Can people explain why 0 got so much hate?
Oh boy, it's the "hate on RE0" time again!
The non-existent story
I know the RE stories aren't anything special, but RE0 managed to do even worse. For starters, Billy and Rebecca have nothing to do in the game beside going forward. They have no idea where they are, they have no idea where they are heading to, there's no real target in the game. They just stumble blindly around, without any plan, until they find a door outside. And the only people they interact with (beside the final confrontation with Marcus) is Kevin ("there are monsters there!" *dies*), and Enrico ("I'm heading this way to that mansion in the forest, you go find that crazy mass-murderer alone.").
Other than that, they aren't even main actors in the story. The real conflict is between Marcus and the evil duo: Wesker & Birkin (and even that isn't resolved in any way), while Beccy and Billy just walk clueless around the train, mansion, church, plant, reading a diary here and there. Notice that the final boss fight is the first time they even meet Marcus, or even realize he is around. If your protagonists have to ask a "who are you?" question when they meet the main villains 10 minutes before the game is over, you know there's something wrong there. (especially if you - the player - know everything about him, so it's not even a twist or anything).
And let's not even speak about the huge retcon that Marcus is somehow responsible for the incident in the Arkley mansion, or that
Bad, or badly design bosses
- The Scorpion - stand in one spot and shoot whenever he's near you
- The Centipede - follow the monster while it roams the room around randomly minding its own business and try to not be touched by it (seriously, you don't even have to get hit, just being touched). Oh, and if it's Rebecca who had weapons and/or healing items, you're fucked.
- The Bat - an airborne boss in a game that isn't designed at all for airborne enemies (crows alone can be pain in the ass), just great.
- The Prototyrant - first fight is OK, although Tyrant has too much i-frames; second fight, though, when you're with Billy again - pain in the ass due to the AI partner being in the way constantly.
- The Marcus fight - same as above, I could dodge the attacks as much as I could, but the partner was constantly getting hit.
Item system
Hey, let's have this innovative (for the series) item dropping system, while not designing the game around it, at all. So instead of backtracking to the nearest chest, you now have to backtrack to the random room you left the item in. And since all rooms can store a limited number of items, you can't even drop everything in the hub area.
Oh, and the joys of going back and forth moving items around whenever you changed the location (train crash site -> mansion main hall; mansion main hall -> the observatory; the observatory -> the cable car; etc.).
No stakes in the endgame
Remember when in RE1, 2, 3, CV etc. you could feel that the end of the game is near, since you learned the truth (Wesker is the traitor, you just defeated the Tyrant and someone launched the self-destruct system), or the stakes were high (Sherry needs a vaccine, Ada died, Annette was killed, the whole factory is falling apart), or the situation seemed helpless (the city is going to be nuked and the only helicopter left just flew away / was destroyed) etc.? Well, Zero has nothing like that. You find Billy, roam around, step into a random room and suddenly... "Oh, hi Marcus. Is this the time for the final fight?"
The only way I realized that there must be boss behind the last door was because I just used all my key items and this was a plant/laboratory - the final location in all RE games. Other than that, there was nothing indicating that the end is near, mainly because all the story happens without Rebecca and Billy (Birkin mentions turning on the self-destruct system an hour or so ago).
Partner switching
Too many puzzles were artificially created around the feature. Hey, you can't sweep that key under the door; no, you have to send it via the food cart (or however it's called) because of reasons.
Random musings
Hey, that hook shoot? I hope you haven't left it at the train crash :> Oh, and that the stupid item holds two slots? Oops, you never know when it comes handy again so you better keep it close.
Random characters splitting? Hope you haven't treat Rebecca as a healer and item mule and that she actually has some good weapons with her; otherwise, well, you're fucked :>
Ugly CGI cut-scenes. Seriously, some of the cut-scenes were pretty bad even when the game was released on GameCube and nowadays they are really ugly. It's really telling when the in-game Rebecca model looks better and more detailed than the Rebecca in the cut-scene where she meets Enrico for the last time (Enrico looks even worse). Overall the game has very inconsistent cut-scenes; some are pretty good (Rebecca meets the Leech monster for the first time), others are bad (the Rebecca meets Enrico). There are at least two different Rebecca models used in CGIs, or the different lighting makes her look quite different.
Overall, the game was just poorly designed and, IMHO, boring. The gameplay was the only reason that could push me forward, since the story was lackluster (IMHO even the Billy - Rebecca relationship, i.e. a convicted mass-murderer vs a rookie cop, was underutilized), and the gameplay had a lot of frustrating aspects. This is why I put CV over RE0 - that game, even though also frustrating, at least had a gripping (even if somewhat melodramatic) story that I enjoyed following.
