There’s a special place in the museum of gaming history for Zero, the White Rhino of its time. Before Leon Kennedy came in and roundhouse kicked the series into the third-person action genre, Resident Evil meant fixed cameras, limited saves, restrictive inventories, and giant bug bosses. I’m not shitting on the post Resident Evil 4 titles, but fans will immediately know what I mean when I say that I’ve been nostalgic for hearing my enemies before I see them.
This is also the last Resident Evil game that feels like a “ Resident Evil” game.
Whatever the reasons are, most people haven’t yet played Resident Evil Zero, making my distaste for its re-release significantly less. It’s also a weird “side story but not” kind of main canon offshoot, with just the right amount of earnest effort to make it adorable rather than shameful. The Archives edition on the Wii was also bizarrely hard to find, and the general Wii audience wasn’t exactly fervently demanding more availability. It’s only seen life previously on the GameCube and Wii, which means many gamers haven’t had the chance to check it out yet. Maybe it was because this is only the third release of the title, bringing it well below the series average. Maybe I’m losing my edge, but I had less venom build up in my glands when I read of the imminent Resident Evil Zero HD Remaster. I also felt that the additions were actively detrimental, with the new control scheme being harder to use than the old (on the PC at least). Then, my opinion was heavily weighted by the fact that this was the 8th release of the franchise’s flagship title. The depth of my distaste is apparent to anyone that read my review for the remaster of the remastered Resident Evil (2002). I hope the previous paragraph made two things clear: 1) I’m a huge Resident Evil fan, 2) I’m not really down with the whole “re-release everything” trend. I’m not sure how it all fits in with various Chronicles, Survivor, and Outbreak titles, but I do know that protagonist Rebecca Chambers does return in the Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition “Mercenaries Reunion” mode. It is now being released as a standalone HD remake for digital download, or as part of the Resident Evil Origins Collection bundled with the recent remake of Resident Evil HD Remaster. It was later re-released on the Wii as Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero (in North America in Japan it was still just Biohazard 0) and was basically the same game. It was originally released as a prequel to the enhanced Resident Evil (2002) remake on GameCube, and was the second title to be released using the new engine. Resident Evil Zero is the fifth main series title, and takes place before the events of the first Resident Evil. It’s gotten to the point where keeping track of the various Resident Evil releases is more complicated than the canonical plot.
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