Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X
PlayStation 2
Nostalgia Factor:
The original Resident Evil Code: Veronica came out for the Sega Dreamcast back in the year 2000. I remember being so hyped for this game. I loved the first three Resident Evils - although by the time Nemesis came around the series had started to get a little stale. But hey the Dreamcast was a new console and I was super stoked to see what direction they’d take the franchise.
I actually didn’t really like the game that much upon my first time playing it. It seemed less focused than the first few RE games. I was getting lost all the time. I was always running out of health and ammo. What you needed to do and where you needed to go was really tough for me to figure out with this game. I was constantly getting stuck. I didn’t like the setting. And I didn’t think it was scary, which had been a big part of the appeal of the series for me. I ended up renting the game twice. The first time I barely scratched the surface of the game, and the second time I made it to where you take control of Chris.
It really blew my mind being able to play as Chris, because the game up to that point had been really long. I assumed it had been about to end. And then I found out that I wasn’t even close to beating the game, more like about halfway through it. I wouldn’t rent the game again, but I’d end up buying it later on down the road for the Dreamcast where I was finally able to complete it once and for all. Still though, I didn’t like the game much and I would end up trading it in and buying a different game.
A few years later (sometime between the year 2006 and 2009), I’d end up purchasing Resident Evil Code: Veronica X for the PlayStation 2. I played through the game and beat it for the second time, but yet again I didn’t have a great time with it and I ended up trading this copy of the game in as well.
Finally here were are in the year 2021. I once again got the hankering to play this game so I could review it for my blog – but the problem was that I had traded in both copies of the game that I had owned. Lucky for me this game would go on sale on the PlayStation Store, where I was able to download it for a cheap price. Owning the digital copy of the game, I knew it was mine forever and there would be no trading it in if I didn’t like it again.
Would the third time be the charm, or am I just destined to not like Code: Veronica? Let’s find out.
Story:
In this game you take control of Claire Redfield, last seen with Leon at the end of Resident Evil 2. Claire finds herself imprisoned on Rockfort Island after breaking into an Umbrella facility looking for her lost brother Chris. This is where the game begins. Claire is released from her cell when her jailer is injured after a zombie outbreak on the island. Claire heads out to explore, looking for a way off the island and back home to safety. On her journey she encounters and befriends Steve, a reckless kid who had also been imprisoned by Umbrella.
Long story short, the two work together in order to hijack a plane and get off the island. Unfortunately the plane is reprogrammed by the evil Alfred Ashford, who has been placed in control of the island. The plane crashes in an Umbrella facility in Antarctica.
Meanwhile, Chris Redfield arrives at Rockfort Island in response to an SOS picked up from Claire. He is led to Antarctica where he rescues Claire, who has been captured by Alfred’s virus infected twin Alexia. Steve is also infected and turns into a monster. Claire and Chris defeat Alexia with the help of monster Steve and escape. Albert Wesker, believed to be dead in the first Resident Evil, arrives and collects a sample of the virus from monster Steve, presumably to use it for his own nefarious purposes.
It’s certainly one of the more interesting Resident Evil stories, especially when you factor in the weird twincest background info you get on Alfred and Alexia. The whole time I was playing this game, however, I was able to pinpoint something in my mind: this is where Resident Evil jumped the shark. The giant, cheesy action sequences. The over the top plot twists. This is where Resident Evil started to stop being Resident Evil and instead began to turn into the more recent abominations like 5 and 6. I mean, the series had always had those cheesy over the top elements, but if you look at the earlier games in the series like one through three, those games were more self-contained and set in a more “realistic” and scary game world. It isn’t quite ridiculous just yet. The tone of the series from this point on starts to turn into more Metal Gear than Resident Evil. And I think for that I’ll always hold a little bit of a grudge against Code: Veronica in my heart – justified or not.
Gameplay:
This is one of the last “traditional” Resident Evil games ever released. The tank controls, the item boxes, the slow opening doors – that kind of thing. I much prefer this type of Resident Evil game to the more action oriented titles released in the last ten years or so. I just wish the game was more fun to play.
I’m going to try not to knock Code: Veronica too much because on the whole I did like the game. It’s just missing that certain charm that REs one through three bring to the table. Maybe it is the setting. Maybe it’s the characters (Sorry Steve, but you suck). Maybe it is just the overall game design. It’s hard to put into words but it is missing that something that made the series to this point so special.
I know one thing I didn’t like was how often the zombies would respawn. For example, the area when you first go outside at the beginning of the game has a courtyard full of zombies. It’s too tight to run by them without getting bitten, so I always kill them when I play. But you need to revisit that first area of the game a few times as you play, and every single damn time those zombies are back. I remember a few points in the game where I’d kill zombies, leave the room, come back, and the zombies would have already respawned. This game is much more challenging than the other early games in the RE series, so this is a major problem. Ammo and health items are already scarce enough as it is. But when you’re having to kill the same enemies you’ve defeated multiple times already, it really starts to take a toll on your supplies. It makes the game not as much fun to explore either. I like to be thorough when I play these old RE games. I like to revisit old areas and comb for things I missed. I’m not going to do that if I return to an area and it’s filled with zombies I’ve already killed. Sorry not sorry.
As much as I wanted to like it, the setting of the game is just strange and the layout of Rockfort Island makes little connective sense to me. The settings in other RE games tend to flow more cohesively, whereas Code: Veronica’s is a hodgepodge of weird parts – some that fit together and some that don’t. As much as I am complaining about this game, like I said I did like it overall. Just not as much as the other games in the series.
Graphics:
If you liked the graphical style of Resident Evils 1 through 3, you’ll like it in this game too. Originally designed for the Dreamcast – and later ported to the PS2 – this game is clearly a step ahead of its predecessors. The characters look really smooth and don’t have those signature jagged edges. The environments are nice, as while this game still has set camera angles, it is mainly rendered in full 3D. The zombies and all the other enemies and boss characters look better than ever. I wish we’d gotten more “classic” Resident Evil games after this, with the graphics and animation getting better in each one. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t Zero the next game before Resident Evil ditched its old formula moved on to its behind-the-back style of play?
Sound:
The music, the sound effects, all that stuff sounds pretty good here. If you’ve played any of the old RE games, nothing you hear should surprise you. Mainly I want to talk about the voice acting. And when I say voice acting I mean Steve’s voice acting. It’s bad. It’s just so bad. He sounds like a whiny little kid from a Saturday morning cartoon, like he should be playing Tails in a Sonic animated series somewhere. It’s so goofy and just so out of place. I could not take him seriously as I played because of that voice. We’re supposed to care for him, and his dead zombie dad, and the feelings that he has for Claire? We’re supposed to care when he *spoiler alert* dies at the end of the game? I don’t think so.
Overall:
It seems like all I’ve been doing is bashing this game. I do like it, I swear. I mean, it’s a classic Resident Evil game. I love the tank controls, the inventory system, the way you solve puzzles. At its heart, Code: Veronica fits right in with all the older games in the series. It even goes above and beyond and does some new things with the hardware it was made for. It looks great, it sounds great (aside from Steve, cough cough). It’s long. The ole switcheroo where you play as Chris is pulled off perfectly. This game does a lot of things right.
That said, I stand by my earlier comments. There is just “something” missing here. Resident Evils 1 and 2 are fantastic games. The setting, the puzzles, the tense combat, and the scary atmosphere really help create some of the most immersive video game environments seen to this date. Code: Veronica tries to duplicate some of those moments, but it falls flat. It is just so hard for me to explain and put in words where this game went wrong. I think it’s a flow thing. This game is so disjointed, as I said. The environments clash a bit and don’t always go well together. Some of the puzzles can be a bit obscure to figure out. And there is a lot of backtracking. Normally I don’t care about that kind of thing, but when enemies respawn and you have to fight them all over again multiple times, that is when the backtracking starts to become a problem. Plus this is where the game starts to take Resident Evil into the “ridiculous” territory that it seemed to be stuck in for years and years in the 2000s. It’s hard to forgive this game for taking the first few steps down the dark path Resident Evil has taken.
Would I recommend this game to anyone who hasn’t played it yet? It depends. If you are a fan of the series and you love one through three, you should definitely play this. If you have never played Resident Evil before, I’d say skip this game and go back and play one and two immediately. Like now. I can’t say the same for this game, and not just because the story wouldn’t make sense if you played this one first. It’s just… not as good as the games that came before it. I can’t put it on that same pedestal I put RE 1 and 2 on. I just can’t. I’d say it is on par with RE3. The length of Code: Veronica gives it a slight edge in my books – although I do feel as if I underrated Nemesis by giving it a C when I reviewed it. If I could go back and change the score to the same one this game got, I would. But for the integrity of this blog, I shall refrain from doing so.
Final Score:
C+
If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:
No comments:
Post a Comment