Zelda Retrospective: The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time Review and Analysis

1998: the greatest year in the lifetime of video games. X E N O G E A R S, Resident Evil 2, Starcraft, Banjo-Kazooie, Metal Gear Solid, Baldur's Gate, Thief, Half-Life--the list just keeps going. Video games had begun to fully embrace the nature of 3D game development after Super Mario 64 stomped its way into the scene in 1996, and in only two short years some of the most influential games of all time began to see the light of day. Baldur's Gate revitalized computer role-playing games, Metal Gear Solid successfully wove fully-voiced cinematic cutscenes into a video game, Half-Life shook the foundations of the first-person shooter genre, and even fighting games saw a minor resurgence with games like X-Men VS Street Fighter and Marvel VS Capcom. If these games were fundamental in establishing a foundation for video games in the coming years, one game crushed even those and has remained the top spot on Metacritic's list of best games since the site's conception; on Game Rankings, it's only been overtaken by Super Mario Galaxy as the highest-rated game on the website by a mere fraction of a point. You know exactly what game I'm talking about; hell, if you clicked this link you kind of have to know. I'm talking, of course, about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As part of my retrospective on the Zelda series, I am very proud to present you with my review and analysis on what I consider to be one of the greatest games of all time.

Review and Analysis: The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time

Five excruciating years passed from the last official release of a Zelda title and seven since the previous home console release--the Nintendo 64 launched in 1996 without a Zelda game in sight, and the hype was unmatched. As with previous games in the series, Ocarina of Time was in production alongside Mario 64, one of the pioneers of 3D movement in games, though it wouldn't be until two years after that game released that Ocarina of Time would see the light of day. One of the biggest challenges, though, was that Zelda as a whole was always far more intricately designed than Mario; where the latter had always concentrated on tight controls with an emphasis on overcoming obstacles, Zelda was a slow-burning adventure title on the opposite end of the spectrum. Thankfully, Mario 64 laid much of the groundwork for Ocarina of Time--so much, in fact, that the original design of Ocarina of Time was planned to share the same world-select painting system in a large castle like the earlier title. 

Ocarina of Time wasn't any ordinary sequel, though: like Mario 64, this was the important transitory period where the series would shed its 2D roots and break into 3D, and for that it needed to be perfect. We can see just how important it was at the time for a series to nail the landing when it came to this transition, as games like the disastrous Bubsy 3D would drop and completely destroy their respective series forever. Even the Sonic franchise hit a speed bump when Sonic Adventure dropped on the Sega Dreamcast--in the same year as Ocarina of Time, no less--a launch so pitiful it destroyed one of the titans of home console gaming. I'm going to break down the exact ways I believe Ocarina of Time executed the many necessary steps needed to achieve greatness, and what better way than to start at the beginning?

The Boy Without a Fairy

Much like A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time opens with dialogue from a secondary character: the mystical Deku Tree. After a brief introduction and an ominous dream foreshadowing events of the story, the Deku Tree tasks the fairy Navi to find and assist Link, the only Kokiri child who is not accompanied by a fairy. When the player is eventually charged with purifying the Deku Tree and then implored to stop the black-clad man from the desert, it really feels like Link is facing near-impossible odds from a story perspective. As an aside, the story subtly hides Ganondorf's identity from the player since at that point, returning players will only remember the villain as simply Ganon, a giant pig monster. It's a great way to subvert expectations and throughout the game, players familiar with A Link to the Past will already know that Ganondorf will eventually claim the Triforce for himself. Beginning the game at a disadvantage is nothing new for the series--in fact, at this point I'd say it's more common than not--but the much greater emphasis on the plot presentation can create an emotional connection between the player and the game's protagonist.

This focus on story presentation is probably the most apparent flaw of the game as it can potentially take players out of the action. Dialogue-based cutscenes are often longer than any of the past games by a pretty sizable margin and to make matters worse, there are no ways to skip them to jump back into the action immediately. In an Iwata Asks from a few years ago Shigeru Miyamoto himself rejects the notion that Zelda is story-focused and would prefer for players to focus on the gameplay, which I find incredibly ironic given just how much more strongly the game presents its narrative. It's not necessarily bad design, but gone are the days of the player naming their save file and being dumped right into the overworld.

In a year of so many narrative-driven games, Ocarina of Time is a bit more generic than the likes of Metal Gear Solid, which featured fully-voiced cinematic cutscenes and a bizarre, contemporary story. The biggest difference in the games comes pretty much when the player is given control: much like Mario 64, Link controls using analog movement in a 3D plane. In contrast, Metal Gear Solid largely uses digital controls in an overhead perspective with the exception of limited first-person control; if the game had been created with 2D sprites and removed the first-person option, it would highly resemble its MSX2 ancestors.

That's not to say Ocarina of Time is even the first title to merge an involved story in a 3D game, I mean hell Mega Man Legends came out in 1998 as well and that one had both a behind-the-back camera and fully-voiced cutscenes. Ocarina of Time sets itself apart by transplanting the legendary Zelda design into a new dimension of video games which, at the time, was still nascent. Much like the original Zelda took a genre which was still going through learning pains and flipped tropes which at the time had yet to even be established, Ocarina of Time took the overall design the series had developed at that point and attempted to carefully recreate it as close as possible in a fully 3D world.

This is accomplished so well in the introduction to Hyrule Field that I kind of feel sorry for people who were too young or never had the chance to experience this moment when Ocarina first released. The camera sweeps across the world as the brand-new theme plays its strong first notes before settling on the small corner of Hyrule from which Link hails. The sheer size of the world, translated almost perfectly from prior games in the series, is laid out in its full glory for players to explore. But first, a certain owl (a callback to Link's Awakening) impedes the player to make sure that even after clearing an entire dungeon, they know how to navigate the world. Tutorializing is an annoying contrivance which reared its ugly head during this console generation, and while Ocarina of Time is fairly light on explicit tutorials it can still take players out of the game. Navi will occasionally alert the player if she feels they've gotten lost or forgotten the destination, but I'd have much preferred a system wherein the player could just talk to Navi at any time because she is genuinely helpful. I know later games remedy this problem, but I'd like to go at this one game at a time.

What a Hot Beat!

3D space aside, Ocarina of Time shines most brightly as a composite of the Zelda series as a whole. Much of the game can feel like a portmanteau of the entirety of The Legend of Zelda, though unlike Link's Awakening the developers understood the importance of perfecting what was at hand rather than fumble at reinventing the wheel. That's not exactly a flaw for Link's Awakening, but given that game was a handheld sequel the stakes were much lower for Nintendo to experiment. Because A Link to the Past was largely a new take on the original Zelda, it's a bit difficult to see which key components Ocarina of Time took from the earliest entry; on the flip side, I feel Ocarina finally fulfills the promise of Adventure of Link's intricate combat system without any of the annoying tedium. Players can position themselves and attack enemies with a multitude of attacks; players have access to a hard-hitting jump swing, directional inputs can be used to swing the sword in several directions--even combat mechanics from A Link to the Past are intricately woven into Link's arsenal with many of the spells making a return as well as an upgradable Spin Attack.

Much of the game's plot progression has been kept from A Link to the Past to the point where most players can identify that, at its core, Ocarina of Time is only very close to being merely a 3D remake of the older title, though the setting is far more unique in many areas. The players are tasked with finding three gems in order to stop Ganondorf, which boosts the player's power while sending them to a darker and inverted version of the previous world. As I mentioned in my A Link to the Past review, I actually played this game first so upon discovering the older game I was pretty astounded by just how similar they actually appear to be, though I think it's a discredit to both games to simply say Ocarina of Time is just a retread of A Link to the Past. Further emphasis has been placed on character development in the vein of Link's Awakening, with almost every single character the player encounters being memorable in some way. Because the major characters are so well-written and unique it gives the player a much more urgent pace in the second half when the goal is to awaken the sages; rather than the fairly boring maidens of A Link to the Past, the sages needing to be awakened are all revealed to be characters Link befriended as a child.

This makes the fairly shocking twist that many of them die over the course of the game that much more impactful; it's sad that Darunia is likely killed by Volvagia, but in death he's able to repay the enormous debt he owes to Link. Link isn't merely foisted as a hero figure by a mystical entity who bestows him great power, he earns it over the course of the adventure. Saria and Link are established as childhood friends; Darunia feels a brotherhood with Link because Link was the only person able to defeat King Dodongo; Link saves Princess Ruto from Jabu-Jabu's belly and cleanses what ostensibly amounts to the Zoras' God. The actions Link takes as a child permeate the entire second half of the game and make the player feel that much more involved in the world.

The Gap Between Both Dimensions

The weakest link is a holdover from Link's Awakening, where later parts of the game require beating the dungeons in order before new parts of the map can open up. Link can't access the Gerudo Valley as a child unless the player can warp through the back, but in order to gain access to that warp point the player needs to find items from the Shadow Temple in order to safely cross the desert as an adult. An interesting aside is that the game never truly forgets about the younger Link and actively forces players to travel back and forth through time once the Shadow Temple is accessed, though it's annoying to me that this dungeon is barred until the player collects the medallions from the first three temples.

I do like that although the progression is similar to A Link to the Past, the game can be broken down into even more layers than simply Light World to Dark World; the player has to finish three dungeons as young Link, then three dungeons as adult Link, then two dungeons as both versions of Link across time before finally moving on to the final encounter. And I would be remiss if I didn't give the Shadow Temple its fair due, as it and its childhood-accompanying dungeon Bottom of the Well are easily the most memorable dungeons in the entire game. The only thing that really irks me is that the player must clear the required dungeons before opening up either of these areas in the game, although I have to admit that the three-act structure is an interesting change of pace especially since these acts are cleanly separated by three dungeons apiece.

Beating the Shadow Temple also gives players the hint that the game can be tackled in a number of orders, as the Medallion for the Shadow Temple is actually displayed last in the order of the Quest Status sub-screen, despite it appearing correctly on the save screen and song selection. The subtle hint here is that players who actually take the time to notice this might begin to speculate the ways to approach dungeons in different orders for a second playthrough; once a player determines a new direction for a second game, this might also prompt players to think about the order of the first few dungeons as well. It's impossible for players to completely forego later dungeons before finding the major item in some dungeons, but unlike Link's Awakening most dungeons aren't locked behind plot progression.

Pictured: 9-year-old me developing forreal OCD

CURSE YOU, ZELDA! CURSE YOU, Link!

Two notable elements return from Link's Awakening, the less obvious of which being the expanded Trading Sequence. While the original sequence required players to remember dialogue and specific items in order to eventually receive an item necessary to progress to the end of the game, the sequence in Ocarina of Time is far more streamlined and is one of the many optional sidequests of the game. Players must take items across Hyrule Field on a short timer and ultimately acquire a new sword, though this is not an outright upgrade like previous games in the series. Instead, the Biggoron Sword offers players an interesting trade-off of higher damage and longer reach, with only the Master Sword being able to equip shields while dealing less damage.

I generally prefer big, passive upgrades and transformations--which I suppose is likely due to being such a big fan of anime like Dragon Ball as a kid--but given that this is reinventing the Zelda formula it totally works in context. The Trading Sequence can even be ignored entirely if players have no interest in the Biggoron Sword, much like the option to skip Epona or the Golden Skulltulas. Giving players beneficial upgrades as opposed to hiding plot-crucial items and events behind an obtrusive fetch quest is not the best example of game design, so in the case of Ocarina it feels more like an activity for players who want a distraction from the main quest. I have a very good friend who always makes a beeline for the Biggoron Sword when he reaches the adult section of the game because it matches his playstyle more, and the fact that this option even exists is pretty spectacular.

Perhaps the most notable gameplay mechanic to return from Link's Awakening comes in the form of music, which is greatly expanded upon into a robust system. Link's Awakening revolves around song: Marin is a singer; Link is given an ocarina on which to learn three different songs which can be used at various points for different results; and the ultimate goal of the game is to recover the Instruments of the Siren in order to play the Ballad of the Wind Fish and awaken it from its slumber.

In Ocarina of Time, seemingly everything in the world revolves around music. Warp points are used with specific songs, greatly expanding the warp mechanic in A Link to the Past. Songs are also used for puzzle solutions; one background song in particular returning from A Link to the Past is used to solve many block puzzles, though there are also songs to change the time of day, to change the weather, to call Link's new horse, Epona--the list goes on.

To me, this is a way of grounding Ocarina of Time and helps to give it some of the transcendental quality that makes the game so special. Music is a language without words; it doesn't have to fit into a setting or be presented in a strange light to communicate a feeling. The Song of Storms is chaotic and whimsical while the Song of Time is mysterious, and all of these songs are performed with the same five notes on one small ocarina. To say it bluntly, it's beautiful.

Even though Ganondorf's battle theme is similar to the theme of the Ganon battle from A Link to the Past, extra care was put into creating a discordant, unnerving, and ultimately oppressive song that perfectly suits this version of the series villain: in a world where song is so pervasive, it's only natural that Ganondorf would stand out in such a menacing way. Ganondorf even plays music on an organ to really hit home that by the time Link reaches him, the two are fundamentally two sides of one coin--one light, one dark. If you don't believe me about Ganondorf's battle, just listen to the soundtrack. The most common time signature in music is 4/4; that is, four instances of quarter notes. You've likely seen an orchestra composer exaggeratedly counting time in some form or another, but this is basically just counting "one-two-three-four" and then repeating that on every measure. The more complicated the time signature the more uncommon it is to find examples of those signatures being used--Ganondorf's battle theme, to really drive home his imposing theme, is theorized to be counted in 23/16 time! You could probably simplify this to alternating measures of 13/16 and 10/16, but to be frank there's nothing simple about it.

To have a game with a stand-out final boss theme can be difficult, but "stand-out" and "complete insanity" are two very different things. As I said, what makes this so very special is the permeation of music in every aspect of Ocarina of Time--a master of their craft strives for perfection, but even then Ocarina of Time goes a step further to completely shatter expectations. There's a phrase that I feel has basically lost all meaning now, but I'm drawing a very hard line in the sand and making a firm statement on a debate that should have been settled an extremely long time ago.

Ocarina of Time is the Citizen Kane of Video Games.

I hate the idea of a "Citizen Kane" of any type of medium, but this is a very specific argument that I think deserves to be dismantled. In recent years bog-standard shooters like The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite have been inexplicably given such praise as "gaming's Citizen Kane moment," but what does that even mean? Put your analytical helmets on my beauties, because this is going to get rocky.

Even if you've never seen the movie yourself, you likely know that Citizen Kane has a legacy for being "the greatest movie of all time." And to be very fair to Orson Welles, the praise is not unwarranted: Citizen Kane is a very unique and engaging story, but what really set it apart from its contemporaries is the groundbreaking cinematography which at the time of its filming was unheard-of.

Filming techniques like deep focus are used to their full effect, along with other techniques like angle shots and panning. I'm not all that versed in film as the experts so I'm likely missing a very large and more important innovation, but what matters is that Citizen Kane perfected its medium. Unreliable narrators and framed narratives were a thing long before Citizen Kane, but the ultimate product is an engaging character study in a unique format which would go on to influence its medium forever. Film has everything to thank for Citizen Kane in the same way modern video games have everything to thank for Ocarina of Time.

To be clear, I completely acknowledge all the derivative elements taken from earlier games in the series don't necessarily make for a compelling argument, but as I mentioned earlier what's really important is that no 3D game had yet approached an adventure story of this scale before. From combat to presentation, games have forever been indebted to the forward-thinking nature of Ocarina of Time much in the same way general role-playing games took from the original Zelda. What's even more impressive is the sheer amount of ingenious ways the game works around and even engages in its own technical shortcomings, one way being the Z-targeting system.

Is this a Dark Souls reference? Probably.

Z-targeting paved the way for lock-on systems in action games to come, from Devil May Cry to Dark Souls and all games in-between. While Mario 64 focused on tight controls and maneuvering around big levels in search of one goal, Ocarina of Time focused on the best way to immerse players in its world; how would it have accomplished this if combat had been a chore? Instead the game takes elements from Adventure of Link, specifically blocking and positioning, and translates them perfectly into a 3D space. Z-targeting allows players to focus on the encounter ahead of them and plan accordingly while avoiding potential mishaps like misjudging distance or, if the game had been more like A Link to the Past, simple one-button combat with little variation.

Aiming with ranged weapons was still a shortcoming of the system given the fairly convoluted nature of the controller. And without a standard camera angle for third-person shooting, the developers needed to take serious consideration before deciding on a way to implement items like the bow or hookshot. In order to do this, first-person aiming is used to fairly admirable results; while it's a bit on the touchy side, aiming the ranged weapons feels far more responsive and balanced than it has any right to and even if players have trouble with this, Z-targeting is always available. Ocarina of Time makes no attempt at standing out as a first-person shooter, but it implements the style of gameplay when necessary because it was the best option available. Oh, and that thing about third-person shooting angles? I lied.

Pictured: innovation. Also pictured: a sizable amount of annoyance because none of you idiots have taken a screenshot of this angle before and I had to take it on my own 3DS. You're welcome.

The rule of thirds is hardly a new idea in photography or shot composition, but I'm kind of astounded that it took until Resident Evil 4 before game developers really gravitated toward using this angle for weapon aiming. Ocarina of Time implemented this camera angle seven years before Resident Evil 4 and even then, it's for a very specific camera hold that players will likely never use--if you need it for whatever reason, the developers made sure to include it. Astoundingly, this angle still uses a rudimentary form of strafe controls and is mostly used to re-position the player if they're unable to find a decent angle when lining up a shot.

Verily, Thou Hast Felt It

Recently, critics have seemingly wanted to "take Ocarina to task" for a perceived problem of the game's unshakable legacy and continued status as one of the greatest games of all time. Online animator Egoraptor released a flaccid half-hour hitpiece full of half-truths and an outright appeal to look at its predecessor with more rose-tinted nostalgia goggles compared to the revolutionary Ocarina of Time. Maybe it's because I played Ocarina of Time first so I don't necessarily feel like the games are even worth comparing negatively, but to wave away the contributions of Ocarina of Time to make a still very good game appear in a better light is a waste of effort. Since then, the crushing weight of his sins destroyed any notion of creativity and stopped his animating career for the rest of time. May he be missed. That Sequelitis was not worth the death of Girl-chan.

That's just one example, and it's probably the most popular criticism Ocarina of Time will ever get. I don't even disagree with some of the points made, but as I mentioned in an earlier review it's important to remember the time in which a game released and keep its limitations at heart. Other criticisms, both within that video and on other reviews critical of Ocarina of Time, are usually far less thought-provoking or insightful. There's no badge of honor to criticize popular or well-received games two decades after their release unless the reviewer places the game under a very fine microscope, but a half-hour video is far from the time investment necessary as in order to criticize Ocarina of Time, I believe it would be more important to analyze the negative influence the game had, if any. Most negative criticisms of Ocarina of Time are instead often relegated to edgy contrarianism for quick clicks.

The typical moronic Ocarina of Time naysayer. Don't debase yourself like this. You're better than that. Respect yourself.

Citizen Kane isn't revered because it's just a particularly good movie; a good movie though it may be, its legacy will remain because no movie ever is going to live without the shadow of its influence sneaking into production. It's not that Citizen Kane is some emotionally involved story or even the best story of all time; it took limitations of its time and created a sum that, while good now, was groundbreaking then in a way that no film has managed to replicate.

Don't give me your horseshit about The Last of Us being some sort of Citizen Kane-level savior of the medium. It's a good story, but in gameplay terms it's outstripped by even Resident Evil 4, the grandfather of the third-person shooter. I like it as a survival horror game, but it does nothing revolutionary for its genre. I know this is all a silly point and kind of undermines the whole critical aspect of my review, but Ocarina of Time is a game of such quality that it doesn't even seem feasible for it to come together so well while other games struggled to even come close.

Verdict

Compared to A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time appears at first glance to be missing some of the intricate open world that Zelda had been known for. Sure, the sword can't be explicitly upgraded and there are fewer dungeons, but what Ocarina of Time strives for and ultimately executes perfectly is the overall sum of its parts. Taking elements of every single Zelda game up to this point and combining them into an untouchable experience, Ocarina of Time once again followed up on one of the most important aspects of the Zelda formula: look forward and continue innovating. Endearing, deep, sometimes creepy and always a blast to play, Ocarina of Time deserves its spot as the best game of all time. There might be more complex games or titles that have since taken the formula found in this game to new heights, but without Ocarina of Time these games would have never existed. Ocarina of Time isn't merely a good game or an influential game, it is--pardon the pun--timeless.


Before I sign off, I want to address the many ports and versions of the game as I outright recommend players who haven't tried Ocarina to give it a shot. The original Nintendo 64 gold cart is far and away the best as it was the only version of the game to not be touched by censorship, but good luck finding it at a reasonable price. The second printing is just as good, and the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console ports are decent. The biggest problem is that Ocarina of Time was developed specifically for the controller of the console it was designed for, so a strange downside to these ports is that the controller layout just doesn't translate perfectly. The Gamecube version is the only one to play the original game at 480p, but it's probably last on the list for me as it crashes and seems to have new glitches.

There's also the matter of the 3DS remaster, which boosts the game's original 20 frames-per-second up to a more modern 30. The difference is night and day, and many of the game's character models were improved dramatically. I have a full write-up of that port and the other remasters of the 3D Zelda games linked below if you want details; if you're fine with the notably worse atmosphere of the 3DS remaster, it's an improvement in nearly every other aspect. To get the most out of Ocarina of Time, I'd say play the original Nintendo 64 version for your first playthrough, then for repeat games play the 3DS version. Either way, please do yourself a favor and try out this piece of video game history.


Zelda 3D remaster mini-reviews:
http://subjective-objective.blogspot.com/2016/03/mini-review-zelda-remasters.html

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Review: Resident Evil Origins Collection

If you read my Game of the Year 2015 list, you know roughly how I feel about the Resident Evil franchise. One of the first survival horror titles in gaming and a formative title in the Fifth Generation of consoles, the series has gone on to produce several games of wildly varying quality. The Gamecube titles, which this HD remaster compiles, are the final games in the series to use the fixed camera angle style of gameplay. While the much better game, Resident Evil REmake, has been available on all last- and current-gen consoles as well as PC since last year, this will mark the first release of Resident Evil 0 on a non-Nintendo console, a significant title as it is the most contentious game in the series outside of Resident Evil 5. Be warned, this review comes from a fairly biased self-described fanboy of the series.

The Premise

Take one of the most influential games of all time, completely recreate it with stunning hand-painted backgrounds, add a ton of new locations and puzzles, and flip many conventions of the series. For Resident Evil 0, create a backstory that didn't exist (or need to) and fill it with one of the last and most forgettable traditional survival horror games that still manages to be somewhat striking. Years pass and Capcom decides these highly-reviewed Nintendo exclusives need to see a wider release because who cares about Shinji Mikami's wishes? A quick HD fix-up and these gorgeous titles look even better...with some caveats.

Resident Evil (REmake)

It's truly impressive that Capcom could take a game oozing with personality like the first Resident Evil and develop an entirely new game around it, one which is so good it makes the original entirely obsolete. This isn't merely a case of "some purists prefer the original," there is absolutely nothing outside of some funny voice acting that the original Resident Evil does better than its Gamecube (and now modern console and PC) counterpart. REmake, as it's been dubbed by fans, adds several new areas, new monsters, and a tragic subplot that paints the experiments of the Umbrella Corporation in a horrifying new light.

But you know that already. REmake released on the Gamecube in 2002 and later on the Nintendo Wii in 2009, although that version had no real changes aside from a control scheme on the Wii Remote that matched Resident Evil 4 in many ways. This game, along with the original and Resident Evil 4, mark the only titles in which Shinji Mikami was lead director--and it shows. While Resident Evil 2, directed by Hideki Kamiya, is my favorite of the franchise, there's something utterly fascinating about REmake that allows it to hold up to this day, thanks in no small part to the incredible vision of its director.

Very few games still leave me terrified of zombies, but REmake's Crimson Head enemies lead to some of the most tense, unscripted moments of terror that has yet to be replicated in a survival horror title. For the uninitiated: in previous Resident Evil games the zombies would disappear completely after you left a room. In REmake, not only do the bodies persist but they will only stay down on a limited timer. After killing a zombie normally and allowing its body to sit, the body will leap up and attack with much more strength and speed than most other enemies in the game. The only way to kill them permanently before this happens is to use a fire grenade, getting a lucky shot and blowing the head apart, or by using a limited fuel canister to burn the body before it can turn. This gives the game a unique take on fleeing from enemies or killing one in your way: if you kill a zombie, there's a very real possibility you won't get a headshot and it will come back later, leaving you with much less ammo you may need for more difficult situations and the very real threat of a difficult monster waiting for you in an important hallway. Even coming back with the fuel canister might not be a guarantee, as they might just wait for you to come near before surprising you.

Aside from unique monsters, REmake introduces Lisa Trevor, a test subject for Umbrella's experiments and one of the franchise's few recurring enemies, alongside others such as Mister X and Nemesis. Her story offers a cryptic look at the foundations of the Umbrella corporation while shedding light on the creation of the mansion. Everything about Lisa is terrifying, from her appearance to how the characters handle her in-game. She doesn't exactly roam around, but she does appear in some locations that require patience and planning to get around her. Like much of the new additions to REmake, one can make a strong argument that her inclusion elevates the remake to one of the better, possibly one of the best, titles in the Resident Evil series.

To take a simple concept like the first Resident Evil and add such in-depth changes is a testament to the quality of the remake. Puzzle items are typically in different places and with different functions, most of which are cleaner than the original counterpart while adding additional content for returning players. Different difficulty modes test your skill at the game, and the two characters have different gameplay properties in subtle ways which change your approach to how you play. While there is no series staple Mercenaries challenge, beating the game unlocks a large amount of new modes such as a mode where all monsters in the game are invisible, a mode where none of the item boxes are linked, or a mode where a special surprise zombie will explode and give you an instant game over if you attack it.

Even if you have no intentions of picking up the Origins Collection, go get this game immediately. It's available on Playstation 3 and 4, Xbox One and Xbox 360, and PC.

Resident Evil 0

In the original Resident Evil, Bravo Team of the Raccoon City STARS unit is sent to the Arklay Mountains to investigate a rash of murders wherein "victims were apparently eaten." Bravo's helicopter crashes in the forest and sends a distress call back to the police department; Alpha Team (your player characters in the first game) steps in to investigate, which causes them to flee into the game's mansion. In the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil, STARS waits for a day after the distress call before their investigation. In that time, Rebecca Chambers--a character from Chris Redfield's campaign in the original--goes on a long train ride to find a prisoner nobody has ever heard of before and somehow, despite traveling most of the entire night, ends up outside the mansion in time for the first Resident Evil. Sound convoluted? It is!

Resident Evil 0 is not an easy game to recommend, mostly because very little of the talent behind the series up to the fourth game had nothing to do with it. You may not be aware of this fact, but Resident Evil 0 was not in fact intended to launch on the Gamecube--in actuality, it was first designed as a Nintendo 64 title.

Source: Unseen64

The magazine Nintendo Power even had a very small screenshot of the game and had advertised it as releasing in 2000, a year after the Nintendo 64 port of Resident Evil 2 (as well as the Playstation original Resident Evil 3) and the same year Resident Evil: Code Veronica released on the Sega Dreamcast. In the screenshots we can clearly see the zombies even closely resembled some of the ones found in Resident Evil 2, suggesting it would have shared assets with it. I was excited to play the game, but after hearing nothing about it I assumed it was quietly canceled.

The Gamecube version of Resident Evil 0 released in the same year as the remake of the first and was also a Nintendo exclusive, leading many to skip both as the Gamecube was infamously unpopular at the time. While I don't dislike 0 in the same way I do Code Veronica, I also don't have the same take-it-or-leave-it feelings as I do toward Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Basically, you are controlling Rebecca and Billy at the same time--a system which worked very well in Resident Evil 2, and one that I'm not very sure why they would trash for the zapping system seen in 0. Rather than playing through a scenario and coming together at the end, you press a button to switch between the two, which also means you control the inventory space of two people. This wouldn't be so bad if the game had kept item boxes, but instead you are forced to leave items on the ground like some kind of punk to pick up later. This wouldn't be so frustrating if the game wasn't so linear, especially given that you are forced into new areas with points-of-no-return all over the place, meaning you may have to leave behind ammo permanently. One can argue that this demands more attention and strategy out of the player, but given that the game is a survival horror it already demands plenty of attention. Don't fix what isn't broken, and this game did that in spades. I can only hope the Resident Evil 2 remake doesn't take cues from Resident Evil 0, if only because it can be very frustrating.

This is also the title where Resident Evil went from some cops surviving a biohazard (as its Japanese title states) outbreak to corporate conspiracies with super-humans. Code Veronica began the trend with a certain important character ninja-teleporting around and having telekinetic fireball comic book fights with a mutant demon bug lady in Antarctica, but there's just so much wrong with that game that it can be written off as a failed experiment without much of a fuss. It's wholly different to have a game that looks, plays, and feels like a classic Resident Evil that devolves into pretty dudes in dresses turning into leech monsters while corporate espionage occurs off-screen. It's jarring, but at this point in the series history it's all par-for-the-course. It's just a shame that in the same year we got a harrowing character like Lisa Trevor in the same series we have to go back to overbearing anime tropes. If you told me that this game belonged to a series inspired by horror B-movies, I'd probably not believe you.

That said, it's still a traditional Resident Evil in gameplay. Narrow corridors, different types of monsters, and puzzles litter the game. It's much more polished than the complete waste of time Code Veronica was, so if you have to choose one at least you won't be getting a bad experience. If you can get past the terrible story and the gameplay problems that should never have existed in the first place, you'll find a fairly enjoyable traditional survival horror title. Aside from that, Resident Evil 0 has an alternate mode very similar to Mercenaries as well as the normal difficulty options you've come to expect. While not as fully-featured as REmake, 0 has more than enough to set itself apart.

So what's new?

Aside from upscaling to higher resolutions, Capcom put in a lot of work to create better textures for the two games. Some moving effects have been touched up and in general, despite the age and resolution of the older backgrounds they hold up shockingly well today. The HD remasters allow players to play in the original 4:3 as well as a new, cropped 16:9 display. To account for the resolution of the backgrounds Capcom has instead decided to crop the image and pan around the room, having the camera follow your character. It's a pretty smart decision that doesn't hurt the presentation at all, though it leaves a bit to be desired. Aside from that, the new releases heavily alleviate cutscene load times that plagued the Gamecube releases. Moving to a new camera angle during a cutscene could take up to three seconds, heavily breaking the flow of many scenes. This new version eradicates every instance of load times in cutscenes, leading to a much more refined experience. Despite this, both games have longer overall saving and loading times than the Gamecube originals, but the experience isn't entirely dampened by them.

If you were around during the "orange brick" DVD releases of Dragon Ball Z, you might have come across the argument that in presenting the series in widescreen, FUNimation inadvertently ended up cropping some of the screen and causing some scenes to come off as too narrow--for example, full shots of character faces might just be half of the eyes and a nose (before you point out that I just criticized Resident Evil 0 for being too anime while now using anime as an example, I just want you to know that shut up).While Capcom did their best to make sure every individual camera angle covered the most important character movement, some characters or objects in focus might be cropped unnaturally or shoved off the screen entirely.

It's very weird and I find it hard to recommend the 16:9 display because of that, but if the side-bars distract you enough in 4:3 then it's not the worst thing in the world. Just be prepared for some of the image to be cropped if you do choose that option. The in-engine cutscenes from the Gamecube releases were already in widescreen, so only a very small part of the top and bottom of the screen is cropped to accommodate the presentation. As mentioned it's not always a problem, but if some scenes appear unfocused to you that's the reason why.

In terms of content, nothing new was added to REmake, although Resident Evil 0 adds a clever new mode in which you play as a certain super-powered character who can ninja teleport and blast all enemies onscreen. It's tongue-in-cheek and honestly very funny, and if you've seen everything in the game there's no reason not to try it out as it's mostly a palette swap.

Something to take note of, if you're planning on picking any of these games on consoles: The PC versions have a framerate capped at 60 frames per second, whereas all the console versions are capped at 30. This means the PC will have a smoother presentation and higher response time in comparison, but given that every version of these games prior to the HD remaster played at 30 FPS and considering the generally slow speed of the game, it's not as much of an issue than it would be if it were more action-oriented. Still, it's a bummer that Capcom couldn't get the console versions at full parity with PC.

Tank controls.

As a long-time survival horror fan I want to address the elephant in the room: tank controls. To be clear, I do not understand the complaints and I feel like most of the detractors tried it out for all of a few seconds, noticed that the controls weren't ubiquitous with other 3D games, and immediately hated it. 3D graphics were relatively new when the first Resident Evil was released so to have a new control scheme on top of that might be a bit frustrating, but the game was designed around them for a good reason.

Unlike earlier 3D games that have graphically aged horribly, much of the initial Resident Evil titles still look fairly striking given their meticulously-drawn 2D backgrounds. Unlike Final Fantasy VII where you had distinct loading times between many of the 2D screens, Resident Evil instead placed several camera angles in a room and loaded a new area whenever you entered a new room. Camera angles shift at set moments to give the player a distinct view of the room, which helps in maneuvering around monsters and solving puzzles. Capcom could not have released a better game than they did at the time, and to dismiss the work put into these historical video games (which is not an oxymoron) because of a control scheme is ignorant. Sadly, many reviews for the HD remasters of these games have lauded the new controls as "more accessible" and "much better" and "I'm a stupid neanderthal." It's a bit disheartening to see that people who trust these reviews might agree with these ideas and even champion the new controls as the "true way" to play the games.

As an example of the benefits to tank controls, I've prepared crudely-drawn MS Paint comics to demonstrate the benefits of tank controls with a changing camera angle. In the first image, the character, Jill, is being moved "up" into a new room. The screen and the player's cardinal directions are the same, as are the new movement options and tank controls. Please observe:

As the camera angle transitions, however, the cardinal direction (let's just say 'north') is rotated, giving a better view of the room being entered. However, because of this sudden change the player using the new movement options is suddenly pressing the button moving him in the cardinal direction 'east' because of the shifted perspective. The player using tank controls is moving in the same, fixed direction: forward. Up and forward are ubiquitous with tank controls, after all:

Even with the extra power of his zombie skateboard, the monster is unable to keep up with the player using the old control scheme. Zombies are slow and stupid, but not nearly as stupid as the lunch that ran right into his open embrace using the "new and accessible" control options.

Idiot.

That's not to say tank controls are perfect for every occasion. Some games, like Resident Evil 4 and God Hand, also directed by Shinji Mikami, utilize tank controls very well, but those are very special (and very perfect) cases. You don't want all of your shooters and brawlers to have tank controls, and you don't want all of your static camera games to have them either--take my Final Fantasy VII example from earlier. However, when playing a tense survival horror with a slow pace and multiple angles in a single location, tank controls should be accepted as the norm rather than ostracized as they've become over the years.

That's not to say the new control scheme is bad: in fact, I'm using them myself. There's a very big disclaimer here: the new controls assign the left stick to 2D--or "normal"--movement while the directional buttons stay assigned to 3D--or tank--controls. What this means is that a player can navigate through the tight hallways of the games using the intended control scheme and immediately swap over to the left stick when confronted by an enemy. The new controls allow players to run around in any direction they want; with 3D controls, you'd need to re-position yourself or use the game's very slow quick-turn mechanic, which is back on the D-pad while holding the run button.

Even this comes with its own problem: while it's easier to run around enemies with this control scheme, it also means certain confrontations are rendered completely trivial. You can bait zombies into grabbing and then just run past them while they're reaching out into nothing by just changing directions. The games were clearly designed in a way that free movement would hurt the challenge, and the new movement options being praised as the way to go only send the message that players want an easier experience; with the Resident Evil 2 remake looming over the horizon I for one am terrified this is the biggest message Capcom will take away from reviews of these remasters. If the game is built around utilizing the alternate control method in its favor that might be one thing, but the idea of a fully-3D shooter like some people seem to prefer rather than the perfection that is the Playstation original is even more terrifying than anything seen in these horror masterpieces.

The Verdict

Resident Evil REmake has always been a good game. It was a good game on the Gamecube and it's a good game today. I honestly have never understood the arguments that some elements are "archaic," because video games should always have their own unique design. That said, this version of Resident Evil is the way to go. No annoying loading in cutscenes, being able to reload your weapon in real time outside of a menu, touched up visuals, and new costumes for those interested give it a distinct advantage over the Gamecube and Wii releases. Resident Evil 0 was not a very good game, one that was mostly hype that led to a disappointing prequel many have forgotten about. It's certainly not the worst Resident Evil, not even the worst "classic" title, but it leaves much to be desired. If you can look past its flaws there's a neat little game in there, and there's even a new game mode for returning players.

Neither of these games have been released outside of a Nintendo console, which also means many of the series faithful have not played them until now. The Origins Collection is a great physical bundle, and though I would have preferred individual boxes for these games, it's well worth double-dipping if you've played them before and if you haven't, these are the best versions of some of the best survival horror games ever made.

If you'd like to see me slapping around the PS4 versions of these games, head on over to my Youtube channel where I will be uploading a full playthrough of the entire collection. You can find the first part here: