Episode 494: The Resident Evil Ranking Hootenanny (Patreon)

You have logged onto Patreon, where you thought it was safe. Yet…you have entered the world of survival hootenanny. Diamond Feit here and if my many, many columns on the subject weren't evidence enough, I love Resident Evil, so I happily accepted the honor of ranking the entire series. And while the best games in the franchise capitalize on the fear of facing danger alone, I couldn't tackle this experiment by myself!

Three special guests lent their time and expertise to this episode. First we have Retronauts regular Stuart Gipp who goes on about ghosts for some reason (I think he's still in mourning). Next, we have SuperGreatFriend, livestreamer and horror game maven, making his long-awaited return to our program. Lastly, I reached out to Alex Aniel, a man so well-versed in the series he wrote a book about its origins. Sadly, on the day of the recording, Alex wasn't well enough to join our conversation, but he still submitted rankings for all the games so we made use of his (combat) data.

In the interest of brevity and retaining our sanity, we restricted our conversation to the 15 games which make up Resident Evil "canon." That includes remakes, but not remasters, ports, or Director's Cuts. I thought we could cover the material in 90 minutes. Yet…

Party art by Leann Hamilton, edits by Greg Leahy. Music heard in this episode:

10:38 - RE2 (PSX): The Second Malformation of "G"
23:08 - RE3 Nemesis: Nemesis Final Metamorphosis
32:12 - Code Veronica: Not Steve
41:24 - Resident Evil (GCN): Safe Haven
49:49 - RE0: Laboratory
1:01:20 - RE4: Krauser
1:12:00 - RE5: Sad but True
1:21:07 - Revelations: Previous Story
1:29:23 - RE6: Ancient Blood
1:39:02 - Revelations 2: Seek and Prey/High Speed Heroes (Raid Mode)
1:49:06 - Biohazard: Welcome to the Family
2:00:11 - RE2 (PS4): Black Impact (Mr. X Theme)
2:08:19 - RE3: Determined to Find Carlos
2:16:53 - Village: The Final Movement
Closing - RE4: Horizon