Resident Evil: Code Veronica

Aqui a galhofa finalmente tomou conta. Tem momentos que passa do ponto, mas no geral acho que isso é em benefício do jogo, pois sem ela um vilão como o Alfred não existiria e metade da personalidade se perderia.

A ambientação gótica é memorável, assim como a presença mais consistente do Wesker. Mas também é um jogo meio babaca que por vezes coloca o jogador em situações apertadas que exigem uma reação quase instantânea.

Passed through a huge chunk of the game, then got stuck with no apparent way out I'm guessing by the end after the laboratory

This game sucks. Needlessly complicated, tons of tedious backtracking, super spaced out save points, clunky controls, tedious objectives, it's like Resident Evil at its most meticulous and hair-splittingly puzzling. A good soundtrack and quality visuals for its time will not save this disaster of a game.

Trying to place RE: Code: Veronica on a scale where it can stand out as either better or worse than the previous "classic"-styled RE games seems unintuitive. Everything that was in those previous games is here and there isn't too much new that you can immediately appreciate or imagine on the back of a box in a features list. A better way to think relatively about Code Veronica is not quality but quantity: this is the classic RE that has much more than any other.

I heard someone once say that Code Veronica is the "Resident Evil for Resident Evil fans," and I generally dislike this somewhat empty phrase but I think it applies here because you simply shouldn't play Code Veronica if you ever finished one of these games and thought even briefly you may have gotten your fill. This is not the FFXV of Resident Evil--for fans of the genre and first-timers-- it's only for the fans. A food analogy: if you cleared your plate of RE1-3, this is what you'd get if you asked for more, it goes down with as much struggle as a second meal on a full belly might.

What's here is a longer, harder (to a casual player), fan-servicey and simultaneously uniquely insane in a way that's totally RE, as well as more obtuse and complex. Zombies have the most health, I think, than ever and this game is full of bastard B.O.W. super monsters to get slapped by. There are seemingly more puzzle items than ever, fewer save rooms, more enemies to poison you, admittedly more pistol ammo, and a decent amount of optional content. Really, as a long-time RE player, all of this is only appealing sounding. But it is definitely a chore, a struggle, exhausting.

Forever this has been my least favorite and most loathed Resident Evil game. I realized that my reaction to it, which had its origins in first playing it as a kid when it was released, was far too emotional to be fair and so I went in to play it again. This was my "third time finishing Code Veronica," the previous "two" being a completion in 2015 and the other a "completion" where I ran out of ammo and any possibility of survival and success at the very last boss in 2010. My playthrough this time was to exorcise all my animosity for this game and to try and understand it, and maybe find a way to love it. I did come away loving it. It's not my favorite Resident Evil (which is RE3), but it really is great and I am glad to no longer have to reconcile the fact that what was my most hated RE game was simultaneously my most played RE game.

Old punching-bag, friend I never could admit I loved, Code Veronica: our relationship was too complex and rife with frustration for younger me to ever see that what we had was an intimacy games and players rarely build together! You're a decent dame, but I've had enough of ya!

So as most people are aware, Code Veronica was originally planned as the third entry in the series and 3: Nemesis was to be the spin-off, but sometime during development for both, they swapped status and now CV's the spin-off and 3's the sequel game. If CV did get its sequel status, then this would've been a very disappointing sequel to 2.

First of all, the level design here is unmemorable. At the time of writing this, I have just finished this game, and I can honest to god only recall the Private Residence, and a bit of the Antarctic Base. Everything else is a gigantic blur to me, since there's very little setpieces and/or cool moments and cutscenes that can instantly remind me of the locations, like the case with Private Residence and the endgame portion of Arctic Base.

Also, if the level design isn't being uninteresting, it's being straight up frustrating. Backtracking in a Classic-style RE game is common, yes, but in 2, most of 3, and in REmake, there are shortcuts that mitigate the backtracking, the fact that the items required for an object you get either way earlier or aren't that far apart from each other, and there are save rooms with item boxes placed in a good area that helps with the item swapping. In CV, however, items you need to progress are located several rooms ahead of time, you got one new save room in every new area you reach (so basically about every hour or two), and there is exactly TWO shortcuts available, both of them only being available near the end of the game, all topped off with each single spot on the map being unnecessarily long. There's a difference between going back a short amount of areas to progress, and wasting time by doing mundane back-and-forthing just to be able to finish one single area. What makes this worse is that enemies can RESPAWN at a certain point in time, and it's very easy to feel loss and have no idea on where to go or what to do. This also ruins the atmosphere, because again, instead of feeling tense or paranoia, I get feelings of anger and boredom, and many times I began to wonder "when will this section finally be over?".

Speaking of enemies, you know how the previous games (and REmake) had a few enemies that were easy to kill and/or bypass entirely? Here, every enemy is like that, including the obligatory game-exclusive enemy, Bandersnatch. Because along with most areas being a giant square and/or wide enough to simply run by them (especially with the Bandersnatches since they're super slow and their attack has a wind-up and cool down that makes them even easier to dodge), the game constantly makes sure to throw every single type of ammo at you. No joke, the area you get the Bow Gun, you're able to get 180 rounds for it before you even reach the gun, and alongside the 30 that's already in it, that's 210 ammos for it readily available. It's like this for every gun in the game (except for the two-slotted weapons and the Magnum, which at least makes sense). This entirely defeats the point of managing and conserving your items carefully, since you can just bulldoze your way through the game no problem.

I didn't really expect much from the bosses in this game, since the other game's bosses aren't really all that good either with some exceptions. All I can say that it's hilarious the Giant Spider's optional this time, the Tyrant Plane fight is really unfair in terms of area layout but fine in terms of actual challenge, and Alexia herself is a pathetically weak final boss since her attacks are rather easy to evade.

I spent the last three paragraphs being negative, but I really did think this game had some cool stuff. The puzzles are way more fun to solve since they require actual thought to them instead of the basic "press these buttons in this sequence" shit from before, the story is all kinds of hilarious and interesting thanks to Alfred and Alexander, who's lore surrounding their family, Umbrella, and the T-Veronica virus are honest to god super good to read up on. Hell, it gave Claire and Chris some badass moments and one-liners too, so that's another plus.

Overall, I just don't see the point in playing Code Veronica, not only because of how tedious it is, but also because of how lacking it is in terms of an identity. I mean, 1 was the game that started it all, 2 added in multiple scenarios and the zapping mechanic, and 3's identity not only stems from the subtitle, but also from the reloading tool and Live Selection, REmake, a game that came out after CV, had revamped puzzles and gameplay, gave new story and lore elements, and had Crimson Heads, even 0 had somewhat of an identity with the partner mechanic and its use of leeches. CV just feels like several step backwards from what was previously established in the original trilogy, and even more so compared to the two games that came after.

I always wrote off Code Veronica as the trying too hard bloated endpoint of the classic survival horror genre, but it's actually way more intelligent in level design, pretty much nailing the base ethos of squeezing as much tension in as short a space as possible, then seeing how they can keep that up as the space expands. So what you get is one of the more difficult Resi adventures, with some clever puzzles and a skewed focus on combat that, while fun, does showcase the limitations of not having a dodge roll, as some enemies are cheap.

The story, similarly, is bonkers but gets the job done, remains tense and mysterious throughout and has a couple legit sequel hooks in there even as the cliches pile up. The real meat comes from playing both areas twice as different characters and as time has passed and destroyed these areas some, making revisiting them a taxing mental trip as you have to readjust how you view these areas. Overall, way more solid than I was expecting, and unlike Resi 0, never really does anything to undermine it.