Yeah, I sunk in a solid one hour for the first time playing this game, although I already had a small taste of it before sitting down to play as Jill when I gave it a go the night before with Chris on the phone and the Training mode, which is essentially an Easy mode [more ribbons, less damage, but you get no RetroAchievements for it] and played enough until I found the Storeroom with the first item box and the second typewriter of the game.
DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR-
My first instinct was, as an idiot, trying to kill the first zombie of the game with the knife without knowing how to space myself properly, getting bitten like three or four times while knowing full well that herbs and first aid sprays don't grow from the walls [I have played RE5 and RE6, which aren't in the same level of claustrophobic item management, but already clued me in to the value of healing items].
So I hit the restart button, fast forwarded through the first stuff and THEN I actually used the bullets on the zombie, although not only most zombies will appear to go down but then get up rather than being fully dead [the biggest tell, in case the music for a zombie's presence hasn't stopped yet, is the zombies not being walkable through yet], but also anther zombie will pull up after you go back to see Barry. It is a cutscene though, so Barry will flex his trusty Magnum...why did you take THREE SHOTS to kill a single zombie WITH THE MAGNUM? EH BARRY????.
But enough goofing around - once that's done and go around the hall to have Barry look somewhere else, the gloves are off. I already had an idea to where to go [the first Storeroom] due to that previous visit with Chris, but nonetheless was already on the line the moment I had to go through that tight corridor and shoot down the zombies if I didn't want to risk a very likely bite from them...although I actually first went to the one door I had interacted that required a lockpick [Barry gives you one, thankfully doesn't take up an item slot], find music notes to play the piano and find the Gold Emblem, which closes a door once you takes it. It was neat to immediately realize the purpose of the other Emblem I picked up before though, as slotting it where the Gold one was would open the door again, and THEN I went to the Storeroom to use up my first Ink Ribbon.
...Whoops. I forgot you have to pick them up off the first typewriter in the hallway. So I think I went back, took one or two bites, spent a herb to heal the bit of damage I took on the way, picked up the ink ribbons and then saved in the hall, as I already had stored a few things on the box earlier.
There's definitely more that happened on the way, as the point where I saved the game again to stop playing was after the first hour, having found the silver key in that one room [so THAT's what the bag is for...I knew checking item descriptions would be useful sooner or later] and a happy amount of herbs, taking a clip from the first door the silver key can open and then booking it back to the storeroom to store stuff and save. I often had to just run through zombies in open areas because of the low amount of bullets, while having to do a few sacrifices [either eating a bite from a zombie in a thin corridor or spending bullets to shoot it down, even when knowing that there's a chance I don't even kill it for good] and piecing together a thing I learnt from my first death when finding the lion statue [because the corridor its on is guarded by a zombie, and I stubbornly tried to run past it and taking a bite both times, the second time being fatal].
If you play with RetroAchievements and notifications on like I did, then you can also at least know when you are doing hints of progress whenever you do certain actions and a popup shows up for it, which while isn't necessarily a spoiler [unless you are looking at most of them trying to guess where to go next], it is an addition that tells you in key points when you're actually getting some steps into the game. Beyond the notifications, it doubles as a nice progress tracker with timestamps of when I do each thing until I eventually get to the end of a game, which is why I ended up choosing it over the Classic Rebirth PC port despite knowing it had door animation skips [I fast forward them in Duckstation at the time] and quick turn [which I can now see how it would be useful...but I guess I'll work around that limitation on the go].
I am not deep enough yet to have a proper veredict as I haven't got more of the story to appear yet [no Jill Sandwich yet...] nor some of the more iconic big enemies [unless you count the dogs - and yeah that actually got me off-guard as they were tactically placed in a completely unassuming, music-free corridor for extra effect] and certainly haven't run into any devilish puzzles yet [I HAVE to assume there will be at least one or two on the way], but so far it has been an engaging ride and I do like how the game has been going. Ink Ribbons to limit saving is certainly a limitation to work around strategically along with any of your other resources, plus adding to the tension of staying alive if you decide to save them once you have more time in, but at least I saved the game for the second time the very moment I found a second set of Ink Ribbons as if it were a signal that I had earned the permission to put that safety net there for when I'm ready to dive deeper.
