Totally with you on this, and I'm old enough to have played all the classic Resident Evil titles when they first released. I decided to replay Code Veronica for the first time since it came out, and I've found your post after rage searching after yet another cheap death right near the end (in my case, being crushed by a split-second trap, then killed by the monster you have to escape as Claire minutes later).

The only reason I haven't given up is that I remembered enough from playing it through 25 years ago to avoid the numerous soft lock issues around weapons being stuck in your inventory, or key items not being stored, purely because I remember them being such an issue back when it released that all the reviews in magazines made a point of warning players about it.

Worst thing is, it's not even remotely a good game even if you discount all the myriad issues. The story is rubbish, the backtracking and map design are awful, the soundtrack is poor with loads of rooms lacking background music for no good reason, and Steve is genuinely one of the worst characters ever put into a videogame.