TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
Spoilers ahead.
So, for the past few months, I've been playing through all of the canon Resident Evil titles in chronological storyline order, that is, starting with RE0, and finishing with RE8. I'm currently a ways into Village, so I figured I'd start compiling my thoughts on each entry as I have motivation and time. This will probably become a little long in the tooth, but for anyone who's curious about my thoughts, wants to chime in, reminisce, have some nostalgia driven discussions, or is into reading, this is for you. This isn't intended for the tl;dr crowd, this is your warning that this will include several walls of text, and probably have no images attached, because I'm on mobile and too much of a boomer to figure out this darn technology. But with that out of the way, some background:
Before I began this undertaking, the only titles I hadn't played in the direct canon were the remakes of 2 and 3, and 7 and 8. Going through chronologically, this was neat, because it gave me two new experiences relatively close to the beginning, and two more at the end.
My time with Resident Evil began during the GCN era, where 4 was my first title. I proceeded to then play 0 and REmake, along with the ports of RE2-CVX on the GameCube. From there, I've pretty consistently kept up as they've released. Which brings us nicely to this current marathon:
---Resident Evil 0---
Some mood music first.
This is, and has always been an odd game. It's hated or just generally disliked by a fair number of people narratively, and for gameplay mechanics. If it isn't broke, why fix it? mentality. I've always appreciated this title, though.
This is the prequel to the entire franchise. The beginning of the beginning, if you will. In 1998, STARS Bravo Team is sent to investigate a string of cannibalistic murders occurring in their jurisdiction of Raccoon City, apparently originating in the forests covering the nearby Arklay Mountain range. Unexpected (but quite plot convenient) engine failure in their survey helicopter causes an impromptu "landing," in the woods, and from there, the team splits up.
Rookie medic officer Rebecca Chambers happens upon a derelict train, the Ecliptic Express, and meets up with Billy Coen, a supposed escaped war criminal whose chance at freedom comes at the expense of all life in Raccoon City. The two team up, and come to face Doctor James Marcus, one of the masterminds behind the discovery and development of the Progenitor Virus, and become entangled in his personal vendetta of revenge against his former place of employment, the pharmaceutical giant, Umbrella, Inc.
The game progresses through a linear, but action packed train, a slower more methodical training facility (channeling the old mansion vibes of it's sequel and counterpart) into a water treatment facility at it's climax. The train remains one of the tightest intros in a RE title I can remember. It establishes the core gameplay mechanics, functions as a small sampling of the type of problem solving the game will expect you to do in an expanded way later on, gives you a boss encounter, and has a tense escape sequence, all in the first hour or two of gameplay.
The big complaints I see gameplay wise are the lack of item boxes and the boss fights. I feel the item box issue is exaggerated, as most people will just pick a large hub (like the conference room or main hall of the Training Facility) and dump items there. The biggest detriment I can think of here is it's essentially a pointless mechanics, because your save rooms in essence just BECOME your item boxes, instead of containing them.
As for the bosses, the Giant Bat is Hell on higher difficulties, but design wise, more bosses in the franchise's history have been giant -whatevers- than people acknowledge, to the false detriment of RE0.
The partner zapping mechanic, meanwhile, remains one of my favorite parts of the game. If you pick the wrong character or items to take during a split, you're likely to experience tension and fear, even late into the campaign. These are usually feelings that subside early on in more single character oriented RE games because the balance of power shifts in your direction quite linearly. With twice the characters and item management, every action essentially becomes a puzzle in and of itself.
Storyline is...I mean. It's there. I like the Progenitor Virus lore and the usage of Leeches to refine and perfect the T Virus. It has certain (likely intentional) echoes to the T Veronica Virus taking cues from ants, and it's a neat little parallel. I like Marcus when he's doing sensible, believable things. The whole opera singing, bishonen robe wearing, barefoot clone made of leeches may have been Capcom overplaying their hand too much for a prequel, especially when the following two or three games at least PRETEND they're grounded in realism. The characters deadpan reactions to essentially being in an anime plot also add to the uncanny qualities and not necessarily in the best way.
Overall though, I think 0 is a flawed, but fun experience, and as the last mainline game to be released using the fixed camera angles and tank controls, I cut it some slack. I'll update with my thoughts on the REmake (I skipped the original Resident Evil this time) in a later post. If you're still here, thanks for reading.
So, for the past few months, I've been playing through all of the canon Resident Evil titles in chronological storyline order, that is, starting with RE0, and finishing with RE8. I'm currently a ways into Village, so I figured I'd start compiling my thoughts on each entry as I have motivation and time. This will probably become a little long in the tooth, but for anyone who's curious about my thoughts, wants to chime in, reminisce, have some nostalgia driven discussions, or is into reading, this is for you. This isn't intended for the tl;dr crowd, this is your warning that this will include several walls of text, and probably have no images attached, because I'm on mobile and too much of a boomer to figure out this darn technology. But with that out of the way, some background:
Before I began this undertaking, the only titles I hadn't played in the direct canon were the remakes of 2 and 3, and 7 and 8. Going through chronologically, this was neat, because it gave me two new experiences relatively close to the beginning, and two more at the end.
My time with Resident Evil began during the GCN era, where 4 was my first title. I proceeded to then play 0 and REmake, along with the ports of RE2-CVX on the GameCube. From there, I've pretty consistently kept up as they've released. Which brings us nicely to this current marathon:
---Resident Evil 0---
Some mood music first.
This is, and has always been an odd game. It's hated or just generally disliked by a fair number of people narratively, and for gameplay mechanics. If it isn't broke, why fix it? mentality. I've always appreciated this title, though.
This is the prequel to the entire franchise. The beginning of the beginning, if you will. In 1998, STARS Bravo Team is sent to investigate a string of cannibalistic murders occurring in their jurisdiction of Raccoon City, apparently originating in the forests covering the nearby Arklay Mountain range. Unexpected (but quite plot convenient) engine failure in their survey helicopter causes an impromptu "landing," in the woods, and from there, the team splits up.
Rookie medic officer Rebecca Chambers happens upon a derelict train, the Ecliptic Express, and meets up with Billy Coen, a supposed escaped war criminal whose chance at freedom comes at the expense of all life in Raccoon City. The two team up, and come to face Doctor James Marcus, one of the masterminds behind the discovery and development of the Progenitor Virus, and become entangled in his personal vendetta of revenge against his former place of employment, the pharmaceutical giant, Umbrella, Inc.
The game progresses through a linear, but action packed train, a slower more methodical training facility (channeling the old mansion vibes of it's sequel and counterpart) into a water treatment facility at it's climax. The train remains one of the tightest intros in a RE title I can remember. It establishes the core gameplay mechanics, functions as a small sampling of the type of problem solving the game will expect you to do in an expanded way later on, gives you a boss encounter, and has a tense escape sequence, all in the first hour or two of gameplay.
The big complaints I see gameplay wise are the lack of item boxes and the boss fights. I feel the item box issue is exaggerated, as most people will just pick a large hub (like the conference room or main hall of the Training Facility) and dump items there. The biggest detriment I can think of here is it's essentially a pointless mechanics, because your save rooms in essence just BECOME your item boxes, instead of containing them.
As for the bosses, the Giant Bat is Hell on higher difficulties, but design wise, more bosses in the franchise's history have been giant -whatevers- than people acknowledge, to the false detriment of RE0.
The partner zapping mechanic, meanwhile, remains one of my favorite parts of the game. If you pick the wrong character or items to take during a split, you're likely to experience tension and fear, even late into the campaign. These are usually feelings that subside early on in more single character oriented RE games because the balance of power shifts in your direction quite linearly. With twice the characters and item management, every action essentially becomes a puzzle in and of itself.
Storyline is...I mean. It's there. I like the Progenitor Virus lore and the usage of Leeches to refine and perfect the T Virus. It has certain (likely intentional) echoes to the T Veronica Virus taking cues from ants, and it's a neat little parallel. I like Marcus when he's doing sensible, believable things. The whole opera singing, bishonen robe wearing, barefoot clone made of leeches may have been Capcom overplaying their hand too much for a prequel, especially when the following two or three games at least PRETEND they're grounded in realism. The characters deadpan reactions to essentially being in an anime plot also add to the uncanny qualities and not necessarily in the best way.
Overall though, I think 0 is a flawed, but fun experience, and as the last mainline game to be released using the fixed camera angles and tank controls, I cut it some slack. I'll update with my thoughts on the REmake (I skipped the original Resident Evil this time) in a later post. If you're still here, thanks for reading.
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