Here we are. 7 months since RE 6 hit, and Capcom brought forth this 3DS title in an attempt to salvage what was left of the Resident Evil franchise. The game made an admirable showing when it first debuted on Nintendo's handheld, but does the console port hold up? Read on to find out.
Revelations is a simpler man's Resident Evil. No mansion front high in the mountains, no pharmaceutical research facility, no world that's suddenly overwhelmed by the walking dead. A stranded, seemingly abandoned ship in the middle the ocean is where things begin, the same "haunted house" atmosphere that gave the franchise its legs in the first place.
Anyone who played the demo, will quickly recognize their surroundings when the game begins. Being one such person, I breezed through the ship's early parts in an attempt to try and expedite things. I was caught unaware by an Ooze creature who, upon hearing my entrance, slithered up a nearby vent, leaving traces of its telltale slime behind, dripping from the vent's opening. Going down the stairs in the next hallway, the creature unexpectedly rattled through the ductwork. I wasn't sure if I was following it, or if it was following me. I started strafing around corners to make sure nothing would get the drop on me. Entering the ship's "cafeteria" for the crew, rats caught me off guard, bursting from a junction box, but it's not long before the first Ooze monster makes its "official" debut.
Honestly, I see a lot of shades of Marvel's Venom in these ooze monsters: the color, bald head, elongated tongue, and the teeth...the teeth more than anything. Players familiar with RE4 will probably be reminded of the game's regenerator monsters more than anything.
This is the first confrontation of the game, and you learn a pretty valuable lesson from it, namely, your partner isn't what you'd call "reliable." Newcomer Parker's not much help early on. He sure took his sweet time to unload on our first Ooze monster, which gave me some nice jabs. But on the plus side, it did allow me to discover the game's unique health display system. It's a simple, but clever system. The more blood spatter on the screen, the worse shape you're in.
We put the monster down, and we're introduced to a little bit of flashback and backstory. It seems about a year ago, a harmless floating aquapolis called Terragrigia was attacked by the terrorist group "Il Veltro." Bits and pieces of the city's wreckage, along with the monsters used in the attack, are still washing up along the beach. Since it's a B.O.W. issue, BSAA founders Jill and Chris are sent in to investigate.
You're provided the backstory along with some explanations for a new piece of equipment, the Genesis scanner. Technically, it works along the lines of, um, something about "synchroton radiation", probably another Xbox One feature. But for players, it functions the same way a gun does - point and shoot. You're sent to go scan various "bodies" that have washed up on the beach, possibly the first official fetch quest in RE history, even if it is for the purpose of fleshing (heh, get it?) out the story, and providing a tutorial for new equipment (another first). Probably a remnant from the game's debut on the 3DS.
Looking at the dead fish that litter the beach, you can see that they're flat, with very little detail, like much of the cramped tunnels early on your adventure in the Queen Zenobia. Still, they tried, like the bits of frost that clings to Chris's 5 o'clock shadow. If this is an HD upgrade, than the 3DS version must've set an awfully low bar. Revelations certainly isn't as pretty as RE6, but it at least has that same familiar eerie feeling that the earlier RE titles had in spades, particularly when you make your way to the upper cabins.
The game flips back and forth between Chris and Jill, and upon beginning each new episode, you're greeted with a rundown of the previous events so you can easily keep up with the story, in case you're not playing in one bulk sitting.
As you might expect, Chris's segments are a little more action heavy, and the only tense moments in his campaign come from showdowns, like Chris fending off a pack of infected wolves. It was here I learned that Chris's partner Jessica isn't much better than Parker. I took more than my fair share of cheap shots from wolves that she should've easily been able to take out, y'know, given that giant sniper rifle she's been lugging around. Instead, she seemed content to watch me take a beating. The "zoomed in" over the shoulder view was again problematic here. Your field of view is much smaller, so you constantly have to swing your perspective from left to right to make sure no more wolves are coming.
It was also during my first play time as Chris that I discovered that enemy A.I. isn't the best either. I had the luxury of sneaking up on an infected wolf, took 3 or 4 potshots, and there wasn't a single reaction from the monster but to just sit there and take it. Later on, I had the same experience with an Ooze monster as Jill. Despite being what would amount in game as less than 5 ft from it, the monster had no idea I was even in the same room, content to stand there and occasionally spasm like a parkinson's patient.
The game suffers from some pretty cheesey dialogue, unfortunately par for the course with Resident Evil games. "Jill sandwich," anyone?. Jessica at one point shouts, "Me and my sweet ass are on the way!" Really? Lots of cleavage and skintight wetsuits let you know what kind of demographic Capcom was skewing towards. Not that I'm complaining, but I do remember a time when this was a franchise whose only goal was to show some good 'ol blood n' guts, and to scare the piss out of you, not titillate.
There are some new weapons offered here and there, like the B.O.W. Grenade, (great for Raid mode), but its the usual array of pistols, shotguns, and machine guns are still the go to choice throughout much of the game, and ammo is often plentiful. Melee attacks and knife slashes are there to fall back on should you ever run low though, and there's also a dodge feature, but it can be difficult to pull off. Whereas you'd buy upgrades for your weapons in past games, Revelations does so by having players collect custom parts, each providing their own benefit, which can be applied to your arsenal at weapon boxes. They're not permanant, so feel free to swap them for whatever gun you think suits your situation.
Revelations doesn't really revive the survival horror genre, but it puts forth an admirable effort. You can actually see how it worked as a transition between the series original focus on horror, and where it's ended up as action. I'm sure Revelations was a great accomplishment on the 3DS, but there's no reason why Capcom would have ported this over had it not been for Resident Evil 6's poor reception, a game which just couldn't live up to the hype. It's decent, but you're not missing much if you pass on this one, and at $49.99, I can't say I'd blame you for it. 7 out of 10.
