Resident Evil – Code: Veronica

Resident Evil – Code: Veronica (known as Biohazard – Code: Veronica in Japan) is a survival horror video game developed by Capcom and originally released for the Dreamcast in 2000. It was the first title in the Resident Evil series to debut on a non-Sony platform, in contrast to the first three installments which were originally released on the PlayStation.

Plot
The story follows Claire Redfield, her brother Chris Redfield, and Steve Burnside in their efforts to survive a viral outbreak at both a remote prison island called Rockfort in the Southern Ocean and a research facility in Antarctica.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Chris Redfield from Resident Evil and Claire Redfield from Resident Evil 2 return as playable characters.
 * 2) Great graphics that were very impressive for back then and have held incredibly well. This is especially impressive when you consider that unlike previous RE titles, the traditional pre-rendered backgrounds of previous games, Code: Veronica incorporates real-time 3D environments and camera movement for the first time.
 * 3) Genuine jump scares and unsettling environments.
 * 4) Alexia and Alfred are great villains.
 * 5) This game makes some improvements on the RE formula:
 * 6) * In every Resident Evil game prior to this one, picking up an herb or First Aid Spray when your inventory is full causes the game to tell you that you can't carry any more items. This installment is kind enough to ask if you want to use it at that particular moment. Future games in the series would keep this mechanism.
 * 7) This game is widely considered to be one of the toughest in the series. Inventory management is at its trickiest, the map design is much more complex, there are a lot of key items to keep track of, and there's loads of backtracking. Claire also doesn't get any powerful weapons until hours into the game, after she has already had a boss battle and the Bandersnatchers having started showing up. And that's not even getting into the security boxes on Rockfort Island that you can lose valuable items in if you don't get them out before leaving the island, and knowing to leave certain items for Chris before switching to him from Claire later in the game.
 * 8) A new character named Steve Burnside is also playable at a certain point in the game. Even though his voice acting isn't the best, his backstory and death scene are pretty tragic.
 * 9) Unlike the previous "classic" titles before it, the knife is actually a very viable weapon this time around. Attacking the legs of an approaching zombie can drop it in as little as one swipe. You'll likely get an extra bite or two on the odd occasion where it doesn't down them in time, but using the knife even for brief stretches of gameplay can save loads of ammo, eliminating the possibility of running out when you need it most.
 * 10) Great soundtrack with the safe room track considered one of the best in the whole franchise.
 * 11) Just like Resident Evil 2, it's possible to customize handguns for both Claire and Chris. Also the bowgun in Resident Evil 2 is improved here, it fires faster and it can fire different type of bolts called "Explosive bolts" that can highly damage monsters.
 * 12) The Battle Mode minigame is similar to that of Mercenaries from Resident Evil 3 and just like Mercenaries it can be pretty challenging and fun. This time you have four characters to play as:
 * 13) *Claire Redfield: Is armed with a Combat Knife, Handgun, and Bow Gun w/ Gun Powder Arrows.
 * 14) **Alternate Claire Redfield (wearing an Umbrella outfit: Is armed with a Combat Knife, Grenade Launcher (with all three types of rounds), and Assault Rifle.
 * 15) *Chris Redfield: Is armed with a Combat Knife, Magnum, and Shotgun.
 * 16) *Steve Burnside: Is armed with a Combat Knife, Gold Lugers, and Sub Machine Gun.
 * 17) *Albert Wesker: Is armed with only Combat Knife.
 * 18) If you get A rank with every character in Battle Mode, you unlock The Linear Launcher.
 * 19) Pretty good story about Claire trying to escape an island run by Umbrella that's been overrun with zombies.
 * 20) Albert Wesker returns to the franchise after so long.
 * 21) The infinite rocket launcher can be unlocked by beating the game with the highest rank.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The voice acting of Steve and Alfred aren't great and is laughable. The former is most likely because Steve's voice actor, Bill Houston, was in his 30s and he was playing a seventeen-year-old character.
 * 2) Steve acts kind of cartoony since he does a good number of anime poses which goes against the groundedness of the RE series.
 * 3) Some of the boss fights are almost unfair.
 * 4) *The Tyrant boss fight forces you to fight him in the confines of a plane before you have any significantly powerful weapons.
 * 5) *Mutated Steve is invincible, faster than you, and can kill you in two hits. All you have to do is run to the end of the hall, but unless you brought enough healing items you cannot make it.
 * 6) *Alexia's first form. While not particularly fast, she has an extremely powerful flame attack that's highly unpredictable and hits at a very long range. Get too close and she uses her one hit kill attack on you regardless of your current health. The fight becomes much easier for you if you bring the Magnum, but most first-time players probably won't have it due to it being permanently missable (BQ #6).
 * 7) **Her second and third forms are no better. First, it's a timed battle, so you'll get a game over if you take too long to kill them. Her second form constantly spawns small mutant monsters that can quickly overwhelm you. Her third form flits about quickly and erratically, and sporadically rains down fiery blood on you, so you basically need to take pot-shots at her with the Linear Launcher and hope you get lucky enough to hit her.
 * 8) The first cutscene of the game isn't generally liked by fans due to how over the top it is.
 * 9) This is one of the few RE games that don't have unlockable costumes. To be more accurate, Claire has an unlockable costume which gives her a different loadout but it can only be used in Battle mode. The reason is that unlike the prior games, Code: Veronica uses different, more detailed character models in its cutscenes, and the development team evidently didn't feel like going to the extra trouble of crafting new ones to go with alternate costumes.
 * 10) Permenantly Missable Content: It's entirely possible to miss the magnum. This isn't an uncommon thing for RE games (in fact, it's a staple), but it's not because the player doesn't explore the area. If you don't take the fire extinguisher that you use way back at the very beginning of the game to Antarctica, you're not getting the magnum, which makes the final boss much easier to handle. The only clue the game gives you at all is that it's still hanging around in your inventory after you emptied it (as items normally vanish from your inventory once they're no longer needed), which is ridiculously easy to write off as an oversight by the developers.
 * 11) In order to get Rank A, you have to do the following: beat the game in less than 4 hours and 30 minutes, don't use the First Aid Sprays, don't use any retries, you have to save Steve from the trap very quickly, you have to be sure to give Rodrigo the Hemostatic Medicine, and you can only save once when prompted to do so. While this is one of the last classic Resident Evil games, Code: Veronica's quite a meaty game and losing progress is very painful. This is doubly so because this game is one of the few with more than a couple of segments where your character can be killed in one hit from numerous bosses and circumstances. Many players resort to using a glitch that lets you get infinite healing from one herb and even then it can still be a tall order because of the one hit deaths and how easy it is to waste time in certain sections.

Reception
Resident Evil- Code: Veronica has received critical acclaim, and has been considered both among the best Resident Evil and Dreamcast games of all-time. In Game Informer's "Top 100 Games of All Time", it was ranked as the sixty-ninth best video game. GamesRadar named Code: Veronica the 11th best Dreamcast game of all time, out of a list of 25. ScrewAttack placed Code: Veronica 4th on their list of the Top 10 Dreamcast Games.

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