Resident Evil Zero (2002)

After being freed for two whole games (Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes), I honestly thought I could simply go back, you know. Just... boot up this game and play it the same way I did with RE HD. Ah, the foolishness...

Because after experiencing the very definition of peak gameplay, only to be dragged back into the old, pre-RE4 gameplay style, is just... godawful. Plain horrible. I hate everything about it now: the infuriating inventory, the annoyingly slow text display, the inability to walk and aim, and - saving the absolute worst for last - those obnoxious door animations and how EVERY. SINGLE. ACTION. requires some form of loading.

When I played RE HD, I honestly thought those quirks had charm. Heck, I’d even dare say they added to the game. But now I know RE HD was only tolerable - if not good - purely because I hadn’t played any of the remakes yet. Truly, ignorance is bliss.

Now all I know is that RE 0 is all the way at the bottom of my backlog and have no idea when I’ll come back to it.

...Maybe I could buy more games because 89 backlogged games suddenly doesn't feel like its that high...

The story in this is certainly not on the same level as the other games from its time, but it's really nice to play a Resident Evil game with multiple characters where I'm not expected to play the game 2~4 times to see the whole story. I much prefer this system of two characters cooperating and being able to split up.

Also, Rebecca has weird eyes. They're somehow less creepy in Wesker mode.

I thought this game couldn’t be as annoying as people say, since I have enjoyed even the most controversial RE titles, but after the first couple bosses I’m feeling that it’s very frustrating to play in many ways. Item management is an absolute nightmare and is taking a borderline unacceptable amount of my playtime, especially after dying and having to deal with items again. At some point the game actually deleted a stack of ink ribbons from existence—really, of all items? The AI partner is a good idea but in practice already annoying and not adding much postive in exchange for more inventory management and possibilities for bad things to happen.

It’s a shame because I don’t mind the characters and visually it looks kind of amazing in the HD version, all things considered. Hopefully I can get over the frustration and just enjoy the good parts.

Beat on Normal during free trial of xbox gamepass immediately after finishing RE1. I used largely the same strategy of shooting most enemies, and knifing downed zombies whenever possible. I preferred to control Billy because of his higher health and better combat ability, and had Rebecca tag along doing nothing but holding supplies. I never got the hang of controlling both characters at the same time. I did get in trouble a few times by not properly distributing equipment; Billy mostly had weapons while Rebecca mostly had healing and ammo; not good when they had to split up. This was my biggest problem with the final boss, which I just barely managed to beat on my first try because AI controlled Rebecca was near death in "danger" with the boss after her. I was lucky to win just in time, especially given that she had ammo that I wanted to use on the boss.

I enjoyed this game just about as much as RE1 and 2. The 2 character aspect was very interesting and I liked how it was used to solve puzzles. The game has pretty much the same flaws as those games as well though the part that I disliked the most were some of the bosses. Not really because of the mechanics but because of how absurd they were; I did not like the entire concept of the leeches and the silly variety of one off giant animal bosses. RE1 had that a little bit with the snake and shark, but this game goes a little overboard with it.