Resident Evil Gaiden

"Shakey combat system, but still fun in it's own way."

Upon the cancellation of RE1 for GBC, many RE fans were disappointed that their favorite series would not be coming to their favorite handheld. All of that changed. Around the same time that Capcom announced their deal with Nintendo to make RE1, RE0, and RE4 for GameCube, they announced that Virgin Interactive was making an RE game for GBC titled Resident Evil Gaiden. It seems odd that Capcom worked on the newest handheld Zelda games, but didn\'t work on this game. Well, in any case, here\'s my review of the 2D RE adventure.

Well, the sounds aren\'t that great, but really, are they ever any good for a GBC game? Not really. So it\'s hardly Virgin\'s fault that the sounds aren\'t good. Graphics wise REG isn\'t all that bad. The running animations for the characters are excellent for GBC, and the zombies look decent enough. Presentation wise, REG is good.

Gameplay is where things get kind of mixed up. The game is in third person until you run into an enemy, and then combat is in first person. However, instead of shooting the zombie a\' la RE Survivor or RE Dead Aim, a cursor goes back and forth whenever you are in combat, and if you land the cursor in the middle you get a direct hit. It\'s a lot like kicking off in a football game, or teeing off in a golf game. In my eyes, this was a mistake by Virgin. I feel that Gaiden would have been a much better game if they would have just made the combat like Surivor. It\'s still decently fun, but not as good as it could have been. The game is actually a lot longer then I expected, which is a good thing, especially for those long, boring car rides. Don\'t expect it to last a trip from New York to California, though. Other than the combat, there really isn\'t too much to talk about. Everything else is basically RE compressed onto a GBC cartridge. You have to run around a cruise ship, hunting down keys and more powerful weapons as the undead hunt you. Sound familiar?

The story is what gets people the most confused with Gaiden. Is it a part of the RE storyline, or does it have nothing to do with it? Only time will tell that, but I surely hope it is part of the storyline, because I feel that the story in Gaiden is the best part of the game. It starts out with Barry Burton arriving on a cruise ship with two objectives; to find Leon S. Kennedy, who had gone missing on the ship, and to find and destroy the BOW that is turning everyone into zombies. He soon finds a young girl names Lucia who seems to have \'\'special\'\' powers. If you want to know more about Gaiden\'s plot, check out the plot guide available at this site.

As a Game Boy Color game, REG stacks up relatively well to other GBC games in terms of sounds and graphics. It\'s story is also surprisingly good; it would be a shame if Gaiden was not an official part of the RE storyline. Really, the only that falters in Gaiden is the combat, which makes the game very frustrating to play. However, if you are an RE fan, I say give it a go just to see how the story plays out.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/03