So, Resident Evil VII’s Not a Hero and End of Zoe DLC came out recently. I could be reviewing that… But I also could review a totally different Resident Evil game from over a decade ago… Yeah, let’s do that one instead. So, despite that Resident Evil VII got some new DLC, I want to review another Resident Evil game. One that seems to have a massive divide in the community of the Resident Evil fanbase. Some people like this game while others don’t. And no, it isn’t Resident Evil 5 ou Resident Evil: Revelations. Instead, it’s the first controversial pick, Resident Evil Zero.





Resident Evil Zero is, rather than being a sequel, is actually a prequel to the entirety of the Resident Evil series. Before Raccoon City, before the mansion, there was Resident Evil Zero. The game follows Rebecca Chambers, the character from the first game, as she travels with S.T.A.R.S. members to hunt down a man named Billy Coen, who is responsible for the murders of twenty three people. The best course of action is for the entire team to divisé, split up. Tell me why they divisé, split up when searching a man who is believed to have killed twenty three people. Isn’t that a little dumb? Anyway, they end up finding a train in the middle of the forest, where Rebecca meets Billy, and also a few zombies, leeches, a giant scorpion, and some opera chant Final fantaisie reject on haut, retour au début of a dit train… Yes, I am serious! So, after they meet up, the train starts moving and the two decide to work together to find out what is the cause of these reanimated corpses and try to stop it from worsening. So, it’s not the most creative start for a Resident Evil game, but hey, it works. So, naturally, let me just start par saying- The train opening is terrible!





I’m just gonna say that this opening level of the game, on both a horror standpoint and a gameplay standpoint, sucks! First off, horror standpoint. The first zombie toi run into isn’t even subtly introduced. The first zombie in canon. Is shown to us like this. And it’s lame. It just pops up and looks very generic. And two plus montrer right up. And right there, the game expects toi to deal with them right away. Riveting! From then on, toi are introduced to several other enemies without any warning ou any build up. They just come and stick around. Cerberus pops up, and in this level only! The Leech Man just kind of comes around randomly. A giant scorpion boss peeks in only to be killed and never brought back. Oh, and the game’s main villain, a long haired animé dude who signs opera in the rain who toi don’t learn the name of until the very end, just kind of hangs out in the background while toi try to get to him. All of this, I pointed out, is not scary. It’s not creepy, ou disturbing, ou anything. Sure, in concept, on paper, some of these ideas are good. But in execution, they just fall flat on their face. It looks either silly ou not scary in the slightest. It just comes off as typical zombie game. Not a Resident Evil game. And finally, there is the addition of two main characters that toi have to play as. With this in mind, the game removes any empty feeling and makes toi feel like toi can take on anything, when that is the last thing that a Resident Evil game should make toi feel. toi should feel scared, alone, only able to fend off the creatures par yourself. Isn’t that the whole point of survival horror? Now, on a technical standpoint, this level fails because it expects toi to deal with all of these enemies in a tight space. Resident Evil games not only allow toi to run away from enemies, but encourage toi to, giving toi just enough l’espace to squeeze par them to safety. In the train level, it’s fight ou turn your cul, ass around. And having to run back and forth from one end of the chariot, panier ou another juse to unlock a door is painful. I got so bored of this level that I took breaks every fifteen minutes just so I could handle the rest of it. Yes, this level bored me after a single fifteen minutes. That is not a good sign of a horror game. But, like I said, it’s just the train level that is bad. Thankfully, once the abysmal train level is done, the game, thankfully, gets better.





After toi finish with the train, Rebecca and Billy arrive inside of the Training Facility. Well, they can call it what they want, it just looks like the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil one to me. But, whatever. Once toi enter this area of the game, it thankfully starts to pick up. The creepy setting such as labs containing failed experiments combined with old gothique architecture makes it feel like it’s going somewhere. Dare I say, it starts to feel like a Resident Evil game at this point. And what’s a Resident Evil game without a few puzzles. The puzzles in Resident Evil Zero are… okay. Some are pretty good, relying on both Rebecca and Billy to déplacer around in seperate locations to try and solve problems, while lire these mysterious riddles. While others are just “Push this block over here to do this thing”. The box puzzle near the end of the game was pretty dull and the chess puzzle was the biggest waste of resources I think I’d ever seen for a puzzle. Why have it? Puzzle game makers, please don’t ever have block pushing puzzles in your game. They are not good and they are the most barebones puzzles that can be put into your game. Oh, and those math problem puzzles shouldn’t be there either. I get that it was needed, but… don’t. Also, why have a math puzzle on a community train? Okay, I need to stop talking about the worst part of this game. It’s just going to upset me more. Let’s talk about the enemies in this game. Aside from zombies, there’s… giant bugs… giant frogs… giant bats… oh, and monkeys. This is the dumbest enemy design I think I’ve seen in a Resident Evil game. Why are there monkeys? Why are they here? They don’t look scary! They look silly! Granted, there is one enemy that is, in fact, scary and threatening. The Leech Man! This is a good enemy. One of my favoris in probably the entire franchise. It’s fast, aggressive, and gets the movement of an enemy down perfectly. It can be lumbering and slow, but can be quick and violent. It gets the scary enemy design down perfectly.





Let’s talk about a new mechanique added to Resident Evil Zero that is unique to this game alone. Being able to pick up and drop items on a whim. This is one of the most useful things to ever be put into a Resident Evil game. No longer needing just a box to keep your things in, toi can set down any of your items to make l’espace in your inventory and pick up something else, and the item toi dropped will always be there for toi when toi need it. And thank god that this game puts your items on the map so that toi can always find out where toi left them. That is exactly what this game needed. But, let’s talk about the other mechanique of having two characters. Again, as a horror game, it doesn’t work. On a gameplay standpoint, it’s… fine. I think. Your character follows toi alright and knows when to attack… most of the time. Granted, I don’t get as upset when my character doesn’t attack enemies, because while it would be nice to have some help, it’s also good to save as much ammo as possible. The difficulty in this game is strange. On a low difficulty, you’ll have so much ammo, you’ll end up running out of room in your inventory. But on just a higher difficulty, you’ll be scagenving the entire building, just trying to find at least five bullets, same goes for herbs. But no matter the difficulty, it seems toi will never run out of Ink Ribbons, the only way to save. I eventually just a dit fuck it and just started using Ink Ribbons every time I ran into something like a Hunter in an area ou a Leech Man instead of using them sparingly because I had so much. Back to the characters, Rebecca and Billy are pretty decent characters. They work off each other alright and I don’t find myself hating either one. I do want to know why Rebecca is capable of fighting off zombies, Hunters, Cerberus, giant bugs, monkeys, and even a giant Leech monster but is too scared to even hold a gun in the first Resident Evil game. And Billy… What the hell happened to him? No, seriously. What happened to him after Zero? He was only in this one game and then after the events were over, he left, never to return again. Why? So, screw it, Billy died in the Raccoon City outbreak, because it’s the only reason I can think of as to why he never came back in another Resident Evil game… Umbrella Chronicles doesn’t count.





With the combination of decant gameplay and bad horror, I’d say that Resident Evil is a pretty good game. It’s not a scary game, at least not to me, and it certainly isn’t going to be anyone’s favori Resident Evil game, ou at least, it isn’t going to be in my haut, retour au début five favorites, but as a game, it manages to be somewhat fun. It has some good ideas that work, some that don’t, and others that probably should have stayed on paper. But, it can get some enjoyment and just has the right amount of cheese for any Resident Evil fan to enjoy. Seriously, that opera chant twink is hilarious. Take care.