REVIEWED – Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles

Title:  Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
Platform:  Wii
Developer:  Cavia Inc.
Publisher:  Capcom
Reviewed By:  Eliot Ballade
SCORE:  B+

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What was it I said back in my Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles review a couple years back? Ah yes, it’s all coming back to me, as if it’s just about to copy and paste itself:

“For RE fans, these abridged versions of the RE games are sure to make them jump up and down with glee, although the game does lack RE2, RE: Code Veronica, and RE4.”

Ignoring RE4 there, it seems like we have the answer to our question: sequel, baby!! Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles once again takes Wii owners and RE fans on a nostalgia trip in the form of first-person light-gun action through the stories and settings of Resident Evil 2 (greatest game EVAR!!) and Resident Evil: CODE Veronica (the third best RE game, behind 2 and 4). Not only that, but we once again get an original scenario starring Mr. Leon S. Kennedy, which thankfully stays far away from “movie tie-in” city. So the question must be asked: after other great Wii first-person light-gun monster shooting game releases of 2008 (HotD: Overkill, Dead Space: Extraction), does Capcom still have what it takes to make zombie shooting relevant?

Happy Fun Story Time With Leon S. Kennedy!
The year is 2002. A year where…ummm…Ok let’s face it nothing important or exciting happened in 2002. That is, unless your name is Leon S. Kennedy: former police officer, survivor of the 1998 Raccoon City tragedy, and current member of a top government agency who’s sole purpose is to rid the world of the remnants of Umbrella’s viral escapades. Leon has been sent to an un-named village somewhere in South America off a tip that a man named Javier Hidalgo (generic Spanish name FTL) has come into possession of the T-Veronica virus through dealings in the black market. Joining Leon on his mission is Special Forces agent Jack Krauser, who totally won’t become a villainous psychopath three years later…no chance of that happening…yeah. Anyhoo, as expected the village has become zombieland and the two agents find themselves in a fight for their lives. Krauser, noticing that Leon is handling himself very well against these foes, inquires to how Leon knows so much about them. So Leon obliges him and tells him how he and one Claire Redfield fought and survived through the T-virus apocalypse known as Raccoon City. Plus, seeing as how Leon is just so awesome that he doesn’t even need to experience events to know every little thing about them, he tells of how Claire was caught by Umbrella and flown off to Rockfort Island, where she teams up with fellow prisoner Steve Burnside to not only survive another T-virus outbreak, but also the deadly games of the island’s insane ruler, Alfred Ashford.

Like the Umbrella Chronicles, these abridged versions of two of the best RE games will make fans smile, especially after their exclusion from UC. The original scenario’s story isn’t anything groundbreaking in the RE universe, but it should keep you interested till the end, if only to see Leon and Krauser’s first (and only) mission together before the epic knife fights that were to follow.

Point, Shoot, Reload. Point, Shoot, Reload. In the rain or in the snow…
Control-wise, the basics pretty much remain the same as UC. Point the cursor on-screen (which you still can’t remove) at what you want dead and press the B trigger to fire. Waving the Wii-remote will reload your weapon, while holding down the A button while waving the Wii-mote activates the knife attack. You also press the A button to pick up items that you’ll find in the environments. There are a couple new changes to the gameplay though; for one thing herbs are now stored for later use instead of being used as soon as you pick them up. Pressing the + button will use one from your stock, but you can also bring up the status screen by pressing the c button one the nun-chuck to use one from there. First-aid sprays still work exactly the same though, as they refill your health when you run out of life. The biggest and best change though comes with weapon changes. In UC, you equipped weapons at the status screen before you started a stage and cycled through them by pressing the c button or using the Wii-mote’s d-pad. The stupid thing about this is that even if you ran out of ammo for a certain weapon, that weapon still stayed in your list, making it frustrating to scroll through empty weapons to get to a loaded one while zombies were beading down on your ass. In Darkside you can equip four weapons: one to each direction on the nunchuck’s analogue stick, and switching is as easy as flicking the stick. Better yet, you can equip any weapon at anytime during the game by going into the status screen. Simple, fast, effective, and a whole lot better than UC. It should also be noted that Capcom added a control scheme where you can just use the Wii-mote, however I’d advise against it because using the d-pad on the Wii-mote to switch weapons is a pain in the ass.

Darkside Chronicles is divided up into three main sections, each representing RE2 (Memories of a Lost City), CODE Veronica (Game of Oblivion), and Leon and Krauser’s scenario (Operation Javier). Each section has about 7-9 stages each that last about 10-15 minutes to get through, although a few will go past the 20 minute mark. Thankfully, like in UC, there are a healthy amount of checkpoints in each level that you can even save your game at if you need to come back to them later. Each level form RE2/CODE Veronica has for the most part been faithfully re-designed here, so fans will be pretty happy going through such areas as the RPD building, the sewers, and the underground Umbrella lab from RE2. Likewise, Rockfort Island and the Antarctic base from CV should bring back some memories. There are some cuts here and there to a few levels (the Antarctic Base, mostly) and one all-new area was added to Rockfort Island (a maze Claire and Steve have to navigate) but like I said, it’s mostly faithful to the originals. Operation Javier, on the other hand, has a look that is very inspired by RE5, as the first part of the scenario takes place in a sun-drenched, run-down village. However, the story will then move onto taking the two agents through a huge dam and Hildalgo’s mansion. One change that Capcom has made to the overall feel of DC is in its presentation. While it’s still a first-person light-gun shooting game, the camera has been tweaked so that it moves around more fluidly, as if you are actually looking through the character’s eyes. Long story short: the camera has more of a “Shaky cam” feel to it than the previous game. This will probably annoy a lot of gamers who hate that sort of thing (and I know a lot do), but to me it definitely made the game more immersive and cinematic, even if it made it a little too hard to grab some of the more evasive items. Also added in to make it more immersive is that fact that you’ll see your partner on-screen at times and a reloading animation added for each gun.

So, how does blowing away virus monsters work out? Well, pretty much the same as UC, as hordes of zombies and other familiar RE baddies stand in your way. Yep, zombie dogs, crows, hunters, lickers, plant-zombies, and those ever lovable bandersnatches will all be out for you blood. The original scenario also introduces a few new regular baddies: t-virus infected piranha, a pterodactyl-looking, skeletal monkey thing that is actually quite creepy, and a giant tyrant-like creature that is actually much easier to take out than it looks. Like in UC, each enemy has a weak point on it somewhere that makes them easier to take out. Zombie’s weak points are still right in the center of their foreheads, but unlike in UC the hit area is MUCH bigger, making critical strikes on them MUCH easier, which I welcome after the frustration of trying to get your aim super-perfect in UC. Don’t think this means that DC is a much easier game than UC, because frequent enemy movements coupled with the increased shaky cam makes DC just as tough as it’s predecessor. Let’s not forget the games numerous boss fights, against both familiar (William Birkin, Mr. X, the “newly evolved” Ashford family) and new foes (including the biggest boss ever faced in an RE game). Like in UC, the bosses have weak points that are mostly well protected, and coupling that with their devastating and sometimes unstoppable attacks makes them quite a challenge that could lead to many re-tries. Also making a comeback are the numerous QTE segments that you’ll run into, but like in UC they aren’t that numerous to be too much of a bother.

We need weapons to survive this craziness. Well besides the default handgun with infinite ammo, our heroes will also be able to use a shotgun, SMG, magnum, bowgun, grenade launcher, grenades (which are now treated as a regular weapon), and a few others I won’t spoil. Unfortunately, DC overall features MUCH less weaponry than UC, where various different kinds of shotguns, magnums, etc. where available. Here you’ll only find one of each weapon type, which is kind of a shame because I like the variety that UC gave you. A lot of this might have to do with the new way you customize and upgrade your weapons in DC. In UC, you earned stars at the end of every level based on your performance and score in said level, which you then used to power up your weapons. Here in DC, it all about the MONAYYYYY!!! Um, that is to say that you’ll pick up money during the game through gold bar pick-ups and through the environment, which gives you any even bigger reason to shoot at anything in the still very destructible levels. This may annoy some people who enjoy the more silent, tension filled moments of the game, since it’s a good chance you may miss out on a gold mine if you don’t blast away at some paintings or something. You take your earned cash to the customize screen and spend it to upgrade weapons in a variety of ways, increasing power, reload speed, capacity, and so on. Of course, it’s a really good idea to upgrade your handgun to MAX as soon as you can, but you should also throw some cash towards the shotgun and SMG as well, and worry about upgrading other weapons on subsequent playthroughs. I do actually prefer the money system to the star system here, as I don’t have to worry about getting the absolute best score in order to have an easier time upgrading my weapons.

Most any other problems with DC are pretty much the same ones that were in UC. First off, and I know this is hard to swallow, but shooting zombies for hours on end may still bore the hell out of some people. Shocking. Secondly, zombies still don’t react much when you shoot them in any other part of their bodies besides the head. Is it too much to ask to blow off an arm or see a chunk of chest go flying after a shotgun blast? Finally, since DC is a more cinematic light-gun game, there will be some long stretches of time in levels where the story gets advanced, which also means that nothing exciting will happen until they’re done. It may annoy some people who just simply want to blow away monsters from the beginning of the level to the end.

Ummm, I would keep your mouths closed if I were you…
While UC was a nice looking game, the biggest problem with it’s visuals was that 75% of the environments and most of the character models were lifted straight from the original GameCube games and from the PS2 Outbreak games, and then converted into 3-D and made more interactive. However, RE2 and RE: CV have no remakes to lift from, which makes DC built from the ground up on the Wii, and for the most parts the results are great. Sure, you could argue about the RPD building being lifted from the Outbreak games again, but from first glance in DC you can tell that it got a pretty nice texture and design upgrade. This goes for all environments in the game, as fans will be delighted to see almost ever little detail from the original games remade to a tee. Character models also see a nice upgrade, and zombies and other monsters show some nice detail up-close. The blood and gore has even been upped a little, as chunks and liquid splatter the environment quite nicely. The CGI cut-scenes are also very well done. The game runs without a hitch in 480p and widescreen, and while it may not push the hardware like, say, Dead Space Extraction does, it is nonetheless a upgrade over it’s predecessor.

On the sound front, DC doesn’t disappoint. Most of the game’s music is made up of slightly remixed tracks from RE2 and CV, which is great since those two games arguably sport the best soundtracks of all the RE games. The original stuff here is also good and gets the job done. Voice acting is, of course, the “RE quality” we’ve all come to know and love, and most of the original voice actor return to voice their respective characters…except for Steve’s original voice actor, who can die in a pit of fire for all I care. Seriously, Steve’s voice here is soooo much better than the whiny little punk who played him in CV. All other sound effects and such are great, and the game support Dolby PL2.

”It looks like the party…*puts on sunglasses*…has been canceled.”
DC will last anyone between 7-9 hours to beat, which is unfortunately much shorter than UC’s 10-15 hour length. Then again, DC does have less material to work with, so maybe the length is justified. However, another blow to DC comes with the lack of extra sub-scenarios that UC had, as here you’ll only get two…which really aren’t qualified to be sub-scenarios as your just going through two story mode levels with the added inner dialogue of a certain character. Bummer, dudes. Still, the game offers three different difficulties to go through, and a treasure trove of archive items that are hidden in each level. Like in UC, these archive items include files, items featured in the original games, character bios and viewable models, and lots of other good stuff. There are even achievements to earn and unlock, like killing 50 zombies, shooting over 10,000 rounds, beating the game on hard, etc. Upgrading all the weapons in the game to max will also take many play-throughs. Finally, the game still scores you on your performance in each level, and your high scores can also be uploaded to an online leaderboard specific to each level to test yourself against other zombie-killers. And let’s not forget that you can still do 2-player co-op. Overall, you get your money’s worth here.

If I was to put Darkside Chronicles up against the other monster-shooting light-gun Wii games this year, I would say that it doesn’t have the straight-up arcade fun like HotD: Overkill and it’s a step below the presentation of Dead Space Extraction. It does however, have both beat when it comes to overall value, so it’s not worse than any of those two games. When compared to its predecessor, it’s additions and improvements (improved graphics, weapon selection system, and upgrade system) are balanced out by its shortcomings (less weaponry, lack of sub-scenarios, overall shorter length), which basically doesn’t make it a better game, but it doesn’t make it a worse game as well. In the end, Wii owners and RE fans have yet another piece of blood-soaked nostalgia that shouldn’t be missed, even if you’ve overloaded on spraying zombie brain-matter in 2009!

KEWL
+Abridged RE2 and CV stories should make fans happy
+A more fluid camera makes for a more cinematic presentation
+Zombie-shooting never grows out of style!
+Much easier to score critical hits on zombies
+Boss fights are still challenging
+Improved weapon selection and upgrade system
+Improved graphics with fully destructible environments
+Excellent sound design
+Healthy amount of replay value

LAME
-Less weaponry to use that it’s predecessor
-Pretty much a complete lack of sub-scenarios
-Shorter that it’s predecessor
-Some may find the increased “shaky cam” very annoying
-Some may find shooting zombies to be repetitive
-Story advancement in levels may lead to boredom with nothing going on
-“RE quality” voice acting (note: may not be “Lame” to some)