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TGS 2017: Resident Evil Revelations (Switch) Hands-on Preview

by Danny Bivens - September 24, 2017, 2:34 am EDT
Total comments: 5

Revelations is back on a Nintendo platform…again.

This isn’t the first rodeo for Resident Evil Revelations on a Nintendo platform. Originally starting out as a Nintendo 3DS game released back in early 2012, Revelations has been remastered in HD and is available on all last and current generation consoles. Not wanting to leave the Switch out in the cold, Capcom has decided to also bring the game out on Nintendo’s new platform. Not only that, but they also brought it to the Tokyo Game Show this year and I got a chance to try it out in docked mode.

As with Revelations 2, there are multiple options for what gamers were able to play on the show floor. I decided to basically play the game from the beginning and work my way through the prologue and part of the first episode. I was a bit apprehensive (and really had no choice), but I had the opportunity to try out the game with motion controls. Button placement is pretty consistent with previous releases of the game. Holding ZL aims, holding L controls the Genesis scanner, pressing ZR while aiming shoots and ZR by itself readies the knife.

As for motion controls, there are four optional things that you can do here - aim, reload, use the knife and escape enemy grapple attacks. I was really surprised with how well the aiming worked here. As soon as you hit ZL, you move around the right Joy Con. Of course, you can still aim with the right stick, but the motion aiming felt really nice. Reloading has two options with motion, one of which I couldn’t get to work. The quick and easy one was to just swing down the right Joy Con. The other, more complicated option, is to move the right Joy Con’s IR camera over your hand. The knife requires you to swing the right Joy Con to the right, and the grapple escape could be executed by moving the left Joy Con from left to right.

The visuals in Revelations aren’t necessarily bad, but they look a bit underwhelming by today’s standards. From afar, things look passable, but the closer you get to inspect something, the muddy textures stand out. Character models suffer less from this than do environmental things like walls or floors, but it was still noticeable. Honestly, most people probably won’t notice the visual shortcomings, but it should be noted that there is a bit of a “last gen” look here.

Resident Evil Revelations is starting to show it’s age visually. However, at the same time, the game still controls great. I’m not a huge proponent of motion controls, but the subtle additions with the Joy Con actually felt good. Switch owners won’t have to wait long as Revelations and Revelations 2 releases in late November.

Cross posted from The Famicast

Talkback

StratosSeptember 25, 2017

I'm really interested in how those pointer controls handle. Everyone seems to be stating that the gyroscope controls are not a replacement for true IR pointers, but I'm really hoping that we somehow get something serviceable for FPS style games.


Does the style feel similar to how RE4 handled on the Wii?

It felt surprisingly good. I was really getting some RE4 Wii vibes from that aspect of it. It’s been awhile since I played RE4, but this felt like it takes less effort to handle the motion aiming.

StogiSeptember 28, 2017

Nice preview. It's good to hear the gyro controls work well. It's one of the few talked about aspects of the Switch.

StratosSeptember 28, 2017

Quote from: The_Dan_x

It felt surprisingly good. I was really getting some RE4 Wii vibes from that aspect of it. It’s been awhile since I played RE4, but this felt like it takes less effort to handle the motion aiming.

Nice to hear it works so well. Seems the only negative about this combo is the cart size and download requirement for the second title, but that will be negligible thanks to SD cards.

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterSeptember 28, 2017

As someone with a passing interest in Resident Evil about half the reason that I own Revelaitons is for the wonderful 3DS case on the shelf.

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Genre Action
Developer Capcom
Players1 - 2
Online1 - 4

Worldwide Releases

na: Resident Evil Revelations
Release Nov 28, 2017
PublisherCapcom
RatingMature
jpn: Biohazard Revelations: Unveiled Edition
Release Nov 30, 2017
PublisherCapcom
Rating17+
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