Not all Umbrellas keep you safe... (Resident Evil history entries 1-3)

     Happy Halloween, everyone! I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and today I'd like to share a tale. A tale of body horror and demonic pharmaceudical companies. These games have gone off the rails more than a few times, but in the beginning of the series, it was truly scary, and one of the big reasons that horror games are even around. I am of course referring to the iconic zombie-horror franchise, Resident Evil. This property has become a somewhat prolific multimedia franchise, as there have not only been games, but at least 5 films under its belt, as well as an animated Netflix show and a reboot movie coming sometime in the near future. In truth, I used to have no interest at all in this series, or in horror in general. That all changed when I played Resident Evil 5 with some friends back in the day, and we had so much fun with it that I've become a decent fan. The series is in a sweet spot right now with Resident Evil 7 returning to it's solid horror roots after 6 took it into the realm of absurdity. Capcom then followed up with the excellent remakes of the second and third games in the series, and finally Resident Evil 8 this year. Today I'll be giving a little overview of the first few of these games, we'll see how far I get without talking your ear off.

This briefcase appeared in the Resident Evil themed haunted house at Universal Studios Orlando back in 2013, picture credit goes to Inside the Magic!

Taking it from the top... almost.

    This will be an odd story post where I'm going to be jumping around a good bit, as the series also tends to do. In the first Resident Evil, you play as Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine as they explore an old, Zombie-infested mansion in the Arklay Mountains. I have never finished it because the controls are abysmal, especially compared with the Over-the-shoulder camera and modern controls of the remakes for 2 and 3. The original game has not been remade in this way for some reason, so the camera is still fixed in a certain place, making it easier to take in what this mansion looks like, to be honest, but considering the characters move with the precision of a tank, it just isn't fun to play in my opinion. As Reggie Fils-Aime once said in a Nintendo Direct, "If it's not fun, then why play it?" Exactly why I haven't gone back to the game, so I'll begin with Resident Evil 2 after some brief spoilers for this original title. The Spencer mansion is filled with zombies, and your two playable characters are members of the police force, S.T.A.R.S., an elite strike team of officers working with the Raccoon City police department. The leader of the team, Albert Wesker, ends up being a traitor who is only in this game for his own benefits, and it turns out that the Umbrella Corporation, a pharmaceudical company that put Raccoon City on the map, was responsible for the T-Virus that created these zombies in the first place. The two protagonists discover this truth in a lab beneath the mansion, which in my opinion is probably the best place to put a secret lab of this nature. Again, I haven't finished this game before, so I can't talk a ton about it, so let's go straight to Resident Evil 2.

Two companions, twice the zombie horror fun!

    Leon S. Kennedy is a new officer in the Raccoon City police department about to report for his first day on the job, but unfortunately, as luck would have it, zombie fever takes hold of the city. In this game you have the choice between Leon and Claire Redfield, sister of Chris, one of the playable characters in the original game. Claire is here to visit her brother, who also works at the police department, but in the S.T.A.R.S. division. She and Leon ride into town together after encountering a few zombies at a gas station on the outskirts of town, then are quickly separated when Leon's police car gets blown up by a collision with a tanker truck. I can only speak on behalf of the remake of this game, so some things may be different from the original title, though from my understanding, the big changes are the obvious graphical improvements as well as the improved controls and over-the-shoulder camera angle. Leon and Claire have different campaigns, though only slightly, mostly having to do with the characters that they meet. Leon meets Ada Wong, a super spy who works for the CIA, while Claire meets Sherry Birkin, a little girl who is the daughter of Annette and William Birkin (who will be brought up again shortly). Basically trouble has broken out when Leon or Claire gets to the police department, and they have to solve a puzzle to get out of the station through a secret passage installed in a statue in the lobby. There are a lot of different twists and turns in this game, but to make a long story short, our protagonists here discover that the Umbrella Corporation has created the G-Virus, designed by the aforementioned Birkins. The virus was supposed to be a secret weapon, but got out of containment and obviously infected a huge percentage of the whole population. The government comes in to investigate Umbrella (explaining why Ada is here for the most part) and Umbrella does whatever it can to keep the mistake secret. 

Mr. X, just as terrifying as you'd imagine.

    Enter the Tyrant, an undead killing machine who seems to be singularly interested in silencing the foes of Umbrella, truly anyone that gets in their way. We see several different forms of the Tyrant in this game, though the most iconic and terrifying version is the stone cold killer nicknamed Mr. X. He stomps around the police station the entire time you walk around it, you can't do anything about him except avoid him or run away. It makes the dark halls of the Police Department even scarier when you hear his heavy boots stomping down the hallway, and I just streamed the game last night, even though I knew he was coming, I definitely gasped when he showed up as I was doing something. You don't just stay in the mansion, and there are several different locations you have to go through, eventually leading to the secret lab which you'll find in just about every Resident Evil game. This game (or the remake anyways) is not incredibly long, but the feeling of dread looming around every corner makes you really stop and think about how you want to handle the situation. Inventory management is truly the scariest part of any game in this franchise, not giving you much pocket space to keep all of your healing items, ammo, support weapons, and of course your guns. One really has to plan accordingly to get through this game, and though there have been many times where I just feel stuck or like I won't be able to finish the game, I somehow manage to squeeze through, and I'm sure you'll be able to as well. After a few boss fights and encounters with the Tyrant, Leon and Claire escape the city with Sherry in tow. I don't want to go too deep into what else happens because I firmly believe you should play it for yourself. I actually haven't told you about my favorite encounter in the game, because especially that part you have to play to believe that it's in there. If you've played it, you hopefully know what I'm talking about.

Ah... my old Nemesis...

    Resident Evil 3 is another fun game, though the story of this one is much less complex, I feel as though I can sum it up in a much shorter period of time than 2. Jill Valentine is in the spotlight in this game, as one of the few survivors of S.T.A.R.S. from their time in the Spencer Mansion in the original game. It's been about 2-3 months since the original game's storyline and this game takes place just before Resident Evil 2, and it goes until essentially the end of the final storyline of that game. Jill Valentine is all about letting people know that Umbrella Corporation is behind the zombie outbreak, and to make sure that the news doesn't get out, Umbrella lets out a killing machine codenamed Nemesis to wrap up the loose end that Jill represents. The entire game, Jill is trying to get out of Raccoon City in one piece while Nemesis stalks her around. This is much more of an action game than the remake of Resident Evil 2, and many people credit the original game as being the first Resident Evil game to be partially an action game, before Resident Evil 4 took it a step closer to the action game genre. Along the way, Jill unravels more of the conspiracy while meeting some new characters along the way, such as Carlos, a soldier that has been brought in to help evacuate any survivors from the zombie outbreak. There are cool callbacks and other characters from the RE2 remake, since this game takes place around the same time as that game. I don't want to get too spoilery, but just know that the game ends with a bang (literally) with Jill killing Nemesis in a way that is... unexpected to say the least. Let's just say that this game has quite a lot to love, especially if you like a nice dose of the absurd from time to time.

Nemesis, in the undead flesh... yes he has a rocket launcher.

    This remake has been talked about a lot because it is pretty short, with many people able to finish it in about three hours or so. They cut out many scenes and locations from the original game, which didn't really mean anything to me since I never played the PS1 title, though I had heard many stories of that classic game. The biggest thing that I knew about the game was the fact that Nemesis apparently chased you throughout almost the entire game, you had to be on your toes pretty much the whole time. This was significantly changed in the remake, where Nemesis only shows up in a few places throughout the game. You have to face him three or four different times as he transforms into different monsters throughout the course of the game, and you have a chance to defeat him, or just run. If you're able to defeat him, he'll leave behind something nice like an upgrade to one of your guns or something like that. It's a cool mechanic, but it's interesting that even though Nemesis is best known from the original PS1 title (on PS1, it's called Resident Evil 3: Nemesis) for being indestructible and chasing you throughout the game, in these remakes, that sounds much more like Mr. X, the indestructible zombie stalking you throughout almost the entirety of Resident Evil 2's time in the Police station. It's interesting that they changed these two entities in such significant ways, but kudos to them for adding some new innovations in addition to just the camera controls. 

    This series is certainly an interesting one, especially since I feel like the numbered titles group themselves up pretty nicely. The first three games in the series are spooky, and are essentially where modern horror games draw much of their inspiration from. The fourth game is considered by many to be the best game in the whole series, it marked where the series took a serious turn towards pretty wild action sequences, while still having some creepy enemies and insane bosses. After this point, we have Resident Evil 5 and 6, which both take things way off the rails and end up being ridiculous and honestly hated by most people because they leaned too far into the action from 4. Resident Evil 7 and 8 by contrast, are definitely returns to the classic horror of those first three games, but from a first person perspective, and with a new series, it definitely acts kind of as a reboot for the series, and I'm certainly excited to see what comes next for this franchise. I wanted to cover the first three games for this post since they're the spookiest, which is only right for October, right? Especially with Halloween right around the corner, this is the spookiest time of the year!

    Happy halloween, everyone! Here I am almost at the end of the month before realizing that I didn't post anything spooky, unless you count the Disney price hikes or Sonic Heroes. If you find those things spooky, honestly I can't blame you, but I felt like I should add some more traditionally terrifying content this month. I hope you enjoy reading about these games that have captured my interest in just the past few years, they're pretty wild, and even though these first three are actually legitimately scary, there are still some off-the-wall insane things that happen. I love the silliness even right alongside the scarier aspects, it somehow makes the scary moments feel even more earned. I hope you all have a happy Halloween and until next time, I've been your Self-Proclaimed Raccoon City resident. I'll talk to you next week!