This ambitious on-rail shooter's camera may bother, but this is a great package for some old Resident Evil memories.
+ Great visuals and cinematics
+ Retells the stories of Resident Evil 2 and Veronica
+ Solid on-rail shooting action
+ Multiplayer is fun despite its limitations
Negative
- The camera shakes so much it might drive you nuts
- Some little noticeable problems with multiplayer
In 2007, developers Capcom and Cavia Inc. delivered The Umbrella Chronicles, an on-rail shooter exclusive for Nintendo's console. It wasn't a new story but rather archives of past Resident Evil games. The Darkside Chronicles is that and a bit more and while some aspects of the game will not be loved by everyone this is still a solid on-rail shooter that is superior to its predecessor in a lot of things.
The game starts somewhere in South America, prior the events of Resident Evil 4. Leon and his partner Krauser are sent to search for Javier Hidalgo, a former drug lord and possibly related to the G virus. People in the village have been turned into zombies, forcing the two to fight against them. The two encounter a girl, Manuela who had escaped from Javier's mansion and then she takes them to where Javier is. This scenario starts in the beginning with a single chapter and the game ends with the final chapter of this scenario. After the first mission of that scenario titled 'Operation Javier', the game changes focus and goes back to the events of what happened in Resident Evil 2 which shows the struggle of rookie-cop Leon S. Kennedy alongside Claire Redfield and the young Sherry. Titled 'Memories of a Lost City', this scenario leads up to the G virus and Leon's meeting with Ada Wong and the destruction of Raccoon City. After the end of the second scenario, the game throws you back in Leon's and Krauser's mission but later yet again shoots you back to the past in the events of Resident Evil Code: Veronica as you take control of Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside as they attempt to escape from Rockford Island which became infested with zombies and trying to survive from the psychopathic Alfred Ashford. This scenario is titled 'Game of Oblivion' and is seven separate chapters long, one chapter less than 'Memories of a Lost City'. While the first scenario is new but not groundbreaking, the other two's retelling are well told and extremely good for fans and those who have never played these two iterations of Resident Evil. While playing the story, the game assumes you have some knowledge at least about what kind of place Raccoon City has become and some information on the character would be useful and what is the virus and such since the game doesn't explain much about the origins.
While the first game was cut down into few chapters of a story and consisted of more games, Darkside Chronicles took two Resident Evil games and did a major focus on them and like in The Umbrella Chronicles; the game is a first-person on-rail shooter that is very similar to it. The game has you shoot zombies without any control on your character or freedom whatsoever (except on some occasion where you can choose to go left or right) making the game feel restrictive. Each chapter you complete ranks you for score, time taken to complete the level, headshots, and enemy killed and then you will get an average rank overall. By earring money you can upgrade your weapons, from power to capacity and reload speed. These cost more and more as they get better. The controls have taken a slight change. The Nunchuk is rendered almost useless since both the analog stick and the directional button are used to switch between weapons when pointing into a direction. Grenades are no longer thrown by holding A and then press B which is sort of better but you have to choose grenades and place when with the weapons and then select them to use them. The game allows you to change your weapons in the stage.
The camera in the gameplay and normal cutscenes is always a first-person perspective. Differently from normal on-rail shooters, the game perfectly portrays the view from the eyes of one of the two characters which induced an exaggerated and sometimes irritating amount of camera movement. The camera can shake so much it becomes almost too difficult to perfectly target your enemies. The camera is a game-making or game-breaking experience, yes so much that depending on that you'll like or hate the Darkside Chronicles, and hating it would be a shame. The on-rail shooting is solid with a decent variety of zombies, BOWs, and other strange creatures to kill with little environments to destroy. Headshots still feel satisfying and the game's freakishly large bosses are tough but really fun to fight. The weapons in the game include hand gun, shotgun, submarine gun, a new powerful linear launcher unlocked upon completing the game on the hard difficulty and more. There is a scarcity of ammo in the game, but hand gun ammo is unlimited. A slightly annoying part of the game is how obvious the amount of cheap surprise attacks by zombies is. For example you see a corpse lying on the ground, seemingly dead and your characters skip it. Then the second you turn you see two or three zombies coming at you. It inevitably doesn't remain a surprise since this trick is repeated so often that the vast majority of enemy encounters are done this way.
The game can be played alone or with a friend, and it's especially recommended to play co-op. The co-op is fun but it has some problems bound to be noticed at some point in the game. One of them, due to the whole rating system that can make multiplayer competitive on who gets higher score, enemies eliminated and especially headshots, lacks a drop-in and drop-out feature. Thus the second player has to enter from the main menu. An improvement over Umbrella Chronicles are the quick-time events where quick-time events appear in battle rather than cutscenes and aren't unreasonably frustrating and unforgiving in multiplayer as they were. Failing a quick-time event damages a player and damage is given at random, completely ignoring whoever failed to do it in time which sometimes ends up punishing the player who nailed it correctly in time which is ultimately unfair. Sometimes a similar thing happens when a player picks up a weapon which may go to the person that has that weapon already, but this is a rarity. Also the game feels like the same character is shooting and not the two. Another issue involves the minimal amount of ammo in the game and the fact that ammo is shared.
Most of the cutscenes in the game take place in first-person view from one of the two characters always available. The pointers remain there, with the exception that one of them can't shoot (in multiplayer). There are some excellent looking cinematics that appear are quite frequent in the beginning of a level or an encounter with an important character or even before a huge boss. The atmosphere in the game is what you expect from a Resident Evil game, creepy and manages to keep the tension. The game also has this polish to it, making it much better looking that its slightly dated predecessor. In addition the environments are well varied and the textures are better. Character models are solid and the big, ugly bosses look fantastic. Visuals become blurry in high speed action or when the character is running or falling. To go along with great visuals there is some great dramatic and fitting soundtrack. The game doesn't heavily rely on music, but the voice acting comes stronger and it's great from all characters. The only letdown from sound is the sound effects. The hand gun doesn't sound quite right, but strangely enough you'll get accustomed to it.
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a bit difficult to recommend. Story wise, the game delivers better storytelling and long scenarios than the first and an overall presentation improvement. The gameplay however, with that shaky camera make it a tough sell. In the end it will depend on the kind of person you are. I got used to it after a short while and had no further trouble afterwards. Not everyone is the same. The Wii has some great on-rail shooters available so it's easy to skip this one for that, but it's foolish for any on-rail shooter or Resident Evil fan to miss this installment.
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Graphics = 8.7
Much improved visuals with varied and great looking environments alongside everything else. The enemies are well designed, especially the bosses.
Sound = 8.4
The soundtrack is great and some of it is really fitting for that one particular moment. Voice acting is great but the sound effects aren't as much.
Presentation = 8.0
Cutscenes and cinematics look fantastic and loadings are fast generally. Some occasional few seconds loadings in levels.
Gameplay = 8.3
The camera may be difficult to get used to but once you do, you'll find a solid on-rail shooter with plenty of zombie shooting. Controls are accurate but not essentially better than they were.
Story = 8.8
I loved the retelling of Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica along with the new chapter. A lengthy story with multiple difficulties and rankings add replay value. Co-op is pretty good despite some issue.
OVERALL = 83 / 100
This ambitious on-rail shooter's camera may bother, but this is a great package for some old Resident Evil memories.