One of the weaker Resident Evil game
User Rating: 7.5 | Resident Evil 0 GC
When I found out about this game, I thought it would be just like the remake of the first Resident Evil with a strong survival factor, isolation in a creepy mansion, and a memorable storyline. Unfortunately this game take a few steps backwards from the remake in terms of Resident Evil. First of all this game plays very similarly to the remake, the main difference being you control two people for pretty much the entire game and you can switch off between them and trade items and such. The partner system pretty much works against this game since trading items sometimes just becomes tedious. Switching between them is obnoxious and the AI is not the greatest as well as having to tediously do these tasks and puzzles that require you to constantly switch between the two. The partner system also kills most of the creepiness and isolation the previous games offered, I mean RE4 even has a better sense of isolation than this game. After the train, things start feeling a little like the first game, meaning the games atmosphere doesn't quite feel as original aside from maybe a few areas near the end. Another thing is the lack of item chests, so you have to drop items if you don't want them in your inventory, which sucks because if you drop and item far behind and find out you need it, you need to go all the way back to where you dropped it. A bid disappointed for me was the enemies. Sure you have your zombies, your hunters, your tyrants and such, but a lot of enemies are just generic animals infected like giant scorpions, giant worms, giant bats, giant frogs, giant apes. The enemies/bosses did not feel original, and as cool as the tyrant was, even he felt similar to the tyrant in the remake. I guess the leech enemies are pretty cool and original though, and really the only enemy that really made the game challenging. The storyline feels a little generic and does not feel as developed or haunting as the previous games. It pretty much follows a dead man revived by his leeches seeking revenge on the company he created that betrayed him. Sure it shows the origins of the virus and Umbrella and what happened directly before the mansion incident, but it felt rather cheesy and disappointing. Still, I think it did a good job on expanding Rebecca's character, and Billy was a nice addition.
Graphics are amazing just like the remake, some of the best I've seen on Gamecube.
The sound is great, and voice acting is pretty well done aside from a few like Birkin's.
This game offers decent replay with the leech hunter mode where you have to collect 100 glass leeches in the games mansion and have limited ammo to fend the enemies off. This mode might be one of the few things that I fully enjoyed about this game. Aside from this, you do get unlockables for getting a certain number of leeches like costumes, unlimited ammo, new guns. But this game just doesn't feel as serious as the previous titles, the storyline isn't as compelling, the game feels much easier and more ammo abundant than the remake, and it just doesn't feel as original. For fans it is worth playing since it does have good moments and does play out like a RE game, but be warned the partner system is bad and it has very little feeling of horror.
