Resident Evil Zero

Resident Evil Zero (also known as Resident Evil 0) is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002. It serves as a prequel to the first Resident Evil, covering the ordeals experienced in the Arklay Mountains by the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team.

The gameplay remains similar to other entries in the Resident Evil series, but includes a unique "partner zapping" system.

Plot
On July 23, 1998, a train owned by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella, the Ecliptic Express, comes under attack from a swarm of leeches. As the passengers and crew are attacked, a mysterious young man watches over the resulting chaos from a hillside. Two hours later, Bravo Team of the Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) police force is sent to investigate a series of cannibalistic murders in the Arklay Mountains outside of Raccoon City.

Good Qualities

 * 1) An all new partner system, in which you can control both characters Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen.
 * 2) Each character has its strengths and weaknesses, for example, Rebecca can combine herbs and chemicals, but she is very weak while Billy can't combine herbs and collect chemicals, but has higher defense and attack. Similar to the original Resident Evil and Remake with Chris and Jill.
 * 3) Items can be left anywhere, thus eliminating the annoying need to backtrack all the way back to an item box to store excessive items.
 * 4) A decent story that tells the origins of Umbrella and the T-Virus are explained.
 * 5) One of the best looking games on the GameCube, the graphics are far more detailed and upgraded than the remake of the first Resident Evil.
 * 6) Well designed puzzles that will exploit the characters abilities.
 * 7) Many new terrifying enemies like the leech zombie.
 * 8) One of the best survival horror experiences for a Nintendo console (which are rare)!
 * 9) Similar to Resident Evil Remake, the HD remaster adds a new movement set called "alternate" that allows the characters to move in a faster fashion than tank controls as well as adding more costumes for Rebecca and Billy.
 * 10) *Also, you can change your costume at any time using the Briefcase item unlike the original versions that require a key to unlock a locker that cant be accessed after the train crash.
 * 11) Leech Hunter minigame that allows the players to unlock extra stuff for the main game like Magnum Revolver and if you get all 100 leeches you can get infinite ammo for all guns.
 * 12) Submachine gun and infinite rocket launcher can be unlocked by beating the game under certain time limit.
 * 13) This game features Wesker Mode, which is a mode that replaces Billy with Wesker and gives Rebecca a Wesker outfit like that of Jill Valentine in RE5.
 * 14) *When playing as Wesker you get three abilities:
 * 15) **Shadow Dash: This allows Wesker to charge forward.
 * 16) **Death Stare: With this, Wesker can unleash a powerful ranged blast of energy. The longer the attack is charged, the more damage it will cause. Its effectiveness also depends on how the player is positioned and the enemy type being targeted.
 * 17) **Unlike Billy, Wesker can mix herbs.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The Giant Bat is one of the most widely hated bosses in Resident Evil history. With an extremely quick and erratic flight pattern, and its spawning a steady stream of smaller bats to run interference, it seems tailor-made to exploit every weakness of the game's aiming system. Worse, the bats it spawns not only make it harder to target the Giant Bat, but they will steadily whittle away at your health. Even exploiting its stun-lock vulnerability to flame grenades isn't a sure thing, because when it's hit, the "stunned" bat will jerk in mid-air, throwing off the auto-aim and making it hard to continue pounding it with grenades.
 * 2) Speaking of boss fights, most of the bosses are kind of lackluster as you're just fighting large creatures that have nothing unique or special to them.
 * 3) The new costumes that are exclusive to HD remaster aren't free.
 * 4) The hook shot item that takes up two spaces in the inventory despite being a key item (which take only one space in the inventory instead of two). What's more problematic is you need this item again after the train section and the game doesn't tell the player to discard it after used in the research center area which can be confusing.
 * 5) Unlike other Resident Evil games, you don't get to carry special weapons neither does the rank of leech hunter carry over to different difficulties. Meaning, if you want to use the infinite rock launcher in another difficulty, you have to speedrun the game again and if you want the magnum, you have to complete leech hunter again.
 * 6) The con of the lack of item boxes is that you cannot get items you dropped anywhere near where a typewriter is. To make matters worse both Rebecca and Billy only have Six item slots.
 * 7) The game isn't as scary as previous RE games and doesn't have as good atmosphere.
 * 8) Rebecca and Billy aren't that interesting compared to other characters of the RE universe like Jill and Chris. Billy especially doesn't have much of a personality and can't mix herbs.
 * 9) The Switch version has longer loading times compared to any other version of the game (and not just a few more seconds, a loading screen in this version can go up to 35 seconds), and due to the longer loading times, getting a S rank in the Switch version is close to impossible (as the timer still works during the loading screens). There are also missing textures and shaders (the box for the gondola in the treatment plant being the most egregious example), and the last few cutscenes have audio issues due to the longer loading times making the whole thing off-sync. There's also a game-breaking bug, if Billy and Rebecca split up, if the non-controlled partner die, the game implodes on itself and just crash or reset to the prologue cutscene if no save data is detected.
 * 10) Plot Hole: Rebecca is bitten, scratched and even swarmed by leeches, but she never contracts the T-Virus. This is not even a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation as it happens during several cutscenes. To make matters worse, there is a file in the game implying that by simply touching a leech will get you infected immediately after. About the only explanation is that Rebecca is one of the 10% of people that's immune to it.

Reception
Resident Evil Zero received generally positive reviews after its initial GameCube release in 2002. The graphics and atmosphere were universally praised, being described as "wonderfully spooky" and "moody" with an "astonishing level of detail". Scott Steinberg of GameSpy noted how the animated backgrounds, such as flickering lights and dripping water, brought the environments to life. Giancarlo Varanini of GameSpot shared these sentiments, and complimented Capcom on how they were able to blend the game's models with pre-rendered backgrounds to create highly detailed visuals. The sound design was also complimented, with Matt Casamassina of IGN noting that "Capcom uses silence at times, too, to scare, which is brilliant." Varanini described the soundtrack as one "that will keep you in constant fear." Louis Bedigian of GameZone praised the sound effect work, such as thunder, gunshots, and footsteps for building a scary environment.

On the other hand, critics had mixed reactions to the gameplay changes from previous series entries. The controls were universally panned as archaic, and the series was criticized for not evolving the control scheme to something more similar to Devil May Cry (2001) or Eternal Darkness (2002). Regarding the new item system, a critic from Game Revolution noted that it prevents the need to return to item boxes to empty inventory. However, he also noted a drawback, in that it introduces more backtracking to pick up an item that was dropped. Contrary to this, Mark MacDonald of 1UP.com praised it for eliminating the backtracking that slowed down previous series entries. Varanini from GameSpot gave credit to Capcom for attempting a new item system, but it is ultimately not too useful since it is easiest to drop all the items in a save location anyway. Steinberg of GameSpy liked the puzzles which required both characters working together, but he was not keen to fight alongside them, feeling like he was "babysitting" the other character due to weak AI.

The game's reception from fans is mixed as many praised the visuals and the idea of showing what happen to Bravo team before the events of the original Resident Evil. However, many criticized the zap system as tedious and Billy and Rebecca as protagonist, the former has been especially criticized due to the lack of a personality. Many consider it one of the weaker entries in the franchise.

Awards
Resident Evil Zero was nominated for GameSpot 's annual "Best Action Adventure Game", "Best Sound", "Best Story", "Best Graphics (Technical)", and "Best Graphics (Artistic)" awards among GameCube games

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