Resident Evil (RE) is the most successful horror game franchise of all time. When the first RE released on consoles it pushed the horror survival genre from a small sub-genre into a standard of modern gaming.
The tension filled atmosphere, rich storyline and exciting gameplay put the player right into the action and really gave you the creeps, the same shivers you got as a kid watching a scary movie. The success of RE spawned many sequels, including one for Game Boy Color, Resident Evil Gaiden.
The Good
- Quality storyline that perfectly fits into the Resident Evil series story arch.
- Ability to switch between playable characters during gameplay.
- Zombies! Lets face it in a video game zombies are always good.
The Bad
- Tedious gameplay that is more of a chore than a challenge.
- Every action is frustrating and repetitive.
- Lack of variety in content.
- Puzzle challenges, which RE is known for, are sparse and mostly consist of finding hidden keys.
Story
Those evil Umbrella Pharmaceuticals Inc. corporate goons may have been disbanded, but its sinister executives live on, continuing their crimes against humanity. To combat this menace an organization of former S.T.A.R.S. members and Umbrella employees was formed. This time another one of Umbrella’s Bio-Organic Weapons (BOW) has escaped and in its human form has decided to take a vacation aboard the cruise ship The Starlight. Former Raccoon City Police Officer Leon S. Kennedy (from RE2) tracked the BOW onto the ship then disappeared.
The game stars off with ex-S.T.A.R.S. Operative Barry Burton (from RE3) on a mission to find both the missing Kennedy and destroy the BOW. Barry is dropped by helicopter onto the huge luxury liner to discover that the passengers have been turned into flesh eating zombies. As the game progresses Burton locates the lost Kennedy and they discover, Lucia, a young girl who somehow survived the infestation. The trio continue the mission to find and destroy the BOW, which leads them to the shocking secrets behind the menace.
Features
- Three playable characters you can switch between on the fly.
- Overhead View that switches to a first person target-timing based combat mode.
- Return of the popular characters Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton from previous RE games.
- Zombies, Zombies and you guessed it, more Zombies.
The Game
Being a fan of the console series I was excited to play a RE game on the Game Boy Color only to discovered it’s one of the most challenging of the games to complete. Not because it's stimulating, but because of the frustrating gameplay. The largest drawback of Gaiden is one of its largest elements, the combat system. Instead of allowing you to shoot at a zombie, you switch to a special first person screen, with a barcontaining a target icon that slides back and fourth. When the icon is below the zombie you shoot. If you’ve ever played a cell phone blowing games, it’s basically the same principal. If this was just a small part of the overall experience it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but because this is a zombie game, this ends up being a good portion of it, making this the first horror survival game where battling zombies is irritating. It's a pity because the first person combat screen really isn’t necessary. Had the ability to target and shoot zombies from the main overhead screen been integrated, it would have been a lot more fun and created the tension the game is lacking.
The only other portion of gameplay that exists besides walking from room to room are the puzzles, which have become a trademark of the RE series. In Gaiden the puzzles are limited to finding keys so you can get past locked doors that contain...more locked doors.
The best offering of this game is a storyline that isn’t simply good, it’s downright captivating, and one of the few motivators to stick with it. The the narrative was crafted to give a unique story without straying from the main series. It’s obvious in the creation of Gaiden, this is what Capcom and developers, M4 Limited, chose to spend the most time crafting.
The shortcomings of Gaiden aren’t necessarily the fault of developers; M4 had to throw this game together in a very short timeline. Capcom had been working with the developers HotGen on a port of the original RE game for the GBC. This port would be a monumental task taking the rich 3D graphics and extensive gameplay of the console game to the restrictive capabilities of the GBC. For unknown reasons the plug was pulled on the game and Capcom turned to M4 to rush release a new RE title. Quality games take time to develop so a lot had to be sacrificed to deliver by the scheduled release date.
