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This will probably be my last long analysis topic on this board, I hope you have enjoyed them so far and thanks for taking the time and effort to read this amount of text. The reason for this is because I haven’t played Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City, Resident Evil Revelations, Resident Evil Outbreak File 2 and Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D. I hope I am not missing any title I haven’t played. I have seen some playthroughs on YouTube of some of these games, but it is not the same to review and/or analyze a game by watching it than by playing it.
A whole lot of things have been said about Resident Evil Survivor by fans of the series and general gamers alike. Words of both love and hate for the game, some consider it the worst in the series, other their personal favorite. Of everything that has been said, I’ll focus this topic in regards as of the game being part of the main series or not as well as its subsequent influence on the rest of the series.
A Long-Existing Background
Resident Evil Survivor’s concept was anything but new at the time it came out. The most obvious reference of such a game being Sega’s House of the Dead, which did start as an arcade game instead of a console game. However, going further back, the very first Resident Evil game back in 1994 was originally planned to be first person shooter. After months of development and several problems, the original first person Resident Evil game was scrapped in favor a third person view game incorporating pre-rendered backgrounds as the base of its level design. The exact causes of why it was scrapped are still unknown other than Shinji Mikami being highly unsatisfied with the resulting project, but we do know that between 1994 and 1995 the 3D graphics were still very new at the time, they required a high amount of time and investment during development, there were very few top-end 3D programmers and designers available, all new generation videogame consoles were still too new and thus very hard to develop for (including the PlayStation). Finally, getting rid of the first person shooter project was at the time and circumstances the best way to go.
By the end of the millennium, existing game consoles like the PlayStation became a lot easier to develop for and 3D gaming had become the norm, moving to a much higher level. First person shooters evolved from the concept that was made popular by Doom back in 1994. Next generation videogame consoles were already present such as the Sega Dreamcast, and more were on the horizon, such as the Sony PlayStation2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox by then newcomer Microsoft. Y2K seemed like an excellent time to bring back the original concept of Resident Evil. When it was first announced it was compared by the critics as Resident Evil following the steps of House of the Dead in previews, Resident Evil fans saw it as a way to renew the formula of the series after the first three titles’ pre-rendered third person perspective, and CODE: Veronica’s still new 3D third person. The new game was called Biohazard Gun Survivor, it was developed for the original PlayStation and incorporated support for the Namco GunCon, focusing the game on an arcade feel more than a first person shooter type.
Resulting product
Resident Evil Survivor was considered a disappointment for a considerable amount of the series fans. The game obtained mostly negative reviews from critics and general gamers. The judgments the game received were in all shapes and forms: “a complete lack of effort”, “just made to make money”, “the idiots’ version”, “Resident Evil without the best aspects”, “an experiment with the Resident Evil name on top to guarantee good sales” and so on. For American audiences, the removal of the GunCon support only made matters worse.
CONs
Since most gamers and series fans talk mostly about the negative aspects of the game, saying there are little or no positive ones, I’ll start by the negatives ones and then move to the positive ones.
Following the same trend as Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica, Resident Evil Survivor is almost not scary at all. The only time I do recall a decent scare in the game is at the very beginning after entering the cinema, the crows bursting through the windows of the projection room corridor right after you leave that room. The rest of the game has practically no scares. Despite the great (in my opinion) survival horror atmosphere that was well achieved through level design and the soundtrack, most scares are as much “nice tries” as the ones found in CODE: Veronica, the second least scary game of the series at the time.
An aspect that not just took away challenge from the game but also went against the formula of the series is the complete lack of puzzles to progress. The closest thing to puzzle in Survivor is present in the form of having to use the projection of a movie to light a dark chamber and make a key visible. Other than that, the “puzzles” in the game are nothing more than things like go locate the almost hidden switches in a room to power up the hospital elevator allowing you to proceed. The game mechanic of using/picking items automatically as you approach them or interacting with background objects automatically almost completely compromised the possibility of solving real puzzles within the game as in the previous titles.
Both lack of innovation and concept continuity with the series was also very evident. None of the innovations and features of both Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica were present, other than the possibility of skipping the real time cut-scenes, the possibility of walking stairs up and down manually and possibility of continuing if you die. Unlike CODE: Veronica, continues in Resident Evil Survivor put you in the same area you were when you died without being pulled back; yet, they are limited to four continues only instead of being infinite. Game aspects such as Mr. Xs always leaving behind different types of ammo per encounter and different monsters appearing in a certain single areas per visit are the only traces of the item and monster randomizers seen in Resident Evil 3 Nemesis.
All monsters of the game were taken from Resident Evil 2 along with their respective sound effects, including bosses like the gator and semi bosses like the normal Mr. X and the giant moths. One thing that limited the challenge and realism of the game resides in the fact you can only be attacked from the front, which in the end really allowed the player to be able to run past through 80% of the game’s monsters and progress through locations almost without having to shoot or kill any enemies. It would be more likely to be stopped by a locked door than the monsters in this matter. The only monsters that somehow solved part of this were the zombies, turning you to face them as they grab you from behind or sides. There are no dodge or tackle moves like in the third chapter of the series, but you still can get loose from a zombie if grabbed right before getting bitten. In Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica this happened by rapidly tapping buttons in the controller (run and action buttons mainly) and was very hard to achieve. In Resident Evil Survivor, you could do this by just pressing down on the D-pad once, as easy as child’s play. You would come loose but the zombie wouldn’t be pushed away and you could still get bitten in a second. This gave the zombies in those situations a little more risk and not being so ridiculously easy. Just like in Resident Evil 2, zombies can jump at you and grab you by the leg, but it almost never works and how sloppily the zombie jumps toward you looks even laughable. Zombies cannot have their limbs torn off, thus there are no dragging zombies like in previous titles. Zombies that throw up at you also stand out because of their absence. Other than Resident Evil 2’s monsters, there is the Hunter from the original Resident Evil with all-new sound effects to go. Only one monster (the cleaners) and the final boss (Hypnos Tyrant) were original in-game additions to the series.
Despite the PlayStation’s limitations, the final graphics of Resident Evil Survivor could have been much better. Textures were rough in general, the game suffered from frame rate drops in various locations and was very sensitive to the amount of monsters or items on screen, monster and zombie animation was stiff in general, and most locations were too small also. More than suffering from the censorship issues as Resident Evil CODE: Veronica went through that same year, it is the limited resources of the console as well as lack of further technical polishing from the development team that seem to explain why zombies and monsters cannot be torn into pieces and there are very little gore effects when attacked and their textures don’t change after being hit by weapons like the grenade launcher. You can use weapons like the shotgun and magnum against zombies’ legs and it would die before being unable to walk. The only really cool and challenging feature of the zombies in Survivor is the possibility of head-shooting them with the handguns. Scenarios in Resident Evil Survivor are almost completely non-interactive, the only background objects you can destroy are the windows, and only in around half of the locations. Aside from them, only a handful of objects in the entire game can be shot by the player.
Resident Evil Survivor also falls short on replay value. There is only one special weapon to be unlocked after beating the game is the rocket launcher, which does include its amount of challenge as it has to be reloaded like the rest of the weapons, meaning it doesn’t only rely on recoil to make it hard to use for the player. For an arcade-type first person shooter, it really sucks there are no automatic weapons like assault rifles or submachine guns or even burst hand guns like in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 1.5 and CODE: Veronica. The closest thing to an automatic fire arm in the game is the CZ 75 hang gun B that has the highest fire rate. There was originally going to be custom gun parts available for the magnum in this game in the same fashion as Resident Evil 2 and CODE: Veronica, but they didn’t see the light of day beyond the beta versions of the game. The regular magnum in Survivor is one of the weakest in the series (plus being the slowest to reload) and follows the same ludicrous trend of Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica of having no more than two reloads for it in the entire game. Also, no battle mode or extra mini game is available after beating the main game. The only real things to obtain after beating the game is to play again to take every extra handgun you haven’t collected yet and to visit the multiple paths available and obtain the document files they contain, as well as acquiring more ammunition for the rest of the weapons in the game. However, in order to be to able to collect a decent amount of ammo all for your weapons, you pretty much have to beat the whole game using almost only the handguns, which does add some challenge but it is not a big deal.
In terms of sound, Resident Evil Survivor suffers the same lack of innovation as mentioned in the enemies’s department. The sound effects used in most of the monsters as well as the ones in the item menu come from Resident Evil 2, which make the game feel dated and enforce the perception of lack of originality. Another aspect falling short was the voice acting, Resident Evil Survivor can be described as being placed between the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2/3 Nemesis in terms of the quality of the vocals, meaning the second worst Resident Evil title in this department. Only the improved yet ordinary dialogs probably saved the game from being under the original. Another terrible point in regards to sound is that Ark Thompson always makes the same grunt while being attacked or grabbed by monsters, making this repetitive and monotonous.
Polarized Elements – Good, Bad or Both?
There are aspects in Resident Evil Survivor than in the realm of opinion are considered the worst or the best in the series, depending on the fans judging the game.
One of those aspects is the length of the game, the shortest in the series. If you run past all monsters than can be avoided and knowing well where to obtain the keys to unlock your way through the game and taking the shortest paths available you can beat it in around half an hour. Some series fans hated this, feeling it was a game that was not worth the money for being too short. Others favored it as a way of adding replay value to the game, also in regards as the multiple paths that can be taken and the additional amount of ammunition that can be accumulated for all weapons. The short length of the game also puts it on the same league as arcade shooters like Time Crisis and House of the Dead. This short length did allow players at the time to use the game to consume time in a fun way while waiting for things like appointments and the like.
This is the first Resident Evil game that omitted the item box system (before Resident Evil 0) and that allowed the player an infinite amount of inventory spaces. This completely killed one of the worst worthless time-consuming, most tedious and painstaking aspects of the general Resident Evil franchise, backtracking. However, this also allowed the possibility of running past through 80% of the game, which was also favored by the lack of real puzzles within the game.
Just like the lack of items boxes in the game, there was also a lack of typewriters and ink ribbons. This means there is no possibility to save your progress through the game. The player can only save his/her rankings after beating the game as well as the weapons and ammunition he/she obtained during the last playthrough. The impossibility of saving the game also puts Resident Evil Survivor in the arcade shooting game realm. Fans of the series hated the impossibility of saving progress while others considered it didn’t matter at all due to the short length of the game and it worked as a way to add more challenge and replay value.
PROs
Regardless of what people think, both positively and negatively, I am convinced Resident Evil Survivor did have several aspects that were not just worth saving but were almost outstanding.
Leaving aside the first person focus, Resident Evil Survivor is a game that uses the same concept as Resident Evil 3 Nemesis of being placed in a city with the possibility of exploring it freely instead of focusing on large individual locations like Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. Unlike Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, Survivor is in one side much more linear but on the other leaves out the backtracking parts of the game. What makes Survivor different from Nemesis is the possibility of taking one of multiple paths to progress through the game that all lead to a single key location, which leads to another set of three options. The player has to choose one of the three and once that happens there is no turning back. There are four sections of the game where this takes place, and while there are almost no differences between the three first options at the beginning of the game, in the following ones there is a difference in difficulty through the type of enemies, the length of the places, the availability of items. There are also differences in finding specific characters, unlocking a specific part of the ending, and obtaining certain document files that pertain to either the series in general or the storyline of Survivor itself.
The second set of three available locations consists of a hospital, a library, and an arcade. Choosing the first would unlock Vincent Goldman in the ending and access the CZ 75 handgun B, choosing the second would unlock the cleaner commander and the Beretta Cougar G handgun C, and going through the last would trigger Andy Holland in the ending and the Nambu 14 Custom handgun D. In the fourth and last set of multiple locations, consisting of a forest path, a tunnel under construction and a highway under construction; this is the best example of how the player has to choose a way not knowing what lies ahead while the difference gap in difficulty per location is extremely wide. The “easy” path is the forest one where you encounter cleaners, which you can run past saving time ammunition and your accuracy percentage; the mid difficulty one is the underground tunnel where you find multiple types of enemies (ranging from easy to hard) in different pathways or rooms but it is also the only one where you can obtain ammunition and health items; finally, the hard path is the highway where you encounter six "Mr. X" Tyrants that require up to four handgun B clips to kill and in this part they don’t leave any ammo behind. If you defeat them using weapons other than the handguns, you’ll end up wasting most if not all of your resources right before the last part of the game. Also, depending on which of these three paths you choose can you trigger the appearance of additional enemies right before the path to the railway station. Going through the forest path would unlock cleaners at the corridor at the end of the lab, going through the highway would unlock "Mr. Xs" and going through the tunnel would unlock no enemies.
There was a new feature in the game called Quick Selection, which immediately placed the player in front of monsters, items or doors. From one angle, this feature almost completely made up for the lack of the 180 degree spin of Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica. Due to Resident Evil Survivor continuing the then-norm of the tank control scheme of the series, this feature really helped. It was not perfect obviously, as sometimes when facing more than one monster, it would turn you to the wrong one or an door/item on the background, being counterproductive.
Despite the bad voice acting the and recycled sound effects from Resident Evil 2, the sound in general was probably was the best aspect in Resident Evil Survivor. The amount of new and original sound effects for this game is as long as the one taken from previous titles. The 3D surround effect of the sound in general is the best of the series until that point, especially when using headphones. The soundtrack of the game is as excellent as the ones in the rest of the series, keeping the same scary atmosphere and innovating in the form of two versions of a single track, one when enemies appear and another when there is peace.
Despite the low quality of the graphics, the level design of most of the game is very good. Game sections such as the restaurant and the hospital were far better than those in Resident Evil 3, the sewers section was better than the one of Resident Evil 2, the prison section was better than the one in CODE: Veronica, these are some examples. Sure there are laughable parts such as the main entrance of a church located in a back alley, but for the most part the level design of Survivor was excellent in my eyes.
Resident Evil Survivor did include an original monster that in my opinion was done masterfully well. One that had strong connections to the storyline of the game, designed to leave no traces of its existence and thus connections to Umbrella, such a monster is the cleaner. It fragile (just a couple handgun rounds to kill), yet it is numerous, fast, and armed with a submachine gun making it the deadliest non-boss monster of the game, being able to shoot you from any distance and drain your life in seconds and force you drain your continues. It is the only monster that can damage you from behind and the only one that does make the game regret the lack of the 180 degree spin, as sometimes escaping is the best way to evade getting killed and the lack of the spin makes this very difficult.
Despite the complete recycling of the monsters from Resident Evil 2 for this game, some fall on the category of a sequel that is better than the original. The best case is the “Mr. X” Tyrant, which plays a vital part of the story of the game. He was a lot harder than in Resident Evil 2, mainly in the form of being able to block off strong weapon attacks with his arms (including those of the rocket launcher) and the dash move. Traditional monsters of the series such as Cerberuses and crows are the hardest and most challenging of the series at least at that point. Some enemies went for the worst too, such as the licker stopping in mid air to attack. Also new to the Resident Evil series, is the presence of some areas in Survivor in which zombies always respawn when you leave and come back, such as the lobby of the cinema. Due to the infinite ammo of the handguns you can use this to practice accuracy and increase your final amount of killed monsters, yet it will cause you to beat the game in a higher time than normal.
Resident Evil Survivor, at least at its time frame, had the probably the best ranking screen of the series at that point, one that was actually worth something. It ranked the player based not just in the weapons used and the time to beat the game, it also ranks the accuracy of the player, the amount of weapons obtained, the amount of continues used and the amount of enemies killed. Another interesting aspect is the fact that depending on the ranking obtained the background image is different.
The gameplay mechanic of several different handguns was a way to innovate in the series, going beyond upgrading handguns or upgrading ammunition. These weapons were different in terms of fire rate/recoil, reload speed, power and capacity. This made them effective against certain monsters and ineffective against others, being a source of strategy.
Misconceptions
At the time, many Resident Evil fans said Survivor has as much storyline as Pong,, insinuating it had little or none. What I consider a fact is that a lot of people that make this kind of judgments played the game and did not went further into it, probably not beating it more than once and bypassing the document files and the different locations. To fully understand and judge Resident Evil Survivor, the player needs to obtain ALL document files and go through ALL locations before submitting a review. To achieve all this, the player has to beat the game three times. I frequently find in the people that submit negative reviews on it that they don’t even know the name of the city the story takes place, called Sheena Island and that is present in the last document file of the game; How to extract the material. Some of this people call it “anonymous town” or some even think it is still Raccoon City. This is one of the worst errors of the game, the fact that you cannot get all the basic clues to the story in the original run. The problem with Resident Evil Survivor is not storyline, it is the narrative of the game.
The storyline in Survivor is actually decent and profound, even though it is not groundbreaking as its equivalents from first three chapters and CODE: Veronica. There’s nothing new and innovative about it, as it is the already known formula of an unnamed man that wakes up in the middle of nowhere not knowing who he is and as he progresses he begins to uncover a serious crime that he turns out to be responsible for. This transforms the character and makes him do anything in his power to redeem those crimes and it creates a conflict within himself. It IS something new for the Resident Evil universe. The storyline of Survivor was probably the one that followed the best the aftermath of the destruction of Raccoon City, how it was taken by citizens of another city and the reaction by external Umbrella employees and executives. It probably shows the best the lack of morality and ethics within Umbrella’s experiments, not just using human beings as test subject using them as nothing more than RAW MATERIAL. Sheena Island was way more controlled by Umbrella than Raccoon City, virtually every single business in the city has an exclusive card reader for Umbrella employees. Also, despite Umbrella itself governing the city directly under no guise, the citizens did what those of Raccoon didn’t dare to, oppose the authority in office attempt to expose him. Such an authority, Vincent Goldman, took it into himself to keep thing under wraps, like Wesker did in the original and Brian Irons in the sequel. This turned to be an ARTIFICIAL outbreak instead of an accidental one like in Raccoon City. It does create a very comprehensive and interesting aspect as to the creation of the “Mr. X” Tyrant 00s. I am convinced all of these aspects are more than worth noticing and mentioning.
Most of what was mentioned in the last paragraph fell short in the game as it was mostly available only in the document files, there were not cut-scenes or character interactions within the game to show it. This is one of the problems of narrative that the game suffered from, which were also in part caused by suspense and mystery factors of the main character suffering from amnesia and where he is. Aside from problems with narrative, Resident Evil Survivor did show some inconsistencies within itself. It is never mentioned where Sheena Island is located, other than being part of Europe. There aren’t much clues to this, from one side having the local citizens like Andy Holland having an American accent and Lily and Lott Klein having a British accent.
Part of the Series?
People that hate or dislike Resident Evil Survivor mostly consider the game a spin-off that doesn’t belong in the main series while people that like it or are more open to it consider the game as part of the main series.
My personal view on the subject is this. I do think it is part of the main series for the following reasons. Shinji Mikami did not work on this title and does not appear on the credits, at least not directly. Some sources say he did work on the game just as a general supervisor. The fact that Shinji Mikami was not part of the main core of developers and programmers is one the main reasons while people consider the game is just a spin-off. However, a main series title that Shinji Mikami did work on, Resident Evil 0, shows what I consider the strongest reason that does put Resident Evil Survivor into the canon storyline. In the opening of the game there is a reference.
“An island that would become the second Raccoon City, Sheena Island.”
If Resident Evil Survivor is worthless to main Resident Evil storyline, why would it be mentioned in Resident Evil 0, which was at the time one of Capcom’s most ambitious projects and canon title of the franchise, right before the overhauling of the series that began with Resident Evil 4.
The storyline of Resident Evil Survivor fits perfectly within the events of the canon games in its time period, almost two months after the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3 Nemesis and one month before the events of CODE: Veronica. Unlike other spin-offs, the storyline in Survivor does not contradict the main storyline in practically no aspects. Ark Thompson, the main character, is an acquaintance of Leon S. Kennedy after the evens of Resident Evil 2. Residdent Evil Survivor is the first game in which the Spencer name is mentioned, within Nicholai Ginovaef’s Raccoon City: After The Destruction Report document file.
I do admit that Resident Evil Survivor, its events and characters, have not been mentioned in the series ever since that reference in Resident Evil 0 (at least that I know of), specially in titles that go into the series’ past like Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles; but, hey, aren’t these games a variation of the Resident Evil Survivor concept?
Doomed from the start
Regardless of the performance of the final product among fans of series and general gamers alike, let’s focus on the concept of the game. The first aspect that made this game bad, the developers making wrong decisions from the start, was the platform they chose the game to be in, the PlayStation. The only reason this console was chosen for the game was the Namco Guncon light gun, which in the end was ludicrously not supported in the American release of the game. The best platform for first person shooters has always been the PC; the only real advantage consoles have in the genre over PCs is in regards to arcade-type shooters either with or without the use of a light gun. Resident Evil Survivor was always more arcade-based than a PC-type first-person-shooter, in this department it was correct to make Survivor a console game than a PC one. However, in the end Resident Evil Survivor did see a PC release, but one that was exclusive to the Chinese market.
Alternatives
At the time Resident Evil Survivor was made and launched, the best console for first person shooters was by far the Nintendo 64. Resident Evil Survivor could have been a much better game in this console, despite its difficulties to develop for in comparison to the PlayStation. Survivor does not have any real full motion video other than the Capcom logo, the only FMV scenes in the game are made out of real time scenes. The game has very little dialogs and due to its short length, not a very long soundtrack. This means that game files that would require a high amount of storage space wouldn’t have been too many for the cartridge format. In fact, it would have been an advantage since Resident Evil Survivor has the worst loading times of all series titles on the PlayStation, surpassed only those of the original Resident Evil. Add on top of that the possibility of saving games within the cartridge itself and the use of the Expansion Pack allowing additional hardware resources, such as vastly improved graphics, one Survivor’s worst departments. The Nintendo 64 might not have a light gun, but its controller did have a trigger button that the PlayStation’s controllers lacked, which is always welcome for first person shooters of all types. Speaking in terms of recycling existing material to keep both time and investment low, such as the zombies and rest of the monsters as it did happen in the released game, there was a Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2 where the development team of Survivor could have taken material from. Even better than this would have been to make Survivor a Sega Dreamcast game, but it would have demanded a greater time and effort as a 128 bit game, but likewise the gamers and series fans could have obtained a much better product. I am convinced the PlayStation was the worst console they could have made this game for.
The possible best-case scenario for this game was to be made an arcade exclusive from the start, probably even better than making it for Dreamcast, Nintendo64 or any other game console.
Legacy
Is Resident Evil Survivor worthless to the series? Don’t think so.
The future installments of the arcade first person shooter left a lot to be desired. Resident Evil Survivor 2 CODE: Veronica, originally an arcade game, was really just another way to use the existing material of Resident Evil CODE: Veronica and practically did not add or contribute anything to the series. Gun Survivor 3, called Dino Stalker in the west, was not in the Resident Evil universe but in the Dine Crisis one. Resident Evil Dead Aim was probably the first true sequel in the Survivor formula. While the technical quality of game was improved, though not completely, its storyline did contradict events of the canon one, such as Dead Aim’s main villain Morpheus causing the Arklay lab incident instead of James Marcus. This creates an alternate storyline and cannot be a main series title. The latest titles in the Resident Evil Survivor format have been generally well received by series fans and have been the best of their kind in terms of quality: Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles.
Veredict
Resident Evil Survivor is so easy it was the first Resident Evil game in which I obtained a B ranking the first time I beat it. This is the highest ranking I have ever obtained after being a Resident Evil game for the first time. Also, it was the first Resident Evil game in which I would obtain an S ranking. All this is a testament of how easy the game can be.
I really like this game as the rest of the titles in the series. I am aware of the low quality and how lacking it is compared to the rest, yet I still find it as a fun game to play despite its short comings. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m a Resident Evil fan. I am convinced the game has true potential and that can be developed deeply and that it does deserve a remake.
A whole lot of things have been said about Resident Evil Survivor by fans of the series and general gamers alike. Words of both love and hate for the game, some consider it the worst in the series, other their personal favorite. Of everything that has been said, I’ll focus this topic in regards as of the game being part of the main series or not as well as its subsequent influence on the rest of the series.
A Long-Existing Background
Resident Evil Survivor’s concept was anything but new at the time it came out. The most obvious reference of such a game being Sega’s House of the Dead, which did start as an arcade game instead of a console game. However, going further back, the very first Resident Evil game back in 1994 was originally planned to be first person shooter. After months of development and several problems, the original first person Resident Evil game was scrapped in favor a third person view game incorporating pre-rendered backgrounds as the base of its level design. The exact causes of why it was scrapped are still unknown other than Shinji Mikami being highly unsatisfied with the resulting project, but we do know that between 1994 and 1995 the 3D graphics were still very new at the time, they required a high amount of time and investment during development, there were very few top-end 3D programmers and designers available, all new generation videogame consoles were still too new and thus very hard to develop for (including the PlayStation). Finally, getting rid of the first person shooter project was at the time and circumstances the best way to go.
By the end of the millennium, existing game consoles like the PlayStation became a lot easier to develop for and 3D gaming had become the norm, moving to a much higher level. First person shooters evolved from the concept that was made popular by Doom back in 1994. Next generation videogame consoles were already present such as the Sega Dreamcast, and more were on the horizon, such as the Sony PlayStation2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox by then newcomer Microsoft. Y2K seemed like an excellent time to bring back the original concept of Resident Evil. When it was first announced it was compared by the critics as Resident Evil following the steps of House of the Dead in previews, Resident Evil fans saw it as a way to renew the formula of the series after the first three titles’ pre-rendered third person perspective, and CODE: Veronica’s still new 3D third person. The new game was called Biohazard Gun Survivor, it was developed for the original PlayStation and incorporated support for the Namco GunCon, focusing the game on an arcade feel more than a first person shooter type.
Resulting product
Resident Evil Survivor was considered a disappointment for a considerable amount of the series fans. The game obtained mostly negative reviews from critics and general gamers. The judgments the game received were in all shapes and forms: “a complete lack of effort”, “just made to make money”, “the idiots’ version”, “Resident Evil without the best aspects”, “an experiment with the Resident Evil name on top to guarantee good sales” and so on. For American audiences, the removal of the GunCon support only made matters worse.
CONs
Since most gamers and series fans talk mostly about the negative aspects of the game, saying there are little or no positive ones, I’ll start by the negatives ones and then move to the positive ones.
Following the same trend as Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica, Resident Evil Survivor is almost not scary at all. The only time I do recall a decent scare in the game is at the very beginning after entering the cinema, the crows bursting through the windows of the projection room corridor right after you leave that room. The rest of the game has practically no scares. Despite the great (in my opinion) survival horror atmosphere that was well achieved through level design and the soundtrack, most scares are as much “nice tries” as the ones found in CODE: Veronica, the second least scary game of the series at the time.
An aspect that not just took away challenge from the game but also went against the formula of the series is the complete lack of puzzles to progress. The closest thing to puzzle in Survivor is present in the form of having to use the projection of a movie to light a dark chamber and make a key visible. Other than that, the “puzzles” in the game are nothing more than things like go locate the almost hidden switches in a room to power up the hospital elevator allowing you to proceed. The game mechanic of using/picking items automatically as you approach them or interacting with background objects automatically almost completely compromised the possibility of solving real puzzles within the game as in the previous titles.
Both lack of innovation and concept continuity with the series was also very evident. None of the innovations and features of both Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica were present, other than the possibility of skipping the real time cut-scenes, the possibility of walking stairs up and down manually and possibility of continuing if you die. Unlike CODE: Veronica, continues in Resident Evil Survivor put you in the same area you were when you died without being pulled back; yet, they are limited to four continues only instead of being infinite. Game aspects such as Mr. Xs always leaving behind different types of ammo per encounter and different monsters appearing in a certain single areas per visit are the only traces of the item and monster randomizers seen in Resident Evil 3 Nemesis.
All monsters of the game were taken from Resident Evil 2 along with their respective sound effects, including bosses like the gator and semi bosses like the normal Mr. X and the giant moths. One thing that limited the challenge and realism of the game resides in the fact you can only be attacked from the front, which in the end really allowed the player to be able to run past through 80% of the game’s monsters and progress through locations almost without having to shoot or kill any enemies. It would be more likely to be stopped by a locked door than the monsters in this matter. The only monsters that somehow solved part of this were the zombies, turning you to face them as they grab you from behind or sides. There are no dodge or tackle moves like in the third chapter of the series, but you still can get loose from a zombie if grabbed right before getting bitten. In Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica this happened by rapidly tapping buttons in the controller (run and action buttons mainly) and was very hard to achieve. In Resident Evil Survivor, you could do this by just pressing down on the D-pad once, as easy as child’s play. You would come loose but the zombie wouldn’t be pushed away and you could still get bitten in a second. This gave the zombies in those situations a little more risk and not being so ridiculously easy. Just like in Resident Evil 2, zombies can jump at you and grab you by the leg, but it almost never works and how sloppily the zombie jumps toward you looks even laughable. Zombies cannot have their limbs torn off, thus there are no dragging zombies like in previous titles. Zombies that throw up at you also stand out because of their absence. Other than Resident Evil 2’s monsters, there is the Hunter from the original Resident Evil with all-new sound effects to go. Only one monster (the cleaners) and the final boss (Hypnos Tyrant) were original in-game additions to the series.
Despite the PlayStation’s limitations, the final graphics of Resident Evil Survivor could have been much better. Textures were rough in general, the game suffered from frame rate drops in various locations and was very sensitive to the amount of monsters or items on screen, monster and zombie animation was stiff in general, and most locations were too small also. More than suffering from the censorship issues as Resident Evil CODE: Veronica went through that same year, it is the limited resources of the console as well as lack of further technical polishing from the development team that seem to explain why zombies and monsters cannot be torn into pieces and there are very little gore effects when attacked and their textures don’t change after being hit by weapons like the grenade launcher. You can use weapons like the shotgun and magnum against zombies’ legs and it would die before being unable to walk. The only really cool and challenging feature of the zombies in Survivor is the possibility of head-shooting them with the handguns. Scenarios in Resident Evil Survivor are almost completely non-interactive, the only background objects you can destroy are the windows, and only in around half of the locations. Aside from them, only a handful of objects in the entire game can be shot by the player.
Resident Evil Survivor also falls short on replay value. There is only one special weapon to be unlocked after beating the game is the rocket launcher, which does include its amount of challenge as it has to be reloaded like the rest of the weapons, meaning it doesn’t only rely on recoil to make it hard to use for the player. For an arcade-type first person shooter, it really sucks there are no automatic weapons like assault rifles or submachine guns or even burst hand guns like in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 1.5 and CODE: Veronica. The closest thing to an automatic fire arm in the game is the CZ 75 hang gun B that has the highest fire rate. There was originally going to be custom gun parts available for the magnum in this game in the same fashion as Resident Evil 2 and CODE: Veronica, but they didn’t see the light of day beyond the beta versions of the game. The regular magnum in Survivor is one of the weakest in the series (plus being the slowest to reload) and follows the same ludicrous trend of Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica of having no more than two reloads for it in the entire game. Also, no battle mode or extra mini game is available after beating the main game. The only real things to obtain after beating the game is to play again to take every extra handgun you haven’t collected yet and to visit the multiple paths available and obtain the document files they contain, as well as acquiring more ammunition for the rest of the weapons in the game. However, in order to be to able to collect a decent amount of ammo all for your weapons, you pretty much have to beat the whole game using almost only the handguns, which does add some challenge but it is not a big deal.
In terms of sound, Resident Evil Survivor suffers the same lack of innovation as mentioned in the enemies’s department. The sound effects used in most of the monsters as well as the ones in the item menu come from Resident Evil 2, which make the game feel dated and enforce the perception of lack of originality. Another aspect falling short was the voice acting, Resident Evil Survivor can be described as being placed between the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2/3 Nemesis in terms of the quality of the vocals, meaning the second worst Resident Evil title in this department. Only the improved yet ordinary dialogs probably saved the game from being under the original. Another terrible point in regards to sound is that Ark Thompson always makes the same grunt while being attacked or grabbed by monsters, making this repetitive and monotonous.
Polarized Elements – Good, Bad or Both?
There are aspects in Resident Evil Survivor than in the realm of opinion are considered the worst or the best in the series, depending on the fans judging the game.
One of those aspects is the length of the game, the shortest in the series. If you run past all monsters than can be avoided and knowing well where to obtain the keys to unlock your way through the game and taking the shortest paths available you can beat it in around half an hour. Some series fans hated this, feeling it was a game that was not worth the money for being too short. Others favored it as a way of adding replay value to the game, also in regards as the multiple paths that can be taken and the additional amount of ammunition that can be accumulated for all weapons. The short length of the game also puts it on the same league as arcade shooters like Time Crisis and House of the Dead. This short length did allow players at the time to use the game to consume time in a fun way while waiting for things like appointments and the like.
This is the first Resident Evil game that omitted the item box system (before Resident Evil 0) and that allowed the player an infinite amount of inventory spaces. This completely killed one of the worst worthless time-consuming, most tedious and painstaking aspects of the general Resident Evil franchise, backtracking. However, this also allowed the possibility of running past through 80% of the game, which was also favored by the lack of real puzzles within the game.
Just like the lack of items boxes in the game, there was also a lack of typewriters and ink ribbons. This means there is no possibility to save your progress through the game. The player can only save his/her rankings after beating the game as well as the weapons and ammunition he/she obtained during the last playthrough. The impossibility of saving the game also puts Resident Evil Survivor in the arcade shooting game realm. Fans of the series hated the impossibility of saving progress while others considered it didn’t matter at all due to the short length of the game and it worked as a way to add more challenge and replay value.
PROs
Regardless of what people think, both positively and negatively, I am convinced Resident Evil Survivor did have several aspects that were not just worth saving but were almost outstanding.
Leaving aside the first person focus, Resident Evil Survivor is a game that uses the same concept as Resident Evil 3 Nemesis of being placed in a city with the possibility of exploring it freely instead of focusing on large individual locations like Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. Unlike Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, Survivor is in one side much more linear but on the other leaves out the backtracking parts of the game. What makes Survivor different from Nemesis is the possibility of taking one of multiple paths to progress through the game that all lead to a single key location, which leads to another set of three options. The player has to choose one of the three and once that happens there is no turning back. There are four sections of the game where this takes place, and while there are almost no differences between the three first options at the beginning of the game, in the following ones there is a difference in difficulty through the type of enemies, the length of the places, the availability of items. There are also differences in finding specific characters, unlocking a specific part of the ending, and obtaining certain document files that pertain to either the series in general or the storyline of Survivor itself.
The second set of three available locations consists of a hospital, a library, and an arcade. Choosing the first would unlock Vincent Goldman in the ending and access the CZ 75 handgun B, choosing the second would unlock the cleaner commander and the Beretta Cougar G handgun C, and going through the last would trigger Andy Holland in the ending and the Nambu 14 Custom handgun D. In the fourth and last set of multiple locations, consisting of a forest path, a tunnel under construction and a highway under construction; this is the best example of how the player has to choose a way not knowing what lies ahead while the difference gap in difficulty per location is extremely wide. The “easy” path is the forest one where you encounter cleaners, which you can run past saving time ammunition and your accuracy percentage; the mid difficulty one is the underground tunnel where you find multiple types of enemies (ranging from easy to hard) in different pathways or rooms but it is also the only one where you can obtain ammunition and health items; finally, the hard path is the highway where you encounter six "Mr. X" Tyrants that require up to four handgun B clips to kill and in this part they don’t leave any ammo behind. If you defeat them using weapons other than the handguns, you’ll end up wasting most if not all of your resources right before the last part of the game. Also, depending on which of these three paths you choose can you trigger the appearance of additional enemies right before the path to the railway station. Going through the forest path would unlock cleaners at the corridor at the end of the lab, going through the highway would unlock "Mr. Xs" and going through the tunnel would unlock no enemies.
There was a new feature in the game called Quick Selection, which immediately placed the player in front of monsters, items or doors. From one angle, this feature almost completely made up for the lack of the 180 degree spin of Resident Evil 3 Nemesis and CODE: Veronica. Due to Resident Evil Survivor continuing the then-norm of the tank control scheme of the series, this feature really helped. It was not perfect obviously, as sometimes when facing more than one monster, it would turn you to the wrong one or an door/item on the background, being counterproductive.
Despite the bad voice acting the and recycled sound effects from Resident Evil 2, the sound in general was probably was the best aspect in Resident Evil Survivor. The amount of new and original sound effects for this game is as long as the one taken from previous titles. The 3D surround effect of the sound in general is the best of the series until that point, especially when using headphones. The soundtrack of the game is as excellent as the ones in the rest of the series, keeping the same scary atmosphere and innovating in the form of two versions of a single track, one when enemies appear and another when there is peace.
Despite the low quality of the graphics, the level design of most of the game is very good. Game sections such as the restaurant and the hospital were far better than those in Resident Evil 3, the sewers section was better than the one of Resident Evil 2, the prison section was better than the one in CODE: Veronica, these are some examples. Sure there are laughable parts such as the main entrance of a church located in a back alley, but for the most part the level design of Survivor was excellent in my eyes.
Resident Evil Survivor did include an original monster that in my opinion was done masterfully well. One that had strong connections to the storyline of the game, designed to leave no traces of its existence and thus connections to Umbrella, such a monster is the cleaner. It fragile (just a couple handgun rounds to kill), yet it is numerous, fast, and armed with a submachine gun making it the deadliest non-boss monster of the game, being able to shoot you from any distance and drain your life in seconds and force you drain your continues. It is the only monster that can damage you from behind and the only one that does make the game regret the lack of the 180 degree spin, as sometimes escaping is the best way to evade getting killed and the lack of the spin makes this very difficult.
Despite the complete recycling of the monsters from Resident Evil 2 for this game, some fall on the category of a sequel that is better than the original. The best case is the “Mr. X” Tyrant, which plays a vital part of the story of the game. He was a lot harder than in Resident Evil 2, mainly in the form of being able to block off strong weapon attacks with his arms (including those of the rocket launcher) and the dash move. Traditional monsters of the series such as Cerberuses and crows are the hardest and most challenging of the series at least at that point. Some enemies went for the worst too, such as the licker stopping in mid air to attack. Also new to the Resident Evil series, is the presence of some areas in Survivor in which zombies always respawn when you leave and come back, such as the lobby of the cinema. Due to the infinite ammo of the handguns you can use this to practice accuracy and increase your final amount of killed monsters, yet it will cause you to beat the game in a higher time than normal.
Resident Evil Survivor, at least at its time frame, had the probably the best ranking screen of the series at that point, one that was actually worth something. It ranked the player based not just in the weapons used and the time to beat the game, it also ranks the accuracy of the player, the amount of weapons obtained, the amount of continues used and the amount of enemies killed. Another interesting aspect is the fact that depending on the ranking obtained the background image is different.
The gameplay mechanic of several different handguns was a way to innovate in the series, going beyond upgrading handguns or upgrading ammunition. These weapons were different in terms of fire rate/recoil, reload speed, power and capacity. This made them effective against certain monsters and ineffective against others, being a source of strategy.
Misconceptions
At the time, many Resident Evil fans said Survivor has as much storyline as Pong,, insinuating it had little or none. What I consider a fact is that a lot of people that make this kind of judgments played the game and did not went further into it, probably not beating it more than once and bypassing the document files and the different locations. To fully understand and judge Resident Evil Survivor, the player needs to obtain ALL document files and go through ALL locations before submitting a review. To achieve all this, the player has to beat the game three times. I frequently find in the people that submit negative reviews on it that they don’t even know the name of the city the story takes place, called Sheena Island and that is present in the last document file of the game; How to extract the material. Some of this people call it “anonymous town” or some even think it is still Raccoon City. This is one of the worst errors of the game, the fact that you cannot get all the basic clues to the story in the original run. The problem with Resident Evil Survivor is not storyline, it is the narrative of the game.
The storyline in Survivor is actually decent and profound, even though it is not groundbreaking as its equivalents from first three chapters and CODE: Veronica. There’s nothing new and innovative about it, as it is the already known formula of an unnamed man that wakes up in the middle of nowhere not knowing who he is and as he progresses he begins to uncover a serious crime that he turns out to be responsible for. This transforms the character and makes him do anything in his power to redeem those crimes and it creates a conflict within himself. It IS something new for the Resident Evil universe. The storyline of Survivor was probably the one that followed the best the aftermath of the destruction of Raccoon City, how it was taken by citizens of another city and the reaction by external Umbrella employees and executives. It probably shows the best the lack of morality and ethics within Umbrella’s experiments, not just using human beings as test subject using them as nothing more than RAW MATERIAL. Sheena Island was way more controlled by Umbrella than Raccoon City, virtually every single business in the city has an exclusive card reader for Umbrella employees. Also, despite Umbrella itself governing the city directly under no guise, the citizens did what those of Raccoon didn’t dare to, oppose the authority in office attempt to expose him. Such an authority, Vincent Goldman, took it into himself to keep thing under wraps, like Wesker did in the original and Brian Irons in the sequel. This turned to be an ARTIFICIAL outbreak instead of an accidental one like in Raccoon City. It does create a very comprehensive and interesting aspect as to the creation of the “Mr. X” Tyrant 00s. I am convinced all of these aspects are more than worth noticing and mentioning.
Most of what was mentioned in the last paragraph fell short in the game as it was mostly available only in the document files, there were not cut-scenes or character interactions within the game to show it. This is one of the problems of narrative that the game suffered from, which were also in part caused by suspense and mystery factors of the main character suffering from amnesia and where he is. Aside from problems with narrative, Resident Evil Survivor did show some inconsistencies within itself. It is never mentioned where Sheena Island is located, other than being part of Europe. There aren’t much clues to this, from one side having the local citizens like Andy Holland having an American accent and Lily and Lott Klein having a British accent.
Part of the Series?
People that hate or dislike Resident Evil Survivor mostly consider the game a spin-off that doesn’t belong in the main series while people that like it or are more open to it consider the game as part of the main series.
My personal view on the subject is this. I do think it is part of the main series for the following reasons. Shinji Mikami did not work on this title and does not appear on the credits, at least not directly. Some sources say he did work on the game just as a general supervisor. The fact that Shinji Mikami was not part of the main core of developers and programmers is one the main reasons while people consider the game is just a spin-off. However, a main series title that Shinji Mikami did work on, Resident Evil 0, shows what I consider the strongest reason that does put Resident Evil Survivor into the canon storyline. In the opening of the game there is a reference.
“An island that would become the second Raccoon City, Sheena Island.”
If Resident Evil Survivor is worthless to main Resident Evil storyline, why would it be mentioned in Resident Evil 0, which was at the time one of Capcom’s most ambitious projects and canon title of the franchise, right before the overhauling of the series that began with Resident Evil 4.
The storyline of Resident Evil Survivor fits perfectly within the events of the canon games in its time period, almost two months after the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3 Nemesis and one month before the events of CODE: Veronica. Unlike other spin-offs, the storyline in Survivor does not contradict the main storyline in practically no aspects. Ark Thompson, the main character, is an acquaintance of Leon S. Kennedy after the evens of Resident Evil 2. Residdent Evil Survivor is the first game in which the Spencer name is mentioned, within Nicholai Ginovaef’s Raccoon City: After The Destruction Report document file.
I do admit that Resident Evil Survivor, its events and characters, have not been mentioned in the series ever since that reference in Resident Evil 0 (at least that I know of), specially in titles that go into the series’ past like Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles; but, hey, aren’t these games a variation of the Resident Evil Survivor concept?
Doomed from the start
Regardless of the performance of the final product among fans of series and general gamers alike, let’s focus on the concept of the game. The first aspect that made this game bad, the developers making wrong decisions from the start, was the platform they chose the game to be in, the PlayStation. The only reason this console was chosen for the game was the Namco Guncon light gun, which in the end was ludicrously not supported in the American release of the game. The best platform for first person shooters has always been the PC; the only real advantage consoles have in the genre over PCs is in regards to arcade-type shooters either with or without the use of a light gun. Resident Evil Survivor was always more arcade-based than a PC-type first-person-shooter, in this department it was correct to make Survivor a console game than a PC one. However, in the end Resident Evil Survivor did see a PC release, but one that was exclusive to the Chinese market.
Alternatives
At the time Resident Evil Survivor was made and launched, the best console for first person shooters was by far the Nintendo 64. Resident Evil Survivor could have been a much better game in this console, despite its difficulties to develop for in comparison to the PlayStation. Survivor does not have any real full motion video other than the Capcom logo, the only FMV scenes in the game are made out of real time scenes. The game has very little dialogs and due to its short length, not a very long soundtrack. This means that game files that would require a high amount of storage space wouldn’t have been too many for the cartridge format. In fact, it would have been an advantage since Resident Evil Survivor has the worst loading times of all series titles on the PlayStation, surpassed only those of the original Resident Evil. Add on top of that the possibility of saving games within the cartridge itself and the use of the Expansion Pack allowing additional hardware resources, such as vastly improved graphics, one Survivor’s worst departments. The Nintendo 64 might not have a light gun, but its controller did have a trigger button that the PlayStation’s controllers lacked, which is always welcome for first person shooters of all types. Speaking in terms of recycling existing material to keep both time and investment low, such as the zombies and rest of the monsters as it did happen in the released game, there was a Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2 where the development team of Survivor could have taken material from. Even better than this would have been to make Survivor a Sega Dreamcast game, but it would have demanded a greater time and effort as a 128 bit game, but likewise the gamers and series fans could have obtained a much better product. I am convinced the PlayStation was the worst console they could have made this game for.
The possible best-case scenario for this game was to be made an arcade exclusive from the start, probably even better than making it for Dreamcast, Nintendo64 or any other game console.
Legacy
Is Resident Evil Survivor worthless to the series? Don’t think so.
The future installments of the arcade first person shooter left a lot to be desired. Resident Evil Survivor 2 CODE: Veronica, originally an arcade game, was really just another way to use the existing material of Resident Evil CODE: Veronica and practically did not add or contribute anything to the series. Gun Survivor 3, called Dino Stalker in the west, was not in the Resident Evil universe but in the Dine Crisis one. Resident Evil Dead Aim was probably the first true sequel in the Survivor formula. While the technical quality of game was improved, though not completely, its storyline did contradict events of the canon one, such as Dead Aim’s main villain Morpheus causing the Arklay lab incident instead of James Marcus. This creates an alternate storyline and cannot be a main series title. The latest titles in the Resident Evil Survivor format have been generally well received by series fans and have been the best of their kind in terms of quality: Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles.
Veredict
Resident Evil Survivor is so easy it was the first Resident Evil game in which I obtained a B ranking the first time I beat it. This is the highest ranking I have ever obtained after being a Resident Evil game for the first time. Also, it was the first Resident Evil game in which I would obtain an S ranking. All this is a testament of how easy the game can be.
I really like this game as the rest of the titles in the series. I am aware of the low quality and how lacking it is compared to the rest, yet I still find it as a fun game to play despite its short comings. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m a Resident Evil fan. I am convinced the game has true potential and that can be developed deeply and that it does deserve a remake.
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