REsults
Image: Nintendo Life

Updated with the Switch 2 versions of RE7, 8, and 9. Enjoy!

The Resident Evil series has evolved so much over the years that even hardened fans find it hard to pin down a favourite. With three full trilogies, each with a distinct flavour, which brand of Biohazard are we talking? Do you prefer old-school tank controls and fixed camera angles, or are your tastes more action-oriented? First-person or over-the-shoulder? Originals or REmakes?

Whichever you prefer, the addictive mixture of cinematic terror and B-movie shlock and gore runs through them all. But which Resident Evil is the best? Below you'll find every Resident Evil game on Nintendo platforms, ranked.

Nearly all of the mainline entries have made it to a Nintendo console at one time or another, and even the recent remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 are available on Switch in Cloud Version form (fingers crossed 2, 3, and 4 all get native Switch 2 ports, though).

So, turn the lights off, turn the sound up, and perhaps fix yourself a sandwich as we uncover the best Resident Evil game ever on Nintendo systems, including mainline and spin-off entries. REad on...

20. Resident Evil 3 - Cloud Version (Switch eShop)

Resident Evil 3 is a solid remake that aptly pays homage to the original RE3 by failing to live up to its immediate predecessor. While the core gameplay remains strong, with engaging gun controls and a new dodge mechanic that very much feels at home, Raccoon City itself feels disappointingly constrained and its star performer, the Nemesis, has been relegated to scripted sequences.

The cloud-related hiccups we encountered here serve as a reminder that the technology is far from perfect, but even if it were, Resident Evil 3 is far from essential. We'd recommend it for the most passionate fans of Capcom’s survival horror franchise after another quick fix; everyone else should start with — and probably stick with — RE2.

19. Resident Evil 2 - Cloud Version (Switch eShop)

Resident Evil 2 is an absolutely essential experience for fans of survival horror. Fans waited years for a remake of RE 2, and the wait was well and truly worth it.

The gameplay in Claire and Leon's jaunt through Raccoon City is very much a mix of RE4’s over-the-shoulder action with the more 'classic' survival horror mechanics seen in the original trilogy and reintroduced in RE7 and 8. Ammo in this remake is consistently scarce, though the game throws you a bone by allowing you to use daggers to stave off the occasional zombie attack. Classic key items from the original game, such as station keys, cranks, and medallions, all make an appearance here.

We’re not yet at the point where we can confidently recommend purchasing a Cloud Version of the game if you’ve got access to another platform (and as the old-school gamers we are, we may never reach that point), but given that we encountered next to no streaming-related hitches during our time with it, this was a more-than-acceptable way to play in our experience.

18. Resident Evil Gaiden (GBC)

Resident Evil Gaiden was an attempt to scale down the survival horror to Nintendo's diminutive handheld and took the franchise on an ocean voyage well before Resident Evil Revelations.

Obviously, preserving the gameplay of the original on such modest hardware would have been a huge challenge, although that didn't stop Capcom announcing a Game Boy Color port (check out The Cutting Room Floor for a look at that prototype). That straight port eventually got cancelled and replaced with this, a top-down game which abstracts the zombie combat with first-person elements involving a sliding bar half-inched from any number of Golf games.

Featuring returning characters Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton, the amusingly-acronymed REG is a decent stab at bringing the series' trademark tension to a portable, but after the pre-rendered beauty of the main games, its low-fi take diminishes the effect somewhat. With all the mainline games getting remakes, we'd like to see Capcom take another swing at this in a modern context. Everyone loves a bit of Barry.

17. Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D (3DS)

A portable spin-off of the surprisingly fun separate Mercenaries Mode which debuted in RE4, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D expanded the roster of playable characters and bulked out the score-chasing shooter into a full-priced standalone co-op game.

Whether there was truly enough content to warrant the asking price was another question, and Capcom might have done better by making this a cheaper, download-only title (or even a DLC tie-in with Revelations).

However, the game was surprisingly addictive, and having something this good-looking on 3DS was a novelty.

16. Resident Evil 6 (Switch eShop)

Considered by many to be the point where the mainline series stepped too far away from its survival horror origins, Resident Evil 6's four campaign threads weave together the stories of Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, Chris Redfield, and Jake Muller.

Variable quality between the four player characters' scenarios didn't help, and the game arguably suffered from overdoing the RE4 template after every other third-person shooter had already picked its corpse clean.

RE6 has its defenders — and there's certainly plenty of it to reappraise — but this is generally considered to be the mainline series' weakest point.

15. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii)

A pleasant serving of light-gun shooting action with a big old side dish of reheated stories and narrative gap-fill, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles mixes retelling various events from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica with new scenarios set several years after.

For a Wii title, it's got some fine visuals and there's plenty of meat for fans to chew on with series favourites Leon S. Kennedy (the 'S' stands for 'Sensational hair') and Claire Redfield.

14. Resident Evil 5 (Switch eShop)

Although it can be a drag if you're playing on your own, thanks to some ropey partner AI, we recall enjoying our co-op playthough of Resident Evil 5 immensely back in the day, and it holds up fairly well on Switch, too.

Having a pal along for the ride neuters the survival horror somewhat, but also sidesteps the alternative horror of a bumbling, incompetent CPU partner.

RE5 turns the action up to 11 and, while it's inevitably not as fresh as its trailblazing predecessor, it's still a blast. Just remember to enlist an actual human to lock and load alongside you.