"To uncover the truth, we must delve deeper into the events that transpired in the beginning..."

Resident Evil 0 is the long-awaited prequel to the incredibly popular Resident Evil. Let's see people call the Gamecube a kiddy system after playing this.

Graphics:10/10
In one word: Amazing. Absolutely amazing. This game truly uses the Gamecube's immense potential for graphics. The characters look great. You can see individual strands of hair and incredibly detailed muscle bulges. The environments are all pre-rendered, and they look equally as good. The detail is amazing. Both the characters and the environments look pretty close to real. And the zombies...well, look like zombies. Not to mention, if they get killed next to a wall or chair, or something else like that, they will slump over against that instead of partly disappearing through it. Well, this works most of the time. But when it doesn't, you'll probably be worrying about killing other zombies at the moment, so you won't really care about small things like that. And no glitches! That's right, I still have yet to see a glitch in a RE game. These are probably some of the most realistic graphics I have ever seen on any other system (along with REmake, which is also for the Gamecube, heh, heh).

Gameplay:9/10
This gameplay is the most uniques of all RE games.This is the only one where you will have a partner to help you out throughout most of the game. The creators of the game, however, made very tough enemies, such as leech zombies, which are very strong, annoying, and they make a bunch of blood-sucking leeches when they die, and lurkers, which are frogs that can eat you whole. Also, most of the zombies seem tougher, not to mention they're more numerous. So anyway, if you have the partner with you, you can set him/her to attack, which means they will help you kill enemies, or idle, which means they will not shoot, even if you are being attacked, but they will conserve ammo. Now, if you set them to attack, they can be quite stupid. They sometimes don't start shooting an enemy until you do, even if they're two feet in front of your partner. So this can result in a loss of precious ammo and health. That's my only complaint about the partner. However, I must say it is quite benefitial to have a partner, since each character only gets 6 item slots and really big items take up two spaces. So let's go on to yet another uniques aspect of RE0.
Item dropping. That's right, there are no item boxes in RE0. Instead, you can drop a certain amount of items on each story of an area, and come back to get it later, should you need it. You can easily view the dropped items from the map. Luckily, there are very few, if any, occurences where you can drop an item REALLY far away from where you need to use it. So this system works quite well, actually.

Story:8/10
As a game on its own, I'd give this story a 10. But since this is a prequesl, I give it a 8.
This game tells us what happened to the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team as they were investigating a bunch of grisly murders in the Raccoon Forest, all from Rebecca Chambers'(who is one of the less popular RE characters) point of view. So, they crash land in the forest, and find a wrecked MP van, which was apparently transporting a convicted murderer, Billy Coen, to his death. Billy managed to escape, and when rookie Becky seperates from the rest of the team to search a train(a pretty stupid move IMO from someone in their very first mission) she finds him. Now they must cooperate to survive the nightmare.
This game doesn't tell us much about what really happened to most of Bravo Team's other members, just Enrico Marini(another unpopular RE character), but rather it tells us more about Umbrella, a pharmaceutical company on the outside, a bio-organic weapon manufacturer on the inside. We find out exactly how Umbrella was first formed and how the horrible T-virus was first made.
Oh, and one more thing. Do NOT play this game until you have beaten, yes beaten, the first RE. There are many spoilers to the RE1 plot in this game. You have been warned.

Music/Sound:9/10
The music is very eerie, which is good most of the time, but there is one part in the main theme of the Training Facility that is so high pitched, it hurts your ears. That's my only complaint about the music, so let's move onto sound.
Sound effects are pretty well done, as usual. Footsteps sound great and almost always match the movement of the character's feet. Doors creak when you open them, causing a bit of a chill sometimes. I also love the squishy sound the zombies' feet make as they slowly move towards you. One thing I don't understand, though, is why does a door unlocking sound almost as loud as a gunshot? We will never know...
The voice acting is better than any early RE games, that's for sure. Albert Wesker and Rebecca Chambers were especially good. Billy Coen's voice actor was also able to give him this sort of sly, cool aspect in his voice. The only bad voice I can think of right now is Edward, who was a Bravo Team member that was only in this game.

Scares, dialogue, and more:10/10
Alright, no matter what others may say, this game is scary. Although having a partner with you may make you a little less nervous to enter new rooms, the sound effects can do a great job of scaring you, and when you are forced to be separated from your partner, then you will be nervous about entering new rooms.
The dialogue is also better than any early RE games. We've all heard about the really cheesy lines in the original RE1 and others. But this game doesn't have anything like that. Especially for Billy, just about everything he says is cool, and it's not misplaced like Carlos's ''Let me guess, you want to ask me out, right? All the foxy ladies love my accent, it drives them crazy!''. Bleh! Billy uses jokes like that too, like calling Rebecca, honey, dollface, and little girl when they first meet. But like I said, it works this time. Yeah, did I mention Billy's lines are great? Oh, yeah, and I guess most of the other characters have great dialogue as well.

Replay Value:10/10
Besides the usual extra costumes, and unlockable Rocket Launcher, there's also a very difficult minigame called Leech Hunter that is still stumping me. You'll be playing this game for a long time, and you will enjoy every second of it.

Overall:9/10
I loved this game. It may not be what most people expected, but it does use the Gamecubes immense power to be one of the best games on the system. If you are an RE fan, buy this game NOW!

Comparisons
So, how does this compare with REmake? Well, let's find out:
Graphics:
REmake:10 RE0:10

Gameplay:
REmake:10 RE0:9

Story:
REmake:10 RE0:8

Music/Sound:
REmake:10 RE0:9

Scares, dialogue, and more:
REmake:9 RE0:10

Replay Value:
REmake:9 RE0:10

Overall:
REmake:10 RE0:9

So, I guess I like REmake better. Go and get that one also.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/03, Updated 07/26/03