Resident Evil Zero HD (PS4) Review
Release Date: Jan 22, 2016
Date Played: Aug 6, 2021
Capcom knew they had a hit on their hands with the remake of Resident Evil 1. Before it was even done being developed, they apparently dove in with making a prequal to the game called Resident Evil Zero. You can tell from the onset that they wanted to use the remake of the first game as a sort of template while adding a few changes. In my opinion, using the template was a great idea, the changes... well, that's another story altogether.
This game was originally released on the Gamecube back in November 2002. At the time of it's release I had no idea it even existed as I had given up on the Resident Evil franchise after being scared to death while playing the first game back on the original Playstation. Once that dog crashed through the window, my friend and I shut off the game and never touched it again. Fast forward a couple of decades and I'm a pretty huge Resident Evil fan. This is especially true after playing the HD Remake of the first game (also included in this compilation) last Halloween and falling in love with it. I was extremely excited to give this one a try even though I knew it wasn't held in highest regard and was kind of considered the black sheep of the franchise. Of course it couldn't live up to REmake, which is a masterpiece, but hopefully it could recapture some of that magic...
...and honestly, it did. There is some of that majesty you experienced in the REmake tucked away in here. The game looks pretty amazing even now. There are the gorgeous prerendered backgrounds with static camera angles that are so associated with the franchise. There's the creepy mansion, the zombies, obtuse puzzles, item management, scarce ammo and healing items, and all the other things you would expect from a survival horror game. It feels like a survival horror game and it feels like Resident Evil. That's a good thing and if that's what you're looking for this game is certainly an option if you exhausted everything else. The big difference comes in with those changes referenced above. In Capcom's attempt to improve on the game, they shot themselves in the foot and turned a pretty solid game with a cool setting into a good game with terribly frustrating parts.
Right from the beginning, you realize that they have ramped up the difficulty a lot. Many people consider this to be the most difficult game in the series... and with good reason. There are more enemies that are harder to kill, fewer weapons and a lot less ammo scattered around, and there are significantly fewer healing items to be found. You'll spend most of your time in critical condition with no herbs or first aid sprays in sight. While this does make the game a lot harder and more tense that I would prefer, I could see it being a welcome change for a lot of people. What isn't a welcome change, however, are the two other choices the developers decided to put into this game. Firstly, you play as two characters simultaneously. Rebecca, a side character from the first Resident Evil game, and Billy Cohen, an escaped convict and former soldier. While using one character, the other character can follow you to assist you with combat, solving puzzles, serving as a pack mule and carrying items, etc. Or you you can leave them somewhere safe (but even this isn't certain) and go at it alone. You can switch back and forth between the two characters at will by pressing a dedicated button on the controller. While this idea is very interesting, in practice it is very unfun. When you have one person following the other, the A.I. controlling them will have them waste ammo constantly. They also constantly get attacked and you're always having to save them. So it essentially feels like a terrible escort quest with a bad partner. There is also constant flipping back and forth while solving a lot of puzzles and it can be an exercise in tedium. You'll spend around 80% of the game leaving Rebecca in a safe room and going solo with Billy. Rebecca is so weak that just a few hits will kill her and she does much less damage with weapons. With the ruthlessness of the enemies in this game, she's too much of a liability. Speaking of said ruthlessness, the enemies in this game are unfair. Many of them are too fast and are impossible to shoot before they get in a hit on you. They also usually come in pairs and will stun lock your character with no way to take them out. Whenever this happens, it's rage inducing. There's nothing like using your last healing item, running through a door and two random zombie monkeys bum rush you and hit you 15 times and waste all of your health. Ugh...
But even all of that is forgivable. The most grievous sin this game commits is the inventory management system. There are no more storage containers. There are no backpack upgrades. Instead each character gets 6 slots to hold stuff... and that's it. All of the other crap you find scattered around you have to just leave it lying on the floor. That's right, the freaking floor is the storage solution. Many times I would find a room of items and I would have to shuttle them one at a time back to the safe area of the game. Many times I had to traverse the entire map of the game (I'm seriously talking about running from the save point before the final boss fight all the way back to the foyer of the mansion) just to grab a single item. The map shows where items are left on the floor, so this helps some, but it doesn't alleviate the soul sucking tedium of dealing with the constant item management. Hell, I actually like the inventory management systems of the RE games, but this was just a step too far. It's bullshit, and everyone knows it...
The setting of the game is fairly good with some nice environments even if the story itself makes little to no sense. Rebecca and her S.T.A.R.S. teammates find themselves in the woods checking out a downed helicopter. The soon discover it was transporting a convict (Billy). Horror movie clichés ensue and Rebecca soon finds herself on a gothic themed passenger train separated and alone. You encounter Billy and team up. You'll soon realize that the standard run by the zombie to save your ammo method doesn't really work anymore. It's hard to run by a group of zombies when you're on a cramped train and there's hardly any room in the aisle. After solving a series of puzzles, battling through the undead, and downing a boss, you'll come crashing into the Umbrella Training Facility. This is basically just a mansion and where you'll spend most of your time in the game. It is very reminiscent of REmake and both it and the train are the two best parts of the game. Of course, you'll progress down into underground areas, industrial complexes, giant elevators, and all the rest of the stuff you usually experience in these games... but it never really hits the high note of the beginning of the game. Over the course of the game you'll uncover the mystery of what has happened at the training facility. Of course someone has been experimenting with a virus, things went wrong, now there are zombies. It's the same as every other game in the franchise. This one tries to up the drama by having a mysterious shadow antagonist with special abilities be the mastermind behind everything... but you soon realize it's just a revenge story and the big twist at the ending doesn't really make any sense... or even matter. Rebecca is fine as a character and has decent design with some cool alternate costumes but, like I said earlier, is unforgivingly weak. So, being stuck with Billy is the only option... and he isn't very likeable. He's just a generic sort of anti-hero with a bad character model and a snarky attitude. While you're exploring around, there's lots of nice scenery to observe, creepy ambient sounds, and a heart pumping soundtrack that kicks in at the right points. The presentation is very good and I encountered no bugs nor framerate issues while I played. In Capcom fashion, there are a lot of fun unlockables for the more hardcore players who want to diver more deeply into this one.
As for my final conclusion, I feel that Capcom lost their way a little bit with this entry. It does feel a lot like REmake most of the time but with less soul and passion. The changes in difficulty, cheap enemies, using two players simultaneously, and miserable inventory management really detract from the enjoyment of the game. I would only recommend this one to die-hard RE fans. Maybe that's what Capcom was going for when they made this one. Maybe they wanted to design a game just for the hardcore. If this is the case, they missed the mark by focusing on all of the wrong things. In hindsight, this is obviously a huge problem we have all witnessed in the franchise moving away from its gothic survival horror roots into more of an action shooter style. It is an unwelcome change and shows how out of touch Capcom is with its loyal followers. Resident Evil Zero, I think, gives us a glimpse of the developers losing sight of what people truly love about these games. After the release and overwhelming critical reception of REmake I feel that everyone was quite disappointed with this one. That's understandable because I feel exactly the same way. This game is good, but not great and it's without a doubt one of the worst and most difficult games in the franchise.
Final Status: Beaten
Final Score: 7/10 (Good)
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