The Resident Evil franchise is constantly reinventing and refreshing itself, and while many games it’s yielded receive acclaim as true classics of horror gaming, some aren’t likely to be so fun for new series fans (or even longtime players looking to walk down memory lane). While Resident Evil didn’t invent survival horror, it codified and popularized the subgenre, and essentially leading its own way means that it hasn’t always succeeded in trying to build the most balanced or well-paced experience for its purposes.
Resident Evil‘s ever-evolving nature means that it’s drawn fans of all tastes. No matter how many arguments may exist for any one installment as more flawed than the others, there will be players who find them immaterial or simply not significant in favor of its positives. There are those out there who’ll make cases for Resident Evil‘s most obscure spin-off titles and rough entries as underrated gems, and such points of view are certainly worth hearing out. That’s to say nothing about those who love Resident Evil games for their potentially alienating aspects rather than despite them, embracing campy character performances and making memes out of unwieldy gameplay elements.
Even so, a large chunk of the series’ playerbase tends to agree that certain installments are more likely to be hit-or-miss or acquired tastes rather than must-plays. For instance, Resident Evil 5 has fans for its fast-paced co-op experience, and Resident Evil 6 does as well for starring several well-loved reoccurring characters and casting each in an individual storyline shared with still RE6-exclusive co-stars. But both games are more broadly criticized over factors such as confusing plot elements and an action-horror balance disproportionately in favor of action compared to the series’ roots, representing Resident Evil getting too big before RE7 and Village re-enabled the franchise to frighten and intrigue fans. And there are even classic, fully-horror Resident Evil titles that fans may find they’re better off giving a pass.
Resident Evil 0: RE’s Least Essential Numbered Title
There are aspects of Resident Evil 0 that are abundantly worth positive acknowledgment. It’s a beautiful and atmospheric game, and it stars Rebecca Chambers. Rebecca first appeared in Chris’s campaign in the original Resident Evil, and RE0 casts the naive and less than combat-ready but kind and brave rookie STARS medic as the hero of her own story before reuniting with Chris. Given that it’s common that Resident Evil characters appear in only one game and then fall by the wayside, it’s pleasant and refreshing that RE0 does something different.
Rebecca’s isn’t the only tale that RE0 expands, as it contributes to the lore of Umbrella and connected characters such as Albert Wesker. It’s also the first game in the RE franchise, which tends to give its leads partners and counterparts, wherein the player can control and coordinate two characters: Rebecca and a fellow survivor in the form of cynical and reserved escaped convict Billy Coen.
The trouble is that it’s tedious to play. RE0 is arguably most criticized for its inventory management system, which doesn’t require players to place items they can’t carry in designated chests but allows them to drop them anywhere they want for later collection. While this saves time finding item chests and preserves immersion in theory, it’s ultimately a mistake in Resident Evil 0‘s item handling, as it can result in frequent backtracking for potentially life-saving ammo and herbs.
Even beyond that, Rebecca and Billy’s partner mechanics are intuitive, but opening the game menu to swap between controlling the two separately can feel as if it’s adding extra steps to solving puzzles requiring the player to do so. The slow, deliberate combat style of early survival horror isn’t well-suited to surviving RE0‘s at times nimble enemies, which often aren’t the series’ most varied or excitingly designed.
Overcoming these hurdles to maintaining excitement for the game will allow the player to enjoy a tense experience that’s full of B-horror fun – but that isn’t at all important to understanding the series despite its mainline status. As cool as some of its lore can be, especially for those fascinated with Resident Evil‘s monster-making Umbrella Corporation, all it establishes that’s notably acknowledged in later games is the existence of James Marcus, one of Umbrella’s founders. While diehard series fans might want to give RE0 a try, other players risk nothing by not putting their patience to the test – and aren’t guaranteed to feel very rewarded if they do.
Wait For A Resident Evil – Code: Veronica Remake
Numerous Resident Evil players will firmly argue that Code: Veronica is a great title, or at least hold it up as one of their favorites in the franchise, and not without good reason. Unlike RE0, Code: Veronica is a plot-essential series installment: it resolves Claire Redfield’s quest to reunite with her brother Chris, established in RE2, and it brings Albert Wesker back to the Resident Evil series’ action after his apparent death at the end of its first outing. But it can be a satisfying and thrilling play as more than just a stepping stone.
From a certain point of view, its villains Alfred and Alexia Ashford are the predecessors of Resident Evil 7‘s Baker clan as members of a cruelly dysfunctional, unnervingly erratic, and show-stealingly bombastic family. The disturbing and theatrical tone that they and the game’s cinematic cutscenes set carries over into some fan-beloved music and challenge-filled locations that sprawl and twist like Claire’s adventure will as a player controls her, much of the game’s presentation adding a gothic tinge to the ever-present sci-fi driving the series’ horror nightmare up to Resident Evil 3 before it. At its best, many have found Code: Veronica to be peak RE camp and tension.
Unfortunately, just as many find that the opposite is true: at its worst, Code: Veronica can be slow to navigate and downright punishingly hard in a way that’s difficult to prepare for, and the sheer levels of camp that a good number of players appreciate easily become difficult for others to stomach. The last of these issues likely most notoriously manifests in the voice acting of characters like Steve Burnside, Claire’s initially reluctant sidekick, who speaks in an almost cartoonishly chipper manner that doesn’t fit at all with the more emotional moments his character receives.
But even with its subjectivity aside, that’s no issue at all compared to Resident Evil – Code: Veronica‘s difficulty differences compared to other REs. Numerous players have done their best to budget healing items and ammunition, as the series demands – only to find themselves nevertheless under-stocked for a particularly infamous mid-game boss fight to the point of either starting their playthroughs over or abandoning them then and there. Regarding its pace, meanwhile, Code: Veronica suffers the same issue as other RE titles in starting to drag as its setting shifts from Rockfort Island and the Ashfords’ mansion to a cold research facility lacking much of the previous locations’ unique flavor.
Plenty of Resident Evil fans are holding out hope that the upcoming remake of Resident Evil 4, which came out a full five years after Claire’s encounter with the Ashfords, means that it can’t be long before Code: Veronica gets a remake of its own. Such a remake would have the opportunity to work to retain all the best of the title while smoothing out the elements that made it disproportionately frustrating or straight-up unfinishable for others along with the handling of certain plot elements, as the game employs horror tropes that come with ableist and transphobic implications. If an RE enthusiast who hasn’t yet experienced C:V absolutely can’t wait for a smoother version of it to come out, there’s no reason they can’t hunt down a copy of their own, but they might also be better served by finding a Let’s Play by an expert to tide them over.
The Very First Resident Evil Is Still Fun, But Only As A Novelty
It’s unlikely to surprise anyone that the very first Resident Evil, containing some of gaming’s scariest enemies during its day, is such a rough take on what the series would go on to be about. Ultimately, it’s simply not going to be scary to most modern players. It has moments that not only had players jumping and squirming in their seats on its release but can still prove effective today, like the famous encounter with its first zombie; but it received a remake in 2002 that preserves these moments and adds all-new scares and monsters, all while presenting the Spencer Mansion with a truly oppressive, haunting nocturnal atmosphere and fitting its characters and story more neatly into the Resident Evil survival horror balance fans currently know. It renders its predecessor entirely skippable, outside of the context of exploring gaming history.
But that very much doesn’t mean it’s not worth enjoying, nor does it mean that it doesn’t provide anything that other RE titles can’t. If there’s one reason that people should still play the original Resident Evil in 2022, it’s for the memes. It’s well-known that the first RE is full of odd lines and performances, which resulted from a combination of linguistic barriers between its developers and cast and the relatively unestablished nature of video game voice acting as a field at the time, and this feature established the reputation for charming cheese that the series still carries today. Chances are, a Resident Evil 1 stream showcase or gaming party between a group of uninitiated friends will result in its participants repeating, “Stop it! Don’t open that door!“, “I hope this is not Chris’s blood!“, and “Terrible demons! Ouch!” to each other for weeks.
Of course, horror fans should always use their own research and gut instincts when it comes to revisiting earlier parts of a long-running series. Perhaps every game and rare spinoff is important to them as a part of the classic RE experience, or perhaps they don’t feel the need to touch any of the classic era at all, willing to get a crash course on their events plus some additional stories through the Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles rail shooters. Some are perfectly content to watch Capcom keep remaking old Resident Evil games more to modern tastes as time goes on. But for someone looking for a gripping yet low-fuss dive into Resident Evil or end-to-end series marathon, the above are safe skips.
