Finally finished RE9. Completed in 10 hours, two-sittings with a friend. Died 3 times, all as Leon.
I'm someone who likes long games in general, and love Alien Isolation aka "the overly long horror game," so it was somewhat surprising to me that I felt like the game was
dragging around the "Leon in Raccoon city"-segment. It improved somewhat with the back-to-back boss fights post bomb assembly, but I was ready for it to be over by the time we got to ARK. The game does manage to have a few highlights once you get to this part (Orphanage section, Motorcycle chicanery, Commander fight) but I was losing steam rather quick.
Grace was okay. I was largely indifferent to her in much the same as I was with Ethan in 7.
The highlight of her sections was whenever Gideon showed up in a cutscene, who I rather enjoyed watching even if he was a nothing-character. (Not my video)
It's also the source of some grievances since she never shoots the fucker when she has a gun trained on him. Relating to that, it's somewhat of a shame we never get to see her "lock in" really, at least not for more than 10 minutes, and it creates a gameplay/narrative dissonance when I was so aflush with ammo by the end of her section in the clinic, that when it came time to play Leon there wasn't a single zombie left alive for him until he gets to Gideon's office—a part that only remained infested at all because Grace "Rambo" Ashford couldn't get to it with her shove-attack and 60+ handgun rounds.
It was also supremely bullshit how they had the blind girl (Chloe?) survive. "I didn't hit her vital organs"—she's a monster, how can you tell what you did or didn't hit?!
Spencer being regretful is a story decision I'm fine with in theory but it gets dumped on you in the last 30 minutes so you don't have time to think about how dumb/implausible it is. In this very game we play through a segment as a little girl who lived in an orphanage of other little girls who were all the subject of experimentation, and this was all conducted with the knowledge and approval of Spencer himself. I'm not certain if Elpis was a pre-RE2/3 or post-RE2/3 idea, but if Spencer only started to feel guilty after the city was bombed, then that means the girls were being experimented on for some unknown objective possibly related to bioweapon creation. Spencer's motive for doing such a thing in the first place could only be something that'd make being redemptive impossible since such a motive would not be in a man capable of feeling guilty or remorseful. But I digress.
3/5, maybe 3.5 out of 5.
I preferred it to 8, and found the zombies more engaging to fight with than the fodder we encountered in both its predecessors. It was more scary than 8, and that first section in the clinic was probably scarier than the Baker Mansion as a whole IMO.
The story was mostly just to introduce "The Connections," who are maybe the rival company that was mentioned a few times in the OG games, and in 7 and 8 I think.
Leon's infection felt like a contrivance to connect him more closely to Grace's plot and only affects gameplay with some purple screen effects in the last hour or so. It also introduces more questions about the fate of other Raccoon City survivors (are Jill and Claire infected too? If Sherry was infected than Claire must be too? We'll probably never know) I suspect Grace's happy ending is a sign we'll never see her again.
The also game canonises Leon A being the first route in the RE2 remake (Leon met Marvin) + Kendo survived racoon city (only 1 skeleton).
So yeah, not a bad game. The bar is very low in 2026 though.