Wow. Even after 18 years and multiple play-throughs, I still can’t decide if I like Resident Evil 0. That’s not an easy thing to admit. I absolutely love the Resident Evil franchise, despite its many faults, and while RE0 isn’t terrible, holy shit are there some issues with this game.
For starters, what the hell is up with this story? I’ve played through the game a few times over the years, but there were so many details I had forgotten about, and the game just had me scratching my head. For this to be a prequel, there are so fucking many loose ends and leaps in logic. Here are a few examples of weird jumps in logic or things that just don’t make any sense.
How is the train going so fast for so long, yet crashes like, a mile away from where you start? The train starts up while Rebecca and Billy are on it, and after a few minutes, they crawl up on top of the train, where you can see it’s hauling absolute ass. It takes about an hour to run back and forth across the train repeatedly before the player gets it to stop, or crash rather, at the training facility. At this point, the player doesn’t really know where they are, in relation to where they started, but by the end of the game, Rebecca and Billy escape the facility and end up on a cliff over-looking the Spencer Mansion. This is where the game ties in to Resident Evil, and Rebecca continues onward with the intention of meeting up with the others.
BUT wait, hold on a second. Bravo Team’s chopper crashes, and Rebecca makes her way to the train. So presumably, the train is only maybe a hundred yards or so from their chopper. At the beginning of Resident Evil, Alpha team (Chris and Jill) searches for them, finds the downed chopper, and lands to investigate. This is when they are attacked by zombie dogs and escape into the Spencer Mansion. So, the mansion and the train are both only one or two hundred yards from each other, well within running distance.
So where in the blue hell is this train going? Is it running around in circles? Even if it was only going 20 miles an hour (which it obviously isn’t), even if it only took them a half an hour to stop the train, it still puts them a good 10 miles away.
While we’re on the subject of travel speed, how is the bad guy, Marcus, standing on a hill nearby calling his mutant leeches to attack. They have enough time to look out the window and be like “Who’s that guy?” Seriously, Billy literally says, “Who’s that guy?”
If that train was going as fast as it appeared, Marcus would’ve flown past their window so damn quick they wouldn’t have even known he was there, much less stare at him long enough to wonder who he is.
How the hell did Enrico get into the laboratory? Let’s face it, as far as leadership goes, Enrico’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Aside from allowing his highly-trained team to scatter like cockroaches the second the shit hit the fan, once he finds them, he lets them wander off on their own. It’s no wonder he’s on the B-team. Enrico is about as dependable as a wet cap gun. So imagine my surprise, when I spent the better part of six hours traipsing around a training facility, factory, and more, solving ridiculous puzzles and hording all sorts of random objects, only to finally get the lift to lower all the way down to the laboratory and meet…. fuckin’ Enrico. He comes walking out and Rebecca’s like “You’re alive.” And Enrico’s like “Are you ok?”
And I’m like
Then Enrico tells her to come with him, that they need to get to the Mansion, and Rebecca tells him she needs to find Billy.
Let’s see… as far as Enrico knows:
1. Billy is a convicted murderer responsible for the deaths of 23 people
2. There are freaky ass deadly monsters everywhere
3. He admittedly has no fucking idea where the rest of his team is.
So of course his response is
Then he leaves. He fucking leaves. Rebecca is A ROOKIE, and he turns around and walks off, leaving her alone during a zombie outbreak. Congratulations, Enrico, you’re an asshole.
How was Wesker at the training facility AND on Bravo team’s helicopter? Wesker has always been the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings of all the events pre- and post-Raccoon City, and he’s definitely a man of many talents. One of his greatest magic tricks seems to be just how he happens to get around everywhere and lead his double life without anyone knowing, like, anything. Granted, there’s no real timeline established between the time he and William Birkin are poking around and when Rebecca and Billy get there, but all evidence suggests that it was very recent. Even some computers and objects are described as “used recently.” It doesn’t say how recently. A few hours? A day? In any case, Birkin states he’s going to destroy the facility, which is who we assume launches the countdown timer at the end of the game. If that’s the case, then it’s possible that he and Wesker are still at the facility while Rebecca and Billy are fighting the Queen Leech Thing.
Now, it’s daytime during the final boss battle (you harm the queen by opening the hatch and exposing it to sunlight). But when Rebecca and Billy look out over the mansion at the end, it’s hard to tell if it’s supposed to be morning or evening. If it’s morning, it would have given Wesker the better part of a day to get back to Raccoon City and then accompany Bravo team on a rescue (it’s night when Bravo team finds Alpha’s helicopter). But if it was evening, he would’ve literally had to be in two places at once. Wesker’s good, but he’s not that good.
Resident Evil 0’s monsters were way too ridiculous. I know, I know, RE has always had stupid ridiculous monsters. But in the timeline of the game, it made sense. As the virus would mutate and infect more and more organisms, of course in time we would see more wacky combinations. But Resident Evil, being the first, was relatively conservative. You had the zombies, the dogs, the birds, the giant snake, and it was all within the realm of believability. Even when the Remake decided to jump the zombie shark, it still had some grounding in the RE universe.
The shape-shifting magic leeches in RE0 were the result of the prototype Progenitor Virus, and with Leech-Marcus admitting to releasing the T-virus in both the training facility and RE’s mansion, wouldn’t they both be the same virus? Since the leeches were apparently a hive-mind, I suppose it could be argued that all the other leeches died with the queen leech, and that’s why we haven’t seen them since.
Why does the training facility look like it hasn’t been used in decades? At the time of Resident Evil 0’s outbreak, Umbrella was still a thriving corporation, so it’s assumed the Training Facility was still in use, hence all the zombies. So why does it look like something off an Urban Decay website? Walls are crumbling, paint is peeling, bridges are collapsed, hallways are caved in. Just what exactly happened in this place? Did Umbrella abandon the training facility when they killed off Marcus? If so, why all the zombies? Were they squatters? Did nobody think that maybe maintenance was important? I’m just saying Rebecca would’ve had a much easier time getting around if Umbrella took care of their shit and didn’t throw all of their important items out window. Who was the guy that set an important computer item on top of a ten-foot tall pillar, is what I want to know.
When it all boils down, RE0 is a game that is better than the sum of all its parts. Combat sucks, as it always did in the classic RE’s. The controls can be tweaked to use analog controls for running and you are no longer restricted to old-school tank controls, but they’re still pretty shitty. The constantly changing camera angles were are least tolerable with the classic setup, when pushing UP on the controller always ran your character forward. But with the new analog option, UP to run away from the camera, left is left, right is right, etc. So when the camera angle changes, so do your directions. This was especially aggravating when a ladder or object just happened to be at the intersection of several “camera shots,” which resulted in the game switching back and forth between multiple angles if your character so much as nudged in one direction or another.
The graphics still hold up pretty well, and the unique method of using full motion video backgrounds were novel back the early 2000’s, and luckily Capcom still had the assets to be able to re-render them at higher resolutions. They’re not tack-sharp, but they’re lightyears better than, say, looking at the original Final Fantasy VII on an HD display.
The story is bat-shittier than ever, and it’s probably one of the dumbest ones in the series, out-done only by RE6’s awful mish-mash of cross-over storylines, none of which make a lick of sense in their own right. Code Veronica comes in a close third, but I tend to give that one a pass since it was definitely a product of late 90’s pop culture (John Woo, anyone?) If Capcom ever decides to give CV the remake treatment, it could very well be one of the best in the series.
The item management and hot-swapping between characters grinds any kind of momentum this game might have to a screeching halt. There are literally points in the game where the player is forced to switch back and forth between the characters, run down a hall, grab an item, run back, and put it in a dumbwaiter, and send it to the other character. That character then gets the item, goes wherever they need to go in order to use it, receive a different item, run back to the dumbwaiter, send it to the other character, where that character will then get the item, go wherever they need to go, use it to receive yet another item, go back, give it to the other character via aforementioned dumbwaiter, and so on. It’s fucking eye-bleedingly tedious. Add to it the fact that the characters can only carry six items, or less if you have a shotgun (which you will, always) and there are no item boxes. The only way to free up space is to drop something. Just drop it, right there on the floor. If you need it later, well, then you’re gonna have to run back to where you dropped it and pick it back up again. Yet more mindless backtracking, and if you’re playing it for the first time and don’t know when and where you’ll need certain items, look forward to running back and forth getting items you dropped. You will do this, a lot. It’s mind-numbing and I don’t understand how it ever made it into the game.
I understand that this may sound like I hate this game. Who knows, maybe I do. But I hate it in the same way I would hate a crazy ex-girlfriend that also happens to be hot and great in the sack. Just because I don’t like her doesn’t mean I can’t have a little bit of fun every now and again, right? Ladies, don’t hate. You have your boy-toys just the same. They probably look like Enrico.
DOES THIS GAME DESERVE A REMAKE?
Umm… no. Wait, yes. Well, shit, I don’t know. I think it would depend on the method of the remake. Do I want to run around and drop items on the ground and switch back and forth between Billy and Rebecca ad nauseum for eight to ten hours? Hell no. But I do think the story and location are worth revisiting, because holy shit there are some story elements that need fixing. I think a semi-linear, single character narrative could work, especially if streamlined. I think an episodic approach similar to Resident Evil Revelations 2 could work as well. Bite-sized chapters could re-tell the story (maybe without the stupid Megazord leech bullshit).
