I haven't got a clue where one Resident Evil ends and another begins. I know characters appear in multiple titles, under various guises, and so I assume at least some games follow on from an earlier one, but I don't know the series' timeline and how everything fits together.
Perhaps the release of Resident Evil Zero will make things easier for me. Taking place a day before the events of Resident Evil, we'll get to see something significant happen, I suppose. I don't really know. Is this even an essential game for the story or just a little sidenote for the fans?
Whatever it is, you know the drill:
Fun Times
While I've got the HD Remaster on the PlayStation 3, I'm emulating the GameCube original to see where RE0 began. It, unfortunately, starts with a text dump and a voice-over, but after that, we're straight into a CG cutscene on board a train chugging through Racoon Forest.
A shadowy figure overlooks the traumatic events the passengers of this train have been subjected to. Slimy bugs of an unknown origin have eaten their way through the windows, and into the flesh of their victims. It doesn't look like there are any survivors. It looks like you wouldn't even want to survive something like that...
A couple of hours later, members of STARS have crash-landed their helicopter in the forest, but soon find evidence of a former marine having escaped custody and gone on the run. They split up and start searching, where our character, Rebecca, spots something worth investigating.
Thus begins RE0, and it looks really rather good indeed. This train carriage is splattered in details. Details and blood.
Frustrations
To find that out, I had to remember how to walk. This is Resident Evil, you walk like a tank. Recognising that, I chose a direction to explore and went snooping.
This is Resident Evil, and that means all of the doors are loading doors, floating in the void, slowly sliding open to increase the tension. What could be behind door number one?
This is Resident Evil, so there are going to be zombies behind the door. How do you get rid of zombies? You press the right shoulder button to raise your weapon, then aim it up or down with the left stick, such that you are now pointing towards their feet or the ceiling, and then you press the A button, one and a time, slowly emptying your ammunition into the guts of the recently deceased.
And then you get eaten.
If you've played any Resident Evil game, you know how RE0 plays - but that's not the whole story. Not this time around.
Further Fun Times
Once again, the backgrounds are pre-rendered, and character models are running around an invisible stage on top of them. Back in the day, that allowed the PlayStation to actually run a good looking game. In 2002, the GameCube was capable of displaying even better background images, and on top of that, detailed character models that respond to lighting changes. They also go out of focus slightly the further away from the camera they get - an effect that ironically places the models into the environments they're floating on top of.
It's a system that still leads to characters running in place against invisible walls, especially if you're not used to tank controls, but one that allows RE0 and the GameCube to graphically impress against the big boys, the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
For all it's good looks, though, RE0 is still a Resident Evil title, with its limited inventory space, saving at typewriters, and having everything that looks useful be locked or otherwise out of use. But there is a twist on the mechanics in the form of multiple characters.
As well as finding a bunch of zombies, Rebecca has found Billy, the escaped convict. Or more accurately, he has found her and has the upper hand in their introduction to each other. It's not the friendliest of encounters, but they depart without killing each other, leaving us on a train with zombies and a man who has killed at least 23 people for reasons unknown.
Great?
After roaming the train for a little while longer, we find ourselves in quite the predicament and end up being saved by Billy. Knowing that survival is more important than the law right about now, the two form a partnership, temporary though it may be, and we are introduced to the big change to the Resident Evil formula: Character Switching.
In previous titles, you could play the entire game as one character, then switch over to another to play through it again, with a few differences, obviously. This time around, RE0 allows you to play as both characters there and then, switching between them whenever you want, sharing items to maximise your inventory space, and using their strengths and abilities to your advantage.
You can set how they react to danger, and can leave someone in a particular place to go off and do something else on your own, though they'll moan on the radio if they get into trouble and require assistance.
What you'll probably be doing more of is having them tag along with you, where they'll follow you through Hell, and if you want to experience Hell yourself, try controlling each character at the same time yourself.
If controlling one character like a tank isn't challenging enough, now you can control two! Thankfully, moving your ally is mostly optional, or very situational, like moving them into place for a puzzle, for example. Until then, let's explore this train.
After crisscrossing this train a few times, finding one key to open a door, leading to another key to open another door, I fuse some wires together and watch Billy get thrown back through a hole in the roof into a locked room.
Apparently, a knife isn't a sharp enough object to poke through a keyhole, and Billy, built like he is, isn't strong enough to bust through the door, locked or not. That means we'll have to navigate as Rebecca alone for the time being.
Further Frustrations
Despite seeing some small, sharp, pokey-looking kitchen tools that might have done the trick, I need to run around the train looking for a locked door, leading to a switch to drop a ladder, leading to an upper floor bar of some sort.
While it looks phenomenal, it is just a convoluted way to get from one end of an egg covered corridor to another. Apparently, there's no way in the world we could have gotten past some eggs filling up a hall to just about knee height...
Anyway, we pick up the pokiest looking object in view, and that triggers our next problem.
Where did this giant scorpion come from? Was he riding on the roof of the train this whole time? Why is it a giant scorpion and not some otherworldly horror that we've never seen before, something to really get us scared?
I don't have time to answer those questions as I'm thrown across the floor. There was a shotgun back here... might be time to see how well that works...
Doesn't appear to be doing a lot. After running out of shells and switching back to the pistol, I've fired so much lead into this thing that I have to wonder where I'm going wrong. This thing just doesn't want to drop. It's too big to go around, and I'm running out of ammo and getting slapped rather hard by these claws.
I aim down and shoot it in the face, and it dies. Huh. Well, let's free Billy from his locked room.
If characters aren't next to each other, you'll have to leave items on the floor for them to pick up at a later point. That's not an option here, though, but we happen to be locked in a room with a dumb waiter that both Billy and Rebecca can use from their respective locations. Putting in the pokey thing and sending it up, Billy is soon able to poke his way out of the frying pan...
... and into the fire. Haha.
Final Word
I met up with Rebecca once more but got lost on where to go next. Like usual, I hit the Internet for clues after saving and quitting the game, where I learn I was mere inches away from where I needed to be - before I ran the entire length of the train looking for other options.
That tends to be my experience with Resident Evil in a nutshell: not knowing where to go, even if levels are arranged with only one way through. The backgrounds are so detailed at this point in time that interactable objects don't stick out like sore thumbs anymore (unless they're items you can pick up and use, of course).
What amazed me this time around was how far I'd got. I was playing on easy, but Resident Evil Zero is supposed to be harder than the rest of the series. Billy can take twice as many hits as Rebecca, and Rebecca only takes a few before walking around in agony. Maybe it was the linearity of the train that helped. Or was it my ally shooting zombies over my shoulder?
Perhaps I stuck with it for so long because it looked so good. Backtracking wasn't fun, especially when lost, but at least the environments I was running through again and again looked great, and in some places, amazing. The unexpected blurring as you move out of the depth of field of the baked-in camera, the character models diving into darkness when you enter the shadows... it was a top-notch presentation.
And then it got an HD Remaster. How incredible would that look? Would it be better or worse? Will I bother to find out?
Well, yeah, that's the question. I'm really not fussed about the story. Zombies have never done anything for me, and that makes any and all Resident Evil games a tough sell. They may be technically competent and solid gaming experiences, but juggling inventory amongst different characters, solving puzzles designed for two people just because it's different from solving puzzles as a single protagonist, and the insistence on still using tank controls... it all feels like RE0 is just more of the same. Much, much better looking, yes, but what's radically different?
I might try the HD Remaster at some point, but I'm not in a rush to. I've got a state saved, and I know where to continue in the GameCube original, but again, I'm not in a hurry to see more. I liked what I saw, bar the scorpion maybe, and it didn't feel terrible to play, tank controls and REisms aside... yeah. I guess I'm in the middle of the road on this one.
If you like Resident Evil games, of course you're going to want to play this one. If you're new to the series, this might be a looker, but if the increased difficulty is real, and if the two characters at once gimmick isn't used elsewhere in the series, then maybe this isn't the greatest of jumping on points.
If you're just curious, though, go for it. I spent a lot longer playing it than I thought I would, and it's already done enough for me to remember its existence going forward. That's gotta count for something.
Fun Facts
For further proof that sound designers know about the world around us more than the rest of us, the sound effects for the leeches came from cooking hamburgers. Lovely.
Resident Evil Zero, developed by Capcom, first released in 2002.
Version played: GameCube, 2002, via emulation.