Late To The Party: Resident Evil: Requiem

I just finished the latest Resident Evil game and I have to say: they do a lot right. 

There's a good balance of scary parts to action parts-Clare and Leon's sections respectively. Clare's gameplay is full of tension and trying to make smart choices about your limited resources. Leon's is about maxing out the damage output in fun ways. 

I especially enjoyed how the stories would overlap and there were a few-albeit small-opportunities for one character to help another. 

The gameplay is solid too, each character behaving in a manner that befits their skills. 

However. 

There are two very disagreeable things about Requiem. 

The first is the voice acting for Clare. I want to be clear: I'm not blaming the actress. She sounds very scared. But the choice to have her stammer 95% of her dialog is bad. It works for the opening section where the player is learning the game mechanics, conveying how frightened she is. Then it becomes increasingly grating as the game goes on.

My first playthrough was a little over 14 hours. I hated hearing that actress speak by the time it was done.

Now I need to talk about the ending and that is going to involve ALL THE SPOILERS. You have been warned.

OK here we go. 

At the very last moment, the player is given a choice, one that has a meaningful impact on the ending. That's right; there are two endings: A gloomy one that is disastrously anti-climatic, or a triumphant one using Leon's gameplay for an action-oriented finale. 

The action oriented one feels OK but even then the fight isn't terribly interesting. It is at least against the correct character; the one who has been plaguing the player for most of the game. Emotionally; that is fulfilling. But it doesn't play very well as an action piece. 

Which ending should you chose? The game doesn't give you any context, there's no buildup for this, no layering of information to help the player make a choice. There aren't any signals that the player WILL have to make a choice. So it feels like a trick that's pulled on the player, as opposed to a meaningful decision. 

Then, as soon as the credits roll the player is asked if they'd like to start at the last save and just play the other ending. Now I agree with this, since it's what I was going to do anyway and this saves me the trouble of having to go to the loading screen. 

But doing this cuts anything out at the knees because neither of the endings matter! I felt cheated and irate.

However, the ending aside, I found the game to be a lot of fun and will likely give it another go! (If I have time).