Requiem’s been earning a lot of praise for its deft handling of dual protagonists, a story that took us back to where it all began, and a sublime mix of survival horror and action combat. However, as much as we loved the game, we did take an interest in criticisms levelled against it.
While we might not necessarily agree with what’s being said about Requiem’s flaws, we do think that they must be given due attention, as there’s always room for improvement, even with the best of titles. With that in mind, we did find a few complaints worth thinking about, as they address facets of the experience that might make the eventual successor to Requiem even better.
We’ve put together an interesting list of them, and you might find yourself grudgingly agreeing with a few even if you can’t get enough of the genre’s latest hit. Let’s dive right in!
10. Not Enough Of It
At roughly 10-20 hours for a playthrough, depending on how fast or slow you take it, Resident Evil Requiem is a short game. While that in itself isn’t an issue, the $69.99 asking price has been a tad steep for some gamers, who perhaps expected more value for money out of the game.
Look, we get it. Seventy bucks isn’t a small amount of money, and expecting your games to deliver when you pay that price is certainly not wrong. But could the game have been longer without dragging out its story, a facet of the experience that the writers had to nail down, considering the nostalgic significance it carried? Perhaps not.
However, this one made our list because it does present a valid viewpoint, even though we’d argue that quality over quantity should be the way to go.
9. ARK Labs Could Have Been Better
There’s always a secret, underground lab to find under Raccoon City, somehow. ARK Labs might have been where the story’s final act came together, but that hasn’t stopped a few complaints about how bland our time in it really was. Sure, we got to see some superb antagonistic shenanigans from Victor Gideon, who shed his quiet, calm disposition for some excellently loud antics, but the lab’s pristine design and the comparative lack of danger in it have been a sore spot for quite a few players.
When compared to the Rhodes Hill Care Center, the validity of those complaints begins to show up in both the design and gameplay of that area. The enemy variety wasn’t as good as in previous areas, and it drew too much on the designs of Umbrella’s other facilities. However, while the former is definitely something we might agree with, we think the latter does hold some merit. Things could have been a tad different to set the facility apart from the others since it housed a cure to the virus, not another sample or a BOW.
8. Zeno Was Half-Baked
We’re going to have to agree with this one. Yes, he was a way to connect Gideon with the, er, Connections but his part in the story was too thinly written for us to care about him. For starters, The Connections might be a terrible organization based on their goals but you can’t deny that they’re a smart bunch who have managed to stay hidden while Umbrella took the fall for their actions.
Wouldn’t a member of such an organization at least stop to verify if the vial of Elpis was indeed a stimulant for his powers? Instead, the man made himself the perfect target for Gideon’s pre-Nemesis form, his presence in the story ending as quickly as it had begun. We even joked amongst ourselves that he was there as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Wesker, and that he wasn’t going to make it to the credits. We then proceeded to give ourselves a pat on the back after Gideon proved us right.
We must say, it felt good!
7. How Much Action Is Too Much?
According to some Requiem players, the answer lies somewhere between RE2 and RE6. While we loved the fact that Leon was an absolute crazy man in this one, his sections have invited comparisons to the action-heavy RE6, and we can see where those players are coming from. Leon isn’t just all brawn, but is also tenacious when he has to be.
We got to see that side of him in RE2, and though Grace had the stealth portions of the game covered, it couldn’t have hurt to put Leon in situations where his weapons might not have been the smart choice, forcing him to think out of the box to achieve his goals.
6. Overly Simplistic Puzzles
Turns out a few players wanted to use their brains as much as the ones who wanted to see more of Leon using his. There have been complaints that the puzzles in Requiem were a tad too simple for some gamers, and we’re inclined to agree. Of course, the Final Puzzle is obviously excluded, and we think that it would be unfair to expect every puzzle to be on that level; a middle ground would have been nice.
Instead, too many of the puzzles felt like a fairly obvious solution or something that could be found quite close to its location, and solving them was quite simple once you had what you needed, the Organ Transport Box being a good example. At least the Analyzer gave us a bit of a challenge, but that only served to bring out the simplicity of other puzzles even more.
5. Too Much Nostalgia
We’re on the fence about this one, but some players feel that the game relied too much on its nostalgia factor. We can see where those complaints are coming from, with the way in which RE2 and RE3 were obvious inspirations right off the bat, while Raccoon City and even Elpis also leant heavily on the past.
But wasn’t that the point? Weren’t all of these places and things meant to close out as many of the lingering narrative threads from past titles as they could? What if we look at Requiem not as a game stuck in the past but as one wrapping things up in order to facilitate a future for the franchise where there was now a reliable cure for the virus?
We loved going back to Racoon City, and according to some fans, the boss fight with Mr. X was something they didn’t approve of, alongside Zeno trying (and failing) to do his best Wesker impression, but we don’t think that the nostalgia overtook a story that was clearly aimed at a few games into the future.
4. The Nemesis Boss Fight
Gideon’s transformation could have been so much more, according to some chatter about the game, with many pointing out that his final “Nemesis” form was mostly a copy of RE3 Remake’s take on the creature. We’re inclined to agree after spending a disappointingly short amount of time shooting at weak spots as Leon tries to bring him down.
The last we checked, Grace was very much on her feet after injecting Leon with Elpis, curing him of Raccoon City’s curse and getting him fighting fit to take Gideon on. Why couldn’t the fight have included her helping in some capacity? It would have been cool to finally have the two work together for the same goal instead of an alliance that was built on necessity.
Of course, that’s not accounting for the fact that Gideon could have been something else entirely. A lot of bad guys have had cool mutant forms for us to take down over the years. Why would an antagonist as awesome as Gideon not have one?
This belonged with the nostalgia bit, but we thought it deserved its own spot.
3. A Few Weak Story Points
Any story is bound to have people it doesn’t connect with, and Requiem is no different. It was even good if you were able to ignore a few loopholes, but some of us are more discerning than that. Emily’s miraculous survival has come up in a lot of discussions about the story, with many laughing at Leon being careful enough not to hit her vitals when she was in her mutant form.
Sure, the man knows his BOWs as well as anyone else, but to be able to know exactly where to shoot when he was as sick as he was? There’s also the question of why Zeno took Grace to the RPD, the one place Leon was sure to try and visit for its access to the underground. Couldn’t he have revealed her role in unlocking Elpis at the ARK facility instead? He literally revealed its location to Leon in a narrative move that felt too convenient.
Yes, the story overall was good, and there were a lot of moving parts, but in a game as highly anticipated as this one, it would have been nice to make the naysayers work for it a little.
2. Complaints About The Plot As A Whole
Many players have argued that the plot and the way it ends feel too comfortable for the harrowing adventure that they experienced from Leon and Grace’s perspectives. Are sad endings going out of fashion in gaming lately? While we do agree with opinions that Requiem ends as many RE games do, with its protagonists safe and something else to take on looming large on the horizon, that’s what a good old cliffhanger is. Those are traditions for the franchise at this point.
And of course, the post-credits scene has done its job well enough, setting up a new story quite well. There is even some merit to the shock value of Leon dying in the game’s non-canonical ending, with the argument that it would have been a very bold move, being one that stood out to us. But would it have served a purpose that was more valuable than him being alive in future stories? We’re not sure we think so.
And then there’s the retcon theory, which suggests that there should be no buildings left for anybody to explore in Raccoon City. That’s one that makes sense, and perhaps something the writers should have thought about.
1. Questionable Replayable Value
Tie this one back to the concern about the game’s length versus its price, and we’re back to the issue of how much game there really is for us to enjoy in this package. Requiem does come with unlockables that require you to take another run through the game, this time with all the knowledge you earned the first time in New Game Plus.
But it did make fans wonder why Grace didn’t get to take her Stabilizers and Hip Pouches along. They made her sections feel too repetitive, for starters. Part of the fun of playing NG+ is the opportunity to see what a fully kitted character can do in sections they once struggled with, after all.
Furthermore, it made no sense to have the Insanity Mode option and deprive a character who is already sort of vulnerable to begin with of an obvious advantage. For many gamers, it made more sense to do a second run on Casual instead, which ruins the fun of having the option in the first place.
We think this one is definitely something to think about in future installments, or perhaps even in any updates coming to the game.
And that’s about it for complaints about Requiem that we think do deserve to be heard at the very least. We might not agree with them all, but we think it’s important to listen and try to think about how even games we love can do better. And of course, it makes us hope that future titles can learn from their predecessors’ mistakes.
Time will tell if the next Resident Evil addresses these issues, but until then, we’re going to be taking down zombies as Leon for a while to come.
