Jill's Sandwich (Patreon)

Time to another pic and story.

Remember: long story is long.

Ok, Resident Evil 1.

You see, I started playing the RE series in 2000 and, just like me, a lot of people were playing the series around the same time, so it was natural to find in different arcades around my city 4 o 5 TVs with kids playing RE2 or 3, however, there was no sign of RE1. My “friend” Bryan who, by this point and if you read my past retrospective with the Rebecca pic, you should know he loved to talk sh*t said “Oh yeah! RE1. You see, the reason why you can’t find it in any arcade is because it’s so damn scary and gory that nobody could finish it. So the arcade owners stop buying the game”. Naturally, I, being so stupidly naïve back then, totally believed him. I don’t like horror or gore (except for the Mortal Kombat series), but since I was so hoked to RE, I had to play it no matter what. I mean, thanks to RE2 and 3, I knew the plot about the first RE, but I wanted to live that experience. However, it wasn’t until late 2001 that I could find an arcade with a copy of the game.

Back in 2001, my English skills were basic at best and, unlike RE2 and 3 which were translated to Spanish, RE1 was full in English, so I had a hard time trying to advance in the game (and also, for that very same reason, I never noticed the legendary awful bad acting and dialogues until years later). However, because of the rough graphics and the dull aspect of the mansion compared to the streets of Racoon City, I never really found the game scary or suspenseful (not that I cared. Again, I don’t like horror). I was having a nice time playing the game… until one damn creature appeared: The Hunter.

Now, I knew hunters thanks to RE3, but I had no problem with them since I had a save file with unlimited ammo and always killed those bastards before they could lay a claw on me. But, since I was playing RE1 the normal way, hunters were more of a problem for me… and then, it happened: they decapitated me. I was absolutely shocked!! “So that’s why people in my city never finished the game!! It’s terrifying!! It’s disgusting!!” – I said to myself. There I was, looking at Jill’s headless corpse and I couldn’t take it. It was too much for me, and I stopped playing the game for a long time. I could it finished it months later thanks to a file Bryan gave me with an infinite ammo magnum but, since that day, the hunters were the only RE monsters that truly scared the hell out of me (Chainsaw ganados would be the next ones years later). So yeah, that was my experience with the OG RE1.

Next year, in 2002, Bryan came to my house with his brand new GameCube and a copy of the Resident Evil remake, and it blew my mind to Kingdom Come. I won’t enter in too many details since I want to keep this retrospective a little smaller, but I agree why some people say that Remake is, not only the perfect remake, but the best RE ever (in my case, I say this is the perfect RE, but it’s not my favorite one). Also, this is the first RE that truly scared me from beginning to end. Why? Simple: Bryan talking sh*t again and myself being so gullible. Bryan warned me about one of the most notable changes: The Crimson Heads (we called them “Superzombies”). He said that if I didn’t blew their heads off or burned them, they would come to life after a while and they become faster, aggressive and, listed to this, “they could decapitate my character with their long claws and, not only that, but now every creature from the game could kill my character in a gruesome way”. So imagine myself being so scared trying to avoid killing every zombie or creature just to keep Jill’s head and limbs attached to her body… Bryan also told me that if avoided taking any kind of damage from any creature until the battle with Plant 42, I would get an extra cutscene where Richard helps me and get his assault weapon besides a super powerful infinite sub weapon for Jill. Needless to say that, despite following all of his instructions, I didn’t got sh*t, but I became ridiculously good at avoiding enemies and saving ammo and healing items.

Anyway, it wasn’t until 2017 when I got the PS4 remaster that I discovered that no creature could kill you in gruesome ways and suddenly, the game wasn’t scary anymore because of that… and I love it!!

Yeah, well… Next time I’ll talk about RE2.