Fieldnotes is a weekly column where I drop into a new (or old) game and report back with raw notes, sharp takes, unfiltered, and sometimes unhinged thoughts. This week, I continue my journey in Resident Evil Requiem and finish up the Rhodes Hill section.
Last week, I got my first taste of what Capcom’s latest Resident Evil joint had to offer and largely enjoyed myself. So far, I’m a fan of Grace as our new fresh-faced protagonist, even if I do love making fun of her from time to time. When I left off last time, I still had plenty to explore in both the east and west wings, looking for three small quartz items that would allow me to escape the building through a courtyard.
First, Meet Emily
Before I get into my experience proper, though, I realize I’d forgotten to mention Emily. When you reach the first main save room in Resident Evil Requiem, you can go down to the basement from there to find a little blind girl locked up in there named Emily. There’s a guy lying dead in a pool of his own blood right outside her door, but y’know, don’t worry about it.
Right off the bat, it’s obvious this girl is going to play a huge role in the game. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know I’m going to hate it. There’s a reason why she’s locked up in here. There’s another glass cell right next to hers, but it’s empty. My first theory? The big Girl monster that was chasing us around last time is Emily’s twin sister, and I’m sure that’s going to lead to all sorts of tragedies down the line.
Anyway, Emily’s important. Just wanted to flag that here.
Rhodes Hill Is the New RPD
While this entire gameplay section as Grace has been extremely stress- and anxiety-anducing, I have to say that this might be the most fun I’ve had in a Resident Evil game since the RE2 Remake. Right from go, it’s clear that Rhodes Hill is paying homage to the Raccoon Police Department. From the reception desk setup to the way the building is split between east and west wings, with plenty of creepy hallways and rooms to explore and weird puzzles to solve, Rhodes Hill is everything I want and have come to expect from a Resident Evil game.
The zombies all come with unique personalities too, as they still house remnants of their previous lives. There’s the maid zombie who’s obsessed with cleaning things, and will literally scream, “WHO MADE A MESS?!” when she sees blood on the floor. There’s the light switch zombie who will always turn the lights off if you flick them on. Then there are the Mr X-like baddies like the Girl we met previously, and newcomer Chunk, who’s a literal big boy who tries to shove himself into tight corridors.
I’ve also had a run-in with Victor, who continues to be cryptic as all hell, but makes it clear that Grace is critical to whatever he’s trying to do here.
Blind Girl Caretaker Simulator
By the time I get two of the quartz stones I need to get out, I already have a lock on the final one. The problem? The puzzle switches themselves are in braille, which means — you guessed it — we need Emily to help us out.
Grace goes back to Emily’s glass cell but before she opens it with the new security wristband she just picked up, she recalls that there’s a dead guy right outside the cell. She asks Emily why she’s locked in there but Emily doesn’t know herself, she’s just been in here all her life. Grace decides, screw it, and opens the door to let Emily out and ask her for help.
At this point, Grace picks Emily up and walks out and I already know this is going to cause me a ton of grief. They’re gonna make me carry this girl into the scary east wing where Chunk is, along with all the other zombies and Blister Heads prowling around, aren’t they? Of course they are.
Thankfully, the game does let you put Grace down in the save room while you go take care of business, so you can go ahead and clear the path before taking her with you. That’s exactly what I do, and I manage to bring Emily to the puzzle room with no trouble. But of course, the dead body that I initially found in the puzzle room is no longer there when I bring Emily in, which means trouble’s brewing. When the zombies start pouring in, Grace tells Emily to work on the puzzle while she holds them off.
At this point, I’m actually feeling pretty powerful as Grace. With the ability to craft ammo out of blood (explain that one, Capcom), I’m pretty stocked up on handgun ammo, Requiem ammo, and I even have a bunch of healing items too, so these zombies go down without too much trouble.
When the sequence ends, Emily tells Grace she solved the puzzle and weirdly enough, I start feeling like I will do literally anything for this tiny girl because she’s just so happy to help and so wholesome. But of course, right when I start feeling this way is when the Girl monster shows up to take Emily away into a creepy basement below the center. Because of course there’s a basement level.
Grace steels herself before jumping in and can I just say that I really love this about Grace and all of the early Resident Evil protagonists? I love that these protagonists are just inherently good people. I mean, grizzled anti-heroes are great and all, but there’s something so earnest and heartening about playing as a genuinely good character with a strong moral compass.
Leon’s just a decent rookie cop who wants to help people. Claire was just here to find her brother but damn if she won’t put her own life on the line to help the little girl she stumbled across. Grace is a ball of anxiety and a total klutz and she is, of course, the Fumbler, but she recognizes when she needs to be brave for someone else who can’t, and she’ll always try to do the right thing.
That, and the fact that Emily’s still holding on to the quartz we need to get out, so I guess we have no choice either way…
Back to Agent Kennedy
We cut back to Leon, who got knocked out by Victor previously. When he regains consciousness, Victor notes that Leon’s infection has spread and tries to goad him into asking questions about the T-Virus mutation. Quippy as always, Leon says, yeah he does have a question. Does Victor ever brush his teeth?
Ha! Gottem!
In all fairness, Victor’s teeth do look pretty nasty. Does he brush them? Probably not.
It’s not long before Leon manages to break free from his restraints and get all his gear back, but he’s too slow to actually catch Victor, who runs off. No matter. Because now it’s time for Leon to explore Rhodes Hill with his entire arsenal. It’s very funny to play as Leon here, who’s equipped with a giant ass inventory, compared with Grace, who had to run around with so few inventory slots.
The Blister Heads, who stressed me out to no end as Grace, are of course no match for Leon, who can simply down them with a properly timed hatchet strike. Playing as Leon is incredibly cathartic, and this sequence ends with him entering a room full of Blister Heads and destroying them all with axe throws, roundhouse kicks, and brutal shotgun headshots.
Leon also reconnects with Sherry Birkin over comms as they pore over the center’s databases and see that Grace is a person of interest…
The Night Is Dark and Full of Terrors
Then we cut back to Grace and we must begin our exploration of the spooky basement under Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. This is a fantastic segment and it is by far the best designed bit of Resident Evil Requiem, in my view. It’s certainly not my favorite because it’s stressful and scary as hell, but I will give credit where it’s due. It’s a brilliant piece of level design.
The basement is split into a number of sections. There’s the furnace, holding cells, workshop, and so on and so forth. Emily is being held in one of the holding cells, but in order to get those cells open, you need three joint plugs to supply power to that section of the basement. Here’s the problem, though: when you remove the joint plugs from the other areas that they’re powering, the lights go out, which means that the Girl monster will be able to roam around and potentially get her grubby mitts on Grace.
This entire section then becomes a very tense back and forth of collecting the joint plugs, moving them around to power up different areas in order, all while avoiding zombies (who will absolutely transform into Blister Heads, too) and the Girl as you go. Prior to this, Resident Evil Requiem was great at instilling a serious sense of dread within me whenever I realized I need to backtrack to an area I really didn’t want to go back to, and the basement just dials that up to 11 with the Girl being able to stalk you wherever you go.
Fantastic stuff. I also hate it.
After surviving a meat grinder fiasco, I finally get all three joint plugs and Emily the hell out of there. We power up the elevator and get back up to the first floor, though the game certainly isn’t shy about telling you that the Girl monster will be back.
Emily, the sweet little thing, produces the quartz she got from the puzzle ages ago and tells Grace she kept it safe for her. Grace hugs her, overcome with emotion and exhaustion, and I find myself warming up to Emily instantly. You know what? Emily is a good girl and if anything happens to her I will kill everyone in this room and then myself. But seriously, I have been thoroughly impressed with how Capcom has managed to make Grace such a likable protagonist, and how they’ve made the stereotypically burdensome child character so endearing in such a short amount of time.
As Grace slots in the final quartz to open the door to the courtyard, she shyly asks Emily if she wants to leave this place together because it’s not safe. I love these two, and once again, I love how simple and pure-hearted Resident Evil’s protagonists can be. Let’s go, Grace!
ALL EMPLOYEES
When we get out into the courtyard and take in the fresh night air, I’m thinking, okay. It’s about time for a boss fight to end off this area. We’re gonna fight the Girl once and for all, and we’re gonna get out of Rhodes Hill.
But no! Resident Evil Requiem has other plans. We find a helicopter, and its pilot is still alive and of sound mind. He has a busted up leg though, so he makes us a deal. We need to get the chopper keys in a nearby house, and he’ll keep Emily safe and get us all out of there. And Grace — bless her heart — is clearly afraid and nervous, but she says yes. She promises Emily she’ll be back soon, straps her into the chopper, and goes in search of the keys.
Grace hopes and prays the keys will just be lying around in the house but we’re never that lucky, are we? The house turns out to be a secret entrance to yet another underground lab, though thankfully this one isn’t quite as big as the labyrinths of the care center itself. Grace eventually finds the keys, and also catches a glimpse of Victor talking to someone named Zeno on the phone. Victor starts the self-destruct sequence before leaving the room.
I don’t know about you, but I always get hyped as hell whenever the self-destruct countdown starts in a Resident Evil game. It happens in virtually every game, but it gets me every time. As soon as the alarms go off and the red lights start flashing, the infected start busting out of their tanks and pods, and in my head I’m just thinking, “ALL EMPLOYEES PROCEED TO THE BOTTOM PLATFORM” except this time we’re not going to the bottom platform. We gotta get up to the helipad!
As Grace makes her way up, she starts getting assaulted with gallons upon gallons of blood. I mean, it is vile. The whole place is practically flooding with blood like it’s a scene straight out of The Shining. She gets back to the chopper but all the zombies are already flooding out. The pilot manages to get the chopper off the ground, but a zombie manages to smash through the glass, and instead of using her gun to shoot it, Grace and the pilot struggle to keep the chopper steady and… they eventually crash.
Seriously. The chopper is in the air for all of maybe 15 seconds, and then it crashes. We just can’t catch a break.
Leon, the Action Hero
Thankfully, we cut back to Leon, who sees all of this nonsense happen right outside the window. He grabs a sniper rifle and we’re back to playing as Leon, as we cover for Grace trying to escape with Emily. Oh, the pilot died in the crash by the way. In case that wasn’t clear. Emily seems to be fine, but she’s sustained some sort of injury too.
I love a good sniper defense section, and this one didn’t disappoint either. After eliminating all the zombies, Leon slides down the roof, action hero style, killing a zombie as he lands, and he’s reunited with Grace. It becomes clear that Emily’s injured, and their reunion is short-lived as more Blister Heads come rushing in. Leon tells Grace to go ahead while he holds them off, and you can guess the rest.
I’ve Been Waiting For This Final Boss Fight
At this point, I’m still completely stacked as Grace. I have 10 Requiem rounds, plenty of handgun ammo, two molotov cocktails, and three healing items. I have to open up the roof to escape and I just know we’re way past due for a proper confrontation with the Girl.
Grace sets Emily down in a save room nearby and it’s not looking good. Emily looks seriously hurt, and Grace needs to scrounge around the area for more electrical doodads to power up the mechanism needed to open the roof fully. I note that it’s around 6 a.m. in-game at this point and I know we’re near the end. Resident Evil games usually take place over the course of one very long night and you know you’re almost at the end when dawn draws near. There’s something very comforting about knowing that the sun’s about to rise. It makes no logical sense because zombies can clearly still survive the sunlight, but you know who can’t? The Girl.
I deftly sneak around as Grace, pulling three different levers to restore power while avoiding the Girl. It’s not as easy as before, and I’m forced to use a couple of molotov cocktails to fend her off, but I’m still stockpiling my ammo for the actual boss fight. Once all three levers have been pulled, I go back up to activate the roof and the Girl shows up and… she immediately melts into a pile of goo.
I am confused. Where is my final boss fight? Since when has Capcom ever shown the restraint required to not give me a final boss fight where I must shoot the glowing red weak points on the body of an oversized biohazardous blob monster? Feeling disappointed that I hoarded all that Requiem ammo for nothing, I go to collect Emily. Except, I immediately understand why the Girl wasn’t the final climactic fight for this section.
Emily’s injuries have gotten worse since Grace has been gone. The poor girl writhes in pain and eventually dies, and as I’m sitting there feeling incredibly sad while Grace sobs onscreen, Emily’s body jerks back to life and she transforms into a grotesque monster. Ah, I think to myself, how cruel. This is the final boss fight.
Except it really isn’t a fight at all. Because Leon finally shows up and you’re forced to play as him as you ruthlessly fire bullets into Monster Emily’s body while Grace begs you to stop.
I can honestly say that this is the very first time a Resident Evil game has made me feel genuine sadness. In Resident Evil, there’s always been one thing you can be absolutely sure of, and that’s that the good guys always win. And the good guys never die. Aside from that one time Capcom decided to kill off newcomer Piers Nivans in Resident Evil 6 (and who even cared about him anyway?), this series never really had the balls to kill off any of its good guys, let alone a child character. I was genuinely floored. The good guys got out okay, but why does it feel like we lost?
Grace tosses the Requiem at Leon’s feet and walks away. She meets Victor again, who introduces her to Xeno, obviously a Wesker clone. They tell her that she’s needed in Raccoon City, and the first act of the game comes to a close.
MVP of the Week: Emily
I was going to give this one to Grace until I reached the end of the first act. Emily was awesome. I appreciated that the game made me view her with exhaustion and trepidation at the start, endeared me to her in the middle, then crushed my spirit at the end when it became clear she couldn’t be saved.
Emily was a true cinnamon roll. She was just a bioterror experiment who didn’t deserve any of the terrible stuff that happened to her. She was also a pretty brave kid who helped solve the braille puzzle and even kept the quartz safe for Grace.
The whole Emily/Grace dynamic reminded me of Claire and Sherry from Resident Evil 2. Perhaps somewhat naively, I expected them to make it out of Rhodes Hill alive and well too, but of course it had to end this way. What a genuinely heartbreaking end to Emily’s story. I hate it and I love it.
