From Zero to... nothing substantial.
Originally a N64 title remade for the Gamecube and (much) later ported to other systems. Resident Evil 0, despite its old school survival horror allure, is harshly let down by its downright dismal gameplay design choices that aimed to unnecessarily reinvent the wheel.
Gloves off, dear reader. I’ve always despised this game. From its level design to its item & character management mechanics, its nonsensical story & characters, and finally its cringe falsetto-infused main theme.
I remember forcing myself through this game back in the days because it did have all the ingredients of a classic old school survival horror game (the Gamecube was my favourite system at the time as it had all the essential old school RE titles) but it executes them in such a dismal way.
Surely the dual character dynamic is a neat concept and swapping between the two on the fly sounds great on paper – it might've worked swiftly using the N64's cartridge medium – but in practice it's nothing short of tedious. It means babysitting the other character manually at all times. Unfortunately neither of them can be temporarily stuffed in a rusty dumpster like Resident Evil 4’s whats-her-face.
The scariest thing about RE0, well folks, it ain’t the Mimicry Marcus, nor the Plague Crawlers, nor the Eliminators, nor the Hunters, nor the Centurion, nor the zombies or the leeches. It’s suffering through an entire traditional survival horror single-player campaign with a secondary character by ones side, having to manage it or stomach its presence with its thick as hog excrement AI. I can live without the burden of such an immersion-breaking mechanic. Not to play with live, not to babysit as a semi-NPC. Nein danke.
For the life of me I cannot wrap my brain around this spastic desire devs/publishers/gamers harbor to force a secondary character into (what originated as) traditional survival horror games. Nobody went “Man, these games are scary… You know what would make it even scarier? Another player/character! Oh boy! That’ll really ramp up the scare factor, let me tell you.”
Here’s the memo, chief. It doesn’t. Literally nobody asked for this. Unless we’re talking about the players who aren’t the target audience for these types of games. Surely the RE4/Halo/Gears of War-crowd can get their fix elsewhere?
Moving on. Combat? That’s a hoot and a hollar. Attack animations such as firing the pump-action shotgun, throwing a molotov, etc. come with several frames of attack stun, leaving the player completely open to enemy attacks without any possibilities of defense or recovery.
As for zombie headshots with the shotgun, that’s a ton of fun too. Suppose another zombie stands behind the first one, perfectly within lethal blast radius, the first one will be decapitated, the second one not always. The decapitated zombie’s hitbox is still present as long as it doesn’t fall to the ground. Thus making the second zombie impervious to damage, having the player potentially wasting a shotgun shell into the first zombie’s invisible hitbox.
Getting rid of the magic item box in favor of dropping items anywhere anyone pleases is, once again, great on paper but in practice it's just messy, making the entire map a giant messy item box – It has been brought to my attention that a mod exists, integrating an item box into the typewriter menu. Kudos to the purist RE fans doing the devs work here.
The plot, pacing, characters, main villain, as well as the vast majority of enemies all have one thing in common; they are as forgettable, dull and ridiculous as they come. The plot ventures into anime-level territory with elements such as a gloating cute blue pendant-wearing, hime cut-sporting antagonist dressed in a deep v-neck triangles-collared Woodstock-era garb vigorously proclaiming that “he will have his revenge and that the world will burn in an inferno of hate!”
Forced maniacal laughter ensues. Who is this ridiculously childish monologue aiming to intimidate, I wonder? Anime fans? Whoever wrote the dialogues in RE0, I guarantee, came straight out of a burger-flipping gig. Not that the previous entries of the series were penned with Shakespearean eloquence, mind you, but this is truly next-level cringe.
Though RE0’s cardinal sin lies in its storytelling inconsistencies. After the events of RE0, we see Rebecca teaming up with Chris in the Spencer mansion, but she doesn’t ever mention anything of her predicament in RE0. Which happened the day before...
Not even a “Hey Chris, the craziest thing happened to me yesterday, you’ll never believe me! I was facing off a giant mutated scorpion inside of a train full of weird leeches and infected zombies. The train crashed and we ended up inside some sort of a training facility with hidden laboratory/factory/treatment plant below. And whaddayaknow today we’re stuck in this creepy mansion full of traps, zombies, mutants and whatevs. Like, ain’t that the darnest thang, Chris?”
That’s the thing with unnecessary prequels. There was no need to tell this story. It serves no purpose, other than to muddy the core narrative. Aaand to make a quick buck on the side.
It’s great seeing most of the old school RE games on GOG, truly. Though RE0 is just a total mess of neat ideas poorly executed. It looks great, sure, but this is by far the worst entry in the old school survival horror era of the series. To me, this is a mainline entry title that festers in similar effluent cesspool waters as RE4-5-6.
As for the delusional claims made by some that RE0 is “underrated”; I am beyond convinced the big 0 in its very title is the highest praise it could give itself.
1 gamers found this review helpful