# Chapter Select, [[S5E3 - Resident Evil 0]] Transcript This transcription was completed on March 4, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model. My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy. --- Did you want to talk more about Bioshock? *00:00* We seem to be in agreement that it was a good idea, but I wasn't sure if we were in agreement about it being season seven here. *00:03* I just think there's a lot of ideas. *00:10* I mean there's a lot of *00:12* On our uh tentative list that I feel like we've added that are just dependent. *00:15* I feel like everything is dependent on just what else *00:21* Is happening or might be released. *00:28* Well, we can always we always can come back like we did with Ragnarok. *00:31* We did Gatobor a year before. *00:35* And then Ragnarap feeds. *00:38* And I don't want to always I don't want to necessarily put off good ideas just to wait till we're going to be able to do that. *00:41* finalize this season until I just feel you know me. *00:51* I just feel better knowing. *00:55* After after E3 is what I was thinking. *00:57* And after E3 time, that only gives us six to seven months. *01:01* But we're doing a smaller season anyway. *01:07* Yeah, but it's just *01:09* I feel like we have a really good buffer and I don't want to squander that, I suppose. *01:11* And I just would feel better at least knowing the direction we're heading. *01:16* So like my brain just works on things, but I know I don't want it to be long. *01:19* And I have all these long ideas and I'm like, so whenever a short idea pops in my brain, I feel good. *01:23* I know E3 gives us a better landscape for the year ahead. *01:28* Well yeah, because then there's still rumors that the gear stuff is happening. *01:32* Like I don't know if you saw that pop up again this week. *01:36* They're like, no, the Gears of War Collection is happening, and it is this year. *01:39* So there's rumors for that again. *01:43* But is Ge but Gears isn't short, I don't think. *01:44* That's like seven games. *01:47* One of those a tactics game. *01:49* Yeah. *01:53* Um you can always drop tactics, I guess, but I would want to play it, I think. *01:54* I'm fine playing tactics. *01:59* I don't have a *02:01* I mean, what has it what has been around on the list? *02:02* Gears, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, I feel like are like the four that we've kicked around the most. *02:04* Where is *02:11* And then you mentioned Bioshock. *02:12* Bioshock I would not like to do until four pops up more personally. *02:14* Here you go. *02:19* Here's the list that I currently have in our *02:20* We have Batman. *02:26* We've got the Souls games. *02:28* 3D Marios. *02:30* Metroid. *02:32* There's 2D or 3D. *02:33* Zelda, same thing. *02:36* Slight Cooper. *02:37* Castlevania, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Halo. *02:40* Marion Luigi RPG Donkey Kong. *02:46* Earthbound, Gears. *02:50* We've talked Silent Hill. *02:53* Um that's a lot of games though. *02:55* Mm-hmm. *02:58* Call of Duty, you don't want to Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty. *02:59* That is not short and you know it. *03:03* All twenty of them. *03:05* So that's like I'm just *03:06* Here's here's the here's what I am I am very uh as we move forward with this season as we move forward with the show I mean and as we move forward *03:09* um approaching things with member stuff. *03:21* I just believe it is best for growth purposes if we always do something that is borderline relevant *03:26* Which we're doing now with Resident Evil. *03:34* Pokemon not so much later this year, but Pokemon's also the biggest media franchise in history. *03:36* And you also know there will be a Pokemon thing in the fall. *03:41* There's always Pokemon in the fall. *03:45* There will be a me for yeah. *03:47* I mean like a it there's always something. *03:50* Pokemon's just a big bang. *03:52* No, I agree with you being somewhat relevant. *03:53* I don't yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying is like I don't want to commit to Bioshock now if like *03:57* Cause we don't have dates for Judas and Antarctica. *04:01* We have to hear about Bioshock 4 this year. *04:05* It's been five year it's been *04:07* Uh four years, I guess, since it was announced. *04:10* So you gotta he I mean that and that means it's been in development longer. *04:14* It's probably been in the works five or six years. *04:18* I I feel like we'll hear something about it this year. *04:20* And then if it gets announced and it comes out next year or something, then yeah, maybe we can do it. *04:24* Does Judas have a window? *04:33* I thought it was this year, but *04:34* No. *04:37* I can see Judas and Bioshock 4 both releasing next year, in which case I think that's an even better time to play both of those. *04:37* Um in which case, yeah, maybe we could do it in the first half. *04:45* But I I I we have so many options that I don't mind just keeping those as options and not locking something in till later. *04:47* It's not like *04:55* Here's I guess what I'm saying is we're not strapped for ideas. *04:55* We have plenty of ideas. *04:59* It's just choosing the direction we want to go in depending on what's happening within the current landscape. *05:00* And that's why I don't want to commit to anything until we're going to be able to do that. *05:06* I'm not trying to commit. *05:09* I'm just throwing ideas around and I would like to I just would feel better knowing the direction. *05:10* Because Well, we've already broadly said we would like to do a shorter season up front. *05:16* And that is also why I get excited when I think of a short season, because I feel like a lot of my ideas are long. *05:21* Well here's the thing I would say. *05:27* If we're gonna lock one in ahead of time, I feel like we should lock in eight. *05:28* Because I feel like that would be a longer Yeah, that too, but *05:33* So if we're gonna if we're if we're wanting to lock something in sooner rather than later, I feel like we should do that. *05:37* And if that's the case *05:42* Yeah, I don't know. *05:45* We have a couple options. *05:46* I still think Castlevania would be fun. *05:47* I still would like to do Zelda at some point, but that's such a time sync. *05:49* Yeah, Zelda's a time sync and Tears of the Kingdom is out in May. *05:53* So like the timeliness of it *05:57* That angle is lost because we can't. *05:59* Well we would have had a lot of things. *06:02* Yeah, well Zelda's always relevant. *06:03* Zelda's always relevant though. *06:04* Yeah. *06:05* So another one of those ones where *06:05* I don't mind doing that whenever. *06:07* Yeah, so I just. *06:10* Zelda Castlevania. *06:11* Like if we were gonna choose a season eight right now, I would say Zelda Castlevania. *06:13* Some of those so see some of those ideas like the long ones, let's say Castlevania, that's a lot of games. *06:19* Like that I would be comfortable with being the first *06:24* year-long season where it's we did one game series because that for conversation's sake, let's say we did all thirty something games. *06:28* we wouldn't do the fighting game at the very least. *06:36* But just for the sake. *06:39* Like we could just take that could just be released in one year. *06:40* That could be the whole season. *06:44* We would have to do another unique punch list for that too. *06:46* Because we're not going Castlevania 1 followed by Lords of Shadow 2. *06:50* I think I think it could be fun to really bounce around in that one. *06:56* Lords of Shadow 2. *07:01* I mean maybe if you want to do Lords of Shadow, but not Lords of Shadow 2. *07:02* Yeah, what's not to love? *07:06* And then we could always add, if we're gonna do a Castlevania season, I still say *07:07* We create a unique punch list. *07:12* I know you're a like a purist over there now. *07:14* And like, oh no, we're gonna play every single one, including I still say we create a unique punch list of about *07:17* 15 plus and to coincide with this, I would say we would also we should also *07:25* Fold in maybe as maybe as a bonus episode or something, we should we should play like bloodstained as well. *07:33* So that that's what I was thinking about with Judas for Bioshock. *07:40* was that would be a member exclusive episode. *07:46* Because I think that because I think Judas like that could help pull people in. *07:49* So but it's not strictly Bioshock, so *07:56* Uh Steam just says coming soon, so there's no date. *08:00* I mean I would like for it to be twenty twenty-four, but it's probably twenty-five, but let's be real. *08:03* It looks so good. *08:09* Yeah. *08:12* I don't know. *08:12* 2025? *08:13* We're in 23. *08:15* Oh, 24. *08:16* I'm sorry. *08:17* 24. *08:17* Next year. *08:18* I was gonna say, holy smokes, I was gonna say that game's been in development for like a decade as it is almost. *08:19* Yeah. *08:24* No, I'm sorry. *08:24* Uh 24. *08:25* I think that game's just evolved a lot though. *08:27* Probably. *08:29* I think I think it started out more as like systemic ideas and gameplay mechanical ideas rather than *08:31* what it is now, if that makes any sense. *08:39* Yeah. *08:42* Kingdom Hearts. *08:43* Jesus. *08:45* That would be a we'd have to start that one way in advance. *08:47* And I'd say that for any RPG. *08:51* So that would be a long that would be a long one coming. *08:55* And Kingdom Hearts 4 eventually will come out, so it's not a terrible idea. *08:58* And that guest list would be pretty easy to bag too. *09:01* Like Cam for every episode. *09:07* Cam, Dustin. *09:10* Um, I feel like we could get Alex O'Neill in one of those. *09:12* I don't I here's my here's why I would not want to do that. *09:15* That is because I literally just replayed all those or not liter when did you within the past five years I've replayed one, two, dreamdrop, three *09:18* When did you do that? *09:29* Birth by sleeve. *09:31* A couple of years ago I replayed 'em. *09:32* Okay, but within the last five years, but I'm not Kingdom Hearts 4's not gonna be out for another *09:34* Three years. *09:39* I forgot that to I forgot the game even even exists, to be honest. *09:39* Yeah, like you Kingdom Hearts season would not be anywhere near. *09:42* Like I'm not *09:46* I would still say if we could just get the Zeldas on the Switch, baby, I would I would say uh I would say we do it. *09:48* Vlight, I find that hilarious that that's your hang up. *09:59* Like I I obviously can just play any Zelda game I want right now *10:03* They're just all sitting in my apartment. *10:07* I think I have all of them, yeah. *10:09* You just you just the convenience factor is your deterrent. *10:11* I just no, here's what here's honestly what it is. *10:14* It's that I don't play my switch enough and it makes me feel guilty *10:16* So I'm always looking for new reasons to play it. *10:20* I don't know how you feel guilty. *10:24* You're talking to the guy who has a Splatoon 3 OLED *10:25* And will will do his very best to get the Zelda OLED if that and win that stuff. *10:28* Yeah, what is wrong with you? *10:34* That doesn't make you feel bad that you're like, wow, I have this thing and I never touch it. *10:35* No. *10:40* Anytime I do my Nintendo year-in wrap-up, it's like, wow, this year you played ten hours of Switch. *10:40* I'm like, dear God, how? *10:46* No, I don't feel bad at all. *10:50* I know I get to it eventually. *10:52* I play like one d someday soon I'll play the next uh Great Ace Attorney game that I haven't played yet. *10:54* And that I know that's a solid 20 hours *11:00* And Zelda will be out and I'll pour a hundred hours into that. *11:03* Like I don't have any problem with it. *11:06* Is there when I need it and when I want it. *11:09* So *11:12* I don't feel guilty at all. *11:13* My Xbox stares at me. *11:15* It's like, why don't you love me? *11:17* I'm like, because you don't have any games. *11:18* So *11:21* I I need to finish my annual predictions post. *11:22* I haven't uh I haven't finalized those predictions. *11:25* Do you want to hear what I have? *11:28* Sure. *11:31* See what you think of these before I *11:32* Is subject to change, I suppose. *11:36* PlayStation, I feel like I've got my predictions pretty much listed out. *11:39* Uh I think the easiest prediction of the bunch is Dreams comes to PS5, PSVR2, and PC. *11:45* Like Dreams comes everywhere finally. *11:51* This year. *11:54* The next one is Bloodborne comes to PS5. *11:55* Whether that is the original game with a PS5 patch or a sequel. *11:59* I don't know, but Bloodborne in some capacity will be on PS5. *12:05* And then here's my real kicker buddy. *12:09* Resistance is revived as a PSVR2 game. *12:12* I think Insomniac is making a VR game, and I think they will go back to resistance. *12:17* These are all very bad predictions. *12:23* Your predictions should be *12:25* PlayStation announces a Hotshots Golf TV show or something like that. *12:27* Because that's all we've been getting from them lately. *12:33* This is true. *12:35* PlayStation Green Lights, uh *12:36* Lemmings film. *12:38* Uh PlayStation Loco Roco children's cartoon. *12:41* Greenlit. *12:45* Yeah. *12:46* That's all we're getting from them now. *12:46* Sack Boy Saturday morning cartoon. *12:48* That would actually be pretty good. *12:51* Sack Boy? *12:52* Yeah, that would be fun. *12:53* For Xbox, I have there's a Game Pass price increase. *12:54* Yeah probably. *13:00* Starfield launches in the summer. *13:02* Personally, I think it launches the week of E three. *13:06* Okay, so you still think they make their make good on their previous commitment though? *13:10* Of the first half of the year, yes. *13:15* I think Starfield is the first half of this year. *13:18* And then uh to not repeat myself and predict that uh last light game by uh the t tom guy or whatever, I say we finally see perfect dark. *13:21* Probably. *13:33* Perfect Dark has to be this year. *13:34* Like out this year? *13:37* Something. *13:40* Something with perfect dark is this year. *13:40* Like we gotta see it. *13:43* There's gotta be a d of actual proper demo. *13:45* I think it'll get shown on if we'll see gameplay probably. *13:48* Fable's the one that sounds like it's stupid far away. *13:52* Yeah, I'm sure Fable's far away. *13:55* Nintendo, I don't really have a ton, I haven't finalized them at all. *13:58* Uh *14:02* I said the other day to somebody that I work with that I think they have a bad year on Nintendo? *14:03* Yeah. *14:09* Like after Zelda *14:09* There's really nothing else. *14:11* Like and he's and he was like, that's not true. *14:12* There's Pikmin and there's Fire Emblem and there's this and there's that. *14:15* I'm like, oh those are all pretty niche. *14:19* Like I don't think it there's anything I don't think Fire Emblem. *14:21* For a Nintendo? *14:25* That game's out in in a week. *14:28* And I don't think feel like anybody's talked about it *14:30* I've seen buzz, but I'm not on Twitter, I guess, but I've seen buzz. *14:33* I feel like there was a lot of buzz for three houses and for this one it's just kinda like trickling out there. *14:35* I I don't disagree with you though. *14:43* I I Nintendo would have to have a surprise announcement of something we're not aware of. *14:45* Do they poll? *14:50* Does Eldemario 1 2, does Super Mario Odyssey 2 just magically appear out of nowhere? *14:52* No. *14:57* I mean I would like for that, but I don't think it has. *14:57* happens. *15:00* I I think this I think they go quiet after Zelda and then I think they're gonna go switch two next year. *15:00* Yeah probably it's just lining up that way. *15:07* Uh my Nintendo stuff is currently new Kid Icarus with a question mark. *15:10* There's rumors that they're working on uh remaster of the DS game. *15:16* The 3DS game, yeah. *15:20* Yeah. *15:21* Game Boy on NSO, if there were those rumors two years ago. *15:21* I just kind of think that's happening. *15:25* Uh and then I also have Metroid Prime and Wii U Zeldas like those finally, like you've been complaining about. *15:28* Those games supposedly just exist. *15:34* Just release them! *15:36* They like refuse to. *15:39* I don't understand. *15:41* I don't have anything like that, so I'm struggling to figure out what to put for Nintendo beyond that. *15:41* Because they didn't make key and Pikmin for the four before. *15:52* I uh then I have my kefer level level prediction. *15:57* Which currently as it stands, it could change. *16:02* I was trying not to do a naughty dog prediction this year, but I think it fits well in here, which is *16:04* Uh both factions and the last of us part two launch on PC with factions launching day and date with the PS5 version. *16:10* There will be a free-to-play element and a physical version for the PS5. *16:18* There will be a season pass, and the main narrative of that multiplayer game will be at least 20 hours of gameplay. *16:24* Main narrative. *16:31* There's a story in that game. *16:32* Yeah, but I don't know. *16:34* I think it's gonna be level mission type structure like GTA 5 to some degree. *16:36* Like you have to do these things to unlock cutscenes or whatever. *16:41* There are gonna be cutscenes in that game. *16:44* There are gonna be set pieces. *16:46* That game's big. *16:48* I think that game is gonna be huge. *16:49* Huge is in scope, not as in success. *16:53* It's the last of us, I think it'll be popular. *16:57* Well, I don't doubt that, but I mean huge is in just the scope of the thing. *17:00* I mean it's our most ambitious game ever, says Neil Druckmann. *17:05* Well I hate to break it to you. *17:09* He says that about every game before it's released. *17:11* It's our biggest game ever. *17:16* Oh. *17:19* In some ways that's probably true for AAA devs though. *17:20* Yeah, it always is. *17:23* The scope just gets bigger and bigger every game. *17:24* You ready to get rolling? *17:27* Hello everybody and welcome to Chapter Select, a seasonal podcast where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy. *17:29* For this season, we are covering the Resident Evil franchise. *17:37* My name is Max Roberts and I am joined as always by Logan Moore. *17:40* Hi Logan. *17:44* Max, I just need to know, did you really kill those 23 people? *17:45* I won't judge you. *17:49* What was that? *17:51* I was so confused. *17:53* What, with the whole flashback in this game? *17:56* I was like, why is this some Metal Gear Solid 5 like children's soldier *17:58* mass murder thing going on here. *18:03* I just I just love I just love that combination of lines. *18:05* It's true poetry within this video game where she says, did you really kill 23 people? *18:09* Don't worry though, if you did, I won't judge you. *18:14* I don't know, if somebody told me yeah, I did, I might be like, hmm, you might be a psychopath murderer for killing 23 people. *18:17* Just saying. *18:24* Oh my gosh. *18:25* Poor Billy. *18:26* Poor, poor Billy. *18:27* Billy's a great character. *18:29* Gives gives great thumbs ups. *18:31* Yes, I love this energy. *18:33* Oh my goodness. *18:35* We are here today to talk about Resident Evil Zero. *18:36* If you could not tell, uh the train game as it has been known to me. *18:39* Man Logan. *18:44* What a game. *18:46* What a game. *18:47* What a season so far. *18:48* But what a game in particular. *18:51* You told me you really like this game, and that surprised me. *18:53* Love this game. *18:56* Because you did not care for Resident Evil 1 very much. *18:58* No, this fixes Well, this has like little quality of life improvements are in this game that I know you were getting annoyed with *19:02* This fixes so much that I had with Resident Evil 1. *19:11* I don't we'll get into this in a bit. *19:15* Okay. *19:17* Yes, we will. *19:18* Let's do let's do the rundown and then we'll start getting into drawer *19:18* uh opinionated takes on this game. *19:21* Uh okay, Resident Evil Zero. *19:24* Like every single other game in this season that we're doing. *19:27* Developed and published by Capcom, it originally released on the Nintendo GameCube in 2002, November 12th, 2002, to be specific. *19:31* Uh this game came about after RE1 remake on GameCube, if I'm correct. *19:39* They were kind of they remade that game and that style, and then they're like, hey, we *19:45* Have we made a game in this cool fancy style in this remake style? *19:50* What if we made another one? *19:53* And lo and behold, RE0 came from that. *19:55* Resident Evil remake on GameCube was March twenty-second, two thousand two. *19:58* So this was just Okay, so same year. *20:03* Same year, a few months before. *20:05* But yeah, this came afterwards and these are kind of a these these two are kind of put together just because the visual similarities between the two of them and clearly built at the same time. *20:09* Yeah. *20:20* Same tech, same vision. *20:20* This game uh has been ported forward though multiple times. *20:23* It's come to PS3 and 360, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC. *20:26* I think it's on PC2. *20:31* I would think so. *20:32* It's it's on everything. *20:33* It's it remains widely accessible, which is kinda surprising because this one is not bad in the series, but no one no one when they talk about Resident Evil is really ever like, yeah, Resident Evil Zero, baby. *20:35* Like it's just kind of *20:47* the game that's there. *20:48* I think in part it's because it's paired with Resident Evil 1 remake. *20:50* Yeah. *20:55* It's never it's not standalone, so I think it's just *20:55* By nature of being the same engine, the same time period. *20:58* It's just bundled together. *21:01* And Capcom's always good about remastering their stuff for the future, so it's really I don't know. *21:02* In some ways it's not a surprise. *21:07* We're getting *21:09* Mega Man legacy games back this year. *21:10* Like they they are always remastering weird old games from their past. *21:13* Uh the game director on this one was Koji Oda *21:16* The producer was Tatsuya Minami, and the composer on this game was Psycho Kobuchi. *21:19* It scored on Metacritic at an 83 out of 100 average, which is. *21:27* Pretty good. *21:33* Um I mean there's got a fair number of reviews and the user score is even higher. *21:34* The user score is only based off of 250 *21:38* Reviews, but yeah, still still interesting that this one seems to be quite well received because I think the tenor around this one nowadays is that it's not very good and you don't need to play it. *21:41* And in a lot of ways, that's *21:52* A thousand percent accurate because the story in this game is not super relevant. *21:54* Like they you're a huge prequel guy, and I know you always love it when *21:59* Uh any sort of story goes back with the prequel and fleshes out the story further. *22:05* I don't think I think that this game's biggest fault potentially is that it really doesn't do anything. *22:08* to flesh out what happens in RE1 any further. *22:14* Like this game's final scene is quite literally here just being like, I think it's that mansion over there they were talking about. *22:17* I'm gonna go there now. *22:22* And that's about it. *22:24* Yeah, this this does not do the uh prequel flesh out umbrella corp type thing well at all. *22:25* Um *22:33* that it's definitely lackluster in that department. *22:33* Even for with my love of prequels, this does not uh satiate that uh desire for *22:36* Good fun prequels that actually add to the narrative on the whole. *22:43* I would also say it doesn't do a whole lot with its two characters as well. *22:48* We're talking about story stuff here and we can maybe *22:52* I mean we let's just get into story stuff now, I guess up front, rather than um otherwise I don't know. *22:55* Rebecca's a fine character, but she doesn't really I mean she's p thrust in the spotlight in this game and I still feel like *23:01* She's just kind of there. *23:09* Like her her whole she doesn't feel like a unique character in the sense that I I don't know anything about her. *23:11* She is almost kind of in this game as a conduit to flesh out Billy, more so than her getting fleshed out in any sort of way herself. *23:18* And in turn, Billy is kind of an interesting character, but this is his only entry in the entire series, and then he never shows up ever again, which *23:27* It's kind of fascinating in a series where they continue to bring back and introduce previous characters. *23:37* Does Rebecca come back at all? *23:43* I don't think Rebecca does either, no. *23:45* Well Rebecca's in *23:47* R E one. *23:49* She's in R E one, yeah. *23:49* But that's it, I believe. *23:52* Okay. *23:55* I Rebecca *23:56* f is just a rookie. *23:58* She's just a clean kind of a clean slate, which mirrors, I suppose, if a player was truly starting out from zero *23:59* with Resident Evil. *24:08* That's not a terrible type of character to embody uh as half of your playable roster. *24:09* But a lot of the intrigue *24:15* is definitely thrust onto Billy, this escaped convict who has a tattoo, the bad boy vibe. *24:17* You know, obviously Resident Evil 4 was in development at the time. *24:24* So the teams were probably aware of this type of energy that they were going forward with here. *24:29* So mid-2000s. *24:33* Yeah. *24:35* So that boys got the tank top and the tribal tattoo and he listens to Lincoln Park. *24:36* Probably. *24:42* So it's Billy's interesting in that way just from a historical contextual period, but Billy himself, like you joked at the top of the show, is just *24:43* He killed 23 people, but it was fr framed upon him and there was like we were killing people out in Africa, I think, is actually where they were. *24:53* I got major Metal Gear vibes from that, which felt so out of place. *25:04* It felt completely out of place. *25:07* I mean the series does go to Africa eventually. *25:09* I I understand this kind of I just mean the little the whole *25:12* Like murdering children in Africa. *25:15* Like that felt very out of place. *25:18* And I still don't know how that's necessarily tied back to the evil that is at Umbrella and on and and Raccoon City. *25:21* It didn't *25:27* It just felt like it was there for shock, not necessarily adding layers. *25:28* Well, I speaking of evil in this game as well, I feel like they did not know what to do. *25:34* with the villains either. *25:40* They're like, okay, this is a prequel, so who can we bring back? *25:42* Well we'll throw Wesker in there because of course and uh *25:44* We'll throw Birkin in there too, because yeah, he's he's been written out after President Evil 2, so we'll throw him back in there and show that he has much deeper roots in He didn't realize that. *25:48* No. *25:58* The order we're playing this, uh we had played zero before two, and I haven't played two in a few years. *26:00* So I've actually I've recently wrapped up two, and when you say Birken now that my ears perk *26:06* I'm like, and I'm thinking to the cutscenes in zero. *26:11* And yeah, oh that is Birkin. *26:13* Interesting. *26:15* Yeah, okay. *26:15* So they put Wesker and Birkin in just because they're the first two major bad guys of the first two games. *26:16* And they're like, okay, we'll throw them back in this game. *26:21* But they're not really *26:24* They're just in cutscenes. *26:26* Yeah. *26:27* Well they they have like a presence throughout this entire game. *26:28* This is what's weird about how this game is structured, is they they have a sort of lingering *26:31* presence and they're monitoring this situation that is going on with Rebecca and Billy and Marcus, who's the evil slug boy man who's out to get revenge and all that stuff. *26:35* But the way that *26:46* None of these threads ever converge in any sort of way. *26:47* Instead, you just get to the end of the game and Marcus is just rather than trying to take revenge on Umbrella, which has been his kind of proposed *26:51* scheme the whole game. *26:58* He's like, no, we'll just attack Billy and R Rebecca here, whatever. *27:00* And he goes after them and then he dies and then that's it. *27:04* You never see anything from *27:07* Wesker or Birken again, which I I get eventually you do in Resident Evil 1 and Resident Evil 2, but they they never actually cross over with *27:09* Marcus in this game other than uh like watching what's going on on cameras and stuff like that, which is a little bit strange, uh, that they set up these *27:20* threads with all these characters and then just do nothing with them. *27:32* Yeah, it's the Ron approach to a prequel where everyone's adjacent but no one's interacting. *27:35* It doesn't change future events or shed light on future events in any real context. *27:40* All it really is is *27:44* What if we had a guy who was injected with a slug controlling virus and he's super old now and he's as old as the founder of Umbrella or something? *27:46* Like that's all it's really *27:55* Well, I think something cool they could have something cool that they could have done in this game is uh at this point in the *27:57* series or in the timeline or whatever, like Rebecca and Mim don't know that Wesker is a double agent bad boy. *28:05* So you could have had Wesker come in *28:12* And like team up with Rebecca and Billy s or something like that to take down Marcus. *28:15* And in Rebecca's mind, she would have just been like, wow, thanks, a fellow stars agent is helping me out. *28:20* Thanks, Albert. *28:25* Uh but they don't even do anything like that because they all kind of had a common foe in Marcus there. *28:27* But yeah, like you said, they're all the characters just kind of sit adjacent to one another. *28:33* And nothing ever really happens between all of the main players in this game, which would be what's that's a cast of about five people. *28:38* And and that's the main cast of the game. *28:46* No one else really ever shows up otherwise other than a few *28:47* odds and ends characters like some of the stars agents at the beginning and then one of them near the end as well. *28:52* But yeah, that's I don't know the story of this game *28:58* Again, and I don't feel like you're ever really playing the Resident Evil games strictly for the story, especially with some of these older ones. *29:01* But even on yeah, I I think it's merits as a prequel, like we said. *29:07* They could have done *29:11* A lot more here that would have been fun. *29:12* It doesn't have the sort of schlock that early Resident Evil games have, or even Resident Evil games in general, either. *29:14* It takes itself a little bit too seriously. *29:22* And tonally it's just a it's just a bit bizarre. *29:25* The writing is funny though, as I mentioned at the top with the whole like *29:29* You can kill twenty three people. *29:34* The writing is consistently bad and not very good and that stuff is a is where it's uh g sort of a B movie level *29:35* But otherwise, yeah. *29:42* Not a whole lot going on with a story in this game. *29:43* You know, you were talking about Wesker. *29:45* I mean, you technically can play as Wesker *29:47* You can. *29:50* Did you do that afterwards? *29:51* Uh I looked it up. *29:52* I didn't dabble with Wesker mode, but I thought that was kind of neat. *29:54* Yeah, I went back and did it for a couple minutes, just uh that initial part on the train there *29:57* He has like a shadow dash and death stare, apparently. *30:03* It's very it's very funny. *30:07* I guess I guess Rebecca's injected with *30:10* P30, a mind control thing? *30:13* I don't think I've gotten to that narratively speaking, so looks like it's a Resident Evil 5 or something type uh *30:16* Element. *30:25* But it's interesting to to see that kind of crop up that you can play as Wesker. *30:26* Yeah. *30:32* Wesker is good. *30:32* The more Wesker is in these games, the better. *30:34* I'm still excited for you to get to five. *30:35* I'm excited to see more Wesker. *30:37* I feel like I don't have enough of him yet. *30:39* He's very prominent in five and code Veronica. *30:41* Those are his two big games. *30:44* Okay, so we're so I'm getting close to him then. *30:46* So it's it is very close. *30:48* Actually I think those two games are back to back if I remember our season correctly, so *30:50* I think so, yeah. *30:54* So uh let's talk about this game mechanically though, and s in how it functions, because it is very unique compared to the larger series, at least *30:55* Well, there's co-op in this game, but it's co-op with yourself, sort of. *31:05* You have two player-controlled characters, so it's not really co-op at all. *31:09* But *31:13* In that way, the puzzles are much different. *31:14* The way you're getting around is much different. *31:17* I feel like it takes out the horror element of this game just a bit because you always have backup with another character. *31:20* I I don't feel like this game was *31:25* scary in the same way that some of the older Resident Evil games were like when we play I wouldn't none of these games are gonna make you jump out of your seat and scream or anything like that. *31:27* But I s I still found the original Resident Evil to be quite *31:36* eerie at times. *31:39* Um and I didn't ever feel like that with this game. *31:40* And I don't know if that's just because of the locations you go to or if it really is offset by the fact that you always have *31:43* a buddy at your side. *31:50* Or maybe not always, but a lot of times you have somebody with you who can help you shoot. *31:51* Tackle Yeah. *31:56* Do all giving you backup in a situation. *31:57* Yeah. *31:59* Um what did you think about this *32:00* two-player controlled setup in this game because it really is the unique thing about the game. *32:04* I love it. *32:11* I think it gives the puzzles the right kind of mental head scratch. *32:11* Just *32:16* uniqueness there. *32:18* I like splitting them up and having them run around the mansion and do different things. *32:20* I like having essentially a 12 item *32:24* inventory instead of six or five like it would have been in Resident Evil One. *32:27* It's really unique and *32:33* It gets rid of the double playthrough that's prominent in Resident Evil 1 and Resident Evil 2. *32:35* It just totally scratches that because they're with you the whole time. *32:41* So *32:44* I overall really love this mechanic. *32:45* I think there are some like button combo stuff that doesn't really like you there are different buttons for switching. *32:48* Like multiple buttons do the same thing. *32:54* So if you accidentally hit the wrong one, you'll *32:56* You'll switch or call back. *32:58* Not only that, but this is this is something weird that I found. *33:00* And I I found some other people complaining about this, and I was watching some like video essays and stuff about this game after I finished it. *33:02* But *33:08* The control layout in this game is different from Resident Evil 1 remake, which is very strange be and it and it's just subtle, subtly different. *33:09* Um *33:21* But that's a really weird thing, especially because both games are packed together as like a single product nowadays. *33:21* They are they were at least a couple years ago when these were got *33:27* uh remastered most recently um as the Origins collection. *33:31* So it's very weird that you would put these two games together and consider them one like packaged item and that they kind of go together and then you have *33:35* uh button controls that are different throughout the real I didn't notice that at all and perhaps that's because we did have games in between *33:42* It's just my big I I think it's just it's just very subtle stuff like rather than square being open inventory triangle is and they they like invert certain buttons on the *33:50* That do certain inputs. *34:03* Um, which again is not a huge deal, but it's a little bizarre that they wouldn't make these games. *34:05* It would definitely be weird. *34:09* If you played them back to back. *34:11* Yes. *34:13* Especially as since they're packed together. *34:16* Mm-hmm. *34:18* That that is a bit odd. *34:19* What did what did you think about the *34:20* the dual protagonist simultaneous mechanic because I obviously loved it. *34:23* I like it. *34:29* I I like how um *34:29* I like how Billy and Rebecca each have different traits as well. *34:32* Like in the sense that Rebecca is weaker, uh, and she takes more damage easily. *34:38* She also does not do as much damage with her weapons. *34:44* But she can mix things together. *34:47* But she can mix herbs together and she's kind of more the healer of the group. *34:50* Um I like that when they are together you can transition items seamlessly between them and you can switch *34:54* Like you there's a lot of lot going on with the menus in this game and and the inventory screen more more so than normal, uh to be honest. *35:00* And uh I I liked all those things though, and I like that it it it it changes the way that you think about the game too, because there are certain situations where I would go into specific boss fights, for instance, and I was *35:08* accidentally tackling a boss as Rebecca rather than Billy and I'm like, okay, hold on. *35:22* I'm gonna go back to my last save and I'm gonna switch this up and I'm gonna make sure Billy is the person that I'm going into this boss fight with because he has higher HP and he's gonna deal more damage. *35:27* And I think there's actually a trophy in the game for beating all the bosses as Rebecca rather than Billy because that's a hard disk. *35:37* Yeah, I believe that's a simple thing. *35:44* Um, which is kind of interesting. *35:46* And I was tempted to go for it, but I was like, no, that's that's playing on hard mode kind of. *35:48* Um *35:53* So I I like that they have different traits and I like that you can the puzzles like you said they come up with some interesting puzzle ideas in this game. *35:54* I didn't think any single puzzle was ever too difficult. *36:01* Um there are a couple that are a little I feel like this game requires you to really pay attention to the files and stuff that you pick up more so than before. *36:04* Um in some of the other games. *36:15* Like I think about the one of the ones I'm thinking about is like down in the basement area or whatever it is, like the cellar. *36:17* When you have to light the torches to open that one specific door, but you have to light them in a specific order. *36:24* All the animal torches, yeah. *36:30* Yeah, and they kind of like subtly hint at that in one of the files that you find, but it's not *36:31* explicitly laid out, so you really have to pay attention to what you're reading and coming across within the game, which I appreciate *36:37* Like for the to be honest, like I just like looked up that solution at the time because I was like, okay, I don't remember which file it was that I read. *36:45* I didn't feel like going and digging through all *36:52* 20 to 25 files that I had picked up again because I couldn't remember which one said that. *36:54* So I think that's the only downside of that system is I can't I wish it more easily highlighted *36:58* like where the solutions for those were at or something like that. *37:06* Um reference material. *37:10* Yeah, it's a little bit cumbersome to have to go back and dig through those where you're like, I know I have the solution here somewhere, but I *37:13* Don't remember which one it was mentioned in. *37:18* Um but I still like that system overall because it does force it does engage you more as the player. *37:21* There was *37:28* one puzzle in particular that I was actually a bit frustrated with, which is toward the end of the game, you are as Rebecca supposed to *37:30* combine I think the red and the green chemicals for the battery? *37:41* Yes, for a battery or something. *37:46* But *37:49* If you send if you send Billy upstairs in the church and leave Rebecca downstairs, you have to backtrack all the way to the mansion, which is now filled with animals. *37:50* To get the green solution. *38:04* But if you send Rebecca upstairs instead with the grappling hook, there's a green jar up there. *38:06* So I feel like like that was punishing you for just picking the wrong person. *38:11* It wasn't *38:15* It wasn't something you could have known without doing it. *38:17* That actually just I resulted in me backtracking getting it, having so little health that I was like, screw this. *38:19* reloaded a save and sent Rebecca up instead and was able to easily get the solution. *38:26* I know that exact part of the game you're talking about because I ran into the same problem except I had green *38:31* on me already and I needed the red and luckily I found out that there's a red uh that red chemical like right around the corner where the *38:37* like the slime boy spawns or whatever in that hallway. *38:47* And so that saved me. *38:51* Because otherwise I thought I was going to have to reload downstairs, but green is like at the start of the game. *38:52* Yeah. *38:59* Well those canisters don't really stand out in the environment either. *39:06* I didn't even interact. *39:09* with them. *39:10* Yeah, they they they don't really do a good job of telling you that those are things you need to interact with and that you need to add those chemicals to your mixing set and *39:11* Like they do mention chemicals like oh if you mix this and this and it makes this and and and so there's a couple uh there's one of those files that outlines that and it's like okay cool but I don't know what that means. *39:19* And that's just because again, the game doesn't really *39:30* I feel like if they would have forced you somehow to take that first green chemical so that you could know that you can add it to your inventory or if they added a puzzle with it more like up front. *39:33* I I think that would have been a better choice. *39:43* Yeah. *39:46* Because then it becomes clear that you need to do those sorts of things and be on the lookout for that. *39:47* Because yeah, that's the that's really the only first time in the game that it asks you to do something with the chemicals, I believe, because you have to like melt the *39:52* thing that you get from the upstairs and it creates a key and then it lets you go through the door and exactly. *40:01* Yeah, that's like the first time you have to use it. *40:08* Yeah, there are a couple annoying puzzles like that in this game that uh *40:10* Yeah, I had to reload reload a couple saves sometimes to make sure that I was doing things in the proper order and that I wasn't getting stuck and *40:14* Yeah, the right character doing the right thing. *40:21* Yeah, yeah. *40:24* Also, can we just talk about the hookshot being horrible as well? *40:28* Like you mentioned that you love having *40:32* twelve item slots. *40:34* The game forces you to carry the hookshot with you until like three fourths of the way through the game. *40:36* Yes. *40:41* And it like like that is one thing that I really hate. *40:42* And we can get into a larger discussion about the inventory management stuff here because I have to *40:44* Like the lack of an item box in this game is it's it's insane. *40:49* Like you are just tossing stuff on the ground left and right. *40:54* And I I feel like that's the main thing that this game forces you like if there would have just been item boxes, like you need that or you need the hookshot, for instance, on the train, but then you don't need it again until that church section you mentioned, which if you're playing this *40:59* And you're not a speedrunner, I'm going to say is three to four hours later in the game or something. *41:12* Yeah, it's kinda like this the definitive halfway point, if not even further than that. *41:18* Yeah. *41:24* And it and *41:24* So I left the hook the hook shot grapple hook, whatever it's called, in the front of the mansion to buy the safe spot. *41:26* That was kind of a dumping ground early on. *41:32* And when you get to the church and you get inside *41:35* You need it to go up through the roof after you fight the bat. *41:39* And it's like, well, now I have to walk through the hole. *41:43* Yep. *41:46* And get this. *41:46* After you fight the bat, that's when the mansion fills up with monkeys *41:47* Yep. *41:52* So when I realized that, I just reloaded the save and went and got the hookshot and brought all that stuff forward with me. *41:53* and then fought the bat. *42:01* That way I didn't have to go through the the monkey infested house. *42:02* There are a couple instances like that in the game where like you are finally progressing, progressing, and you're moving to the next *42:05* part of what you are going to be doing and yeah the game doesn't really convey the other thing with the hookshot that in particular when you use it for the final time the game does not tell you like *42:12* Most of it like with key cards or something like that. *42:24* It's like, oh hey, you don't need this anymore. *42:26* So just toss it and it's like, okay, yep. *42:27* Hookshot does not do that. *42:29* So you're like keeping the hookshot with you because you're like, I don't know if I'm gonna need this. *42:31* I don't want to get stuck or something. *42:35* And it's just *42:37* Taking up two spots the whole time, which then you said, like, oh, it's great that we have 12 slots. *42:38* And it's like, well, you always gotta account for two of them being *42:43* the hook shot if you're ever going any one direction, and then you want to keep the grenade launcher and you want to keep the shotgun or whatever, and it's all of a sudden you're like, okay, gr okay, great. *42:47* That's that's half of my item slots combined. *42:56* What am I gonna do with *42:59* Yeah, there's six. *43:00* So it it fills up very quickly. *43:01* It does. *43:03* The hookshot is egregious. *43:03* But I this is probably my favorite inventory system so far. *43:06* The and what I mean by that is the ability to drop items and they stay present in the world. *43:15* And you can pick them back up. *43:23* Incredible changes the series. *43:26* Why is this not a thing going forward? *43:28* I'm flabbergasted. *43:30* It *43:33* was so liberating to just be like, I I need whatever item I just found. *43:34* I'm gonna drop this here. *43:39* I'll come back for it. *43:41* But then I would argue that makes that leads for to more backtracking than ever before. *43:42* Like kind of like you mentioned, like, oh well, I dropped this here, but now I'm in a completely different I'm at the church and I need to go back to the *43:46* manner like the oh entry entry way that sucks like that's that does suck I I think for things like the grappling hook *43:54* that that hurts a lot because you weren't sure if you need it or not. *44:02* But for more generic items, plants and health, um *44:06* ammo, guns. *44:11* I think of like the gas tanks in the bottles where it's like, okay, cool, I'll set this down because I assume I'll find gas later and then I can make a Moltoff or something. *44:12* Yeah. *44:20* So like you're kind of any anything you can combine, I think is good to just throw on the ground because you know you'll be able to combine it with something else later on. *44:20* Yeah, yeah, yeah. *44:28* And I uh to me, one of my big issues in Resident Evil 1 was *44:30* The mansion just felt too familiar. *44:35* Like no rooms really stood out as unique. *44:37* I think this game *44:41* in general is more unique as far as just the spacing and environments that you're exploring in the mansion and then outside of it as well. *44:43* It's a bit more linear to this game, I think. *44:50* Oh, it's super linear, which is another thing I love about this game. *44:53* But *44:56* The items also, being able to drop them and leave them in places, helped me remember rooms better and environment spaces. *44:57* Like I dropped *45:06* this gas can in the blue room with statues. *45:07* Like it just it created an association to the space beyond what enemies were in there before I killed them or what door it may or may not have been locked here. *45:10* And that combine that with the map, which shows you which items are in which rooms you left them behind in, makes the map far more useful than it was in Resident Evil 1. *45:19* Not as useful as it goes on to be in later games, but *45:29* I really love the uh permience of items in this game. *45:33* Uh even if it does bite you in the butt with some key items later on, like the grappling hook, and that is frustrating for sure. *45:38* Since we're talking about the manor to some degree, let's talk about all the different areas of this game. *45:45* We've got the tr we'll start with the train. *45:52* What do you think about the train overall? *45:54* Because I know you mentioned to me that you like this, I think, more than I did. *45:56* I actually like the train as an opening. *46:01* It's just so. *46:03* It's so condensed and it's so impossible. *46:06* I th I feel like a lot of what is good about Resident Evil games is even if you do run across zombies or whatever, you can *46:09* kind of finagle your way around them and run away from them. *46:17* That's like borderline impossible at some sections of the train. *46:19* And you just have to be ready to get attacked or fire away. *46:24* Which kind of sucks. *46:28* I don't I don't care for that *46:29* Um, otherwise though, what do you think about this area? *46:31* I'm gonna read my notes to you about the train. *46:36* Here's my first note. *46:38* Love the train. *46:40* It's distinct with each car having a great design, so easy to remember. *46:42* And the linearity creates restriction, arguably simplicity, but it keeps you focused. *46:46* Then my next bullet, which I wrote like just before you get to the cutscene where you have to like go to the back of the car and and basically stop the train from running off the tracks. *46:52* I said I I this is before I knew that was gonna happen. *47:04* Hope we stay on the train the whole time and then do the train crashes and I said rip the dream. *47:07* So I really was hoping for a snow piercer like *47:13* This train is super long. *47:16* There's a bunch of stuff happening on this train, and like we just get to explore and learn this train. *47:18* But we left the train in favor of Mansion 2. *47:22* 0. *47:25* I *47:26* I love the train. *47:27* I think it's fantastic. *47:29* I think the train is good because it doesn't overstay its welcome too much. *47:31* Because if I would have spent another two or three hours on the train, then I think my problems with it would have been amplified that much more *47:35* So I think making it this brief opening area of the game works quite well in that sense. *47:41* It's a strong opening. *47:48* It's distinct. *47:49* At least so far in the Resident Evil series, it definitely stands out as a really solid opening. *47:51* When we put together the art for this episode, you're like, I haven't played this game, what should it be? *47:56* And I was like, I don't know, probably train. *47:59* Yeah, when you told me there was a train, I was like, there's a train in this game *48:01* So I got really excited and that was what we used in our prompt was like a spooky ghost train. *48:04* So it's just *48:10* GameCube had great spooky trains. *48:12* There's this, Paper Mario, Thousand Your Door, Excess Express. *48:15* It was a good time for trains back on the GameCube. *48:20* W we talked about the manor a little bit. *48:23* I didn't know if you had anything else you want to say about that. *48:25* Kind of Yeah, it's f it's far more linear than Spencer Spencer Mansion, which I think is good. *48:28* I don't think it is you talked about how it has a lot of unique *48:33* uh things that you remember and I don't I don't think it is visually as distinct when compared to the Spencer Mansion. *48:37* The spin Spencer Mansion is much more iconic and there's way more rooms and areas in that game that I remember personally compared to this one. *48:44* I well Spencer Mansion I remember there's that first room off to the right with a statue and there's a room with a bunch of knights. *48:52* And maybe a hallway with like spikes or something. *48:59* This game, I remember the upstairs where the giant centipede is, which leads to the observatory with the telescope. *49:02* I like *49:10* This game just stands out to me way more. *49:11* There's the kitchen and stuff off to the side there where you can run in the basement area. *49:13* There's a pr there's a dungeon in the basement. *49:18* There's less iconic spots in this one. *49:21* Like there are like key places within I'm not saying that it the m the manor in this one is like completely unmen unmemorable, but I think that Spencer Mansion just stands out far more in my mind. *49:24* Okay. *49:36* Maybe that's a timing thing too. *49:37* I've played I've played RE1 multiple times and um *49:40* And I've only played both of these once. *49:44* I just I really did prefer the the Research Manor laboratory place. *49:46* I I fr remind me near the end of our discussion to come back to something associated with uh RE1 here at the end of the podcast. *49:52* The church we talked about a bit. *49:59* I feel like this is one of the weaker spots of the game for the reasons we talked about before. *50:00* It becomes the spot where you need the hook shot again. *50:03* You need to combine these chemicals. *50:06* You need to I don't I I like the idea that one person's on the top floor and one person's on the bottom floor and you gotta kind of work between the two of them. *50:08* Uh that being said, the person who's on the top floor is doing most of the work. *50:15* Uh the person on the bottom floor doesn't do too much in this instance. *50:18* I also just wish you could put multiple items in the uh *50:23* The shoot. *50:27* Because it did it just gets tedious of one item, unload the item, put in a new item. *50:28* It's just that's a bit too cumbersome, especially when you are moving things frequently between the two. *50:36* The church itself, like the base floor, it's just the bat boss fight. *50:41* There's no real exploration on that ground floor at all. *50:46* It all moves upstairs relatively quickly. *50:51* Now, in defense, I do think Resident Evil in general, so far in our playthroughs, kind of has a third act location problem. *50:54* And I don't think this necessarily has that. *51:02* I feel like it *51:05* I feel like it's always a lab. *51:06* There's always a lab. *51:08* And I just so I I do want to say I don't think this necessarily drags too long at the end. *51:10* with its locations at least. *51:18* But the church just did feel underutilized, especially since creepy churches are like a horror staple. *51:20* So it it did feel a bit *51:27* A bit too truncated. *51:29* How many, I mean, now that we're thinking about this, how many Resident Evil games do end in a lab? *51:31* The first one *51:37* This one. *51:40* Two does. *51:40* Three does. *51:41* Because that's where you find Nemesis, I know. *51:42* Is there one in four? *51:46* I can't remember. *51:47* I mean that's where I lean in the first one. *51:47* Oh yeah, because that's where you I mean you end in a construction site and *51:48* stuff but yeah but that's where you rip out the uh the parish plaga out of yeah so I guess *51:52* Four sort of? *52:00* Seven sort of. *52:01* Yeah, it's not I wouldn't say four is is as specific of a lab as sure, like the these games. *52:05* I can't speak to anything now. *52:12* Well, seven doesn't. *52:13* Seven kind of does. *52:16* The mines, I suppose. *52:17* Because you get to the mines and then there's the whole lab setup where they they lore dump everything about Evelyn there. *52:18* Village? *52:26* Village doesn't have a lab. *52:27* Uh Village you get to remember a lab. *52:29* You get to Mother Miranda's like *52:32* jail cell area and she has all her notes and experiments everywhere. *52:35* Pseudo lab. *52:39* Okay, but that's like Nah I wouldn't consider that. *52:40* I wouldn't consider that one either. *52:44* There's always a lab. *52:46* I can't speak to code Veronica 5 and 6. *52:47* I can't speak to those. *52:50* It is kind of a funny thing. *52:51* I mean speaking of labs though, I guess once you get into the lab section of this game, what do you think about *52:54* That whole area. *52:59* The upstairs? *53:01* Well, there's I I was thinking part. *53:03* Yeah, after yeah, after a monkey kills Billy. *53:07* Billy tackles him into a river. *53:10* Um, so this is kind of one of my biggest beefs with *53:13* the this game was they kill the swapping mechanic. *53:19* From that moment on, you don't swap anymore, except for a little bit toward the very end. *53:24* I'd say you still get Until you're reunited, that mechanic is dead. *53:30* And I I'm assuming that I feel like that's a shorter period of time than your main. *53:34* I remember it being *53:38* Fairly substantial days. *53:39* I mean I did have to replay things. *53:41* As soon as you get as soon as you get Billy back, you have to go do that box puzzle with like the *53:42* Uh the shifting the the water raising thing, that's there. *53:47* Oh that's it. *53:51* Then you have to go through all of the battery building stuff, raise that up. *53:52* Like I feel like there's a longer period of time afterwards where you have both characters back than maybe you're giving it credit for. *53:56* Okay. *54:02* Honestly. *54:02* Maybe a fi the fi if that's about the final ninety minutes to two hours of the game, I would say. *54:03* You're only separated for maybe *54:09* 45 to 60 minutes if that. *54:11* So Yeah. *54:13* I just didn't like it. *54:14* I don't know. *54:15* Just that that I do I do agree that it kills the unique *54:15* aspect of the game, which is And also you just really don't play as Billy a lot at the very end there. *54:20* Like Billy just falls in the water and *54:26* Is alive, like has full health and survives, all this stuff. *54:29* Rebecca really has kind of a slog there at the end, especially if you don't manage your items and health well. *54:32* Rebecca can be in a pretty dire position there *54:38* Which I suppose adds to the the drama of it all. *54:41* Well they give you two they'd give you two health plants as soon as you get to that area and you get off of that cable car. *54:44* Yeah. *54:51* I was an item hog to a degree. *54:52* I was trying to manage everything pretty pretty strictly. *54:55* It *54:58* You know, it's fine. *54:59* It's a stretch of space and you're connecting things and it's like only Rebecca can go in the box, so you're splitting them up again. *55:01* It uh *55:08* It's okay. *55:09* It doesn't stay too long though. *55:10* I will say that. *55:12* Like the lab pretty quickly gets you to the end and you're fighting Marcus and uh all that stuff. *55:13* It's it doesn't, you know, it's fine. *55:20* There is always a lab, I guess though. *55:23* Let's talk about the boss fights in this game. *55:25* Because I think there's I think one of my favorite aspects of this game and probably one of my favorite things about Resident Evil in general is that this is a series that is about zombies. *55:30* Oh no. *55:41* And for some reason, no mutated animals keep showing up in these games. *55:42* There is *55:48* I mean, I just I don't I wouldn't say I like it. *55:51* I think it's hilarious that a giant scorpion falls through a *55:54* A train car. *56:00* Okay. *56:01* Or a giant centipede shows up, or a large bat appears, or a snake appears in uh spike in RE1, doesn't it? *56:01* Uh sort of the snake, the spider, like there's just all these across Resident Evil Zero and Resident Evil 1, there are just large animals and insects that keep appearing out of nowhere. *56:12* And it's I don't think it is good. *56:25* I just think it is very funny that there is this series where they have a lot *56:27* They could do so much with the bosses in this series and they're like, hmm, what if large bat? *56:32* Yes, that's a great idea. *56:38* Large bat is the bet boss. *56:40* It's so silly. *56:41* Okay, I can agree with that because I was not a fan of the animals predominantly being the enemy type of this game in general. *56:43* You fight monkeys, spiders, crickets, centipedes, scorpions. *56:50* I wrote screw the monkeys. *56:54* I I hated the monkey enemies. *56:56* Yes, I don't like the monkeys. *56:58* But it's a nice touch that they narratively explain why you're fighting all of these, because they were test subjects for these these viruses. *57:00* The bosses just *57:06* While memorable because it's a giant centipede or scorpion or or thing like that, they're not memorable in the sense of *57:09* Tyrant, Mr. *57:17* X, uh Nemesis. *57:18* You know, they don't they aren't as strong or distinct as the monsters you actually fight. *57:21* And I was pretty sick of the animal stuff here, uh, really quick in the game. *57:28* So I wasn't a big fan. *57:32* The final boss *57:34* also just was annoying, but not in the this is tough annoying, more in the annoying, annoying way, where it just *57:37* Like stay away from Rebecca. *57:45* You can't actually damage it really. *57:47* You can just kind of distract it. *57:49* All it is is keep it distracted until the clock runs down. *57:50* So it *57:54* The final boss fight itself is not really a fight, more just uh endurance test. *57:55* Yeah. *58:00* I was not a huge fan of the final fight either. *58:00* I I think the most disappointing thing about the boss fight, again, boss fights *58:02* Is that they could have done some more interesting things in this game with Mr. *58:07* Slug Boy being the main bad guy. *58:12* Like he's clearly assembling *58:14* s assembling slug creature monsters this entire game that are attacking like you could have done some very interesting bosses where it's like hordes of slugs things coming together and *58:17* taking the shape of a troll that could fight you or like I I think of things like that that they could have done. *58:30* Um and it would have had Marcus *58:36* permeate throughout the story a little bit more and would have been like more of a direct confrontation with him that you're having throughout the course of the game and instead it's just, oh, there's a large scorpion that's appeared out of nowhere and is now attacking me. *58:39* What should I do? *58:52* What did you think of the you call them slugs. *58:53* I thought of them as leeches, but I think you actually are right. *58:57* I think they might actually be slugs. *58:59* I don't know. *59:01* No, they're kind of both. *59:02* What are slimy little things? *59:03* What did you think of those enemies though, the Marcus clones? *59:06* Hated them as in they were scary and tough or hated them as in *59:11* Yeah, they are hard. *59:17* I they were the kind of enemy when I saw them, I ran away. *59:18* It was like I need to reassess how I'm approaching this because they're f they're fast. *59:22* Bullets don't really do much damage to them. *59:27* You need either the grenade launcher or the Molotovs to really dispatch them quickly. *59:29* And if you don't have those, then yeah, it was like kind of *59:36* More often than not, if I saw them and I wasn't equipped to take one down in the moment and it was near Um like a key part of the map that I needed to be at. *59:39* Then yeah, I would I would run or I would try to quickly kill them with uh the items I mentioned I had on me. *59:49* I wouldn't ever try to waste my shotgun ammo or my pistol ammo on them though, because it just felt like a huge *59:56* Waste of time. *01:00:03* Yeah. *01:00:04* I I think they're really f they are the sh probably the strongest horror element in the game of *01:00:05* Instilling fear in the player because when you see them, it's uh I gotta get out of here. *01:00:12* This is a really dangerous situation. *01:00:17* Yes. *01:00:19* So I would agree with that. *01:00:19* They they were great enemies. *01:00:21* I think *01:00:22* The design of them leaves a bit to be desired, but their function is spot on. *01:00:24* What did you think of? *01:00:30* I mean, sticking with boss fights, we we talked a little bit about the final boss fight. *01:00:32* There's like a two-part final boss fight. *01:00:35* One is *01:00:37* When you're on the tram and you're distracting, and then there's the other one where it's more of a direct fight. *01:00:38* Did you care for that one at all? *01:00:42* The direct fight *01:00:44* Uh happens, right? *01:00:46* But and then you get the two keys and you turn them and you go. *01:00:47* Okay, in the area before with like all the bodies or things. *01:00:49* That's okay. *01:00:53* It chases you around. *01:00:54* It gave me tyrement *01:00:55* Mr. *01:00:57* X kind of vibes of big thing chases you but it has like a tight kind of corridor off to the left *01:00:57* with a little windiness to it. *01:01:06* And then a more than a little bit of a few years. *01:01:08* I didn't care for the camera angles in that air in that. *01:01:08* That's the problem because we have those predetermined camera angles again in this game. *01:01:11* And I think they really hurt in that particular fight because it's just *01:01:15* I I know it's behind me, so I'll shoot blindly, I guess. *01:01:19* Yeah, you're shooting blindly a lot with some of those spots of that little area they put you in, that arena. *01:01:22* Exactly. *01:01:29* So we we feel the same there. *01:01:30* Um and then other than that, Proto Tyrant is the only other boss in the game. *01:01:32* What did you feel about Tyrant Jr. *01:01:37* showing up in this game and uh trying to mess Rebecca up and *01:01:41* Did that surprise you? *01:01:46* And what did you think about those fights? *01:01:47* Because they're pretty straightforward. *01:01:49* They just kind of fire away. *01:01:50* They're straightforward. *01:01:53* I like how it comes back a couple of times. *01:01:54* And oh yeah, especially when it crawls out of the water. *01:01:59* Like that was very much nemesis energy of you can't dispatch this thing. *01:02:03* So that was cool, but in general *01:02:09* Tyrant, proto-tyrant wasn't a scary threat to me. *01:02:11* I was more scared of the leech people. *01:02:15* So it was more just a ooh thing, not a. *01:02:17* I guess there is the one fight. *01:02:20* I think I died on that at least once, where you're trapped near the elevator with it and you have to dispatch it in a tight spot. *01:02:22* Yeah. *01:02:30* That that was tough. *01:02:31* Because it's just tight. *01:02:32* It's just they're not going to be able to do that. *01:02:33* You have to have the magnum on you and ready to go in that fight, or else you're gonna have a tough time *01:02:34* Yeah, so that that was okay, but the rest of it, you know, it's just neat. *01:02:40* It's one of those, see, there's more to it. *01:02:45* It's that prequel kind of energy there. *01:02:47* Yeah, I feel like that's *01:02:50* the purpose that Tyrant serves in this game because it just kind of shows up out of nowhere, fights you a couple times, and then it's written out, and there's really no rhyme or reason for why it's in the game. *01:02:51* It just seems like. *01:03:00* They wanted to toss Tyrant in because oh this is a prequel to Resident Evil 1. *01:03:02* So we should put Tyrant there because everybody likes that that that boss. *01:03:07* Um so yeah, that's *01:03:12* uh a absolutely major prequel vibes in in that regard. *01:03:14* I don't think there's a whole lot to talk about, and we've been talking about it kind of naturally, but what did you think of just the weapons that you did have at your disposal in this game? *01:03:17* A lot of them are par for the course with other Resinual games, but there are some *01:03:24* New things they've added. *01:03:28* I I think Molotovs are new to this game. *01:03:29* I don't think those were in RE1, um, unless I remember incorrectly. *01:03:32* I there's some slight changes here and there. *01:03:37* The shotgun, but then there's the hunting rifle as well, which is *01:03:39* A more powerful version or was it the ammo? *01:03:43* Yeah, I think it's more powerful but less ammo potentially. *01:03:45* Um the pistol, you can get the upgraded version of the pistol. *01:03:48* Which is which is cool. *01:03:53* Um the grenade launcher is again a staple. *01:03:54* It's it all seemed par for the course. *01:03:57* Yeah. *01:04:00* Normal RE stuff. *01:04:00* I liked *01:04:01* being able to swap between them the characters, nothing felt tied to one of them. *01:04:02* So like, you know, if if I had to do something with Rebecca but she was low on health, like I would give her the more powerful pistol. *01:04:07* Uh and she generally had the grenade launcher while uh Billy carried the shotgun, but you could freely move things around. *01:04:14* So that felt *01:04:20* fine and nice and it lended itself to the strategy of what am I gonna set out with here? *01:04:22* What ammo am I gonna take with me? *01:04:28* Things like that. *01:04:30* So in general, it's it's typical classic Resident Evil weaponry, nothing too surprising. *01:04:31* How did you outfit each character out of curiosity? *01:04:37* outfit is in their actual outfits or what they carry No sorry as in like what what type of uh items did you find yourself naturally giving either of them? *01:04:41* I try to keep it honestly f *01:04:49* pretty even. *01:04:52* Okay. *01:04:54* Generally health for each of them, each one had a a two weapon, two slot weapon and then one of the pistols. *01:04:55* And that would vary depending on the situation, which pistol they had, but I straight up dropped my second pistol at one point and I never got it back. *01:05:02* I gave Billy the shotgun and the grenade launcher. *01:05:12* I just had him totally outfitted with all the heavy armaments, and then I gave Rebecca the upgraded pistol and the magnum. *01:05:16* Okay. *01:05:23* So she was hand h handheld weapons and Billy's big boy guns. *01:05:23* So now that you're you're talking, I'm *01:05:29* I don't think I had the Magnum. *01:05:33* You get it right on the uh the. *01:05:35* Is it given to you or do you have to collect? *01:05:39* It's just blatantly given to you, yeah. *01:05:41* Okay, then then I did have it. *01:05:44* Because I I was trying to see if I was confusing that with the upgraded pistol, which I do. *01:05:45* You have to pick it up, but um *01:05:51* It's on the train car between the church and the lab area. *01:05:55* Um it's sitting on there's like a dead person on the tracks on the dead body, yes. *01:06:00* Okay, I'll pick it up off the dead body. *01:06:04* Yeah. *01:06:06* I've uh for a moment *01:06:07* the the pistols had blended and I was starting to think that maybe I had missed something. *01:06:09* I did pick that pist that Magnum up. *01:06:12* Okay. *01:06:14* Yeah. *01:06:15* So I gave Yeah, I I I c I had a lot of weapons. *01:06:16* on me and I'm curious like what the ideal this is a game that I think is really cut out for speedrunning because you can put characters in different parts of the map and have them do different things and *01:06:20* carry different weapons at once. *01:06:32* I'm I'm curious like what the ideal speed running patterns are for this game. *01:06:34* Who you send to which parts of the manor and who does which things and which weapons you carry on you. *01:06:39* uh to defeat the bosses because some of these bosses are pretty difficult I would say and they take quite a few hits to kill so *01:06:45* Looking at speedrun. *01:06:54* com, the current world record for a new game is one hour and sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds. *01:06:56* New game plus one twelve. *01:07:01* Wesker mode one eleven. *01:07:03* Knife only *01:07:05* Ninety minutes. *01:07:07* All held by pessimism. *01:07:09* Pessimism. *01:07:13* Uh *01:07:14* Which looks to be a Chinese speedrunner playing on PC. *01:07:16* So fascinating. *01:07:20* Interesting. *01:07:22* Very, very interesting. *01:07:24* It's always curious. *01:07:25* I'm always curious to see. *01:07:26* Like I you know I'm not a huge speed run guy, both in practice and *01:07:27* uh like viewing it like I'm not an SGDQ person like you are. *01:07:33* Yeah. *01:07:38* Um but I am always interested in uh the Resident Evil scene in particular. *01:07:39* I feel like cause these games naturally have lended themselves to faster and faster runs. *01:07:45* They feel video gamey in that way. *01:07:50* They encourage more playthroughs, especially the remakes where they give you like new weapons, there's stuff with an infinite ammo. *01:07:52* Like it gets arcadey at the end and it's how fast can you get through it? *01:07:59* The Resident Evil series just feels like something that is always *01:08:03* lent itself to optimization and speed, which is I think unique for such a major *01:08:07* franchise to lean into that still to this day. *01:08:15* It's something that Capcom definitely like designs their game. *01:08:19* You can tell they design like pretty much all these games with it in mind to some degree. *01:08:22* Especially like seven and eight as well. *01:08:27* I don't know about maybe as much five and six. *01:08:29* Let's circle actually we'll talk about let's talk about music real quick because I don't think there's a lot to talk about and then we're gonna circle back around to the *01:08:33* thing involving RE one that I said I wanted to speak about. *01:08:40* Uh anything about the music staying out too in this game? *01:08:43* I I wrote the save theme is a little tweaked, so I'm the save theme is the RE staple. *01:08:46* There is music during the break. *01:08:52* Train break sequence, Chase, where you're running to the back. *01:08:55* I thought that was pretty good. *01:08:57* I noticed that. *01:08:58* Wrote it down. *01:08:59* Um and I wrote music when bad guy pops out of fridge. *01:09:00* So there is some music when that happens that apparently I liked as well. *01:09:04* It's it's more of that old style music. *01:09:09* I'm *01:09:12* Like I mentioned earlier in the episode, I actually have recently finished Resident Evil 2 remake, and I'm noticing the music way more in these modern games than I am in the older ones. *01:09:13* And it has me excited to talk about those games a bit more, but I think the restriction of music in the older games *01:09:24* doesn't necessarily mean they stand out, uh, at least to this day. *01:09:34* So it's it it's good when it's there. *01:09:38* I like it, but I couldn't pick out a theme this time around or anything like that outside of *01:09:43* the three I wrote down apparently. *01:09:48* So Yeah, I don't think there is much to write home about in this soundtrack other than what we what you already said, honestly. *01:09:50* The save theme again stands out, which is *01:09:59* always the case with these games. *01:10:01* But then the the way that they use the music sparingly and throughout the game as well, I think, is good. *01:10:04* Also, there is one problem that I noticed in some areas of the game. *01:10:09* because different sections have different themes obviously. *01:10:12* The tracks loop whenever you walk through a door *01:10:16* And that's kind of annoying because if you're jumping in between hallways quickly or something like that, that track restarts over and I I end up on that. *01:10:21* That was one thing that kind of got annoying at certain times in the game and it it wasn't such like that I was getting like *01:10:30* really bothered by it or anything, but it was it was it was a little bit strange. *01:10:38* I wish that would have been seamless between uh rooms and corridors and all that stuff. *01:10:42* But yeah, music is fine overall. *01:10:46* Okay, before we uh wrap up with legacy, I feel like we've talked about essentially everything else, but I did want to ask you one thing. *01:10:48* Okay. *01:10:54* I think when we did our *01:10:55* Resident Evil 1 episode, you were surprisingly you were pretty down on that game in a lot of ways. *01:10:57* And part of me was like, okay, Max's opinion, I believe, will change as we play more of these games. *01:11:03* And I think you're going to come to *01:11:10* respect the older style of Resident Evil games. *01:11:12* And in some ways I feel like that is true here. *01:11:14* Because you like this game now and you're like, yeah, I like this format. *01:11:16* I like this style. *01:11:19* This is good. *01:11:19* Yeah. *01:11:21* And I think you'll like Code Veronica as well. *01:11:21* Maybe I'm wrong, but I I I I think you'll dig that game too. *01:11:24* So I'm curious if in retrospect you think if you went back to Resident Evil One now that you kinda know how these games are structured and a little bit more of what you're getting into, if you think you would be a little bit *01:11:27* more into that game now? *01:11:38* Like have you thought of this at all yourself? *01:11:40* Not that you didn't give Resident Evil 1 a fair shake, but now that you've *01:11:42* gotten accustomed to what to what to expect with these games. *01:11:47* And and and obviously there's a lot of quality of life problems that we talked about in our Resident Evil 1 episode with that game. *01:11:51* Uh so I understand all those complaints and I have those same complaints. *01:11:57* But do you think if you went back and played that game now maybe you would appreciate it or like it a little bit more? *01:12:01* Because you've kind of I think *01:12:05* I think that's the problem, though. *01:12:08* I think the A. *01:12:10* I love retro games. *01:12:12* I love playing old games. *01:12:14* So don't mistake me as some youthful person here. *01:12:15* But I do think *01:12:19* Maybe I'm just the quality of life stuff that was introduced with zero and going forward zero and then Resident Evil 4 obviously just changes everything and *01:12:21* I have issues with that game as well, just mechanically, that was definitely fixed in the VR version, and I'm most assuredly it has to be fixed here in the upcoming remake for that. *01:12:35* But I maybe I'm just too used to modern Resident Evil, which arguably started here with zero and then four, and then now we get the remakes that are d defining the franchise to this day. *01:12:47* But when I think back to to one, what were my issues? *01:13:01* It was inventory management, it was item permeance, it was difficulty. *01:13:05* Navigating a space um that was too samey. *01:13:12* The map wasn't useful. *01:13:16* Just things like that. *01:13:18* Like there were just these small frustrations, the death by a thousand cuts, essentially. *01:13:19* The idea of Resident Evil 1 I enjoy a lot, but I think the execution left a lot uh it was too bumpy. *01:13:24* So you're saying they should remake the remake at this point? *01:13:32* I think it would be that's that's a fascinating question because we have a def we have a hard cut, right? *01:13:36* Two Resident Evil 2 is now the modern era *01:13:42* of these old games, right? *01:13:45* So it's but they already remade Resident Evil 1. *01:13:47* That was the thing. *01:13:52* They've never rem made Resident Evil Zero, but it was at the same time with that remake, so they kind of always been lumped together. *01:13:53* A remake of those would be interesting. *01:14:02* And the so what happens after Resinual 4 remake? *01:14:05* The next, I think, obvious step would be Code Veronica. *01:14:08* That's what I've been wanting forever. *01:14:12* And they kind of tease it at the I mean, spoilers for our Resident Evil 3 episode, they kind of tease it at the end of Resident Evil 3. *01:14:14* And it got me hyped for it. *01:14:21* And uh recently Capcom actually shut down a fan remake project for Code Veronica. *01:14:23* Um *01:14:30* Which it's their IP, they could shut it down whenever they want. *01:14:31* That's not necessarily indicative of a new project in that world. *01:14:34* Lord knows Nintendo does that hardly. *01:14:38* Exactly. *01:14:40* So, you know, that's not indicative, but *01:14:41* Capcom in general seems a bit more lenient with fans modifying their games or sometimes, I think. *01:14:43* So I will say what I will say in my day job, the only people the only emails I've ever gotten from uh *01:14:50* Companies that have been like, we need you to take this down off your website now is Capcom. *01:14:57* And those emails always stem from Capcom's Japanese offices. *01:15:02* And then we take them the PR and we're like, should we do anything about this? *01:15:05* And they're like, just *01:15:08* Just ignore it. *01:15:09* It's okay. *01:15:10* You're fine. *01:15:11* So Capcom is kind of uppity. *01:15:12* It does. *01:15:13* Okay, I'll roll with it. *01:15:14* But after Code Veronica, do they remake five and six? *01:15:16* Do they remake the *01:15:19* what I understand at this time, the black sheep of the series, do they do they pour in remake co-op games or do they maybe leave those untouched? *01:15:21* Yeah, I don't know. *01:15:30* It's a really interesting thing. *01:15:31* Because I think Zero should get a remake. *01:15:32* Because it is kind of one game that has never been retouched. *01:15:35* I don't know if Zero remake moves the needle. *01:15:40* I would say Code Veronica would move Veronica. *01:15:43* Code Veronica, I think, should be next. *01:15:45* But after that, where do they go? *01:15:47* I guess just the question is, yeah, uh do they keep at what point do the remakes in? *01:15:49* Because they'll have remade everything. *01:15:54* Exactly. *01:15:56* I I feel like it would make more sense to remake one in Code Veronica before it would be with zero. *01:15:57* And that's just because I don't think this this game is very important. *01:16:03* And I don't think that this game has many fans. *01:16:06* In the overall Resident Evil landscape, it clearly isn't, because we never see Billy again. *01:16:10* We never hear about *01:16:15* Marcus really, as far as I know. *01:16:16* Uh Rebecca. *01:16:18* Rebecca's in one. *01:16:20* But that's a good one. *01:16:21* Exactly. *01:16:21* So like this game's kind of just been *01:16:22* Forgotten essentially, which is I'm not out here going to bat for Billy and Rebecca, but I think this game has a lot of really great mechanics and ideas that should be explored, maybe *01:16:25* I just think it's a hard sell to remake this game. *01:16:39* Like if they announce RE0 remake tomorrow, I think everybody's widespread reaction would be, huh? *01:16:42* What? *01:16:47* I'm not saying it needs to be next. *01:16:47* I think it just I would buy it. *01:16:49* But I it I just would I think it would be cool if eventually we could have everything from zero through four or code Veronica remade. *01:16:51* I will say I don't think a remake is an easy process either. *01:17:02* I will say I definitely think four is the cutoff when it comes to remakes. *01:17:06* Like if we get into remaking five, then I'm gonna be a little confused because I think anything. *01:17:11* that would appear on an HD console uh moving forward, I I think is easier to just remaster. *01:17:18* And I think the states of a lot of those games are pretty they hold up pretty well nowadays. *01:17:25* Like any anything about 2000 *01:17:29* eight and after I feel like still holds up pr pretty well by modern standards. *01:17:33* Like it's not as hard to go back as *01:17:38* Code Veronica would be now. *01:17:41* Which is Code Veronica and Resident Evil Zero are kind of the only two games I'm aware of that haven't been remade at least once. *01:17:44* Yeah. *01:17:53* Because obviously one's been remade and then everything else has up to this point. *01:17:54* So that's also a fascinating pairing that these two games are kind of stuck in their original. *01:17:58* versions. *01:18:05* Yeah. *01:18:06* I think we I I mean to maybe open it up a bit more here. *01:18:07* I think because I think we're kind of naturally doing this now, talking about this game's legacy and yeah and stuff, which we're going to lead into here. *01:18:10* But I *01:18:17* Like what is this game's legacy, I guess? *01:18:18* To me, it's just that it's sort of the black sheep of the series. *01:18:21* I don't I don't think it's I don't think it's bad. *01:18:25* I don't think it's particularly amazing either. *01:18:27* It's just *01:18:30* Kind of there if you want a game that is going to show you what old school Resident Evil is or was with a spin obviously the two person *01:18:31* uh two-player controlled character thing is the spin of this game. *01:18:40* Um but it really does dilute the basics of the old formula down. *01:18:44* And that's uh that's about all that it is. *01:18:49* I just feel like it's the one entry that's kind of there. *01:18:51* Especially if we're talking about the main core *01:18:55* What ten entries? *01:18:58* Nine ten entries? *01:18:59* Sure. *01:19:01* Something like that. *01:19:01* I I think of it in a couple of ways. *01:19:03* And then one of them is from a *01:19:06* I guess a historical perspective of this game was birthed out of a recent deal in partnership with Nintendo where Resident Evil *01:19:10* goes exclusive for a hot minute on GameCube. *01:19:20* And i I always think of this well now I think of this, I should say. *01:19:24* I think of this now kind of like Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion. *01:19:29* where those games launched alongside each other roughly I think those were a week or so apart, maybe not if not the same day. *01:19:34* But it was a after a drought of *01:19:40* No games, and then finally we get these two versions of it. *01:19:43* And while there's never really been a drought of Resident Evil games per se *01:19:46* Resident Evil remake on GameCube was this push forward with new tech, new engine, bringing a classic to a modern audience on powerful hardware. *01:19:51* And then Resident Evil Zero launches six or seven months later, and it's a brand new game using this engine and assets and *01:20:00* Expanding on like a what would at the time a modern version of Resident Evil 1 be? *01:20:08* And that was zero. *01:20:14* And so it's a place where they experimented, but also kind of did like *01:20:15* You could also think of this like the Majora's Mask equivalent of we have the same assets, we have the same console. *01:20:20* What can we make in a shorter developmental period of time? *01:20:28* How can we push this forward and experiment with it? *01:20:31* And Zero gets that. *01:20:34* I think the story is totally bleh. *01:20:36* It's fluff. *01:20:39* It doesn't add anything to the world or lore that's really gripping and engaging. *01:20:40* But mechanically, this game has some cool ideas. *01:20:46* And some ideas I think should still be in Resident Evil today. *01:20:49* I'm surprised that they aren't really. *01:20:52* So *01:20:54* It's an interesting game, to be for sure, but it's not, you know, it's not one the fans really are chomping at the bit to play over and over again. *01:20:55* It's one I'm glad we put in our lineup for this season though, because I really do think it is fascinating to go back to and experience. *01:21:07* And again, it's it's not wholly important. *01:21:14* I think we could have just as easily not played this game, but uh it's it's it's *01:21:16* Interesting and it gives you a lot of larger context for the series and where Capcom's been going and stuff like that over the past 20 years. *01:21:21* It's really a cool, cool game. *01:21:29* And honestly *01:21:32* I mean, I'm sitting here thinking about it. *01:21:34* Resident Evil 7, like we talked about, a reinvention of the series, trying to save it a new engine. *01:21:36* And then we go back and we remade two, and then they remade three. *01:21:43* So they're bringing in those modern conventions again *01:21:47* From seven, refine it in these remakes, then there's village. *01:21:51* It's almost the same exact strategy, just *01:21:55* New age, new tech, new entries, and new style of gameplay, essentially with the first person and and whatnot. *01:21:59* So it's really fascinating contextually, both for Capcom and the series on the whole. *01:22:06* I think the one thing I will say to end here for myself is I am I'm I so w we're gonna move moving forward this season and we're playing Resident Evil 2 remake and Resident Evil 3 remake and we're not playing the originals. *01:22:12* I would be so curious to see what you think about those games in their original states because they are much different. *01:22:26* At least I would say two two two remake is pretty *01:22:32* Stays pr sticks pretty close, I believe. *01:22:36* Three is much different, just because it's so different mechanically for with how Nemesis functions in the original game and stuff like that. *01:22:39* I would be fascinated to see what you would think about those games in their original states because I have played those, but it has been very long since I've played those. *01:22:46* Um and not only that, but we've now played of the Resident Evil games in this style that we're playing over the course of this season, it is 1-0 in Code Veronica. *01:22:55* And Code Veronica chronologic or *01:23:05* Yeah, chronologically is the latest game in the series, but it'll also be the earliest game in the series that we'll have released because we've played these two other remakes. *01:23:07* uh that came out after it. *01:23:17* Yes, and Code Veronica was in 2000. *01:23:19* Yeah, so technically Code Veronica will be the oldest Resident Evil game you will have played. *01:23:22* And I'm curio I'm very fascinated in seeing like *01:23:27* Because I feel like in your own mind, moving forward, you'd be like, oh, well, Code Veronica is going to be better naturally and uh it'll improve on these things. *01:23:30* That might not be the case. *01:23:37* It might be worse in some ways, even when it's true. *01:23:38* So so you you you're you're uh the way we've introduced you to these original Resident Evil games is kind of *01:23:42* kind of crazy and absurd in some ways and it might toy with your brain. *01:23:52* Um so I'm very much looking forward to playing that game when we do. *01:23:56* Well that's what I love. *01:24:00* And that's kind of the beauty of this bouncing back and forth that we do here on Chapter Select. *01:24:01* It gives us the opportunity for unique perspectives and experiences because *01:24:05* This has so far been really a great trip. *01:24:11* So I'm looking forward to it. *01:24:14* I'm actually super jazzed to play Code Veronica here in a few games. *01:24:16* Um *01:24:20* It's gonna be all fun until we get to six and then we'll weep. *01:24:21* But I'm looking forward to doing that with you, you know, not being alone as we suffer together. *01:24:26* The game's not bad. *01:24:30* Dedicated roundhouse kick button. *01:24:32* That's what I always say about it. *01:24:34* Hmm, this may be the best game of them all. *01:24:35* But I think that'll do it for Resident Evil Zero. *01:24:38* Thank you all so much for listening. *01:24:41* If you'd like to listen to more seasons, you can go check out chapterselect. *01:24:43* com. *01:24:48* You can follow the show at chapterselect. *01:24:48* If you'd like to follow Logan, you can find him on Twitter at Moreman12 in his writing over at comicbook. *01:24:50* com. *01:24:55* If you'd like, you can follow me on Twitter at Max Roberts143 and my writing over at maxfrequency. *01:24:56* net *01:25:01* Thank you so much for listening and until next time, adios. *01:25:02* Chapter Select is a max frequency production. *01:25:06* This episode was researched, produced, and edited by me, Max Roberts. *01:25:09* Season 5 is hosted by Logan Moore and myself. *01:25:14* Season 5 is all about Resident Evil. *01:25:17* For more on this season, go to chapterselect. *01:25:20* com forward slash season 5. *01:25:22* Follow the show at Chapter Select and check out previous seasons at ChapterSelect. *01:25:25* com. *01:25:30*