Wesker's Report - Canonicity Debate (or the Official "WTF Hiroki Kato!?" Thread)

[Guest]

There's nothing wrong with the line about Sherry and for all we know the exclusion of that line from the 10th Anniversary edition was probably a simple mistake. It's more "in his grasp" than "in his hands".

The line was literally "Sherry is now in our hands", no grasp, no spies, it means they have her – clearer cut than anything else. I mean, they even locked her up for dramatic emphasis. It's either or. Captured and imprisoned, or the one with the spies. Wesker's Report sucks less and opens more possibilities, so I'll take that one.

[Smiley]

Not to mention it's narrated by Richard Waugh which adds a +10 to the cool factor.

[Archelon]

It's not like it matters at this point, anyway.

The chances of us actually seeing Sherry again, outside of a possible appearance in ORC, are slim to none.

Though it would certainly add another interesting wrinkle to Leon's recruitment by the US government. He agreed to work for them in exchange for Sherry's safety, and what happens? Wesker gets his grubby mitts on her anyway. But as I said, it's unlikely we'll ever hear from her again.

[Guest]

I for one am looking forward to several more years of "OMG IT'S SHERRY!!!" whenever a blond woman is introduced to the franchise.

[Archelon]

Now suppose for a moment that ORC offered an explanation as to what really happened to Sherry.

I wonder, would it be considered canon?

[News Bot]

The line was literally "Sherry is now in our hands", no grasp, no spies, it means they have her – clearer cut than anything else. I mean, they even locked her up for dramatic emphasis. It's either or. Captured and imprisoned, or the one with the spies. Wesker's Report sucks less and opens more possibilities, so I'll take that one.

Didn't mean it like that, just meant that "in his grasp" is the case now. Wasn't going against what WR actually says.

[Guest]

Now suppose for a moment that ORC offered an explanation as to what really happened to Sherry.

I wonder, would it be considered canon?

Everyone labels it non-canon because of a mistranslation from a French interview (the quote actually said that the game is completely integrated into the chronology – which could mean several things), but the actual comments are contradictory (1, 2, 3). Seems like they don't want to say flat-out if it's canon or not. Could be anything from Gaiden (non-canon), to the Chronicles series (partly or rewritten canon), to a completely original entry (fully canon) at this point. The most likely scenario, however, is that Capcom doesn't care at all and wants to make money (being a company and all, duh!).

Didn't mean it like that, just meant that "in his grasp" is the case now.

Usual stuff, guide book, unreliable unless confirmed.

[Vogue_Dirge]

Nothing is canon, everything is permitted.

[Archelon]

Everyone labels it non-canon because of a mistranslation from a French interview (the quote actually said that the game is completely integrated into the chronology – which could mean several things), but the actual comments are contradictory (1, 2, 3). Seems like they don't want to say flat-out if it's canon or not. Could be anything from Gaiden (non-canon), to the Chronicles series (partly or rewritten canon), to a completely original entry (fully canon) at this point. The most likely scenario, however, is that Capcom doesn't care at all and wants to make money (being a company and all, duh!).

This is pretty much the reason why I just stopped caring about what's canon and what's not.

[News Bot]

Everyone labels it non-canon because of a mistranslation from a French interview (the quote actually said that the game is completely integrated into the chronology – which could mean several things), but the actual comments are contradictory (1, 2, 3). Seems like they don't want to say flat-out if it's canon or not. Could be anything from Gaiden (non-canon), to the Chronicles series (partly or rewritten canon), to a completely original entry (fully canon) at this point. The most likely scenario, however, is that Capcom doesn't care at all and wants to make money (being a company and all, duh!).


Usual stuff, guide book, unreliable unless confirmed.

You say "unreliable unless confirmed" but I don't think you've ever even examined them (or any of the books in general) closely.

[Guest]

You say "unreliable unless confirmed" but I don't think you've ever even examined them (or any of the books in general) closely.

I'll tell you what I've always told you. There's no need to learn glorified fanfics by heart. All you really have to do is examine the writers' credits at the end of the books – case closed until confirmed reliable by Capcom.

[News Bot]

I'll tell you what I've always told you. There's no need to learn glorified fanfics by heart. All you really have to do is examine the writers' credits at the end of the books – case closed until confirmed reliable by Capcom.

Have you done that? It would be nice if you added the credits for each book here.

There's really no need to consider Archives, Catalysis and Incubate (or Ryan's Desktop, Adam's Blog, Angela's Diary, Wesker's Report II or Wesker's Extra Report since they don't even have credits) canon in that regard, since you think anything with the involvement of Karitajian is fan-fiction without even looking at them. Despite them only being responsible for editing, production and the likes of image capture tasks. The material itself is provided and supervised by the R&D staff (Archives in particular is supervised by the staff of each game according to the credits) and Hiroyuki Kobayashi is usually the producer, CAPCOM just don't produce them internally, hardly any developers do (a prime example would be the Ultimania books released by Square-Enix for Final Fantasy). In Archives' case again, the information contained within is taken from other sources such as the guide books (Archives II has information from Ryan's Desktop and Angela's Diary) and that information is regurgitated in the games (a lot of the Chronicles files are the same information found in the books). I haven't seen you actually investigate them yet, so why you dismiss them is weird. A lot of Kenichi Iwao's scenario writing showed up in a BH Director's Cut guide book, including the first ever mention of the Clay/Progenitor Virus and the story background to BH 1.5. That's some pretty heavy stuff for something you think is glorified fan-fiction.

[Guest]

Have you done that? It would be nice if you added the credits for each book here.

There's really no need to consider Archives, Catalysis and Incubate (or Ryan's Desktop, Adam's Blog, Angela's Diary, Wesker's Report II or Wesker's Extra Report since they don't even have credits) canon in that regard, since you think anything with the involvement of Karitajian is fan-fiction without even looking at them. Despite them only being responsible for editing, production and the likes of image capture tasks. The material itself is provided and supervised by the R&D staff (Archives in particular is supervised by the staff of each game according to the credits) and Hiroyuki Kobayashi is the usually the producer, CAPCOM just don't produce them internally, hardly any developers do (a prime example would be the Ultimania books released by Square-Enix for Final Fantasy). In Archives' case again, the information contained within is taken from other sources such as the guide books (Archives II has information from Ryan's Desktop and Angela's Diary) and that information is regurgitated in the games (a lot of the Chronicles files are the same information found in the books). I haven't seen you actually investigate them yet, so why you dismiss them is weird. A lot of Kenichi Iwao's scenario writing showed up in a BH Director's Cut guide book, including the first ever mention of the Clay/Progenitor Virus and the story background to BH 1.5. That's some pretty heavy stuff for something you think is glorified fan-fiction.

Been there, done that. I think I've posted this several times already, so I see no need to explain it to you again.

The material itself is provided and supervised by the R&D staff

No matter how often you repeat that, it doesn't make it true.

[News Bot]

Been there, done that. I think I've posted this several times already, so I see no need to explain it to you again.


No matter how often you repeat that, it doesn't make it true.

Completely disregarding CAPCOM's actual credits in the books, though. They edited and supervised Archives and continue to regurgitate that book (and the guide books by extension) like no tomorrow. Catalysis is where the first proper BIOHAZARD timeline came from too as far as I remember. Incubate (editing was supervised by the biohazard 4 development team) has a minor reference in BIOHAZARD 5. Wesker's Extra Report and Prelude to the Fall are linked and lead straight into Umbrella Chronicles. Incubate provides the backstory of biohazard 4. Ryan's Desktop and Adam's Blog lead into and provide the backstory for BIOHAZARD 5. Angela's Diary provides the backstory for DEGENERATION, etc. Most of them are handled externally because developers rarely (if ever) handle that sort of material.

You can't honestly say that just because the guide books are put together by an external team that it completely destroys their credibility. CAPCOM is still heavily involved (simply looking at the credits confirms this). By your logic, Wesker's Report II, Catalysis, Archives, Incubate, Wesker's Extra Report, Prelude to the Fall, Angela's Diary, Ryan's Desktop, Adam's Blog and others I'm missing are all totally irrelevant. There's no way around that and you can't give the "info shows up in other material" argument because the same goes for the guide books as well. I don't think there's any developer that publishes most of this stuff themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ompanion_books - Same deal with CAPCOM.

[Guest]

Completely disregarding CAPCOM's actual credits in the books, though. They edited and supervised Archives and continue to regurgitate that book (and the guide books by extension) like no tomorrow. Catalysis is where the first proper BIOHAZARD timeline came from too as far as I remember. Incubate (editing was supervised by the biohazard 4 development team) has a minor reference in BIOHAZARD 5. Wesker's Extra Report and Prelude to the Fall are linked and lead straight into Umbrella Chronicles. Incubate provides the backstory of biohazard 4. Ryan's Desktop and Adam's Blog lead into and provide the backstory for BIOHAZARD 5. Angela's Diary provides the backstory for DEGENERATION, etc. Most of them are handled externally because developers rarely (if ever) handle that sort of material.

Here, here, here. Don't feel like paraphrasing those posts.

You can't honestly say that just because the guide books are put together by an external team that it completely destroys their credibility. CAPCOM is still heavily involved (simply looking at the credits confirms this). By your logic, Wesker's Report II, Catalysis, Archives, Incubate, Wesker's Extra Report, Prelude to the Fall, Angela's Diary, Ryan's Desktop, Adam's Blog and others I'm missing are all totally irrelevant. There's no way around that and you can't give the "info shows up in other material" argument because the same goes for the guide books as well. I don't think there's any developer that publishes most of this stuff themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ompanion_books - Same deal with CAPCOM.

Wesker's Report II, Wesker's Extra Report, BSAA Remote Desktop and Adam's Blog all come directly from Capcom, and tied in with new games before or with (Wesker's Extra Report only) their releases.