One of the most surprising aspects of 2007’s Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was its relative pleasure. Burned by the Outbreak series, few people expected much from Capcom’s latest light gun spin on their flagship survival horror franchise, but Umbrella Chronicles, with its slick revisitation of Resident Evil 0, 1, and 3, won substantial praise from both fans and critics. It wasn’t stellar, but it was a solid light gun shooter and served as harmless flourish for franchise veterans. Two years later, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles looks to hit the same marks with trip through Resident Evil 2, Code Veronica, and an original story in South America.
Light Gun Fun
Darkside Chronicles kicks off with Leon Kennedy and (Resident Evil 4 antagonist) Jack Krauser teaming up for a mission in some nondescript South American jungle. It seems there is undead melee, with a strong connection to the Veronica Virus at the helm, for the duo to uncover. From there Leon will recount the events of Resident Evil 2, allow Claire and Steve to blaze through an abridged Code Veronica, and then brings it all home with the conclusion in South America. In all, twenty chapters comprise the main course Darkside Chronicles’ offering, which I was able to punch through in a modest eight hours.
While not technically a remake, scouring through Raccoon City brought forth the pangs of nostalgia from my favorite entry in the series. Darkside Chronicles doesn’t follow Resident Evil 2 word for word (I don’t remember Chief Irons being a boss or Marvin being passed out in the main hall), but it hits all the right marks and absolutely nails the art direction. Another trek through what is, in the minds of fans, hallowed ground was a real treat, assuming you’ve retained a deep investment in the series’ lore. There’s a certain charm in knowing what’s coming, and a payoff in the satisfaction of it seeing it realized from a different point of view could be worth your while. From this standpoint, the settings function for both new players and series veterans.
Unfortunately, the entire package doesn’t benefit from the bliss of nostalgic overload. Chief among Darkside Chronicles faults is its wretched pacing. The mechanics are simple, but solid; infinite ammo for your pistol, and pickups for shotguns, machine guns, grenade launchers, and a few other goodies (and, unlike Umbrella Chronicles, they’re all upgradable). Switch weapons on the fly, and blast away and the infinite army of various shades of mutated living dead. But the game falters in tasking you with mindless repetition. Light gun games have never been bastions of depth, and Darkside Chronicles throws you through RE2 and Code Veronica at a breakneck pace, but the game empties its bag of tricks after the first few chapters. Head shot some zombies, shotgun some beefier Hunters, machine gun ultra small or ultra large insects/animals, and unload on the weak point of a boss. Repeat ad nauseum; it’s totally mindless, and it never breaks from the formula. Couple that with a fanatical infatuation with the “turn around into a hoard” camera move and you’re left with a litany of momentum crushing repetition.
It’s almost like Darkside Chronicles doesn’t have any respect for its audience. Bosses feature health bars that, most of the time, are nothing more than arbitrary suggestions designed to empty before they move onto the next phase. Hell, twice I even emptied the entire health bar, but had to sit and fire off shells before it could move into the area where it had to spawn its next health bar. This created an unnatural and seemingly unfair sense of progression, and in the end it felt cheap and little else. On top of that the branching paths, usually a solid reason to play a light gun game over again, are almost always nothing more than going left or right across a ten foot concrete block. The game design is just plain lazy, and while seeing some of my favorite locations break free of their pre-rendered trappings was cool, it didn’t make up for endless hallways and corridors of a tedious repetition.
Presentation is all over the place as well. On the plus side, the narrative benefits from frequent and high quality cut scenes, and the in-game visuals are on the better side of Wii games. The brilliant flashlight returns from Umbrella Chronicles, but the best showpieces are in the sun drenched locals of the South American chapters (well, when it’s keeping you out of the sewers). The shaky camera, while frustrating in a few spots, was another positive mark, and did well to differ this entry from Umbrella Chronicles.
The series writing is infamous for its all around terrible delivery, but the main fault this time out lies with its inherent nonsense. I know some of the source material is 10+ years old and that there wasn’t much to work with in the first place, but the ability to suspend disbelief was canceled out on all fronts by plot holes bigger than the sun and “why didn’t they just…” instances more numerous than G Virus outbreaks. It’s complete nonsense, which I suppose might be intentional given its billing as dumb light gun fun in the Resident Evil universe, but that doesn’t excuse it from feeling rushed out the door. Even the new parts, which rehash the fallout from the Veronica virus, are completely throw-away. The only takeaway is insight toward what exactly went wrong with Krauser’s state of mind.
Immersion also suffers, and often not just by the failings of the narrative. Being able to reload my gun with both hands while descending a ladder was puzzling, but the real bummer lies with some lazy design aspects. Why did I just spend all my bullets unloading into Mr. X’s skull when Ada can, inexplicably, finish out with a .22 round in the head? Why am I shooting bullets to stop liquid flying at my face? Why am I still reading pages of text documents when the rest of the gaming world moved on to better forms of narrative conveyance? Keeping tabs with the series charm is one thing, but it’s another when the numerous inconsistencies pulled me out of the experience.
Railing Through…
Despite my less than enthusiastic response to my time with Darkside Chronicles, I can empathize with fans who might still enjoy the package. And, for them, there are plenty of reasons to stick around and engage the considerable amount of content. Playing the other character helps make a second trip through the game a little more bearable, and doing the whole thing with a friend (or two Wii motes in your hand for true badasses) is equally fun. There are tons of documents to collect, upgrades to flesh out, and meat alternative modes (!) to unlock. And yeah, if all you want to do is blast away endless hoards in mindless fashion, Darkside Chronicles is an easy buy (that is, if you’ve already blasted through the superior Dead Space: Extraction).
