Retronauts - 704: Resident Evil Revelations

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Diamond Feit, Stuart Gipp, & Richard Eisenbeis reflect on the Resident Evil Revelations spinoff series which nurtured the franchise's horror roots while the mainline games embraced blockbuster action. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

This program contains strong language intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Retronauts. Victims were apparently eaten. Sorry about that, babe. Oh my God, it's the T-virus. Where's everyone going? Bingo. Can't go in there. It's full to the brim with zombies.

When I get out of here, I think I'm going to get laid. See if we mix up these two herbs then We have to fake our own deaths Hey there's a shotgun over here Father We have to fake other people's deaths Complete global saturation I swear to God

I'm going to survive the fuck out of this Hello, welcome back to Retronauts, and consider that your warning that this episode contains adult language in absurd orders, because today we are talking about resident-eat-eat-eat-eat-eater-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat- Revelations, a two-part series, a side series, if you will, although all the characters are pretty important characters in the Resident Evil canon. So I don't think it's like a dream match or anything. I'm pretty sure all these events are canon in the Resident Evil universe. But we're talking about Resident Evil Revelations today because I am of the opinion that these games are underappreciated. Let's not say underrated. Let's just say underappreciated because They represent an important aspect of the series at a time when the series was kind of, I want to say, losing its identity.

But I'm not just here by myself. By the way, my name is Diamond Fight, and I do not support kinkshaming any dildo jumpers. I promise that makes sense. Let's go to my guests. First of all, our usual guest, who has been with me many, many times on Retronauts. Hello. It's me, George. And of course this podcast would have to be a fucked up podcast.

Always. It's always a fucked up podcast. I'm sorry. And joining us for the second time, again with Resident Evil, here in Japan. Yep, is Richard Eisenbeiss. I am a former games journalist, now anime journalist, I suppose. Although I still review games from time to time. And I have played every Resident Evil and have a deep love for the series,

even though I usually don't like horror games as much as you'd think. think. Yes, thank you for joining us, Richard. And Richard, it's very important to me that you're here because you were also on our previous episode, episode 599, where we talked about Resident Evil's 5 and 6. And that's relevant to today's conversation because these games sort of branched away. As 5 and 6 got bigger and louder and more expensive, these games sort of existed in a side, conduit where it's like, okay, we're not going to spend $11,000 billion. We're just going to make

something a little bit smaller, but we still want to have a lot of people play it and maybe even scare them. So like even when this series began, there was already talk in the press of, oh, can Resident Evil be scary again? And I would argue it's always scary to a degree, but these games, I would say, are scarier than Resident Evil, certainly Resident Evil 6. Resident Evil 5 I guess it depends how much you're frightened of black people, I guess. I don't know. No, I think that's a fair statement. Yeah, these are definitely more horror oriented, more, it's more, it's, they're definitely

throwbacks to the kind of survival horror idea rather than the, I have a gun and infinite ammo, bring it, which five and six kind of become. Yes. And just to reset the stage, we don't go to depth, but Resident Evil and Residential Resident Evil 5 came out 2009, okay? Huge seller. 2010 is when they dropped the first DLC, first ever DLC for Resident Evil. And right away with the DLC, they were already playing with the idea of, okay, well, if Resident Evil 5 is a big, crazy game about running around and shooting like hundreds of monsters, what if we create a side story where, oh, you're back

in the mansion, and there's only a few monsters, and they're really, really big monsters, and you can't kill them very easily, so you probably want to, like, avoid them. So right away, you can see there's, like, Resident Evil, big budget, action times, and Resident Evil, oh, it's kind of scary in this house. Remember this house? It's got a scary house. Yeah, Lost in Nightmares. Yeah, Lost in Nightmares, like everyone liked that I've ever talked to that's played Lost in Nightmares, really loved it. It's short, but it is very kind of scary because you can't, like, you can technically kill the guys coming up to you, but boy, you're not going to have any bullets

left if you tried. They're huge. They carry anchors. Stu, did you play any of the Resonimo 5 DLC? Yeah, but I've got to be honest, it was a long, long time ago. I think the main thing I remember is that there's another Wesker fight that we had a lot of trouble with.

To be honest, I can't, it didn't make that much of an impression on me. I don't remember thinking any of it was bad, but I wonder if it was just after beating the main game, I was a little bit tired of their silly antics, you know? But, yeah, I think I didn't get to play that till a lot later as

well, because that wasn't initially available on PC if memory serves. The whole game to Windows live version, I didn't have the DLC at all, and then a bunch later, the gold edition turned up on Steam, and I got to play it then. But, yeah,

it's, in all honesty, has slid right out of my head. I just remember Wesker and being annoyed, it was so difficult to beat him. But you know, it should be difficult to beat Westgate. He's rock hard. It's fine. Yeah. Slippery like the Obrose virus. Just slithering right away. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's 2009. That's 2009.

So let's talk about 2011, because 2011, we get the Nintendo 3DS. It's a DS, but instead of two screens, there's one regular screen, and there's one screen that sort of looks like 3D if you push a slider up and down and, like, cross your eyes. So, I mean, we're, you know, I'm being, I'm being curt here. We did a whole episode of the 3DS. I think 3DS is a very good system. But at first, you know, this at 20, 2011, before it launched, we're all sort of like, well, how does this work? How will this even come to be? And Nintendo, at least in Japan, they had a big event, a pre-release event out in Makaray, which is the same place where they hold the Tokyo Game Show every year.

and it was January, kind of cold, but, you know, Tokyo cold, so not like cold, cold. And I went out there, I think, Richard, you were out there, right? I was out there, yep. Yeah. So we went out there, and that was our first, that was our first chance to actually see, because we don't get to go to E3 or anything. So that was our first chance to actually play on the 3DS. And as part of that event, they actually had a whole, like, booth set up,

and they were celebrating Revelations, and they had a trailer. which was like running on loops, which I always found to be very funny because the trailer ends on like a sentence fragment. And in Japanese, the subtitle kind of makes it a little clearer what he's trying to say. But if you're just listening in English, which, you know, you're waiting in line,

you hear the English line just running in your background. You know, you kind of, it started making to irritate me. Like, I'm already what? I'm already what, evil man? You didn't say what I'm already doing. I don't need to know. Are you threatening me? Am I already ill?

What's happening? But the irony of all that is even though Resident Evil Revelations was a big deal at that show, and off on the side in like a literal hole in the wall, there was like a trailer, like a gameplay loop of Mercantaries 3D. It was Mercanty's 3D that came out first later that summer, summer 2011, which we don't need to get into, but Mercantornery's 3D was again very much action Resident Evil. Now it's handheld action Resident Evil, which I think was a very cool feature, you know, it was the first present evil on a 3DS, unless you, you know, put it in the, the DS version of the original game, but this was a new, or at least original, an original version of a

mini game seen in other Resident Evil games, because 3D mercenaries is kind of like a grab bag of... Yeah, but it's like there's some stages from four, there's some stages from five, there's a whole bunch of characters, some of them are from five, some of four, some of the other games, like Claire Redfield, who's important to today's episode. Claire Redfield is in the mercenaries 3D. Barry Burton is in mercenaries 3D. Honk is a mercenaries. So it's like, it's a bunch of different characters, a bunch of different stages. And I remember buying that and having great time, just even though it was, again, very action-focused.

It was, you know, for me on a 3DS, it was a great outlet. Like, okay, I'm going to enjoy shooting some zombies while I'm commuting to work and commuting from home. and, you know, there was a progress built, like, level up system, and, you know, I think all we're on at a time, but also the game included a demo for Revelations. So even then, you could tell, Capcom really wanted you to say, okay, here's this thing we're willing to sell you, we hope you enjoy it, but don't you work, don't you wait too long, we've got Revelations coming, come back for that, right, right? I feel like I, I liked Mercenary's 3D quite a lot. I don't remember, I mean, we'll get into it for no doubt,

I can't remember if it supported the circle pad or if that even existed yet, the circle pad, but it was very playable without it. And as you mentioned, the progression system makes it quite addictive to replay. But it is something to be said. It is a tiny bit odd to sell something that is a kind of a bolt-on to, of the other games in the series where it appeared for like full retail. I think it was full retail, at least for a 3DS game, which wasn't too expensive.

But I feel like it's one of those Yoshi touch-and-go situations where people sort of get mad about it, but then you realize that it actually is meant to be sort of repeated and refined, and it's very much in the design to be quite, I mean, it's not limited. Maybe it's limited in content, but in the actual value, it's got a lot to offer if you get into it. You can really sort of pay your times down and more points. Just have a grand old time. It's one of the better early 3DS games, in my opinion. I felt so, yeah.

I mean, June, you know, summer 2011, you know, that's, there's no Mario yet, there's no Mario Kart yet, you know, there's no Dragon Quest line Morty-Morty-3 yet. So I played that, you know, that was probably my big game of the summer, is playing Resident Evil by myself, running around. I felt like they captured. They got the feel of it down really well, and I thought it looked really good as well. They did a really good job with the visuals. I mean, it wasn't too busy.

It was clear, and clarity is important and timed. timed sort of Twitch games like this. I had a great time with this. I kind of wish that they would sort of expand even on this and release it on other systems, just like full-on mercenaries with everyone, with everything. I mean, Revelations and Revelations 2 kind of did a bit, but we'll get to that, obviously.

Yeah, Revelations has its own combat mode that we will definitely talk about today. Yeah. But yes, to your point, this game predated the CirclePad Pro, aka Frankenstick, and once that attachment came out, there was no updates or anything. So no, if you have a CirclePad Pro and you have this game,

it does not recognize it at all. However, there is a bevy of control options, one of which lets you basically map like movement, like camera movement to the face buttons. So you can sort of like use the X, Y, A, B buttons as sort of a makeshift, right stick and then you're like shoot and stuff with the with the triggers not the trick the trigger buttons the shoulder buttons that's um that's that's fur fighters controls that's

dreamcast level i like that yeah it reminded me a lot of the peacewalker peacewalker had a similar situation on on PSP you know where there was only one stick so it's like oh you can use the you know the square triangle cross circle buttons as sort of makeshift right stick like oh okay and And it kind of works. It works well. Yeah. It's not like the smoothest thing in the world, but it's better than trying to fumble around with some sort of like constantly resetting the camera with like, you know, a claw hand

or whatever. I'm not a fan of the claw personally. I'm not a claw fan. No. I'm hurt. But yes, a few months later, at the beginning of the new year, January 2012, we do and get Resident Evil Revelations. And when it comes out, the CirclePad Pro is out.

In fact, I believe it was actually bunched. bundled with a Circlepad Pro in certain regions, not Japan. Europe and Australia. Europe and Australia was bundled with Revelations in the Circlepad Pro. So if you wanted to play a twin stick shooter on your 3DS with zombies, you could buy that extra thing and set it all up. Did you? I did. Yes. Because I, you know, that I, here in Japan, of course, it was very much a Monster Hunter accessory. But I have not and still not gotten on the Monster Hunter train. So I bought mine fully expecting to use it for, you know, that I'm not. Revelations. And I did, although ultimately I didn't spend as much time with the 3DS version as I did with later editions, but I do still have my 3DS Circlepad Pro and my copy of Revelations. So when this game turned 10 in 2022, I broke them all out and said, oh, I am playing Resoniva Revelations as was meant to be played on a 3DS with a second dual stick. Look at me. Aren't I fancy? Yeah, with me, I remember when it came out, I wasn't sold on buying, you know, the Circlepad Pro because I knew I'd want that if I wanted to play Revelations. And I must have sat on it a couple years,

and I remember walking into a, I think a book off used, that has like used video game accessories and stuff in it and saw a CirclePad Pro one day. And I was just like, I just grabbed it. I walked over to the section. I was like, oh, there's Revelations. This has been like two or three years after. and I went home and I plugged them together

and played the whole game and really, really enjoyed it. But I would never have wanted to play it without the Circlepad Pro. I know we were talking about how in Mercantarious 3D it's okay without, but there are some times in this game where you just want that smooth circle pad stuff that you can

get for precision aiming and stuff. I think I had a 3DS Excel and I think, I might be mistaken on this, but I think you couldn't get the circle pad for the Excel in Europe. for some reason. So I ended up ordering a Japanese one.

LL, I think it's called over there. Yeah. And I had this, so I plugged this thing onto me 3DS, Excel, and I start playing Revelations, and I just come to this realization that I'm essentially holding a game gear, and that's not really acceptable.

Like, it's too big and too bulky. It definitely plays better with it, for sure, but I kind of ended up with that version, kind of setting it down and sitting and waiting for it to come out on other systems. because I do prefer that release. I think the 3DS one is technically quite amazing, and it's still one of the best-looking games on the system, but I would rather play it on almost anything else, unfortunately.

Do you remember if both of you played it with 3D on or off when you played it on the 3DS originally? I think, like, every other 3-D game, I played it with 3-D-on until I realized I really needed to turn the 3-D off so I could actually play the game. That 3-D worked for me in, like, two games, and that was like Mario 3D land and honestly I can't think of a second one

I mostly had that switched off but Kirby was pretty good for 3D but with like a full with a game that's you know 3D movement anyway that's a lot to kind of focus on and I didn't find the 3D effect worked that well for me in general let alone in something this complex

as I recall I made a joke somewhere that I said like if you if you put the 3D effect on while playing Revelations it makes you feel like you're on a boat because it makes you sick to your stomach. So I'm sure I used it, but that was probably just like, as an experiment, they're like, okay, that's enough of that. That's fine. Let's just play the game. It is a cool effect, but it's impractical for skill play, I think. I think I, when I ended up doing it, I believe

I did, like on half. Like, full up was just, you're right, you just got sick. And I think I did it. I settled on about halfway, but I'm sure we'll get to it later. But I feel that it was a little better in pure 2D on a big screen. That's my opinion. So everyone plays Resident Evil games for the plot. So let's talk about the plot of Revelations. Now, more importantly, we have to establish that Revelations takes place in 2005. And that's important because that means it takes place after Resident Evil 4, but before Resident Evil 5. So all the stuff that goes on in Africa with the Oromoros and Wesker and Jill and Chris, that hasn't happened yet.

That has not happened yet. Indeed, at the very, very, very end, at the very end of Revelations, you get an explicit teaser saying, oh, boy, wonder what Jill and Chris are up to next. They're going to a mansion, which is what's part of the DLC in Resident Evil 5, and that was, you know, everyone knows the story. It's an old story now. But honestly, you know, replaying and revisiting the story for this podcast, I got to say, the Revelations, Revelations one in particular, I find the story kind of hard to. grasp. Like, there's so many moving parts to this story. You've got, you've got this massive echo city called Teregrisia. That's supposed to be like some city of the future. But, oh, no, BOWs and terrorism. And so they destroy the city with an orbital laser, which they have. Of course

they have that. And then- Right. Well, remember, it was technically this power, like it was a Solar power reflector is what it was supposed to be. And it was supposed to be powering the city, right? But they turned it up. Yeah, but for some reason they put... There was nothing about that setup is like a good idea. Nothing. Every single element of terror egregia was designed to just result in horror.

It's even got the word terror and egregious in the name. It's ridiculous. You shouldn't have never have done it. Just don't do it. Just don't make an epic ecocity. Just have a normal city, for Christ's sake. What's wrong with you? old cartoon Acme rules.

Like, if anything is a control gauge, anything is a control gauge, like you've got the low setting, the medium setting, the high setting, and the, oh, no, danger setting. So they built their, you know, orbital solar reflector with a danger setting that just happened to produce a giant laser that destroyed Terragisia on purpose because it was covered in BOWs. Oh, no. Whereas this game... That was crazy.

Like, that's the backstory. Like, that's the crazy thing. Like, you are, you, you really aren't there. It doesn't really have a lot to do with, like, Chris and Jill's adventure. That's the background of why all this is happening. Chris and Jill, who knows what they were doing, but they certainly weren't around when this was happening. They have no personal secrets. If this gives you a pretty keen prologue to play through when you got a fight like 600 hunters, though, if memory serves.

That was pretty good. They're a flashback. It introduces you to the Revelation style of combat, which is that they give you this big, terrifying enemy that just walks towards you really, really slowly. I'm not complaining. I really like the combat in these games. But I always thought it was funny that these hunters would, in front of you,

they would dive and murder people. Then they would turn to you and they'd be like, I'm coming over there. And when I get that, oh boy, and then he would start shuffling towards you really slowly. It's great. I'm not dismissing it, but it is quite funny.

But I mean, let's face it, that's kind of how things work in four and five, too. Like, you know, when the Magini or, you know, the African folks like they can run they can run all around but when they get close to you they stop running

and get like menace mode and shuffle to the side yeah yeah it's got it but they may be cruel but they're fair but yes

anyway all the Teregris stuff goes down like in the first five minutes and the actual story takes place after Teregrisia and I'm not going to to all the details, but basically there's a cruise ship, and people are on the cruise ship looking for terrorists, and there are other people elsewhere in the world looking for terrorists, but now there's a cruise ship, so they're going to go hurry up and get to the

cruise ship, and then the third team dispatches to look for the terrorists again, and eventually as you play the game, you will touch upon multiple teams and multiple places, and indeed multiple times, because eventually there are flashback chapters to Terra Egregia, that shows what happened there, and there were a lot of hunters there, and then you get, like, a special flashback late in the game that kind of, like, sets up the betrayal that happens during the game. Yeah. It's really, it's kind of maddening.

It's kind of baddening. Yeah, because, because, like, you get the prologue, like, the prologue flashback to Terrigisia, and then much later in the game, you get a prologue to that prolog, and they just all lead into each other. So they're very much telling the story backwards to, set up everything. And it's just, and like,

I think it's, it's not so hard to follow, I don't think, but it is very much the, like, like, it's very strange because it's still trying to be

the kind of crazy hyperaction that like five and six became, but also at the same time, keep it small contained horror, like the early games. And I'm not sure they always quite neat correctly. I,

yeah, I think it's, I think it's an awkward merit. to be frank. And we'll get into exactly what goes on there. But I do want to highlight some of the names that come up in this game a lot, because the BSSA, the Biosecurity Alliance Anonymous, I forget, that was introduced in Part 5. But in this game, you've got the BSAA and you have the FBC, which I think is the Federal Boterrorism Council. And those two organizations are at odds with each other, even though, like, one is supposedly working with the other.

Like, they seem to have the same goals, but they're always, like, clashing. Right, because the FBC is a United States government operation, and the BSAA is, is a, like, basically a, well, it was it, a PMC for all rights and purposes. While they're not technically a military, they're basically a PMC that fights zombies. Yeah. They're like a nonprofit, but they all carry, like, rocket launchers. Right. Boy, I'd love to write that off my expense account. Yeah. And, like, the FBC is run by this guy named Morgan Lansdale, who is like a textbook case of an evil-looking executive. Like, as soon as you see this guy, you're like, oh, this guy is evil. This guy is not our friend, you know, like, no question he's doing something bad. And on the opposite of that, you have this guy named Clive O'Brien, who very much looks like Columbo in a different coat, you know. Yes, he's Columbo. He's so Columbo.

Right, right. He's got sort of the hairstyle. He's kind of unshaven. He's, you know, he rubs his head a lot. He's, you know, he's got that schlubby charismatic thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So he's like the likable one. He's your boss. And the other guy running the other agency, that guy's trouble. And we don't need to get in the blow-by-blow stuff, but they will clash throughout the story. And eventually they're both wrong. Sure. Why not? And there's also Raymond? Yeah, yeah. It's a very, like, complicated plot where, like, where, like, oh, my God, everybody's betraying everybody, but it was all for the greater good, or was it? And then you're just kind of sitting there at the end, like, man, Chris, Jill, why are you with these people? Like, you founded the BSAA together. Like, why did you decide to, like, get involved with any of these other people? Just shoot zombies, please.

You're good at that. I got also shot at Raymond. Raymond is a man who has got a shocking head of red hair. Everyone I look at online, any YouTube video, any recap of this series, they always compare him to Conan O'Brien, and it's like, I guess, why not? Because he's got this big red hairdo. He's not funny. He doesn't tell any jokes, but it's, yeah, he really stands out.

It's like his face is too small, like, his features are too small for his face. Like his eyes are too close together Everything's too close to the middle Like they had a sizing issue He looks He looks more monstrous than the monsters In my opinion I think he's quite

Quite beautiful actually You know He's slurring I mean even more than like Even more than most of the characters In the Resident Evil series He looks like he's just sort of walked out of an anime Straight into it

I like him It's the hair It's entirely the hair Yeah. It's very distinct, large. It's like, it's large and it's wavy. Like, it is very, you know, and especially, you know, whether you view it in the 3DS or the later HD editions, it's got that sort of of the era style where the hair, you would never mistake this for real hair. It is very much like it is a, this is a model with a bald plastic head and we put a bespoke hairstyle on top of it. And that is just, it never moves. It is just sitting there at all times. And also Veltro. I got to say, Veltro are the names of the bad guys. These are the terrorists who apparently, who allegedly destroyed Teregrisia. Now, I look this up. So Veltro is apparently Italian for Greyhound. And if you look at their little flag and their little clubhouse, the Veltro flag has a greyhound on it. But to me, as an English speaker, the name Veltro could not be less intimidating. So whenever anyone in this, game talks about Veltro, you know, with a clenched fist or, you know, gritting their teeth, like, er, I hate Veltro so much. I'm like, what, the thing on your shoe that instead of a shoelace, you hate it? What are you, what are we doing here? So, I just, I just think

greyhounds are cute and not really scary at all. You know, really docile dogs and, uh, they're scared, they're frightened dogs as well. They fear everything. Like, you, maybe it's supposed to be ironic. I don't know. It should be called like Alsatian or whatever the Italian for Alsatian is. Yeah, I have no idea what the connection is, like why they chose that name, what it connects to what they're doing. Because they're almost, they're basically, they're like eco-terrorists who have basically become a cult, a religious cult almost. Yes. And I'm just not sure how that connects to Greyhounds.

I mean, if the game took place not on a boat, but on a bus, I might understand it. At the racetrack, yeah. I don't know. Surely there are more frightening or intimidating words in the Italian language, but Veltro, that ain't it. That ain't it, cousin. I'm sorry. It's not striking any fear here. It's not even an acronym, is it? No, it's literally, it's the literal of the word, yeah, Veltro. Violent evil lads, terror reigns over. I don't know. Something like that. Then you've got something.

You have put more thought into it than they have. Yeah. The main monsters of this game are infected with the T-Abis virus. That's the virus azure for Revelations 1. You don't want to. And basically the T-A-Biss virus, it turns people into gray, wet freaks. They're very slimy. Apparently their bones are very soft.

Like your bullets go through them apparently. If a fish gets infected, it becomes like an angry fish. But then, of course, there are dogs and there are hunters. and there are a couple much larger enemies that, I guess, took too much to Abyss. I don't know, you know, they didn't fall the dosage, but... What's the correct... Is there a correct dosage of any of these viruses? Like, it's like a harmless amount.

I'm just, I'm working, I'm doing guesswork here because, to me, I'm... So, were they? Yes. This science is not an exact science. It's a shame because the rest of an evil series, usually scientifically is right on the button, isn't it? A departure, a departure from series norms. But I bring this up because I feel like the monsters and revelations are kind of, I don't know, I don't think they're that great. I think some of them look kind of cool and others, like the general, the oozes, quote unquote, which again are like just sort of like gray people and they sludge around.

I don't find them very intimidating. I don't know. How do you feel with the oozes? I think that it might be, this is again, this is speculation. in a way, but I do feel like it might be something of a concession to the format because it's probably easier to render these

kind of render these formless gray things in great numbers without slowing the game right down. That's just pure speculation. I think it works because the whole thing of, you know, they'll slither through like grating and they'll appear out of pipes and things and it is quite cool, but I suspect that there's a degree of, look,

we can't do like fully featured, like loads and loads of enemies in the environment like this. That's, it might be wrong, but that's just my, that's my theory, really. That's a good point. Yeah, like, I don't know. Some of them, some of the designs I do like, I like the designs of the, of the ooze that shoot the, I don't know, the claws at you. Yeah, like they have, like the claw on their hand and they shoot it off at you. I thought that was a creative design. I don't think, it doesn't like remind me of anything else in Resident

Evil. Like, like, I'm sure they're based. on, like, in five, the guys who throw axes at you or something. But visually, like, I don't, I can't really think of anything similar in any of the other games. And so I was kind of like, oh, that's pretty cool. I think the basic ones are not a million miles from Silent Hill monsters in a way, just this kind of shuddering kind of, like they're wrapped in sort of too much skin kind of sort of deal.

Definitely the way they move. The way they move, you could compare to, to, like, a. Silent Hill nurse or something because like they don't, because they're unstable, like they don't walk, they don't walk like a zombie, they don't look like a person, they're kind of like, oh, here's a limb, here's a limb. I'm demonstrating on camera, folks, you should see it. I'm, there's a limb. But, Stu, I do think you're under something, because don't forget, there's an entire early level where you're just shooting, you're scanning and shoot, we'll get to the scanning, but you're scanning and shooting these just big formless blobs. Yeah, there's a fat bugs on the beach. It's like a normal British beach every day. It's like that. I will say the thing. I did love the payoff for those things.

Because like when you first see them, they're just on the beach. They can't even move. You just murder them simply. Like the one that does move just crawls slowly at you. It's a joke. But in the final level of the game, when you encounter them in the water, oh, they just wreck you. They're one-hit kills. They ruin your day.

And it's so funny to be like, oh, okay, now that we're in their habitat, they aren't a joke anymore. And I thought that was a fun subversion, you know, to go from the biggest joke to like the one thing in the game that is guaranteed to one hit kill you. I would say this game has a lot of water and underwater sequences because the primary setting is a cruise ship, the Queen Zenobia.

And while at first you board the cruise ship and you run around the cruise ship, which is, you know, relatively dry, As the game proceeds and things get worse, the cruise ship starts to flood, and there's a wave at some point. So the game has plenty of scenes where you're running through, like, hip deep water, or indeed, you're completely underwater and you need to swim around, and you can't stay submerged for too long or you run out air. Although the game is pretty generous with the underwater action. Yeah. Yeah, you don't even need to, like, when you're underwater, there's, you know, air pockets, because of course there are. but like you can usually skip

you don't have to hit every one you can like skip to every other one and you'll still have enough air like even the things that would like you'll eventually water zombies or whatever and they'll grab you and you have to stab them

to get them off you or whatever like even and that drains your air rather than your life like even then you're not like I don't think I ever drowned on my recent playthrough not even once even when I got grabbed a couple times

I feel like if you're moving it's pretty generous I think if you stand still, I think the game might be like, hey, you need to move, you need to move. But if you're swimming around, you know, I've seen some play-throughs where people, people are underwater for what seems like minutes at a time, which doesn't seem possible to, like, regular people, but, yeah, you know, these are the elite. Club. Chris and Jill, I'm sure the stars had some breath-holding competition in the police pool or something. Chris and Jill were at the top, right? They had to be, right?

Yeah, some of them. They got the best at breathing. Master of breathing. Resident Evil respiration. Ah, there it is. Thank you. Thank you. That's perfect.

Of course, they'd misspell that word, too. Oh. Oh, dear. Repsperation. Then we have to offer Resident Evil reparation. I could keep going, but I won't because it would be shit. That's right. That's all right.

Let's talk about the other character in the game that we have to mention. Dante Allegheny, famous poet, dead for centuries. But because there's a whole thread, there's a thread running through this game of characters quoting Dante, at one point another character actually says out loud, he's quoting Dante. So you know they're quoting a famous poet. And I feel like the primary purpose of this is to just set up red herrings, because as the game goes along, you'll see multiple people, some wearing masks, some not wearing masks, quote Dante. and then you'll see like a book of Dante, like the divine comedy on someone's desk. And you're like, oh, oh, does that mean that person is secretly a bad guy or secretly a good guy? And in my opinion, there's no real payoff for that.

But I don't know. How do we feel about the Dante, the Dante infusion? To be fair, the bad guy of the, you know, the person who's revealed to be the main bad guy by the end does quote Dante. Yes. But so does everyone else. So I don't think it's exactly a red herring as much as it. It's a meaningless clue. It's like, we found a footprint.

Somebody was wearing shoes. The bad guy was definitely wearing shoes. It's like, well, yeah, that is a clue, but it doesn't particularly help in this situation. Yeah, then there's like a sort of a pan down to both characters wearing shoes and looking suspiciously at one another or something. It's like, I feel like if you have a major, and I realize that this is possibly slightly silly,

but if you have a major Capcom series with a main character named Dante, then I think they could have chosen any other, like, poet, to be honest. It's just kind of, like, confusing. But also, it feels a little bit like the sort of concessions towards, like, Kafka in the second game. It's just a bunch of bullshit. It's like, I don't know. It gives the impression that it's kind of wank.

And I'm sorry, that's not a very good criticism. but that's about the best one I can come up with it is just this will fancy things up a bit if we have some Dante illusions in the game it's like okay for example like you can have classical literature be a like parallel to a story you're trying to tell like that's Rath of Kahn right

yeah that's that's something like that but those are very very connected things like we're telling the same basic story in space or whatever or with zombies I think that can be done but it in no way feels like that like there's no one guiding Jill through the layers of hell metaphorically

no it's a boat they're on a boat the boat isn't a metaphor we're shooting fat bugs here you know yeah like yeah I'm sure you can do it but they weren't doing it it just seems completely tangential it's just like oh look we're highbrow because we're quoting Dante. Like, we're more, we're deeper and more serious than you think because we're quoting

Dante. But no. It's like the same game where someone says me and my sweet ass are on the way. It's, come on. Although, honestly, that's charming in itself, isn't it? The fact that they don't pick a lane like that. That's what I come to expect from Resident Evil. Complete self-seriousness mixed in with the stupidest nonsense I've ever seen, and I mean that as a positive. I love it. Oh, yeah. No, Camp is a thing. And it can't, in any, It is fun. It can be fun and it usually is fun. All right. Let's talk gameplay a little bit because this is a gameplay a little bit because this is a game that is very much, it's, more closely modeled on the older Resident Evil games, although, generally speaking, the camera

is over Jill's shoulder or whoever you're playing. And so in that sense, it's, you know, it's kind of action-y in a Resident Evil four way. But for most, most, for a good chunk of the game, you are in dark places, you're fighting enemies, you know, one, two at a time. If you get surrounded, you're in big trouble, which, you know, wasn't quite the case of Resident Evil 4 because you could always just, like, you know, shoot someone in the knee and then do a flash kick and knock down, like, four guys at once. Like, that's not happening here. There are guns, there are melee attacks, but everything's kind of scaled down a little bit to sort of, I would say, in theory, ratchet up the tension, you know? I mean, I think it's very much an action game. Like, everything else just feels like. I mean, that's not a bad thing. I think it's so gaming with the, I mean, well, I'm sure I'm jumping out a bit, sorry, but, you know, the scanner that you use, Genesis,

like, the fact that you're basically incentivized to use that on almost every enemy that you see, which is not difficult because they're very slow moving, generally speaking. But the gaminess of that, of scanning enemies, and then it's just magically downloading a herb into your inventory, which you can

then just use by holding a button. They're really maximizing the portability thing here. Like, you really rarely are fanning around in a menu, and you're always fanning around at a menu in these games. And this one, they're just like, no, that wouldn't be very fun on the handheld, straight in, get everything shot, mate, and scan it to get more health. Resident Evil is very, very gamey, I know, but this is the most gamey that it had been to this

point, I would argue, probably even more so than mercenaries, because at least then you have the excuse of there not being any kind of inventory to speak of, really. And that's great, and it fits the handheld perfectly. When it moves to the bigger consoles, it's still a fantastic game, but it does make for it feeling a little bit I don't want to say low fat. I don't know how to describe it. It's a bit Spartan,

you know, but that kind of works in its favor if that's what you're after. And I guess that's what I was after. So, yeah. Yeah. And like, as far as the controls go,

to me it really felt, I think they based it off of five more than anything else. Like everything plays, all the controls work as they do in five, except for the worst feature of the entire game, which is the lack of a dodge button. I know you can dodge, but there is no dodge button.

Yes, that is true. I think I got right to the end of the game before I started dodging anything, so I didn't know how it worked properly. Even if you do know how it works, it's terrible. And the worst part is there are several sequences where you have to, you know, you're not fighting. You're running to escape on a time limit. Things are coming up to you, trying to grab you, and you're supposed to dodge. but when the dodge is literally tilt the stick in the correct direction at the correct time, so you have to stop moving, have the stick neutral, the movement stick neutral,

and then as they come to attack you, push into it or push to the side of it to dodge correctly. And it is the most unintuitive garbage dodge in any of these games. Yeah, I just kept doing it back. I could not hate it more. If I ever did it, it was by accident until towards the end when I started. actually needing to dodge more when it gets really busy. But, yeah, I did like the way that you can sort of dodge through enemies. That's actually quite useful, but it really should.

It's the kind of thing where, like, and I don't like saying this, but it makes me think a little bit of the way that they did, like, blocking in something like Arkham Asylum, and it makes me wish it was a bit more like that. Maybe not quite so forgiving. Honestly, pressing any button would have been better than using the stick that way, like hitting Y when it's about to hit you. you would have been better, anything would have been better.

It's contextual, which is kind of a weird thing to do. And as I recall, the game teaches you to do it exactly once in a sequence where it's like, no, you're trapped and you have no weapons. And like, you must dodge this thing. And then it will like faceplant into a TV cartoon style. But late in the game, especially the final boss, because the final boss can basically teleport and like teleport next to you. And like, you don't need to dodge.

There's other strategies. but that's a great time to dodge. But if you don't remember how to do it, which was, you know, at that point hours after the fact of how they taught you how to do it, you are probably going to be in big trouble because it's not easy and it's very, you know,

it's very much push these things, you know, do this at the right time, you know, other games now, you know, dodge rolling now is all the rage. Usually there's a dodge button and you can press it whenever you want. But yeah, Revelations, you can only dodge when you are being attacked

and it is kind of narrow. Like, I've seen more narrow, but it's pretty narrow. Yeah. I'm just grateful that honestly, you don't need to do it that much. Yeah, it's just that the fact that, like, really to do it, you have to go neutral. Like, technically you could press pull push back in X, which is the quick turn. And if you do the quick turn at the right time, it turns into a Dodge. But, man, if you don't do it, if you just accidentally quick turn instead, you're not going to have fun time. other than that

it did have one of the things that I've always hated which is the when you're grabbed wiggle your thumbstick back and forth because that that reminds me of like Mario Party and like you know you put it on the palm of your hand

and flick back and forth and get blisters like I've always hated that I think that's the worst worst mechanic like worst quick time event ever yeah I think if you play on PC I think you're supposed to like move your mouse

back and forth well that's better I think nowadays any time a game has something that involves either wiggling the stick or mashing a button, I go straight in the accessibility, and I turn that shit off. I'm not doing it. Forget it.

The thing is, like, when I was playing it, replaying it, I didn't remember how much I hated the boss fights. Like, I found almost all of them more annoying than fun because it's basically you fight an infinitely responding

mob enemies and they have ranged attacks, And they come from all directions. And then at the same time, you're supposed to fight a big guy, right? That you can only defeat in a very specific way, you know, by like blowing up a canister and then punching them or something, you know? And it was, most of the fights were like that. I never like infinite enemy things or it'd be like, here's infinite enemies and you have to get through the small area in a certain time limit. And I'm just never, never okay with that.

I just find it more annoying than fun. I do understand that. I sort of feel opposite because I think that the boss fights in this game are pretty fun. I mean, honestly, the first one with the first time you meet, the sort of Skag Dead, which is a really horrible thing to get to run into. I do really like that battle when you're on this kind of multi-layer area that it's quite big, but it's not big enough. There's enemies everywhere, which you kind of need for the ammo drops.

But what I like about it is it's, it's that. resident evil thing of you just never you're never safe you can be in a better position but you're not going to need to move like it's it really keeps you moving it really keeps you thinking um and it is stressful and that's kind of what i'm here for it they capture that resident evil four kind of village section feel in that i think it's not as interesting to interact with it's much simpler but the fact that you can sort of go on these kind of balconies jump over full down if you need to be in a hurry go up and down the stairs into these small rooms you might find ammo, but then you're going to be kind of boxed in, you've got to be, just always thinking,

I really do enjoy that. I think that's a lot of fun. And it takes just the right amount of time to kill that boss, I think. I don't know if this has dynamic difficulty or anything, but it feels like it does. And it's never not tough, which is, which I appreciate. I'm going to be able to be. Well, one aspect we should probably highlight here, before I go on any further, we should also highlight the fact that in this game, you're always with someone, you always have a partner.

Now, it's not a two-player game. This is not Resident Evil 6, but whoever you're playing in this game, you always have a partner, and that partner usually has a gun. So when you're fighting all these monsters, you do have sort of an AI assistant. However, they're not really that helpful most of the time, I find.

Like, like, for example, in that first boss fight, I doubt it. In the best case scenario, in my opinion, like, in that boss fight, Stuart mentioned, the best case scenario for me was when the boss somehow transfixed on my partner, because they can't kill your partner. So, like, the boss totally transfixed on my partner and was, like, was trying to, like, grind him up or whatever. And I just like, okay, well, if you're busy shooting, you're busy fighting him, I'll just shit you in your back with my rifle. Is that okay with you? And it was. So,

um, like that I appreciated. But like, compared to other games that have AI partners or like, or even like Resident Evil 5, like Shiva kills stuff in Resident Evil 5. Like, totally, she totally kills this Resident 5. But in this game, I found that most time the AI partners were seldom, nothing that they would miss. But like their bolts just seemed like they were like irritating to the monsters rather than actually damaging, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably better that they're just kind of there than that you've got to babysit them.

Because they can also help you out when you're in a dangerous position. If memory serves, there's like a, that they can come over and they can sort, and they can get you out of a jam sometimes, but mostly the fact that you kind of just, you play it as a solo game, you know, let's face it, you kind of ignore them and just get on with it. I would, I prefer that to having to make sure Shiva doesn't, like, shoot six bullets like someone's foot and then you have to babysit her. I don't, I, I, I, I prefer it this way. And team-wise, I'm sorry, we didn't actually talk about the teams, because, like, the primary, the primary team of the game is Jill Valentine and new guy Parker. And meanwhile, Chris

Redfield is off somewhere else with Jessica, Jessica of the self-described sweet ass. and team number three I would describe them as the booby prize group myself are jackass and grinder who are two guys who hang out in the office and eventually have to go on a mission

by themselves and they're always like snapping at each other like they're friends but they're like poking at each other one is the cool one one is the nerdy one and it's just like

neither of them are cool at all yeah not not a super into the jackass and Grindr story, to be frank. Yeah, a slight left on Grindr, I think. And that's right.

And then the flashback, the flashback chapters are Parker with Jessica. So you get, but personality-wise, you don't get a lot from these other people. Like, Parker seems to be generally positive and helpful. Jessica is really thirsty for Chris, but he's not interested. Actually, can we talk about that? That's like my favorite part of the game. actually is like she is so about him and he shuts her down so flatly and so hard every time and I just love it because she's like between your other old partner and me who would

you say you're both important you're both my partner like it's just he's like he's like he's gray rocking her so hard and my favorite part though is the moment jill is in trouble all that she goes out the window. It's like, we're on a plane. We're going to find this boat. We're going to save Jill. And it's just like this, like, whether his words and his actions do not mix. It's like, you are my partner and yes, I will protect you and partners and all that crap, but Jill in trouble. Like, that's a completely different thing for him. And it's the same thing with Jill, of course. Like the whole start of the game is she thinks that Chris has been captured on this boat. And that's why she goes in to save him, supposedly, right?

She's like, oh, crap, Chris is in trouble. Where's my diving suit with most of one side missing? Well, that's Jessica's, but yes. I actually have that in my notes. Like the one-legged one-suit. Oh, I'm sorry. For Jessica. Yeah, yeah, but we've established that Jessica is very proud of her ass,

so she wants to make sure that even when she's underwater, you can at least get one cheek. Right. And it's like, and they're trying, she's supposed. to be the kind of new, like, Ada Wong, right? Is kind of what they're trying to make her be. But, like, there's no room for her in this chrys and Jill sandwich. Like, she's completely extraneous.

And I don't think, I don't feel like that for Parker. I at least feel like Parker is, like, kind of a good guy who's trying to do his best. And, you know, he's trying to make up for, you know, being part of the group that, you know, laser-beamed a city full of people and monsters. you know but uh jessica's just more concerned with like maybe i can like seduce chris somehow

and further my evil plan that way it's just like yeah that's not working in any way shape or form has chris ever actually expressed any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone genuinely i don't think so i don't think so he's definitely

theory about that guy on that chart you know there's always video game charts of characters, like, you know, knows what sex is, does not know what sex is. I feel like Chris is probably closer to that does not know what sex is, you know. But if there's anyone he's even slightly close. I mean, like, remember, the whole plot of Resonid Evil 5 is like Chris basically roids out in order to fight a superhuman Wesker to avenge Jim. Like, that's literally the whole thing. That's why he's so buffed so that he can punch Wesker even though,

Wesker has super speed and strength, you know? And then he punches boulders because that's what we get from Resident Evil 5. But, like, yeah, as far as, like, a romantic, like, love interest for him, no, it's always, his is are always, like, bromances, like, between him and, what was it, Pierce in 6? Pierce, yep, yep, and stuff like that. He's married to the job. He's married to zombie killing. Yeah.

He doesn't even like it when people do have, like, wives. That's why he kills him, and Resy 7. eight or whichever it was. In eight, yeah. But I mean, but I like Chris. I like Chris a lot. And I do hope that we get in some games, some, whether it's a spinoff or whatever, I want to see more of him like as kind of a surrogate father raising Rose. Like, that sounds like an interesting game. Like Chris trying to be a father, I'm down for. I think that'll be hilarious. So one thing I feel that's very important about Resident Evil Revelations is that because you're always on a team, and you're almost always have someone by your side,

and the fact that it's very episodic in nature, which, you know, by design, it's meant for a handheld system. So, you know, you've got these chapter breaks, you've got episode breaks. When you start a new episode, they show you what happened on the last episode, like TV style. Yeah, when you load a save game, too, which is great. So whenever you continue, you get that preview. So it's like, here's what you were doing. And it's like, oh, that's cool. every single game that has a long-form narrative should have that I think only two games do that and Sonic Adventure if there are any other examples I don't want to know

but I really really there are games I put down for months pick up again and I'm just like what am I doing again and I really need this in every game basically but one one downside to me is the fact that it's so episodic and the fact that you even have different teams in different places to me that really to try from the survival horrorness of the experience because you never feel like you're trapped anywhere because you never know where the next sector is going to take you. You know what I mean? Like, if you spent, like, even if you were maybe giving you a huge chunk of time,

like, get to know the boat for like, I don't know, two chapters even, that would have made a difference. But instead, like, as soon as Jill and Parker get in trouble, we're whisked away to, I think, it's like Siberia or Finland. You're somewhere way up in the Arctic with Chris and Jessica. And it'll be a while before you get back to Parker and Jill and, you know, the jumping around. And then again, there's another team and the flashbacks.

Like, with that much jumping, to me, I feel like that's a detriment. I guess it helps them tell a story the way they want to tell a story. And it helps them, you know, it helps, it ups the variety because like, oh, well, now we're in the Arctic, now we're in the, in the bilge. Now we're in a high rise. you know, now we're fighting hunters in a lobby. So, you know, plus one for variety, but also minus five for, you know, environmental tension. I feel like, again, it might be a, not a concession, but it might be playing to the strengths of the system. I mean, the locations, there aren't that many, and they're not that big, and they're all quite straightforward.

And I think that does help to disguise that by moving you around a lot. So for me, everything that sort of services that kind of the style of gameplay they're going for here is a good idea, I think. And on that, like, there were the clear limitations, right, obviously, like, of how big, like, you know, you go backwards and forwards through every area. But my favorite trick they used was when Chris finally locates the ship. And you have this, like, timed mission where you've gone from Jill and, and, uh, And she's drowning. The ship is flooding. She's drowning.

She's trapped in this room. And then you swapped Chris on the outside of the ship. And it's his like bum rush to get to where she is on the ship. And so you're using, you know, your knowledge of all the hours you've spent on the ship to get there. And then, of course, we get to that room and we get the twist, which is, of course, wrong ship. And I thought that was like the most creative way of like using the limited. of the system as a plot point. And I thought that was a really cool, like, thing to do.

Like, limitations can give you creativity. And I'm always happy when I see that happen. I guess for me as a player, when I first, when I first got into the ship, I was like, oh, man, this looks like a mansion, you know? Like, it's a very, like, when you're, especially when you're going through, like, the cabin areas, like, oh, we've got some fancy rooms and furniture and place. and a whole bathroom. So, you know, maybe it's on me. Maybe it's on me where it's like, oh, we're doing a mansion, but we're on a boat. It's a mansion boat.

And like, you know, it's not really a mansion boat. We keep going some other places and then we come back and now we're just, you know. No, no, I do think I would have preferred just the boat. Yeah, I definitely, I could have used more boat, I think. Yeah. Even though, in fact, there are three boats in the game. Right. Like, if we could have skipped, that there are, and that's crazy.

If we could have skipped, what was the, sorry, jackass and grinder. Like, they're, like, if we would have skipped their whole thing, like, what they were doing, because honestly, it's almost pointless. If we skipped all of their BS and we never went back, like, like, sure, we can start in the Arctic with Chris and Jessica, whatever. But if we never went back there, I would have been absolutely happy because then it would have almost been entirely the boat with with like cut scenes showing what Chris and other people outside were doing, you know, at the end of each chapter.

And I don't think that's, I don't think that breaks up things too much, if that makes sense. But like, yeah, like, I didn't need to spend chapters with them, like, at all for any reason whatsoever. Other than, hey, we made this Arctic location and we should go back to that. Yeah, keep me on the boat. The boat is really interesting and claustrophobic. Yeah, at times it can be sure. So, do we want to talk about raid mode a little bit? Absolutely.

Yeah, because that's basically, instead of mercenaries, you get a raid mode, and raid mode has a variety of stages. I guess the stages are mostly based on levels in the game, right? There's no, like, sort of far-off places in this one. Are there? It's all just, like... I believe so, yeah. I didn't spend as much time in raid mode in this as I did in two,

but that's how it seemed to me that, I mean, for me, the raid mode felt honestly like a dry run for the second one, but some people seem to disagree and prefer this. It was nice that you could play it. You can play it co-op, you know, you can get your, sort of compare your ties with your friends, and it had the progression thing that, you know,

like Resident Evil Mercenary's 3D, it wasn't entirely similar to that. Yeah, I also like that, you know, as you play the game, you know, single player or otherwise, you're always earning this BP, which you can spend to unlock new stuff. And even if you play this game on 3DS, which, of course, the 3DIS has no achievement systems, they built achievement-like goals into the game, and doing those things nits you more BP and more rewards.

In some cases, actually unlock stuff all by itself. So I thought that was a neat sort of featured. Again, it helps for replayability. It helps for challenging. Like, oh, you beat the game once on easy mode? Why don't you try normal mode? Because that unlocks new stuff, you know? and there's even, I believe there's like a hard

and there's like an Inferno mode, which I've heard is incredibly hard that I'm not going to, I'm not going to play that, but I've heard it's incredibly hard. Yep. I don't have anything really to say about it. Okay. All right. Well, one thing I do want to mention is that a year later, you know, it launched on 3DS in 2012, but a year later, we got Resident Evil Revelations

Unveiled Edition, which is essentially the HD version, which came to PS3, Xbox 360, and Steam, later on, PlayStation 4, later on, Nintendo Switch. I think I hit the Wii U as well, which might be worth mentioning. Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely U, yes, of course. But, and this is the version that's, you know, the most successful one today. It has the most features. And it, you know, it looks fine, but it is funny that, you know, this is a game that's

absolutely designed for a very small handheld screen. and certain textures do not translate well to the big screen and my favorite my favorite of all time you only really see it late in the game but when O'Brien is in his office

there's like an entire wall and on the wall is a single frame and in the single frame on 3DS I don't think you can even see what's in the frame but in the HD version you can absolutely see what's in the frame and it's just the BSAA logo

and the words spelling out the B SAA like acronym. Like, that's all it is. It's not a diploma. It's not a certificate. It's not a, you know, congratulations in your first day. It's just like, where do I work? I work at the BSAA. It says so right here on the wall.

Maybe those are like the grades he got in the entrance exams or something. A, B in shooting, an S in archery. Yeah, that's possible. A and hanging things up on the wall. I think that this game in HD obviously it is quite It's a great looking game on 3DS Obviously on the largest systems it's not

But because of the fact that it is quite Spartan It is quite clean It's really easy to see what you're doing It's really easy to play That kind of benefits it for me And you know it runs really beautifully well Obviously because they're just Upscaling is the wrong term

But it's just HD 3DS graphics I think I did a decent job with it and it's nice that no matter what format you pick it up on it's going to be pretty smooth It's worth playing It's a good game Despite all my complaints about it It's a very enjoyable game

And I think everyone will play it Yeah I know I would say like While I do have my nitpicks about it I do enjoy play I did enjoy replaying it For the podcast here And like I do have to I did want to say

I love the final boss The final boss is such a fun boss It might be my favorite Resident Evil boss. It is the perfect mix of like seemingly impossible difficulty. And like when you get it, you just feel so cool. Like when you finally get it down and you're like dodging all the moves. And because it's playing on your senses. It's making false copies of itself.

And you've got to figure out which is the real copy in like a split second or you've got to dodge. I really, really love that. And, yeah, like, I think, yeah, like you were saying, like, the limitations are there, but, you know, honestly, if they just added a proper Dodge button, I would love it. I wouldn't have any hesitation to recommend it to everyone. With the Dodge Button issue, I might say, like, well, if you want, kind of thing, if you like Resident Evil. But playing it on any system is fine. they're all, it's a good game on all. I think given its handheld origins, I think it is, it's definitely well suited for the Switch

in that you can play it on the go, but, you know, if you want to relax at home and watch it and play it on the TV, well, then go ahead and do that. And, you know, you'll notice, you'll notice the graphics are a little wonky in certain places, but it's still, like, it plays fine and it looks good enough, you know. It might be worth mentioning that this game on Switch to a long with all the Resident Evil games runs beautifully smooth now. Like the extra grunt makes it run insanely well and look really, really nice. So it's well worth playing on that.

So in between Revelations original and Revelations 2, I just want to, real quick here, I want to talk about a couple other games because the Resident Evil franchise did not go silent. They did not say, oh, we're done here. Because in 2012, there were two other games besides Revelations. There was Operation Raccoon City, which was the all-action third-person shooter set during the outbreak. Critics hated it. I think it's sold okay, but critics were like, we don't want this. No one wants this. There was Resident Evil Six. Resident Evil Six, of course, which is, you know, we talked about in episode 599, Resident Evil Six, very big, very expensive, critics were divided, fans were divided, sold a crazy amount,

but in the end, I believe the Capcom executives were like, you know what, this maybe isn't the way we should go with this because it didn't meet our expectations, you know. It sold a lot. but it didn't quite offset all the stuff. You know, all the time we put into this thing, building three, four, if you count Ada, campaigns and just all this extra stuff. It's kind of the most maximalist kind of Resident Evil game where Revelations is the exact opposite to its favor.

But if there's a whole episode about it, I wasn't on it, so I'll just say, yeah, it's not very good. I mean, there's a lot to like about it, in my opinion, but it's a lot of really cool systems and ideas that just do not gel together at all. And they were smart to change course after that. And what happens over the next few years is they, again, we get a lot of remasters.

We get this, you know, the Revelations remaster comes out in 2013. In 2014, they take the 2002 GameCube game and make the HD version of that. And also Resident Evil 4 gets another HD version that's different than the original HD version. And that's the one that's, you know, that's the one you're playing today unless you play the fan. made high-res texture version. But, you know, they spent a couple of years remastering older games, which also serves the point to say, hey, remember when Resident Evil was scary again? I feel like they already can tell, like, we need to play up the fact that Resident Evil can

be scary again. And case and point, in 2015, we get Resident Evil Revelations 2. And I stress this because in 2014, they were showing it. at TGS. And I was already in the press. Richard was already in the press. And I remember going to, like, you know, I remember going to the Capcom hotel room and talking to the staff and like setting up with this game. And you could tell the staff was, you know, they all get talking points. They know what they're supposed to emphasize. So they, and I was saying, hey, we think Resident Evil can be scary again. And they want to make sure they're communicating to that to you. And the game itself is also like, hey, we want to be scary again. And I think Revelations 2, even more than one, wants you to be frightened. I feel like they put that front and center in this game. We want you to be scared. Indeed, it's even part of the game, like, story. Like, being scared is part of the story of Revelations 2.

So they want you the player to also be scared. Yeah, I remember that. Actually, I remember that vividly, that 2014 TGS and going into that hotel room. Because I remember I sat down and they, I don't believe we got to have hands on. We got to watch somebody play, I think. and I was I was kind of blown away I was like this is exactly what I want in a Resident Evil

but more for actually the gameplay than whether it was scary or not but I'm sure we'll get to that in a bit I this is probably my favorite Resident Evil game in terms of it's the one I've spent the most time with the memories of well I've played this more than once

but my first playthrough with a friend doing the whole thing in local like, you know, split-screen co-op. This game shines like that. Like, it's so obviously designed around co-op, this one. It is fun with playing it alone, but it's not right. You really need someone on the torch and someone on the shit on the guns. You need someone playing Natalia and someone pointing out where the clasps are.

It's so good that way. And the fact that they drop it in the way that they did, the episodic, it's, I mean, it just, it was so perfect because it just meant, you know, every month or whatever, we're going to get another incredibly fun small three-hour thing to just have a great time with I think this is I mean calling it the best one when like four exists it feels weird to me but honestly I think I

do prefer I do prefer playing this to four I still play this you know I play four sometimes but what this has to offer if you do get into the loop especially in the raid mode which again we'll get to it's it never stops giving it's fantastic I love this game I mean, I'll be right there with you. I don't know if this is my favorite resonant evil,

but it is absolutely my favorite one to play. The actual playing of the game with a friend is fantastic, and it's because, and maybe I'm jumping ahead a little bit, is I love the idea of asynchronous co-op, where your two characters are not carbon copies of each other. Like, you know, Moira plays dramatically different from Claire. Claire plays like a normal Resident Evil protagonist. She has guns.

Moira's job is to blind them with the flashlight to give Claire a good shot, a good headshot chance, right? And they can work together where it's like blind, shooting the head, melee, and then the other person maylays. And you can do this like back and forth teamwork to take down these much more powerful zombies than you know. normally would be able to alone. And it's just so much fun. And then on the other side, you get Barry and Natalia. And that one is, you know, again, Barry is Resident Evil protagonist, man. He has guns.

And then we have this girl who literally her only attack is to hit something with a brick, like to chuck a brick at it. And that's the only thing she can do. But her whole thing is like all of the enemies on Barry's side of the story, their weak points are randomized. It's a leg, an arm, or the head, or like an upper leg or a lower leg, or whatever,

and only one player can see it. And so you have this really kind of cool thing where, like, one player is like, oh, the weak point is their right leg, lower part, and then the other person shoots it, and you know, and you're working together in a very, very different

way than both of you having guns and shooting things. It feels like, you know, you're made to work with your friend, and only together do you have a real shot at victory? And I love it. It is one of my favorite co-op games, and like it is, like I said, absolutely my favorite resonant evil to play because of that. And yeah, if you want a completely different experience, you just play the game a second time as the opposite character. Yeah, it's fantastic. It feels to me like it's so suboptimal to play this game solo. It works because, you know,

you've got the character switching thing sort of like, you know, I guess like Resident Evil Zero in a very broad sense but playing as Myra and getting an enemy into stun lock and then switching to Claire to Headshot yes it is fun but it doesn't feel right

but nonetheless it's perfectly fine and it gives you a third way to play the game if you want to and they put so much in here to actually sort of find and to see and it feels so, I mean because it's not a 3DS game no offense to the 3DS, obviously because it is designed for then contemporary consoles,

it offers so much more complete and experience. And in leaning into, again, the gameliness by making it so that one of the characters is missing just completely standard types of attacks, types of movement, and then giving to the other character and vice versa, just means that you are always having... You can't just beat every enemy the same way like you can in the other Resident Evil games, generally speaking.

You know, you can meet enemies where it doesn't matter how talled up you are. You still need your friend to help you. You cannot just sit back and shotgun everything. I guess you can in raid mode, but that's very different. I think that they make an incredibly compelling campaign here. Really, really enjoyable to replay as well. And I, you know, I've always heard the complaint of, like, you can't have a co-op game be scary.

and then you get those invisible bug things in Barry's side of the story where and there you have you know one person being like no no little to the left shoot a little to the left and it actually is rather scary because this thing is coming towards you and it's pretty much a one hit kill I believe if it gets you and so yeah

does yep yeah and you're and you're sitting there like trying to get it and yes it can be frustrating but it can also be really cool when you know you're you're communicating well with your friend as you play it felt like they took i i'm making this comparison i already feel like an idiot but i swear it's vaguely similar it reminded me a little bit of kane and lynch deadman um when lynch is having his psychotic episodes and he can see things that kane can't see whether it's online or in split screen um in the sense of like uh you're feeding each player different information that's useful to them and also useful to the other player, but they don't receive it.

It just, it's actual cooperation. It's not just you're both shooting enemies. You are cooperating and it's beautiful. And I wish they would do more games like this. Well, speaking of someone who played it solo, I would say the game mostly works like that. You have, you know, you can switch characters at any time. If you have, like, there's always a primary character and a sort of a secondary character. You can both take damage, but if you're like, second.

secondary character takes too much damage, they can't die, die, you can just go over and help them. But if your primary character is too much damage, like, it's a game over, essentially. Yeah, that's true. But that's actually, that's actually kind of a bonus, because, like, the other interesting thing about this game that I really like about it is, it is the perfect game to play with someone who is not necessarily a gamer, who may not be able to hit headshots every time, or weak points every time. Like, I've played this with really good gamers. I've played this with people who

aren't even really good at, like, 3D movement in games. And they can play Moira or they can play Natalia. And it's one of the... It's a great date game, a great... For, like, if you're dating a non-gamer, it's a great game to play with because

the skill level for Moira or Natalia is much lower. But still vital. And like, yeah, I think that's also a really kind of cool thing is you can play with two people who are completely different skill levels and

still have a blast and both people are still contributing equally despite any kind of skill difference. As you say, I do think as well, if you have got two sort of skilled players, it does still change things up because in fact of my I was playing

Natalia and you were almost like a well oil machine. I mean, I also want to mention very quickly, when the Glasps are visible or when they start to become visible there's this excellent I don't know what to call it like a chroma effect on them like almost like their VHS data that's been

badly transferred or something I don't remember anything else I've seen that in you know it's just it's crazy how cool that is but the panic that it can induce whenever those things turn up because to the game's credit it doesn't tend to throw them at you in the middle of other combat too much

they're still quite a rare because that wouldn't be fun if they were all over the place. But the sections where they are prominent, those gasps, it's just, it's perfect co-op, it's perfect. I have only got nice things to say about it. I only have one criticism about the whole game

in fact, and it's such a small criticism, but it's that you can't properly pop heads in the enemies. That sucks. There should be proper head shots, head explosions. I realize that's a disgusting thing to say, but come on. Like, you know, Resident Evil without proper headshots. It's the only thing they did

wrong. The only thing. lay down here. First of all, as Stu mentioned very quickly, Revelations 2, not available for 3DS, available for almost everything else, including Vita. They, it was... Don't play it on the Vita. It's fucking terrible. Sorry, I had it on the Vita. My God. I imagine it doesn't work very well. But 2015,

so it was very much that mid-generation point. So it was like PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, 360, Xbox 1, Windows. It's on Steam, of course. It's on Vita. these days. It's obviously on Switch. Usually the two are bundled together and I find they go on and sell together as a pair. So if you want to get these games,

you usually get both of them for pretty affordable price. And also as you alluded to, the game as originally released in February 2015, they were episodic releases. They released four episodes and then after all episodes were out

digitally, they made a package and released a package. And, you know, Today, of course, you can just buy it as well, but... I mean, at the time, it might be worth mentioning, because I remember when it came out, there was a little bit of confusion because you had the sort of the season pass, and you had, like, the complete edition as well.

And there was extra stuff, I think, in the... If you owned all of it through a certain edition, you got this, like, a couple of bonus episodes with Myra and Natalia, if memory serves. Yes. That have maybe, like, backstory for Natalia and such. And it was a little bit confusing as to be like,

okay, well, so if I buy all four episodes, I don't get that. If I buy the season pass, I get that, but I also get the four episodes. And then there was also some, it was a bit odd. It was one of the first times I'd seen a game released that way, because I can't remember an episodic game before that that was obviously in the sense of like, no, these are coming out every month, every two months. I can't remember how often they came out, and they're done, and they will, they will be out

on time, and you will not be waiting around thinking, like, when's the next episode coming? It was very efficiently done. Yeah. And I remember, like, I specifically went. did until that final episode came out, because that's when they released the physical version. And so I just got the physical version right when it came out because I wanted to do it all at once. But I do not begrudge the episodic model for this game, especially when they stuck to the schedule so well. I think they did a better job with it here than they did in Revelations.

In Revelations, it wasn't really episodic, I guess. It was just episodes within the game. I probably shouldn't have made that comparison. person, but they were sticking to the episodic thing here, but in a much more full-featured way, obviously. Every story did feel like it was telling a complete part of something that was still satisfying. And everyone had, like, a strong finale, I thought. It just worked. The whole game is just wonderful. See, the Diamond I apologize for getting so far ahead, but I just can't not gush about it. It's one of my favorites. It might be on my top ten. It's so good. It's so much

fun. Well, let's talk about these episodes, because this is very important. There's this, as we established, there's basically two teams that go through the game. You've got Claire, Redfield, Moira Burton. Moira Burton is Barry Burton's daughter. And then you've got Barry Burton and this little girl who's named as Natalia. So when you have an episode, the first thing that happens is you've got Claire and you've got Moira and they are somewhere. Usually somewhere pretty bad. Let's be honest. A lot of the environments of this place are pretty lousy. And then after they go through, for that area, you go through either the same area or somewhere adjacent with Barry and

Natalia. So what happens here, first of all, you get some economic use of, you know, the same environments, but also they use this to tell stories because they're going through things at different times. So some things change, some things don't. One thing I like, one thing I like a lot that I don't think I noticed the first time I played is that when you play as Claire and Moira, the afflicted is what they call them they're not really zombies they really they play much closer to say like the Magini or so whatever from like

Resonimo 4s or 5 because they're very active they can jump they're not dead people like they look like people but they're all like messed up you know they've been mutilated they've been experimented on but when you play as Barry and you go through these areas again they've been like

sitting around so now they are decaying now they do look like shit and they move slower too. So it really is like you can see the passage of time between the two chunks of gameplay, which I think is really cool. And also Barry tends to fight different enemies

in different places and there are enemies that Barry fights more than the other two. And they do a good job with like lighting as well. The lighting is often to make it, like you're going through it at different times of day or night, which yeah, sure, I understand it's just lighting, but it really makes the areas feel different, even though they're the same area. Like, the feeling is more important than them actually having, like, completely different levels.

If it feels new, it might as well be new, regardless of whether it is or not. But something's carry over. Again, something I didn't notice right away, but noticed later on, like, there's certain afflicted that have, like, big sores in their body, like a big, a big, giant glowing weak point. And if you shoot the big giant glowing weak point, of course, dies, but it also releases these little, like, seeds or something, and they, like, seed the ground, and if you don't get rid of them by shining Moor's flashlight on them, they remain present, and if Barry goes there later, they're basically in the ground, like, a landmine,

and they, like, explode. And, like, there's one that always, always happens, because, like, it's a tutorial, like, to show you what these things do. But other than that, like, they're only there. if you kill certain enemies and don't clean up after yourself. I had no idea. Yeah.

I had no idea that's why the mines were there. Like, I knew that the mines were there. Like, I see, because Natalia can see the mines, of course. But I didn't realize that they were from what I did as Claire and Moyra. I, like, I didn't even realize that. That's crazy. It's really cool. Yeah.

It's very clever design. The enemy, sort of the cast of enemies in this game is just, they lean into you've got your fodder enemies I don't like calling them because they're actually quite dangerous than normal the afflicted but there are all these enemy types

almost like something like doom you know you will go into a combat situation and it will be it's not just like a bunch of Magini it's not just a bunch of I can't remember what they're called in Rezi 4 but you'll be like

okay I've got one of these guys and I've got one of these guys I've got to prioritize this while dealing with these these afflicted at the same time. And then, you know, when you throw that into the mix with the two characters who are better at dealing with certain enemies than others, like

Moira's the one who can throw the Molotovs, I think, in that game. Like, for example, the Revenants, when you don't know what their weak spot is, but if you hit them with a reverent, with a Molotov, it all burned the sort of flesh away, and you're like, okay, there it is, I can

see it. And it all just comes together to create this extremely exciting. Like, it's just enormous fun all the time to get into combat in that game. I'm very fond of it. We should also mention that in this game, I think for every enemy,

if you sneak up with them, you can do instant melee kills. Yes, you can do stealth kills. And you're very much encouraged to do that with Barry. Oh, yeah, very, very viable. And can tell you, like, oh, behind that wall, there's a guy and you can kind of peek the corner and see which way he's facing. And then Barry can just

you know go up and kill them it's very so even the big revenants who like their whole point is you don't know where their weak point is in their body if you melee kill them you just automatically hit it they're just dead it's fine yeah it's often the best way to deal with things it's it's just all being so beautifully designed that so many different ways of playing each segment are valid and and they work and it makes replaying it even more another reason to replay it even more fun ...their... ...and... ...you know...

...withal... ...the... And as long as we're hyping this game up, I do want to highlight the fact that I feel like this game even more than Revelations 1 really has both an identity and at times an actual sense of humor. And a lot of that falls, a lot of that falls on more. She's not the only, she's not the only person who can make you laugh in this game. But Moira is, like, for me, the MVP of the game, because she is not, like, Natalia's a little girl, and she's like a weird little girl. You know, Barry and Claire have been through all this before. Like, Claire has been through this more than Barry, frankly, you know.

Claire went through Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica. She's seen some shit. But Moira, Moira doesn't do this. Moirer's not a secret agent. She doesn't, she even has a story reason. She doesn't want to touch guns at all. Claire's like, hey, you should have a gun because, you know, we're alone on this island. We're surrounded by monsters.

And Claire's like, no, no, no, no. I don't do guns. I don't do guns. You know, she takes a flashlight. She gets a crowbar. And what happens is you have this dynamic where Claire is painfully used to all of this, you know, time and again, she's like, we need to do this. Oh, you need to fix the helicopter. We'll find your stuff.

Moira's like, we're going to find stuff to fix the helicopter, and she's like, yeah, it's usually around here somewhere. Like, Claire just knows she'll find it, you know. She's used to killing monsters. She's used to shooting hundreds and hundreds of things that used to be people. And Moira isn't, so you get this sort of fun back and forth where Moira is never used to all this. She's not terrified of the monsters. She's not like paralyzed with fear or anything. She's like the Frank Grimes of Resident Evil, kind of, you know.

Kind of, yeah. If you put a real person into this, although having said that in all honesty, regardless of the trauma I had felt, in this situation, I would make an exception and grab a gun, I think. But to be fair about that,

I do like that the reason she won't grab a gun, even though, yes, obviously you should, it's a vital part of the story. Like, it is, in fact, the most, like, the story is built around the fact that she won't use a gun, really.

which also brings to the thing I wanted to bring up today, which was the fact that my one complaint about the game, which is the existence of the bad ending. Yeah. The bad ending, I can't, the trick with the bad ending I'll explain is there is a quick time event at the end of the third chapter, or at the end of Claire and Moira's third chapter, where your dual quick time of ending.

Like, Claire is button-nashing, Moira is pressing the stick, and whoever does it better gets the gun. So if Claire does it, she gets the gun, shoots the monster. If Moira gets it, you know, it's kind of her thing. She overcomes her trauma and shoots the monster. But you have no idea that that actually locks you in to an ending. Like, there is nothing to tell you. It's a decision for sure.

And I was thinking, like, how horrible, like, it sucked for me to be like, oh, man, I have to replay half the game to get the good ending, like legitimately half the game to get the good ending after getting the bad one on accident, right? But like, imagine how much that would have even sucked more if you were playing it, you know, release to release, and you've, you know, maybe even gone through it a couple times or whatever. And you have no idea, like, that, oh, the way you played episode three has walked you into the bad ending. And then you play four and you're just like episode four, you get through it and you're like, oh, that's the, that, oh, my God. And I've already played episode three, like two or three or four times.

And now I have to replay it again and episode four again just to get the good ending. Like, that's not a small amount of time. That's like three, four hours that you have to replay for a choice that you had no idea at the time was important. And I, it's an odd moment for sure. It's definitely... I think when you're playing it solo, it's less troublesome

because then it's much... Because it's sort of the interface is kind of like, why would I be able to switch to Moira at this point? You know, there's only one reason. But obviously in multiplayer, you kind of have to know. But in single player,

I think it's more like, oh, they're obviously wanting me to do this. But it is a flaw because there didn't really need to be... a bad ending. It doesn't really the game's story is very good and the ending especially is very good and it does

feel a little bit like this could have this whole bad ending could have been like a nothing. It's just been that the game automatically switches to Moira. Yeah, with the bad ending, you even don't get to fight the final boss. Like it literally

cuts the final boss out of the game if you get the bad ending. Like it's absolutely crazy. I mean, the one good thing about it is the bad ending makes the the DLC chapter about Natalia make more

sense. Like, they connect directly. Yeah. And, yeah, they make the narrative. But like, oh, man, yeah, just think about that. You don't even get the final boss battle. You don't get Claire with the sniper rifle on the helicopter and Barry running around

to on the ground and like the two of them finally have to work together. And, like, the two of them finally have to work together. after being in opposing narratives, the whole game, you know, that kind of big climax. You just don't even get that. Like, it's just like, oh, no, Natalia's become evil Alex Wesker, and Barry is sad that he can't murder a child. You know, it's like, oh, and that's the end of the game. You're just like, oh, what?

Kind of thing. So that's my one complaint. I don't have a complaint about the ending existing, but being locked in that early, and there's just really, no way to tell. Like, for me, I was like, I've got to get the gun because what if the trauma breaks Moira? Like, that was my thought process at the time.

So I'm pounding that button so fast trying to beat my friend. That makes complete sense. Because it's like, am I, so is the challenge that you've got to stick to your principles or that you've got to violate your principles? Because one of those is intuitive and one of them is not. I totally agree with that. Yeah.

That is a flaw. That and the head shots, that's it. Yeah, it's definitely an odd moment to have a boss fight in chapter three can end one way or another way, and depending on how it ends, that affects the end of the game, and that's just the way it goes. It's one that I guess I got lucky in that because I played single player, the single player version very much, Clare's, oh, Claire is in trouble. It says, it's like on screen, like, hey, push the button to switch characters, like, oh, okay, then all the switch characters and Moira, and, you know, it's all staged, like, oh, okay, Moira's going to have a big emotional moment here, and she's going to pick up that gun.

And Moira does, she picks up the gun. So, okay, you know, your trauma's real, Moira, but thank you. Thank you for working to overcome it. Yes. But yeah, I really can't say enough good things about Moira. I need to shout out the voice actor. The voice actor, Marcella Lens Pope, because, I mean, the script is written. Obviously, the script is written a certain way.

They really wrote a lot of profanity for Moira to say. And Marcella Lens Pope, she sells all these lines. It's kind of amazing. I understand that acting. you know, acting is a skill. I understand this. But sometimes you hear someone and they're just, you know, they're reading lines in a microphone somewhere. And she makes these things all sound different. You know, she has these, she adds little context of things, you know, irony sure is a dick, you know. The joke of the top of the show I made is because in that boss battle, when she shoots the guy, she tells them to jump on a dildo. But it's like, I'm not selling it right. She, Marcella Lent's Pope sells all these lines, you know. know, and they're funny. I think it's the first Resident Evil that kind of arches an eyebrow a bit itself. I don't think this game is scary.

I think it can induce panic, but so can all of them. And because they're so focused on this kind of having a fun, silly, a gory kind of a time, it's nice to have, for the first time, it shouldn't work, but a character who is kind of Frank Grimes as she walks in, it's just like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, this is insane. And I mentioned it early on, but, like, my favorite line, and I think about this all the time, is when you do reach the sort of factory environment,

and she just says, yeah, of course this factory would have to be a fucked-up factory. And it's like, yeah, it kind of does. It's fantastic fun. Just a brilliant, snarky, like, goblin. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, and like you were saying it earlier, Diamond, that it's very much Claire is the straight man in the duo who is

like and it's funny that she's the straight man. She is so used to it. Yeah. And we're used to it because how many, you're not playing Reservant Relations too as your first Resident Evil almost certainly not. And so like we're

used to it too. And it's very nice to have someone who actually is just like kind of adjacent to the story. Like she's known raccoon she knows this stuff has been going on but like remember claire has joined like a non-profit to help victims right that's what her and moira work for they aren't part of the b s aa or anything like that and yet claire is just like yeah what yeah we're going to just murder a whole whole score of zombies oh this lake of blood where we're going to have to fill up this death trap of like pig corpses

with pig corpses to get a key oh yeah no this is totally normal and and and And, yeah, Moira being like, what, this is the most fucked up thing I've seen in my entire life. And it is, she is us. She is the person, like, she is who we should be going into these games and just be like, what is going on? The factory, the factory for me has so many moments like this, like, there's the bit where you get a glass eye. And Claire, Claire's like, oh, yeah, we saw that retinol scanner. I bet this glass eye will open the retina. scanner. And Moore was like, I guess that kind of makes sense, you know, like she sees the pieces

coming together, but she's like, what? And then, of course, again, Paul's a part of the factory is like, you find a dead guy, and the dead guy's body is just torn open, but inside the dead body is like a plastic liver. And Moore's like, what the hell is going on here? And Claire's like, oh, don't forget, we saw that statue, remember? This liver goes in the statue. And, and And Moore was like, oh, okay, yeah. You can see her putting the pieces together, but she's still like, how is this normal for you? How are you already like two steps ahead here? Right.

And it's great. It really is. It works very, very well. And also, I know it doesn't stand out as much, but like the whole kind of thing is, you know, on Barry's side is he's searching for his daughter, who, while we don't know this when we're going into the first couple chapters, it is presumed dead.

Claire has said to Barry, that Moira's dead. Like, this is, we're, we don't get that information right away. But that's what it is. And then he finds a child, a girl, uh, someone he can kind of be like a father figure two and do it right this time so that he isn't, uh, at odds with his daughter so that things don't go wrong. And like I, I, I, you do get this real sense of like, Barry as enraged as he is, as in pain

as he is, like he is pushing that aside to. to try to be a good dad to Natalia, this child he's found. And, like, I think that also works. Like, because I think a various voice actor does a great job of playing both, like, enraged old guy whose daughter's been murdered, and then also trying to, like, keep this kid calm and happy and try to, you know, do what's right for the child, even against his own rage, which is good. Like, it works, in my opinion, anyway.

Yeah, I mean, I was already totally on board as a Barry fan before this game. But, yeah, in this game, he is a fun character all by himself, even though he's going through, you know, he's also, we should also stress that he and Moira weren't getting along. Like, they had their problems. And the game established this right away. Like, someone's like, oh, isn't that Barry Burton's daughter? And someone's like, don't bring up Barry around Moira. Like, she doesn't want to hear his name even. So, like, they've got to, so during the course of the game, you find out what happened between

them, you find out why they were estranged, and yeah, he thinks she's dead, although if you get the bad ending, she is dead. Yeah, right, right? He thinks she's dead anyway. So he's got this grief going on, and he's like, you know, there's certain scenes where he's basically, like, talking to Natalia that's like about his failures as a parent, you know, It's like, and it's kind of bold to tell a child about, hey, kid, I, I kind of messed up with my real kids. I don't know.

But I think that's the thing. He's trying to, he wants to face his flaws, right? Yes. He wants, absolutely. He doesn't want to hide that he messed up. And if the only person he can tell is this, like he wants the girl to see, he wants to tell you to see the good of him and the bad of him. He thinks that's important. And it is important to him to overcome his grief.

Now, whether you're right, should he tell a child any of this stuff? Maybe not, but at the same time, like, it does build the connection between them because she can see the pain in him and the problems he's going through, but also, like, the good, like, we know Barry is good from, you know, when he flies a helicopter back into Raccoon City just to save Jill, like, that's crazy, but he did it, you know? That's the end of President Evil 3. Beautifully mirrored in this game as well, incidentally.

Right. Sorry, for the spoiler. And therein lies the metamorphosis, you see. That's why they do all the Kafka stuff in this game. It has nothing to do with Alex and her plan of somehow one-uping her brother. Whatever. Yeah, we kind of blew past the plot. We didn't talk about the T-phobos virus or the fact that we,

We have another Wesker. Indeed, the way Barry says it, like, obviously that means something to long-time players, but it's like, the way he says it, it's he's talking to, again, he's talking to a child. So he's like, two Weskers? And Italia should be like, yeah, I just, yeah, okay. There's a picture of two people. Yeah, there's two people here, okay. I don't know who that is, Barry.

I'm nine years old. But we should, we should stress, plot-wise. this game follows Resident Evil 5, but precedes 6. So at this point, everyone feels confident that Albert Wesker is dead. So suddenly here's another Wesker, I guess his sister, half-sister. I don't know if they establish if it's sister or half-sister, but she's obviously got some problems that she thinks she can solve with a virus. And it doesn't really solve any of her problems. honest they don't solve problems yeah not really they never do but i will say um the one interesting

thing about the timeline here is this is the last game for years and years to mention jill one of the things you can unlock in this game is an email from jill to barry talking about what she's been doing post resonant evil five because jill isn't mentioned in six you should not mentioned in seven you know any of that stuff and then and but we get this thing of what happened to her afterwards in her own words which was very nice and it then it eventually leads into dead island even though that was many many years later but it's oh yeah yeah yeah why why wasn't she in the story like why is there like this literally six year or five or six year gap where there's no word from jail she doesn't show up in any any of these she doesn't show up in six

She doesn't show up personally in Revelations 2 or any of the movies that came out. Like, why no Jill? And, like, this is kind of the reason why we finally get that in this game. And sure, it's a log that you unlock, but it was so nice to, like, know what was happening. Sorry, Death Island's one of the CGI movies, right? I don't know this. Are they worth watching those movies? I love them.

I love them. Oh, wow. Okay. I think Dead Island's the best, to tell the truth. because it's all... I'm really sorry because I'm being penicity, but Death Island,

dead island, because I got really confused. I'm like, what? Jill's not in Dead Island? Like, no, no. I'm just being Penicty. I thought it was funny because I was just genuinely for a second.

Like, I don't remember that being tied to Resident Evil. I guess it is. But no, I do apologize. I'm very fussy. But yeah, so it's a cool little connection, like little Easter egg in there that basically eventually sets up

that movie and it's basically explains why Jill is so unbelievably pissed off in that movie and it's that she's basically been a lab rat for years and she's been going to of course rehab and mental care and all that other stuff

but she's literally been locked up and dealing with like the guilt of all the horrible stuff she did in five right and then yeah when she's finally cleared to work again which is what is it dead island or death island I can't remember all of a sudden, which title is correct.

It's Death Island. Death Island. Yeah, and you can just see, like, the rage in her, you know, of, like, being trapped for so many years, and the only outlet she has now is murder some zombies, which I suppose there's less, less negative ways to handle your rage than, like, murdering zombies. You got to murder them. You got to murder them. You got to murder zombies. Like, that's what they're for. But it was a cool kind of little thing, you know, like, since none of the main games were picking up on what happened, it was very nice to have at least, hey, guess what, she's around, like, you know, even if it's just a couple journal entries, it was a nice thing. And she was, obviously, it's not, you know, canon, but she was playable in, um, uh, raid mode in this game as well. Yeah. Which is nice. We touched on almost everything I want to touch about this game, except for one factor I want to point out, a very strange factor in my opinion.

Claire has been recast. this was the first game to have Claire's voice not Allison Court Allison Court was the first actor in Resident Evil 2 she returned to voice Clara Redfield over and over again in many games

and I think some of the movies too and this is the game where they're like no we're going a different direction and it's also it's an extra weird to me because we don't know who voices Claire in this game the only credit

the only credit is someone named James Baker and I'm pretty sure that's not the actress name. I mean, obviously, a woman can be named James. A woman can be named James, but I feel like if there was a woman who voiced a popular video game character named James Baker would be able to find out something about her, and we just don't know.

So it's basically anonymous at this point. So... Which is strange to me. Is this... Shoot, I wish I would have known that. I could have taken a listen because Claire is, of course, in Death Island as well. And we do know who plays her in Dead Island.

Death Island. Now I want to go and compare the voices and see if it's the same person or not. I don't know how many times they've changed since. Stephanie Panicello is the name of Claire in Death Island, her voice actors. I don't know how many times they've changed since, but like Allison Court was the voice for like a decade. And then she was not. And the only, I got a quote. I got a quote from producer Micheteru Okabe, who said, we wanted a voice and appearance that would match this new, more mature version of Claire. We also want to make sure that she and Moira, who was in her early 20s, had voices that were distinctly different from each other.

And it's like, Allison Court doesn't sound like Marcella Lenz Pope, I can assure you. So, I don't know. Can I please have, like, one minute to just go on and know about Raid Mode in this game? All right, let's do Raid Mode, then we'll wrap up this podcast. Because we're coming up two hours. Because the Raid Mode, as good as the campaign is in this game, and it is probably probably my favorite Rezi campaign ever. The raid mode fucks,

if it's okay to say that. It's like, oh, my God, the amount of content, I mean, I don't like saying, all content, but like so many playable characters through the whole series, you know, like Leon's here, Jill's here, you can play as Wesker, they've all got different skills and abilities. You're constantly getting more,

better guns, upgrading guns, messing around with guns, putting mods on the guns, and then, because you can sell, the guns to get more money and then if you realize oh I shouldn't have sold that gun you can just buy it back for the same amount you sold it for it's just completely tailored towards you experimenting with a load out

and there's like God there must be like 50 different levels or something I think a lot of them are taken from Resi 6 but they make better use of them than Resi 6 did and what they're essentially doing is throwing you in with the time limit to kill all of the enemies on the map usually it's all of them there might be

sometimes a straggler finding items finding getting more and more money, getting stronger and stronger and better and leveling up all your characters. It's complete skinner box nonsense, honestly, but I loved it. I had so much fun with Raid Mode, and I still play Raid Mode. It's brilliant fun. It's like infinite Resident Evil combat forever. I beautifully executed. I love it to death, and I played it way more than the campaign, and I played the campaign loads. We should also mention that in Raid Mode, there is a special unlockable mini-game. I think it's

only the Switch version that has, it's basically like ghouls and ghosts with Barry. What? Oh, you didn't know about that? No. Okay. Yeah. It's, I believe it's, I believe they put it for the Switch to, the Switch version. But yeah, if you go into Raid mode, there's like a poster on the wall and you look at

the poster and you can play this mini game. I have no idea. I can't believe that this is happening to me. I should stress, don't, don't get your hopes up. It's not like a big mini game. It's a very much, it's very much a mini game. It's called Ghosts and Homunculi. There it is, yes.

This is incredible, and it's the first level of ghosts and gobbins for the NES, and the items you collect in it can be used in normal raid mode. Where the hell is my switch? I'm not on this podcast anymore. I'm going to do things. I'm believing. No, I'm kidding. Sorry.

I can't believe this is happening. No, it's just, it's a sign of just how much they threw into this game. You know, you've got your extra episodes, you've got your invisible mode, you've got your time limit mode, which is really fun, by the way. Countdown mode. It's crazy stressful, but it's really fun. They just went all out giving the player things that didn't cost extra money, you know? And, yes, it was DLC in the sense of it's a season pass. But the fact that they went so above and beyond to give you more and more to do and more and more to unlock and see and find.

And, you know, we didn't talk about the hidden things in the campaign. There's loads of hidden things to unlock. things. Oh, yeah. It's just, it's really, really, really, that thing is really, really, really good. And that's kind of the end of the Revelation's story, because if you look at the timeline here, this is 2015, 2016, I think you got some more, more re-releases, maybe Resident Evil Zero, I think. But in 2017, we get Resident Evil 7, which, of course, kind of takes the whole brand, if you're you will, in a completely new direction. Everyone says, oh, my God, this is Resident Evil now? Oh, my God.

And then the subsequent years, we get action-packed third-person remakes, but still terrifying versions of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, the recent Resident Evil 4, which is, you know, pretty close to Reservable, but, you know, we know it. It's a remake. It's still a remake. Right. Then, of course, Village is there. We're talking, you know, we're recording this in 2025 in advance of the new Resident Evil

Renanquium. So Resident Evil Yeah, I'm glad you like it. Resident Evil is essentially bigger than ever and they've sort of figured out, okay, we can have big, expensive Resident Evil games that are also scary

in the way we want to make them. So there doesn't seem to be room for any more Revelations games. Allegedly, allegedly, there was a third game in the works that might have been canceled, but this is all information. from like anonymous leakers who it's like who knows if they're who knows if their sources are we don't

know the scuttle bot was that it was an outsourced and they saw it and they went not good enough but who knows it might be made up i mean toast they definitely worked on on two for sure i don't know if toast they did both but tolose definitely worked on two i saw their i saw their logo in the credits so you know third parties can make these games they can be good a third party working on the game is not a sign of you know low quality it's it's a matter of did you give them the time, and did they make the most of the money you gave them, you know? Yeah. And also, if you were just sort of leaker, you can just make things up, and they're not going to come out and say that's not true,

because then they dignify it with a response. I might take that up as a – I might just make shit up on the internet for attention from now on. But in any case, it seems pretty clear. It seems pretty clear that we're not – we're probably not getting a third Revelations game, which is kind of sad because I feel like Revelations 1 was good, and Revelations 2, was in many ways a refinement and an improvement of two, of the first one. And it was, it was frightening, it was tense, but it's also funny, and it's kind of campy, and the characters are having, you know, it's a fun game to play.

It's a fun game to, you know, sort of react to. And I really enjoyed it. And I hope that we can get, I don't necessarily need, you know, it's not important to call a game revelations, and this time, I don't know, they're quoting fucking Ernest Hemingway. like, that's not important. What's important to me is that I like these sort of smaller games, and I just, I hope they make room for periodic smaller games, because you don't necessarily have to have a silent, a silent, you don't necessarily have a survival horror game that costs $2 billion and is,

you know, instantly released around the world localized in 12 languages, and it's all fully voice acted and like fully face modeled and everything. Every character is made of 12 billion polygons. Like, you don't necessarily have to do that. You can do these games that are kind of, you know, literally episodic in nature, you know, reusing environments. It works. Like, survival horror can work. It does work, but I do wonder if maybe they actually literally, financially can't do that anymore or won't.

I don't really know what the deal is. Well, Indies will do it. Like, it's just one of those things. If there's anything we've learned from, like, recently Eldon Ring and then Eldon Ring night is if you have a giant game, you have a giant resonant evil, you have any kind of massive like multi-billion dollar

game like this or multi-million dollar game like this, you can take those assets, you can take that engine and you can make something else out of it. You don't have to start from zero every time. You know what I mean? You can take

all of this stuff, you know, that we have, all these different resources and make a game much cheaper by reusing altering, you know, just, just reusing all the stuff you've made. And you can make something new, you can make something retro, you can do this. And you're right, a lot of indie studios will do that kind of thing. And so will some big studios. But I think if they did it more, like we would get a lot of awesome games.

We would. And we would get more podcasts out of them. So on that note, I would say this podcast is coming to an end. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. This has been Retronauts. Now, before we wrap things up, let's start with Richard. Richard, if you want the Internet to find you, where should they look? Okay.

Well, I work over at Anime News Network, where I am an associate editor. And so you can find me writing literally daily, sometimes about games, if I'm able to swing it. Other times, you know, about recent Japanese anime films or anime films. series or interviews. I do a lot of those and stuff like that. And you can find me on X, although I just don't want to call it Twitter. You can find me on Twitter at Biggest in Japan, all one word.

And also on Blue Sky under the same name, but I've been pretty lax about posting over there, unfortunately. And I kind of need to change that. All right. That's where you can find me. Richard, I'm putting you on the spot. Don't look it up. Right now, off top of your head,

spell Gundam G-Quox. Oh, it's six U's. That's how you know. So it's Gundam, G-U-N-D-A-M, and then G-Q, and then U-U-U-U-U-U-X. And that's how you know.

And yes, I did make sure, I've had to write about it and I reviewed it in theaters here. And yes, that's why I counted the U's so that I would spell it. All right. You're on top of things. You're on top of things.

Stuart, what's your internet presence right now? Is it still mysterious? Yeah, I'm sort of hiding behind some big bins. It's just spoken out very often to say something inflammatory and then pretend I don't understand why it's upset people. No, you can find me on, you know, retronauts. I'm around on retronauts a fair amount, aren't I? And you can find me on Blue Sky.

And I do other things as well, and all of that is linked at the top of my Blue Sky thing. Probably, unless I changed it, I don't know and I haven't checked. But it's pretty easy to find me. I have a fairly uncommon name. Stuart Chip, look me up. Thank you. Now, Retronauts, as I mentioned, this is Retronauts. Thank you for listening.

If you listen to this podcast without paying us, thank you for listening to this podcast. We mean that. However, here's my sales pitch. If you give us $3 a month via patreon.com slash retronauts, you get episodes one week early, higher bit rate. And if you go for the $5 level, which is just two additional dollars,

than the previous number, guess what? You get two extra exclusive episodes every month, three if we have extra Fridays. You get weekly columns from me, and I read you the columns. Many columns already have been written about Resident Evil games, including both Revelations and Revelations, too. I've already covered those in my columns. You get a monthly community podcast where we talk about many things,

including Resident Evil's. You get access to our Discord. People talk Discord about everything in there. They talk about the Jimmy Carter in there. I don't know why. We had a whole Jimmy Carter conversation there the other day. It was informative. Can we get all of that for only $5?

Only $5. $5, American $1. Yeah. Where's my wallet? So give it a thought, if you will, because that keeps your astronauts going. And as for me, I'm Diamond Fight. I've been your host this week. You can find me on the internet by looking for Fight Club.

F-E-I-T, that's my last name, C-L-U-B. That's the kind of weapon, the afflicted, might. pick up in Resident Evil Revelations 2. Fight Club, Blue Sky, Fight Club on Twitch, Fight Club on YouTube, fightclub.combe.combe.combe.combe.combe. It looks very old because I don't know how to code, modern code. But it's fine. It's good enough. It's good enough, really. All right. Well, we're wrapping up here, so time to just curse like Moira and call something a moist barrel of fucks.

We're going to be able to be.