The North American version of Resident Evil was released 25 years ago- March 30th, 1996. March 22nd in Japan. This to me is easily the most profoundly impactful video game ever released. It wasn't the first survival horror game and it wasn't the first game that played like an interactive Hollywood film but it was the first that did both and the first that did it really well; this was a game that scared the hell out of me as a kid (6 years old at the time.) The zombies weren't even the scariest part of the game. Really for me it was just the dread of not knowing what was around the next corner. The finite amount of ammo and herbs that was scattered about the mansion. The background music really did it for me. Unforgiving difficulty in the way of limited saves by way of ink ribbons, monsters that were faster and stronger than you, could take more hits than you. and not only are you dealing with hideous creatures that can easily overpower you, but you are faced with numerous puzzles throughout the game.

There's not much else I can say about this game that hasn't been said already but I will just say that this game was scarier than any horror movie I had seen and it's hard to imagine a world of video games where the Resident Evil franchise never existed.