series. There are puzzles, horror, action, and Leon S Kennedy, of course. But its greatest achievement is that it manages to pull everything together in just 10 hours or so.
Resident Evil Requiem spoilers ahead
Now, 10 hours may seem too short to some. I was a little surprised myself at just how quickly I managed to get through the whole game. It wasn’t like I was rushing either. Yes, I had a small advantage as I’d played the three-hour demo set in Rhodes Hill Hospital, so I remembered a couple of helpful strategies from that, but otherwise I played on modern standard difficulty and spent a lot of time running around looking for secrets and Mr. Raccoons.
But looking back, I now realise that 10 hours was just right. It may not seem like it at face value, especially considering that Requiem has a hefty $70 price tag, but it’s quality from start to finish. There were no moments which I felt were added to pad out the runtime, and I enjoyed every task it set before me, even the ones that scared me out of my mind.
Sure, I enjoyed hunting for treasure and side quests in my 25-hour Resident Evil 4 remake run, but 10 hours is actually pretty in line for a RE game. Resident Evil 7 is approximately 10 hours long, and Village and Resident Evil 2 take around 12 hours. So, if anything, RE4 is the black sheep of the family. Honestly, I’m just happy to have another game in my library that I can finish over a weekend.
Yes, there are some tough parts to Requiem. Some fights that you’ll probably need to retry, and some puzzles that’ll likely leave you stumped. I spent longer than I’d like to admit trying to figure out which battery to place in which power bank in the basement of Rhodes Hill Hospital. But really, Requiem’s length is a testimony to how smooth and seamless it is.
Great storytelling, intuitive level design, and combat that’s actually fun are part of the reason why Requiem feels so good to play, but I think its greatest strength is switching between two protagonists. Before the horror sequences or puzzles could become sluggish or repetitive, you were switched from Grace to Leon, given a rifle and told to go kill zombies to your heart’s content.
Playing as Leon honestly felt like a reward for the hard work creeping around as Grace, unlocking safe boxes and retrieving quartz to open the main door. But after killing pretty much every zombie left in Raccoon City, I was glad to be back in Grace’s shoes. It can be nice to have a break from the action as well.
Before I knew it, I had landed on “The Final Mission” objective. In my head, I’d been playing for just a little while, but in reality, I’d been playing for about five hours straight. I was just enjoying it so much that it felt like no time at all.
I’m now just about to finish my second playthrough of Requiem, and there’ll undoubtedly be more of those ahead of me because of just how nice it is to get through. Who knows, I may even try to complete the four-hour speedrun.
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