1.5

[Guest]

Secondly, most of the side games add only details to the over all plot. The events in those games themselves don't make a vital impact on the main series, only add information on characters or B.O.W's which, as a rule, don't make it out of the game and into the series at large. They do not, however, in my opinion add to the overall plot in anyway but fleshing out details.

I define this in a simple enough way...do the events of in tis game have an impact on those following them? The answer is, usually, no. You do not need to play Dead Aim to under anything about the series, you don't need to play Outbreak or Survivor to know what's going on in RE4 and RE5. You miss out on a lot of details not playing those games, but you don't miss out on the vital events referenced game after game or the basic knowledge. I suppose another good way to define things would be: is this gonna be recapped in the next game?

It's not how the franchise was set up starting from RE2, though. There was no distinction between "main games" and "spin-offs", the only difference were numbered titles (decided to keep the names of the PlayStation trilogy consistent, as mentioned in an EGM interview with Okamoto) and non-numbered titles (all games beyond 1/2/3), but that was not meant to say anything about what was part of an overarching storyline or what was not: they were all just as important fragments of one big universe.

I should point out I, personally, love all the little details the extra games add. But I don't believe they were absoloutely needed in the series, and I do feel the main story has been very badly mishandled. The fall of Umbrella being a main point or irritation...they needed to create a side game to explain how it had happened, but again, the side game doesn't add many details that are ever raised again. No futher mention of the idea that Sergei provided the genetic template for the clones, no mention of the Ivan type tyrants...the main thing to come out of the game was that Wesker had control of at least some of Umbrella's resources and it's mainframe. Which is also, I don't think, raised again but does help to explain why he can do the stuff he does later.

The series only started to step away from the initial Umbrella arc when Mikami rewrote the story for RE4. Incidentally, at the time of its release, Mikami finished off Umbrella in a similar way it was finished off in 1.5: It was closed down by the government immediately after RE3, according to a Kobayashi interview: "Why would the U.S. government allow a company that developed the T-virus, and in the end forced them to destroy an entire city, to continue to exist? They wouldn't. Hence the rationale for Umbrella going away after RE3."

Then, fans started to complain about how they were taken away that final showdown with Umbrella (that was initially planned, though never known when to take place). That made Capcom revisit the idea and retcon Umbrella's "big fall" from being a mere stock prices crash to a big lawsuit, achieved by infiltrating their last big stronghold in Russia. This was the right to exist for The Umbrella Chronicles: It heavily relied upon promoting itself as the final Umbrella battle in press releases and trailers.

[Darkmoon]

It's not how the franchise was set up starting from RE2, though. There was no distinction between "main games" and "spin-offs", the only difference were numbered titles (decided to keep the names of the PlayStation trilogy consistent, as mentioned in an EGM interview with Okamoto) and non-numbered titles (all games beyond 1/2/3), but that was not meant to say anything about what was part of an overarching storyline or what was not: they were all just as important fragments of one big universe.

I've got to disagree, at least up to a point. I agree that just being a numbered title doesn't mean you're more important to the storyline, as RE4 lacks relevance bar the Los Plagas and CODE: Veronica has one of the most important plot developments in the series storyline in Wesker's return. Whether you agree with his revival or not being a good idea is another matter.

The point I was trying, obviously not well, to make is that the story wouldn't have suffered a huge ammount by being a trilogy rather than five main games. I don't believe for a moment that if 1.5 had come out we'd have only gotten 3 games though. There's nothing to stop most of the non-numbered games being released in the aftermath of Umbrella's fall. You might have needed to tweek the storyline to make it fit, but there not close enough to the main plot and don't have enough impact on it for there to have been much difference. However, with Umbrella in trouble by RE2 and no reviving Wesker I think the plot could have been resolved in three games, with side games fleshing out the series and maybe a second trilogy focused on a new foe. It's not as though trilogies come in three parts anymore...

My main point is that stretching the games did more harm than good to the storyline. For several games we have the build up of taking on Umbrella, and the pay off? A prologue in RE4. I think that aiming at Umbrella may have been a mistake, and instead focusing on the virus and the monsters might have been a smarter way to go. Yes, we eventually got Umbrella Chronicles as well, but I dislike the game a fair ammount, personally. It was obviously created once they realised how badly they'd blown things

The series only started to step away from the initial Umbrella arc when Mikami rewrote the story for RE4. Incidentally, at the time of its release, Mikami finished off Umbrella in a similar way it was finished off in 1.5: It was closed down by the government immediately after RE3, according to a Kobayashi interview: "Why would the U.S. government allow a company that developed the T-virus, and in the end forced them to destroy an entire city, to continue to exist? They wouldn't. Hence the rationale for Umbrella going away after RE3."

The difference being we don't have RE2, RE3 and CODE: Veronica aiming the characters at taking down Umbrella...and then the fall of Umbrella having nothing to do with said characters. Umbrella went out with a whimper, not a bang. Maybe the origional plan for RE3 would have made it so the main characters escaped with a complete set of evidence to destroy them and they are taken down in the epilogue. We'll never know, but I personally think it may have been a better way to deal with it. Again, that's my personal taste though.

Then, fans started to complain about how they were taken away that final showdown with Umbrella (that was initially planned, though never known when to take place). That made Capcom revisit the idea and retcon Umbrella's "big fall" from being a mere stock prices crash to a big lawsuit, achieved by infiltrating their last big stronghold in Russia. This was the right to exist for The Umbrella Chronicles: It heavily relied upon promoting itself as the final Umbrella battle in press releases and trailers.

I completely agree, but it was a clusterfuck of epic proportions that they needed to go back and make a game to cover such a huge plot point. I know when I booted up RE4 I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I'd just bought a GameCube so I could play it, thankfully cheap and with Remake and Zero as well. I put in RE4 and within 30 seconds I wanted to snap my controller in half. Maybe that's a good part of why I still dislike RE4's plot so much. That was a massive letdown. The only thing that made me hope was Kruaser's hint that Umbrella wasn't completely gone/was being revived.

[Guest]

My main point is that stretching the games did more harm than good to the storyline. For several games we have the build up of taking on Umbrella, and the pay off? A prologue in RE4. I think that aiming at Umbrella may have been a mistake, and instead focusing on the virus and the monsters might have been a smarter way to go. Yes, we eventually got Umbrella Chronicles as well, but I dislike the game a fair ammount, personally. It was obviously created once they realised how badly they'd blown things

The difference being we don't have RE2, RE3 and CODE: Veronica aiming the characters at taking down Umbrella...and then the fall of Umbrella having nothing to do with said characters. Umbrella went out with a whimper, not a bang. Maybe the origional plan for RE3 would have made it so the main characters escaped with a complete set of evidence to destroy them and they are taken down in the epilogue. We'll never know, but I personally think it may have been a better way to deal with it. Again, that's my personal taste though.

Well, the stretching itself was perfectly fine, after all the original plan was to resolve the Umbrella arc. The only problem is that Mikami skipped the finale, which was a very undesirable move as the teams constantly teased it in the early game endings and interviews.

Who knows? It might have been possible to weave the old Umbrella HQ story into the final RE4 version, but Mikami obviously needed the creative freedom to include the more outlandish stuff, like giant midget statues.

[News Bot]

Wrong to a degree. It was intended from retail RE2 onwards that Biohazard would have a large storyline. 1.5's storyline was supposedly designed against this and would not have supported a comprehensive story at the time. So it wasn't at the time of BH1 that this was intended. Mikami didn't believe story was all that important in a horror game. It wasn't until the higher ups decided BH had a lot of potential and brought along the writer from another team that it became an "expandable" story by design. Unless you want to discount 1.5's dev. completely, but it still makes the statement "always intended (after BH1)" a bit wrong.

Yeah, I was generalizing. I'm aware of the fact that they brought in Flagship following the scrapping and essential re-development of Biohazard 2.

They do not, however, in my opinion add to the overall plot in anyway but fleshing out details.

You can apply this same logic to the numbered titles as well. There is no difference between the "main" (numbered) titles and the "spin-offs/side-games" apart from the additional of a numeral. You levy less importance on the game's content purely because there is no number at the end. Biohazard 4 is an amazing example of this. Despite having almost fuck all to do with the series (the Gamecube version being a bitch of a culprit for this) it is still seen as highly important even though the complete summation of what is shows and reveals is less than that of any of the previous spin-offs.

I define this in a simple enough way...do the events of in tis game have an impact on those following them? The answer is, usually, no. You do not need to play Dead Aim to under anything about the series, you don't need to play Outbreak or Survivor to know what's going on in RE4 and RE5. You miss out on a lot of details not playing those games, but you don't miss out on the vital events referenced game after game or the basic knowledge. I suppose another good way to define things would be: is this gonna be recapped in the next game?

"Vital events" are in each game in the series. Again, its more about how much importance you personally place on them. For example, Survivor shows the destruction of, and I quote, "This town laboratory is as important as Raccoon City, as well is the most important facility next to Umbrella Headquarters." Right there you have Survivor being labelled by the developers as just as important as Biohazard 2, and second only in importance to a game featuring Umbrella HQ. The Tyrant is also Umbrella's main B.O.W. product, and we see the destruction of its mass-production line right here, contributing to Umbrella's eventual downfall. But because the game itself is sub-par, lacking in presentation, not that great and lacking a number at the end, you personally don't place much importance on it.

Same with Dead Aim. The U.S. government has abolished Umbrella USA as of 1999 and set up operations to destroy the company altogether with the Anti-Umbrella Pursuit and Investigation Team. The Spencer Rain is Umbrella's primary venue for selling off their B.O.W.s. The cruiser's sea-jacking is the very first bioterror incident on record (making it very significant to the later events of the series), and it resulted in Umbrella losing many of its customers and samples. On top of this, we see the main Umbrella Waste Disposal Facility in the Atlantic Ocean, what Umbrella did with the G-Virus which has been completely unseen since Biohazard 2, as well as a hint at the Progenitor virus' location "beneath the earth in Africa". Umbrella lose all of their customers in this incident, and resort to supplying their B.O.W.s to conflict regions around the globe, again contributing to the company's downfall.

The whole point of the Biohazard storyline/mythos/universe etc. is that, basically, a lot of shit went down. Placing some of that more important than the rest automatically nullifies the majority of the universe since each game is meant to be seen as holding the same level of importance as the next despite whether you personally feel the events depicted in them are substantial. The series is meant to be looked at as a whole, not separated and judged on the merits of individual games.

[Darkmoon]

The reason I don't consider either of those examples vital to the plot is because, at the end of the day, they never got mentioned again in the other games. Both of those events should have been vital to the downfall of Umbrella, but we see that until Wesker takes them out they're not. Umbrella is still managing after everything else and, while going down, it's sinking incredibly slowly. And it's demise seems mostly focused on the Raccoon City event. Both Sheena Island and the Spencer Rain never get any serious mention outside of there own game.

I actually think Survivor needs a remake, because with better gameplay and graphics it would be a top class game. It has one of the strongest plot lines of any game, numbered or not. And again, the number is not important...CODE: Veronica is much more important than RE4, for example.

Then again, Gaiden might be more important than RE4 to the plot...

The point was, however, that I think the plot could have taken place within a trilogy without a loss of story telling. It would have been different, sure, but I think the fall of Umbrella may have been handled better and certain events that I, personally, dislike such as Wesker's return to life may well have no happened. The additional games could have still fleshed the plot out, and a second trilogy focused on something other than Umbrella could have been created.

So, 1.5 having Umbrella's fall come sooner could have been a good thing. At least I wouldn't have had to play the RE3 section in Umbrella Chronicles to get the payoff.

[OKeijiDragon]

Do ISOs of those Hyper PlayStation and Play Play Vol. # discs (I'm talking about these here) exists anywhere in the internet?

I don't wanna have to fork over $30+ on these discs just to collect data from them and not work on my US PS2.

I did that when buying the BioHazard: Director's Cut: Dual Shock Version + Complete Disc (in excellent condition BTW), an investment I continue to doubt now.

[Carnivol]

Don't think there are any ISOs in public circulation of them. I've been slowly working on backing up my entire magazine disc set, whilst also selling all the duplicates I've had (both here on the forums and on ebay).

[kevstah2004]

Biohzard France has rips of the video's on there youtube account if that's of any help.

[Guest]

Hi guys I am new here I was always interested of RE 1.5 or BH 1.5 the first minute i saw it.
I really hope we all get to played it one day.what do you guys think will we ever going to play it?

[MeanBob]

Hey there and welcome to the site GameTak3r! We do have a welcome thread in the off-topic forum, so introduce yourself there .

Anyway, we have such a slim chance of playing it. The closest we'll ever get to probably gettin our hands on it is if we find another source and even that's hard to do :/. I still hope we can play it one day

[Guest]

Hey there and welcome to the site GameTak3r! We do have a welcome thread in the off-topic forum, so introduce yourself there .

Anyway, we have such a slim chance of playing it. The closest we'll ever get to probably gettin our hands on it is if we find another source and even that's hard to do :/. I still hope we can play it one day

Thanks and sorry for introducing me in the wrong thread

[Guest]

I wonder what happend to the copy who Curator/Goromacida had.

[Dracarys]

Probably stuck his weiner in it or something the way he behaved. You don't want it anymore. I hope.

[Guest]

Probably stuck his weiner in it or something the way he behaved. You don't want it anymore. I hope.

hahahahahahah

[Chris' Boob]

You know, we would of had 1.5 if people just shut the fuck up and didn't threaten some of the people who had it.