1.5

[Itashious_boy]

i know that most of the 1.5 threads are dead but i just started getting interested into it :/ but the character elza walker who is she supposed to be? where is she from how were we gunna know her and why was she cut?

is she in any other RE besides the 1.5? i mean i wished i had looked into the other threads and found out about it but i didnt, someone fill me in on things that were in the demo prototype that arent apart of the story now

[Carnivol]

Elza was a student/biker. Her "story" more or less just seems to've been about as deep as Leon's background was in RE2 (or most of the characters in Outbreak). She most likely just happened to be there.

She was retooled into Claire Redfield, most likely just to create a better connection to the first game (and possibly also act as a story device for future titles)

[kevstah2004]

Is it clear if Elza was a school or university student in the final build, I seem to remember the images on bh2 trial disc having both possibilities with maybe differing blood types as well.

[randomwab]

As I remember, the final version of Elza was a University student who went to the RPD thinking it would be the safest place.

I remember misreading Walker for Wesker the first time I read about 1.5, and thinking that she was Wesker's sister and that was the tie with the first title. Then when the final came out and Claire was there looking for Chris, I thought I just was getting confused until I looked back on an old magazine. Amazing that my mistake actually ended up coming true. That was when I first realised that they'd changed a ton of stuff.

[Itashious_boy]

no one has explained the plot of 1.5 or why it was changed :/

[Alzaire]

The basic outline of the plot that is known:

> STARS survived the mansion incident (Chris, Jill, Barry, Rebecca, Brad. Still the same).

> Unlike in retail, the STARS's story was fully investigated and enough evidence was obtained that Umbrella was pretty much found guilty and a full public investigation into the corporation was underway. Many employees and executives had already been arrested. Many of their facilities were shut down or pending investigation. The company wasn't fully shutdown by the events of 1.5, but the public was very wary of them and they were likely on the way to the bottom.

> The exact cause of the full outbreak is unknown, but it sort of struck pretty fast like in retail. The public feared it was related to the mansion incident, but the city officials just classed it as a skin disease going around at first, then of course things went south fast.

> Leon was already working at the RPD in 1.5, though not for very long prior to the incident. He had been in the city for a few weeks.

> Elza was a college student who was part of their motorcycle stunt/racing team. She's just an ordinary girl who escapes from the college and goes to the RPD for safety.

> The STARS members in 1.5 whereabouts are unknown. But I believe when the infection started really taking over, they were sent out into the city (I believe the hospital was mentioned in one story description in a magazine).

> Ada was a different character named Linda in 1.5. She seems to be directly related to Umbrella in some way. She survives the game to the end, and can live or die depending on your gameplay. Nothing is confirmed about her story or personality.

> Robert Kendo was a different character named John in 1.5. He survives to the end and can live or die depending on your gameplay. Nothing is known about his story or personality.

> Marvin survives to the end and can live or die depending on gameplay. He was playable briefly during Leon's game.

> Chief Irons was a good guy in 1.5, and not a psychotic bastard. He dies at some point.

> Annette appears to be more sympathetic and helpful in 1.5. She may survive the game, as she is on the train during what seems to be one of the last boss fights with Birkin.

That's pretty much all that's known. Why was it changed? Well, that's debatable. I think it would be safe to say that they changed Elza to Claire to simply tie the story in to another character (Chris. And probably for future story purposes) and changed Leon to a rookie on his first day into town to allow the situation to be a new surprise for him. They removed Marvin and John as surviving characters because there were too many survivors in their opinion (this would make at least 6 living survivors at the end if you got the best endings) and it complicated things. Irons was made corrupted for interesting story purposes.

They changed the story of Umbrella being found guilty immediately likely to prolong the series to give more encouragement to players that Umbrella must be defeated and to not make Umbrella look so weak to be practically taken down after 1 game. And with Umbrella having been proven guilty already and public knowledge of it, Raccoon City being infected would be a huge nail in their coffin pretty much immediately. The story was too fast paced for a series they realized they could milk more sequels out of. They stated that they believe 1.5 would have sold and done well, but nobody would have been anticipative for another sequel. The story wasn't grand scheme enough.

[Carnivol]

The whole multiple ending system was probably in the pile of "too similar to RE1" stuff they must've been thinking of when saying RE1.5 was too similar to RE1. Each RE game has had some sort of twist to its presentation.

The survivors stuff of 1.5 was replaced for the Scenario A/B setup of RE2, where the A/B sets are related to one another and actually features interaction between the main characters. (A lot seems to suggest 1.5 may not have had any of that, and most of all just had the Jill/Chris-like structure of the original. Where it most of all plays like two independent takes on the same story, just like both initial scenarios more or less do in RE2, while the B scenarios are proper "other side" takes.)

I'm actually quite amazed by how fast they whipped together RE2. Considering how the story structure in it works. But then again, if you think about it, it's understandable how multiple endings and "survivors" were thrown out the window, given the timeframe the final game's development had... that'd probably be impossible to properly redo in that time.

[Itashious_boy]

well thanks for clearing it up for me, i just needed that. does anyone know where i can get the underground sample cd with the 1.5 on it?

[Alzaire]

well thanks for clearing it up for me, i just needed that. does anyone know where i can get the underground sample cd with the 1.5 on it?

If you're thinking there is a sample cd with a playable 1.5 demo on it, there isn't one. The only playable demo of 1.5 that existed outside of private press preview copies was at the Playstation Expo & E3 on November 2-4, 1996 in Japan. Unfortunately, while it seems that a couple of those demo discs from that expo did survive, they are currently in collector hands who aren't willing to part with it for anything right now. So there isn't anything we can play right now ourselves.

If you mean sampler discs with videos, there's a few of them. There's the Complete Disc video set that was included with BH1 Dual Shock (or Director's Cut, I forget which) in Japan that has 4 videos on it. A few PSX Re-Mix sampler discs have some videos. I don't really know what specific ones off-hand though, but if you can find out the issues or the sampler disc #s, I don't think they'd be too difficult to locate.

[Itashious_boy]

i wz told u culd gt one on the playstation underground samle cds

[Anders]

I don't have much US demo discs, but it's probably on PlayStation Underground 1. If you want some real videos though, there are a bunch of Japanese Hyper PlayStation Re-mix discs with 1.5 videos, and Capcom Friendly Club tapes.

[Itashious_boy]

love the pic, ha but i dont want videos, i want the demo :/ so i can find it on the directors cut?

Spoiler:

show spoiler

this someone is lying to me T.T

[Anders]

love the pic, ha but i dont want videos, i want the demo :/ so i can find it on the directors cut?

RE2 demo yes, 1.5 no. As Alzaire said, there are no official 1.5 demos, only prototypes on recordable media.

[Itashious_boy]

well somewhere in the world i bet there's a copy of 1.5 i mean your not supposed to not document stuff like taht :/

[Enetirnel]

well somewhere in the world i bet there's a copy of 1.5 i mean your not supposed to not document stuff like taht :/

Technically yes, technically no.
1.5 really only exists in various prototype stages. The easiest way to put it is, when you look back at the production of RE4 and how it began with the 3.5 trailers, that showed various prototype builds, eventually spawning Devil May Cry and Demento in the process (3.5 in some forms were sort of reused in Demento/Haunting Ground if you have a little look you can see some similarities to areas).

So, the playable builds of 1.5 that were shown as Alzaire has said - were with the Capcom display section at the PS Expo and E3, press copies as well as any developers/tester copies are generally put out under disclosure forms OR in some company cases - they have those build copies brought back, so say Build 3 is sent out for testing/critique but still has glitches - after a certain date has passed (let's say two weeks) they'd have to take the copies back in and hand in their notes on it to the development team and wait for the changes in updated build.

Of course, the project build of 1.5 was scrapped and we got RE2 (even though 1.5 data still exists on tester/trial and retail copies of it, it's not really enough to have the full 1.5 build).

I'm just saying what possible reasons as to why these are rather hard to find, because the staff that could still hold copies of these builds might still be with the company (even if moved to a separate development division) would still be under contract to not sell/copy or disclose information on that project so the only real "demos" would be these builds, the only really public ones were the ones that Alzaire has already mentioned and because of that the most common way to find out more about 1.5 is really only the released media that has already been mentioned.

And because of that it's rather difficult to track the actual builds down, let alone anyone track it down and make a digital copy.

In short, Itashious_boy - it does exist, just well... given the difficulty of getting one of those builds...So, it's not easy to find it - you are correct that it's somewhere in the world but anyone that has obtained those private builds of it probably won't give it up for really anything.

(Quite honestly put, if anyone were to track down and obtain a build of it, I'd say it would most likely be Alzaire considering how long he's followed 1.5).

((Sorry, I'm just putting up a general thought/idea as to the 1.5 builds to answer that one going with what I've seen with some companies)).