Resident Evil (GBC): Neither Itchy or Tasty

Since last time I used maps to show where I was going, I'll continue again here, but since the in-game ones are of poor quality, I'll instead be linking to Evil Resource's maps for the PSX game. Differences in items I'll mention.

Still on the ground floor, let's go for the "Itchy, Tasty", room located in the central hall on the west side. I'm concerned I won't be able to get anything here, but at least it isn't anything important. Just some ammo. There's no turning around in time to deal with a zombie directly behind me. 

And...uh...well, I feel like this is a damning statement even if this unfinished. The zombie's just already out? Given the way the file system works, it's not like picking it up even does anything. You've already got most of the Itchy, Tasty journal in there, along with a message from a researcher to his girlfriend Alma. Most of it, the last bit's gone. All that creepiness, gone.

One hallway south, and I enter the piano room. It's fine, I guess. The sheet music's on a shelf in the corner. Use it on the piano and the game fades in and out, revealing a passage in the wall. A quick jaunt to an itembox, then to the dining hall to pick up wooden emblem, and the freshly dropped blue jewel. Replace the golden emblem inside the room. Do the reverse in the hallway and the grandfather clock in one corner moves to reveal the Shield key. I briefly looked it up to make sure there was nothing this game was missing, but no, that was always the sequence. I expected the clock to need a specific time, but that is a common puzzle.

I continue on through to the entrance, going first through the door on the northeast side. There's a zombie inside here, easy stuff, but curiously, I didn't find any items. It's perplexing, but most of it was just ammo, which I don't really need, so small loss. Second trip through the southeast hallway gets no zombie dogs either, but judging by the weird scripting going on, I suspect this is just something the game is incapable of dealing with.

Eastern-most door leads to an outdoor herb garden, guarded by two zombies. Probably confusing this with the remake, but I could have sworn there were dogs here. Once again, only one of the herbs gives you herbs, but in this case, it gives me three red herbs? How very generous. I got so confused by this mess that I went to the way to the second house, only to find no dogs there. Well, we're not going to be meeting any until we go outside then.

The gallery puzzle proves to be annoying thanks to something I haven't really mentioned, hotspot trouble. Now, this wasn't enough of a problem in the original that I don't remember any issues off-hand, but here, it's a pretty big issue. You can only turn in about eight or so directions, and where you can pick something up and what your character looks like they can pick up are two different things.

Normally, this hasn't been much of a problem beyond the usual one this game is giving, it's very tedious. Normally. Here, this sort of has an odd effect, because you actually need to use the paintings in sequence. From the cradle to the grave goes the painting that I couldn't activate. Unfortunately, one of the paintings is situated that you can only activate in an odd way. I didn't get it right a couple of times thanks to this, but the crows aren't here, so it doesn't matter. 

I head to the set of bedrooms located above the eastern safe room. There's a zombie, more camera awkwardness, and Barry again. It's another cutscene, where Barry shows Jill the Researcher's Will, the document I mentioned last time. It's the start of the traitor plotline, where we all wonder who could possibly be the traitor. The cutscene is very strange in this version, partially because it doesn't actually show you what is being read. 

This is only the beginning of this screen's awkwardness. There's something in the coat by the door and believe me, this is a pain to get...only its an ink ribbon. Oh, I worried about that? Ha. The second is that there's a hidden item here. At first I thought this was something I needed an item for, but just flip the switch and it reveals some shells. Where it's actually supposed to be grenades. I looked up this room to find out what the note was. Guess I'm not using the Bazooka then.

The other room also has shells, in addition to a red herb and the lighter. Finally. This means I can head all the way to the end to the fireplace and get the second floor map. Since the game is only letting me look through maps I've acquired, it's nice to be reminded of where I'm going...and if you've guessed that it doesn't actually do anything, you've started to figure out that this game isn't playing nice.

I'm going to go ahead to the trickiest crest next. The one guarded by the snake. The entrance here is south on the eastern reverse C-shaped hallway. Richard's in this opening room, the usual conversation about how he found a snake demon and is badly wounded. In this case, it looks like his head has been taken off. The cutscene is weird, because there's no sound except the music, so once again the only indication there's something here is when it actually pops up. A quick jaunt to get the serum and I have the radio.

Before I reach the attic, I need to clear out the two areas before this. Even if there's no point to picking up ammo. First problem, the zombie in the area between Richard and the snake is programmed to come out of the wall. Not literally, this game just has poor design so it only looks that way. Lucky I didn't get killed. Otherwise this area goes as you expect it to. The other room with candle to reveal...shells. I go back to the west safe room, do the blue jewel in the tiger room, and load up on health items. 

I was worried about this fight for a while. The snake is a tricky enemy when you have good agility. Here I feared it might genuinely stop the game. I wouldn't be able to dodge and fight successfully. Not at all. Dude's cute as a button and doesn't even move. Is this what all boss fights are going to be like?

Right, final crest, the one with the push puzzle. The easy puzzle where you push statues over vents. It's just so simple in the original...and yet that simplicity doesn't come over here. I died for the first time, possibly ever, on this puzzle. Between the moving of these objects and how poor you can see some things, I missed one of the vents. A problem that didn't exist in the original.

The four crests are in, still no dogs, and it's time to see what's in the shed. For once, you don't need to push the stairs to get the square crank. There's also another small key. Eh, that just opens ammo caches, I don't need that! I get interrupted in my search by accidentally activating the door out.

Ah, outside. Now we'll fight some dogs. I carefully advance screen by screen only...for nothing to pop up except Brad trying to contact someone to find out what's going on the ground. There's a map of this section and if you guessed it does nothing, you'd be correct. There aren't any herbs either. You know what, I will grab that small key. There's also nothing else from here to the second house. No snakes after you use the crank, no dogs, not even any herbs. Just emptiness. Also, that crank is a pain in the butt to use. Hotspots in this game continue to be terrible.

The guardhouse starts off uncomfortably empty. There are no blue herbs here. Which I hope means there is no poison. Really hope that. In the meantime, these areas are surprisingly empty of anything unrelated to advancing the game. Sure, there are still zombies, but seemingly no wasps or anything else. The traitor plots advances as we find Barry talking to someone over the kidnapping of his family, but at this point, everything seems pointless but seeing what little remains of the game.

Downstairs is surprisingly mundane. There's just one block to push, and there are no sharks in the water. The water doesn't even really exist as a thing, just as another visual. I'm not doing the whole V-Jolt thing, so the meeting room is pointless, but oddly enough, trying to enter the room next to the control room is a problem. Moreso because keys tend to just disappear when they should be used...except here it does it and now I can't enter anywhere.

After reloading, I get the third key inside the armory and head for the third dormitory. Red book in the place where the white book was. I did not forget where that was, no siree. As you might expect, Plant 42 is disappointing. There are many disjointed angles and I'm not sure that shooting it is doing anything. Probably because if I touch it nothing happens. It's just...there. The key is in the fireplace as usual, and now it's time to find out if there are Hunters.

First though, there's a conversation with Wesker in which he deflects concerns about his disappearance and tells Jill to go to the other house. Presumably, that part didn't get put in despite the game being otherwise perfect at depicting the text of a cutscene. There's also Brad asking for a sign on the radio when I'm outside, since the radio Jill has can't send messages.

Back in the mansion, I walk through the opening hallways with tension. There will be no cutscene of course, but if something happens, something will at least appear on-screen. I make it to the room off to the side. There's the usual, magnum rounds which look suspiciously like grenade rounds, and the second doom book. I enter the room outside the save room, only to encounter nothing. There's nothing here. They only programmed in zombies.

Most of the rooms opened by the Helmet key have no point now. There's a herb in the room off to the center of the entrance, but otherwise, it's straight to the second fight with the snake. Who has the AI of a zombie. Eventually I manage to break away and start unloading...and he dies in four shotgun blasts. It's not obvious where the place to go next is, because nothing changes after he pops up.

Randomly pressing A around the area that the hole should have appeared when the snake popped up eventually gets me to the hidden grave. Which doesn't have Barry appear, for some reason. Instead, you just walk over to the grave, the rope has appeared, then walk back and Barry does his apology speech. What, is waiting too difficult for these people to program in? You can't do anything inside the grave besides this, and the game doesn't give you the passcode. Instead, you just have to guess that. Or look it up.

The passcode opens a door on the second floor, one which has more zombies and originally had some blue herbs...and still does despite there being no poison enemies in the game. This area is pretty much the same as it was in the original. Just the puzzle with the statue is simplified owing to how the game can't let you push something in more than one direction. I come out of it with the MO disk along with the battery for the second elevator. Which means I can reach the area hidden by the waterfall back outside.

Underground has no Hunters, no boulders and no Barry. We still have Enrico...at which point Barry shows up. He explains the whole traitor plot, and as he starts to explain that Umbrella caused all this, he gets shot. By someone. Could be Barry, could be Jill, really, nobody knows with this engine's cutscenes. He gets shot so hard his corpse disappears and so does Barry. Hex crank shows up where the mysterious assassin is, and a janky action later, I can go through the rest of the caverns.

The only thing that pops up is the spider room. No spiders, but the door is still webbed and thankfully, there's a combat knife here. I drop it off in the safe room a bit down. I've nearly filled the item box, so that's nice. I have actually been ignoring some items for a while, since it isn't like I'll need a clip/magazine or magnum rounds...ever. The rest goes pretty much as you would expect this would go, janky, simplified versions of already simple puzzles, and I have the two medals for the fountain and the second MO disk.

The lab is somehow both completely intact and quite a bit broken. Enemies in the main corridor are less in number, and sometimes are beyond the planes of existence. The game simply isn't capable of showing four enemies on-screen at a time. They managed to bring in the whole computer password puzzle.

There are none of the Chimeras around, so putting in the power is easy. Getting the passcodes is trickier, hotspots in this game are trash. This brings us to Wesker and the revelation that he's the traitor. The game keeps cutting to a strange, broken image for some reason while this dramatic cutscene happens. I will say that having this all in text form does reveal how some of the weirdness of the game's dialog is down to the voice acting, but a lot of it is just very strange writing.

The cutscene stops and I'm moved inside the Tyrant room. The Tyrant is just there, in front of the tube. The only reason why he's the Tyrant is because of context, otherwise he's just a black creature which turns into noise if you shoot him. Four shots, like everything else. At this point, a cutscene is supposed to show up. It doesn't. So I look around for about five minutes, trying to find a key, only to get nothing. This is as good a place as any to end.

This Session: 3 hours 30 minutes

Final Time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Normally, I would summarize my thoughts in a separate entry, but I don't feel like this deserves a rating. Yes, it's bad, a terrible adaptation and the ilk, but what annoys me most of all is how they've done so much and so little. Reading up on the production, I got the impression this was nearly finished. It...it isn't. What is here hasn't really been through any kind of quality testing.

As a tech demo, this is impressive, however, I feel like this should have led into something original rather than attempt a 1-to-1 remake of the PSX game. It's very impressive, yes, but there's a lot that the PSX version has that a GBC game simply will never be able to do. I'm not talking about voice acting, there's simply so much in the cutscenes that can't be done here.

I could talk endlessly about how the game fails, but I think that's worth talking less compared to what this game is actually a useful example of. How any game can go wrong if certain factors are changed. More importantly, how some games are simply doomed due to the scope of what they're trying to do and the limitations of what they can do.

Next time, something from 1984.

Resident Evil (GBC): Introduction

I'm fascinated by the concept of demakes, versions of modern games intended to look like older titles. Making games which change more modern concepts into older frameworks and often graphical designs. To a certain extent, it's an independant developer shamelessly stealing the popularity of something else to further his own. The inevitable DMCA is hardly shocking. It's playing with fire and then expecting to not get burned.

Resident Evil on Gameboy Color is sort of a strange predecessor to this genre of games. It's the Playstation classic, now on a portable system. It's entirely official, which I'm pretty sure has never happened since, and it wasn't really intended as a demake. It's just one of those ports to a system that shouldn't really have it. Kind of like Resident Evil 2 on the Game.com. It doesn't matter what it plays like, what matters is that it is a port to the system.

Except it was never released for reasons that seem to make sense. Let's make an original game for the system, and thus Gaiden was born. Except this wasn't just weighing two different prototypes. Even back in the day when we just had earlier versions, this game went pretty far in the game, as far as the Lab, so I've read. This is a recent leak of what was one of the final revisions, and it's just missing beta testing, you can get to the end and everything. I don't understand why you would go through the more expensive part of developing a game and then flake out on actually selling it.

I'm unable to use my usual emulator, which is the multi-system Mednaffe. Instead, I'm using Sameboy. Which I'm going to say that while I hate looking a gift horse in the mouth, unpaid labor for allowing me to play a game that by all accounts, I shouldn't be able to, but would it kill someone to include an in-emulator screenshot function? There's all this complicated stuff to decide how you want to emulate the system, but nothing for making a simple screenshot?

Asides over, time to get to the game. After a series of company logos we get a bit-crushed voice saying Resident Evil. Less the creepy intro of the console games and more a bored man in accounting. That eye's kind of creepy. If I wait on the title screen, it cycles through a bunch of game backgrounds, promising scenes straight from the end of the game. They're quite variable in design, some being simple with very little dithering, others being obvious Game Boy-ized versions of the PSX backgrounds. 

There's the usual choice, with these screens obviously being copies of the PSX shots. I'll be playing as Jill, as I normally do.

 

The game removes the intro cinematic and instead just shows the intro...narration? I don't quite remember how it went, but we get the classic opening dialog. They barely made it to the mansion past the dogs, and Jill is worried about Chris. You can almost hear the classic voices saying the dialog. It's odd hearing it in dead silence, except for when a gunshot (or what passes for one on this sound system.) attracts our heroes attention.

There are also the door animations. Because the GBC comes off as a portable NES, this feels somewhat Sweet Home-ish. Somewhat.

First impressions, the graphics look odd and the music feels like it should be in a Castlevania game. Because the GBC has only four buttons the controls of the game suffer. Start pauses, total pause, select opens the item screen. The D-pad moves, tank controls, A is activate and B holds up your current weapon. A then shoots. There is no quick turn, but you can run by going forward and holding B. Turning speed is horrifically bad, but walking is good enough. 

It's obvious from the get-go that the game is a bit different than what I was expecting. Okay, maybe it's been too long since I last played the game, but I'm pretty sure there was a big table here, as Barry says, this is the dining room, and windows. There's the clock and there's a vase with nothing inside it. Wasn't there an ink ribbon here? I feel like I'm missing a lot of stuff here.

The inventory has what I expect it to, a gun, a knife and a first aid spray. The first problem is that I don't know how many bullets are in the gun. The second is that if I use the file function, I get most of the game's files. Some of the cracks are already starting to appear. What's worse is that while I was testing the gun seemed to have infinite ammo. I'll try to use the knife anyway, since I'm man enough for it. 

Barry is doing his usual "I hope this isn't Chris's blood" schtick on the other side of the room. At this point, I feel compelled to say that the font in this game is terrible. In a random sentence I wouldn't know if the small g is supposed to be a b. It's not really creepy and it doesn't add to the atmosphere, so I don't understand it. Also, the second I move around, Barry disappears.

The first zombie just gives you this image when you approach. Which is...eugh. Somehow it manages to keep the nastiness of the guy. That, or I'm attributing some of the nastiness of Return of the Living Dead to this guy. Since that film does have a few notable bald zombies and it's very likely these original developers saw that film.

Combat is crap. Because you move slower, it's easy for this guy to grab onto you, and you can't actually go too far or he gets loaded out of memory and doesn't move. Also, when you kill them, they just fall on their knees. Which is something that definitely could not be exploited to make suggestive screenshots and I would never do something like that. There's a magazine on Kenneth's corpse.

I return to Barry, and the usual cutscene plays. Jill panics, the zombie walks in and Barry blasts him. Three bullets! Did I misremember the original? That's a lot from a magnum. They decide to return to Wesker. Which I have to walk to manually.

They call out for Wesker, but get no answer. Barry tells Jill to search for him, but not to leave the hallway. This, oddly, is automated. They try to figure out what's going on here, and he says we should split up and search for our compatriots. He hands Jill the lockpick, and says to search just the first floor. Later, we should meet back up here.

Before I continue on, I decide to check the nearby typewriter. It has an ink ribbon, but like the gun and magazine, it has no item count on it. I should check the save system anyway. There's an "interrupt" save system, where if you turn off the machine while on it, it allows you to continue from there. Which feels like it's very impressive coding, all things considered.

In the next room is a map. The usual one. Gotta say, pushing in this version is terrible. Slowly walk against it and something slowly moves. This won't be annoying later. You can see this room is taking the heavily dithered approach. I suspect characters aren't for simple ease of animation.

Also, this map system is not intuitive. You have to press buttons without any idea that you're even getting anything. You don't even get a map if you don't find it, either. I had no map until now. Not sure if they would have fixed this or if this little tidbit of knowledge would be in the manual, but either way we're not getting squat.

Right, time to deal with that one zombie in the little hallway here. Once again, he only exists in his little corner of the world and...oh, I can't get away from him. I'm stuck in an endless loop.

I'm dead. This is making me feel a lot better about having infinite ammo when the enemies can just stunlock you. I try again, only to end up with Jill facing away from the zombie and she isn't turning around in time. Okay, if I don't clean out this room, I won't have a chance later on against the real threats. And I get him...once he gets stuck on the wall. This is a really bad sign. Which brings us to the next room. Yeugh...

The hallway with the dogs. They're going to jump out and I'm going to be screwed. How the hell can I even begin to fight something with completely superior speed and agility? The answer is...uh...we don't know yet. The dogs don't jump in through the window. It's possible they jumped in behind me and there was no sound effect, but once I made it around the corner I didn't really stop to check.

There are no zombies in the hallway past this...which isn't suspicious at all. Nor is there anything in the bathroom near here. Which makes me think they either didn't put as much in this game as they should have or they're intentionally gaslighting the player. Either way, I'm just going to be grateful when I have the shotgun or the grenade launcher.

Speaking of which, the shotgun should be an easy acquisition. Should be, we all should know how to get it quickly. There's nothing else in there, though the walkable areas for where Jill can go seem to be improperly done, so Jill sometimes seems like she's walking on air, considering what she can go on. The shotgun is still there, albeit very ugly. 

The cutscene where Barry gets you out of the trap is odd, you don't get to see the ceiling descend, it's just Jill yelling while Barry knocks from the outside. He...opens the door somehow and then Jill pops out of the area. Barry is nowhere to be seen. Well, I'm still not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

There's something odd about the shotgun. Besides the infinite ammo. Perhaps it's because I'm not using it from an optimal distance, or perhaps it's this version, but zombies are taking three shots from it to take out. In the PSX version, if I were ever using the shotgun against a zombie, I'd wait until he's close, but since that's suicide here, I'm using it from a distance.

I clear out the whole hallways, each zombie gets three or four shells. The sort of thing that would be horrifying if I weren't playing a game which was broken. So broken that sometimes the hostile AI doesn't activate, and the zombies just hang there, like actors who have missed their cue. Barry isn't back in the center of the hallway, but the doorway to Forest's corpse is open.
 

Curiously, there's a desk key here. Which should be the least of my troubles, but I guess certain items are being improperly loaded. Hopefully Chris won't have any trouble. Barry gives us Forest's grenade launcher, which for once doesn't have any ammo. Perhaps the game might have some balance to it after all. Yeah, right. 

 

As I make my way through to the western most hallway on the second floor, dropping the statue down to the dining room, I realize something about the way the game works. It's the pathfinding that's screwing over the zombies. Sometimes they just plain can't figure out how to get to you even when it should be obvious. Not going to complain. When I finally make my way down to the western safe room, I find out that the game doesn't check for ink ribbons when you save.

Since I picked up the chemicals from the east safe room I can use them on this plant thing in the fountain on the room at the far end of the central western hall on the first floor. Which works wonderfully, except that items seem to be missing here. There are two red herbs, but aren't there more here? Wasn't there an item here? After the game crashes and I have to do this entire corridor again, I find the Armor Key.

I double back to the room in the same corridor as the western safe room, because why not? I pick up a clip for no reason and then try the desk...which is locked...and Jill isn't just opening it. I grab the key from the item box, confirming the worst. Jill isn't quite working like she should. This nets me some shells, useful in case the shotgun suddenly runs dry.

I'm going to leave here, a lot of strange and unusual things are happening in this version and this is not quite what I was expecting. It's not just what I've said so far. Remember the red herbs? I tried to combine them with a green herb I had left over, doesn't do anything. Instead it functions as a flat full heal. Things are going to become very odd as things move along.

This Session: 1 hour 50 minutes

Resident Evil (1996)

Name:Resident Evil
Number:197
Year:1996
Publisher:Capcom
Developer:Capcom
Genre:Survival Horror
Difficulty:4/5
Time:24 hours
Won:Yes (80W/63L)

Resident Evil is a game series near and dear to my heart, being the first "mature" series I can remember being allowed to play. Specifically the Gamecube-era remake and the 4th entry in the series. Which is weird when you think about it, but when you get down to it, are zombies and chainsaw maniacs really any worse than driving through sidewalks at 90 MPH blasting Kickstart My Heart or ripping out someone's spine or gritty realistic warfare? I didn't play this one as much as the remake since at the time this was one series I wanted to actually own my copies of rather than just emulate, and in general I haven't played any of these games in any significant amount in 10 years, so it was really nice coming back to it.

One thing I can appreciate now, looking back, is how much of a western game this is. In the sense that this was uniquely the product of the western world in the sense of that hopeful, interconnected world building upon previous cultural achievements in a way that makes the whole thing better. A Japanese game, set in America, inspired by Italian and American zombie movies, and playing almost exactly like a French adventure game. In turn, that adventure game was inspired by American horror writers and other adventure games, some French, some not, with some of the very same influences Resident Evil would get. Even Resident Evil's status as an unofficial remake of Sweet Home ties into that worldly influence, haunted mansions, by their very nature, are alien to Japan, and very much their own takes on American and European phenomena.

I also appreciate the general plot now. While the original source of the modern zombie film, I Am Legend, went into detail on how it's vampire virus worked, it, to my knowledge did not explain how it happened. While the explanation of the virus would only happen later, this level of detail is nice to see in a genre which usually just throws its hands up. It's a shame that this level of detail would be used for a series which would later go so far into sci-fi that the usual perpetual motion machines would seem realistic by comparison.

Meanwhile, the actual meat of the story is disturbingly plausible. A pharmaceutical company is creating a virus, which if released, might possibly end all life on Earth, and escapes because of poor lab security? The government, while not completely on-board with this, is aware of it and knows what it could do. Even though most real pharma companies are just implicated in corruption scandals, it doesn't seem that far off from reality.

This has a lot of potential too. Obviously, we have an outbreak in the city in the first two sequels and the Outbreak spin-offs, but there's so much more you can do with the setting. This is an international company responsible for the destruction of an entire city. Suddenly a lot of people are going to be very interested in what the local Umbrella building is doing. Some of those people will be under official orders to kick doors down, others will be going in vigilante style. Better hope those people don't accidentally shoot a vial containing another zombie virus. To say nothing of what the war on terror might be like if Al-Qaeda might be dropping zombie bombs instead of kamikaze attacks. After all, why do the work yourself when you can get your enemies to do it?

Even in the small scale depicted in the game, the story is interesting. I've seen the Japanese title described as a spoiler, but it doesn't really take a while before you can figure out that the virus is man-made. It just unfolds in a neat little way, though it can feel like the player and player character do not make the leap at the same time.

The same cannot be said for the voice acting. It's only good in a way that makes you physically cringe. I expect goofy phrasing from my horror games/movies, whoever was translating Italian horror films in the '70s and '80s did so like a hacksaw to a tree. I do expect voice actors to at least try, and this does not sound like they tried. I know more words have been written about the voice acting than the game itself at this point by others, but as humorous as it may be, it damages the serious vibe of the game.

It's odd because the rest of the game's sound design is spot on. The tell-tale sound of an enemy, to the gunshots to the background music. Everything is very satisfying and fitting. The music goes for a very thematic rather than memorable sound, but it works. Every player, upon first going outside, no doubt freaks out hearing those howls in the background. Are there more? Are there?

Getting to the meat of the game, the mansion itself. I like it. It's well-thought out, and every room has something to it, be it an item, a key or some strange trap. Each room is filled in and doesn't just feel like it's there to take up space. While the background art really has that'90s CGI look to it, the art direction is nice, really feels like a mansion. I have no complaints about backtracking through it, it adds a new twist and you know where you have to explore. All my complaints are really just minor. For instance it has no master bedroom. The biggest is the Keeper's room, which really just looks like your average Midwestern bedroom.

A lot of the areas after this are kinda disappointing though. I can forgive the garden for it's straightforwardness, it's a constant rush. The background art is strongest here, just feeling like a low-res version of something much higher quality than looking off. The mansion basement? The mansion basement only exists because the developers needed another way to screw over Chris. It's mostly just a random bland hallway that has no reason to exist. The underground area is similar, feeling like it was taken from a completely different game, though it's attempts at changing up the game's formula are nice at least.

I like the guardhouse, but that might just be superficial liking. Any chance you have of knifing any zombies is gone here, the rooms are just too small and awkward to do so. It's also surprisingly linear despite seeming more complex, there's only one real path forward throughout this section. My art criticisms towards the mansion apply here too.

The lab is kind of linear, but has enough to it to make up for that. It's a pretty straight shot to the final boss, but there's quite a bit to see and do. While it doesn't pull many traps like the mansion, it gives the illusion of it pretty strongly. Also, a room where you can shoot four zombies in a row!

Pre-rendered cutscenes have a cheap feel to them.

Locations don't quite line up with what the game implies. Much like an Italian horror film, there's something not quite right about the mansion. I don't mean the traps, I expect those. I mean the layout of the mansion. There's a welded door where you get out of the underground tunnels. Where does it lead? As near as I can tell, the indoor garden area, which seemingly has a section you can't ever reach. I can't imagine a bunch of scientists going through a greenhouse every time they have to go to work.

Then we get to the lab itself, and it's underwhelming. Notes build up a grand location full of test tubes and monster pens, and when you get there the labs proper are like four rooms. No wonder the virus escaped, they don't have any method of containing it short of blowing the place up. The mansion is almost perfectly scaled, yet the lab is so underwhelming.

Coming back to this game after so long, I'm forced to come to a conclusion I wish I didn't have to. Either Resident Evil is a lot easier than it's given credit for or I've just gotten really good at the genre. I'll get into specifics at the moment, but there's evidence for both parts. I note that in both playthroughs I had a pretty good number of supplies that by the end I didn't need to worry about ammo anymore.
On one hand, I used the knife in melee, successfully. I never killed a boss with it, but it's very much the mark of a good player to be able to use a melee weapon in a survival horror game well. Outside of those games specifically designed around melee combat. Meleeing everything in a survival horror game is a lot more manageable than meleeing everything in a FPS.

On the other, there are several aspects that are clearly just "perceived difficulty". That is, difficulty that's only there because you think it is. There's probably just enough ammo to kill every enemy that isn't invulnerable or respawning, and even if there isn't, you can run away from most enemies, except ironically enough, the zombies, pretty easily.

Though I will note that this game has given me a revelation regarding my skill level at games in general. Before this I was of the mind that while I was better than Joe Average, I wasn't particularly skilled, just in comparison. Now, I think that I'm pretty good. Not the best, and any dedicated player of a game could whoop me, but I feel pretty confident.

Control-wise, the game hasn't changed much from Alone in the Dark. That said, the additions are very welcome, and some missing aspects are even better. In the later, I for one am grateful not to have to do another jumping sequence with a cinematic camera! There's a run button, and rather than having to choose which action you can take from a menu, you just activate things and/or shoot them without having to enter the inventory screen at all.

For many of the things cited as negatives, tank controls, limited saves and limited inventory space, I don't necessarily mind any of them. Something between my eyes and the game itself is going wrong, because whenever I run I never quite seem to be able to go where I want to. Other than that, the only thing I really need is a quick turn. No auto-aim isn't that much of a loss since it's fairly easy to figure out where your character is aiming.

Limited saves and limited inventory space are also not quite troublesome. I think even as Chris there's something like 18 saves, which should be more than enough to get you through the game unless you save every five minutes. Inventory space as Jill is fine, 8 slots, more than enough for a weapon, ammo, the knife, a health item and a key. For Chris, that's 6 inventory slots, and now your inventory is nearly full up.

Chris has it really bad at the start when you have no access to an item box though.

Speaking of character differences, I have to say that neither is really better. From a gameplay perspective, Jill works the best, every weapon is useful, your side character does his own thing, and it's just the most fun as a game. Chris works better from a story perspective, but he's down one weapon and his choice of side character awkwardly fits into the game. You are forced to make a decision regarding Rebecca you have no idea will have consequences later when at the time you make it, you have no possible reason not to chose that choice.

This lends more credence to the theory that certain aspects of the game are supposed to suck. Something which feels like detractors of the game exaggerate as an opinion of people who like the game more than it really is. As a general observation, I don't think anyone ever picked out tank controls because they were supposed to suck. In Alone in the Dark/Resident Evil's case, it's because the game was designed around the cinematic camera, and it's a necessary evil because freedom of movement in such cameras tends to suck. You think you want it until you're constantly fighting against camera angle changes.

Now, there are absolutely camera angles in this game designed to screw you over. Does that necessarily make them something that's supposed to suck? I think that kind of depends. While I never confirmed it, I don't think you can shoot enemies off-screen. A lot of screens force you into a position where you don't know when a zombie is about to arrive until it's too late, so you have to risk it when you know something is off-screen. This isn't necessarily sucky, it's cruel. There is a difference. It's not so bad as to be unmanageable though.

But that's not going into how the camera works. You get a view that shows you all that's around you, while still being within the game world, as opposed to isometric or side-scrolling. The cinematic camera, as the name implies, makes it look cinematic without having to stop the game every 5 minutes for a cutscene. Taking out an enemy or running away like this just looks cool. As is slowly walking around a corner while you hear something unpleasant going on.

Combat is intriguing both from an atmospheric perspective and a gameplay perspective. You are seemingly against the odds with these creatures, every shuffling or clicking off-screen a sign of impending terror. As you fight them more and more, you gradually realize how to defeat them with minimal loss to yourself. Every weapon has a niche...I'm sorry, almost every weapon has a niche. From the lowly knife to the mighty magnum, almost every weapon is far more useful than you might think.

The weapons:

The knife is a deceptively useful weapon. On the face of it, you're relying on a weapon that doesn't stun enemies, has a short range, and because of the combat system, means you can't run away. If you screw around with it enough you start to figure out how you can use it effectively. You move faster backing away from zombies than they do towards you, and hunters have awful turning arcs. Even in hallway you can abuse this knowledge. And that's all you need to know. This is why I think I've gotten really good, I can actually use it effectively; I'm not going to be good enough to knife a Tyrant or anything, it's just a neat party trick.

The pistol, meanwhile, is a deceptively weak weapon. It's ranged, but it doesn't do much more damage than the knife. It's only effective against zombies and dogs, but it's very situational in how you should use it. Do you have the room to fight? How many are there? Will they all approach at once? Hunters ignore it, and chimeras, well, who is still packing a pistol against them? 

The shotgun is a weird weapon. As Chris, it's basically your heavy duty weapon for most of the game. Jill can afford to use it more casually. This is very much on the extreme end of video game shotguns, you need to press it against a monster's temple for it to be effective, otherwise you're basically shooting slightly more powerful pistol rounds. That makes it dangerous to use, because you're usually within stabbing range if you get the full effect. Hunters in particular require a bit of precision and luck, but everything else is manageable.

The grenade launcher (or bazooka) functions weirdly too. Jill is the only one to get it, and it's by far the most useful weapon in the game. Since you can get it practically from the start. You get three ammo types, acid, explosive and flame, whose usage can seemingly only be understood via outside game materials. Acid rounds are apparently useful against all living things, which is fair, but video game logic dictates that a giant snake is strong against poison, of which acid is usually lumped in. Flame would be the most logical choice, yet that is apparently weaker. Considering that you can't unload grenades from the launcher, this feels unnecessarily complicated.

The magnum is the most powerful of the weapons. It takes out most enemies in 1 or 2 shots only tempered by a relative lack of ammo. I'm going to let you in on a little secret though. If you track down the locations of all the magnum ammo in the game, you have more than enough to get rid of any hunters in your path and the Tyrant. Granted, you need to get there first...

The flamethrower is Chris's exclusive weapon. You cannot reload it, but there are two of them. They're all on pins which control whether a door is locked or not. One locks the only door out. In this game, there is no sane reason to use that one. The other you also don't have much reason to use or get, until you discover that it opens a door later on. As such it's only used against some hunters, one boss and a webbed up door. Since you can just bypass the boss by burning the door, why would you want to use it on the boss?

The enemies:

 Zombie, on the surface, the least deadly enemy. You can knife them with some practice, the pistol takes out most before they can reach you, and anything stronger kills them in one or two shots. By the time I reached the endgame as Chris, my opinion changed somewhat. They hit very hard, if you get unlucky you might find yourself burning through herbs against them. You can't dodge them like you can other enemies, they automatically grab you if you're within their range. To say nothing of how the camera screws you over most often with these guys. That makes it tricky to run past them, as the only way you can do so is when their AI decides to just walk against a wall than towards you. I do like the trick of having them fall down before they die again, to fake you out, though it can be annoying when the camera angle hides the tell-tale pool of blood that occurs when they're dead again.

Cerberus, or zombie dog. Fast, but rare. They seem dangerous on the surface since they always come in packs and slowly walk around until you decide to run. This is very deceptive, their primary attack is to jump at you, which I found quite easy to dodge. You get a good moment to change the direction you're moving in, and they cannot correct in mid-air. At least if you have the space to do this and you're not dealing with three at once. The pistol works beautifully against them, stopping them in their tracks.

Yawn, or the giant snake. This game doesn't mention the name to my knowledge, no idea if that was in the remake or if it's mentioned in some manga or something. You fight this guy twice. He's really annoying thanks to the way he moves; he's a giant snake and you can't walk over him. I didn't figure out the trick to this guy, beyond it being a horrible idea to use the magnum. The first time around you can just run past him and get a key item he's guarding. If you get bit the first time, you get poisoned. This usually triggers your partner bringing you to the other side of the mansion to give you the curing serum, which only works on the snake's venom.

Snakes and spiders. These I'm lumping together because they were basically the same, poisonous enemies you can easily run past. The snakes appear 2-3 times. All in places where it's not really in your interests to walk. I never fought them because I would never need to. The spiders at least have some reason to fight in their 2 appearances. Thing is, all their attacks are telegraphed and the rooms they appear in are optional. Poison isn't really a problem because the game gives you 9 blue herbs.

There are also wasps and crows, neither of which I was ever on-screen with long enough to actually fight.

Plant 42, the giant plant. The first unavoidable boss, but there is a way to make it easier. There's one of those liquid pouring puzzles that you can solve just before reaching him, do it and you cut his health by half. Jill has this guy easy, if you stand in a corner with the grenade launcher you can plink away at him. Chris doesn't, he needs to point his shotgun up at the guy and stand close, leaving him very vulnerable to getting hit by his tentacles.

Hunters, the bane of anyone who walked back into the mansion expecting an easy time. Fast, jumpy fellas with an inclination to decapitate you. That tell-tale off-screen clicking sound is a terrible sign. They're curious enemies. The pistol is next to useless against them. Using the shotgun is more effort than it should be, you need to be right on the money with it and it takes more hits than feels comfortable. The magnum and grenade launcher are very effective, but the former requires you to go through most of the mansion to get it, and if you're playing as Chris, that's not going to be easy. Knifing them, in contrast, while difficult, is not as hard as it seems. They're almost all left-handed and they have turning arcs, so if you're right behind them they'll move around awkwardly before attacking. It's also very easy to just run past most of them...at least if there's not too many in the room.

Chimeras, fly monsters or the last enemies in the game. Nothing about these things is explained in-game, for some reason. They're difficult to kill, but not that hard to fight. They're on the ceiling most of the time, which means you can run past them. Easily. It's hard to hit them with weapon because you can't aim straight up, you aim up at an angle. On the ground they're not much harder, but they run faster than you, which is a point in their favor.

Tyrant, doesn't have any pain animation whatsoever, but every time you fight this guy you get plenty of space to dodge. If you haven't been burning through ammo, you shouldn't have a problem with him. Really, that's true of all bosses in this game, they're just another enemy that takes a few more shotgun shells.

I was greatly disappointed in the puzzle design here. I think there's a total of four puzzles that can't be summed up as key and door, sometimes the key is a crest and block pushing. Someone on the dev team was proud of implementing block pushing, so proud. Every variation he could thing of, like a zombie-infested Sokoban. I do not care for the block puzzles. I don't think highly of the key puzzles, but at least that can be acknowledged as forcing the player to look around.

Of those four, we have two follow the instructions puzzles. I think more fondly of the painting puzzle than the V-jolt puzzle, simply because the painting puzzle requires a little thought. Mixing a bunch of stuff together is such a tedious process, especially in a game with limited inventory space. We get a game of Lights Out to reach the V-jolt puzzle, which I hate.

Then we have the lab password puzzle. Technically not that impressive, you have to read a very simple cypher to figure out a four letter password. The game itself offers the option to basically spoil this, by giving away what the cypher is if you move an obviously moveable cabinet. Even without that it's not that hard, but it actually stopped me for a moment to think about it, and I appreciate that.

Outside of conversing with Rebecca, the game packs in a lot of ways the game can go, seemingly unimportant actions can result in fighting a zombie where you don't want to. The game tracks a lot of variables I wasn't expecting it to. I suspect there's a heck of a lot more going on than I found, and even that was a lot.

Finally, I like the models. For a game of this era on consoles, they all look great. They have the right amount of detail versus abstraction to work with the PSX's capabilities. It also helps that the game rarely lets you get close to a model, almost always they're from a fair distance. The humans have a very nice, somewhat anime-esque look to them, while all the monsters have a sufficient vile rotting nature to them.

The map feels like a flawless example of how such things should work, you're in the red area, green are areas you've visited, outlined areas you haven't visited but found the map.

Weapons:
Well-balance, but less than I would have liked. Chris gets unfairly crippled in this department. 5/10

Enemies:
Despite the small number, most of the game's mainstays are well thought out from all perspectives. 7/10

Non-Enemies:
The game puts in an incredible amount of effort to put in NPCs that can follow you, yet also takes them away before you can engage in any combat with them next to you. 1/10

Levels:
A well-designed and interesting place to explore, only brought down by the odd out of place section. 9/10

Player Agency:
It could stand to have a few improvements in the movement department, especially a quick turn around. No real menu and no way to cancel out of actions you'd prefer to not have done. I don't mind the loss of auto-aim, but I do wish there was some method of showing that the player is actually aiming at his target. 6/10

Interactivity:
Despite some poor puzzles, an incredible amount of foresight on the developers in reacting to what the player does. 4/10

Atmosphere:
Works beautifully as both a horror game and as an action game. 10/10

Graphics:
It's aged, some aspects more than others, but good art direction saves it from the same fate as many of it's contemporaries. 7/10

Story:
Intriguing, but minor point loss for the betrayal subplot feeling awkward in it's execution. 5/10

Sound/Music:
While the voice acting is goofy, the rest of the sound design is quite effective, and music never overwhelms the game itself. 7/10

That's 61, which puts it as a tie for number 1. Considering that whenever I replay Doom it's likely to lose a few points, that might as well put it at number 1.

In regards to the modern debates that seem to happen in regards to whether you should play this or the Gamecube remake, I would say it ultimately depends. PSX is a lot more approachable, it fits in with the rest of the series more, and it has a better artstyle. That said, it's aged graphically and it has several things which make the controls more aggravating than it should. GCN is more challenging, fills in the series lore nicely, and looks nearly flawless. That said, outside of some of that lore, it feels completely disconnected from the rest of the series in what it changes, some of the new gameplay elements are annoying and some aspects were put into the game solely to screw with players of the original.

My real opinion is, who cares? It's like having a choice between sex with two beautiful women and then badmouthing the one you didn't pick. If you like one, you'll like the other, and everything else is just being nitpicky.

While it's obvious I'm going to play the other games in the series at some point, I need to talk about the various versions of the game and which one I'm going to play. There are noticeable differences between rereleases, consoles and even countries. Of note, we have Director's Cut for arrange mode, basically changing up the entire game, the Saturn for Battle Mode, and Deadly Silence which changes things around. At some point I'm going to talk about the original Japanese version, but that's going to be a one-off.

That doesn't include the remake, of which I'll have to check both the original and one of the later versions with the option to not have tank controls. The only tricky part here is Deadly Silence, a Nintendo DS game. I could overspend on another copy of Resident Evil and play it in my DS with a slightly awful screen, or I could play it in a nice crisp emulator, and end up dying because I need three hands to use an emulated DS's touch screen controls. Decisions, decisions. For another day, anyway.

Starting next year, I'm going to make two changes, start with survival horror games in September and start focusing on these games chronologically. Survival horror as a genre seems like something that has been poorly defined and used over the years, and it seems to be getting worse. I'm looking at lists of early survival horror from Wikipedia, Giantbomb, TVtropes among others and all of these games have barely anything in common with each other. Sifting out the crap some dude really wants to push as the first survival horror game from the real survival horror games is going to be a herculean task. In the meantime, it's back to business as usual, with one exception, one final game from 1996 (for now) and quite possibly my candidate for greatest game of all time.