Welcome Claire! Consider the area you're in a...special playground I have prepared just for you. Please try and keep me amused, and do not disappoint me by dying too soon!
Halloween is here, so that means it's time to get spooky once again. It's been a while, but we're finally getting back to Resident Evil.
I am not a huge fan of horror in general, but Resident Evil is one of my all-time favorite gaming franchises. It has the third most games in my personal top 100, behind only Mega Man and Final Fantasy, and is tied with FF for the most games on my 10s list (three apiece, for the record). Last year, I reviewed the absolutely incredible Gamecube remake on Halloween. Maybe next year I'll review Resident Evil 4, another 10/10 that just recently received a big budget remake. Both of those are all time classics, they are not only personal favorites but also important touchstones in the gaming industry as a whole. But, as great as they are, as revolutionary as they were, neither of them is my favorite Resident Evil game. That honor goes to a little side story on an underserved console that, to me, has always stood out as just a little different.
CODE:Veronica picks up after the events of Resident Evil 2 and once again puts us in the shoes of Claire Redfield. Claire escaped Raccoon City with her life, but she's still without answers as to what happened to her brother Chris, who disappeared after the incident at the Spencer Mansion. Undeterred, Claire continues her mission to find him, following her next lead to an Umbrella Corp. base on Rockfort Island. She causes plenty of havoc before she is captured, knocked unconscious and taken to the island's prison facility. An explosion rocks the facility, causing the power to go out and Claire to come to. She is released from her cell by Rodrigo, the Umbrella employee responsible for guarding her. He tells Claire that the facility has been attacked, that she's free to go but that she won't get very far. It appears her nightmare has begun again, the dead have risen, just like in Raccoon City. Claire must once again escape a horde of T-Virus infested zombies as she continues her search for her brother. And she's not alone on the island. She quickly meets fellow prisoner Stever Burnside, who is also searching for a way off the island. He's no Leon, he's immature and a bit whiny, but Claire quickly recognizes they need each other if they want to escape. Because the island is under the purview of Alfred Ashford, grandson of Umbrella co-founder Edward Ashford, who believes Claire to be responsible for the attack on the facility. Alfred is...quite unhinged, and he decides to make it his mission that Claire not escape alive. That sets the stage for a cat and mouse game between the two, which will see Claire learn even more about Umbrella's sordid past and disturbing practices while also introducing a new foe that might be even worse.
I think the atmosphere is what sets CV apart from the previous RE entries. It's a little closer to the first game than the second two, but it's still kind of its own thing. There's a weird mixture of your typical labs and military facility aesthetic and a more classical European one. Previous villains like Wesker or William Birkin kind of fit into the same mold of the scientist that have abandoned all sense of ethics and gone too far in the advancement of their own goals. Alfred and his twin sister Alexia have that to a point, but what makes them scary is the fact that both have completely snapped. They have the same sociopathic tendencies as their predecessors, but they seem to be sadistic and cruel just for the sake of being so. It's not that Wesker isn't evil, it's just that he has some semblance of reasoning for doing what he does. Alfred just likes to do horrible things to people, as evidenced by some of the truly disturbing locales featured in CV. Claire will find herself in all sorts of weird medical experimentation facilities and torture rooms, stuff that you wouldn't see in the first few games. Every time you see one of those creepy videos of the Ashfords as kids, it makes you a little bit more unsettled and drives home the point that you really don't want to get captured by these people. It messes with your head in a way that the rest of the series doesn't. Areas like the anatomist's hut and private residence are just flat out disturbing, more so than a monster jumping through a window could ever be. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of jump scare moments, but they are a part of the terror as opposed to the primary source of it. It's not quite on the "worst fears become manifest" level of Silent Hill, but it's definitely more prevalent than in other RE games (at least the RE games that existed at that point). In addition to providing you direction within the game, the notes that you find throughout are a major part of establishing atmosphere. It's a small thing, but CV does it well. The music certainly adds to the atmosphere, it's on point as you would expect from the series. It's really tough to describe, but most people I know that have played it feel similarly, even if they don't particularly like this aesthetic.
Gameplay-wise, CV doesn't do very much different from its predecessors, which I was okay with. I know a lot of people complain about tank controls, but I have never had a problem with them in survival horror games. I really do think they make the game scarier, even though it's long since been debunked that this was done on purpose. I'm not sure, but I think that this was the first RE game to have the 180-degree turn, which helps a ton. You may not like the control scheme, but this is about the best version of it you could have. Camera angles are a major part of the Resident Evil franchise, and they are used to great effect here. The prerendered backgrounds are extremely well done and the lighting is top notch for its era. This may sound strange, but I feel like a variety of different lighting is important in Resident Evil. In addition to making the environments feel realistic, it sets the series apart from other horror games that insist on just being all darkness all the time. As a whole, the game is so technically well-made and one of the first truly impressive games of the 6th generation. It might not seem like much now, but this was one of the best looking games of its day. The CG cinemas look really good, there aren't that many but they are absolutely outstanding. The character models aren't the greatest and their movement is kind of stiff, but they were good for the time. The enemies also look great and there's a pretty good variety to deal with here.
Speaking of the enemies, there is a very good variety here of new baddies and classic monsters. You have zombies of course, as well as cerberi, bats and hunters. Giant spiders are back and they are as annoying as ever, though fortunately not all that common. New this time are moths, which can poison you, Sweepers, which are Hunters with poison claws and the Bandersnatch, a giant, one armed monstrosity that is an absolute bullet sponge. The bosses here are pretty challenging, I won't name them for spoiler purposes but there's a good combination of familiar faces and new villains. Of course, enemies are only half the challenge in Resident Evil. CV has its fair share of puzzles as well and I think they are fairly well designed here. Most of these puzzles are challenging but fair, I rarely found them too obtuse or obvious. The earlier games have a lot more reliance on object sliding puzzles, which aren't as common here. Yet there also isn't anything like the water sample puzzle from RE 3. I have heard a lot of people complain about the Ashford lineage puzzle, but I never really had a problem with it. The resources here are very limited early on, but a little conservation will make the second half way easier, especially when it comes to ammo. There is a pretty solid variety of guns here, of course you have your handgun, shotgun and grenade launcher. But you also have some unique stuff too, like the bow gun, assault rifle and TMP SMG. Ammo is generally pretty scarce at the beginning of the game. I kind of like that, these games are "survival" horror for a reason. This might be a bit controversial, but I always felt the CV was the apex of the "classic" RE series in terms of gameplay. It has the horror elements of the first game with the more action oriented set pieces of the second. It doesn't have a stalker enemy like RE3 but honestly, I think I prefer that.
CV is one of my all-time favorite games, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. I am of the belief that there is no such thing as a perfect game and CV definitely has its flaws. There are some points where it feels like the backtracking is excessive, even for an RE game. I don't have a huge issue with the pacing or controls here, but some people might, especially those who started the series with RE 4 or the modern remakes. There are some weird "attention to detail" things that are somewhat immersion breaking, Claire standing outside in the Antarctic with short sleeves comes to mind. A lot of people bring up CV's difficulty, though I don't think it's a problem. The general consensus is it's between CV and Zero for the hardest RE. I am of the opinion that Zero is way, way harder and with way more frustrating difficulty. But the biggest issue with CV, and it's a big one, is the voice acting. This harkens back to the very first game, but that at least had the excuse of being first. CV at least has better dialogue and translation, it's actually very good, but the voice acting is still abysmal. Almost all of the characters are either over- or under-acted, very rarely are they just right. There are many points where I was convinced that the actors were given their lines with absolutely no context whatsoever. Claire isn't so bad, her voice is at least appropriate for her character, but there are times she seems almost disinterested. Alfred is kind of the other direction; he is so over the top and ridiculous with everything he says and does. It's not objectively good, but it actually kind of works in his favor as the character is supposed to be over the top and ridiculous. But the biggest culprit here is Steve. Oh, dear lord is Steve's voice absolutely grating. I think he's supposed to be 19 or 20, but he sounds like a 12 year old boy in the throes of puberty. His high, nasally voice is the stuff of nightmares, it's as terrifying as any zombie or Hunter. I don't know what else to say, just look up a cutscene from this game and listen for yourself. I will say, if there is one positive I can kind of get from Steve's voice acting it's that it kind of, just kind of, fits with the character dynamic with Claire. One of the interesting things about CV is that Steve kind of plays the "damsel in distress" role, where he's always getting himself in trouble and Claire is bailing him out. His whininess kind of fits with this. That's not enough to have me call the voice acting good, but it is a positive I can take from it.
At the end of the day, Resident Evil CODE:Veronica is still an outstanding game, even all these years later. I know it's a kind of divisive game in the RE community, but I've always fallen on the side of it being an all-time classic. I have said this before, but there's levels to these 10's, all are outstanding but some are more outstanding than others. For me personally, CV is the top of the top, it's a top five game of all time for me and I really mean that. Bad voice acting aside, CV has offers an atmosphere that's unlike any other RE game, one that I've always enjoyed. It's the best of both worlds with both action and suspense, something that's a huge deal for me. I will say, I don't know if it's quite as revolutionary as RE 4, or the REmake. However, I think it's the absolute peak of what classic RE is, was and should be, and I love classic RE. I hate speed runs, but sometimes I just like to blast through the first part of this game as fast as I can. This is literally the only game I have ever, ever gotten any enjoyment out of doing that with. It may require a little extra patience from more modern gamers, but with its creepy locales, demented villain, outstanding heroine and terrifying atmosphere, I still think CV is a must play.
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