Resident Evil Zero HD - Xb360
Never owned a GameCube, so played it through for the first time. Used the original controls and 4:3 aspect, because I'm familiar with how the widescreen option in the RE1 remake screws up visibility in several rooms, and how the easier controls added to the HD release are frankly game breaking since the enemies were not designed around that mobility. Annoyingly, the Resident Evil games all seem to be extremely inconsistent with controls from one game to the next. I hated all the control options in this, which might be the main reason I'm not keen to play it again soon. B is run, A is examine, sucky layout for an Xbox controller, and all the presets use this! Compare this to the Resident Evil 1 remake which uses the more familiar X to run, A to examine/shoot as per the PS1 era games, and Code Veronica X HD for the Xbox 360 which is weird but slightly less weird (X to examine/shoot, A to run, both X and A are confirm in menus with B being cancel).
The game itself is decent. Having zombie dogs be much more durable and less staggerable than normal was a surprise. I found myself avoiding keeping a partner along because they don't tend to attack aggressively enough, and they don't react fast enough to reposition in fights. Nothing seemed like it necessitated having a CPU partner, similar to Obscure, but unlike Obscure several sections force you to use a specific character, or outright make you suddenly lose access to a character without warning. I beat it on my first playthrough without dying (no saving unless I was calling it quits for the day), although I came dangerously close against the bat boss who got very silly when he summoned the little bat helpers. Left me with Billy on Danger, Rebecca on Caution. Got to the laboratory, pressed a button that Rebecca refused to unpress that locked her in an area, and I needed Billy to progress, with him needing to get to a door in an area with a leech zombie. Thankfully, the super scary zombie stayed far enough that Billy was able to get to the inside unscathed where they could trade items and heal up.
However, at the cable car, I nearly ate it again, when suddenly Rebecca, who wasn't holding my important items, suddenly was left alone at yellow caution with another leech zombie nearby. Without the grenade launcher or rounds to safely quick kill it, I had to run around, fix the cable car, then somehow get to it without being hit since I'd taken a few hits as her when fixing the cable car and made it to Danger again! Was extremely grateful to get the Magnum after, after discovering a Hunter at close range can rapidly tear her up (Billy has way more health in this), I had to get a basically miraculous fight against the sudden Tyrant who was fought at Caution, somehow not dying despite taking a hit in orange Caution, and barely scraping by.
From then on, I was able to stockpile multiple full health items thanks to the game's sudden generosity in the water treatment facility and all went uneventfully from there. Basically, always split items evenly and assume that one or the other might be unavailable for some time. This doesn't always hold true though; memorizing who is used where is very helpful it seems, as I discovered when Rebecca got captured by the centipede boss and I ran out of all ammo and had to frantically run to a knife I left in the main hall. I was rather shocked when the first knife hit finished it off, and despite being in its grasp for way too long, Rebecca was in Fine status. Okay then.
The plot feels honestly like a clear attempt at cashing in on the franchise more than it adds anything to the universe as a whole, with both Rebecca and Billy largely spending their time trying to escape from a facility they've just happened to stumble upon (you'd think Marcus would rather spend time killing Wesker and Birkin instead of two nobodies who wandered in by accident). Still, it's a decent, fairly challenging entry. I notice that it seems to be the first game where there are no "hidden" items, i.e. all collectibles are flashing and visible clearly (or technically hiding behind stuff depending on camera angle).
First time playing this. I have the PS2 release too but didn't have a chance to play it and I figured I might as well get the Xbox 360 release for the sake of loading times. Didn't realize that it has no aspect ratio option, unlike the HD releases of REmake and RE0. You're always in widescreen aspect, and in a few rooms it feels obvious that the camera was zoomed in to fit the screen since you can see less vertically than you could in the original releases. Doesn't seem to have a serious impact on the game thankfully, but I still say you don't fuck with aspect ratios by simply zooming in and cutting off bits at the top and bottom of the screen!
It seems to be much easier than most RE games. The zombies early on do very little damage, as I discovered when experimenting with the knife. The knife is... potentially strong when it decides to knock down a zombie, but the range is atrocious. If you're close enough to hit with the knife, you're too close to escape getting bit, even with the game's very fast quickturn! Zombies also get up so fast that the strategy of downing them with a gun then knifing them is rather unsafe since they may easily grab you after quickly standing, and they can also run at you at high speed, similar to the random running zombies in RE3. The knife slashes are much wider and likely to hit walls, and you also don't have any dodge ability like in RE3... so yeah, the knife sucks as far as I'm concerned. RE3 and RE4 are still the games where the knife is exceptionally good compared to the rest of the series since the knife has good range, you have a fast quickturn, and RE3 has a robust dodge system you can use to shove zombies away when you know how it works. RE3 is by far the easiest to do knife only, with the only major hurdles even when you know what you're doing being Clock Tower Nemmy and the elevator in the Hospital.
Despite wasting multiple healing items early on, I'm well stockpiled on health and ammo and feel like I'm pretty well set. 3+ max heal items, 300 bolts for the bow gun which seems ridiculous, and plenty of grenades as backup. Saving the crossbow bolts at the moment since I don't know how many bow powders I'll find and the gunpowder enhanced bolts are very strong. The dual handguns are very handy when their aim cooperates, especially on fast targets like dogs. Not sure what to do about bats though; the demo spoils using the lighter to scare them off, but I've given the lighter away because of plot reasons, and bats seem to be sufficiently annoying to hit that it's a bit of a concern. Hopefully won't run into too many of them in spots I need to explore.
(throw in quasi-STG Tenjin Kaisen/Mercenary Force for some interesting tactical topdown shooting, the formation options almost prefigure Gradius V's Freeze Type)
